Sunday, 27 October 2013
Sydney - Venice - Sydney - Overview
Monday, 14 October 2013
Day 91 - Not a totally smooth day to end the adventure!
What? It's raining? Welcome to Sydney |
High winds and rain take their toll. |
The fleet leaves from the navy 100 year celebration |
Great coach. Great Greg. |
Not too much heavier than 90 days ago... |
Bondi Beach area |
$4? Really????? |
Sunday, 13 October 2013
Day 91 - Last sea day - and lots of laughs
Nando, Ashley, Tom, Tink, Marcus |
Ashley, Tom, Tink, Marcus, Kat, Mark |
Saturday, 12 October 2013
Days 89, 90 - Still sea days:- Ghosts - and a trivia win...
The special cake complete with amazing animals. |
A "Bloody Legend" - or two... |
Ros and Dominic - now with a one piece new tie |
The always happy Melldon |
Who looks most like a chef? |
Paula with Marvin |
The Three Stooges - Alex, Nando and Marcus |
Shenanigans in a glass lift |
Wednesday, 9 October 2013
Days 87 & 88 - Guess what? At sea again...
Saturday, 5 October 2013
Day 86 - Darwinian contrasts?
Footnote - from Wikipedia: The Tiwi Islands Football Club, nicknamed, Bombers, began as a representative club competing in the Northern Territory Football League 2006/07 season.
The club is notable as being the first all-Aboriginal team to play in a major competition.
Days 84 & 85 - Yup, still at sea...
A much better sleep (it had to happen sooner or later). Just for a change, I had two small quiches for breakfast and thoroughly enjoyed them.
As our morning team seemed to have expanded beyond Teri and Alex, George and Dossie, but the others were a bit erratic, Paula wasn’t too happy at standing down now and again to keep our numbers down to 6, we joined an adjacent team, as they were two short for the mornings. Bev and Ed (call me Winston) do afternoons only. This seemed to work pretty well – but we still didn’t win.
Down to the corner of the atrium bar for coffee and we found ourselves chatting to the captain’s wife, joined later by the bar manager, Sarah. An extremely pleasant way to spend an hour or so and once again, one of the reasons we enjoy sea days.
After a cabin spell and internet catch up, a call at the buffet at 3:29 – one minute before lunch finished on one side and afternoon tea started on the other. Perfect. A handful of crumbed prawns from one and an excellent toasted focaccia from the other.
We didn’t win the afternoon trivia, but boy, we are amassing an amazing amount of trivial knowledge, that may well come in useful one day, even if only for another trivia quiz.
After dinner, we called at the Wheelhouse Bar for just one rumba, before picking up a coffee and heading for the cabin. As we use the rearmost staircase, we popped into the Vista lounge to check out the movie and ended up staying to watch the last 90 minutes of what is a 150 minute movie, “The Lone Ranger”. It bore very little relation to the old B & W half hour TV shows but had a good few laughs in it. Maybe when we get the chance, we’ll watch the whole thing. An ideal movie for a long flight, but on second thoughts, as there are laugh out loud moments, maybe the other passengers might not appreciate it.
We finally made it to the cabin at 12:10 and straightaway, had to put the clocks on another 30 minutes. No wonder my body clock is out of kilter. At least when you fly, you get it all over and done with in one hit (maybe two), so the theory of gradual movements being easier, may need to be challenged. The air conditioning doesn’t help either.
Friday October 4th
Yup, another chunk of the night wide awake, then Paula was up and about whilst I was fast asleep… Once again, two small quiches and a Timm’s coffee for breakfast then we sat outside for a while with Teri and Alex, until it was quiz time.
In our ‘new’ team, we got 19/20 – it would have been a tie breaking 20/20 if I hadn’t been outvoted on Tom Cruise’s real name. Ah well, that is the way it goes it a team environment.
As I’d had a coffee earlier, I just had iced water in the atrium, much to the waiter’s surprise.
After the usual cabin sojourn, we headed for the buffet about 3:15, past the deck games that included a pie eating contest. It was a bit of a surprise to see one of the female dancers (Kat) taking part. I couldn’t resist the cherry crumble and managed to top it with whipped cream normally destined for warm scones and the sour cream for the nachos.
Now as this was day 84 of the cruise and we have sat in the same seats since day one, it was a shock to find cuckoos in our nest when we went for the afternoon quiz. The relocation didn’t lead to a win.
We had decided to eat at the HC and enjoyed the French onion soup, lobster pasta, pork cordon bleu etc. We ate early so that we could catch the second Danny McMaster show at 8pm in the vista lounge. The slide he showed of himself must be at least 20 years old (see pic). Good job we were there at 7:25, as the lounge was already pretty full. Usually, an artist’s second show isn’t quite as good as the first, but in this case, the second show was just as good. Brilliant singing of a Tom Jones number (with new words) and a Willie Nelson/Ray Charles duet, plus Johnny Cash. A great skit on the white man vs the Indians, particularly the Walter Brennan and John Wayne. But the hit for us was the skit on the New Dehli Airport air traffic controller, with aircraft being flown by a Brit (Frank Spencer), an Italian, George W Bush with Airforce 1 and an Australian pilot with a Kiwi co-pilot. Clever and very funny.
After grabbing a coffee we returned to the Vista for a Princess standard, the Marriage game show. Somehow or other we ended up with Jo & Garry as the newly-weds at 5 years, plus Sharon and David from the Dawn Nomads at 50 years, as contestants.
A bit naughty at times but very popular and a fair few laughs.
With Darwin tomorrow, it is a home port for the Australians of course and the last stop before the five sea days to Sydney.