On through the night. The weather is incredible. It’s the first thing you forget.

As usual, we arrive early in the morning.

This is Hobart, Australia.

“That’s a Hobo.”

It’s a Hobo, in Hobart, Australia.

“They do have some homeless. I saw one at the Circular Quey in Sydney, but she was a shopping cart crazy homeless, not an unemployed homeless. I guess there’s no law against camping on city streets, or whatever that technically is.”

There’s also a castle in Hobart and a long history that goes back to the days when Tasmania was where England shipped off its undesirables. They called them criminals but I don’t know what crimes they were guilty of. What could a 12 year old or a 77 year old woman have done to deserve this?

“Seems like a long way to go to get rid of somebody.”

Unless you are sending them to work. That’s what they were doing here.

“ohhh, slaves…”

Yup. Slaves. They weren’t just exiled; they were put to work. They whitewashed it a bit, but the history is still here. They called them ‘factories’ and ‘industries’ but they were just slave labor for goods they shipped back to England.

They even told the stories in entertaining ways. One of the inmates escaped twice and lived to write a book about his adventures on the run. A little peninsula is where they set up the ‘factory’ and at the narrowest part they kept dogs there so the inmates couldn’t escape. They told the story of how they kept the dogs half-starved so they would attack anything that moved there. And now there are statues of the guy who built it and even the dogs that were used as guards.

“Sounds horrifying!”

I’m sure it was. That’s the history here, and most every place we’ve been so far. There are lots of reminders if you know what really happened. If you don’t know, then they just look like old buildings and statues without much meaning. ‘Here’s the statue of Capt. So and So. Here’s where ‘this and that’ was discovered.’ Not a lot of talk about the people that were subjugated, imprisoned, or put into slavery.

“Who would want to talk about that! So that’s Hobart?”

Pretty much. And there’s also some recent history that they didn’t build statues for, or monuments, per se. The memory is just abandoned buildings and paper signs.

“In memory of what?”

They called it Covid-19. But that’s turned into a catch-all for what the reaction was. What people did because they were afraid was what really caused this.

“Boutique is crap! Gee whiz! Why did we stop here?”

For the sights. There are old castles, and monuments, and a Zoo with Tasmanian Devils!

“Oh, cool!”

That’s about it. Here’s a bar. Shall we get a drink?

“Wait, that’s not a real Tasmanian Devil.”

“That’s more like it.”

“Does a skipper and a commodore beat a drunken admiral?”

Still thinking about that whipped cream pie fight?

“No. Lets go inside.”

Oops. Closed. Idk why.

“You can’t run a business and be drunk too! It’s one or the other. Back to the ship Commodore!”

“What happened?”

Ooops, wrong door.

“I wish they would stop using that word. Boutique is crap!”

Time to go! Next stop Melbourne.

“I like Melbourne. Maybe we can do the Jet Skiing at the beach, that looked like a lot of fun. Or we can go to the big market they were hyping, Queen Victoria Boulevard Mall or something. Biggest open-air market in the Southern Hemisphere!”

It’s closed.

“What happened? The beach is empty. Where are the Jet Skis? This is no good. Summer just rolled up like a cheap window shade!”

Looks like winter doesn’t it. No beach fun for us, but we can still see the largest open-air market in the Southern Hemisphere. We missed it the first time around. Let’s talk to the tourist information people and make sure our train pass is good. We need a new sim card too.

“Why is this Vodaphone dude asking for our passport? Why do we need a passport to buy a sim card?”

He says you have to be a tourist to get one for $30 dollars. Locals have to buy a contract. Cellular is such a scam. Good to be on this end of it though. They can sell us a month of service for $30 but if you live here, it’s $120.

“That whole market thing looks Photoshop’d. I don’t believe the market is real.”

Ai generated marketing. I believe it.

“Well, at least we still have our ship. Right? We still like our ship?”

Yes, we still have the ship. And the food, and Dan the funny man Cruise Director! He’s pretty funny telling jokes every day. Today is his 30th anniversary!

 “I remember he said 30 years ago today he asked the most beautiful woman he knew, his college sweetheart, and the woman he loved to marry him! They all said No.”

 That was a good one.

“He said they found a Rolex watch and if anybody lost one, he wanted them to know the exact time was 11:38 AM.”

I like that one too. He was a funny guy. Aloha Dan the Cruise Director.

When I talked to the tourist information lady about my train pass, she said I’d have to check with the train people. She asked me what I was interested in today. She said if I was sophisticated there was a statue of a naked lady I could go see, but it was tasteful, so that was very Melbourne like. Melbourne is the ‘sophisticated’ city in Australia with its theaters and museums and such.

“They had those in Sydney too. I think that ‘sophisticated’ is code for something. Like ‘laid back’ is code for the fat people in Brisbane who have mullets, smoke cigarettes, and have random tattoos. ‘Sophisticated’ might mean they aren’t like them?”

That’s a good guess, but we haven’t decoded everything yet. We still don’t know why they like to say ‘Ozzy Ozzy Ozzy’, it’s a weird custom. So is the sing-along to Neil Diamond’s Sweet Caroline, they all love to do that. When I asked the lady about the market, she said it was closed.

“I told you it isn’t real! This isn’t Bombay either, they never close! Does ‘sophisticated’ mean lazy? It’s Wednesday, it should be open if they want to sell things. I kind of understood it being closed on a Sunday, but not really. What’s the excuse today? Closed on days ending in Y.”

We can still get our sim card and walk around. There’s stuff to look at Skipper.

“Stuff is code for Ling Lings. Understood Commodore!”

“There’s one! What is that random tattoo? Walk faster, she’s getting away!”

She has a tattoo so that means she’s Australian. She’s a Fast-Ling though, she must be going somewhere.

“The tattoo looks like a Transformer. We can ask her if it is ‘Optimus Prime’. She’s headed for the tattoo parlor. Lets find out.”

“How about a haircut then? We could be more aerodynamic. Maybe that’s the trick.”

I don’t see anybody in there.

“Probably hanging out with the Admiral. Free whisky.”

Museum. Could be ‘sophisticated’.

“They had those in Sydney too.”

Another torture chamber converted to a mall outlet store.

“Look at that giant pink ladies compact sculpture! Now that’s sophisticated!”

The Princess Theater? Groundhog Day? These coincidences are really weird.

“This whole building is confusing. It is built on a hill, but it looks straight? What is this?”

Isn’t that the same show playing on the ship?

That sure looks like the one in Sydney!

“This one is dark and scary, I’m afraid. Can we go back to the ship now? Back to our friends?”

“That’s better. Our non-threatening friends. Even the shark is cuddly.”

“Carrot Cake-Ling!”

She knows how to make carrot cake! It’s got that crispy cinnamon crust layer on the bottom, yum! Love is a demi-chef de partie, that means she knows how to make desserts.

“Are you sure that’s what it means?”

No.

“And she has a random tattoo. She must be part Australian.”

We really do love this food.

“Made by Love.”

Aloha Princess! We made it back to home base.

“I’m very happy we get to enjoy these things and remember them like this. Some people will never see things like this or if they do it’s the last thing they ever see.”

That’s the truth. We have a floor named Aloha. They name the decks. Lido deck, Promenade deck, Merina deck, Veranda deck and other names. We see old people grasping at the end of their life, hacking and wheezing, and barely alive. They must have saved this trip for the end. Is that good? Sometimes we hear on the loudspeaker ‘Alert-Alert medical emergency Marina deck aft section 14’. ‘Alert-Alert medical emergency Aloha deck stateroom 2024’.

“Code Alpha on the other cruise line.”

Does the ship have a morgue or do they put them on ice below deck? They probably have something in the ship’s doctor’s office. Is there a doctor on board? The crew is cross trained so maybe not. There were health questions and waivers to get onto the ship. They don’t owe you emergency care. I hope they don’t give it either. Let people go peacefully. Maybe this is the way they want to go. Lots of people think these trips are the highlights of their lives. Maybe they are getting their last wish. 

Am I the only doctor on board? I hope they don’t ask.

“They only do that in the movies. Aloha Henry.”

“Did you know, as a crew member, you are twice as likely to be murdered by being tossed overboard than any other way?”

Now what? We still have a couple weeks before Ling Ling, Ka-hani Ling, and Andrea Ling take us back to Hawaii.

“That’s a lot of Lings.”

Plenty.