We were supposed to arrive in Sydney at about 8am, but that hour found us about 30 miles offshore. The weather and waves were above the limit for a ship of our size, so they basically put us in a holding pattern until conditions improved; we finally entered the harbour a few minutes before 10.

We were on a tender not long afterwards, and in front of the Opera House at 10:30.

We walked over to the Sir Stamford Hotel to meet our guide for the day, Terry Rogan of Picture Me Sydney, who was taking us to the Blue Mountains to enjoy the wildlife and scenery. Our first stop was Calmsley Hill City Farm, where we had a date with a koala!

The farm had lots of other wildlife, including wombats, wallabies, kangaroos, and emu.

We left the farm and drove into the Blue Mountains National Park, stopping at Wentworth Falls. The fog and mist were pretty thick, but we enjoyed walking through the area.

We left the Falls and drove further into the Blue Mountains, stopping at an area where kangaroo roam freely.

We stopped at the Three Sisters, but the fog was too dense to see them.

We got back to Sydney just in time to catch the last tender to the ship so we could do our final packing.

Another day at sea, as promised. We kept busy with lectures, walking, anxiety packing, and eating.

Captain Costas gave a fascinating talk about the ship, how it works, some of its innovations, navigation, the ship’s org chart, and much more; it was booked for 45 minutes but he ran for nearly 90…and no one told him to stop. :-)

After that, Celia Garland gave us her last talk for the cruise, this one on Wild Australia (not everything there is out to kill you, but quite a lot is!).

In the afternoon, we went to the Senior Officers’ Cocktail Party in the Eden Lounge; the corridor leading to the lounge is…umm…interesting.

And then it was our last dinner in Luminae, followed by a show (“Colors of Life”) in the main theatre, which I enjoyed; the music was mostly recent rock songs, and the cast did a good job with it. The acrobats were good, too.

We anchor in Sydney tomorrow; we had intended to leave the ship with our luggage and stay at an airport hotel overnight, but the logistics started to get very complicated, so we’re going to come back to the ship after our tour and leave on Sunday morning for our flight home. I think I successfully cancelled the airport hotel. I hope so, because it was more than double what we paid there last year – Taylor Swift is here with the Eras Tour this weekend, boosting the local economy.