Tasmania to Tokyo – Kangaroo Island – Day 21 can be found here.
Today’s Chronicles can be found here.
Today the tempo quickens, and the conveyor belt moves just a little bit faster. We are due for our tour at 8:50 am as opposed to 9:30 am, and will be meeting outside the ship instead of inside. But we have one less bag to bring, our backpacks are (mostly) loaded for bear, and we are another day older and wiser. Let’s see how it goes.
We’re placed at our usual table at La Terrazza this morning, and my eggs and toast arrive at the same time. Otherwise no complaints, nor do we have any issues with getting packed, sunscreened and ready.
It feels strange to be docked. On most expedition cruises, the only times you’re docked are at the beginning or at the end of your cruise – so the lack of movement in the ship feels strange. It’s like accidentally flipping a book toward the end, and catching just a word or two. I keep reminding myself – we’re not done yet!
Perhaps I’ve been at sea too long. Or not long enough?
The bustling port of Adelaide, everyone!
We’re starting with a bus tour this morning – which we generally loathe – but it’s the easiest (and cheapest) route to Cleland Wildlife Park, so that means we’re on board.
We joined the hue and upcry when Silversea recently shifted from included excurisions to an excursion allowance on their all-inclusive-plus fares, but upon further consideration it may be better to save up your nickels for a few tours that you truly want to do. It’s certainly better than a mittful of bus tours, which seems to be the alternative.
We arrive at about 8:40 am and we are off on our way soon after. No cases of mistaken identity here, or someone trying to shuffle us off to another bus – as was the case yesterday. Our guide chats a bit about Australia and Adelaide and – though his mic is occsaionally fuzzy – he does a decent job with it. The ride would have taken 60 minutes by Uber and we’re there in 70, so it seems a fair tradeoff.
Cleland Wildlife Park is lovely, situated on some 30 hectares of land. Our tour guide notes that there’s a close-up experience with the koalas at 11 am, and we’ll want to be early if we plan to take part as we only have two hours here.
You can also feed the kangaroos and the wallabies at a price of $4 per feed bag. Knowing our children’s penchant for animals, I buy five bags.
We spot a monitor lizard on the way in:
As well as another Tasmanian devil!
Who promptly climbs under a log to go to sleep.
We then come across some Western grey kangaroos:
And rock wallabies:
It’s strange to see them up close and personal after the skittish Tammar wallabies on Kangaroo Island. Guess that shows the difference it makes, feeding them.
Counterpoint – look at how cute they are.
They are also paired with a huge flock of ducks, which advances zombie-like whenever they see humans feeding wallabies. They have become masters of sneaking up behind you at which point you drop the food and they gorge themselves.
They have also mastered the fine art of the photobombing
We also come across some pelicans:
And more koalas:
But mostly we spend time with the wallabies. They have tiny little claws which they use to grip your hands so they can get every last bit of food. Adorable.
I make the same face whilst eating the last of the ice cream.
10:45 am rolls around, and I go off in search of the koala close-encounter line-up – somehow missing it entirely, and ending at place 20 in line when we could have been at place 4 or 5. Ah, well – our tour guide reassures us that they run a tight ship, and that we should be through quickly.
While waiting, we speak with Steven Friedman, a Broadway historian and one of the ship’s enrichment lecturers. He never expected to become an enrichment lecturer, but it’s been perhaps his favourite gig.
I mention that I too would one day love to take on a similar role – wouldn’t we all? – but he agrees that I should hold off until my wife and I are in a position to take slots as they are offered, as opposed to being forced to pick and choose due to the school schedule. Sorry, kids! We’ll send you a postcard.
While waiting, we also briefly toy with the notion of heading back on our own but our tour guide says that they really prefer people not do that, as they are responsible for getting us back safely. We are headed to Mount Lofty after this for a brief photo stop, followed by the drive back to Adelaide to drop people off and then back to the ship.
We’d save about an hour by skipping Mount Lofty, but we don’t want to jam up the tour guide – so we’ll stick with tour bus this time around.
Off to visit with – and pet! – a koala:
We’re glad to see that the experience is being closely supervised, and that the keepers are careful to ensure that the koalas are being gently treated.
Time is running short – and lunch will be late – so we head back to the cafe to grab a coffee and a snack before we re-board the bus. They actually do a credible pizza.
And we find a spot to drop off the pellets that we didn’t use – five bags was way too many, even for our wallaby-loving children. Thankfully they have a place where you can leave unused pellets, and hopefully the Wildlife Park is able to re-sell those on and use the proceeds to benefit for the animals under their care.
Off to Mount Lofty – we briefly get stuck behind some cyclists, but otherwise it’s a brief jaunt from the Wildlife Park. And it has some remarkable views:
Including of downtown Adelaide:
There’s also a nice-looking cafe and patio:
Perhaps next time.
We take a brief walk through the gift shop, and then we’re back on the bus and on our way – perhaps 25 to 30 minutes after we departed from Cleland. So far, so good.
Then back through Adelaide, where we drop those off who wish to remain in the city. Helpfully, there’s also a railway network that connects the port to downtown via the Outer Harbour Railway Station.
There are brief stops at St. Peter’s Cathedral and at a statue for Colonel William Light – enough to see them, but not for people to stop off and get photos. More importantly, these stops add only a negligible amount to the drive time. My kind of sightseeing tour.
We return just before 2 pm, and head for a late lunch at Spaccanapoli again:
We order mini-pizzas this time, which are a much more reasonable amount of food.
I have a calzone, which is an unreasonable amount of food – but very delicious.
Artfully shot to hide the fact I’ve already started eating it
The kids do a bit more homework that afternoon, and then head off to bingo. My daughter wins 5 prize points for getting a row, while my son gets 10 prize points for winning a round of blackout. Their horde of prize points continues to grow.
Then onward to trivia – we correctly identify a group of iguanas as a “mess”, and recall that there are 10,000 taste buds in the human tongue. We also correctly identified Marie Curie as the first female recipient of the Nobel prize, and learned that she received the prize in 1903. We also learned the pyramids of Giza are named Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure – we only got Khufu. Our 22 / 25 score was still good enough for first place!
Off to Atlantide for dinner tonight:
I get the crab for my starter, while my wife and kids had various soups:
I then have the lamb chops with lobster Thermadore.
(A slight mix-up as I had asked for a whole lobster tail with my chops, but I shall not complain.)
My wife gets the barramundi:
Which tastes much better than this photo would imply
And the kids once more order steak (not pictured).
Then on to dessert:
Myself and my daughter have the lemon meringue pie:
My wife has the apple tarte tartin:
And my son has the profiteroles:
All very tasty.
Early bedtime tonight as we need to be up at 5:30 am tomorrow (groan) to go swimming with dolphins (hurray!)