Wednesday 11^th March 2015 – Day at Sea.

Happy Birthday Ian.

A birthday card signed by the Captain arrived today, together with four from our group of friends. They all have a similar theme – seems like they know us quite well!

One of the speakers, Capt. Rigby the airline pilot, showed a video of the actual flight deck during a Ryan Air flight from Birmingham to Dublin. Nesta had her eyes closed several times! He runs a “fear of flying” course and Ian has threatened to buy a place on it for Nesta’s birthday…

At 11am we went to the Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais Q&A session. Unfortunately Ian La Frenais had forgotten to put his watch on an hour (now at GMT+11) and eventually arrived, late and totally embarrassed!

We brunched after this and had a relaxing afternoon before going to a “meet the speakers” session in the Chart Room. We had a nice chat with Dick Clement about his early days, their upcoming projects and his love of football. Even though Ian La Frenais supports Newcastle, Dick Clements supports Chelsea (since the 1960’s he was at pains to point out, and not just since Abramovic).

In the evening there was a one night only tribute band on, called “The Beatles Experience” Thanks Nesta for arranging that! They were excellent and we enjoyed it so much we decided to miss dinner and watch the performance again!

 

Thursday 12^th March 2015 – Sydney.

Had a fantastic day in Sydney. We parked right under the Harbour Bridge in Circular Quay. We bought tickets for the “hop on, hop off” bus (with a 10% discount because of our Darwin trip!) and got off the city explorer bus at central station where we got onto the Bondi bus. Bondi Beach was nowhere near as commercialised as we had feared. We had a paddle (although Nesta didn’t see a large wave so she got a bit wet!)

 It was really attractive and we walked the length of the beach before having a glass of wine in the “Bucket List” bar whilst we watched the world go by. It’s very much a backpacker/surfer sort of place so it was quite easy to differentiate between locals and cruise passengers!

We reluctantly dragged ourselves away and returned to central station on the bus through all of the expensive suburbs with fabulous views over the city and harbour. At the station we got back on a city tour bus and completed that tour. We got off at The Rocks and walked back to the ship to take on more “fluid” and drop off a bag. We then headed out to do the local area on foot.

We walked over to the Opera House and looked at the special “Cunard 175” exhibition of photographs that the Captain had opened at midday and which will be free for the public to view for the next 175 days. We circumnavigated the Opera House and went into the Botanical Gardens, where we watched the poor old Queen Victoria passengers catching tenders back to their ship which was at anchor in the harbour.

We walked back to the ship through the Opera House restaurants and bars but after checking out their prices decided to wait until we were on board for a welcome pint!

No time for dinner tonight as we would miss the “sail away” and firework display as Sydney said goodbye to both Queens. There were lots of people waving us off from the shore and a flotilla of small boats followed us out. The fireworks began when we met up with the Queen Victoria (which was still at anchor, following us out half an hour later) and we enjoyed the whole evening with the rest of the “magnificent seven” as we now are - due to Gary, Jenny and Diane leaving us for a few weeks until they get back on at “Sydney 2 – The sequel” on 25^th March.