Thursday 26th March
Today we are in transit from Sydney to Melbourne and it’s blowing a gale! After a self serve breakfast we decided to take a walk round the promenade deck to acclimatise ourselves with the facilities on board. Once round is 1\3 mile, so we didn’t want to over do it and risk an injury early on in the cruise. Just opening the doors against the wind was an achievement let alone walking against it. It was seriously head down and lean into it to make any headway. The white horses on the crest of the waves were galloping like Shergar on a good day, yet the ship was very stable as there was no great swell running - yet. First thing in the morning it was very heavy cloud and not particularly warm. Maureen opted to visit the laundry and I enrolled in a watercolour painting class, being as how it wasn’t really sunbathing weather. We skipped - yes - skipped lunch and found our way into the indoor pool area on deck 12. The clouds were breaking up and there was no wind as there is a roof over the pool area, so it was most pleasant stretched out on a lounger with a steel band playing. Under real duress, we stayed there until 5.00pm, when we sauntered down a few decks to the tea station in the Kings Dining area. The wind was getting stronger, but the ship remained pretty stable.
This evening was the first formal evening on board, so after a good scrub up and dress up we left the cabin bound for the Chart Room Bar. As soon as we left the corridor outside the cabin and onto the stair well, it was obvious that the ship had developed a nasty list to port (the left). We couldn’t get a seat in the Chart Room , so abandoned it for the Golden Lion, the pub on the lower deck. This was not only packed, but they were running a trivia quiz so we had to stand at the bar, which made the list all the more obvious. Drinks on the bar were not level in the glasses and people were definitely walking faster in one direction than the other. It’s a shame, but Old Mr Grace’s double from ‘Are You Being Served’ almost slid across the bar area and was only saved form an emergency entry into the casino by his walking stick jamming in the electric scooter that was racing past at break neck speed. But seriously, the quiz mistress came over to the bar and asked them to dial for the medical team as someone had just fallen over!
Into the dining room and a superb diner of sirloin steak and good company from our table guests left us ready for a relatively early night. By the time we had turned in, there was a slight amount of movement as the sea swell was brewing nicely.
Friday 27th March
6.00am and it was just breaking daylight, although sunrise was officially an hour away, the ship was rock steady even though the wind was still howling. On the distant horizon was the coast of Victoria, which was OK as we were not scheduled to dock until 08.00. Maureen enquired as to whether I had felt the ship moving in the night, to which I gave a negative reply. It was really rolling about she said and wondered how I had slept through it. We were alongside in a little over an hour later, but it was still too early to get out of the really quite comfortable bed.
We had decided that this morning we would have silver service breakfast as we would be in Melbourne all day and would skip lunch again. we shared a table with four others, one being a dear old lady travelling on her own as her husband had died. She was almost certainly the other side of 80 and although appearing a little frail due to a recent knee operation was completely alert.
She had lived in Africa from 1948 through to 1958 and then in Australia just a few miles from Port Stephens where we had been staying with John & Bev, before returning to Cape Town. She now lives in York, but was able to recall what life was like in Africa. She was the sort of person you could spend all afternoon with over a cup of tea and be captivated by her every word. The other topic of conversation between everyone was the movement of the ship last night. Not sure what the problem was about, I never felt nor heard a thing.
After breakfast it was time to join the huge queue to disembark and join the equally huge queues for the courtesy bus. First mistake of the day was to come out in short sleeves and shorts. The wind was whistling up the Kyber Pass and the temperature was definitely sub 20’s. By the time we reached downtown Melbourne it was 11.00am, so we headed to Bourke St and the small arcades filled with boutique shops and cafes. Time for a cup of coffee and our first muffin of this holiday. we then headed for the Immigration Museum as we had done most of the tourist spots on our last visit. We got in as seniors, which meant it was free of charge and spent a generous one and a half hours scouring the exhibits and reading all about immigration in Australia. Some aspects of Australian immigration were quite an eye opener, particularly when you consider that many of the restrictions were imposed by the British Government until relatively recently, yet look at the mess we’re in today. From the museum we ambled down to the South Bank of the Yarra River and walked past the trendy bars and restaurants under the road bridge at St Kilda Rd and past the college boat houses, before returning to the courtesy bus stop at Federation Square. We were back on board, well back in the queue to get on board, by 3.45, ready for the gang plank to be raised at 4.30, in anticipation of a 5.00pm departure. 5.00pm came and went, but the captain’s announcement confirmed our late departure, due to waiting for paperwork from the refuelling tender alongside and the fact that we were waiting for passengers to arrive. He also confirmed that the weather last night had made it uncomfortable for some passengers and blamed the gusts of 90 knots. In real money thats just a sniff short of 100mph!! No wonder the ship was moving a bit. Perhaps Maureen and the rest of the breakfast table were right after all.
We eventually got away about 30 mins behind schedule and after a quick visit to the duty free shop for a bottle of Bombay Sapphire to go with the tonics we purchased in Melbourne, we seemed perfectly at ease with the world. That is until we came to charge up our Australian phone. None of the charges would fit into the 13 amp sockets over the desk, as they were so close to the desk top. Most chargers and doubly so the Apple charger, stick out past the bottom of the socket. Because these sockets were only just above the surface of the desk, it was impossible to plug any of them in. A visit to the pursers office was only marginally better than a waste of time. They offered to plug our charger and device into a socket in their office and leave it until it charged. With two pads, two phones, a PC and a MiFi, most of which had different chargers it was a pretty silly idea. The alternative was to go to the shop and buy a multi country adaptor, which would enable the chargers to be plugged in at right angles to the wall sockets. US$30 later and a lot of fiddling about, I managed to get something on charge! I cannot believe that I was the first person to enquire about chargers not fitting and to have to spendUS$30 is nothing short of outrageous. There’ll be a letter to HO about this!!
It was casual dress for dining tonight, so a quick shower and change meant it was just about time for dinner.
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