Blog 17. Australia. Phillip Island

Day 74

Friday 24 March.  Sunny intervals.  24ºC. The journey to Phillip Island (which, contrary to my last blog, is not in Port Phillip Bay but on the open sea to the east) proved to be surprisingly long.  Instead of taking the very lengthy, circuitous, route around Port Phillip Bay through Melbourne, we took a short cut by using a ferry from Queenscliff across The Rip to Sorrento in the east (see Blog 12).  The ferry was a conventional RoRo, a sort of cut-down version of a UK cross channel ferry; certainly bigger than the Torpoint Ferry, as Port Phillip Bay can be very choppy and the journey takes forty five minutes.  Notwithstanding the short cut, the journey on the eastern side of the bay took about four hours making a total time of six hours from start to finish.  Quite a slog for Derek, but he seemed happy.  We did break the journey up with lunch and a visit to yet another winery for a wine tasting; I am getting quite good at the latter and can appreciate the merits of the clarity, the legs, the nose and the slurping (‘a good bullshitter’ was the phrase that should most frequently have been found in my confidential reports)

Phillip Island covers about twenty square miles (roughly the size of Guernsey) and is joined to the mainland by a bridge, so no more ferries to get there.  Almost all of the towns on the island are named after places on the Isle of Wight (Cowes, Rhyll, Ventnor), which gives it a homely feel.   We are staying at a time-share property in Cowes on a small holiday resort complex, a two-bedroomed terraced house looking onto a small internal courtyard containing a tennis court and swimming pool.  The accommodation is modern and well-appointed, with an open plan living area downstairs and the bedrooms upstairs, each with their own bathroom (joy).  It is certainly an improvement on the place at Halls Gap, though it might be a bit noisy with all the other units attached and close: we will see.  The maintenance of the property is, perhaps, a bit dicey.  There was a shriek and a crash as Jane demolished the lavatory roll holder shortly after we arrived, and the entire hot tap assembly fell apart as I was having a shower later: a tricky problem to solve with hot water pouring out and me without my multi-tool immediately to hand.  Otherwise, though, all right.

We opted out of eating in for the evening, not wishing to start the arrival with a major shopping expedition. Derek and Laura suggested eating at the local RSL (Returned Servicemen’s  League) – the equivalent of the British Legion – which offered good value for money.  I dare say that you can imagine my inner thoughts and it did cross my mind that this was moving from the sublime to the ridiculous after QM2; but that was an uncharitable thought and so we happily complied.  What a surprise! Their RSL was far superior to out British Legion.  It was in a modern, very slick-looking building, as good as a proper restaurant in terms of decor, both internally and externally.  It had a huge bar and dining area about the size of a ballroom, with a good range of food, all reasonably priced.  You ordered at a central counter, and the food was brought later.  Members (i.e. ex servicemen) got a cheaper price, but anyone could use the facilities: you just had to sign in and prove identity.  The only ‘let down’ to this fairly up-market establishment (apart from the raffle over the main broadcast) was the large section of the building set aside for pokies (see Blog 10) – it was like Las Vegas in there, people glued to the machines with glazed expressions. We went in to watch them play, like visitors to a zoo, and some didn’t seem very happy with us watching them; can’t imagine why…perhaps they thought that we brought bad luck.  There was no skill to the games that I could see, it was all (biased) luck.  And you didn’t put coins in the machines, you put in credit cards.  Scary and sad, I thought, and very odd to our eyes.

Well we learnt another expression today.  I was recounting to Laura about a road rage incident that we had seen yesterday, when some woman had shot out of a shop like a banshee and was screaming at a driver who was sounding his horn because of a car blocking his exit (“Go round!  Go round!  Ya want I kick yer car in!? Do yer? Go round it you…”).  
“Ah”, said Laura, “that would be one of the bogans”.  
“The Bogans”, I thought, “are they extra-terrestrials like the Vogons in The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy?  Or does she know the family?”   No. In Australia, a bogan is a person of the lower orders, whose behaviour does not quite come up to the standard expected of general society.  A yob, in other words.  So there you are, another word for the vocabulary.

Day 75

Saturday 26 March. Hot and sunny, 28ºC.  The usual gentle start, to the sound of cockatoos and kookaburras.  Cockatoos (the white parrots with the yellow crests on their heads – save you looking it up), by the way, make good pets and can mimic humans or telephone ring tones and other sounds.  Interestingly, though, their life span is similar to or greater than ours and so aviaries ask you not to take one as a pet unless you are either young, or have made arrangements to look after the bird after you die; quite a few cockatoos have to be cared for in animal sanctuaries because their owners have died.  Depressing thought.

After breakfast we drove in to Cowes town centre to seek out a second-hand bookshop that we had heard of.  Jane, Laura and I love these places; Derek somewhat less so.  Located in two containers (it’s that Mr Maersk again), the bookshop turned out to be veritable treasure trove for bibliophiles and we spent quite some time in there, leaving with a large bagful of books.  The temptation was to dive in to reading immediately, but that would have been a waste in the good weather, so Jane and I set off for a walk in the sunshine.  Our complex proved to be five minutes’ walk from the beach and we removed our shoes and wandered along the foreshore in the surf, in what has become the time-honoured manner.  It was most pleasant.  Eventually, we came to civilisation and we dried our feet to explore some of the town, though I suspect that the main aim was for Jane to have a gelato from a small Italian restaurant that she had spotted on the Esplanade.  The ice cream portions here are very generous, and Jane loves ice cream almost as much as penguins and wombats. 

Cowes proved to be a nice little holiday town, with the main street lined by variegated cypress trees that gave it a colourful shaded appearance.  Like most Australian small towns the street was wide and had the characteristic electric power lines on poles, such as you see in the USA.  There was a reasonable range of shops, but most buildings were restaurants, cafés and bars to support the vibrant tourist industry.  It was all very relaxing and warm as we strolled back to the resort complex for lunch.  

The afternoon had that sleepy tropical feel, so we acquiesced and crashed out for a couple of hours.  I awoke to the screams of children.  For a while I thought I had died and was in purgatory, being subjected to a final test by God while He decided where to put me; but no, it was real children and I was still on Earth.  There were children in the swimming pool thirty metres away, a child in the tennis court four metres away, and toddlers in the children’s playground located right next to the house one metre away.  All were screaming and yelling.  Bless them, I do love to hear their little voices being tested to the full.  I got up so that I could go downstairs and join the others outside, there to revel in so much happiness around me, smiling benignly at all and sundry. Marvellous stuff, Valium.

We had a barbecue using the communal hot plate in the evening, dining on kangaroo meat balls and beef burgers, washed down with Shiraz.  Very Australian.

Day 76

Sunday 26 March. Overcast 21ºC.  Not so nice today so we felt no guilt in tucking in to those new books.  Something has been eating me, and it wasn’t Jane.  I have insect bites on legs and arms, but no idea when I was attacked.  I have come off remarkably lightly in Australia with regard to mosquitoes so far, but it appears that his area must have more than most and they are silent but deadly.  Fortunately I still have that haemorrhoid cream.

As a matter of interest, Phillip Island, like Port Phillip Bay, is named after Admiral Arthur Phillip, who was the first Governor of New South Wales in the late eighteenth century when Australia started as a penal colony, and he founded the city of Sydney.  He appears to have been a very competent Governor, dealing fairly with both the Aborigines and the convicts, before retiring to Bath in 1805.  He died there in 1814, allegedly after falling from his wheelchair from a first floor window (not sure how he managed that).  He is buried in St Nicholas’ Church,  Bathampton and his ghost is said still to haunt Bennett Street in Bath.  Something from home linked to where we are now.

I see that you are putting your clocks forward about now, so summer must be coming; here in Australia we will be putting ours back for winter next week, and we will then be only nine hours ahead of you.  It still feels a long way a away.

The sun finally came out mid afternoon and so we set off for The Nobbies: a coastal rock formation on the western tip of the island, famous for – wait for it – penguins!  The Nobbies proved to be very scenic, a nature reserve that is closed off to humans at night when there is a significant migration of animals.  The Fairy Penguins (PC name, ‘Little Penguins’ – see Blog 15) are only about 8″ – 12″ in height and, each night, come ashore, climb the cliffs, and retire to their burrows at the cliff edge to be with their chicks.  The burrows are like a rabbit burrow, but at the Nobbies, small hutches have also been created in wood to help them along.  We saw the burrows, with penguins in them, as we walked along the boardwalks and we are due to attend one of the events, ‘the March of the Penguins’ later this week.  This is when you can witness the birds coming ashore at sunset, regular as clockwork.

There was a warning sign at the Nobbies concerning the Copperhead Snake, billed as “Phillip Island’s Shy Snake”, a member of an endangered species, highly poisonous, with no specific anti-venom available.  The notice urged us not to disturb the poor dear thing if we saw one, as the snake is shy and very rare.  Stuff that, I thought, I am an endangered species.  I don’t know who writes that snake’s publicity material,  but I must say he has done a good job with the positive spin.

We paused at a winery on the return from the Nobbies and did the Australian Sunday thing. The place was heaving, with a folk singer strumming in the corner and massed tables full of drinkers.  Clearly, these people were doing more than a tasting.  Inevitably, we ended up buying three bottles of wine at $25AUS apiece – an amount we would never spend in the UK; it must be holiday fever.  We bought a cheeky little Sangiovese and a very pleasant Pinot Noir.  I could become quite accomplished and pretentious with this wine tasting, you know, given a bit more practice.

Finally, back to Cowes to stock up on victuals and enjoy the evening sunshine by the gelato shop with an ice cream.  Excited by all those penguins, Jane entered a competition to see just how much chocolate ice cream she could spill down her shorts in the shortest time (I made that up), and then we were back to the happy homeland for supper.

Day 77

Monday 27 March.  Sunny and very windy, 30ºC to overcast 21ºC.  A Category 4 cyclone is marching majestically towards northern Queensland and we in Victoria, thousands of miles to the south, are due to catch the edge of it later today, with strong winds from the north, and heavy rain forecast.  Winds from the north here, of course, are hot and dry.  Another geographical fact that I haven’t mentioned, because it is obvious when you think about it, is that the sun here rises in the east and passes across the northern sky, not the southern sky as it does in the northern hemisphere. This is useful information if you are lost in the Great Australian Desert without a compass, and you want to head south for the coast and safety (tip: don’t aim for the sun).

At 1100 we set off to San Remo, across the bridge on the mainland, to watch the pelicans and sting rays being fed.  It was very hot and windy out there – absolutely lovely I thought – but quite dehydrating.  The feeding display is given by a woman from the local fish and chip shop, using scrap fish, every day at noon, and quite a few people had assemble to watch it.  It was reassuring to note that my nemesis, in the form of five school coaches, had managed to find me despite all my efforts at hide and seek.  The little monkeys.  Pass the pill bottle.

The increasing wind unfortunately churned up the sea and prevented the feeding of the sting rays, though we could still see them as dark shadows in the water.  Apparently the feeding woman usually feeds them by hand, holding the food under the sting ray because that is where its mouth is; she keeps well clear of the tail, however, and legs it rapidly if the fish turns because the sting will put you in hospital, or even kill you, if it hits you.  She did feed the pelicans.  The pelicans came onto the beach to be fed and they put up quite a display. They toss the fish around in their mouths to make sure that they swallow the food head first.  If they were to swallow it another way then the fins and barbs would jam in their throats and not slide down.  Australian pelicans are the biggest in the world and those we saw were bigger than a child and almost as big as the woman feeding them.

After this display we felt duty-bound to have fish and chips, and we ordered flake and chips for four in the restaurant.  When it came, it displayed a neat approach to protecting the environment and saving on waste by not being served on any plates.  Instead, all four fish came in one communal cardboard tray, and four portions of chips in another.  Most novel; we had to just pile in like a medieval banquet.  I broke my plastic fork on the fish, and spent some time looking for the napkins and finger bowls before discovering that there weren’t any.

As we left the restaurant the weather took on a change.  I have never seen such a rapid transformation.  Within five minutes the wind increased and veered to the (cold) south and clouds formed into a sullen grey mass. We headed for the car, pursued by a range of flying objects from twigs to empty drink bottles.  The threatened rain didn’t appear, but it certainly looked like it was going to.

En route back we called in to the Vietnam Veterans Museum.  It was something I wanted to do as a mark of respect, because the returning serviceman in Australia received just as disgusting a reception when they came home as their fellow US veterans.  Even the RSL (see Day 74 above) refused to recognise  them, claiming that Vietnam wasn’t a proper war.  About a quarter of the Australian servicemen fighting in Vietnam were conscripts, and they were chosen by ballot, based on their birthday.  So it was literally the luck of the draw whether they were called up or not.  Before Afghanistan, Vietnam was the longest military conflict ever embarked upon by Australia (1962-1975). Of 60,000 men who served in Vietnam, 521 died and 3,000 were wounded.  It was not until 1987 that Australia officially “welcomed home” the veterans of Vietnam; I saw a film of the ceremony and it was deeply moving.

As I write, it is dull and sullen outside, like a blustery day in autumn.  Thunder is  rumbling and spots of rain are beginning to splatter the windows.  Good to be indoors, on the whole.

Blog 16. Australia. Warrnambool and Port Campbell

Day 70

Monday 20 March. Overcast with showers and sunny intervals.  We are up early for departure from the Ponderosa (as I have taken to calling it) and our course south to the coast.

It was a long, long drive to Warrnambool from Halls Gap: three to four hours on long, mostly straight, mostly empty roads at 100 kph (60 mph).  It was a useful lesson in the size of this country, bearing in mind that we were driving over just a small part of the smallest state in Australia.  It must be pretty dreary driving from, say, Melbourne to Perth at the speed limit of 110 kph (66mph).  Eventually we made it to the coast and to blue sky, parking at the Flagstaff Hill Maritime Village at Warrnambool.  Warrnambool turned out to be a substantially sized town on the Great Australian Bight with a small harbour and a strong maritime heritage.  Hundreds of ships were wrecked in the adjacent bay before the early 20th century, some actually in the harbour, but there is no sign of it now.  The good burghers of the town sensibly built a pier to shelter vessels from the westerly winds, whereupon the harbour duly silted up because of the loss of the scouring effect of the current.  This just goes to show that even when you do your best to do the right thing, it can still not be good enough.  There is no commercial shipping there now, and at least three wrecks are buried under the caravan park located in what was once part of the bay.

The Maritime Museum and Village were not bad.  The museum was very modern and interactive, and mostly concentrated on the many wrecked sailing ships that adorned the nearby seas.  Outside was a themed maritime village in a similar manner to Sovereign Hill, comprising ship’s chandlers, sail loft, rigging shop etc, but it looked a bit more artificial and none of the shops was manned; it all had a rather empty feel.  On the plus side, we had the place virtually to ourselves without the usual marauding school parties, and the sun was shining.  Also, it boosted my morale enormously that I could still read the signal flags hoisted on the flagstaff:  

FOXTROT HOTEL MIKE VICTOR  –  OSCAR PAPA ECHO NOVEMBER 

(I’ll let you work it out) – all those months reading the daily signal hoist outside the Cadet’s Gunroom at Dartmouth not wasted.  I knew it would come in handy one day.
There was the inevitable shop, with the inevitable boomerangs and pirates’ swords, but I resisted them and, instead, bought Jane a nice leather handbag with a kangaroo on it (souvenir of Australia) that turned out to have been made in India (a souvenir of India then).

Our next stop was London Bridge.  Not really a bridge, but a narrow promontory with two natural arches underneath, projecting into the quite stormy, yet turquoise, sea.  Or rather it used to have two arches.  In 1990, with two people on the promontory taking in the view, the landward arch collapsed without warning into the sea, leaving the seaward section as an island.  By pure good fortune, the people were not on the bit that collapsed, but they ended up stranded, and I imagine there was some wailing and rending of cloth.  They had to be rescued by helicopter.  So what we saw of London Bridge was a sort of island with a big arch under it, now called London Arch.  Rather like Marsden Rock in South Shields (before the same thing happened to that).

Finally, we arrived in Port Campbell, farther east along the coast.  It is a small tourist village on a lovely tiny bay, with a nice, compact, sheltered beach.  On a hot summer’s day it would have been delightful, but when we arrived the breeze was coming in, uninterrupted, from Antarctica and that did add a bit of a chill to it all.  There wasn’t a lot there, other than the beach, hotels, motels and bars, and one over-priced supermarket.  Our residence for the night was a motel overlooking the harbour, the sort of place where – believe it or not – I have never stayed before.  The Reception was in a booth at the entrance to the car park and all the rooms, as I’m sure you know in motels, opened out onto the car park.  We had a rather nice room on the first floor.  It was quite large, with plenty of storage space for luggage, a table and chairs, a microwave oven, a kettle, and a toaster.  There was even a jacuzzi in the bathroom, which I thought was quite luxurious, though we were unlikely to use it (the memsahib doesn’t do communal bathing – it is not kulturny).   I don’t know what Laura paid for the motel, but I believe it was quite cheap.  

We all sat on the balcony outside for a pre-supper glass of wine only to discover that we didn’t have a corkscrew.  Now here’s an Australian thing: Derek then goes up to a stranger in the car park and asks if he has a corkscrew to lend him.  ‘No’, says the bloke, ‘but I’m going up to the town and I’ll see if I can get one’.  Back he comes, in due course, with a corkscrew that he has borrowed from a wine shop up the road, with the message to just drop it in when we’ve finished with it.  Derek gave the bloke a glass of wine, and returned the corkscrew through the letterbox of the wine shop later.  A fine example of friendly cooperation.

Finding a suitable venue for supper proved to be a challenge.  The nearest recommended place was a beach bar, which had bare Formica tables, was freezing cold (air conditioning again), was blasting with music, and unwelcoming.  Not a tablecloth in sight.  We walked out when no one acknowledged us after five minutes.  The next place, farther up the road, was at least warm and quiet, though it was still, essentially, a café (still no tablecloth or proper napkins – tut, tut).  We stayed, and I had pasta marinara (good, but the squid a bit tough), while Jane had leatherjacket (a white fish on the bone, not a beetle).  Derek had steak, and Laura had Asian chicken (I think the method of cooking was Asian, not the chicken).  It was a good meal overall, but the service was terrible.  We had to ask for the dessert menu (usually they are thrusting it at you), and when we had decided on our choice, no one came back to take the order despite us flapping our arms like semaphore students.  Crazy: they missed out on $AUS44 worth of food order there, not to mention possible coffees and digestifs.  They were nice enough staff, but fundamentally incompetent.  Of course, we couldn’t withhold the tip, because in Australia you never leave one anyway.  It was interesting to note, by the way, that the menu in this place was in Chinese as well as English, though it was very much Australian cuisine and Australian owned; as mentioned in Blog 11, there is a strong Chinese presence here (I presume tourists) and I imagine the restaurant owner could see a good market in targeting them.  I still think the Chinese are casing the joint as a precursor to moving in permanently.

I had to placate Jane with a Fry’s Turkish Delight from the local store on the way back (she can get quite truculent if deprived of her post-prandial sugar fix), and it came at a very steep price: $AUS3 for a bar, with $AUS5 for a Cadbury’s Fruit & Nut.  She got the Delight, but not the Nut.  Keep ’em wanting that’s what I say.

Day 71

Tuesday 21 March.  Torrential rain, 19ºC.  Second rule of booking holiday accommodation: don’t book a motel.  We were awakened at 0600 by thumps, bangs, loud foreign voices debating the philosophy of Wittgenstein in Serbo-Croat, car doors slamming, idling diesel engines, then the beep-beep-beep of reversing vans.  Apparently a significant section of the Australian manual workforce was going to work, having slept at the motel overnight.  Thoughtfully, they gave us another forty five minutes before coming back and repeating the process in reverse order.  Heaven knows where they had been – to buy a copy of The Times perhaps?  Jane was not at all happy, not having slept too well during the night anyway (all that Turkish Delight that wasn’t full of eastern promise, I expect).  Derek said afterwards that the early-morning noise was characteristic of motels: you come, you sleep, you go (to which I would add, ‘…and you sod the rest of them’).  It was a shame, because the room was comfortable and had a nice view.  So that was Port Campbell: never really got to see it properly or to appreciate its good points.

We set off off back to Base Camp, aka Laura and Derek’s holiday home at Lorne, at 0900 in the teaming rain.  I have alluded earlier to Laura’s very efficient, but very casual, style of navigation and now I can confirm an uncanny likeness to her erstwhile pen pal and former Beatle’s Fan Club Member, Jane, in terms of stubbornness in the face of plain facts.  
“Turn left out of the drive”, she says, “the road just continues round”.  
“It’s a car park, Laura”, says Derek. 
“No, no, it’s a continuous road”, says Laura.  
“OK”, says Derek, “but I still think it’s a carpark”.  
We traverse what is obviously a car park (painted car bays, parked vehicles, flower beds, people diving for cover), drive the wrong way through a one-way entrance, then back round the car park again, completing two full circles.  “Well it says on the map that it’s a road”, says Laura, still not believing it as we start to pull 2-g on the third pass.  We did get out eventually, but she was convinced to the end that there was another way through.  I’m glad that Jane and I aren’t the only ones.

Like yesterday, the journey seemed to take forever.  Driving alternately through tree-lined roads in the rain or along the cliff top in the fog and rain, reminded me of, first, the Lake District on a wet Spring Bank Holiday (minus wallabies), and then Devon South Hams on an August Bank Holiday.  I thought we would skip the sightseeing because of the weather, but, no, Laura was determined that we should see more spectacular cliffs despite the rain, so we donned waterproofs and went like lambs.   One such stop was Loch Ard Gorge, so called because of the clipper LOCH ARD, which was wrecked there in 1878 with the loss of all hands except for an apprentice and a female passenger.  It was a terrifying place, with sheer sandstone cliffs, an unforgiving sea, and two towering pillars at the mouth of a small cove with virtually no beach.  I did not like the look of it at all.  The apprentice apparently rescued the girl and managed to drag her to a nearby cave before climbing the cliffs and raising the alarm.  How he managed to do this is an absolute mystery as, not only are the cliffs near vertical, but the area above is virtually devoid of habitation. Curiously, it didn’t put the apprentice off the sea, for he went on to become a Master Mariner, dying in Southampton at the early age of 49.

Brunch was taken at 1100 in the seaside hamlet of Apollo Bay, with the rain coming down in sheets.  We found a little restaurant cum fish bar where they were just about to stop serving breakfast, but we managed to place our orders in time.  The food filled a little hole after two hours on the road, and we set off replete for the final phase of the journey eastward (another two hours).  An interesting feature of the Australian breakfast is the oft inclusion of spinach with the eggs and bacon.  I suppose it salves the conscience to have one ‘five a day’ as you order that heart-stopping greasy cholesterol-laden food.  I have loved spinach ever since I first saw Popeye: I harbour a secret belief that it will make me strong and win over Olive Oil in the cardigan, sitting next to me.  Can’t say it has worked often so far, but we can all dream.

The Great Ocean Road was pretty treacherous with all the rain, compounded by rockfalls from the high landward side, which left some quite large rocks (almost boulders) on the road.  It certainly was a long drive, but we finally hove into Lorne at 1300.  I suppose, if you think about it, we had driven the equivalent of a journey from Bristol to Leeds on two successive days in terms of time, though thankfully without the M6 and M42 traffic.  

I mentioned earlier (Blog 11) that in Australia it only rains briefly and heavily, then the sun comes out.  I was misinformed.  Today it has rained heavily, and non-stop since dawn.  I write this at Lorne, looking out of the picture window at the deluge and the sea, the latter invisible in the mist.  Never mind, we are dry and warm(ish) and the gardens need the water.  We are off back to Geelong tomorrow for a few days of well-earned rest before embarking on the final stages of Laura’s planned itinerary.

Day 72

Wednesday 22 March.  19ºC overcast with showers.  What a night!  It continued to tip it down in torrents overnight and our bedtime was further enlivened by a scuttling noise in the walls of our bedroom.  We woke Laura because we thought it might be a rat and she should know of a problem, but Laura said it was probably a possum that had worked its way into the structure of the house to get out of the rain; it is a common occurrence, apparently.  Notwithstanding our refugee, we slept well for the first time in days, but we did hear the possum working its way around the bedroom behind the panelling throughout the night, front to back, floor to ceiling.  Jane was frightened to get up to go to the lavatory in case she stepped on something furry and wet that had somehow managed to make its way through the wainscotting.  Only in Australia.

After a brief breakfast we packed and set off for the return to Headquarters in Geelong, there to regroup, take stock, do the laundry, and prepare for another phase of travel. It was an uneventful drive along the Great Ocean Road, and only took about ninety minutes.  At last, we were back at Laura and Derek’s place, which we had left nearly three weeks ago.  The weather was still overcast and cool, but at least the rain had stopped.

We spent the rest of the day emptying suitcases and washing laundry.  It’s nice to go travelling, but it’s oh so nice to come home.  But we are off again on Friday: the moss will not be gathering on these rolling stones.

I see that the temperatures at home are still quite low, despite BST coming into force on Saturday night.  I thought I saw a temperature of 15 degrees there a few days ago, but today Tring (for example) is 4 degrees.  What’s going on?  Get that place warmed up before we get back, do you hear?  I want to step off that ship in Southampton in blazing sunshine, with Jane sans cardigan and wearing a wide-brimmed sun hat as she looks upward, like Kate Winslet in Titanic.

Laura and Derek’s son-in-law Arthur, who is a professional chef, cooked dinner for us this evening and Derek provided a bottle of his vintage 20%-proof wine to complement the meal.  This was followed by a large glass of port from Derek’s port barrel (they take their wine very seriously here and Derek has a real cellar under the house, stocked neatly with wine like a French chateau).  As you can imagine, a convivial time was had by all and we all staggered to bed exhausted, but burbling nicely.

Day 73

Thursday 23 March.  Sunny intervals, 22ºC.  Pleasant in the sunshine. Rig of the day, negative cardigans.  

Oh my poor head.  I think it was the port that did it.  I woke at 0230 to find Jane already in the land of the conscious (not having been anywhere else) and the blare of a television set: Arthur had fallen asleep next door with the television still on.  I couldn’t wake him, nor prise the controls out of his hand, so Jane and I lay there in bed, heads thumping, listening to muffled rubbish from next door.  Australian TV is even worse than ours.  On the plus side, we did hear the news from UK of the terrorist attack on Parliament and managed to establish reassuring contact with our son locked down in his office in Westminster.  Eventually, two paracetamol cleared our heads and sent us off into a fitful sleep punctuated by garbled dialogue (“Ya gotta help me, Marshall..I’m hurt bad…”.  “Ya should a thought a that when ya killed my pa….”).  Arthur must have woken up at about 0630, because the noise finally stopped.  We slept on until 0930 and woke somewhat jaded.

Jane had her hair washed and cut at the local boutique (no end of excitement here) and I met her for a walk into downtown Geelong.  There was much head scratching when we stated the intention to walk into town: 
“You want to walk?” 
“Yes”. 
“Walk into town from here?” 
“Yes, what’s the best route?” 
“Hmmm.  Tricky.  Wonder how you’ll get across the bypass and the railway line”.  
Clearly, no-one had ever done this before.  As in America, there is not a lot of urban walking here and the infrastructure isn’t geared up for it.  Anyway, we were all for it.  We set off, passing through three industrial estates – no footpath, only dust, stepping over disused tyres, old boilers and scrap iron – under a railway line and over a busy bypass, past the prophylactic emporium, and finally made it to the coast.  There, we found a coastal path that took us into central Geelong.  

It was a pleasant walk, though with a brisk headwind and sadly disfigured extensively by graffiti, and we finally made it into town after ninety minutes of adventure.

As mentioned in an earlier blog, Geelong has a very pleasant water frontage: modern, arty, lots of cafés and restaurants, and we soon settled in for lunch at The Sailor’s Rest, previously a haven for mariners seeking comfortable shore accommodation and now a pleasant eatery.  We explored the city afterwards and found it to be very pleasant, with wide streets, fine buildings and lovely trees, but not very busy.  I am not sure where everyone was: at work or college I presume.

The return journey was the reverse of the outward adventure, but a bit more of a slog because we were full of swordfish, chips and beer (in my case).  We finally made it back at 1745, completely shattered.  I estimate we had covered ten miles in total.

Off to Phillip Island tomorrow for a week, an island in Port Phillip Bay near Melbourne where Laura has another time share flat.  More on that next blog.

Blog15. Australia. Halls Gap

Day 67

Friday 17 March and it is freezing.  Well, 15 degrees at any rate.  There is a bitter southerly wind blowing, though the sun is shining in a bright blue sky.  We are off to the Australian Grampians today, to stay at a place called Halls Gap, which sounds even colder than where we are now.

It was a longish drive, about three hours, and we saw more of Victoria on the way.  It slightly reminded me of rural France, with the road lined with trees, scrubby vegetation, and almost empty roads.  We passed through several towns, almost frontier-like in appearance, each with wooden lodge-type bungalows, raised above the ground and with a veranda, some quite well set up, others rather ramshackle such that you expect to see an Australian hillbilly sitting on a rocking chair on the front porch.  Apparently you can buy a house; that is to say, buy the house, and have it transported to where you want it after disconnecting mains service; they cut it in half so that it will fit onto a low loader, and then you are away.  

Water is a very scarce commodity here, and Victoria is permanently on water restrictions.  Several homesteads and houses that we have seen for sale are not on mains water, and some of those do not even have an artesian well.  All the houses have a large tank to collect rainwater, and some have it tanked in by road tanker – quite expensive.  All farms have large ponds, known as ‘dams’, for the cattle and these are filled during the rainy season that starts in June.  Apparently Australia has a reputation for being the driest continent in the world.

We stopped at one town, Carrisbrooke I think, to use the facilities and they were well signposted off the main road in a large park, very clean and well appointed.  In the middle of the grassy area was a sort of gazebo – almost like a shrine –  in which was sited a communal barbecue, or rather (see earlier) a communal hot plate, which doesn’t sound quite so impressive.  This would appear to be quite common in this area: parks with public barbecues for you to use, and the latter clean and well set-up too.

We stopped at Ararat, a slightly larger town than most, and picnicked in the park.  It was still pretty cold, with the wind cutting like a knife across the park lake, but Jane managed to find a sheltered spot in a little herb garden and we snuggled in there for our sandwiches.  Pity we hadn’t thought to bring a flask of hot tea!

Finally, we reached Halls Gap: a small but very popular tourist hamlet in the lee of the majestic Grampians, with camp sites, caravan parks and budget hotels spread out along the main road.  It vaguely reminded me of the Lake District – Ambleside perhaps.  Not much there, just enough to service the tourists and the holiday accommodation, but quite a nice place.  Our dwelling for the weekend is a basic wooden lodge on a busy caravan site, set four feet above the ground, somewhat rustic and careworn, but clean and adequate for a couple of days.  Sadly there is only one lavatory, and that without a lock on the door, so we will have to start practising whistling Dixie.

To make up for our somewhat plebeian accommodation, the evening produced a mob of kangaroos and their joeys bouncing across in front of the lodge, nibbling at the grass and generally just naturally grazing.  There must have been about a dozen of them.  To add to that, Derek put some scraps of meat from the barbecue on the newel post of the veranda, and we were treated to the kookaburras swooping down and eating them; it was almost like feeding from our hands.  The kookaburras commonly eat snakes and we watched as they beat the strips of meat on the railing to ‘kill’ them before eating.  Jane got some good snaps and a video of it all just before one of them defecated on her head; she always did want thicker hair.

Chatting on the veranda with a little snifter, Derek revealed that he had killed a large spider at the last place in Kyneton when we were there.  He hadn’t mentioned it at the time lest we become disturbed.  Of course it might not have been poisonous, he said (in Australia? Yeh, right).

The barbecued steak in the evening was excellent, and we washed it down with a bottle of chilled Mateus Rosé, acquired purely for sentimental reasons.  Actually, it wasn’t too bad – I don’t think I have drunk it for nigh on forty years.  Just to prove we hadn’t totally lost our taste for wine, we followed up with a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon.  Derek and I wanted the girls to dress up in mini skirts to complement the nostalgia, but we received very short thrift on that suggestion; I think that ship sailed a long time ago, taking most of my hair with it, and leaving behind a considerable amount of ballast.

Day 68

Saturday 18 March. Well, I think we have reached the point where the temperature in Australia going down has met the temperature in the UK going up. It was perishing this morning and Mrs Shacklepin was hanging on to me in bed like a drowning man grips a lifebuoy. Flannelette nightdresses were mentioned (wistfully, as hers is still in QM2). I’m not sure what was in that rosé last night, but the two of us ended up visiting the lavatory every three hours during the night for a tinkle, scuttling along through the freezing living room in the pitch black, and holding hands like Hansel and Gretel.

You couldn’t quite see your breath this morning, but I swear it was a close thing.  Paradoxically, the forecast for today is bright sunshine and 29ºC.  For now, it is long trousers and a sweater.  Definitely the Australian autumn, I think.  Asking around, it is apparent that my conception of a baking hot Australia is a myth.  In the winter here in Victoria, temperatures of minus 7ºC are not uncommon, and even Ballarat on the lowland can get as low as -5ºC.  Conversely, the visitor’s book here reports temperatures of 40ºC in December.  Quite a contrast.

After breakfast we headed for the local Aboriginal Culture Centre to learn a bit about the natives.  Australia has done a sharp about turn on treatment of the Aborigines, and there is now a concerted effort to honour the traditional tribes and cultures, almost to the point of flagellation.  Anyone with Aboriginal blood (as low as 10%) gets all manner of allowances and discounts, no matter what their income; the Aboriginal flag must be flown alongside the Australian flag; sacred sites, whether genuine or not, have to be honoured.  Australia has an enormous and irrational guilty conscience.  I came away from the Centre with a better appreciation of how badly the Aborigines were treated by the ‘European invaders’, but also wondering how things could have been done better. What would they have had us do, other than not have settled in Australia at all in the first place?  Not killing them arbitrarily and not stealing their lands, certainly; treating them properly after they had fought in both world wars, definitely; but there appears to be an objection by the Aborigines to having been educated and civilised, and at attempts by the settlers to integrate them into European society.  I found this odd: would they rather have been left to live in the bush eating beetles and living in tribes?  Overall I found the Cultural Centre to be unsettling.  I felt a sense of guilt as a European, but also felt that applying reparations 200 years after an event, and indulging in two separate cultures, was not the best way to go forward as a united nation.  As it is, the Aborigine has an unfortunate reputation for being high on petrol, unemployed and unemployable, and living with a permanent grudge.  Of course, that is not true for all of them.

Now here is an interesting fact: not all boomerangs return (just thought I would throw this in – the fact, not the boomerang).  I don’t just mean the ones that you threw incorrectly and they landed in the oggin, I mean that the majority of them (there are several types) are really just throwing clubs that the Aborigines use to kill prey.  The returning boomerangs are only used for sport and competition and are recognisable by having an angle of almost ninety degrees between the wings.  By the way, the correct way to throw them is overhand, with the flat surface against the palm, in the vertical plane; you don’t try to skim them like you would a flat stone.  I read all this in a thin pamphlet in the Culture Centre (price $AUS8) before I put it back on the shelf.  You could buy (returning) boomerangs too, but they were upwards of $AUS50 and I wasn’t convinced of the value of adding one to my portfolio. So there you are: you learned it here first.

You might think that political correctness would never touch bluff-speaking Australia but, alas, you would be wrong.  The disease has seeped down into the Southern Hemisphere and is every bit as rampant as at home, if not worse.  Two examples are that the Black Boy Bush has been renamed the Grass Tree, and the Fairy Penguin has been renamed the Little Penguin. 

After the Cultural Centre we were off to Bellfield Lake, a large man-made reservoir in the shadow of the mountains, again a bit like the Lake District though with the difference that the heat was intense and radiating off the rocks like a furnace.  We took a good walk – about 1½ km – across the dam and back and just revelled in the warmth and overwhelming scenery, which was beautiful.

We returned to the happy homestead for lunch and to divest ourselves of trousers, sweaters and socks: it was 32ºC, baking hot, and lovely: such a difference from this morning.  Then off to an olive oil farm and then a winery for a little dégustation, buying a bottle of very pleasant Riesling.  Decent, dry, Riesling tends to be hard to come by in UK, so getting a good one here is a bonus.  By this time it was 1700 and we felt we deserved a rest after all that olive oil and wine, so back we went to the Ponderosa to settle for the day on the veranda, watching the hopeful kookaburras and  the cockatoos, and looking out for kangaroos.  We were rewarded by the sight of a kangaroos with a joey in its pouch coming up to the front porch to feed.  Absolutely lovely and enchanting, and we took some good photographs.  There were about forty of them on the adjacent recreation ground too, munching away and fertilising the grass.  Good old Skippy.

Day 69

Sunday 19 March.  We were woken at 0700 by the sound of raucous shouting, long vehicles reversing and bouncing balls.  Rule 1 of choosing holiday accommodation: don’t pick a place next to a recreation ground.  The local junior football team was practising at a God-forsaken time on a Sunday morning.  At least it wasn’t quite as cold as yesterday, and it warmed up nicely to 28ºC later, but the rude awakening would put the memsahib in a grumpy mood for the rest of the day unless I trod carefully.

We decided to hit a couple of high viewpoints in the Grampian Mountains first thing: Reid’s Lookout and the adjacent Balconies, 1 km walk away.  The views were spectacular and I managed to get some good photographs once my knees had stopped knocking together.  There was almost a blue tinge to the distant atmosphere, as if it were smoke, but apparently it is caused by the gas or vapour emitted by the eucalyptus trees (hence, similarly, the Blue Mountains in New South Wales).  We were just in time at the Lookout as, shortly after we arrived, a complete bus load of tourists arrived and we beat a hasty path to the Balconies, about 1 km away along a dusty path; we reasoned that most of them would not venture to use their legs in the intense heat (and we were right).

What is it about some people?  There was an enormous woman at the Lookout, about my age but with long grey hair and wearing a bell tent and huge pantaloons that would provide cover for three troops of Boy Scouts.  She was holding what appeared to be a conference call with some friend or relative on her mobile phone, bellowing away so that we could hear both her and the friend quite clearly.  She was totally oblivious to the rest of the general public who were hoping to soak up the tranquility and scenery.  I hoped a high wind would get up under her pantaloons and blow her away off the mountain like Mary Poppins but, alas, no such luck.

Mackenzie Falls was the next visit: a spectacular waterfall cascading 570m over the rocks, and we felt duty-bound to climb all the way to the bottom, just to say that we had done it (Derek stayed at the top).  Several signs prohibited swimming but, sure as eggs are eggs, there were some people who apparent couldn’t read.  More disturbingly, there was one moron swimming in the pool above the falls.  Clearly he was practising for the Darwin Award.  The climb up was a bit of a challenge, but OK if you did it in stages.  Boys beat the girls by an easy twenty minutes, even if you disregard the fact that Derek had remained at the top.  On the way up I passed one bloke going down with a cigarette in his mouth – I always wondered how those bush fires got started.

After all this touristy stuff and the not inconsiderable exercise undertaken by descending, then ascending, 570m we felt the need for a nice sensible cup of tea and a chocolate biscuit.  So we returned to the Ponderosa through the torturous mountain roads and relaxed for the rest of the day.  The chocolate biscuits had fused into a molten mess long ago, but we munched away on three at a time anyway, with fingers and mouths covered in chocolate like refugees from a kindergarten.

Tomorrow we are off to Port Campbell, due south of here on the coast at the eastern edge of the Great Australian Bight.  The Bight is noted for the many shipwrecks that have occurred there over the centuries and we hope to visit a good Maritime Museum at Warrnambool on the way.  Signing off at 28ºC and clear blue skies – hope you have a good Sunday.

Blog 14. Australia. Kyneton and Daylesford

BLOG 14

Day 64

Tuesday 14 March. Bright sunshine, 30ºC.  A gentle start today (we are sleeping in a lot, partly because the curtains in the room are so thick that you can’t tell it’s daylight), then a drive into Kyneton to stroll around and explore the town.

It is hard to describe Kyneton – I did make a start in the last blog.  It is a workmanlike town, not hugely pretty, but with the odd nice Victorian building here and there and a reasonable range of shops.  It is clearly a market town for the surrounding farms and homesteads.  In some ways it is a bit like Melbury in terms of being unpretentious, but unlike home it has four or five restaurants of modest cuisine and the same number of coffee bars.  All the shops have verandas, so that as you walk along the pavement you are always in the shade.  The roads, as mentioned earlier, are four lanes wide so there is no congestion caused by parked cars, and all the major junctions are controlled by traffic lights mounted high above he road, like in America.  Here, the pedestrian crossings don’t warble or sing, like in Adelaide and Sydney (Blog 10), they click; so as you walk along past them there is this slow tick, like a clock, that turns into a clack-clack-clack-clack when it is safe to cross.  There are two medium-sized supermarkets, one of which is Woolworths: a name still going strong here, but here it is only a food store like Tesco.

All of the shop assistants here are very helpful.  I think I have mentioned this before, but I reiterate because it is becoming commonplace.  I went into a chemist for some corn plasters (as you do) and was immediately approached with an offer of help and advice.  They seem genuinely nice people.  If it sounds like I am having a love affair with the Australian people then there is a tiny element of that, but I am not blind to their faults, or rather, the way they differ from us in a slightly negative way.  They can be quite boorish at wine tastings, where they will think nothing of pushing in front of you at the counter when you are in the middle of the tasting.  Also, when you are in a car, they will never let you out of a junction: you have to push your way out, like in London.  Their sartorial presentation is also somewhat lacking, with nary a shoe, a cravat, a tie or even a pair of trousers in sight; but that is more a  custom or way of life rather than a fault.  Those are the only things I have found off-putting so far, however.

Having said that about Australian drivers, paradoxically they are very courteous to pedestrians.  If you are crossing a side street at a junction, say, and they are turning in from the main road, they will always stop for you and wave you across.  I asked about the Australian approach to driving lessons and it is far more stringent than ours.  Drivers can start to learn at sixteen and they have to pass the preliminary theory test before they go on the road, just like us.  Thereafter, there is the practical test as in UK, but after they pass they have to drive on a red ‘P’ probationary plate for a year, followed a green ‘P’ probationary plate for a further two years.  During that three-year probationary period they cannot drive a car above a certain engine size and there is an absolutely zero tolerance of any alcohol in the blood – even if it has come from, say, cough medicine or a sherry trifle.  Of course, they still have their boy racers with the bubbling exhausts:  usually they are driving a ute (note the vernacular, which now comes naturally).

We whiled away the late afternoon just reading in the shade outside, wallowing like hippopotami in the heat.  You find the Australians indoors with the air conditioning blasting away; we Brits are the only ones who still find it a novelty.  We have been very careful to cover up or ‘slip, slop, slap’, as they say, with the Factor 50 however, and I don’t think we are going brown.  I have had too many friends suffering from skin cancer to indulge in proper sunbathing these days, yet I saw a lot of it on the ship: people bright red lying out for another dose.  And not all were Brits.  It was horrifying.  How times change from those days when it was commonplace in the summer to peel off sunburnt skin.

Day 65

Wednesday 15 March and we were off to the small local town of Daylesford.  It is 25ºC, sunny intervals and windy, so still very pleasant.  Daylesford was a quaint sort of a place, perhaps about the size of Hungerford, and our first port of call was – you guessed it – the Botanic Gardens, located right on the summit of a steep hill.  These were very pleasant, but small and we soon whipped round and were ready for the next serial.  A visit to the nearby lake followed.  This area was like the Cotswold Water Park in terms of rentable properties around the lake, but much smaller (there was only one lake) and with some rather irritating flies.  The town is a spa town like Bath, and prices are hiked accordingly, but it looked to be a nice place to stay for a holiday: quite up market and well presented yet, paradoxically, with a disproportionate amount of graffiti.  Such a shame, and rather puzzling: why not clean it off?

The intention was to have lunch in the Convent Gallery, a converted building on the hill with origins and purpose that will be obvious.  Indeed, it was a very pleasant building that had been cleverly converted into an art gallery and café and we looked forward to the lunch.  As we sat down my nemesis, in the form of one baby and three small children, followed us in.  I don’t know how they do this.  There must be some sort of international bush telegraph that reports wherever I go. I didn’t comment on the arrival, but Jane was looking daggers at me lest I even think about drawing breath.  To compound this happy interlude, we were further joined by eight members of the Australian Women’s Shot-Put Team and the combined noise of all assembled in a hollow room with hard walls was a delight to experience.  Even Laura was moved to comment on the absence of tranquility.  After a reasonable, though expensive, lunch we thought we would ‘do’ the gallery to prove that we were cultured artistic people.  I sidled in, followed by the rest, pursued by a harassed woman calling out, “Excuse me madam, the entry fee is…”
She didn’t get any further because we were offski.  Culture is all very well, but we don’t pay for it.  

We drifted round the town, which has the reputation for being a popular place to live or stay for the Friends of Dorothy, and we took in a few shops, as you do.  There was a poster in one shop window advertising the ‘Chillout Festival 2017’ and adding, ‘There’s No Place like Daylesford, 20 Years of Queer Country Pride’ and ‘Poof Duff Presents Chillout Festival Official After Party’.  There’s nothing like the Australians for being right up front with something and proud of it; good for them I say.  There was a very good second-hand bookshop that we could have spent hours in (books are very expensive in Australia – typically $32AUS [about £20] for a paperback), but Derek was waiting in the car, patiently as ever, and we felt we ought to head back.  You can only pack so much excitement into one day.

Day 66

Thursday 16 March. Sunny intervals, showers, 23ºC.  A totally idle day unless you count doing the washing and ironing and generally preparing to move on.  This sounds awful, of course, but we are relaxing and relishing in the ability to just sit and read a book for as long as we want.  There is a lot to be said for that.

Just as a matter of interest I looked up the criteria for retiring in Australia (only curious, you don’t get rid of us that easily).  You can get a temporary retirement visa that lasts for four years, then renewable every two, subject to your health being OK.  Alternatively you can apply for a permanent retirement visa provided you can prove you have assets of $AUS 500,000 plus $AUS 250,000 for every dependant (to live in large urban conurbations – less to live rurally).  On top of this, the UK old age state pension payable in Australia does not get the annual increases, and you have to have health insurance.  So, all in all, retiring here is a non starter.  Besides, I know our son is looking forward to looking after us as we grow older, perhaps keeping us in a granny flat in the garden.

An interesting thing that came up in conversation was about cats.  We haven’t seen any since coming to Australia.  This is not because the Koreans have eaten them all, but because there is a curfew on them: all cats and dogs have to be microchipped and no cats are allowed out between dusk and dawn.  Dogs are also not allowed out off the lead except in designated areas, such as a dog beach. Anyone finding cats in the curfew period can request a special cage to catch them and the local council then identifies the cats and fines the owners several hundred dollars.  The purpose of the curfew is to protect the wildlife. 

One thing we did do today was cancel our booking at Raffles in Singapore in favour of a Premier Inn.  A bit sublime to the ridiculous, but it will save us about twelve hundred Singapore Dollars and Raffles was a bit of an extravagance that was conceived in Shiraz; it would have been lovely, but we were only spending two nights there and – besides – we could still go there for dinner if we wished.  We have downloaded our E-tickets for QM2, so the writing is on the wall for the return journey; our joining time is 1530 on 8 April, which could be a bit awkward, and clearly we are no longer Princess Grill Rich People.  Never mind, we are QM2 savvy now, and the return will still be excellent.

Off to a place called Halls Gap in the Grampians tomorrow, still in Victoria but yet another different viewpoint of Australia.

Blog 13. Australia. Ballarat

Day 59

Thursday 9 March and we are off to the former gold mining town of Ballarat, about two hours’ drive away.  We are staying at Sovereign Hill, a suburb of Ballarat and site of one of the old diggings, now converted into a theme township.  It was a fairly straightforward drive there, on long, very straight roads in increasing heat.  The temperature finally reached 30ºC when we arrived.

Sovereign Hill proved to be very impressive: a bit like a cross between Beamish in Co Durham, and Dodge City.  It is sited around the original workings and there are working shops, workshops, a saloon and a hotel.  Redcoats march through the streets, and ladies of the night have rows with preachers in the street as part of a playlet.  You can pan for gold in the stream if you feel so inclined, or ride in the stagecoach.  We had an Australian pie in the bakery (pies are big in the culinary department in Australia), and Jane had a Cornish pastie (I ask you: all this way and she asks for a pastie!).  There were some good exhibits and artisan manufactured items, particularly in the sheet metalwork shop (actually made on the spot, not in China) that were good value.  Then we repaired to the saloon where Derek and I had a pint of White Rabbit Ale, ice cold and most refreshing.

We stayed overnight at the adjacent hotel and it was very comfortable indeed, as well as being blessedly air-conditioned.  The hotel utilised a lot of the old mining town buildings, and we were in the the Governor’s Residence.  I was relieved that we weren’t in the barracks, sleeping four to a bunk room.

The evening proved to be excellent.  We dined in the restaurant of the United States Hotel, an ancient building with murals of the South Seas around the walls, then down to the theatre for an introductory video.  We then walked in the dark to the diggings where the way of life was explained to us: different areas – tents, mines, shops – would light up and ghostly voices would come from all directions, holding conversations, laughing or enacting vocally various operations.  It was as if the people were still there in spirit.  A long road train then turned up and we piled onboard to be taken to a different part of the town and another old theatre.  Here, an entire wall opened up to reveal a full size diorama that continued the story in the same way, this time explaining the circumstances that led to a mutiny and riot (the Eureka Stockade, if you want to Google it).  There were shouts and explosions and rain and fire, all very well done.  

The Eureka Stockade riot erupted because the government had imposed a ‘licence to dig’ in order to pay for extra police and law enforcement; this was necessary because the population had increased from a just few hundred, to hundreds of thousands.  Enforcement was not policed very sensitively and there were corrupt officials taking backhanders.  On top of this the government had to reinforce the police with the army.  Eventually the miners rebelled, built a stockade, hoisted a flag, burnt their licences and declared a sort of independent republic.  Obviously the government could never tolerate that and the army stormed the stockade, resulting in about twenty two deaths.  All was not in vain, because a better system of taxing was introduced after that.  I sensed a present-day republican slant to the story as they kept referring to ‘British soldiers’, a term that I found slightly odd given the time when it all happened (1854): surely everyone was British then.  There was also a tone of censure against the authorities and the army (those mutineers subsequently brought to trial were all acquitted), yet they were put in an impossible situation given the degree of lawlessness.

Finally we were transported back into the town, where we disembarked and walked back to the hotel.  All in all a very informative and entertaining evening.  And I didn’t mention the two large noisy school parties once.

Day 60

Friday 10 March, hazy sunshine and 31ºC.  Breakfast in the hotel was a self-service buffet.  The cooked breakfast was in little frying pans about four inches in diameter, comprising a small naked-looking sausage about two inches long, a tomato, and either a fried or poached egg; very novel.  You used a long platter to put it on, adding beans, mushrooms, bacon or spinach as you wished.  It tasted fine, but I have never had it served that way before.

After breakfast we visited the Gold Museum nearby, and this explained the process of gold mining as well as the history of the diggings and Ballarat.  The town originally was around the diggings, but it soon became apparent that a proper city would have to be built away from the many holes in the ground to house the many hotels, support services, and Stock Exchange that a mining town needs.  So the main part of Ballarat was built to one side, with considerable vision: long straight streets, six lanes wide in a grid system.  It was a very informative museum and I thought the visit worthwhile.  Yep, the school parties were there too.

We visited the city centre because Jane is a fan of the Australian ‘Dr Blake’ TV series, which is filmed there.  We didn’t recognise any of the scenes, and we didn’t meet Dr Blake, but Ballarat came across as a nice, open, airy town with some lovely architecture in the Victorian mould, many buildings having the (by now familiar) ground and first floor ornate verandas like New Orleans.

On to the Ballarat Animal Park, which was much superior to the small sanctuary that we visited early in our visit to Geelong.  In this park, the kangaroos were loose in the public areas and we just walked among them.  They would take food from your hand quite happily, and we have several shots of Jane making a new friend in this way. We wandered round and saw a Tasmanian Devil, a cassowary, lots of koalas, more wombats, alligators, and a vicious looking salt-water crocodile.  Jane particularly liked one of the alpacas until it tried to eat her Breton top (pity it wasn’t that blinking cardigan).  One kangaroo took a liking to me and stood right up to me, putting its hands on mine, and nuzzling my face (I’ve been out with worse), but it’s claws were quite sharp and I had to back away (if these blogs cease, it means I have died from septicaemia caused by kangaroo claws).  After all this excitement we dived into the cafeteria for a drink and I foolishly ordered a milk shake.  What is it with Australian milk shakes? It wasn’t quite as bad as the Bondi Beach effort, but it was a close thing.  I like my milk shakes thick and freezing, so that sucking the straw is like trying to draw a suction on the starboard sullage tank. Maybe I had better stick to McDonald’s in future.

So, onward to Kyneton, staying in a time-share resort in the bush (I don’t mean bush as in rhododendrons, I mean The Bush, the bundu).  We are staying in a sort of lodge in a forest, a bit like Centre Parcs in a way, though – it being Australia – it is all quite scrubby with very little greenery but lots of gum trees.  The lodge is clean and very comfortable, brick-built, single-storeyed, with two en-suite bedrooms and the usual facilities.  Tomorrow we will explore Kyneton and its environs, taking in the odd winery I dare say.  Kyneton, by the way, is in Victoria and sort of ‘up and to the left’ from Melbourne; I think Laura picked it because she wanted to show us other parts of the state, she has a time-share contract, and the property was available.

Day 61

Saturday 11 March.  Overcast with sunny intervals, 27ºC.  A gentle start today before driving in to Kyneton to look at some local markets.  Jane’s ability to spend ages looking at vegetables and budget clothing never ceases to amaze me.  The markets were a jolly affair – all the Australians seem to be that way – but the farmers’ produce was quite expensive (e.g. $AUS8 – about £6 – for a jar of peanut butter) so we just looked, smiled, then drove on to the supermarket for our victuals.  Kyneton is a small market town, nothing fancy but not shabby either.  Some of the residential pavements are just compressed gravel, but the main streets are properly paved.  Like everywhere else (it appears), the roads are very wide: typically six lanes, which makes traffic flow past parked cars easy.

A curious fact of this town, and indeed Ballarat yesterday, is that some of the street gutters are not like ours: instead of a short step-off onto the road like in the UK, the pavement just slopes sharply down at its edge into a shallow ditch or quite deep gutter, with a similar dip down from the road.  I imagine it is in order to cope with the heavy rain that you can get here. It can catch you unawares if you are unfamiliar with it, like us.

After this ‘victualling run-ashore’ we returned to the lodge for lunch and simply loafed all afternoon, reading and exploring the resort site, which has a lake and swimming pool among its amenities.  The trees are all gum trees of various sorts, all shedding their bark in the characteristic way.  You can see why the danger of bush fires is high: it all looks like a tinder box.  In the fire season (i.e. now) fires and barbecues are banned.  However, to overcome this, every three cottages has a shared gas barbecue in a covered area; the barbecue itself has an enclosed flame and so what you basically have is a very hot, stainless steel, square shallow ‘dish’, with a hole in the middle for drainage, that forms a hotplate.  After use, you are expected to scrape and rinse the hotplate clean for the next person.  The barbecues – or hotplates, as they really are –  are cleaned every day as well.  It is all very clean and well set-up.  Derek told me that the only drawback is if you try to griddle an egg, it tends to slide down the hole in the middle before it cooks.

There are some lovely birds here, as mentioned earlier.  The most fascinating bird song is that of the magpie lark.  The bird looks like a magpie, but its song is highly tuneful, a sort of a cross between The Magic Flute and The Clangers.  Absolutely lovely to hear.  I will try to get a recording that I can pass on.

Day 62

Sunday 12 March. Sunny intervals, 25ºC.  We are still at Kyneton, but heading for a couple of wineries today.  It would appear that visiting wineries is the standard occupation for Australians on a Sunday, just as we might go to the pub.  I think they go to the pub as well, of course.  However, many Australians seem genuinely interested in the wine tasting experience (as opposed to getting sloshed on free wine), and certainly Derek and Laura are far more knowledgeable on the subject than I am (mind you, that wouldn’t be hard: I just like what I like).

We found a small winery nearby, the Paramoor.  It was only 3½ acres on a small homestead run by a husband and wife team, and the tasting was inside a lovely old barn, very comfortable, with armchairs and a pleasant sitting area.  We enjoyed the wines, though I notice that, at these tastings, the wine is invariably quite expensive by UK supermarket standards.  You don’t get plonk.  The wines started at $AUS20 (about £12) a bottle and went up from there.  The hostess was a lovely lady and we enjoyed a very comfortable chat as well as the tasting.  In the end we bought six bottles and moved on to the next watering hole.

Hanging Rock Winery is located near – well – Hanging Rock, a location famous for a book called ‘Picnic at Hanging Rock’ in which some schoolgirls mysteriously disappear at Hanging Rock in the early 1900s.  It was just a novel, but the story has become legend in Australian literature such that many people believe the story to be true.  Anyway, this winery was a more commercial concern and there were several other parties already there, being served from a large counter by a harassed looking server.  We particularly liked the Sauvignon Blanc and Riesling at this tasting, though Laura and Derek are ‘red’ people, so we bought a selection, then we ate sandwiches on a bench outside in the hot sunshine.  Most pleasant.

I have learned yet another Australian term, which I pass on for your edification: yute.  I came across this in conversation and I thought at first that it was a type of tent like the yurt that Mongols live in.  But no, it soon became apparent that it was some form of transport; a vehicle.  Finally, I had to ask Laura.  A yute, or ute, is a Utility Vehicle: a pickup truck.  A new Utility Vehicle is a beaut ute.  So there you go.

As it was the day of rest, we decided to return to base and implement that policy.  I must say, I had a very good snooze and I think I may just have caught up on that sleep that I lost when HMS CAROUSEL had condenseritis in ’80. 

Day 63

Monday 13 March.  Mainly sunny, 28ºC.  Today is a public holiday and we are off to Ballarat, where there is a Begonia Festival being held in the Botanic Gardens.  Jane loves these things, of course, because anything with the words ‘botanic’ or ‘flowers’  (or, indeed, ‘penguins’) sends her off in raptures.  It all passes over my head, I’m afraid, but if the memsahib is happy then so am I.

By the way, Jane has received the culture results of her urine test from Adelaide, and there was no infection in her urinary tract after all.  So we still don’t know what it was that made her ill, though antibiotics seem to have fixed it, whatever it was.  

It was a fairly long trek to Ballarat – about 1½  hours – but Derek undertook it stoically, even when it became apparent that a lot more people than Jane like flowers and begonias.  The place was heaving.  Still, the entire event was free so that must be worth something.  The begonia display was restricted to just one hot house, which was packed with people taking photographs, meeting friends, and generally indulging in long conversations in large groups, thus blocking the way.  There wasn’t a lot of looking at the begonias.  We shuffled through, me muttering, and Jane reprimanding me for moaning, until suddenly we were out again.  That was it.  We did make an attempt to view the rest of the Botanic Gardens, but really it was virtually impossible so – to my relief – we gave it up as a bad job and went for a stroll round the large lake nearby instead.

The city centre for lunch seemed a good idea, so we strolled back to the car and set off on a circuitous route intended to take us to a cheap café for which Laura and some money-off vouchers.  This took us through several industrial estates, two U-turns, and three passes through central Ballarat.  I must say I was impressed with Derek’s phlegm throughout Laura’s laid-back navigation; I would have been spitting blood after the first U-turn.  In the end, I used my iPhone to find the target café, but when we arrived it was shut.  Laura was keen to try a second restaurant for which she had a voucher, but Derek had had enough by this time and we stopped at the first restaurant we could find, no discussion.  This proved to be a good find.  It was a small family Italian establishment that did a standard lunch and drink for $AUS16 and we had an excellent meal.  Jane, of course, had to finish with the ice cream so, what with begonias and ice cream, she was a very happy little girl.  One curious thing we discovered is that it is common in Australian to charge a surcharge on public holidays, so each meal cost an extra $AUS2.  Best not mention that in UK lest restaurateurs get ideas.  On the plus side, you do not tip here, so that saves quite a bit.

You may have noticed that I do not mention the weather quite so much now.  This is partly because Jane has come to accept the situation, and partly because it has stabilised.  We had a pre-conceived idea of Australian weather, thinking that it would be permanently sunny and very hot.  This is not the case at this time of year (their autumn) and, in Victoria in particular, it is quite temperate.  Most days it starts off cloudy but warm (low 20s), but then the sun breaks through and it reaches 25-28ºC.  This is ‘English summer hot’ but not usually oppressive.  It is very comfortable, and definitely shorts weather. The evenings can be quite cool however, and there are few occasions when we can sit out.

I think I will send this off now, following my policy of sending you a little and often.  I reckon it is 0715 on Monday morning in UK as I write, so you will have something to read with your boiled eggs and soldiers and Coopers Oxford Marmalade as the rain lashes the windows. 

Blog 12. Australia. Queenscliff and Lorne

Day 53

Friday 3 March. Sunny intervals, 24ºC, cool breeze.  Today was a somewhat lazy day, with a late start after a very long sleep.  After lunch we visited Geelong Library, an amazing modern building on five levels with clear views to the north and set in a very pleasant park.  The park is used as a focal point at Christmas, apparently, when everyone gathers round for carols by candlelight –  all in a 30 degree heat.  I cannot get used to the concept of Christmas in the heat, though Jane says it is no big deal: in the Caribbean, when she was a girl, they produced the full roast dinner with trimmings and sat around the Christmas tree, despite the heat.

Apropos absolutely nothing, by the way, I finally found the time to Google ‘Friends of Bill W’ and ‘Friends of Dorothy LGBT’ (Blog 8) since no-one came up with the answer (yes, it was a genuine question and no, I really didn’t know – I couldn’t access the Internet when we were onboard). Well! You learn something every day.

After the library, we hit the Art Gallery with a special exhibition of works by female abstract artists.  Some of the abstract stuff was – as ever – an acquired taste, but other pieces were actually quite appealing.  I preferred the traditional stuff, however.  Jane, Laura and I took a long walk along the (local) Barwon River, which was lovely, and fortunately we did not encounter any snakes, despite the warning notices.  A barbecue with some excellent wine completed the day.  Off to the air show tomorrow.

Day 54

Saturday 4 March.  Sunny and warm, 27ºC.  Let it be recorded in the log that today was the day that Jane stated it was too hot.

Up early to go to the Australian International Air Show, held at nearby Avalon.  Laura and Derek had obtained some complimentary tickets, which saved quite a bit of money.  We drove to the town of Lara and parked the car at the station in order to take advantage of the shuttle bus to and from the show.  I must say, it was extremely well organised.  Marshals guided us into the carpark, from the car to the ticket office, and from the ticket office onto the bus.  More marshals held up the traffic so that the buses had priority on the road system all the way to Avalon.  It was all very slick.  The air show was, of course, very good.  I liked the Constellation best, because I don’t think I’ve seen one for sixty years, and that was a Dinky toy.  What a beautiful aircraft: sleek, quiet and elegant.  Apparently its introduction was revolutionary at the time because it cut the flight time from Australia to London to four days, as opposed to seven days by flying boat.  Four days! I wonder if the passengers disembarked and stayed in a hotel overnight at the break points.

The air show was unusual in that Avalon remained a commercial airport throughout, and priority went to those flights; so between demonstrations and aerobatics, a Jetstar A320 would land or take off in the normal manner.  It seemed rather surreal in a way, like children stopping playing when the grown ups come in, and resuming play when they are gone.

We meandered around and looked at the aircraft, as you do, and ignoring the aviators posing in their overalls and badges and Foster Grants; but the main highlights were the aerobatics by military and civilian aircraft and we soon found a good spot on the grass where we pitched our rug, swatted the flies, and watched the show.  The only regret was that the UK was not represented at the show, though other nations were; a Typhoon would have been a good addition  and advertisement, but I suppose it was too far to come.  It was hot to start with and it soon grew hotter.  We managed about five hours altogether before it was agreed that we should move on before we were overdone. The return journey was as slick as the journey there, and we were soon back home in air conditioned bliss, sipping ice-cold cider.  Altogether a most satisfying day, not least because Mrs Shacklepin, at last, found the weather too hot.  Just wait until she gets in the Red Sea.

Day 55

Sunday 5 March. 24ºC. Sunny intervals. We are off to a winery or two for a little tasting, then to Queenscliff Fort for some history.

We set off mid morning to explore the peninsular that includes Geelong and forms the left (western) arm of Port Phillip Bay (about 50 miles north to south), with a narrow entrance, that is home to Geelong (west of bay) and Melbourne (north of bay).  We stopped at one winery (Jack Rabbit) and restaurant with an excellent view of the bay from the south, and tried a few wines.  They operated on the principle of paying a fee for the tasting, which was then discounted accordingly on any wine bought, and we thought that was better as there was then no moral pressure to buy anything.  The Blanc de Blanc was quite pleasant, but the rest were quite mediocre, yet priced at $AUS 30 a bottle (about £18).  We thought that the young man serving was a bit cheeky, when he said, “If you let me finish…” when Jane asked which wine was next.   Also, he spilled some red wine on the glass, which transferred itself to Jane’s skirt.  This was very  poor. So we moved on.

The next winery, Ballerine Estate, was much better, and I think we got extra measures when we told the bloke that Jack Rabbit had been poor.   Jane washed her skirt in the lavatory, so that it looked like she had wet herself (a fact that she did not appreciate when I told her).  These wines were much nicer and even I could tell that the quality had improved.  We bought a half case for Laura and Derek, and left happy.  I may add, by the way, that I spat out all the wines after these tastings so that I could appreciate each new one, stay sober, and advise Jane of her sartorial dampness.

On then to the town of Queenscliff.  Queenscliff stands on a long narrow promontory that forms the western point of the narrow mouth of Port Phillip Bay I mentioned earlier.  On the map it looks a bit like Spurn Head, at the mouth of the Humber, in England.  The entrance to the bay is called The Rip: an encouraging name to any mariner, yet the bar that all ships heading for Melbourne or Geelong have to cross.  Even on a calm day, there is white water across The Rip, and it is common for there to be a one metre height difference between the open sea (the Bass Strait) and the bay, rather like a waterfall.  Not an area to be taken lightly, methinks. 

Queenscliff was delightful.  It was small, but comprised many large Victorian houses with first floor verandas, like you see in New Orleans, which were originally hotels but are now either hotels or B&Bs.  We stopped for fish and chips at a fish bar and ate Gummy Shark (me) or Butter Fish (Jane), both of which were delicious. We were served by Pocahontas, and Shaggy from ‘Scooby-Doo’ with the beard and weird hair or, that is to say, two people who looked like them: the girl wore a headband and large ribbon that looked like a feather, and the boy had the wispy beard, wild hair and facial features of Shaggy.  I wanted to take a picture, playing the Pommie tourist card, but didn’t really think it was right in the end.    

At 1500 we went for a guided tour of Queenscliff Fort, a Victorian fort, still used by the Australian Army, which was built in about 1880 to guard Melbourne.  It was suddenly realised, at that time, that the state of Victoria had acquired a great deal of gold and wealth (Australian Gold Rush) and that there was no defence whatsoever against a foreign power coming in and taking it, or – for that matter – coming in and settling.  Hence, the very substantial fort, a little like the forts built to protect Portsmouth from the French only this one was concerned primarily with other powers, including the Russians.  The fort was active until 1946, it was then used as a Staff College, then as the Army Manning Agency until a few years ago, and is now used to house all armed forces personnel records.  Photo ID was needed to get in and the guided tour was excellent, taking us around gun emplacements, underground magazines, the Keep, and an interesting museum.  

The most interesting exhibit was the disappearing gun: an 8″ gun mounted on a hydro-pneumatic mounting that allowed the gun to rise over the embrasure in order to fire, then drop behind it in order to be loaded out of sight.  In the early 1980s the Australians restored the gun to working order and it was decided that it should be fired to celebrate Australia Day, or something similar.  Now you imagine trying to do that in UK: there would be 1,001 reasons why this could not be done, starting with Health and Safety.  But in Australia, they just went ahead.   Well, they fired it, all right, and the blast took out every window in the Staff College behind it, and several in the main town nearby.  There was one heck of a stink.  It seems that they had omitted to notice that, when the fort was originally built, there was a blast wall behind the gun to prevent such a problem – it had been removed in the intervening years.  I thought this was hilarious, a credit to Australian ‘can do’ spirit, and a win against bureaucracy.   I wouldn’t have wanted to be the engineer who certified a 100 year old gun as safe to fire, however.

There was a bit of a kerfuffle when it was discovered that I had lost my glasses, which had been hooked on the front of my shirt while I wore the ‘Joe Cool’ Ray Bans, and we scoured the car, the carpark and the local park before we found them with Pocahontas and Shaggy: someone had handed them in in the fish bar.  Phew! That would have cost a good £500 to replace.  I was given a lecture on looking after precious things by my most precious thing, I meekly accepted it (tactfully not mentioning her similar experience in Fremantle), and we moved on.

Afterwards we took a walk along Queenscliff Pier in bright, hot, sunshine yet stiff breeze, viewed the lifeboat station, then returned to the car.  I was surprised to read, on a nearby plaque, that lifeboats (like the RNLI) are no longer used because modern technology means “helicopters are more effective for sea rescue”.  Really?  Not always, surely? What about when the weather is so bad a helicopter cannot be used?  I must find out if that statement is policy for all of Australia, or just that area.

Back at the ranch we relaxed outside with an Indian takeaway, a glass of Shiraz, and a 30-year old port.  An odd mixture, I know, but somehow it all fitted together well.  The port, in particular, slipped down a treat; I usually avoid the drink because it gives me a terrible head the next day, but in this case I thought I would make an exception.  

Day 56

Monday 6 March.  No hangover. Mainly clear skies, 25ºC, cool breeze.  We are off to Lorne, where Laura and Derek have a seaside chalet, for a few days.  Lorne is south west of Geelong on the Southern Ocean and is a small coastal town dedicated almost entirely to tourism.  It is a popular weekend escape for the people of Melbourne (about two hours’ drive away) and the real estate is priced accordingly (prices from $AUS 1M).  On the way there we drove down the Great Ocean Road through familiarly named townships such as Torquay, where we stopped for enormous ice creams.  For the first time in Australia, I have found a road that twists and turns just like in England as it follows the coast south and west (the clue is in the road name).  The road was built by the unemployed after WW1 and cuts through the cliffs in several places.  It cannot have been an easy job.  The beach at Lorne is magnificent: long, with a beautiful turquoise sea, and fine cliffs; it rather reminded me of Bamburgh, though it was considerably warmer despite the cool southerly wind. 

Laura and Derek’s chalet is a large lodge of wooden construction, built on the side of a steep hill and overlooking the sea.  They bought it thirty years ago when land was relatively cheap; the land alone is probably worth millions now.  There are elevated balconies on all sides, and the building has huge picture windows so that you can sit outside wherever the weather suits you.  They rent it out when they are not using it, and it will sleep eight comfortably and ten at a push.  Inside is a large cathedral-like space with a vaulted ceiling, panelled in pine; a small kitchen; a utility room; and two bathrooms.  There is a billiard table for those so inclined, and a large storage space in the garage below.  All in all it is a perfect location and very comfortable in a basic, rustic kind of way.  The local birds are cockatoos, kookaburras, gang-gangs, galahs, honey eaters and crimson rosellas – all very exotic and quite noisy, but delightful; it is a bit like living in an aviary.  We settled in rapidly and just relaxed for the afternoon, gazing out at the ever changing seascape.

I have finally put my mind to writing a complaint to Cunard about the way they abandoned us in Adelaide.  Heaven knows if it will do any good, but at least I will have made my point and – if successful – I may save some other couple from a similar fate.  Watch this space.

Australia is entirely metric, like mainland Europe.  Distances are measured in kilometres, speeds in kilometres an hour, weights in kilograms, temperatures in Celsius and volumes in litres.  Driving, however, is on the left as reported earlier.  I haven’t quite worked out all the spelling yet: most is in English, but some words – for some unfathomable reason – are spelt in American English.  They also use the word ‘cheque’ (or is it ‘check’?) when we would say ‘bill’.  Overall, the whole country is a pleasant mixture of American and British, with the bias towards American.  There is nothing wrong with that; it is just another one of those curious things about how a relative fledgling of a country has evolved.

Day 57

Tuesday 7 March and we awoke to the roaring of the waves on the seashore and the cries of various parrots.  The weather is mixed today, with a stiff breeze from the east, sunny intervals, and a temperature of 21ºC.  It is rather like a cool English summer: quite temperate, but bearable with a sweater and long trousers.

We are off on a longer trek today, to Cape Otway lighthouse about 90 minutes’ journey from Lorne, to the south west.  The lighthouse is the oldest still standing in Australia, and Cape Otway is the first point of land for vessels approaching Tasmania and Melbourne.  The trip was along the torturous Great Ocean Road, a journey exacerbated by the driver ahead of us, who clearly was more used to the straight roads of New South Wales than the twisting road we were on.  Every bend necessitated a braking manoeuvre, and was taken at 10 miles an hour.  We could not get past because the road was ‘no overtaking’, and he refused to pull in to any of the many passing places put there to allow faster traffic to progress.  Clearly, it was his one ambition in life to lead a procession, and he was revelling in having achieved it.

Cape Otway and the area surrounding it is officially rain forest, and very woody it was too.  It certainly wasn’t tropical rain forest as the wind was blowing a hefty Force 5.  Some parts of the forest had clearly been the victim of a bush fire, which is very common – and very dangerous – in the area; however other parts looked like a mythical petrified forest, sometimes quite extensive.  Derek said it was caused by the koalas, which eat the eucalyptus leaves to such an extent that it deprives the tree of life.  Apparently it is quite a problem, and there is much debate as to whether the animals should be culled to preserve the trees and, indeed, themselves.  Interesting fact, by the way, koalas, which are not bears but marsupials, will only eat five particular species of eucalyptus leaves, not all of them. Picky little creatures.  The koalas take a long time to digest their food, and sleep accordingly most of the day curled up in a furry ball, high in the trees.

Bush fires are particularly dangerous because of the speed with which they move and the heat that they generate.  Derek, who has helped to put a few out in his time, says that if one is coming you should not linger, but evacuate the house quickly.  Burning embers can jump over a kilometre, so fire breaks are not much help.  Some people think they can just dive into their swimming pool, but those who have tried it get boiled alive and their bodies come out like lobsters. Similarly, you cannot hide in the cellar because the heat travels a considerable distance into the earth.  He had a friend whose house had been burned down by a bush fire, and the spare tractor engine in what had once been the barn, was just a heap of molten metal.  Mild steel melts at roughly 1,500ºC, so that will give you an idea of the temperatures experienced; apparently the eucalyptus burns particularly hot because of the oils within.

The Cape and lighthouse were in a wild and very exposed place, as – I suppose – most lighthouses are.  It was disconcerting to see a chalked notice outside the entrance saying, “The sun is out and so are the snakes.  Please keep to the paths and avoid the long grassy areas.  If you see one, do not approach, they are DANGEROUS and DEADLY”.  You don’t get that at Portland Bill.

There was an obsolete signalling station at the Cape too, and there were once sufficient children there to justify using one building as a small school (the children from the fecund lighthouse keepers who, presumably, had not much else to do after they had polished their lamps).  We took the usual trip up the lighthouse and looked around, hanging on to hats and spectacles, and listened to an interesting chat by one of the guides.  The lighthouse was once visible at 30 miles, but it is no longer in use now that GPS is used extensively.  However, it has been replaced by a small modern beacon, about six feet high, sited in front of the lighthouse with a range of 15 miles.  I found this puzzling.  Why abandon a perfectly good light and structure, with a greater range, for a new replica with half the range.  What is the financial case for that?

On the way back from Cape Otway, we stopped to take a walk through the rain forest and this was amazing.  It was like Kew Gardens raised to the power four.  Beautifully green tree ferns abounded, and huge tall trees such as mountain ash or eucalyptus thrust high into the sky, arrow straight.  There was very little light and it was surprisingly cool in there.  Incidentally, the eucalyptus tree is prolific in Australia and, apparently, there are over six hundred varieties in the continent. They are otherwise known as gum trees and one genus of that is – yes – the coolibah tree.  So there you are, we have sat under the shade of a coolibah tree.  Now to find a billabong.

It was another slightly tedious drive back along the coast road to Lorne, through some quite peculiar meteorological conditions: a very sullen nimbus cloud formation on one side, that looked as if a major downpour was imminent, yet dull sunshine and turquoise sea on the other.  I commented on this and Jane suggested I remove my sunglasses, dear.  Suddenly the world was bright and cheerful, and I heard an exasperated sigh from the back seat.  Where would I be without her?

Day 58

Wednesday 8 March is a much warmer day in contrast to yesterday: clear dark blue skies, a light breeze, and temperatures in the mid twenties.

We spent our time in the environs of Lorne today, taking the views from Teddy’s Lookout high on a bluff overlooking one of the river estuaries, then moving on to Erskine Falls, about five miles inland.  This waterfall is set well in the middle of the rainforest and drops about 220m: quite spectacular, though there was not a huge amount of water at this time of year.  The climb down to the bottom was worth it for the views; the climb up a healthy pastime, good for the heart.  Afterwards we returned to Lorne and took a stroll along the pier in the bright sunshine and took in the view.  We noticed a number of children in some kind of uniform fishing from the end and, when we asked, were told that sea angling was a school activity so they were in school time.  It strikes me that Australia is a good place to grow up.  Of course, the skateboarders never do.

One of the things that I have noticed is that most of the houses here have galvanised steel roofs, sometimes corrugated.  I don’t mean those rusty tin roofs that you get on the top of the bike sheds, but proper, thickly galvanised or painted roofs.  You rarely see a tiled or slated roof.  It is just one of those curious things.  It must be quite noisy when it rains, I imagine.

After a brief lunch we walked down to the beach and paddled in the sea as we walked along the foreshore to the town.  Jane actually stayed in and enjoyed it, and said she would have swum in it if she had her costume.  Amazing! The Bass Strait has joined the short list of approved oceans.  The stroll through the surf was lovely, though I got my shorts wet by being too adventurous. Afterwards we took a coffee in a beach café before strolling back to the house.  It has turned out to be the perfect day, not too hot and not too breezy; rather like a hot summers’ day in England.

Tomorrow we are off to the former gold mining city of Ballarat to stay at a theme village in the suburb of Sovereign Hill, where the gold diggings once were.  There is a tour, and a sound and light show in the evening telling one about the history, so it should be good.  I am going to send this off now as I have access to WiFi and it will give you something to read over the weekend. Forecast is very hot tomorrow: 30ºC.

Blog 11. Australia. Sydney

Day 48

Sunday 26 February. Sydney, Australia. 24ºC, mainly sunny.  We awoke to a grey, murky day but we resolved to put on a happy face (and a fleece) for the day and set off in search of breakfast.  The day outside proved to be better than the view from our top floor (tinted) window and it was actually quite warm enough to walk around in a short sleeved shirt and shorts without discomfort.  We had a good healthy breakfast in a small Chinese café up the road, then set off on yet another shopping expedition.  In order to keep weight down on the aircraft, we had deliberately left many cosmetics and creams behind, and these would now have to be purchased locally.  Also, someone omitted to pack spare shoes, so I have to buy a pair, along with another pair of chinos. Damn – I have revealed who it was.

Now here’s a funny thing about Australia.  A man cannot buy a pair of trousers of short or long length.  He can only buy Regular length.  If you are linearly challenged like me, this is a big problem. I am 34″ waist and 30″ inside leg, but the nearest size I can get is 34″ waist and 32″ inside leg; I would have to wear stilts to get away with that.  I first noticed this phenomenon in Adelaide, it occurred again in Geelong and here it is again in Sydney.  Even top, expensive, shops do not provide the range of sizes.  I asked ‘why’, today, and was told that short people just buy Regular, then have the trousers taken up.  That would never do.  The memsahib, bless her, has a horror of needle and thread and I am disinclined to dig out my old housewife from somewhere in my naval trunk in the garage so that I can do it.  Besides, why buy a new thing and then have to alter it?  Heaven knows what tall men do.  This is bizarre.

Sydney is huge.  I mean huge with skyscrapers.  I imagine New York is the same.  The buildings soar far, far into the sky – much taller than buildings in London.  Yet, unlike those in Adelaide, the streets are relatively narrow, about three or four lanes wide in total.  This combination makes for dark canyons where little sun penetrates.  Jane thinks this place is better than London, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say that; I would set it almost on par with London, however, when you take into account the whole harbour and setting (see later).

We dropped the shopping and our fleeces back at the hotel and set off to explore.  We were quite close to the harbour, according to the map, but there was some debate as to which direction to walk in: I favoured downhill (as water flows); Jane favoured uphill.  The problem was solved when I pointed down the road to where the immense structure of the Sydney Harbour Bridge cut across the skyline.  I win. 

The harbour area is nothing short of fantastic.  At Circular Quay it is busy and bustling, with dozens of ferries of all kinds churning out and in, and private boats pottering to and fro, all to the backdrop of Sydney Harbour Bridge and Sydney Opera House. Some ferries are catamarans, but others are conventional looking ships, but with bows, bridge and rudder at the front as well as at the the back, so it is hard to tell which way they are going.  Most unusual.  All of the ferries travel very fast indeed, with little concern for wash or speed limits (if any). 

Right in the middle of all this activity stood QUEEN ELIZABETH (QE) (the ship, not the monarch).  She was quite impressive but, of course, not as impressive as QM2 – well, I would say that wouldn’t I.  Actually, QM2 had been in the day before at the same time, and much publicity had been made of the two Cunarders being together, but QM2 is too big to fit into the usual cruise ship berth and so had to be berthed around the corner, elsewhere (this is why we were berthed on so many container ship jetties on the way south).

We had a good look at QE, then walked round to the harbour bridge to cross over to the other side,  to the delightfully named Kirribilly.  You can actually cross over the bridge on the top walk, i.e. over the curve, but we passed on that (besides, it was $AUS150 each); just walking over, next to the road was free and spectacular enough.  The bridge was completed in 1932 and designed and built in Middlesbrough. I always thought it was modelled on the Tyne Bridge, but apparently it was based on the Hell Gate Bridge in New York.  Sadly, the pedestrian footpath was enclosed in high fencing to prevent suicides, and there were security guards posted at frequent intervals for the same reason, but you could still see out and take pictures.  It took a fair while to cross, but offered spectacular views of Sydney Harbour.  

We had a paella lunch in the sunshine at Kirribilly, then walked back across the bridge to the Opera House to explore that area and the (inevitable) Botanic Gardens.  We had always thought that Sydney Opera House was large and white, but actually, it is cream coloured and slightly smaller than we had envisaged, though no less impressive.  We hung around to watch QE sail at 1800, then set off to find somewhere for a light supper.

If you hadn’t already gathered, the predicted thunderstorms never happened and the whole day turned out to be baking hot, which was a pleasant surprise.  By 1900, however, we had been walking for about eight hours and we were getting quite tired.  Jane wanted to stop at a little café to have a cup of tea and a bun to accompany her medication, but by this time, on a Sunday, the only places open were restaurants and bars serving an evening meal and we weren’t that hungry.  We walked and walked looking for the ideal place, but, in the end, we had to buy some cereal bars in a convenience store and take them back to the room.  What a day.

Day 49

Monday 27 February, and we are still in Sydney.  The day dawned with a 60% chance of rain but, yet again, we had blue skies and a lovely day at 24ºC.  After a fruit salad breakfast at our little Chinese café, we embarked in a little more shopping, but soon we gave up on shoes and chinos and decided to move over to the next bay, Darling Harbour, to see what that offered.  This was another delight, with many eateries, a marina, and a Daring Class destroyer, HMAS VAMPIRE (what more can you ask?).  The latter was part of the Maritime Museum, which I resolved to visit soon.  We took lunch overlooking the harbour, then strolled in the afternoon heat.  This is a lovely place.

We decided to take a harbour cruise, which would visit about ten places and take about two hours.  Sydney Harbour is enormous and comprises sixty six bays altogether, all suburban – hence, all those ferries that support commuter traffic.  We passed the RAN Naval Base at Garden Island, where there were several frigates, all of the USN pattern, and one aircraft carrier, HMAS CANBERRA.  Lovely place to be based.  There was quite a swell coming in from the sea across the harbour bar, The Heads: about one metre in height.  Apparently it is not uncommon for this swell to be five to seven metres in height, and that must be quite challenging for the ferries; as it was, we heaved and pitched quite a bit as we crossed the entrance.  The cruise was excellent, and good value for money at $AUS30 each, but we got a good dose of sun and wind in the process and by the time we disembarked we needed turning and were nearly done.  A shared pizza and glass of Sauvignon Blanc at a harbour café finished the day nicely, and we retired to the hotel at about 1800 – whacked out.

With all this walking, we should be losing weight, but I am not too sure that this is true for me.  For the moment, I can still fit into my shorts and trousers, so let us be grateful for small mercies.

It is interesting to note the high proportion of Orientals here: it appears to be very much an integrated community in Sydney, and I would say that most of the faces we have seen are Asian.  Jane and I actually conducted a straw poll of people who passed us over a ten minute period and came up with the figure of 60% Japanese, Korean or Chinese.  It is remarkable enough to be noticeable, if you follow me.  Beware the Yellow Peril, that’s what I say.  Most of the Australian women are very well turned out and smart, and the men generally have a fresh, healthy, look.  Quite a few people are distinctly tubby, however: probably fatter than UK. 

The Australians appear to be great ones for coffee, and very good coffee at that.  There are coffee bars and cafés everywhere, and if you ask for a black coffee – my favourite beverage – you get a medium sized cup of neat espresso.  Crikey, that is strong even for me; certainly one cup at breakfast is quite enough.  I might have to move over to tea at this rate.

Against all predictions, the weather is turning out to be lovely and Australia is now exceeding expectations in every way.  Nice people, nice place.

Day 50

Tuesday 28 February.  Sydney, Australia.  Sunny intervals, temperature 26C.  60% chance of rain again.  We had an early start today, because we wanted to take a city bus tour to Bondi Beach and pack several other things into the day.  It was a long slog to the railway station where the tour started, and en route we saw the (very slightly) more seedy side of Sydney.  I wonder why it is that railway stations are often in a tatty area of town, or the rail track gives you the worst view of a city.  Most curious.  Anyway, we piled onto the open top double decker, noting with some irritation how your Johnny Foreigner doesn’t do queuing, and – having looked at the sky – decided to sit inside.  Five minutes after we started, the heavens opened and the top deck crowd came down faster than they had gone up.  The tour was all right if sitting in a traffic queue at traffic lights every thirty seconds is to your taste.  There was little in the way of commentary, and what there was (in earphones provided) was virtually unintelligible.  Stop, start, stop, start we jerked our way grudgingly out of the city centre, through the Red Light district (alas, no scenery) and suburbia to Bondi Beach.  The rain stopped and the sun came out.  We disembarked.  Well, so this is it, eh?

Bondi Beach was very nice (‘nice’ that most English of English adjectives that praises without getting too carried away).   It is quite short at about half a mile; for some reason I thought it stretched on and on like Slapton Sands.  I’m afraid it rather reminded me of Torquay, or Plymouth Lido, on an extremely hot day.  It was not at all what I expected.  However, the sand was very fine and the sea turquoise, and Jane expressed the intention to dabble her toe in the water.  But first, we thought we would have a drink.

We sat in an outside café, which did not sell alcohol, and I ordered a chocolate milkshake for $AUS7 and Jane a fruit juice.  It must surely be the worst milkshake I have ever had.  It comprised a spoonful of Chocolate Nesquick topped up with half a pint of cold milk.  Jane’s juice was not much better, though I dare say it was healthier.  Things could only get better so, stretching my handkerchief across my head, with knots in the corners, I removed my shoes and – with Jane in the lead – I headed for the Pacific.  Well, you won’t believe this:  Jane pronounced the Pacific Ocean to be warm.  I couldn’t get her out of the water, it was so good.  She even said she would swim in it if she had the gear.  I was amazed.  Actually, there was quite an undertow and I am not too sure that I would feel entirely safe swimming there, what with that and the sharks (which can attack even if you are only knee deep).  Still, it was a good experience and it is always nice to see Jane happy.  I was also happy, because I had seen a lady with no vest on walking along the beach.  Two happy people.

But the English don’t do completely happy (total enjoyment is sinful, as is looking at ladies with no vest on), and it was soon time to come out and dry our feet.  We concluded that we had done Bondi.  Very nice.  No T shirt, thank you.  Time to catch the hop-on-hop-off bus back.  The return trip was, sadly, no better than the outward one.  We tore through affluent suburbia at a heck of a rate, screaming around corners and bouncing over speed bumps, with the commentary still inaudible.  I think the driver may have been behind schedule.   I will swear that the half shaft on that bus was on the way out.  And so back to the traffic jams of central Sydney.  By the way, if you haven’t already gathered, the traffic here is terrible: worse than London and on par with Dublin (the worst place I have ever driven in).  Thank God we are walking everywhere.

The next serial was the much promised Maritime Museum and that Daring Class destroyer.  Strangely, Jane went a bit distant when I mentioned the destroyer, and she didn’t express wholehearted support when I tried to enliven the experience with the promise of a crawl round an ‘O’ Class submarine either; the excitement just didn’t seem to be there, if you follow me.  Fortunately, a compromise emerged in the form of the Sydney Aquarium. I like an aquarium, but I have done one.  Many times. See one manta ray and you’ve seen them all.  So we agreed that I would do the Maritime Museum and the ships, and Jane would do the Aquarium.  I got a discount for being an old sea dog, and Jane got none.

HMAS VAMPIRE was a most enjoyable experience, and I ran my hand lovingly over familiar hatch coamings, radar displays and gun mountings, peered into the Marine Engineer Officer’s cabin, and scampered happily up and down the companionways.  Alas, the machinery spaces were not open to visitors, but I am sure everything there would have been entirely familiar.  The quick crawl around the submarine, HMAS ONSLOW, was almost as enjoyable, but, curiously,  not one of the volunteer guides onboard was a submariner: one was an old civilian member of aircraft ground crew from Ireland, and the other was an ex Australian Fleet Air Arm sonar operator.  Even I knew more about the submarine than they did.  Never mind.

I met Jane afterwards and her tour had not gone quite as well, but she still enjoyed it.  There were penguins.

It tipped it down with rain at this point, and we sheltered under a bridge.  Unlike England, it rains heavily here for about ten minutes, then stops and the sun comes out again. So the shower was soon over and, in steaming heat, we strolled around to the other side of the harbour and ordered a light supper in a Turkish restaurant.  I wanted just a half of lager as I hadn’t drunk since that awful milk shake, but the waitress suggested that, as it was Happy Hour, it would be cheaper to have a jug.  A jug?  Why not, if it’s cheap.  So I was given this enormous pitcher of lager: it looked like a small bucket.  The scene was like a rerun of that film, Ice Cold in Alex with John Mills as I poured the beer into the frosted glass and ran my finger down the side.  I must say that lager went down a treat.  The Mediterranean style meal – skewered chargrilled chicken with tzatziki – was superb.  Tasty food, and healthy too, if you disregard the bulk intake of beer that went with it.

Staggering slightly under the free-surface effect of all that lager, I tottered back to the hotel with the memsahib: sated, hot, tired, and sticky;  but content.  Another good day.

Day 51

Wednesday 1 March.  Overcast, with sunny intervals and showers. 25ºC.  It is our last day in Sydney and we will be sorry to go, but we think we have covered just about all we would want to see, and four days has proved to be about right.  We decided to spend the day just drifting around the city, mopping up any places not already visited.  

We found a splendid arcade inside the Victoria Building: a bit like the Burlington Arcade, but on three levels around the central atrium.  There was a huge clock hanging from the ceiling in the atrium, showing date and time in various parts of Australia, with a little ship sailing around it, and depicting scenes from different parts of Australia’s history.  Of course, we couldn’t afford a thing in any of the shops: it was all Gucci, Prada and bespoke jewellery, but we did enjoy the visit.  Inevitably, the mopping up process included a visit to the Botanic Gardens where Jane was in her one hundred and seventh heaven.  Fortunately, nasty spiders did not attack me and buzzing insects did not bite me, and we spent a pleasant hour in the hot sunshine.  We lunched al fresco at an Italian restaurant at Circular Quay, gazing at the latest cruise ship to be alongside and the constantly moving nautical scene. We returned to the hotel for a siesta, then found a Greek restaurant for supper.  Our last meal in Sydney.

Day 52

Thursday 2 March and we are up early for our return flight to Geelong.  Jane loves these early starts and really joins in the spirit of things when I leap out of bed and fling back the curtains and bedclothes, welcoming a new day.  This time, the alarm call was at 0515 and I think the spirit was struggling a bit, partly because the new day had yet to come.  The taxi, at 0600, cost $AUS60 and that puzzled us a bit as the day tariff was supposed to kick in after that time.  As it was, the journey on arriving had cost $AUS50 because, we discovered, Sydney Airport is privately owned and charges a tax of $AUS13.60 to all travellers, whether transiting by taxi, train or whatever. A bit of a rip off, in our opinion.

Although still a relative novelty to us, domestic air travel here is very common and mundane because of the size of the country.  You might as well be at a bus station.  Security screening is relatively quick and easy and there is no restriction on liquids in hand luggage for domestic flights.  They don’t herd you in phased clumps, like they do for Ryanair: you go to the departure gate, you get on the aircraft.  Simple.  The departure gate is also the arrivals gate, and the off-going passengers have to push their way past the on-coming passengers, or climb over their legs, to get into the terminal (Australians are great ones for sitting on the floor, for some reason). The unfortunate cabin crew have just ten minutes to clean up the cabin before the next batch of passengers sweep in.  Fortunately, it is allocated seating; apparently Jetstar used to offer a graded free-for-all system (gold members got a twenty yard start, silver a ten yard start etc), but this produced a complete melee and some altercations, so that was abandoned in favour of common sense.  

Watching all this going on was something of a novelty, for air travel to me always conjures up pictures in ‘Janet and John’ books of flying boats, Imperial Airways and BOAC; of air hostesses in blue uniforms and little hats; of gentlemen in suits and ties; and of ladies in pearl and twinset with court shoes.  Some of the passengers I was looking at didn’t even have shoes, let alone court shoes. Oh dear, and no First Class cabin.

The flight to Avalon (Geelong) was going tolerably well, though I missed my in-flight breakfast and warming cup of aviation coffee, both of which used to taste like nothing else on earth.  It all started to fall apart at the end when visibility closed in at Geelong and we were placed in a holding pattern somewhere over the state of Victoria.  The cloud base at Avalon was too low to land, so round and round we went in endless figures of eight in the sunshine, the pilot assuring us that we had plenty of fuel.  I later found out that there was talk of us diverting to Melbourne or Adelaide, or even returning to Sydney, which would have been a bit of a bummer, as Laura and Derek were waiting for us on the ground.  We circled for a total of two hours before, at last, things improved and we descended safely, two hours late on a one hour journey. Never mind, we were back and alive.

A warming cup of tea at Laura and Derek’s was followed to a visit to Clyde Park Winery at Moorabel Valley in the emerging sunshine,  where we sampled some wines.  Afterwards, we gazed over a lovely valley and huge tracts of Australia while eating a light lunch in the shade.  Most pleasant.

I confess to a Dog-Watch Zizz on return, as I had not slept well on our last night in Sydney.  Then, suitably refreshed and showered, I repaired to Laura’s sitting room, where the air conditioner was going full blast.  For once, happy to be cool. It was 26ºC outside and very comfortable. 

I think I will fire this off now, as it conveniently concludes the Sydney phase of the voyage and avoids too much for you to read.  If you print it off, then it will also provide useful kindling for starting that fire at the weekend.  The verdict on Sydney?  Excellent – possibly even better than Cape Town.  Shacklepin Graffiti Factor, 10%; litter, Nil (Yes, nil); dog turds, nil; skateboarders, 4; scooters, 2; strange men with hair in a bun held by a scrunchie, 5.  Bonza. 

Blog 10. Australia. Adelaide and Geelong

Day 38

Thursday 16 February and we secured starboard side to in Port Adelaide (about 45 minutes from Adelaide) at 0900.  It was warm and sunny, which has to be worth something.  The queue to get off stretched once round the main circular lobby, along two long corridors and back to the main lobby again.  We shuffled along for 20 minutes, champing at the bit, but finally managed to get ashore at about 0945 and found a taxi.  The fare to the hospital was not quite as bad as I expected at $AUS 35 (about £20), and the drive was pleasant along very long, wide, straight roads speckled with bungalows and light industry.  In a twenty minute drive I reckon we only turned two corners.

Hospital A&E must be the same everywhere: grim, unwelcoming, depressing, long waits.  Jane had to see a triage nurse and her symptoms were discussed, and the doctor’s letter noted, there and then through a glass panel at the public counter.  The nurse then came out of her cubicle and took Jane’s pulse while standing and scribbling on notes perched on the counter.  A bit odd.  Then on to Reception next door to record the usual details.  Australia has reciprocal emergency treatment arrangements with the UK so there was nothing to pay.  On to the Usual Long Wait with the rest of the sick and dying.  They wanted to take her blood pressure, which they did there and then at the waiting room chair.  She also had to give a urine sample, but at least that was afforded the privacy of the nearby lavatory. 

After an hour (not bad) we were taken in to the inner examination ward with the usual cubicles – same as home. Another wait, but on a bed this time (for Jane).  Finally, Jane was given a comprehensive interview by first, a very pleasant nurse, then a third-year medical student as a precursor to the doctor. The latter was equally thorough.  After some poking about she said that, although the the symptoms were not classically appendicitis, she felt that Jane should be seen by a member of the surgical team.  Another half hour and a perky Chinese girl came along, went through it all again and said she would talk to her boss.  Not looking good.  Jane was then whisked off for a CT scan.  By this time it was mid afternoon and we were starting to twitch: the ship sails at 1730.  The doctor onboard the ship rang the nursing station and the phone was passed to me.  Sorry, old boy, you are staying.  Any last requests for onboard?

Being pessimistic realists, we had packed almost everything onboard before coming ashore, and the other stuff, for the return journey, had been struck down into the hold.  So, in our absence, the housekeeping staff didn’t have too much to throw into the the existing luggage, which was then offloaded and later delivered to the hospital. Then off QUEEN MARY 2 sailed into the sunset.

Jane was taken up to a double room and plugged in as usual, which was just as well as she badly needed recharging.  I went for a wander outside, partly to find where our luggage had gone and partly to look for a hotel.  Not a hope on the latter: the hospital was in a residential district about five miles NW of central Adelaide, and there were no hotels in sight.  The nursing staff were incredibly helpful.  They produced a list of nearby hotels (nearby for Australia) and I set off for the nearest on foot.  Telephoning was a non starter because my mobile phone had just used up its buffer of £40 and was good only for use as a paperweight.  

Unfortunately, I misunderstood the nurse’s directions and my great trek across the outback (in the exact opposite direction to the hotel) began: up a triple carriageway, along another, on and on into the sunset.   I walked for an hour in the heat – let’s say 3 miles – before I found a convenience store and asked.  Asking directions doesn’t come easy to a man, but is was going to get dark soon and I didn’t want the dingoes to get me. 
“Torrens Road? TORRENS ROAD? That’s miles away, mate.  Way over there.  Head for the hospital – do you know where that is?” 
So back I walked and, this time, I got a taxi. Eight dollars later I am at the hotel and it’s full up.  So it’s back to the hospital again to see Jane, and we are now starting to twitch about what has happened to our luggage. At that moment, in sails a cheery porter carrying the lot on a trolley. Well that’s one problem solved, but where am I going to sleep tonight? 

The nurses offered to put a chair in for me, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep in that and, in any case, I needed a proper hotel so that I could access the Internet and call Saga in UK.  Fortunately, Jane’s bed had a monitor for TV, internet and phone and she could buy time on it.  It wasn’t the easiest of  systems, but I managed to book a hotel in the centre of Adelaide that had reasonable ratings.  

The surgical team arrived (it was about 1900 by then).  They were very friendly and introduced themselves by Christian names.  They stood around the bed, nodded sagely, and all agreed it was an interesting case: all tests – including the CT scan – were clear.  They did not think it was appendicitis.  The only test they hadn’t done was an abdominal ultrasound scan, because that had already been done just before we left UK.  Just to be sure, they decided they would do that again – tomorrow.  So I said my goodbyes and grabbed a taxi for the hotel.

Oh dear.  After a trying day I could have used a really top-notch hotel.  This was not a top notch hotel.  In fact, it had no notches at all, unless you counted the bedpost.  It looked nice enough from the outside, and the staff were very pleasant, but the room was on the ground floor and overlooked the noisy car park.  The room comprised a sitting room with a sofa, TV, and kitchen sink, with a sleeping room and separate bathroom, next door.  Generous in size, yes, but all the walls were plain – no pictures at all; the carpet was chocolate brown; the paintwork was chipped and faded; and there was a faint pervading smell of sewage.  Dotheboys Hall, I thought – must get somewhere else for tomorrow night.  Now that I had WiFi I could access the Internet, so I booked a plush-looking hotel for three nights on Booking.com (no way to predict how long Jane would be in hospital).  I was lucky to get it, as, it turns out, the Fringe Festival was starting in Adelaide, with all accommodation at a premium. I also sent an email to Saga asking for confirmation that I was covered for all this, and eventually got a reply saying, “Sorry mate, you’ll have to ring us in Plymouth during office hours.  We can’t comment until we have spoken to you” (or words to the general effect).   

I apologise for going on a bit, but I thought it might be useful to you if ever you have cause to need medical help when abroad yourselves.  If something medical arises, you have to ring the 24-hour medical assistance line, which is run by an independent contractor called Healix.  They approve treatment and make arrangements on your behalf, and these were the people I rang by satellite phone from the ship.  In an ideal world, they would have arranged my hotel, transport and so on, but the starting point is the phone call.  You have to phone a UK number.  But you can’t if you don’t have access to a phone, such as in a hotel.  And, of course, you can’t readily get a hotel without a phone either.  And so it goes on. 

Day 39

Friday 17 February 2017.  After a most peculiar night’s sleep, I checked out and returned to the hospital.  Jane had her ultrasound test on her abdomen, and every organ was declared to be perfectly sound.  A large medical team turned up – the senior consultants – and they reckoned that there were indications of a urinary infection, that could be treated with antibiotics.  To our relief, Jane was released with a box of pills and we packed all our luggage into a taxi for transportation to The Plush Hotel. The holiday could resume.

One of the great pleasures of being in a foreign country is to experience the different sounds and smells, the different flora and fauna, and the different culture.  I was particularly enjoying the first of these when I strolled through Adelaide in the morning to meet Jane, and it came in the form of different bird song.  The ordinary Australians probably take their birds for granted, or at least, have got used to them.  Not so for me, and I was stuck by a particular warbling bird that I could not see, but which had an odd song.  Vowing to point this out to Jane (who has an interest in these things) I tried to take note of where I heard it.  The bird seemed quite common, and sang all along the road I was walking along, but although I looked everywhere I couldn’t see it.  Then it dawned on me:  it was the signal for the blind at every pedestrian crossing and road junction, which chirp at regular intervals, then warble when it is safe to cross.  Well, I did say that things are different in different countries.

The Peppers Waymouth Hotel in Adelaide proved to be everything you could ever want in a top hotel: modern, well-located, very pleasant and helpful staff, and a fantastic suite of rooms (yes, a suite).  The holiday does resume here.

Day 40

Saturday 18 February in Adelaide, South Australia.  And it’s cold.  Like 19ºC cold.  Even I am shivering, so I can’t have a go at Jane this time.  Our first priority is to buy warm clothes, as our winter stuff is currently packed up and steaming around in QM2.

First, some impressions of Adelaide.  It is an impressive city very well laid out in a grid pattern.  All the roads are six lanes wide, with crossroads controlled by traffic lights.  There is a good mix of old traditional architecture with modern high rise buildings, though, like Fremantle, the integration has not been well done.  Decimation of the local planning committee could continue here after the firing squad has finished in Fremantle. The pubs and bars seem raucous to my delicate sensibilities, rather like Fremantle, so I am concluding that all Australian bars are like that.  The nearest comparison that I can think of is of an American city, with its straight roads and intersections.  

With The Fringe starting, the city was in party mood when we strolled round: street performers, dancers and bands.  It was a varying cacophony as we explored.  We sought out a travel agent to buy air tickets for Melbourne, then a phone shop to buy an Australian PAYG SIM for my iPhone.  The latter cost $AUS 30 (about £20), which I thought very reasonable.  After that we had to go back to the hospital for Jane to collect her pills, which had not been ready yesterday when we departed.  Taking the train was easy enough (we were becoming seasoned residents by now) and we saw other bits of Adelaide suburbia on the way.  Virtually all the houses are bungalows in a very pleasant setting, mostly nice areas, but inevitably we passed through the odd industrial district with a Shacklepin Graffiti value of 10%.  On the whole, though, Adelaide suburbia met our approval, and I imagine they gave a sigh of relief at that.

After The Great Pill Expedition, we explored the city, which was heaving for the festival.  With difficulty we managed to reserve a table at a restaurant.  The meal, later, started well but then deteriorated into a long delay for the main course, which finally came cold.  Such a shame, as the restaurant had everything else going for it.  It wasn’t cheap at $AUS160 (about £100) for two with wine, but by this time it was 2200 and we were past the complaint stage, and quite tired.  It was very cold outside and we shivered our way back to the hotel through heaving crowds.  Boy, can these people party.

Day 41

Sunday 19 February was declared a Shopping Day for Warm Clothes, and fortunately the shops were open.  The main shopping mall was still heaving and very noisy from street performers, mostly very good, but unfortunately all performing at once.  We dumped our purchases in the hotel and then set about exploring Adelaide, ending with the Botanical Gardens.  The weather continued cool, with showers of rain, but we still enjoyed it.  We must have walked for about six hours in all and, at the end of it all, we had no stomach for going out to eat so we ate in the hotel bar.  The seafood was surprisingly good, though expensive at about $AUS40 (£25) each.  I enjoyed one of the local beers, a Pilsner lager, though Jane is still off the pop.  She continues to improve rapidly.

The English language is a fascinating thing.  Winston Churchill has already commented how the USA and Britain are two nations separated by a common language; much the same could be said of Australia and Britain.  I was baffled by the bars and hotels offering “pokies”.  Was it some sort of food, like a hot dog or pork scratching?  We pondered on this at length and still couldn’t work it out, so we asked the hotel receptionist.  She was bemused.
“Pokies? You don’t know what pokies are?” 
“No”, I said, “what do they taste like?”.  
This produced fits of giggles among the staff, and I did wonder if they were something rude.  It turns out that “pokies” are slot machines.  Australians are very heavy gamblers and the presence of such machines is regarded as a strong attraction for hotels, bars and other venues.

One thing that I should add at this point is how friendly the Australians are.  So far, whether Fremantle, Perth, Busselton or Adelaide – they have all been absolutely lovely and could not be more helpful or accommodating.  They seem quite hardy folk as, just like they are in England, they walk around in shorts and flip flops in all weathers without complaint.  They are very informal and laid back; we have yet to see a tie, even though our hotel was in the business district, but we have quickly adjusted to the different sartorial approach and I shall try not to raise any more eyebrows regarding the absence of cravats or Oxfords.

Summary for Adelaide: a delightful city, well laid out and architecturally impressive, full of lovely people so laid back they are almost horizontal, and unseasonably cold.  Shacklepin Graffiti Factor 10%, Winos NIL, Litter NIL, Skateboarders 1.

Day 42

Monday 20 February, and we are off on the last phase of our missed journey to Geelong and our friends Laura and Derek.  The hotel cost us $1,174 (£728) for three nights, but it was well worth it.  I only hope that Saga will pay the bill when we get back.

We took a taxi to the airport and soon checked in for a budget flight to Melbourne.  Here Jane demonstrated her honesty and pedantry in a helpful way, as she was asked if her hold baggage contained any prohibited articles. 
“What are they?” she asks.  
The bloke lists them: flick knives, guns, drugs, rocket launchers, batteries…
”Oh”, says Jane, “I do have batteries”.  
“Are they sealed?”, he says. 
“Yes”, says I. 
“Oh, no”, says Jane.  
“No darling, they are still in their packet”, says I through gritted teeth, and giving her a nudge. 
“Oh no they aren’t”, says Jane blinking those innocent green eyes of hers, “they’re all loose”.
“Well you’ll have to take them out and put them in the hand luggage”, he says.  
So I have to rummage in my case for my penknife, deep in the folds of miscellaneous clothing, so that I can cut the cable tie that secures her case.  Then we have to open up her case at the check-in and throw out knickers, camisoles, handcuffs, socks and other impedimenta to find two AAA batteries.  And all because Jane cannot tell a little untruth.  I tell you, if she weren’t recovering from an illness…

It was only an hour to Melbourne (and half an hour on the time zone) by air, and then – at last – we were reunited with Laura and Derek, and Phase 1 of The Great Adventure finally ended.  Of course, the weather was overcast, 19ºC, with a cool breeze, though Laura reckoned it had been 40ºC just the other day.  The weather jinx continues to follow us.

We were soon loaded into Laura & Derek’s car and heading for Geelong, about an hour and a half away – a bit like Southampton and Melbury, I suppose, in terms of distance.  I am coming to the conclusion that all of Australia is very like America in terms of infrastructure and layout: very wide, straight roads on which drivers pick a lane and stay with it – or change over as the whim takes them; suburban roads lined with light industry, garages and tyre fitters, or fast food places; older residential bungalows sometimes slotted in with the retail outlets (or, more likely, vice versa).  

The motorway from Melbourne was quite busy, not unlike the M4, and this is not unusual, for Geelong is quite a big city at about 188,000 population.  Laura and Derek have a large bungalow (they just call them ‘houses’) in the suburbs and we settled in very comfortably.  Their daughter and son-in-law are staying too, as their house is still being built.  The latter also have two large dogs, one a Golden Retriever and the other a Great Dane/Mastiff cross, but they live outside.  No comment about me and dogs, please.

Phase 1 – the end of the beginning – is over.

Day 43

Well, it is Tuesday 21 February and it is bright and sunny, 20ºC, though with a cool breeze.  We were off to the Old Naval Academy in Geelong, which is now a maritime museum.  It proved to be a fascinating place, with some very good exhibits, but heavily under-patronised: our arrival caused something of a stir, and we were the only visitors.  They had to go through and turn on the lights for us.  The building – Osborne House – was relatively small but had been an RAN academy in WW1 (I presume not the only one in Australia).  I was unable to discover when the Navy moved out.  It was a rather nice building, it seemed a shame to see it under-utilised in such a way.  

Afterwards, we went for lunch at a fish restaurant on the waterfront, where we sat on the roof and tried to get through a mound of seafood (without success).  It was gorgeous in the sunshine, but cool in the breeze, so you never knew whether to wear a sweater or not – though Mrs Shacklepin had no difficulty making the decision.  Geelong comes across as delightful in the seafront area which has been very tastefully developed and almost has a Monte Carlo air (without the yachts).  We have yet to see the main city, so I will comment on that later.

Our second visit was to the National Wool Museum, which sounds dull, but actually proved to be very interesting.  I thought that the first settlers had just imported sheep, shoved them in a field, and hoped for the best and – indeed – they more or less did.  However, British sheep rearing techniques did not work in Australia, partly because of the harsher climate, partly because of the flora, and partly because of disease or infestation.  So they actually had a very hard time getting the whole thing going.  Even today, viability is up and down with the weather, but of course that is true of all farming.  The museum explained how wool is made with the aid of hand-operated machines, and it was easy to understand it that way.  Also at the museum was an exhibition of International Wildlife Photography, with some stunning photographs that kept us occupied for quite a while.  Afterwards, I wanted to buy a genuine Australian wool sweater in the shop, and found a good one.  However, the price was $AUS200 (about £120) and I really couldn’t justify that.

It was clearly graduation day at the nearby university, for the promenade was full of pretty young things flouncing around wearing gowns and mortar boards.  Ah, those heady days, I remember them well.  Let them have their moment of elation and reward; reality will kick in soon enough.

Day 44

Wednesday 22 February.  A warm day at last: 31ºC, and we are off to the Botanical Gardens in Geelong for a guided tour.  It would appear that every Australian town has a botanical garden, and Jane is keen to visit every one.

Jane loves these places, because it gives her the chance to speak Plant.  The volunteer guide proved to be the perfect interlocutor, and soon the two of them were nattering away in Plant, almost to the exclusion of everyone else.  It always reminds me of that piece by Flanders and Swann about the two professors, “Ah, H2SO4 Professor – and the cube root of Pi to your good wife..”. I tried to join in, but I just can’t pick up Plant, and my attempts to do so have been met with disdain (“How can it be a tradescantia – look at the leaves!”).  Notwithstanding all this, the Botanical Garden tour was very enjoyable, and the insects particularly enjoyed my legs: white, fat and juicy with a new flavour.

The evening was spent watching a film outdoors in a brewery car park, as you do. I tell you, this place is upside down in more ways than one.  There is a local microbrewery called Little Creatures here and they have utilised a spare warehouse as an enormous bar, where we had a preparatory drink.  Then, at 2000, we walked out into the car park, which was covered in Astroturf, and where an inflatable screen had been erected.  We sat on folding directors chairs, but we could have chosen single or double beanbags at the front if we had wanted to.  Everyone seems to be clutching a pint, but it all seemed good-hearted.  The film, ‘Kenny’, was a comedy, based on fact, about a bloke who worked for a firm providing portable lavatories to outdoor events; it was hilarious once we had tuned in to the Australian accent.  I was struck by how good an idea it was to use a temporarily unused brewery car park for an outdoor cinema and – indeed – to use a huge warehouse as a bar.  It is a pity we could not do that in Melbury (I suppose we could, but we would all freeze to death).

My insect bites were playing up a bit when we got back, and I thought I’d better put some antihistamine cream on.  I offered the cream to Jane, but she declined as it turned out that I had been using haemorrhoid cream on my spots.  In my defence, I would say that the cream reduced the itching and swelling very well, and facilitated movement in a whole new way.

Day 45

Thursday 23 February dawned with sunny intervals and a temperature of 22ºC.  The visit today was to an animal sanctuary called Jerralinga, where there was a range of birds and animals from Australia.  Jane loved this because it had wombats.  Jane loves wombats.  I think they may have taken over from penguins.  This was the first time that I have had a conversation with a parrot that really could speak.  I wanted to teach it to say, “Bloody weather!”, but it didn’t work.  We saw wombats, koalas, wallabies, kangaroos, emus, echidnas (sort of hedgehog), dingoes, lizards and more wombats.  There was a possum too, but he was asleep. The place was clearly run on charity, because the fabric was a bit rundown, but the animals were well cared for and Jane got to stroke a wombat, which chirped her up enormously.  Lots of pictures were taken, of course, and these will be displayed at regular intervals when we get back to UK.

Lunch in a hotel al fresco was followed by a wander along the beach at a place called Barwon Heads: beautiful white sand and turquoise sea, but it felt somewhat fresh in the breeze.  Jane tried a toe in the water, and came out faster than she went in.  Ah, I thought, South Shields South Foreshore on a typical summer’s day. 

Cider is very big here, and it has equal popularity with beer in terms of preference.  We called at a cider place (cidery?) for Derek to top up a flagon from draught, and there was a large range available.  We were persuaded to have a tasting and they gave us a paddle, with four large holes in it, to hold four half-pint glasses (called ‘pots’ here). Jane and I tried five types between us (and liked almost all of them), and most were very pale – almost like a white wine. I was a bit squiffy by the time we left, as Jane didn’t drink her fair share.  Maybe there is scope for us to revive the UK cider industry using these ideas.

We came back to see the bins being emptied.  I don’t mean we came back just to see it, I mean we came back and it was happening.  Heh, this was amazing!  They have the lorry, but not the blokes running after it.  There is just the driver, and the lorry has this articulated arm on the side that reaches out and grabs the wheelie bin on the side of the road, tipping it into the side of the lorry without the driver getting out.  It must take a bit of practice to position it correctly, but it was fascinating to watch and very quick.  It needs a clear road, of course; if some fool leaves his car out and in the way, then the bin doesn’t get emptied.  Otherwise, however, I thought it was a brilliant system.  I wanted to take a photograph, but the bloke was too quick for me.

Day 46

Friday 24 February.  Alas, another overcast day at 19ºC, but never mind – Jane is better, out of hospital, and we are on holiday.

The postmen here ride around on Honda 50s and stuff the letters into US-style mailboxes without getting off. The mail is carried in the panniers.   I thought they were delivering incredibly small pizzas until it was explained to me.  A sort of Australian version of Postman Pat, though he might run over Jess, his black and white cat.

Today, we went to the Spirit of ANZAC Commemoration, which celebrated 100 years of the ANZAC alliance.  It was a series of displays set out in a large basketball stadium and was very well done, covering mainly WW1.  We were issued with audio players, which activated with an appropriate commentary wherever we stood.  If you wanted to know more about a particular display, then you held the audio player against a red disc and it tagged the subject for downloading to your iPhone later.  The displays were very good and informative, but the thing was marred by a party of primary school children who swarmed around the place like ants, pushing in front of us when we were reading, and tagging the red discs like they were collecting Pokemon cards.  They were clearly competing with each other to establish who could collect the most, and not taking in any of the information to their brains at all.  After a while it became rather tiresome and it spoiled the visit.  I did notice the whole party being given a damned good dressing down by the teachers later, but by then it was too late.  It looks like I shall have to add children to The List – a pity, as I am very fond of them as a general rule.  Stop snorting at the back.

Laura and Derek had a meeting of their wine club in the evening, and so we met more Australians and had a jolly good drink.  It is  a club of about thirty who meet monthly, taking turns to arrange wine tastings on various themes and sometimes taking the form of overnight visits to wineries.  It is an informal affair, but with a serious aim.  Tonight, for example, we are doing blind tastings of eight wines: four white and four red.  The aim is to allocate points and to try to identify the grape and the winery.  I asked Derek where the crachoir de dégustation was, and I thought he muttered something about finding it with the finger bowls, napkins and cake forks in the Drawing Room, but I must have misheard, because he then said, “Nar, mate.  Life’s too short to spit out good wine.  We just drink it”.  Oh well, if you insist.  It turned out to be a very convivial evening, with about twenty people turning up; but it was a challenge to our constitutions and Jane had developed the bounce-off-the-bulkhead symptoms as the evening concluded.

Day 47

Saturday 25 February.  Sunny intervals and 19 ºC, with a brisk cool breeze again, alas. We are off to Sydney for a week to give Laura and Derek a bit of space and to give them time to cash that prescription for Valium.  Jane is feeling distinctly fragile this morning and, indeed, I delayed getting out of bed myself lest my head should fall off.

I don’t believe this. We have just looked at the weather forecast and Sydney, previously basking in 40 degree heat, is now scheduled for thunderstorms all week, and a temperature of 25ºC maximum.  While we are away, Geelong, meanwhile, is set to have full sun and temperatures up to the mid thirties.  I cannot believe that we are going to have to take our waterproofs to Sydney of all places.  That jinx is still working.

We occupied the morning attending the local Pako Festival in Geelong – a multicultural event aimed at integrating all the different ethnic groups in the city.  It was a bit like the Melbury Carnival and Food Festival beefed up to a bigger scale, with almost every nation in the UN represented, all in traditional dress.  It was OK, but became a bit tedious after a while.  I did wonder, at one point, whether the parade was going round in a circle, for it seemed never-ending.  There were lots of food stalls and the road was packed with people, pushchairs and dogs shuffling along.  It became just a little too much after a while, and we baled out.

We flew to Sydney from the local airport, Avalon, which is one of those small airports used by budget carriers that are supposed to be near a big city.  Avalon is just such an airport for Melbourne, though the latter must be about 50 miles away.  There is no EasyJet here, but Jetstar, with whom we flew, was virtually identical even to the crew uniform.  Avalon is an airport almost  like small regional aerodromes used to be in the 1960s in the UK: small, no fuss, easy to use.  If it weren’t for the security screening it would be identical, though they didn’t weigh us like they used to in the olden days.  We flew by an A320, so the flight was quite civilised, and I cannot remember a time when flying was so easy and stress-free (if you don’t count the baby, who screamed throughout the entire one-hour flight).

As predicted, Sydney was in a rainstorm when we arrived at 1800, and we were disappointed – a sentiment exacerbated by the $AUS50 taxi fare from the airport.  However, our hotel, the Tank Stream, right in the middle of the city, proved excellent and we soon settled in on the fifteenth floor.  We did not fancy wandering wet streets looking for restaurants, so we dined in the hotel’s ‘French Restaurant with a Japanese Twist’.  The food was good, service a bit slow, but – worst of all – it was freezing cold.  Damned air conditioning again.  We never did find out where the Japanese Twist came in.

And so to bed, where we slept like tops.  

Blog 9. Australia. Fremantle and Busselton

Day 34

Sunday 12 February and we are in Fremantle, Western Australia.   The temperatures are back to ‘normal’, that is to say it made it up to 27ºC today, partially cloudy.  It was a rum old passage across the Indian Ocean from Mauritius, as you will have gathered from the previous blogs: it was cold and fairly rough right up to, and including, our entrance to the Swan River this morning.  Even I broke out the fleece for the arrival, and the temperature did not pick up until mid forenoon. Apparently this is the coldest February for Western Australia since records began – just when we visit.  Typical!

We had some excitement last night.  Dinner was interrupted by the Captain on the Main Broadcast, seeking blood donors to give blood.  It was urgently needed for a seriously ill passenger.  Neither of us fitted the bill, but I gather others could respond and the patient was saved. He or she was later landed at Fremantle.

Our entrance to Fremantle at 0630 was reasonably straightforward, and the harbour is quite large.  We turned, as usual, and moored, port side to, astern of a small cruise ship and – take note – at a Cruise Terminal!  Yes, no more container jetties.  Well, not where we moored, but there was one opposite, just in case we were suffering from withdrawal symptoms.  There was a large car park next to the terminal, then a busy, modern railway line, a dual carriageway, and then The Town.  Easy access, no shuttles.

Passing through the terminal for the first time we were sniffed.  I cannot recall ever having been sniffed before.  We were sniffed by a sniffer dog, not to detect drugs or explosives (though I imagine that that would have been a bonus for the authorities), but to detect whether we had brought any foodstuffs ashore.  The Australians are mega-twitched about contamination from other continents and no food whatsoever (fruit, sandwiches, sweets, turnips etc) can be imported. Nice doggie: a Labrador.  I think it thought that Jane was a bone.

We set off on a ‘Twin Cities Tour and River Cruise’ in the morning, driving to nearby Perth, ‘doing’ the biggest urban park in the world, then returning by river cruiser.  Fremantle is, essentially, the port for Perth and is located at the mouth of the Swan River, with Perth 12 miles away up river.  Think South Shields and Newcastle.  There are other similarities that will emerge as the blog develops. Fremantle has a population of about 22,000 (slightly larger than Melbury) whereas Perth has a population of about two million.  Both are called cities.

The tour was a little disappointing.  It set off well enough, but we then spent quite a while driving through the affluent suburbs of Perth (think Sandbanks or Hale).  Apparently Western Australia is the biggest producer of gold in the world, and comes high up in the stakes for diamonds and pearls too – hence there are many millionaires here.  However, there are only so many expensive houses that you can look at.  We stopped at Kings Park in Perth, which is bigger than Central Park in New York, and were given an hour to amuse ourselves.  The first thing that struck me was how many dogs there were; everyone seemed to have one or more.  Mostly, they were huge, like Great Danes or Newfoundlands.  I have never seen so many dogs, short of Crufts.  The second thing that struck me was the very fine views of the city of Perth, which impressed in many ways.   We were, of course, viewing it from from afar so I cannot testify to the close-up credentials.  For all that, we thought it was lovely, but an hour in a park was too long, even for Miss Botanist 1951.  Finally, we embarked on a large river boat for the cruise back to Fremantle.  We didn’t actually tour Perth city.

Here are some tips for river cruises: (a) face for’ard [ie in the direction of travel]  (b) sit on the side where most sights will be seen and (c) do not sit opposite the rudest and most sour-faced termagant God ever created.  This last tip emerges from the fact that we were first at the table onboard but, literally as we were sitting down, I told Jane to sit opposite me so that she could face the direction of travel.  The Termagant arrived just as Jane was swapping over and Jane said, “So sorry, I was just changing sides”.  The reply was, “I’m sitting there” and she pushed her way in.  I immediately shrivelled her with a look, but she was immune.  She was a termagant after all.  After that, the conversation just flowed for the whole river cruise.  Notwithstanding these little irritations, and us both having stiff necks at the end of it, it was a very scenic cruise on the Swan River and the area does have a bob or two. We never did get the bus tour of Fremantle, because time had run out, so we were dumped back at the ship.  A sort of ‘Park and River Cruise’ tour then.

But, of course, we did ‘do’ Fremantle.  After returning onboard to dump our fleeces and change into shorts, we set off on foot as it was easily within walking distance. Fremantle.  Hmm. The first thing that struck me was that there were skateboarders everywhere, causing a nuisance and making a racket; they were on main roads, pavements and in what passed for shopping arcades, and most were adults.  Odd.  Are the men here like Peter Pan, who never grew up?  The town itself was not bad to look at from the quay: some good 19th and early 20th century architecture right next to some inappropriate modern stuff; some shabby derelict areas and bomb sites, and some bits that are promising.  A large, apparently disused, 1960s brick building opposite the Cruise Terminal labelled ‘Wool Store’ was covered in bill posters and graffiti, and that was unfortunate as first impressions go.  The town centre reminded me, in some ways, of pictures of New Orleans, with those first and second floor verandas on 19th century buildings; but the shops and shop fronts were largely cheap and tawdry.   Bars were busy, noisy and indoors – a bit like lots of Irish pubs stuck together. There were no Poundstretcher stores, but there might as well have been. One or two winos.

Jane managed to lose her prescription sunglasses in the maritime museum and there was a considerable disturbance in the space time continuum while she ran back to get them, all of a flutter.  I would have gone, but I had blisters as a result of wearing shoes with no socks (I thought it was cool and would give a better suntanned leg; it wasn’t and it didn’t).  Fortunately the specs had been handed in and the rending of cloth was avoided.

So, Fremantle?  Nice people and nice send off.  Shacklepin Graffiti Factor 30%, but very little litter.  Adult Skateboard Factor 6; Wino/Tramp Factor 3.  Overall, it was all a bit ‘cheap and cheerful’ and every tenth member of the local Planning Committee should be taken out and shot as an example to the rest.  Fremantle would appear to be the slightly downmarket side of Perth, which brings me nicely back to the South Shields and Newcastle analogy.  If we ever come again, we will jump on the train to Perth.

Day 35

Monday 13 February sees us at anchor 3 nm off Busselton, with a boat routine in operation. A temperature of 29ºC, somewhat overcast, no wind.  Busselton looks like Southend from this far out.

Eight of the ship’s boats are adapted for ferrying purposes and are called tenders (you knew that already, didn’t you?).  They double up as lifeboats, and have a capacity of 120 in the former role and 150 in the latter.  Unlike the lifeboats, they are twin-hulled and twin engined.  They are slightly odd craft and look a bit like beetles as they are entirely enclosed, with no foredeck or stern deck, and no protruding wheelhouse.  There is, however, seating on the roof of the canopy as well as inside, so as the boat’s go along they look a bit like those trains in India, which are draped in people hanging onto the top.  They seem to handle well enough, but manoeuvring must be tricky as the coxswain does not have good all-round visibility and the bowman and sternsheet man have virtually nowhere to perch.  The coxswain does have the option of standing with his head out of the fore hatch, like a tank driver, but then he cannot reach the helm or the throttles very well.

We were told that there would be a high demand for the boats initially, so the routine would be to collect a ticket and wait in one of the lounges, from whence we would be escorted down to the disembarkation port in batches.  Any hint of the word ‘queue’ and I develop a twitch, usually sending a proxy (i.e. Jane).  I could not do that this time, so I declared that we would wait until later in the day when the rush had died down.  However, at 0830 there was an announcement that they had seven boats lined up and no takers, so we gathered all our gear hastily, skipped breakfast, and belted down to be first on.  Of course, others had had the same idea, but we were soon seated in the boat and on our way.  Before we alighted, we had to pass a ‘step’ test to prove that we could step across to the boat safely, and that was a new one on me, but it did thin out the wheat from the chaff.  Three miles is quite a distance out (it is about as far as the horizon to a man standing on a beach), but it only took twenty minutes to get in.  Fortunately the sea was flat calm, with very little wind.  Busselton does not have a port, but does have a very long wooden pier (2 km long) that was used until the 1970s for timber ships to berth against (I mean the ships carried timber, not that they were made of timber).  They must have been small ships, as the pier looked a bit frail and the depth of water is only eight metres – think Clevedon pier in baking heat, extended to over a mile, and with a kink in it.  Our boat moored to a jetty part way along the pier and we had been warned (“Are you sure you want to do this?”) that there was an unavoidable 500m walk along the pier to get to the town.  Dear oh dear.  It would do some of these people good to start using their legs.

Now here’s a thing.  You can almost always tell cruise passengers ashore, not just by their Cunard hats, white spindly legs, bunioned feet and lost expressions, but also by their bulging rucksacks.  What is it with the rucksacks? What on earth do they carry in them?  Water and sun cream, sure, but what else?  We have even seen some people ashore with shorts, bulging rucksacks, hiking boots, and those ski poles that are all the rage at the moment.  It is all very curious.  I think they must carry sweaters, anoraks, beanies, survival bags, space blankets, distress flares and Kendal mint cake.  Can’t be too careful with the weather, and that ski stick will be a useful weapon, especially where Johnny Foreigner is concerned – might meet footpads or renegade soldiers returning from the Crusades.

The corollary of the above behaviour is the passenger who carries his rucksack onboard at sea.  Now that really is baffling.  You see them in the theatre or cinema, carrying their rucksacks and occasionally wearing a baseball hat, as if expecting a heavy shower or a glaring sun, ten decks down.  It is almost as if they have set off from their cabin in the morning on a Great Expedition and so have packed all their requirements for the day – a bit like we used to do in Guest Houses and B&Bs at the seaside all those years ago.  Is it too far for them to go back?  Is the ship really that big?  Or do they expect to have to abandon ship at any moment?  Beats me.

Busselton.  Absolutely delightful. A town of about 33,000 (= c 1.5*Melbury) set out on a grid system like an American town and, indeed, it did look and feel like a small American town, even to the road signs: wide streets; one or two storey buildings; good range of decent shops; pickup trucks driven slowly and considerately.  Heat.  That’s it: we want to stay.  We found a nice coffee bar and ordered coffee and croissants, then settled down.  They did free WiFi and we asked for the password, to be told that it was ‘one two zero’.  We tried it, ‘120’, but it didn’t work.  So we tried it in words: onetwozero. Nope. Tried ‘onetozero’ and ‘onetoozero’. Still nothing.  So, when the waitress came back, we asked again.  The password was ‘1234567890’.  A bit like fork handles, I suppose.

After the coffee we wandered round the town, did a bit of mundane shopping, bought our 38-year old son a pencil and rubber souvenir, and met some really welcoming, friendly people.  We got chatting to the woman in the bookshop and I said how lovely and warm it was, and she looked at me with her head on one side in a questioning way.  At first, I interpreted it as, “And why shouldn’t it be”, but she then commented that this was actually very unseasonably cool for them.  Crikey, it was 28ºC at the time.  I explained that we had brought a little cloud of English weather wherever we had gone: Cape Town had had a drought before we hove over the horizon; the Indian Ocean had once been tropical; and Western Australia had been dry and hot at 40ºC.

We walked along the clean, deserted beach and Jane paddled in the ocean, but proclaimed it cold (later found it to be at 22ºC).  We then walked the length of the pier to the Underwater Observation Chamber, where we descended to the depths to see all the tropical fish and some divers around the base of the pier in the clear water.  A bit like a cross between Butlins and the Melbury Tandoori.  By this time it was about 1245 and our clothes were sticking to our backs.  I was tempted to have a beer ashore but, in the end, we opted for return to have a good shower.

Now here’s some good news, and I am sure you will share my excitement.  You remember that Silver Badge that I mentioned earlier?  Well, on return to the ship we found letters congratulating us on having achieved Gold Membership of the Cunard World Club (yes, Gold Membership), and enclosing – wait for this – Gold Club lapel badges: discreet pins in little embroidered bags with Cunard on them.  This is excellent.  I must now whip down to the Purser’s Office and get our boarding cards changed to new ones with gold strips on them.  Oh fabjous joy, calloo callay.

In the afternoon the ship was visited by four outrigger canoes built in the Polynesian style, which had been paddled all the way out from town.  They were not manned by Polynesians, of course, but by fit young Australians.  Most impressive.  There was a strange noise some time after that and I couldn’t work out what it was at first.  Then I realised: it was tipping down with rain.  Absolutely torrential, and the noise was the rain hitting the sea.  So we got that good shower, though that is not what I meant.  Pity the people on a run ashore, as they were soaked.

So, summary for Busselton:  a resounding ten out of ten. Shacklepin Graffiti Factor of zero; litter, nil; winos nil; skateboarders 1.  Would we come again?  Dead right.  I’m going to look at retirement here.  I could ship the boat over.  Wonder how much we would get for our house in England?

The balcony door has just hurtled open. 

“In!  Get in! Do you realise that you’ve been sitting out there for four hours, writing?  I think that you are enjoying it.  People will be bored stiff with these long blogs.  Time for your shower before dinner”.  

Oh dear.  Bored? I do hope not. ‘Informed?’, hopefully; ‘offended?’, possibly. But ‘Bored?’  I would hate that.  Dear friends, do not feel bound to read any of these misanthropic ramblings.  If you find them tedious, then just delete them on receipt.  There will be no exam on return to the UK I do assure you.  So sorry, Mummy says I have to go in now.  I will play again tomorrow.

Day 36

Tuesday 14 February on passage to Adelaide.  We are steaming due east at 20 knots across the Great Australian Bight.  It started overcast, but picked up to the mid 20s later and we sunbathed a little.  The sea is Slight, and the wind only Force 3.  I presented Jane with a pair of nail scissors for Valentine’s Day and she declared them just what she wanted.  The clocks were advanced a further hour last night and we are now nine hours ahead of you.  There will be another hour tonight, and another half an hour during the day after that. This time shift, while definitely better than jet lag, is becoming rather tedious and Jane is starting to display zombie-like symptoms; there is talk of a little snooze this afternoon.

Did I ever mention Ling Po? Ling Po is the name we have allocated to the strange Chinese man, with a long wispy beard and long grey hair tied in a pony tail, who looks like the grandfather in ‘The Karate Kid’.  He has been onboard since Southampton.  He first came to our notice when we were watching the band play us off, outside on that cold night in Southampton. He was jigging around as we leaned over the rail and I muttered to Jane, “Let’s move on – this guy’s on drugs or something”.  Since then, he has reappeared at various stages of the voyage whenever there is music, such as in the front row of the stalls in the theatre, gesticulating like a whirling dervish and bouncing up and down in his seat.   Very manic, damned un-English and mad as a hatter.

More gossip from the launderette, where Jane reports a woman taking up two machines at once (one for whites and one for coloureds), and a husband and wife combination using both ironing boards at once.  Very poor. Total lack of consideration for others.  Another woman up there is on a world tour (not all on the QM2) with a family of four, washing every day. The children are being home-tutored (yeh, right).  I tell you, that launderette provides more stories than a soap opera.

Our last Black Tie dinner tonight to celebrate Valentine’s Day.  Jane wore Dress No 9 and looked sensational.  She was given a red rose by the maitre d’hotel as we went in to eat and she was chuffed to bits.

Day 37

Wednesday 15 February and the clocks went forward yet again, so we are now on ‘Juliet time and a half’, 10.5 hours ahead of you on GMT.  Still on passage to Adelaide.  Calm seas, but alas, an overcast sky and we are back to cold weather at 19ºC again.

The best part of the day was spent in the ship’s medical centre because Jane’s old problem has returned and has not responded to antibiotics.  She has been suffering lack of appetite, occasional nausea and some retching (nothing to vomit up).  Anyway, after blood, urine and X Ray tests the doctor onboard seems to think that she may have a grumbling appendix and thinks she should have a CT scan and other tests, though she has given Jane some different antibiotics in the hope that that will help.  So tomorrow we have to go to an Adelaide Hospital for tests, which I hope will be completed before the ship sails at 1730.  I also hope that she doesn’t have to be admitted, as that will make life for both of us quite complicated. We are due to disembark anyway in Melbourne – next port of call – on Saturday.  Much to our surprise, the arrangement for the hospital is for us to make our own way there by taxi, then front up to the A&E Department with the  doctor’s letter and be processed through triage.  That’s our day gone then.

Further trouble is that we have had to call the UK via satellite to get insurance company authorisation.  Before I left home I had been assured that the ship did all the authorisation stuff, so that you could be treated seamlessly.  Not so. Treatment cost so far is $770 and it has to be claimed back.  I am not terribly impressed, as the satellite phone call cost $100 for 20 minutes.  I trust that we will be able to claim all this back.

Bit of a dank day overall!

Blog 8. Passage to Australia. Indian Ocean

Day 30

Wednesday 8 February dawns with a grey sky and a battleship grey sea flecked with catspaws.  If I didn’t have the chart display in front of me I would have said we were off Flamborough Head on a Bank Holiday.  It is 24ºC with wind Force 5. The journey continues (the sun did come out later).

Another hour was added on last night, so we are now on Foxtrot time, 6 hours ahead of you.  There is a sense of you getting further and further away from you with these time changes, as if we are travelling in space leaving the Earth behind.  I am feeling a bit hung-over this morning – I think my stomach is beginning to revolt against all this rich food (Tournedos Rossini last night, washed down with two glasses of Shiraz).  Will skip lunch today, I think.

Through Australian immigration this morning – a very sensible arrangement whereby the immigration staff were embarked in Mauritius and are processing everyone at sea in small batches on the way over.  A good example of clever cooperation: the immigration staff get a free passage in a liner, we get a seamless entry into Australia, and everyone is happy.  I presume Cunard paid for the air flights, but fair enough.

We attended the concluding lecture on the Dingo Baby saga today.  My goodness, what a story!  It has to be The Lecture of the Voyage. It is too lengthy to summarise here, but briefly it was found – by shear doggedness – that alleged blood spray in the car was actually overspray car noise insulation, present since manufacture; that ‘cat’ hairs found on the baby’s clothes were actually dingo hairs; that a positive blood result found in the car was triggered by copper dust from the copper mines where the family lived;  that the ‘bloody handprint’ on the baby’s clothes was, in fact, a dirty sand mark; and that an Aborigine tracker had stated categorically that drag marks from the tent were from a dingo.  Despite all this, and other new evidence, the Northern Territories Government would still not allow an appeal.  Even when a Royal Commission was set up, the NT government tried to dismiss its findings. They finally tried to offer the mother a pardon, which she rejected: she had committed no crime to be pardoned of.  A third inquest tried to return an open verdict.  Finally, finally, after over thirty years the mother was acquitted and a fourth inquest returned the verdict of ‘death by dingo attack’.  Several forensic experts (two from the UK) were discredited and one was found to have tampered with the evidence.  And even today there are people who think that the mother still killed her baby.  There was a film starring Meryl Streep about the incident, it might be worth watching in retrospect.

Our tummies were a bit upset today – something we ate last night, as we both had it – so we had a sparing breakfast and we skipped lunch.  However, we felt well enough later to try some non- alcoholic cocktails: Jane had a rum-less Mojito and I tried a Tropicana (coconut and pineapple smoothie, basically) at lunchtime, followed by a Bananamama (a banana, coconut and cream milkshake) in mid afternoon.  Looking back, I’m not sure how my stomach managed those, but they were very yummy and, being alcohol free, were entirely healthy.

Day 31

Thursday 9 February.  It is freezing.  I may be exaggerating slightly here, especially to people really freezing like yourselves, but the temperature outside has actually dropped to 20ºC.  It is colder outside the ship than in.  It is overcast, the sea is grey, and we are back off Portland again (or might as well be).  I must say that the weather on this trip has been a revelation.  It has been good, of course, but not at all as hot and unbearable as I thought it would be (Réunion excepted).  I certainly didn’t expect 20 degrees in the Indian Ocean in summer.  Today I am wearing long trousers, a long-sleeved shirt and a sweater; no-one is sitting out on deck chairs, though there are still hopefuls flip-flopping around the ship in shorts and singlets (more fool them).  Jane, of course, is wearing a vest, thick shirt, trousers, seamen’s stockings, seaboots, submarine sweater, muffler and beanie.  Or she would be if I hadn’t told her to take them out of the luggage when we packed.  Strangely, I am not suffering as a result of this sartorial shortfall; Jane seems to have run out of adjectives and is going through a more benign period.  I think she might be dreaming of those penguins again.

Situation at 1200F was: position 30deg 36S, 94deg 0E. Course 099, speed 19 knots. Wind Force 6 from E. Sea Slight.

A glance at The Grand Cruise Spreadsheet has revealed that we are significantly underspending against our onboard credited allowance and, if we are not more free with spending in the next 10 days, we will lose it.  This is rather amazing: one of those rare instances when I have been too sparing with money, but demonstrating beautifully what a sensible financial planner I am (when you disregard boats, cars and expensive cruises).  So I have booked a straight shave and haircut at the boutique ($65+12.5%) and Jane has done the same (negative shave) for $99 (+12.5%).  I did consider having a facial as well, but they wanted to quote extra for doing the nose, so I passed on that one.  These are extortionate amounts to someone who begrudges paying £5 for an OAP trim, but it is not real money because – as I say –  it comes out of the allowance we were given.  I did consider the purchase of yet another extremely sophisticated watch, with bells and whistles and with a shape and weight reminiscent of a submarine’s depth gauge, but this was vetoed before I even drew breath.  How does she do that?

Our key lecture today was by our visiting geologist, this time on the unexpected subject of Chablis and the terroir.  Geology plays a major part in the quality of wines, and he reckoned that Chablis was much underrated.  I did not realise that the roots of vines travel down five metres, and they get their nourishment from the Kimerston (I think)  and Portland stone formed by crushed oyster shells from 150 million ago.  The topsoil is rather stony and rubbish, which is a good thing because it forces the roots down for their nourishment.  So there you are.  You heard it here first.  Must try a glass tonight, purely for research purposes.

This reminds me of a story I once heard about the merits of coal in those days when we burnt Silkburn and other proprietary brands on our fires in the 1950s and 1960s. Apparently one chap was expounding about how good the brand of coal was that he had discovered, and it came from the coal fields of Woking in Surrey, a little known area for mining (it was certainly new to me, but then so were the coal mines of Somerset).  The man said that his coal was excellent: high calorific value, almost smoke-free, and with little ash.  His companion countered this argument with the type of coal that his coal merchant had provided, which was unique in that, instead of originating from the crushed rain forests millions of years ago, his coal was a lighter variety originating from vast areas of crushed marigolds millions of years ago, and this generated a much lighter coal that was so much nicer to use. Marigolds are one of our oldest plants, apparently.  “Don’t be silly,”, said the first speaker, “That’s no different from mine.  Don’t you know that Woking coal is a marigold coal?”

Well, after a light lunch, we set off around a virtually deserted deck for a bracing walk. Some hardy souls were still sitting out there, wrapped in towels and fleeces and clutching steaming cups of tea.  Down aft, where it was sheltered from the wind, it wasn’t too bad and some people were lying on sun beds, so we resolved to climb up to the Grills Terrace via the various tiered decks.  At the top it was relatively benign (think Bournemouth in May) and we lay for a bit in the watery sunshine, fully clothed of course, and decided it was warm enough to take a dip in the outdoor jacuzzi, that bubbled and steamed so invitingly there.  So down we went to the cabin, changed into our bathing costumes, donned bathrobes, and set off back.  Strangely, no one else was around except for a Filipino barman, who clearly thought that we had taken leave of our senses.  We climbed up and into the jacuzzi and lay there like hippopotamuses, gazing at the grey seas, the scudding clouds and the spitting rain, laughing like the idiots that we were.  Of course, all good things come to an end, and after fifteen minutes we were just about al dente.  I climbed out stoically and unflinching, like the good North Sea boy that I am, to get madam’s towel.  Venus’ emergence was a more dramatic affair, however, as her slim glistening body at over 45ºC met the Southern Trades at 20ºC and 19 knots. I am given to understand that the explosion of noise and subsequent shivering was detected by the seismic stations in Sri Lanka and Western Australia, triggering a false earthquake and tsunami warning for the whole of Oceana.

So anyway, I went for the shave and haircut and I may say I was very impressed.  I thought the bloke said he was going to defoliate my face, but Jane says that that is what the US did to Vietnam with Agent Orange (“I think you mean ‘exfoliate’, Dear”).  Must get this right.   Exfoliation with some gizmo; then the application of what appeared to be paint stripper; hot towels; shaving cream; then an extremely painstaking shave with a straight razor that must have taken a quarter of an hour or more.  Then cold towels, the application of something that felt like nitric acid on my face, anti-ageing cream (industrial strength)…then the shampoo and haircut, which was one of the best I have ever had.  It was better than the one that I once had in Trumpers in London.  Then came bill-paying time and I offered to sweep the floors instead, but that was rejected.  The crunch came when I fell into the trap of asking about some of the anti-ageing cream, and he had to unlock the display cupboard and undo the padlocks to get some.  I refuse to reveal the cost, but I think I may now have put the spreadsheet underspend back on track.  Fortunately, I now don’t look a day over 65½; that cream works well and it was money well spent.

Day 32

One calendar month since we set off, and Melbury seems (and is) a long way away.  Friday 10 February dawns with another grey day, 19ºC (19!), wind Force 6 from the east.  Jane has gone back to her sensible winciette nightie and has stopped doing whatever it is she did to her legs.  The news, when it is not banging on about Donald Trump, tells us that there is freezing weather in Chicago and thousands of flights have been cancelled.  We moved the clocks forward, yet again, last night so we are now on Golf time, 7 hours ahead of the UK.  I wouldn’t bother getting up if I were you: daylight is pretty awful.  As I sit here in the Commodore Club, under the bridge, I can see the mottled grey sea, tipped with white horses, and the bow rising and falling gently in the swell.  Patches of sunlight appear tantalising in the distance, and a faint ray glimmers through the windows occasionally but, on the whole, it is a bit dull.  Never mind, we are on holiday.

Now here is a funny thing: see if you can explain it to me.  We get a new daily programme every night (think Daily Orders, but with singing and dancing).  There is a huge range of activities from basket weaving and embroidery to bridge and wine tasting, but also some specialist meetings – usually at noon in the conference room – such as ‘Serving & Retired Armed Forces’, ‘Freemasons’ and ‘WI’.  But two of these specialist meetings have defied explanation.  One is called ‘Friends of Dorothy LGBT’ and the other is ‘Friends of Bill W’.  Is LGBT what I think it means and, if so, who is Bill W? Is Dorothy something to do with Oz?  All suggestions welcome.  I suppose I could go along one lunchtime and sit in, just to get a flavour of what it is about.  Usually, I am too busy.

And now to that internal ship tour. Wow!  If you don’t want to read about the tour, then skip eight paragraphs at this point.  Do not pass Go and do not collect £200.

It took just under four hours and was well worth the money (I got an apron, a chef’s hat, a certificate and A Badge).  There were fourteen of us in all – somewhat more than the stated maximum of ten – and perhaps just a few too many to be easily handled.  Never mind. Two security personnel escorted us, one in front and one behind, just in case we went where we shouldn’t .  We started on the for’d mooring deck, an enclosed compartment some way below the open fo’csle, and were hosted by the Deputy Captain.  All the ship’s hawsers are stowed on enormous self-rendering winches, which hold the ship alongside at a fixed tension, taking up the slack or easing off automatically as the tide rises or falls; bollards are not used at all.  Above the mooring deck was the cable deck, where the anchor windlasses are fitted.  Having served in an aircraft carrier I was ready to see some big bits of kit, but these windlasses were huge – possibly six feet in diameter – and the links of the anchor cable would be about one foot in diameter.  In keeping with normal merchant navy practice, by the way, these were windlasses (i.e. with their axes horizontal) not capstans (with vertical axes), which are usual in the RN.  I have pondered throughout my career as to why the two maritime agencies have evolved differently in that regard; it is just one of those curious things.

We passed through a crew cabin flat (single and double cabins, each with an en-suite bathroom), then on to the main crew service passageway on 1 Deck that runs the length of the ship.  This is called the Burma Road, just as it would be in a warship.  It was very wide (maybe fifteen feet), very white, and spotless.  This time, we were hosted by the head of the HR department.  He explained that there are 1,260 crew, the biggest nationality represented being Filipino.  Surprisingly, the next biggest nationality was British; the third was Indian.  We were shown the officers’ bar (we could only look – it was more like a cocktail bar than a Wardroom) and a separate officers’ dining room/Wardroom that we did not see; opposite was a large crew dining hall (self-service like a works canteen); then the crew bar, called the Pig & Whistle, which we could not enter.  The crew are allowed just one drink a day.

Onwards to the Engine Control Room (ECR), where we were hosted by the Chief Electrical Officer.  It was a far bigger compartment than I have been used to: perhaps as big as a school classroom, with not a gauge or wheel spanner in site.  Instead, there were banks of computer screens, rather like Mission Control at Cape Canaveral.  Or maybe the Starship Enterprise.  It was manned by a single Engineer Officer of the Watch who monitored both machinery and fire surveillance.  Hmm, a bit thin on the ground, I thought.  He rattled around in there like a pea in a drum.  Reassuringly for those of us with old-fashioned standards, he wore white overalls and steaming boots though, alas, no cap.  I have covered the propulsion elsewhere, so I won’t burden you further with it, other than to record that each of the four propulsive pods develops 21.5MW (28,820 horse power) and weighs the same as a fully laden Boeing 747.  All four give the ship a top speed of 29.5 knots.  There were many questions I wanted to ask, but I only managed to get in a few, partly because of time and partly because I didn’t want to get too technical in front of a general audience (or appear to be a Clever Dick).

There was a brief by the Environment Officer on gash disposal – absolutely everything is sorted by hand, compacted, and either incinerated or stored for proper disposal ashore.  Even the incinerator ash was kept for disposal ashore.  Sewage is processed biologically to the point where the discharge is pure water, then pumped overboard if beyond the twelve mile limit; as double insurance, Cunard will not discharge even the pure water in coastal waters.  Grey water (from showers, washing etc) is processed and the clean bi-product is used to wash down the decks.  I was intrigued to note that there was a separate bin just for banana skins; frustratingly I never got the chance to ask why they were special (and I suppose now I will never know).  

On we went to the baggage handling area, where 10,000 items of baggage are shifted by fork-lift truck on every passenger changeover day.  I would put the size down as half an aircraft hangar.

We had a good briefing by the Chief Officer aka the Safety Officer on firefighting, man overboard and other safety related matters.  Their Standing Sea Fireparty is drawn from men otherwise employed on other duties, but mainly engineers, just like the RN.  By the way, when there is an incident, the Main Broadcast on QM2 says, “Fire in the galley” (or wherever); apparently they don’t do that in many other cruise ships with younger people; they say “Code 15”, or whatever.  This is because stating baldly what the problem is has caused panic in those ships with the younger generation in the past.  One other interesting point to emerge is that, if there is a man overboard, they do not turn the ship using the traditional Williamson’s Turn (turning under full helm and designed to bring the ship back on an exact reciprocal course), instead they just slam on the brakes using the all-powerful pods.  QM2 can stop from full power in about 2 kilometres. Speed has to be below 5 knots before the Rescue Boat can be launched.

Quite a bit of time in the tour was devoted, correctly, to food storage, preparation, cooking and serving. We visited one of twenty one deep freezes, each (again) about the size of a school classroom.  Provisions are ordered for visiting ports three months in advance by HQ in Southampton from firms approved by the Carnival Corporation’s Public Health Department – so any films you see of the ship’s chef visiting local markets and choosing produce is PR hype.  Exceptionally, they do sometimes buy local fresh fish. Presumably my wildebeest, springbok and warthog the other day were ordered in advance.  There was a separate food preparation area on one deck, serving the galley above.  There was a separate bakery.  We visited the main galley, but  there are seven altogether. It really was huge – perhaps as big as a cinema – and it was linked to the main restaurant by two escalators for waiters to use.  A  champagne tea completed the catering department tour (that is when I got my apron and chef’s hat) before we did a quick backstage tour of the ship’s theatre (all lights and stage controlled by iPad).

Finally, we visited the bridge.  Traditional RN warship bridges (or more correctly, ‘compass platforms’)  are quite tiny, perhaps ten feet square, if that.  Merchant ship (and more modern warship) bridges are larger.  This bridge was huge, stretched the full width of the ship, and (something that I found particularly remarkable – I don’t know why) it was fully carpeted.  It had a very good view, as you might hope, and even had armoured glass panels in the deck of the wings to facilitate coming alongside.  There were no open bridge wings and there was no access to the open air: the space was fully enclosed.   Not easy to take star sights or sun shots to check the GPS then.  The manoeuvring engine controls were particularly interesting, in that I thought that they would be computer controlled or assisted – a bit like a self-parking car or aircraft automatic landing system.  Not so.  It is all done by the seat of your pants, though with the help from bridge controls and two independent GPS systems that tell the Captain the speed (x and y plane) of the bow and the stern. For coming alongside, they turn the two azimuth pods inwards to face each other so that the two propeller thrusts cancel each other out, then they adjust the propeller speeds.  Apparently, this gives them finer lateral control, down to 0.1 of a knot.  For’d, of course, they have three bow thrusters of 3.2 MW each.  There is a simulator on the bridge to train the officers in manoeuvring in various selected ports, and all the Captains additionally have to ‘do’ a week in a large simulator ashore every year.  I chatted with the Captain about HMS NONSUCH, offered a few words of advice about tautening the signal halyards, and then I was given my Badge (which I shall wear proudly on High Days) and politely shown the door.

Exceptionally, we attended a show tonight as it featured a musician/illusionist.  He was very good.  Looking back, I think I have been unduly harsh about the entertainment onboard and you should disregard the earlier blogs in that regard.  We have put our heads into the theatre on the odd night and the singing and dancing is actually very good; it is just that it is not our particular type of entertainment (think Sunday Night at the London Palladium, if you can remember that far back).  The band is still too dominant, however, and the drummer drowns out most performers.  Of course, it may be that we have not mellowed but, instead, are suffering from Stockholm Syndrome.

What a busy day.

Day 33

Saturday 11 February.  We moved the clocks forward, yet again, by an hour and are now on Hotel time i.e. 8 hours ahead of you on GMT.  We are feeling a bit bleary eyed again.

Blimey, what’s going on? The entire upper deck is out of bounds; visibility is at a quarter of a mile; there is a rough, sullen, grey sea touched by white horses and the occasional spindrift; wind Gale Force 8; wave height is about 5 metres; and the ship is lurching and creaking in the swell.  Thankfully, and much to my surprise, I have not been seasick all voyage. I have been impressed by QM2’s seakeeping, for other ships would be all over the place in these conditions;  the roll is no more than 5 degrees, though she is pitching a little. The temperature is now down to 18ºC and we have broken out the winter clothes, previously worn in January when we boarded.  I am impressed by those still wearing shorts and sandals.  We arrive at Fremantle at 0630 tomorrow and this does not bode well for our first visit to Australia.  We have a ‘River Cruise and Two City Tour’ scheduled and we did not expect to be doing it in the cold, wind and rain.  I wonder where I stowed my Guernsey sweater?

I attended a final talk by our visiting geologist who, this time, spoke about climate change. He explained how the earth has gone through cyclic climate change for millions of years.  There have been warm periods, when Greenland was green and vines grew in Newfoundland, and cold periods when parties were held on the frozen River Thames.  That last cold period ended in about 1850.  Since then, we have entered a warm period, during which the average temperature has risen by 0.8 degrees Centigrade.  Only 5% of greenhouse gas is CO2 (and man produces only a tiny percentage of that), and all the carbon saving by man will make no difference to the climate, even if you ignore the huge amount of uncontrollable CO2 spewed out by volcanoes.  That was the gist of it all, with the added comment that there is no way that we will meet the set targets because of the projected energy demand and the unavoidable CO2 that comes with it, even with renewable energy.  I agree entirely with the lecturer.  We should certainly conserve energy and not waste the earth’s resources.  However, we can no more stop climate change than King Canute could stop the tide.  The weather will follow its usual cycle in the normal course, and Mrs Shacklepin will revel in vilifying it.  Neither the lecturer nor I will convince the zealots, of course. (Oh dear, you might have the opposing view – I’ve done it again haven’t I – sorry about that).

Well, I am going to try to get this off tomorrow in Fremantle, so I will wind up now.  Details of Fremantle, Perth and (maybe) Busselton in Blog 9.