Monday February 23rd - We arrived at Burnie around 07.00am and since we had pre-cleared Australian immigration, we didn’t have to wait long to disembark. It’s the 4th largest port in Australia and very industrial but the little downtown area was quite pleasant and the people couldn’t have been nicer.
At the bottom of the gangway, when we left the ship at 08.30am on a cool and overcast day, the mayor in his mayoral regalia along with his wife (see above), welcomed us personally and the town had exceded all expectations providing a nice lapel pin to every passenger.
A free shuttle to downtown(Mount St shown left) ran every 15 minutes and at each stop there were plenty of volunteers in their distinctive blue vests. That’s the positive side, on the other hand, there’s not much to see in Burnie other than shopping, though if you’re there in the evening you can watch the penguin parade at the Burnie Little Penguin observation centre.
It was quite a nice walk along the ocean front boardwalk (shown above - 20 minutes each way) to the observation centre, though I’d have liked the weather to have been a little warmer. We headed back to the ship at lunch time and relaxed for the afternoon. There were tours and taxis offered at the tourist centre (first stop on the shuttle) along with lots of information, the second stop was for shopping downtown and the last shuttle stop was for internet access at A$6 per hour. As warm as the welcome was, I’m not sure why Princess chooses to stop here, I guess the main reason is to sell their tours to the surrounding areas, ‘Cradle Mountain national Park’, ‘Devonport & Don River railway’ and ‘Launceston & the Tamar valley’.
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