Geelong, Australia

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It was a quiet and short night last night. Our guide this morning told us it took her 50 minutes to commute from Melbourne to Geelong. I have no idea how it took us from midnight to 6:30am. Looking at the TV nav map, it looked like we traveled more or less in a straight line. Anyway.

We were here when we woke up. Tenders were in the water before we got to breakfast. We went up to Terrace since it was calm. Our tour met at 8:45am in Sirena Lounge.

We had the last of our fare-included shore excursions here in Geelong. We made this one here because of it being a tender port. I don't know why everyone in Melbourne was so shocked we were tendering because we didn't see anywhere we could have docked. We had a short tender to the Geelong Royal Yacht Club. It was a good spot and central located.

Our tour was Peninsula Wineries. Four hours and $129. It was probably fairly priced, but we wouldn't have paid to book it. Of course, we had a much better deal yesterday. There were 40 people on our bus today and there were 2 busloads doing this tour. We drove for about an hour to get to Queenscliff. Geelong looks like a holiday town and Queenscliff looked like a smaller more rural version. Queenscliff had an interesting old fort that you could tour, but not us, not today. The fort contained a black lighthouse that was also of interest. Too bad we had wineries to visit. Like us, you might be thinking it is an early start for a wineries tour. Well, we drove on a sightseeing tour for an hour and then had about that much time at our first stop for a Devonshire tea at the Vue Grand Hotel. By now it was after 11am and we'd eaten, so on to the wineries of the Bellarine Peninsula. Our first stop was Scotchmans Hill Winery. We stood outside their Cellar Door for about an hour tasting and hearing about 6 wines. I tried the 3 whites and Clay tasted all 6. They started at $40 a bottle and went up. Neither of us tasted anything we'd buy and certainly not at those prices. It was a serious sales pitch from the bus driver to the guide to the winery employees. The next stop was at Oakdene Vineyards. We stood around inside their whimsical Cellar Door. The employees gave their spiel and then you went to the counter and asked to taste one of the 8 or so, by my count, bottles of wine. There was no sales pressure. The grounds were delightfully artistic and we mostly wandered around for our time there. The drive back to the ship was shorter and included a little overview of Geelong which is pretty small and compact. We walked for an hour or so seeing some of the public art, not finding a late lunch place and checking the Wool Museum's gift shop before returning to the ship.

We had a late lunch at Waves Grill. After all we learned today about how treacherous the rip is, I guess we are glad we were asleep when we entered Port Phillip bay. We are supposed to sail at 6pm today which means we'll witness it and hope it is over before dinner. Well, after 5:30pm and final tender from shore was scheduled an announcement was made looking for 2 women passengers from deck 4. The last tender back went back to shore again and then came straight back and winched up underneath us. Now idea what happened or why the tender went in and we could see it tie up to the tender for several minutes before coming back. We never saw the 2 women. So, no idea what happened but it meant we were a bit late leaving Geelong. So, we went up to deck 9 for dinner and finished eating before reaching the rip. Clay went up to the gym after dinner because we had seen all 3 movies on TV tonight. I hope to be in bed and ready to stay there before we hit the rip.

Tomorrow is another sea day. I am sure it is too much to hope for smooth sailing. All the talk on the tenders today was from people who have tried and failed to cruise to Tasmania or Hobart before. I'm not too hopeful either.

I'll go ahead and post this now, while I'm still upright and stable.

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