Pat and I boarded our ship, The Diamond Princess, on Saturday. We have a great stateroom with a balcony ( which I thoroughly enjoy on a daily basis) on what is an enormous ship. The Diamond Princess is, by far, the largest ship that we have ever been on. Almost 300 meters in length and a gross tonnage of 115,000 tons makes it one of the largest cruise ships in the world. So here we are with 2,600 of our closest friends.

View of Sydney Opera House from our Stateroom

We find cruises to be a great value and an efficient way to see many different places in a short time period. If you shop, you can often book a cruise for $100 to $150 per day (that includes meals). If you figure the expense of traveling to a city, paying for hotels, meals, transportation and other incidentals, cruising really makes sense. Ideally, we will take a cruise to destinations that we have an interest in. If we particularly like the ports of call we visit we will generally try to travel there directly on a later trip to dig in a little deeper. Shore visits are like Cliff notes….you can probably pass the test but have missed the experience of truly learning the material :)

Melbourne

Melbourne was our first stop on the Cruise after a day at sea (warm and relaxing as well). Melbourne is Australia’s second largest city with a populations of about 3 MM people. While I considered Sydney “laid back,” Melbourne is even more so. Melbourne was initially a settlement that failed due to fresh water shortage and was later re-founded on a different location around 1830. Though it is the “second city” to Sydney, it is first in several categories. As a fashion center, Melbourne wins. As a sporting city, Melbourne wins. The day we arrived began the Australian Open which is a grandslam event. Sports are a big deal here…Melbourne was home to the 1956 Olympic games. Many of the venues are still in use by a variety of different groups. Rowing on the river is popular and Melbourne is also home to the “Fantastic Four” (couldn’t tell you their names) who won the last Olympic 4 man rowing Gold Medal.

Hobart

Hobart was really a treat. Hobart is on the southern edge of the island of Tasmania. Like most of Australia, Tasmania was mapped out by Dutch explorers (The Dutchman “Tasman” for whom Tasmania is named) and later was “rediscovered” by Captain Cook. As a side note, Captain Cook was well regarded as a diplomat and an explorer. Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand and the Hawaiian Islands were all discovered (or rediscovered by) Captain Cook. Apparently, he had a knack for calming down the indigenous locals by bringing trinkets and other gifts. For example, the Dutch discovered New Zealand and promptly left after losing a longboat and 4 crewmen to the Maoris. Cook later landed and made peace with the Maoris. Worked great for Cook until Hawaii when he was killed and, some say, eaten by the natives!

Nearby Port Arthur was the site of the second penal colony on Australia…highly emotional for the Australians since so many came through that penal colony and also the site of Australia’s largest massacre. 28 were gunned down by an armed man. This single incident changed firearms laws in Australia making it one of the most restrictive towards gun ownership in the world.

Tasmania has a population of just over half a million people half of those residing in Hobart or a couple of nearby cities. Having said that, Hobart feels very comfortable and worldly offering most of the conveniences we found in Sydney and Melbourne. Us “car guys” always home in on dealership row wherever we travel….how many towns of this size have a Porsche dealership in the US?

The highlight of our tour was a trip out to Bonarong wildlife preservation center. Pat is on a “touch every animal she can” mission and Bonarong offers just that experience. Tasmania is home to a number of unique and endangered species only found in Australia (Wombats, quolls) and some only found in Tasmania (the famous Tasmanian Devil). Pat will write her own post on Bonarong…..they do some good work here and are on a mission to save Tasmanian Devils in particular. In recent years, a very aggressive form of cancer has wiped out 80 percent of these animals in the wild.

Kangaroos at Bonarong

Pat doesn't feel fulfilled unless she is feeding something or someone!

A Wombat.....everything bites here BTW!



Tasmanian Devil - 6 times the bitng force of a domesticated canine


Finally, I have included very few pictures in this post since I am on the ship’s internet (more expensive than roaming cell phone minutes) and is so slow I cannot upload a lot of large content. Look for us to upload lots more including a video interview of a ranger with a couple of Tasmanian devils and also a video of a large pod of Dolphins that we jumping in the bow wake the ship created….both quite a site to see.

Next stop of for us is Port Chalmers which is alarmingly close to Antarctica. Did I mention that official sunset down here is not until 9:38PM tonight?