Feb 12th, 2023 Day 40 of 128

Port Arthur, Tasmania

We have been at sea for 40 days today. Wow! Where does the time go? We are about a quarter of the way through this adventure we waited for, for three years. It’s hard to believe. Still nursing my achy back so we slept in till about 7:30am this morning when the alarm told us to wake up. We awoke to the ship cruising into the Bay in Port Arthur. This was a penitentiary and the remains of several of the buildings are still here preserving the history of the area. We made avocado toast for breakfast and ate it in our cabin this morning before we had to meet our excursion group at 9:00am in the Main Stage. This morning was a tender port and the seas were calm, but the captain warned us he expected winds to pick up this afternoon and that we should expect rougher seas when we returned later today. This morning we took a bus out to a Chocolate Factory where they hand make some very delicious chocolate. Megan and I each sampled and bought a bar of what we tried. She had a chai cranberry white chocolate bar and I got a raspberry white chocolate bar. We did notice their white chocolate here has 30% cocoa in it which differs from white chocolate in the states that does not have. It was lovely. From there we traveled just up the road to The Tasmanian Devil Unzoo. They have no cages here and the animals run free, in the enclosures of course. We got to go to a bird show, but the weather wasn’t co-operating and therefore neither were the birds. It was cold, windy and lightly raining. We did get to hang with a couple of Cape Barren Geese for a bit. Then we went to the enclosure where the Forrester Kangaroos were. We had the opportunity to hand feed these beautiful animals and spend a great bit a time in their enclosure hangin out with them. Last, we got to learn all about the Tasmanian Devil and see a feeding. Some Tasmanian Devil factoids for you; they bite with 2-3 tons of pressure that is equal to 4 or 5 Pit-bulls. Much like vultures they are scavengers. But there is nothing left of a carcass when they are through. No bones, skin fur, anything. They live about 6 years. They give birth to about 40 babies after only 2 weeks of gestation and the rice size baby has to make its way to her pouch. Ultimate survival of the fittest. Only about 2-3 babies will make it and she will eat the rest. About 5 months later the babies come out and around 9 month of age the mom will go off hunting for food and never return. Nice huh? They are named for the noise they make, early settlers thought the wooded areas were haunted when the heard the Devils making their noises. The used to be in the wild in Australia and Tasmania, but the dingos eliminated the Tasmanian Devils in Australia and they now only live in the wild in Tasmania. They are an endangered species. There used to be 200,000 of them until about 40 years ago when a facial cancer plagued the animals and dropped their numbers to 20,000. After our time at the zoo we headed back to Port Arthur. Megan and I had a chance to purchase and send home some postcards again. We also shared an o.k.ish pizza. We hadn’t had one in a while and it was a novelty to us. We walked around the historical sights a bit before being on one of the last tenders back to the ship around 3:00pm. As promised, or warned the seas were a bit rougher on the way back in and we were baptized a little by the Tasman sea. Once back on board we got ready for dinner and had a scenic sail out of Port Arthur through Cape Raoul. Beautiful rock formations that remind us very much of Devil’s post pile in Mammoth. Strangely to us, I missed the memo, we sailed into a second port today in Hobart, Tasmania. We were cleared to disembark around 8:00pm but we choose not to. This weekend in the Royal Hobart Regatta Festival. There is a wooden boat parade tomorrow but in celebration, tonight at 9:30pm there were fireworks! Super cool being on a ship watching fireworks getting shot off against the landscape of the Hobart city lights. I had never watched fireworks from a ship before and I believe we had the best seats in the harbor. After the fireworks we had live music from a local band that was brought on that played traditional music with kind of a Celtic feel. Tomorrow we have another excursion here in Hobart. But that is a post for tomorrow. We are pooped after our very long day. Thank you for taking the time to read this especially long post today. Enjoy the photos and good luck to whichever Super Bowl team you are cheering for tomorrow. We have Super Bowl Monday here and it is on at 10:00am our time. We’ll be on our excursions but the ship is rebroadcasting it at 6:00pm and having a delayed Super Bowl Party. Good Night!!