March 28, 2018

Today we are in Melbourne and are in port until 11:00 tonight. We booked a tour through Tours By Locals. We have to meet him outside the secured area so I looked out to see how far we had to walk and it didn’t look bad. By the time we went through all the mazes they had set up for us to go through it was quite a walk. When we met up with him I told him I didn’t realize I had booked a walking tour. We all had a good laugh with that and then he showed us to the van he had rented for our tour. We were very comfortable unlike we were the prior day.

Our tour was to circumnavigate Port Phillip Bay. There were some boring parts but mostly very interesting and pretty. We were gong to ride a car ferry across to the other side but first we stopped to look at a beautiful view and a couple of lighthouses. One was white and one was black. He explained that they were like that to help ships line up properly to come through the narrow channel. They would look at the lighthouses and when the black one was completely hidden by the white one they knew they were lined up properly.

We drove over to the ferry and lined up. Once on the ferry we got out of the van and went inside. There was a food counter where we purchased sandwiches for a quick lunch. We saw the houses of the rich and famous overlooking the bay.

Once to the other side we drove over to Point Nepean National Park. We went on a brief walking tour through the Quarantine Station which was established in 1852. It was the place for quarantine purposes in Victoria until 1979 and closed in 1980. The site later became home to Army Officer Cadet School (1952-1985) and the School of Army Health (1985-1998). In 1999, selected buildings were used to accommodate Kosovo Refugees. The buildings contain intact artifacts spanning over 150 years of quarantine and army use.

We then took the park shuttle to Fort Nepean dating back to the 1880’s with views of Port Phillip and Bass Strait. We explored several of the tunnels, forts and gun emplacements from which allied shots were fired for both World War I and II.

We took the last shuttle of the day (4:00) back to our van. We continued on a coastal drive and got to see the Brighton Beach Bathing Boxes. Evidentially they are very famous but I had not heard of them. Beth told us she had always seen pictures of them and was really happy to be able to see them. The cost of them are $300,000 and yo have to be a resident in the area to be able to purchase one. They are about th size of the little cabana that we rented when we went to Half Moon Cay.

It was getting late and our guide asked if we wanted a city tour of Melbourne and we agreed that we wanted to. There was lots of traffic but he drove us around and gave us a brief overview. This is a city I would like to return to.

We returned to the ship about 8:00 pm. He was able to drive us right up to the ship so we didn’t have to walk so far. Once on board we went to our cabins briefly and decided to just eat pizza and pass up the dining room for the night. The pizza was good. It is actually a restaurant where they wait on you. I figured it would just be counter service. We got an appetizer to share. I got Caesar salad and flatbread. Once finished eating we went back to the cabin and turned in for the night. It had been a long day.