November 17-19
Day at Sea and two days in Melbourne

Our first evening on board was spent with our pathologist friend, Lauri, over dinner where Doug and I finally, I think, understand pathology. We had visions of her working on dead people and now realize she is instrumental in keeping folks alive. She's definitely a good person to keep around.

We awoke to a clear, but chilly, day at sea. Wildlife were abundant and the humped back whales were darting and weaving alongside the ship. Sandra gave another wonderful presentation in the morning met up with our new friends (we shared a van with them from the Hyatt to the ship) for lunch. I spent a great deal of the day trying to arrange tours for us for the next two days in Melbourne. We had signed up ages ago for tours, but had been wait listed and nothing had cleared that looked remotely interesting to us, with most of the tours left being boring old people's big bus tours. We thought a 4 wheel drive tour on the 18th sounded fun and an animal adventure on the 19th called koalas and kangaroos sounded like fun. The destination desk, while pleasant and patient, were fairly useless. They couldn't tell us where we were on the wait list and a 4 hour private tour was $600. We finally opted for the private tour, but the destination desk told us it was too late to book anything privately. One of my gripes with having all tours included is that, since the tour price is included in our cruise cost, we want to take the tours that interest us. We have to still pay to do what we want and it is like paying twice. Nevertheless, I hopped onto trip advisor and sent an email to Melbourne Private Tours and they were only available on the 19th. I kept dropping by the desk and finally secured 2 tickets to the 4 wheel drive adventure. With tickets clutched happily in hand, Doug and I had a delightful dinner with some former cruising buddies, Pat and Fred.

Bright eyed and bushy tailed, we joined our group for our 8 hour tour. Little did we realize that 4+ hours would be spent in a bus. Now, I liked the tour but I think Doug would have preferred if I had not had the good luck of securing the tickets. I must say we were joined by the most delightful people. While these big bus tours have their drawbacks...having great things pointed out in the right when you are sitting on the left, the obnoxious people who linger in the gift store and make us all late, having to rush through a great stop or miss passing photo ops, getting held captive at a boring stop or being dragged to the tour guide's uncles' gift shop....this tour consisted of a very nice and considerate group and we totally by passed gift stores. After a 5 minute potty stop and a 2+ hour trip, we divided into groups of 6 and piled into Range Rovers. We learned that this area of Victoria state was settled by miners looking to make a quick buck on gold. Since copper was more abundant, towns often consisted of mines and refineries. When things got tough, folks took apart their wooden plank homes, got on a train and moved on. What remained were ghost towns. We then rode from one ghost town to another, noting that these were really ghost towns as even the original buildings no linger existed. We heard tales of what used to be there via photos. The trip really centered in a guided tour of our Range Rover and what one could do off road with this he man vehicle. We splashed through rivers, climbed steep terrain and learned about equipment you could put on the RR, such as a snorkel and why a car would even need a snorkel. By this point, Doug was ready to stick needles in his eyes for some fun, but the call of lunch prevented him from injury. We were informed that lunch was a meat pasty or a Cornish pasty (lamb and veggies). We stopped a few minutes for a lav break and we found most of the food was gone as they hadn't enough food for all of us. Then, the rain came down....

The ride back seemed like forever. Traffic delayed our return until 5:50. We had an aquarium trip that evening due to leave at 6:15. Like quick change artists, we rushed in, changed out of jeans and rushed back out to buses. I quickly checked to see if any tickets had become available for the 19th and there were none. We confirmed a private day trip with Melbourne private tours. We got a brief tour of the city on our way to the aquarium. The aquarium was small but nice, fish (shark) and chips and sushi were served. I felt awful eating this stuff in front of the fish. Somehow, it just didn't seem right.

Doug and I discussed what we learned from our day out. 1) The Australian bush is a forest; 2) Australia looks like the US, 3) that Australians shorten their words to the diminutive (brekky for breakfast, minty for mint, Telly for television, footy for football and so on) and 4) add an ie, y or o to the end of your proper name...e.g., Robbie, Robby or Robbo.

We left our brekky card on our doorknob as a wake up call. Regent now appears to call you 20 minutes earlier than your requested delivery to tell you your room service is on the way. I pulled the covers over my head and Doug grabbed a robe to let his earlier than planned food in. Looking out, we noticed we had a clear day with blue skies. We met our driver, Rob/Robbie/Robbo, at 8:30 and discussed a plan of action forth day. We agreed on skipping a city tour and to go directly to the Healesville Sanctuary in the Yarro Valley, a bit over an hour away. This sanctuary is a zoo specializing in native Australian animals. It is located at Healesville in rural Victoria, Australia, and has a history of breeding native animals. It is one of only two places to have successfully bred a platypus, the other being Sydney's Taronga Zoo, though the platypus there was quite dull. Healesville actually has a platyspusary, so this could be quite special.

The zoo is set in a natural bushland environment on 78 acres where paths wind through different habitat areas showcasing wallabies, wombats, dingoes, kangaroos, and over 200 native bird varieties.The sanctuary was threatened by the Black Saturday bush fires, which devastated this area 2 years ago and the sanctuary even evacuated their zoo. Today, it runs a respected animal rescue hospital, home to animals injured in the wildfire.

The trip to the valley was scenic. We passed vineyards, stud farms, dairies, farms and orchards, framed by rolling green fields and distant mountains. Wild kangaroos hopped along the green pastures. We stopped at Domaine Chandon as well as many times during our trip for photo ops.

We arrived at the sanctuary in time for kangaroo feeding time. I never realized that there were so many types of kangaroos....brown, grey and red...and that a group is called a mob and that they are really friendly. I was charmed by them and enjoyed feeding and patting them. Sadly, they are hunted for food and grocery stores sell the meat. It is best rare and very lean and healthy. I couldn't bear the thought of eating one of my new furry friends.

We then went to a birds of prey show and a barking owl nearly crashed head on into me. I had to duck. I was filming him and hope it came out. We visited the platypusary and saw two rather active platypusses/platypusi? Off to the dingoes and they didn't steal my baby...

The koalas put on quite a show for us, especially this one male who was awake and eating. He emitted a wild mating roar (which the female slept though) and hopped over to some other branches, all within a couple of feet from our noses. I hope that video comes out too. The Tasmanian devils are interesting creatures and very cute. However, 90% of their population has been eradicated over the past 14 years due to a devastating cancer for which no one knows the cause or cure. Genetic testing is underway at present. We wandered through the park to see other critters before heading home. We stopped at the Danderong forest at a picnic areas and were met by loads of wild parrots and cockatoos, who proceeded to land on our arms and heads, try to steal Doug's hat and stole my Kleenex. What a hoot!

The weather was glorious and our day ever so much fun! We arrived back at the ship just in time to watch Ngaire, Ken, Carolyn and Fred lose mercilessly at trivia. We even helped them lose! We then went off to a fantastic aerobic show in the theater before going to Prime 7 for dinner with Betty, Lauri, Ngaire and Ken. I will try to download some pics tomorrow, which is another sea day before landing in Hobart, Tasmania.