Australia was great fun

We left New Zealand on March 8th and today is actually April 8 and we just left Australia. We left New Zealand a bit sad because we didn't get to visit many of the beautiful areas of the South Island and more importantly, I didn't get to wear my "winter clothes". You have to understand that when I boarded Odyssey back in December 2024, I left North Carolina and Texas when it was cold. I was anxious to get south to Panama and South America where it was warm. At least that was what I was told and what I believed. I flew south with NO winter cloths and two months later I was looking at frozen fjords. I bought jackets, gloves, and head warmers and I used them for about 2 months before we headed north on the east side of South America. Warm clothes went into my suitcase under the bed. Months later, we are in Canada and heading to Alaska. It is cold in Alaska, right? Oh, there's a pretty warm jacket, heavy sweat pants and matching sweatshirt. Gotta have them. OK, not COLD but sweatpants and sweat shirt felt pretty good especially out at sea in the northern Pacific Ocean. But soon, those too went into the suitcase under the bed. Japan - hot, Indonesia - hot, Taiwan - hot, French Polynesia - hot, Australia - warm, New Zealand - warm. Fjords of New Zealand are coming up - drag out the suitcase from under the bed. Put away sundresses, tank tops, and swim suit. Hang the winter clothes in the closet, here we come. NOT. Nope, missed that because Odyssey's bottom was not clean enough to meet NZ laws for entering the fjord pristine waters. Crossing back over to Australia was definitely jacket weather, but I chose, most of the time, to not go walking on the deck cause it was COLD. Southeast and southern Australia was cool, rainy, and then warm. And now we are headed north again. And every day it is getting warmer and warmer. Where are my tank tops? Under the bed, of course. Definitely time to pull out the suitcases (yes, now 2 of them will have winter clothes in them) and find that swimsuit. It is 85 degrees up on Deck 8 poolside this afternoon. Thankfully, I LOVE warm/hot weather. And Bali, here I come.

The entire trip through this part of Australia has been nice especially since I have never been to this part of Australia and we have done some interesting things. After our 5 day transit from NZ, we pulled into Melbourne for a not-so-quick Customs Clearance. Every country and, it seems, every port has different rules and requirements for checking in. We like the countries who send their people on board, they look at our passports while we are still sound asleep, and they say - Thanks for Coming, go have a good time, and that is it. But not here. The day before our arrival we all had to meet with Guest Services, pick up our passport, and get a Passenger OK to re-board piece of paper. The next morning, bright and early, all 380 of us (Residents & Crew) had to depart the ship, go into the terminal and be checked in individually by a customs officer. And to top it all off, we had to leave the dock by 2:00pm because another ship was arriving and they never looked at our little OK to Board piece of paper. Oh well. So, in and out in Melbourne. But that was OK because we would be back in a week for a 3 day visit.

As I keep saying, I do love sea days. This one was especially nice. We have organized a group of about 25-40 people who enjoy drinking and learning about wine. We meet once a month in the Observatory which is located on the top deck looking out over the bow of the ship. Every couple or 2 friends brings a bottle of wine to share with everyone and we have nibbles. We call ourselves The Wine Tribe. We enjoy the get together from 4:30pm-6:00. Sometimes we even learn about wines. On our 1st sea day back in Australia, 2 members of our group worked with the Restaurant managers and put on a Ocean and Wine Pairing Dinner. The Head Chef explained each course, and our Food & Beverage officer is a Sommelier so she explained why they choose the wines and why they paired so well with the food. Of course, we each paid for our dinner, using our on-board account but the dinner was spectacular. The Menu:

Appetizer Seared Scallops Veuve Clicquot Brut Champagne, France

Entree Lobster Bisque or Indaba Chenin Blanc, South Africa

Mushroom filled Puff Pastry

Main Course Surf & Turf MWC Pinot Noir, Australia

(Lobster/Filet Mignon)

or

Pan Seared Lemon Sole Le Petit Chat White Grenache, France

Dessert Dark Chocolate Ganash Tart Hennessy VSOP

It was definitely a dinner to remember and the restaurant manager wants to do one every quarter. There were only 20 of us so it was really nice.

The next 3 days were spent in Hobart, Tasmania. I had a wonderful time. The waterfront was close to the main town so walking and being a tourist was great fun. Sometimes Aussies are hard to understand.

There was a beautiful housing area up the 100 Kelly Street steps.

The houses were at least 100 years old but meticulously kept up. They must have a really strong HOA. Many of the houses were "plaqued" so you knew how old they were and some of the owners of the house. Some had interesting explanations. For instance, the house below has dormer windows on the front in the attic for light. But they also had small windows on either side of the dormer. These were explained as windows for the owners to look down the hill and see if marauders were coming up from the waterfront. There were several houses for sale but the signs never mentioned a price.

  It was a very homey area called Battery Point, several coffee & pastry shops, a small post office, and really friendly locals. We spent about an hour drinking cappuccino, eating our pastry, and talking with the locals doing the same. Everyone seems fascinated with the Odyssey and those of us who live on her.

I loved wandering around this Millinery shop. The headbands were beautiful. (Barbara, I hope you will like yours). It turns out that Queen Mary of Denmark is from Tasmania and loves to wear headbands from this shop. She and her husband were visiting her family in Hobart the day after we left. Story goes she was working in Sydney, he was visiting Sydney and he went out alone (since he was just a Prince at the time) to a bar. Saw her, met her, but never said who he was. But eventually the love story came together, they married and they became King & Queen together. Loved by both countries.

On another night 2 bus loads of us travelled out to the Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary. We all had a ball for 2.5 hours learning how they rescue hurt animals and then return them to the wild or keep them there. We got to feed their herd of kangaroos, was entertained by a cute blind Echidna (looks like a porcupine), got poked at by the bird with a disjointed wing, and was amazed by the Tasmanian Devil. The Tasmanian Devil almost became extinct from a disease that caused warts to grow and cover their faces. The disease is still on some of the older wild Devils but there is no cure. We stood behind a short (waist high) fence but the Guide warned us not to lean over or even put our cameras over the fence because they will jump and bite your hand to get whatever you are holding. Ferocious looking small animals, aren't they?

I love going on Food Tours. You not only get a feel of the town, some good food, but you find little out of the way shops you would never discover, and you learn about the history of the area. I loved Hobart and would love to go back and spend a month in Tasmania. On our tour we started with Salmon Meat pies, moved on to the most amazing Deli, then a chocolate store which is still owned by the man who started making his chocolates over 50 years ago, then a stop for some fresh raw oysters which were really good, and a stop at the Jam Factory for a huge fresh strawberry donut. We ended the tour with some unusual flavors of ice cream. I tried the Lavender, I'll just say it was interesting. Evidently they grow a lot of lavender up in the hills of Tazzieland. A 2 hour tour for $40.

We have lots of parties on the Odyssey. Some invitations, like birthdays, are announced as a dinner party in our "nicer" restaurant and all are invited. Others will be smaller private parties (5-10) which may be going-away parties, or celebrations like selling their house. These are usually held on Sea Days. I can say that if I wanted to, I could go to one a week. We have had 3 birthday big parties and a Jewish Passover Seder dinner (for 80 people) this month. We also had a Resident performance of The Passion Play. But now after 2 sea days we are headed back to Melbourne. And boy was it a fun filled couple of days.

First I went to an AFL game. No, Australian Football League. Very very different game of football and was played at the Melbourne Cricket Grounds Arena/stadium. The Richmond Tigers (Melbourne) vs the Gold Coast Suns. The game started at 1:15 on Saturday afternoon. We got there about 12:30 and had Fish & Chips and a beer before the game started. We had 50 yard line seats and pretty close to the field and in the blazing hot sun. After the first half the score was 64 to 35 and we were cooked. Our team was not ahead. We left to go do some shopping and we heard the final score was something like 118 to 65 - our guys still lost. We were glad we left.

After shopping I didn't even go back to the boat. Lots more to do in the evening. I met 3 other ship mates in the Theater district and had dinner at a really good Italian restaurant. Then we walked a couple of blocks back to the Princess Theater to see The Book of Mormon. We bought tickets that morning so we didn't sit together but I got to see the show that I had heard about for years. What a hysterical play. I loved it and it was a funtastic day.

The last day in Melbourne was filled with Wine! Fourteen Wine Tribe members rented a small bus and visited 4 different vineyards for wine tastings. Beautiful vistas and the wines were OK. But that was a lot of wine. The VVR CEO was aboard for a couple of days and she went with us. When we returned we were all starving since we had only eaten a couple of cheeses along the way. Kathy ordered 10 pizzas for us. These were the the FIRST pizzas to be cooked in our new Pizza Oven We were so excited. They were excellent. We can now order pizza from Room Service and the prices are pretty good.

Did I mention that we had 20 Sea Days and 14 days in port this month? Not a normal schedule but it was OK. After Melbourne we had one Sea Day and then a 2 day stop in Adelaide, I don't know why but I just couldn't get excited about Adelaide., so I stayed home, I've been playing bridge in the mornings and if I feel like it, I play Hand and Foot Canasta in the afternoon. I'm really improving my bridge skills and I've taught a lot of folks how to play Canasta, so maybe my mind is not turning to mush.

And now we spent 2 days in Freemantle/Perth which was our last visit to Australia. Snack shopping was on everyone's minds. We will be visiting lots of small islands and Indonesia for the next month and they might not have Doritos, peanut butter, Oreo cookies, Diet Coke, vodka, etc. At the grocery store every aisle was filled with Odyssey Residents and Crew. It looked like we were going to starve to death. I only spent $72 on snacks and I was the cheapest of my friends.

On our last night 3 of us took a friend out to dinner in Freemantle since she was leaving to go home to California. They had seen a Mexican Restaurant not to far from the ship and it had good reviews. The margarita was small but good, the enchilada was OK and so much better than on the ship. For some reason the chefs and cooks from Indonesia can't make a good enchilada. They are finally letting us build our own Nachos/Taco Salad but sometimes they forget and add curry powder instead of chili powder to the meat. Talk about a surprize!

This is me and a very lost bird enjoying a look from the Officers Bridge as we head to Bali. We were not allowed to take any pictures of the equipment inside but it was very interesting. The bird will fly around but he keeps coming back to the ship. We are 300 miles from shore and these birds don't end up this far out. Well, good night my friends. Hope you had a Happy Easter.