Thursday 26^th March 2015 – Day at Sea.

Lots of “newbies” on board – some of whom are only travelling from Sydney to Melbourne –hardly seems worth the effort!

We went to see Dr Ingrid Visser “top and tail” a documentary called “Blackfish” which looks into the subterfuge behind the death of a trainer at Sea World in California by a killer whale. You would never visit Sea World – or any aquarium or “swim with the dolphins” if you watched this documentary. It’s not just the conditions but it’s also the vast differences in lifespan between whales in captivity compared to their natural environment. The bottom line seems to be money (what a surprise). A whale in captivity is worth about 10 million dollars to the aquariums – so they overbreed them and regardless of claims to the contrary they do not look after the animals’ wellbeing.

We were very surprised that Cunard let her show this controversial film and host a Q&A session afterwards – but glad they did!

It was a formal night so we went to the restaurant. Gary, Jenny and Dianne are going to move to the next table – so that’ll be good!

Once again the evening entertainment – Aurelie & Dmitri another two acrobats! - wasn’t up to much (in our opinion) so we gave it a miss.

 

Friday 27^th March 2015 – Melbourne.

What a journey to get here! After passing the Furneaux Group of Islands off the top of Tasmania the wind and seas increased until we had 90 knot gusts of winds. Even this ship listed to port so much that our stateroom door didn’t close automatically. It was a bit disconcerting to see the sea over our balcony from the chairs in our room - when Nesta usually has to sit on two big cushions in order to see it!

Anyway – we finally arrived at Melbourne and the weather calmed down. It is unseasonably cool today and we discovered that it was the funeral of Malcolm Fraser (a former Premier) so half the roads were closed off. The shuttle bus from the ship to the centre was therefore diverted for miles and it took over an hour to get into the city (hooray)

We caught the free tram and did a circuit of the city. It was very busy but luckily managed to find seats next to a local couple who gave us a running commentary of what we were seeing. We got off at the stop nearest to the Melbourne Cricket Ground and walked there. We did the tour of the ground – which lasted an hour and a half and was very interesting (to Ian, anyway!) The World Cup Final is being played here on Sunday (come on New Zealand!) and there were lots of preparations going on. Whilst we were there the New Zealand team actually came out to practise and some of the blokes on the tour tried to “disappear” so they could stay and watch them!

We got some great views from the Members’ Stand - not just of the ground but also of the Rod Laver Arena and the Margaret Court Stadium nearby, where the Australian Open Tennis tournament takes place every January.

Apart from the sports stadia, though, Melbourne gets the accolade of our least favourite Australian city so far – although this was not helped by the fact that the ship was only allowed to have one gangway in operation instead of the usual three - so there were long queues to get back on board.

We went up to the “sail away” party and it was so cold that Vibz (the Caribbean band) all had hoodies on! We did spend half an hour chatting to David Copperfield who seems a really nice guy. We’re looking forward to his full show on Sunday.

Dinesh (our Sommelier on the first leg) had mentioned that there was a “wine dinner” on 30^th March in “Todd English” (the a la carte restaurant). The Executive Chef and The Lane Vineyard’s premier wine expert will concoct a meal with complementary wines (don’t think that means they will be free!) and the meal lasts for two and a half hours…We booked it!

Only Lewanne from our gang was interested in it – so the three of us will have a good evening… their loss!

Again the evening entertainment - Russell Harrison, star of New Zealand TV’s “Bring the Sing” (?) - didn’t do it for us… shame, really - so we had an early night. It wasn’t as lumpy as the night before but the weather still woke us up a couple of times.

 

Saturday 28^th March 2015 – Day at Sea.

The weather has calmed down thankfully and we had a quiet day updating the diary and the blog. We went to Judith Hinchliffe’s lecture about the Australian Bushfires of 2009 but were disappointed to find that it was virtually the same lecture as the one she’d done on the 2004 Tsunami (with different pictures) Perhaps she thought that there had been a complete changeover of passengers in Sydney!

As it is now too cool even to sit out on our sheltered balcony we watched the afternoon film on our TV and ordered ham and cheese Panini’s from room service for lunch.

For a third day running the evening entertainment did not tempt us. Kym Purling, Australia’s favourite and most versatile entertainer is doing a 45 minute slot but the theatre is only half full, so maybe it’s not just us!