Following our departure from Sydney, the Silver Whisper took a full sea day to cover the distance to Melbourne on the south coast of Australia. I had intended to spend time writing this blog but between attending lectures and time spent reading "Steve Jobs" by Walter Isaacson, I did not really get to composing text.
Melbourne is a port city in the southeast corner of continental Australia. It is the capitol of the state of Victoria and is located at the top of huge Port Phillip Bay. The land around is dry and moderately fertile. The city is newer than Sydney yet projects an air of substance and culture. Melbourne served as the capitol of Australia from the time the federation was formed in 1901 until 1927 when the capitol moved to Canberra. It still has the look of a center of politics and commerce. Sailing into the harbor was impressive though not as beautiful as sailing into Sydney.
Michael and I had scheduled ourselves for a four-hour tour, "Kangaroos and Koalas in the Australian Bush". This was only the second ship's tour we took since leaving Los Angeles on January 5th. The tour left directly from the pier at Port Melbourne several miles from the city center. Our tour bus drove through suburbs into grassland to the private game reserve called Serendip Sanctuary to view kangaroos and emu and then to You Yang National Park to see koalas. The tour was as advertised. The wildlife viewing was most successful. I have dozens of photos of kangaroos in the distance, singly and in groups. I also have photos of a mother and baby Koala. The mother never moved but the baby ran up a "eucalypt"" or "gum" tree, afraid of the crowd of tourists trying to take his picture. I have pictures of a number of emu standing in a field of grass, one trying to steal food from the tourists and a couple of photos of rare owls sleeping on the limb of another gum tree.
The tour bus would not start when it was time to leave Serendip and a replacement bus was called in from the nearby town of Geelong. We were delayed maybe a total of twenty minutes. Our tour guide handled the delay in very Australian "no worries" fashion. He did not realize that we would have to transfer to yet another bus after our ride through You Yang as the operator of the bus from Geelong was not allowed to drive in to Melbourne with that bus. We all were required to transfer again to a third bus, this one dusty and with malfunctioning air conditioning, at a lonely spot on a back road near the park. We endured a sweaty drive into the city of Melbourne. The temperature was near 100 degrees F. Everything in Australia seems complicated and takes a lot of time. No one expects efficiency and, as Michael says, "No worries" means they are not worried.
The tour bus dropped off in the city center those of us who wished to spend the afternoon in Melbourne. Michael and I were the first to leave the bus. We went to a Chinatown noodle shop for a quick, late lunch of excellent pork and roast duck rice bowls.
We were able to walk some and checked out the very Victorian Flinders Railway Station briefly as we were more interested having time to ride the free antique but unfortunately not air conditioned tram that circled the central business district and the new Docklands business and entertainment district. Of course, we stopped for the free Wi-Fi. This time Michael's iPhone 5 worked while my 3GS iPhone could not quite pick up a strong enough signal. Silversea, for some reason having to do with local Melbourne rules, could not run a shuttle service to or from the city. We purchased tickets for the #109 tram and rode the few miles to the port during a crowded rush hour. We had a nice chat with a woman on her way to the train station. She was interested in why two lone Americans were riding the tram in Melbourne. I think she was more accustomed to see tourists moving in packs. She welcomed us to Melbourne.
We walked down the pier and onto Silver Whisper, working our way through the crowd boarding the overnight ferry to Hobart, Tasmania. The pier side shops were closing for the day as we made our way to the gangway, hot, tired but happy.
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