Day 39 - Sunday Feb 5, Melbourne, Australia

Melbourne photos

position at 7:00 am: S37:50:46 latitude E144:55:48 longitude
temperature: 63F, 80% humidity, partly cloudy, wind 12mph from the west
distance since FLL: 13,884 miles

This is a full day. We are already docked at Melbourne. So, the only thing keeping us onboard is that the shops and sights generally do not open until 10 or so, and I guess we are lucky that this is the case since it is Sunday here.

We ate breakfast at Compass Rose. Debbie asked what kind of bread could be used for French Toast. Instead of the answer of any kind you want, she got the answer that he (the waiter) could check to see if the kitchen could do something but it would take a long time, if they could do it at all. She opted for Eggs Benedict and the waiter acted surprised that now she did not want French Toast anymore. The only thing that redeemed her breakfast was that there were chocolate croissants available. The chocolate croissants are still not as good as they were when they had 2 separate rolls of chocolate instead of one center one, but they are flaky and light now instead of heavy and gummy.

The day was very nice with some clouds and the temperature in the low 70's. In the shade with the breeze, it was cool. We left the ship about 9:15 and sat on one of the Radisson shuttle buses for about 5 minutes before it headed into town. The trip was about 20 minutes so we got dropped off right at the foot of Chinatown on Swanston St. just before 10am. We walked 8 blocks through Chinatown and other parts of the city until we got to the Carlton Gardens, Royal Exhibitions Building and Melbourne Museum complex. The gardens was nice with no dogs allowed so we had to sneak Bob in. But as we walked through, we noticed other dogs in there as well. The main point of going here was to visit the museum and its aboriginal exhibition. The entrance to the museum cost 6AUD. The exhibition was worth the trip. We spent a couple of hours meandering through exhibits, most of the time spent in the Aboriginal section.

On the BlackBerry front, with some help from his MIL, Clay was able to remember that turning the BB off and on will register it with a new carrier. So, now we are able to use the BB in port. (Thanks Margie!) The roaming charges in Australia are $1.69 which is better than the ship's $2.49 so we made a quick call back to the US to check in for the first time since LA. We did this in an open area outside the Melbourne Museum.

After the museum, we walked up to the free tram route to catch a tram over to Queen Victoria Market. This free tram system is heavily used, so it is strictly transportation and not really something to think of as a leisure ride around the city center. The ride from the museum stop to the market was about 7 blocks, and we had a 2 block walk from where the tram stopped. The market place was quite something. You could literally buy anything you wanted there (except argyle diamonds), and it went on and on. We spent about an hour or so meandering through the numerous stalls, shops, food courts, etc. just looking around. We were going to eat lunch there, but it was to hectic for us, so we opted to bypass all the eating opportunities there preferring to catch more of a restaurant meal somewhere. We bought some t-shirts and some little fuzzy gift koalas (12 for 3AUD). When we got back, Debbie discovered that one set of the gift Koalas were actually magnets, so we broke those open for cabin use, sticking them on our metal walls. Around 2, we left the market to head back to the tram route thinking we would catch a restaurant on the way. In the section of town we walked through, it seems all the pubs/restaurants close on Sunday. We just hopped on the tram with hope of taking it all the way around. But it was absolutely packed, and this made us get off about half way around at the Flinders St. Station on Flinders St. There, we saw lots of essentially fast food joints that were opened. As time was pressing, we ordered a quick box of Belgian fries (with mayo) and Cokes from a place called Lord of the Fries, and ate them sitting on a bench on Flinders St. They were good and would hold us until our next meal later that evening. The fries were 5AUD and the two Cokes made it 10AUD. After that, we meandered back to the ship's shuttle pick up spot (about 6 blocks) and got back to the ship about 4:10. This was just in time for us to go to our room and get ready for our big penguin excursion since we needed to be on the dock around 5:40.

This penguin tour is the one that was originally scheduled for last night, but the captain decided to dock at Melbourne instead of docking off Phillip Island. This means we have a 2 hour ride each way back to the island instead of a tender ride. And the price of the excursion went from $49 to $85 (even though the letter below says $83). Here is the text of the letter we received explaining these changes and describing the new tour.

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As the ship will no longer be making a call on Philip Island and instead steaming directly for Melbourne, we have changed the Penguin Parade tour to a departure of 5:00pm from Melbourne, February 5th• For those guests who had pre-registered for the Penguin Parade tour from Philip Island on the original booking form, please note that we did NOT automatically issue tour tickets for you for this new option. Should wish to join us to see the penguins on our 6 1/2-hour tour from Melbourne, please stop by the Tour Office on Deck 5.

Shore Excursions for Date of Call
MELBOURNE 05 FEBRUARY, 2006
PHILLIP ISLAND PENGUIN PARAIJE MEL-6775
Duration: 6.5 Hours Price; $83.00
This tour is presented in order to specifically offer guests an opportunity to see the famous Penguin Parade of Philip Island. Join your luxury air-conditioned coach for your journey from Port Melbourne to Philip Island (it is approximately a two-hour drive each way). Shortly before arriving at the Penguin Parade we will briefly stop to admire the view from the boardwalks at the Nobbies before traveling on to the Phillip Island Nature Reserve. The reserve covers an area of some 45 square miles and home not only to seals, koalas and mutton birds, but the largest colony of Little Penguins in existence.
On arrival at the Philip Island Nature Reserve a casual cafeteria-style dinner is offered prior to the Penguin Parade. Each night groups of Little Penguins swim ashore and march up the beach to their burrows in the sand dunes. Penguins are unique to the Southern Hemisphere and the penguins seen at Phillip Island are the smallest of the 17 species of penguins standing at only 13 inches. Witness these creatures in their natural habitat from the boardwalks and viewing platforms and marvel at one of nature’s most intriguing wonders. Return to Melbourne at approximately 11:30pm, just in time for sailing.

• We highly recommend that you take warm woolen clothing to protect against the cold sea breezes.
• Actual timing may vary slightly due to the expected arrival time of the penguins. The arrival of the penguins is effected by tides and light factors.
• There is moderate walking required from the Nature Reserve Center to the Penguin viewing area.
• There is a NO photography policy at the Penguin Parade.
• Dinner is served at the Penguin Center’s cafeteria and should be considered a simple fare of roast chicken with chips and salad including tea/coffee and desert (slice of cheesecake or lemon slice).
• It is important to note that this tour is designed specifically to enable you to see the Penguin Parade rather than a complex tour with multiple components.
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We were on the first of three buses by 4:45pm, hoping they would go ahead and send us on our way instead of waiting for all three buses to be ready. On our Costa Rica ship's bus tour, they had done this and it worked out to our benefit with a generally speedier tour, staggering the group's arrival and was more to our liking. But not so here is Australia. They wanted to have the same number of people on each bus and so asked for a couple to move from ours to another bus, and one did. We still had an uneven number on our bus as we had, Heike, the Voyager Clearance Officer. Eventually, about 5:15pm, all three buses left at the same time.

Pauline, our tour guide, and Ian, our bus driver, told us lots of Aussie stories regarding the places we were driving through on our way. We stopped for 15 minutes at The Nobbies. There are supposed to be fur seals on the rocks below this point, but no one saw any. It was mostly a potty break. They have a law that everyone has to wear seatbelts, so we all had to be belted in which meant that although there was a toilet on the bus, no one could use it anyway. Then we drove a short time through a winding small back road to the Penguin Parade. They told us to watch for penguin burrows and wallabys on the way. Right away Debbie spotted to fuzzy chicks standing in the shade of their burrow about 4 feet from the road. Ian drove right on past. A dark brown wallaby was spotted in the distance on the other side and Ian stopped the bus and waited for it to move, it did not. Eventually we saw 5 more wallabies all on that side of the road. Debbie spotted another pair standing in the shade and tall grass next to their burrows on the shore side of the road, and a single penguin with his head stuck out of his burrow. Ian only stopped for wallabies. He told us he would point out the penguins' burrows, but when he did it was on a distant hillside. Once people knew what to look for they saw the ones close to the road, but Debbie did not see any more penguins at the roadside burrows after we rounded the curve by the hillside burrows.

We arrived to a big parking lot with a lot of buses in it already. Pauline told us that 3000 people come on average every day of the year. She expected heavy attendance tonight because of the influx of Chinese tourists. (Don't know if we had documented this yet. But, Chinese New Year is being celebrated during this time. We have run into absolute throngs of Chinese tourists ever since Auckland. Not sure how many weeks this celebration goes, but it has generated lots of traffic at tourist attractions everywhere we have been since Auckland.) We got our tickets and walked to the visitor center, all 3 buses together. Pauline was not sure how it would work inside. She left us seemingly in line for the counter service, then came back and told us to go over to a table set up at the kitchen door to get our food. Two people were manning 2 steam trays with dark meat chicken and fries and a cold tray of lettuce and tomatoes. We were directly to a couple of long tables marked reserved and set with a knife, fork, purple paper napkin and upside paper Pepsi cup for each chair. On the tables were pitchers of water and orange juice. We finished eating and there were Radisson people standing around looking for a place to sit. So, Debbie went and asked Pauline what we should do, what happens now, should we give up our seats and go on somewhere else so others can sit down to eat? Pauline said yes, this was the meal and if we were finished we should go through the building to the exit door and walk down to the beach and get seats because the amphitheater was probably already filled. (There was a video display in the restaurant that showed live streaming video of the beach and amphitheater. It also showed that the first penguin last night appear at 9:15pm and that the first one was expected tonight in 50mins., 45 mins. etc. and a sign to show when the first penguin had appear tonight.) Debbie asked her if we went through the gift shop in the building first or last. Pauline replied whenever you wish now if you aren't worried about getting seats, or later. But, make sure when you walk back that you have time to wander on the boardwalks and get a closeup viewing of the penguins in the hills and trails through the brush. So, we left and another batch sat down at our table. We fought our way through the gift shop, but there were some must have souvenirs of our penguin visit. With our bag full of goodies, we made our way to the amphitheater and it was indeed cold and a strong breeze coming ashore. We looked and it was very crowded. We went back up and over to the 2nd amphitheater seating. We got seats right on the beach. Then people started kneeling on the sand in front of us, so we scooted up one row to be able to see over their heads. There was a ranger patroling the sand to try to keep people sitting down if they chose the sand area, but it was a losing battle. It turns out that the best seats would have been anywhere along the inner edges of the 2 amphitheater seating areas. The penguins came up and went straight through the 2 sections, or well to the outer sides of each, but it was too dark to see them over there. By the time, this became clear with the first group of penguins across the beach, there was a stampede of people to the inner edges of both sections. We stayed put. We waited until we had seen about 6 small groups cross the beach and then went up to go through the boardwalks back. The visitors guide said it would be about 50 minutes from the first penguin ashore to the last. We sat about 30 minutes. Pauline had given no guidance about when to come back or where to meet. When Debbie asked her before leaving the cafe, Pauline replied that we should look for her and she would direct us. We never saw her again until we boarded the bus on our own and she acted like we were holding up the group. We were afraid of that. We took our RSSC Voyager World Cruise 2006 red & black expedition parkas! This was probably overkill but we did not suffer the effects of the cold wind at all! There were very many people in our group who were not dressed or prepared for the harsh elements of the night. We figured that most would either stay in the restaurant/visitor's center or go back and sit on the buses and apparently they had. We did not see any of the ship's people in the 2nd amphitheater section and only saw one or two people on the way back to the bus. It was really special. They are very little penguins, only about 7 inches tall and very skittish and silly acting about coming out of the water. Once they were on land, they just march on about their business without any skittishness at all. They had paths along and beside the boardwalks and just completely ignored the throngs of people. They smelled very bad. You could tell the difference between the walk before they arrived and after they arrived. Whew!

Back on the bus and it was a quiet ride back. There had been very heavy traffic going out but very little on the return. We got our cards scanned back on the ship at 12:10am as the crew wished us Good morning with champagne and warm wash clothes. At 12:30am, the Captain's broadcast into our cabins asking for a sole woman passenger to report to the Reception Desk. We did not leave the dock for about another 40 minutes. About 15 minutes after his announcement, a crane took down the tunnel we had used as a bridge from the ship to the terminal building. Debbie looked out again after this and we were still tied up there was a meeting of about a half-dozen port security agents and 3 white uniformed Voyager people, but we did not untie. There were about 100 passengers hanging over the portside rails looking down on this in the middle of the night, but we still did not pull away. We fell asleep and sometime around 1am, Voyager pulled out. We do not know what happened with the missing passenger, if they found her and we left, or what.

We had a good day in Melbourne. We did not do very much of what we had originally planned to do because Clay was not walking very fast or for very long at a stretch without sitting down and putting his foot up. But, we did enjoy what we did get done. It was also a special evening watching the Little Penguins in their somewhat natural habitat and we are glad we took the opportunity to do this.
Back out into the Bass Straits tonight and then the Southern Ocean. We are hoping for more smooth sailing.

Melbourne photos