Melbourne, Australia

Bob and I both grabbed a quick breakfast. Jeffrey stopped by to chat. He has such a great sense of humor. He had us both laughing hysterically. We made arrangement to have dinner with him and his wife on Feb. 15.

Our excursion for today was the included tour. This included touring the Royal Botanic Gardens and the Shrine of Remembrance. We began with a drive through Melbourne. Traffic was exceptionally bad this morning because roads which are part of the Grand Prix course have been closed in preparation for the race in March.

One of the most prominent features of the houses in Melbourne is the intricate ironwork on the terraces. This ironwork was constructed out of ballast from ships sailing to Melbourne.

We continued to drive through Melbourne until we reached the Royal Botanic Gardens.

Today's excursion once again proves that a good guide make all the difference in the quality and our enjoyment of an excursion. We were greeted at the Royal Botanic Garden by Rose (Bud). She is a volunteer at the gardens. Her knowledge and enthusiasm was amazing. She explained the history of the gardens, the architects of the gardens and the history of the plantings. For instance, she explained that oak trees were imported to Australia. Since Australia does not have an actual winter season, oak trees in Australia do not have a dormant period. The oak trees grow all year long. Consequently, they reach maturity twice as fast as they do in the United States. This has the end result that the oak wood in Australia is very soft unlike oak wood in the US. Rose explained this to us as we stood viewing an oak tree that had fallen over because its wood is so much softer which causes these trees to collapse. The garden has decided to leave the oak tree as it is. This resulted in growth of many interesting fungi. This fallen tree also provides a place for children to climb and even to have story time while seated on the various parts of the tree. This is just one of the insights that Rose explained to us. We would have loved to spend an entire 8 hours with Rose walking through the gardens but since we had time constraints and it was 96 degrees, we moved onto our next venue.

The Shrine of Remembrance, our next venue, was located directly across the street. We entered the ground floor and immediately climbed to the balcony to get a view of downtown Melbourne.

Next we climbed back down to the sanctuary. Here we found the iconic Ray of Light. There is one stone missing from the ceiling of shrine, on the 11 day of the 11th month (Day of Remembrance) sunlight travels across the stone and highlights the word Love at 11:00 AM. Surrounding the sanctuary, are books with names of all those who perished in wars.

We proceeded to the galleries which is an expansive space that features over 800 artworks, historical artifacts and personal effects that illustrate the experiences of Australians in war and peacekeeping operations.

After about an hour in the shrine, we walked to our buses for a drive back to the ship and a continuation of commentary on the history of Melbourne.

When we reached the ship, we were excited to cool off in our stateroom before a celebratory dinner in the private dining room in honor of Henry's 84th birthday.Read more