Melbourne, Australia

November 10, 2012 Saturday

Thursday, we were in Melbourne, another large city.  Once again, one of our targets was the library to access the Internet.  They have an excellent trolley/tram (light rail) system in Melbourne.  The trains are fast, quiet, often and criss-cross the town nicely.  The trains in the CBD are free; much like the bus system in Seattle was until recently.

Our first stop using the tram was Queen Victoria Markets, a huge covered market with everything from meats (including kangaroo), cheeses, fruits and vegetables to shoes, jackets, etc  and crafts.  A marvelous shopping market, we walked away with a wine stopper made from a ½ penny which was last used in 1964.

The weather has been fabulous, not a drop of rain, excluding the monsoon while we were on the bus in Indonesia.  It is getting cooler; jeans are coming out, still a lot of shorts.  We are at sea.  Tomorrow we will be in the fiords of the South Island of New Zealand and if the weather is clear, we will have great views.  We will enter Milford Sound around 6am. We have had to set our clocks ahead each of the last two days one hour each, so are getting a bit less sleep than normal.

We have started crossing the Tasman Sea, the seas are getting higher.  John is wearing his motion sickness bands; they seem to work within 5-10 minutes after he puts them on.  On the previous cruise of this ship from San Francisco to Sydney, before we came aboard, at one of the tender ports the seas were so high, the ship had to leave 700 passengers and 50 crew ashore for the night as it was unsafe to run the tender boats.  We have never experienced this, and hope we are never on the shore side of this kind of decision.  The people that could not get back to the ship apparently filled all hotels/bed and breakfasts/and private homes available at that port.  Those affected said the people were very accommodating, as we have found most Australians.

More later~Colleen & John