So out to Southbank last night to board our boat for our new year’s cruise. We were early, as always! But soon loaded on and we had what we thought was the best table on the boat – we were on the lower deck but right at the bow. We could just step out on the bow to see things. Got our pre-dinner drink and waited to leave the dock. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We got a safety briefing and the Captain also pointed out that as the tide was unusually high we probably couldn’t fit under one of the bridges, in which case we’d do doughnuts. We did end up going back and forth between, we think, the Evan Walker Bridge and Swan Street Bridge, very slowly back and forth. Dinner was leisurely with gaps between courses so we had plenty of time to get out and see the city drift past. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We didn’t see much of the family fireworks as they were behind trees, but what we did see was good. We also made it past the Swan Street Bridge late in the evening and got to see more of the river. The Captain had us positioned in the middle of the river with a view of the city and Joe heard the countdown start – so we had a view of all the fireworks in the city (well, there may have been some behind buildings).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Melbourne doesn’t have a central focal point, like the Sydney Harbour Bridge or the London Eye, so they do fireworks off the top of the buildings and in several parks all over the city. It is spectacular and we had one of the best views in the city. Definitely recommend the new year river cruises! Though when we got back to shore around 12:30 it was packed with people leaving. We were luckily needing to go perpendicular to where everyone else was trying to go, so we got through fairly quickly (and it was better than when we were in the centre of London a few years ago!) So we back in the hotel room by 12:45.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So a very late start today (made later by doing laundry). We went for a walk down the river the opposite way from our boat trip last night. Another lovely day. We had an early dinner and are planning the last week of holiday! Trying to avoid the fires. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
So out to Southbank last night to board our boat for our new year’s cruise. We were early, as always! But soon loaded on and we had what we thought was the best table on the boat – we were on the lower deck but right at the bow. We could just step out on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[4],"tags":[45,25],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4T97-15F","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3705,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2016\/12\/27\/heading-south\/","url_meta":{"origin":4195,"position":0},"title":"Heading south","date":"Tuesday, 27 December 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"And we're actually getting a bit brighter. Almost had daylight today. We cross back over the arctic circle tomorrow morning. We went up to the deck 7 bar and had a drink before dinner, had the really good seats at the bow, but couldn't really see anything in the dark.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Frog Blog"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3845,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2016\/12\/29\/nearly-there\/","url_meta":{"origin":4195,"position":1},"title":"Nearly there","date":"Thursday, 29 December 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Last full day onboard. Last night we had a stretch of 'open water', combined with strong wind and rain so a bouncy couple of hours. So not really enough sleep - but then with it being dark all the time, not enough sleep anyway! Up early for Trondheim - quick\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Travel"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3345,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2016\/12\/23\/famous-last-words\/","url_meta":{"origin":4195,"position":2},"title":"Famous last words","date":"Friday, 23 December 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"So, remember in the last post I said we'd probably not see any more northern lights. Yeah. Remember that. So after crossing the arctic circle the ship offered special stamps - the first we knew of this was the announcement tone and then Postman Pat theme song playing. In Norwegian.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Frog Blog"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":283,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2009\/06\/19\/dolphins\/","url_meta":{"origin":4195,"position":3},"title":"Dolphins!","date":"Friday, 19 June 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Well, for the last day I had booked a boat trip out to see the wildlife and Mull. I booked with Mara Mhor for a one day trip (Wildlife Safari) out to Mull and around the coast. So we we were up and out early to catch the boat for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Frog Blog"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":338,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2010\/01\/04\/whale-watching\/","url_meta":{"origin":4195,"position":4},"title":"Whale watching","date":"Monday, 4 January 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Just back from the best meal we've had all trip - ate at the Indigo Grill, which appears to be part of a series of places.\u00a0 But the place acts like a small independent and the service and food were excellent. We left almost too full to walk! Definitely recommended\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Frog Blog"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":37,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2006\/10\/21\/escape-from-alcatraz\/","url_meta":{"origin":4195,"position":5},"title":"Escape from Alcatraz","date":"Saturday, 21 October 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"After waking up and having breakfast we headed out to find the San Francisco Greenpeace office. Joe had done a search the night before and a Google map check of the location and we worked out which bus to take and where to go. Or so we thought. We found\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Travel"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4195"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4195"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4195\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4198,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4195\/revisions\/4198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}