Melbourne

Melbourne (Nov 28-29)

Nov 28 (Mon) - at sea

            Today was a day at sea. After the breakfast buffet we went to a presentation about excursions available at various ports of call. We then went to watch a glass-blower demonstration followed by lunch. They have a lot of gluten-free food available. It was chic night (the new formal night) for dinner. The entertainment for the evening was called "Broken Strings". It was a song and dance show. We think it was about breaking up and then getting back together again, but had trouble understanding the words, so we're not sure. The crew put out Christmas decorations while we had our nap today.

Nov 29 (Tue) - Melbourne

            Today was our first shore excursion. We docked at Melbourne (Melbun), after breakfast we went ashore for a bus tour of the city. 

Melbourn from the bus

 We were taken to Healesville Sanctuary, which is a preserve for Australian animals. Here we saw koalas, kangaroos, wallabies, Tasmanian devils, platypus, birds, emus, and many other animals. We had a sack lunch provided by one of the restaurants in the park. They gave Paul a salad and cookie and a fruit bar. We had just a few minutes on our own to see some of the animals we had missed on the guided tour, like dingos.

Koala

Wooden platypus

Real platypus

Colorful birds

Kangaroo

After the animal sanctuary we went to see Captain Cook's Cottage. It was very small. He didn't really live in the cottage, but it was given to him out of gratitude. 

Captain cook's cottage

Cottage kitchen

We visited a small conservatory in the same park as Captain Cook's Cottage.

Conservatory

Blue flowers being conserved

 We continued on our bus ride around Melbourne.

Melbourne city

We were on a bus full of Mormons

 We then went to the war memorial for those who died in WW-I. It was a nice memorial with a theme from the Bible.

Shrine of Remembrance 

John 15:13

Melbourne from the memorial

Our tour guide today was Joy, an American who moved to Melbourne 40 years ago to teach school. 

We had good entertainment tonight on the ship - Jane Cho playing the electric violin. We will now have two days at sea while we go to New Zealand.

To be continued: