2/9 First full day with GCT, Monday

Our group is now 21, until we get to Cairns when it will double. We had a meeting of the group when I arrived, just an orientation. Peter is our group leader for the whole trip. We had a lovely dinner at the hotel with the best beef I’ve eaten! Especially after the tough meat I’ve had in Mexico!

At dinner I chatted with Bob from Cleveland area and his wife Mary. He worked for a public TV station/program and has met my travel guru, Rick Steves, several times. He and Mary are going in the spring to Paris for a trip with Rick’s travel group.

I finally got to my room where Summer, the hostess at the desk, had already put my white wine in to chill. I forgot to take a picture of the room. It was a really cool, very modernistic room. One of the great things about OAT (Overseas Adventure Travel) and its umbrella company GCT (Grand Circle Travel) is that there is no charge for a single traveler, called a Single Supplement. So I have a lovely room all to myself and can walk around naked if I want :) or read in the middle of the night, which frequently happens, or have to chatter, and I don’t have to consider a roommate. It’s really selfish but nice!! When I joined that tour last spring in Istanbul for 11 days around Turkey, I paid almost an extra $800 for the single supplement. All of our group from the Cape were able to get it. Two of the other women on the trip booked later and are rooming together, but they had never met before.

On Monday we met the bus outside for a driving tour around town. We drove past many of the sights I had already seen with Anna on Thursday. We passed Parliament house, the National Treasury building where all the gold was stored during the gold rush, drove down to the beach town of St. Kilda with a Coney Island style amusement park with an old wooden roller coaster, back around the figure 8 shaped lake in the park that holds Formula 1 races and ended at the WWI monument. 19,000 Victorian men between 18 and 30 went off to fight for England and one in 5 didn’t return. And so many of them were buried right where they fell all over the war zone in Europe that families had nowhere to mourn. So this lovely, moving monument was erected to honor them and they have added tributes to soldiers in other wars as well.








We stopped to go in St. Patrick’s Cathedral but were only able to walk around the outside and the gift shop as there was a mass going on inside for schoolchildren. Church of England seems to be a dominant religion but many Italians immigrated here so this is the Victorian diocese headquarters, I think.

The bus dropped a bunch of us at the Eureka Skyjack and I went along again, even though I’d been up there with Anna on Thursday. I was able to point out the fantastic bee sculptures on the side of the building and show them where to watch the piece of skyjack that people pay an extra $12 for to move out from the building, with opaque windows and flooring; then when they are out they flick a switch and it becomes clear. It seems like you’re standing in space. Nobody in our group did it but we watched the other people doing it. I pointed out the racetrack, mountains where the vineyards are, the West Gate bridge, and other landmarks that Anna had pointed out to me.
We rode the free trolley/tram around the square to Parliament house near our hotel (saved walking!) We all went to Mitchell’s sporting goods as many had to buy fly nets, a requirement for our trip to the outback. They hover around your face to get at the sweat there and are exceedingly annoying. So Peter said wear it from the time you get off the plane in Alice Springs until we depart for Cairns. Of course, some people are always asking, “Do we need the fly nets for this?” I already had one that was treated with insect repellent for my trip to the Amazon rain forest (see 2012 trips) But I DID need a new pair of pants. I forgot to mention the one pair of long black pants I had worn on the long flight from JFK/LAX, and as I got off and was walking through the airport, carrying my coat with 18 pockets (another story!) and my backpack. I reached down on my left just under my bum and there was about a 9 inch tear in my pants!!! I quickly put on my coat before I got my luggage. Anna had a sewing machine but the material was so thin it was hopeless. So I tossed them. I got a pair of cargo pants that the bottom zips off to make shorts, which I did when I went out for our evening BBQ in the outback. They are nice and light especially when I want to cover up from the sun and/or bugs!!

I hopped across the street to a pizza place for a beer and small Hawaiian pizza. Judy McNulty (from Wellfleet) ended up joining me and she got a salad. The other walked down to Chinatown to get dumplings. We all met in our hotel at 4 to ride the tram down to St. Kilda to see the blue tiny penguins that come out at sunset on the rocks by the pier. We didn’t want to get on crowded rush hour trams so we left early. We ended up having a bit too long to hang around until 8:30 when the crowd gathered to see the penguins.



While others shopped, I opted for a 35 minute HEAVENLY foot massage for $40. Very firm but felt great after! Then I wandered around the area and met up with a couple of our group along the beach. We were trying to find possums and had some grapes to feed them, but had no luck. We walked down the end of the long pier to a little restaurant where some of our group ate; Barbara and I had a cold beer!!

Finally we saw the crowd along the railing and headed over to take a look. I saw one baby in the rocks that was molting and then one parent that waddled along the beach into the rocks. We then headed back to catch a tram. Cindy in our group couldn’t find a credit card she had used to pay her dinner way back out on the pier. She told us to go on when the tram came, as she was trying to call back on her cell to the restaurant and see if they found it. We heard right after we left, she stood up and walked away to call, as there were a bunch of punk kids hanging around. She was a little nervous. It turns out the cards fell off her lap and were on the ground. She picked them up, and then one of the punks came over to her to apologize for his rowdy friends!! She was stunned! She followed us on the next tram back to the hotel.

We all went to bed early as we had an early a.m. call to depart for our flight to Alice Springs