Penneshaw, Kangaroo Island, Australia

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Land ho! Wow. Out in the air with solid ground and people! It feels like we got out of some torturous imprisonment. We have been holed up for a while. It may have been a good thing because the bus we were on today for our ship's tour sounded like a field trip for tuberculous patients.  Hopefully, we won't catch whatever is around amongst the passengers.

We set an alarm to get up early after losing another half hour due to time changes last night. We hadn't arrived yet. We got here to our anchorage in the dark while we were upstairs at Terrace for breakfast. It was super crowded this morning! There were more people than seats and either they are still short-staffed or else the crew is as out of it with the sea/sailing conditions and time changes as we are.

We were on an 8:05am tour. It was Cape Willoughby and Winery. We were early to Sirena Lounge and rather surprised and pleased to find that they were exchanging tickets for bus tickets as soon as you wanted after entering the lounge. Of course, since this had been such a complaint factor among passengers that it created a stampede for every tour and now they stopped creating that problem, they act as if you should know to go all the way to the stage to exchange your ticket upon entry rather than waiting to be called. As if it was always done that way. Of course, at least one party missed their tender and departure because it wasn't always done that way. At least they changed the conflict setup and hopefully eventually everyone will learn the new way. I'm not sure when they changed it because we hadn't done an O tour since Exmouth and that one met on the pier so the last time we had the Sirena Lounge experience would have been in Komodo on March 19.

We got called about 40 minutes after we exchanged our tickets. Our #4 bus was waiting ashore. It was our shortest calmest tender ride of the trip so that was good news. We had about a 4 hour tour. We drove over mostly washboard dirt roads to get to both our stops out on the far eastern end of Kangaroo Island. Penneshaw is the port for the island and on the east end at one of the closest points to the Australian mainland. Pennneshaw has about 400 people and the entire island only about 4000. Most of the island is national park land. We stopped first at Dudley Wines Cellar Door. They offered tastes of 3 whites and 3 reds. As usual, we liked some and not others. The special thing though was the location and the view! We drove on to the end of the island and the Cape Willoughby Lighthouse. On the way there and out, we saw loads of kangaroos, as you might expect, but we never stopped so anyone could try to take a photo. Mind you, we stopped for trees, grasses, cockatoos, a river, a view of the ship, but never once even slowed down as passengers hollered about the namesake kangaroos. At least we saw some. At lunch in Terrace and in the tender back to Sirena, all the talk was about how those who didn't leave the little town saw no kangaroos. Well, we saw some whizzing by on the world's roughest bus ride but we can't prove it. So, it was good to be ashore. A longer stay here would be worthwhile to be able to make it independently to some of the parklands at the far end of the island and focus on seeing animals. Of course, as our guide pointed out most of the animals people want to see are nocturnal and so they don't find them anyway. We saw a lot of birds including black swans, galahs, wedge-tailed eagles. We saw some little penguin burrows, but no penguins since they are at sea all day. But, Penneshaw has some very nice and easily accessible viewing boardwalks and platforms if there are penguins.

We got an almost private tender ride back to Sirena. We were back in time to have lunch up in Terrace for the first time in days.

We now have a burst of port days ahead of us. Tomorrow is another small town of Portland. We have no plans here. Next day is Melbourne where we booked a full day tour with Viator. The next day is Geelong where we have our final free ship's tour. We have one sea day. Next day is Hobart, where we have a loose plan to wander and ride a city bus. One last sea day. Final port before disembarkation in Sydney is Eden. It is a tender port and we have no plans there. I have hopes of leaving the ship for our final 3 weeks or so with clean clothes so that means doing laundry. The last couple of days you could have to laundry room to yourself, but I don't know if that will be true at the end of the cruise after this port intensive part. We'll see.

Well, the last tender of the day should have just returned to Sirena. We should set sail in less than 30 minutes. But, I can see 2 tenders still at the Penneshaw dock from the balcony door, so I expect we might be delayed.

Fingers crossed for a calm sailing tonight. We have our final reservation at Tuscan Steak House tonight. Since it is on deck 10, I am especially hopeful for smooth sailing. I will post this now. I am back. The captain just came over the loudspeakers to warn everyone to take care this evening as we will be back in big swells and high winds attributed to another weather system as soon as we leave this protected cove. Oh well, today was nice while it lasted.

We did not have calm sailing. We did have the best sail away since Sydney though. On the starboard side, we sailed past all the places we rode on our bus tour today. That was interesting for us since we could view it all from our starboard cabin. We had our final dinner in Tuscan. It was very rough up there and we got one of the aft window tables so it came with the vibration as well. Service continues to be spotty. We enjoyed the food though.

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