The Dampiers: Australian and New Zealand Cruise

We got off the ship in Melbourne at around 8:30am. We didn’t have much of an itinerary set up but it was clear by the weather that it was NOT going to be a beach day. We initially only had long sleeves and jackets for the boys but after a minute or two off the ship we realized we needed them as well. We took a bus into city center and had a walk around and a coffee and then got on a tram and headed for the beach to have a look around that area of town. One thing Melbourne does really well is having tourist information people set up at the cruise terminal where you get off and then again at the main bus stop in city centre. They had on red vests and hats and were armed with maps and a ton of information to help you get where you were going. It’s a nice city and I’d definitely like to go back and stay longer than a day.

There was a local seaside amusement park there that was unfortunately closed until the weekends during this season. It was modeled after Coney Island. We wandered around the shore and little shops until the afternoon where we met up with one of Peter’s university friends, Pete Meek. We had some excellent gelato (Thanks Pete!) and a really good catch up. He’s been living in Melbourne since we’ve lived in Washington so it was nice to sort of hear how things had been going for him. He gave us a lift back to the cruise terminal and we got on board and we went watch the Didgeridoo player.

This leg so far has left us feeling sort of torn with cruising like this. There are obviously more things than you can even do in a week at Sydney but a day just wasn’t near enough. We also didn’t get nearly as many things in at Melbourne as we liked. When we’ve cruised to Hawaii we felt like it was a good overview of several islands that gave us enough info to figure out if we wanted to go back and to which islands we wanted to visit. I suppose it’s the same thing here but, particularly in Sydney it felt as if we’d missed out on a lot of things.

One weird final note about fellow passengers. We’ve had quite a few people ask us how we could get so much time off from work. Which is understandable. We have the kids with us.. they’re obviously school aged. We aren’t retired and I assume don’t look the age of most of the retired people aboard. Last night was a first, we had a woman ask us how we could afford to go on a cruise this long. After I thought it was just a rhetorical question there was a little uncomfortable pause where I realized she was serious. I sort of just made a joke about things and brought up that it was an expensive trip especially after you added in the hotel service charge for all four of us. Most people assume the kids somehow pay less or don’t have to pay it but we have to pay it x 4. I’m actually really annoyed I didn’t have a really exciting answer to give her about a payoff from organized crime or something that sounded really scandalous. Or just said “We decided to sell off all our possessions and live as gypsies, how much do you make? How have you paid for this? Credit card?” Next time I’ll have a good answer. J

Sailing up to Melbourne Station Pier… Spirit of Tasmania car ferry docked on the right hand side….