Pronounced JEE-long

Noon Report:

• Location: S 38° 07.81′, E 144° 22.66′
• Speed: At Anchor
• Course: At Anchor

Since we had a very late night last night and a reasonably late (9:15) excursion this morning we had a bit of a lie in. (That’s Aussie for we slept in.)

But we were up, fed, and about in time for our turn to tender ashore and board our bus for the hour+ ride to Ballarat Wildlife Park.

Then it was off to see some animals.

Cheryl’s Factoids:

• The New Zealand and Australian accent turns the “i” into a long “ee” and drops the “r” so that “Right here” becomes “Reet Heyeh” – so the lady talking about Meerkats called them “Mee cats”. Not native to Australia but interesting that these little predators catch and eat poisonous snakes, millipedes, and scorpions – they are immune! Like penguins, they are scared of birds flying overhead and when the “lookout” meerkat squeaks they all duck down the nearest burrow.
• So far none of the Wildlife Sanctuaries have had a “Quokka” (which is the cutest smiling fluffy little animal ever), which is supposed to be native to western Australia, but we have one more shot at it when we go to the zoo in Mooloolaba on Feb 19th.

Strangely neither of us got a photo of a Koala. I blame this guy. He was active so we both shot video and forgot to get some still shots:

The park was somewhat unique in that some of the animals (Kangaroos, Wallabies, Emus, Alpaca) are free to wander the ground (or in the case of Kangaroos and Wallabies, lie around in the mid-day sun) so you had to watch where you were stepping. There are “resting areas” with low barriers where they can be away from the tourists but they largely ignored those and grabbed a patch of sunlight wherever they happened to be.

During our visit we saw a number of Animal Presentations (Meerkat, Penguin, Dingo) where a keeper interacted with the animals as they talked about them.

All good things must come to an end and so it was with this visit. Back on the bus; Randy sleep, Cheryl read; back to Geelong.

“Back on Board” time wasn’t till 8:00 pm so when we got off the bus we wandered a bit along the waterfront.

In our wanderings we observed the new looking bollards holding up the dock.

We also noted that the old bollards that support the pier have a unique way of enjoying their retirement.

We were feeling a bit peckish and started looking for a place where we could get a snack when Cheryl remembered that the on-board afternoon “Tea” includes killer scones (as well as excellent cucumber sandwiches AND little desserts). So we headed back to the dock and took the tender back to the ship.

Thus sated we retired to our stateroom to finish yesterday’s post and work on photos for this one. Other than a short break for dinner that’s the day.

Sea day tomorrow on our way up the eastern coast to Eden.

That’s all for now. R

Pro Tip:

I found these magnetic spice racks on Amazon:

They work great: one for holding the notepad/pencil box, excursion tickets, and other stuff, the other (upside down) for holding the ‘ship time’ clock. On the upside down one I coated the surface (and the bottom of the clock) with duct tape. That gives it just enough adhesion to keep the clock from sliding around as the ship rocks.