As you can see in the pictures Pelican Rest lives up to its reputation, great situation and very relaxing. Sue had some fun “body boarding” with the aid of a board loaned by Adrian Cripps our host and John went off for a boys lunch with Malcolm Hill and the “singing rage”, Larry Page. They had a great time reminiscing about the old days and people they knew. In the evening Adrian and his wife Katie invited us for a very enjoyable supper. Their house is above our apartment with a fabulous terrace and an even more spectacular view. We’ll leave the pictures to tell the story.
In the words of the song, “The Sun will always shine tomorrow!” and so it eventually did. We woke on Sunday morning very depressed to find it still damp and very foggy, we were still in the clouds. But we took the advice of Jack the owner of the B&B and drove west, as soon as we reached a lower altitude the fog cleared and we were able to see some of the magnificent scenery of the Blue Mountains area. We drove to the Jenolan Caves, over 400 million years old
and after taking one of the tours when we came out the sun was shining and all the clouds had gone.
We spent a very happy afternoon touring round and seeing the sights including the famous Three Sisters, a few photos will show how good it is.
Monday came and the weather was beautiful as we navigated our way east along the spectacular Bell’s Line of Road, down to the coast north of Sydney, our destination Avalon and a B&B Called “Pelican’s Rest” which really does live up to its name. Delightful views over the bay, a sun deck with pool and Jacuzzi and it was run by an Englishman, Adrian who made us very welcome. So we are now relaxing and enjoying the unspoiled surfing beaches and the excellent local produce. Tomorrow, John is due to meet up with Malcolm Hill, formerly with EMI and another old colleague from the past, the singing rage, Larry Page who also lives locally. More news of that lunchtime session in our next blog.
We said our fond farewells to David Elizabeth and Alf on Friday morning. Heres a shot of Alf aged 88, looking good.
We had a great time with them on the beautiful beaches south of Melbourne and were surprised to find beach huts.
Our friend Alan Coleman picked us up from Dandenong and we had a day exploring the city finishing up in an authentic French restaurant for dinner. As you can see from the pictures a good time was had by all and Alan booked us into the RAC Club in Melbourne for the night where Sue took advantage of the large swimming pool and spa.
It was very luxurious but next morning we flew back to Sydney to collect a hire car for the next part of our adventure to the Blue Mountains. It was quite what we had expected, as we drove out of Sydney it started to rain and as we drove higher the rain was coupled with dense fog so we could see absolutely nothing of the supposedly wonderful views. We couldn’t even find a cafe open for a cup of tea until we were nearly at our destination, Blackheath. When we did find one it had run out of bread for sandwiches, so we settled for a meat pie and a scone, with “plastic” jam! Not quite what we were expecting. We drove on and as we approached Blackheath out of the murk Sue spotted the “St Mounts Boutique B&B”, our destination. Not sure ‘boutique’ quite describes it, definitely old and rather shabby, probably dating back to 1900 or thereabouts and looked as if it hadn’t been decorated since then! Some contrast to the RAC Club, but it did turn out to have the only decent restaurant in the area. Dinner finished by 8.30 so we went to bed early in the hope that tomorrow might be a better day. We shall see, log on for the next episode as John & Sue explore more of Oz.
Sorry for the lack of pictures today, I’m having roublewith the local server, will try to add them tomorow.
Short due to time pressure. We flew down here on Tuesday morning in the company of 50 or so NSW Fire fighters who were being drafted in to help fight the ongoing forest fires. Virgin Blue held a collection on board the flight, and $750 was collected on our flight alone which Virgin matched so $1500 went to the Red Cross to help the victims. They have been doing this on all flights so a lot of money was raised and we found it very moving, See Photo of some of the firemen.We were met by David and Elizabeth and after a sight seing tour of the area, including a drive round the Australian F1 Grand Prix track we had a very good supper, see photo.The next two days were wonderful as we were driven to lovely beaches where we relaxed and swam in the warm sea. Our thanks to David and Elizabeth for making us so welcome and for driving us around the wonderful, if dry, countryside. Uncle Alf, at 88 was in good form as you can see in the photos. John wants to move here for ever.Tomorrow Friday we are off with another friend Alan Coleman to explore the city and then it’s back northwards to Sydney.
Blog 5 New Zealand, Posted Sydney March 16 We had a lot of activity in New Zealand as we had stops on two consecutive days. Day 1 at Tauranga, a charming small seaside resort and Day 2 at Auckland, largest city in NZ with the highest sky tower in the southern hemisphere. In Tauranga after we had explored the town we headed for a local winery, Mills Reef where we tasted many fine wines and decided to stay for lunch. Sue was most disappointed as they had sold out of New Zealand mussels but cheered up no end when they offered as a compensation two dozen oysters, tempura and natural at their super restaurant. The people here are very nice and we were reminded of the UK 40 years ago, thank god there wasn’t any Tony Blackburn on the radio! We enjoyed Auckland too as although it is a large city it’s very compact and we wandered around, Albert Park was very pretty and from there we went to the Sky Tower where idiots jump off the top in a sort of mad bungy jump as you can see in the pictures and they pay to do it!! John had quite a hard job to even persuade Sue to go up it bu tin the end she loved teh views from the top and was glad we had done it. In the afternoon we caught a ferry from the harbour across to Devonport, somewhat different from its namesake in England, but very charming and old world. We finally had our lunch of mussels but it was at a pub where they took ages to serve us and they weren’t as good as they should have been, too much coconut cream and rather underdone. All to soon our time on the Oriana is coming to an end. It seems no time since we joined, yet on Saturday John gave his 11th and final lecture which was well attended and much appreciated by the audience. Saturday is Valentine day and that night is a very formal evening with full evening dress and a concert by the ships company of the music of Motown. The standard of performance has been excellent and a few days ago they did a tribute to the music of Queen which really went down well. On this trip John has managed to read the biographies of two very different Johns. First John Birt, a very readable account of his time at the BBC in which he justifies everything he did and at no time admits to any self doubt and the other of DJ Johnnie Walker. The latter was much more enjoyable and he did have the honesty to admit he treated me very badly by signing to Radio Radio for the money only 18 months after I had given him a chance to return to the BBC airwaves following his abortive and disastrous time in the US. We got up early on Monday morning to watch the dawn break as we sailed into Sydney Harbour at 6 in the morning as it was well worth doing as it is one of the most impressive sights as the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge come into view. Even though it poured with rain as we disembarked it didn’t dampen our spirits, it’s wonderful to be back here and later the sun shone as we explored Darling Harbour and the fabulous fish market where Sue managed a dozen oysters. More news when we move off to Melbourne where they have had the highest temperatures for a hundred years and many forest fires, we hope it will have cooled by Tuesday when we arrive.
Blog copy 4, Fiji Another day another country. A couple of days ago, February 9th we arrived in Fiji and even at 8 in the morning it was very hot and humid, though we were greeted by the local police band who entertained enthusiastically and turned up again to send us off at teatime. We went ashore with a couple of friends, Sally and Tom, to explore this country which none of us had ever visited before. We were somewhat surprised to find everything intact as we knew from BBC News that they had experienced a near hurricane a few days earlier, but it turned out not to have struck Lautoka where we were moored. We took the free shuttle bus into the nearby town but to be honest it wasn’t much of a place, rather scruffy. The locals were friendly enough all calling out greetings of welcome as our bus passed but most of the businesses were run by Asians and there were quite a few mosques in evidence. Most of the locals are employed working in the sugarcane fields, that’s the principle source of money here. We visited the internet cafe to post our blog and caught the bus back to the ship for a cooling beer, then it was into a local taxi to find the nearest beach. Saweri Beach was the closest, a palm fringed paradise which was also a bit scruffy but it looks pretty and the sea was like a warm bath. No lifeguard on duty and John was worried about sharks. Sue and Sally were quickly offered as bait and as they were not eaten or attacked by any marauding fish John and Tom joined them for a pleasant dip. Soon after this, a local man turned up to ask if we’d like a fresh coconut. Once we gave him the nod he was up the tree like a monkey and tossed a couple down to us. In a moment he produced a giant machete and hacked off the tops so we could enjoy the wonderful milk, then he deftly chopped off the outer husk and showed us how to get at the coconut flesh. It was a great treat and that was our lunch. John managed to paint a little watercolour of the beach and our taxi driver drove us back, rather sunburned to the ship to set sail for New Zealand. Next day the passengers were offered a double dose of John as he had a lecture to do then he and the other lecturer, Guy Caplin had to appear in the ship’s theatre in a chat show with the cruise director, Nigel Travis. No relation to Dave Lee Travis as far as we could see. Any way you can see them on stage in the picture. More news to follow.
A day on land at last as we arrived on Friday at Pago Pago, the capital town of American Samoa and very hot it was too even at 8 am when we moored in the very pretty natural harbour. We decided to do our own thing and explore, so we walked into the little town and the first thing we saw was the carved totem pole/statue, very elaborate as you can see in the picture.
The people here are very friendly and happy despite not having any great income, no need for air conditioning, most houses having no windows to let the cooling breeze flow through. They are also the most religious crowd we have come across, many churches of all kinds of denominations and posters everywhere urging the population to live clean lives, give up drugs, not have sex before marriage, not to beat wives etc.
Sue was more adventurous and decided we should jump on a local bus, despite the fact we had no map of the island no idea where it was going! It had open windows, reggae music playing and the driver wore a sarong. Off we set having agreed a $2 fare with the driver and it proved to be the best thing we could have done. In all we must have gone around 20 miles on a tour of the island. The driver stopped at places he thought we might be interested in and even waited outside a small shop while we bought a cold drink. The other passengers were quite unperturbed by this and all waited patiently while we took photos. In conclusion we enjoyed it so much we stayed on the bus for the return journey, giving the driver $10 for the whole 3 hour trip which gave us a very good oversight of Samoa. We even noticed that most of the locals bury their nearest and dearest in the front garden, next door to the house so they are not forgotten, quite neat really.
Sue said it was one of the best days she had enjoyed on this trip and a couple of photos give you a flavour of the scenery.
It was good to get back on board for a late lunch and cool down after which John had to work as we staged the quiz, “Those Radio Times” in the evening after dinner. This proved very popular as the passengers wrestled with their knowledge of old signature tunes, variety shows and so on, all to win a Oriana bottle of wine and a $5 personal radio which John had picked up in a “bargain” store on shore.
Next stop is Fiji on Monday, where we will try to post this and catch up with emails from those of you suffering the large amount of UK snow. We are actually about to lose a day as we cross the international date line so we go from 12 hours behind GMT to 12 hours in front of it so for us, Sunday 8thof February is the day that does not exist, weird or what!!
Second Report, written as we cross the Equator again February 4 2009
It’s hard to keep track of time when you are at sea for so many days. We are out of satellite coverage from BBC World so we know little of the news except there has been a large amount of snow in London and the south east, ah! Sorry about that.
Our last stop was four days ago, a day at Honolulu, Hawaii where we didn’t have to escort any passenger trips so Susan fulfilled her ambition to go to Waikiki Beach for a swim.
It did not live up to her expectations as it’s surrounded by high rise apartments and hotels and the beach is actually quite narrow and crowed and you have to go out about half a mile to pick up the famous waves, which were not much in evidence. As another passenger put it “I’ve seen better waves in Cornwall”. For John it was also a disappointment as he said “I’d rather be in Marbella!”
So we took a local bus to Diamond Head which is the local viewing point.Once you are dropped by the bus there’s a half mile walk up a steep hill, you can see a good view of the island, and on the way back a man in a stretched limo offered us a ride back to town. In we jumped and you can see Sue in her glory moment, another first.
We rounded of the day with an all American hamburger and a coke before bussing it back to the ship. Not one of the most memorable stops of a life time. As we sailed away into the sunset, the Queen Victoria can be seen in the next dock.
Next we go to Samoa. In the meantime we continue under the tropical sunshine and showers and John continues with his lectures and Sue with her Bridge Classes, she’s becoming a real fanatic. As Samoa is quite small John’s not sure if we can post this there but we will try. February 5 2009.
Off on our travels again on another lecture tour, this time starting in San Francisco on the P&O Oriana and finishing in Sydney. Left London on a Monday morning and had a great flight out on BA, for once they did not lose out luggage and you can see the views as we came in over Canada on the polar route were very spectacular. We had an afternoon in San Francisco as the time difference meant we arrived early afternoon and so we did the tourist thing as neither of us had been there for many years. Rode a trolley bus, looked at Chinatown and ate crabs and clam chowder on Fisherman’s Warf. Next day we set sail late afternoon and for John the real work started as there are 14 sea days and a lecture to be given every day. Luckily the first one went so well they had to move us to a larger venue as there were far more people wishing to attend than 150 seat cinema could accommodate. For the second one on the BBC in WW2 the larger room, seating 350, was also full so it looks as if we are pitching it right for the audience. The sun has failed to shine since we left San Francisco and it’s been rather cool and cloudy to our surprise but no doubt it will get better as we approach Hawaii. We will post this there and bring more news later. In the meantime we continue to over indulge in the very good food on board, John is full of good intentions regarding the gym but there is so little free time! On Hawaii, we are to escort some of the passengers on a tour of the island. Hope we don’t lose any. January 30 2009
boys lunch with Malcolm Hill and the “singing rage”, Larry Page. They had a great time reminiscing about the old days and people they knew. In the evening Adrian and his wife Katie invited us for a very enjoyable supper. Their house is above our apartment with a fabulous terrace and an even more spectacular view. We’ll leave the pictures to tell the story. 
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