Melbourne, Australia. A day to relax.

Yesterday was a sea day and it was good to relax.

Today Paul and I were due to see friends, having invited them to lunch on board the Maasdam.  Sadly they were unable to come due to an emergency so in the end I joined up with Ananda and Christine from the ship's shops.

After a brief walk down the pier we took a tram into Melbourne for a bit of a wander around.  Christine was on a mission, hoping to get a few clothes if any of the shops had a sale on.  Ananda was quite good with regard to shopping but she couldn't say no to a bikini!  When the Maasdam was in Bali Ananda found a post office and posted home a box or two stuffed with gifts and purchases and then vowed not to buy anything else before going home.  She didn't want to go over her luggage allowance when flying home.   The bikini was really nice and I don't blame her for getting it - and it wouldn't take much space in her luggage.

Two coffees for Christine and a few purchases later, we climbed into a taxi to go to the Harley Davidson shop.  A guest on the ship was going on a tour and had asked Christine if she was going into Melbourne because, if so, she wanted Christine to pick up some t-shirts from the Harley Davidson shop!  Needless to say, Christine obliged and Ananda and I kept her company as she rummaged around through the clothing section of the shop.  In the end she got her dad a t-shirt as well as the guest's t-shirts.

Sales receipts and goods in hand, we took a walk towards central Melbourne to catch a tram back.  We had forgotten which number tram we had to catch so a supervisor cheerfully gave us instructions.  Depending at which point we got off the first tram to catch a second tram, we could either stop at the casino and try our luck or we could pop into the chap's favourite bakery.  We decided to take the tram to the casino and catch the next tram, on the same line, to the harbour.  As we got off at the first stop we noticed that we weren't the only people from the ship - there was the Hotel Manager as well as some crew; so we knew that we would be ok!

The next tram took us to the harbour and before going back to the ship we had a very late lunch.  Fish and/or calamari.  It was delicious.  Needless to say I had soup for dinner!

Now heading towards Burnie, Tasmania.