In Melbourne today. The city has a good transit system. We purchased an all day pass ($14 each) good for all of their transportation systems. We took an express bus downtown and the tram back to the ship. The city also operates a hop on hop off tourist bus that covers all the main tourist spots. The whole route is 90 minutes and costs only $5. Melbourne is quite a pretty city that combines the old and the new very well. It is clean , contains a great deal...

Kangaroo Island is mainly tourism with a little agriculture thrown in. We tendered in to the dock at Penneshaw, which is the island terminus for the ferry service from the mainland, 45 minutes away. We went ashore for a short time - it is a fairly small place. The cruise ship offered several tours at outrageous prices (e.g. $550 each for a full day excursion). We may return on our own when we are driving in the area in December. The flies here are really bot...

We have been in Adelaide for two days. The port is about 40 minutes by train from the city centre but there is a train station five minutes from the ship. The ship offered a shuttle service to downtown for $45 return. We took the train - $5.60 return. These cruise lines are really overcharging for shuttles, tours, etc. Adelaide is a very pretty city and very walkable. All of the city sites are within a 5 block by ten block area. The downtown core is surrou...

Today is Port Lincoln, South Australia. It is mainly a fishing centre and grain export port. Not very large, probably about 14,000. It is cool today - about 14C. We had some great calamari from a take-out stand.

We took a day-long tour of the Esperance area in southwest Australia. The town is not large but is a major port in the region (iron, nickel, grain). It has some of the most beautiful beaches in Australia with the finest white sand we have ever seen. It also has an exact replica of Stonehinge, built in 2011. Esperance is quite isolated so it is only beginning to become a tourist destination with the cruise industry just starting to stop here. We are now at se...