Day 50 - Downunder 2016 - Tue - 11/15/16 - Burnie, Tasmania

For the third time, we made it back to Tasmania. It's one of our favorite places in the world, and it all started when we hosted a young lady from Yolla, Tasmania for a year on a foreign exchange program. That led to our coming down for her law school graduation and then again in 2014 for her sister's wedding which we followed with a cruise to New Zealand on the MS Oosterdam. These relationships have been the most enriching long term international relationships we've ever experienced (it extended to her family and even her in laws!).

We took the first port-provided shuttle to the Maker's Workshop (a super cool hands on museum) and walked the boardwalk into town where we met our hosts and friends for the day: Lana and Lindsey, parents of E who we hosted. They treated us to a short trip up to Table Cape and its lighthouse before we headed for tea in Ulverstone, the home of Lindsey's mom where we enjoyed tea and conversation. E's sister and her cute one year old daughter then joined us. We then went to a local fish and chip place where we enjoyed some local fish and chips. But all too soon they needed to drive us back to the Maker's Workshop shuttle bus pickup point. Since this is an industrial and active port, the only way a passenger can go from or return to the ship is by the free shuttle. We caught a 3pm shuttle and all too soon were back on board before the 3:30pm all aboard time. At 3:35 around 4 busloads of shore excursions rolled up to the ship.

We went up to the Crow's Nest and joined a team for the 4pm trivia contest. This was a hard game and we came in 2nd with a score of 10 out of 17. The winning team only had a score of 11! One of the official answers in the trivia game was wrong (What was Ford's first mass produced car? The game's answer was the Model A when in fact it was the Model T with 17,000,000 produced. While there was a model A before the T, it's production numbers were a paltry 2,000) - so we lost. Later the correct answer was acknowledged.

I finished the gruesome read of Lucretia's Batavia Diary before grabbing a quick dinner in the Lido before the main show, Tim Motley, who was a sort of comic, magician and mind reader. He was pretty engaging. Afterwards we watched the latest Ben Hur movie.

While the destination is important, remember to savor the journey.