Volendam day Thirteen Saturday 5/11/11

Arrived Melbourne early morning and organised ourselves to go ashore. Walked to the tram stop and took the 109 to the city centre. Into the iSite for maps and brochures. Headed to the immigration museum for the special exhibition about child migration. Good value as we both got concessions it was totally free. Then took the free circle tram to treasury gardens and looked for Capt. Cook's house which had been transported there fro Great Ayton in Yorkshire in 1935. Small country cottage with a typical garden, very English. Back'towards the tram and we walked through the conservatory, very reminiscent of Wisley! Headed on to the old gaol but decided against the £15 a head entry even with concessions. Very hot - bought a sandwich and had it beside St Pauls cathedral watching the mounted police monitoring a demonstration in nearby city square. All very peaceful and small scale. Saw various other small scale 'occupy' encampments in the parks. Still hotter so took a tram to another park and sat in the shelter of the trees watching the world go by and searching for a Sydney hotel. Apparently there's some reason why prices are higher and vacancies short when we want to be there. Couple of trams (6 dollar daily fee for all transport) took us back to the ship for tea and a cool cabin! 6:30 and out on the rear deck there was a barbecue - taster snacks of kangaroo and crocodile. Quite eatable and not too strongly flavoured or tough as we expected. Dinner a deux in the restaurant was achieved much faster than the usual tables of 6 or 8. Finished in time for the film show starting at 8. Film 'super 8 ' was an (early?) Speilberg effort which was a bit scary at times but totally beyond credibility. Shades of 'ET'. Wandered up to the lido in good time to see all the chocolate and dough art creations before they were demolished for us to sample. The area was incredibly hot and stuffy, not ideal for chocolate! Exotic flaming drinks being demonstrated too.