Happy Halloween from Hobart, Tasmania! I’m writing this while Mario and Luigi are fast asleep dreaming of candy, probably even more prizes and basking in their ship celebrity status. But let me backtrack here. Today was a jam packed fun-filled day. We started off by getting our car rental and heading to the Bonorang Wildlife Reserve. Because we were pretty quick off the ship we got there before the masses and we got some really quiet time to talk to the people who worked there and got almost private little sessions with most of the animals. I had no idea how cute wombats were and the little baby one she carried around in a baby sling was srsly SO cute. She let us pet them all and spoke to us about all things wombat and then gave us a bunch of information on the “Tassies” or “Devils”. Apparently there is a cancer that is spreading like wildfire that is killing a huge number of them and they’re raising loads of them there in sanctuaries until this can be eradicated so they don’t go extinct. I always wonder how much the boys are taking in when the education parts come in but they were asking some really great questions about habitat and what the animal’s main predators were.
Arriving in Hobart and Bonorong Park:
Wombat and a Tasmanian Devil:
We then moved on to the Koalas. Seriously Australia, your animals are adorable.. not a fan of your crazy scary snakes or spiders but your furry guys are super cute. Also, before I forget, Henry had a little tickle in his ear and reached up to grab what he thought was a leaf or piece of bark and grabbed a spider with bright yellow eyes, then looked at it, freaked out and threw it on the ground and stomped on it about 40 times. I don’t blame him.. I tried to not react in a way that would add to the freakout session but he handled it better than I would have.
We then moved on to the kangaroos. When we went into the park we were given little paper packets of grass pellets to feed the kangaroos and told to feed them with a flat open hand and that they liked to be scratched between their arms in the front. By this time tour buses had arrived and there were several people that I think bee-lined over to the kangaroos. At first it was a little intimidating to the boys as there were tons of people just inside the gate and tonnnns of kangaroo crowding in to eat. I led the boys to the end of the track for a little space and sanity and we fed the kangaroos. Henry was the kangaroo whisperer and was talking to them all as he fed them.. and then was telling them off when they were getting greedy. They had a worker in there giving people handfuls of the pellets so the boys kept going and getting refills. One jumped up to us and I stupidly thought “oh.. this must be a male one because there’s a very long thing sticking out the front and ok.. I’m going to have to explain this to the boys..” and then I thought “oh that’s weird, it’s thing totally looks like a tail”. And I think I audibly heard the lightbulb click when I realized “oh. That is a tail. It’s a kangaroo.. it’s got a joey in it’s pouch and it’s upside down”. The joey eventually had it’s head lolling out and slept while the mom ate a bunch of our grass pellets.
The boys had a temporary little nervous moment when one of them decided that it wasn’t fast enough to have the boys dig the pellets out of the bag and just started grabbing at the bag to get it from Henry. I finally just told Henry to let him have the bag because Henry was getting really nervous. That Kangaroo got an extra dose of fiber and the boys watched him tear up and chomp that entire bag up. On the way out I caught Henry trying out his animal whisperer skills on the Emu and was asking them if they lived with the kangaroos sometimes and if they ever ate some of their food.
We checked out the rest of the animals and then made our way to the top of Mt. Wellington to have a look around and then headed back to the ship.
Top of Mt Wellington – for perspective the cruise ship is just visible between Grants right arm and head….
Once on board the boys got into their Super Mario Bros. costume and we headed up to happy hour in the Crows Nest. We’d brought a few bags of candy on board because we weren’t sure what the ship was going to do so we just had the boys walk around and give out candy and say “Happy Halloween” to the people and staff up there doing trivia. After dinner the boys got to do some traditional trick or treating at some Cruise Critic doors. Cruise Critic is a cruising website that has forums with the people you will be cruising with among a billion other things. When we posted that we were bringing two boys and they’d have costumes for Halloween there were a few people who asked if we could bring the boys by for trick or treating. They brought bags of candy in case there were several kids so Grant and Henry have more candy than we can possibly eat – though they’d like to give it a try.
Grant and Henry about to leave our room and arriving at dinner….
Henry wanted me to “take a selfie” of the awesome costume the boys designed for me over dinner…. Then we toured the Lido to meet some of our favorite staff….
At kid’s club they took them around trick or treating at different stations they’d set up ahead of time. The guitarist I mentioned earlier had them all tell a joke to the audience in order to get their treat. I’m sure the audience really appreciated Grant’s all-time favorite joke “Why was Tigger putting his head in the toilet? Because he was looking for Pooh.” After they were filled to the max with sugar we picked them up and took them to the ships Halloween party to wait for the costume parade/contest. They were quite the little celebrities. Grant who currently hates his school music class because he hates doing the actions to the songs was in front of the crowd being Mr. Personality. He was doing Super Mario Bros. jumps and anytime someone would take his picture he’d flash a huge smile and put his arm up in the air like Mario. He was doing 360 jumps and bouncing all over. Peter filmed it while I was standing with the boys and we kept making eye contact with a look that said “who is this kid!?” Henry was reallllly tired which apparently activated his super power of being completely adorable. I think they only asked him his name and age and Peter said the entire crowd was going OMG HE”S SOOOOOO CUUUUUTE. So, in the end they won Best Group in the costume contest and the prize for that was a bottle of champagne! Score! They gave the boys each a can of Sprite (which they thought was equally as cool). We went home and had the quickest bedtime we’ve had in a long time.
The boys in the costume competition line up, with their kids club staff and with the cruise director….
Next up – Two sea days and then the part of the cruise Peter is most looking forward to – Milford Sound.
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