Tasmania Cruise - Day 6 (At Sea) & Day 7 (All over!)

Day 6 was one of our favourite sorts of cruise days - a full day of doing almost nothing!

So that this isn't the shortest blog entry ever - here's the view from our cabin:

We deliberately opted for this "obstructed view" because that's the sort of cabin we had booked on our (now abandoned) 38 day cruise from Southampton to Singapore - I wanted to be sure that I'd be ok with no balcony and not much view.  Probably would have been ok, but I'd still prefer a balcony.
Anyway, there's not much else to report, just the usual sadness at the cruise ending.
 
Now, we've just got to survive a kitchen renovation and my retirement, and then hopefully next October there's another cruise on the way!

Tasmania Cruise - Day 5 - Hobart

Well, I'm finally catching up on the blog posts - almost a month after the event!
Second day in Hobart we hired a car and - as in Burnie - had no real plans about where to go.
First drama - getting out of the city.  We decided to start with a trip to an "Apple and Heritage Museum", but we had an amazing amount of trouble getting out of the city in that direction.  Many of the streets in the city are one-way, and the map app on my phone didn't know about all of them.  And, at one point it told me to do a u-turn on a road that was effectively a free-way! We also ended up driving on a street that I'm pretty sure only allows bus and delivery traffic - oops.
However, we eventually found our way out of town.
The museum was a disappointment - I should have realised it would be once I saw that it was a 'site of interest' in the documents Princess prepares about their shore excursions.  The description was the classic "come here on a shore excursion to spend money on food and souvenirs but don't really expect too much else", and it unfortunately lived up to that standard. However, we found a cafe in town and had a nice coffee while considering our next move
We had considered going to the Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary and also to some wineries but in the end we decided against this.  Instead, we decided to go up Mt Wellington.  Unfortunately there was so much twisting and turning on the road that I managed to get carsick.  But, when we got to the top, it was absolutely worth it - spectacular views in all directions.

 This is the view of Hobart from Mt Wellington - the little white blob in the water is our cruise ship.

This is Paul on top of Mt Wellington

Fortunately, getting back into Hobart was nowhere near as dramatic as leaving.  We managed to find a servo to stop up the petrol (therefore avoiding having to pay the outrageous prices Avis charge to top up) and had no one-way street trouble either.
Disappointing afternoon back on the ship though - for some reason they were doing work outside our cabin.  Now, I understand that they are always needing to do minor maintenance, and I understand that sometimes this might involve multiple people bashing heavy hammers directly onto the metal hull just outside your cabin.  What I'm not happy about is the fact that we weren't warned - usually when there's going to be noise they let you know, but not this time.
Paul astoundingly managed to nap through a couple of hours of this (with a pillow over his ears!) but I couldn't.

Tasmania Cruise - Day 4 - Port Arthur and then Hobart

Two ports in one day today.
Overnight we sailed to Port Arthur.  This is a tender port, and one we have visited before.  So, we decided to stay onboard and have a lazy quiet time.
Once everyone was back on board, we sailed for Hobart at about 5pm and docked there around 7pm.
After dinner we had a shore excursion - a ghost walk.  Interesting tour; we walked around some of the older streets near Salamanca Place, and the guide told us stories about various historical houses, obviously concentrating on ghost stories.  I thought that they were going to include some pretend ghosts - I was quite sure that there was someone in the top middle window of this old hotel moving the black fabric around - but no-one said anything so maybe it was a ghost after all ......

The tour didn't go as long as advertised, and a few times she talked about 'showing us photos later' which didn't actually happen.  However, it was an interesting walk and talk.

Tasmania cruise - day 3 - Burnie

We arranged a hire car with Hertz, picked it up with no real dramas.  The plan was to have no plan, just get in the car and drive, which we did.  We found a nice little town called Penguin and had a coffee there.  Then, we went further along the coast to Devonport and had a look around the town.
Then, we got into the car and drove back to Burnie.
Doesn't sound too exciting but there was some lovely scenery and the weather was simply glorious
Tasmania was already on our list of 'places to see when we don't feel up to cruising any more' and today simply confirmed that decision.
Today also confirmed that there is apparently a total lack of supply of Travacalm in Australia at the moment. The pharmacies around home were totally out of stock - I asked at one and he said that the supplier is having problems and "everyone is going on cruises".  And, for interest I checked out a pharmacy in Sydney and one here in Devonport with the same results - no Travacalm.  I had enough to get me through this cruise, but I'm going to have to stock up somehow for next year's cruise!

Tasmania Cruise - day 2 - sea day

Classic, totally restful sea day for us.  Biggest decision for the day was whether or not to risk trying to get into the dining room on 'formal night' in clothes that were 'business wear' at best.  No problems, but still on our own at the dining table.

Tasmania Cruise - Day 1 - boarding

The ship was at the White Bay Cruise Terminal which is an abomination.  You can only get there by car, taxi or ferry, no other public transport and you certainly can't walk onto the docks.  I have now decided that any time we cruise into or out of Sydney in future, it's going to be on a cruise ship that's too big to go under the Harbour Bridge, so it can't be docked at White Bay.
If you're cruising out of Sydney from the Overseas Passenger Terminal, you can drop off your suitcases quite early, and then wander around the city until boarding time. No such option at White Bay.  So, we went into the city first and dragged our suitcases around in the rain until we found a place to sit and have coffee, then annoyed another taxi driver - apparently a $24 fare from the city to White Bay was beneath his dignity or something. 
Got on board quite quickly and found our cabin.  The whole idea of the cruise is actually gone now - the main plan was to make sure that we'd be ok in an oceanview cabin for a 38 day cruise next year, but we have just recently cancelled that cruise anyway.  Possibly a good thing, because I don't think I'd have liked this setup for 38 days.
However, for 6 days it's perfectly acceptable although a little noisy, there are three separate crew work areas beside it.
Went to dinner and found ourselves to be the only people at a table for eight.  Quick and quiet meal!

Tasmania cruise - getting started - 4 November

Up at way before dawn to be ready for the taxi out to the train station.  The taxi arrived on time, but the driver was unpleased to discover that I had prepaid his taxi company a set amount for the fare - he said that the fare would normally be higher.  It seemed pretty much a normal amount to me, but the real surprise was that he didn't know that the company is offering set price, prepaid fares.  Presumably they're trying to compete with uber
No dramas on the train - it was the usual slow and creaky trip, but still much cheaper than flying and much more comfortable than the bus.
Raining when we got to Sydney, so we got a taxi to our hotel and fortunately the room was already done so they checked us in.  We then went off for a walk down Glebe Point Road - there's a really nice 'cafe' sort of vibe.  Had lunch at a nice cafe.  Got back to our room and discovered that what we had thought was an interesting way of setting up the TV (so you could watch it while lying in bed) was actually because the TV had pulled out from the wall.  Mentioned this at the front desk and they immediately moved us to a bigger, nicer room.
Went to sleep fairly early after such an early start, and was then woken at about 11:30 by a fire alarm - first the warning, then the 'get out of here' whoop whoop.  I was so confused being woken up that way; it took me what seemed like ages to find clothes that I could leave the room in.  Turns out it was a false alarm, although it took them a while to be certain.  Then over the next 2 hours, we had two more of them.  Not good.
Overall, it was a nice motel - fair price and in a nice location. Not sure if I'd book there again though, the memory of the fire alarms is a bit off-putting.