The Gold Coast

Tuesday 24th February 2015

At Burleigh Heads

Dear Futurest

Quite probably this will be my last letter as we have only a few more days before we return to England. A week today should see us back in Warwick and I shall have to get to know you all over again.

 

A dweller of the Bush

 

Hopefully you have been okay while I’ve been away and if all the jobs have been done on board as I asked, I expect you will be feeling tons better anyway. Soon we shall be cruising again, you and I, back to the old happy routine which I am sure after your enforced stagnation over the winter, you will relish. I most certainly will even though my travels over the winter have been glorious.

 

Purling Falls, Springbrook National Park

 

Tomorrow morning early we leave Sharon’s house and fly from Brisbane down to Hobart in Tasmania for the last weekend of our Australasian Adventure.

 

Lace Monitor

 

In Hobart Janis and I are attending a Blue Star Line staff reunion. Though this company for whom I used to work no longer exists, each year old shipmates get together alternating biannually between Australia and New Zealand down here and separately in England for a bit of a ‘bean feast’; an excuse for old mates to get together for a yarn or two. This year the Australasian one is in Hobart and timed just right for Janis and I to attend.

 

 

Kookaburra

 

On the list of attendees there are one or two names that I remember quite well from fifty plus years ago but whether I shall recognise the faces that belong to the names is another matter. The festivities are scheduled to take place all over the weekend so it should be a good opportunity to renew past relationships.

 

Carpet Python

 

We have been staying with Janis’s sister here at Burleigh Heads for nearly three weeks and for the first fortnight Sharon used some of her annual leave to show us around. Consequently she has had to put up with us at very close quarters for some time. However she has been a marvellous hostess and an excellent tour guide. Janis and I would never have seen and enjoyed many of the places and their amazingly diverse wildlife if it hadn’t been for Sharon’s enthusiastic guidance.

 

Kangaroos at the side of the road

 

However over the last week the Coast hasn’t been so golden as it could have been. We have been deluged by intermittent heavy showers as a result of a Category 5 cyclone called ‘Marcia’ which hit the Queensland coast recently. Fortunately for us the  damage caused by the severely high winds was well to the north but for a number of days the heavy rain here has been prolonged. However the air temperature has remained up towards the thirty degree mark all the time so we haven’t suffered from the cold in any way and in between showers our wet clothes have dried on our bodies very satisfactorily.

 

Watchful Koala

 

Well Old Friend, we are coming to the end of this phase in our lives. I hope you have enjoyed these letters. I have certainly enjoyed writing them.

Being made predominantly of steel you are definitely classed in the Mineral category of Mass, logically therefore without any consciousness. However I always feel when I am aboard that there is some response from you towards my behaviour or simply to my being there, which to me implies that somewhere deep within your atoms of creation you can understand me. And this on its own is enough excuse for me to enjoy writing to you.

See you in a week’s time.

Queensland

 Sunday 15th February 2015

Dear Futurest

Hello again!

Though it must be over a week since I last wrote the time flies so quickly that it seems my contact then was just a couple of days ago. However when I last wrote I realise we were still in the depths of our South Island experience and there have been so many changes since then.

On Thursday 5th February Janis and I took off from Christchurch, finally leaving Waipounamu, the ancient Maori name for the land of the greenstone, the country that we had viewed and loved so avidly over the previous five weeks. We had said goodbye to Dorothy, Janis’s mother, who had kindly given us a lift to the Airport, and Bryan Janis’s brother who travelled with his mum to bid us farewell and soon we had boarded the Plane to fly us to Brisbane.

It was a bumpy flight across the Tasman Sea with the pure white cloud level, which a little earlier had been above us and black giving Christchurch so many heavy showers, now glistening just beneath us in the Sun. Its apparent calmness was nevertheless causing the aeroplane to leap up and down great distances very quickly, a sensation similar to being in a small boat on a rough day in a sharp choppy swell.

Furthermore when we landed at Brisbane there was also a considerable cross wind so our landing was far from level or easy. But the pilot managed very well and on finally coaxing all three parts of the undercarriage to remain firmly on the deck at the same time, there was the usual exhilarating feeling of deceleration as he applied ‘full astern both’ to bring the aircraft safely to a taxi from one hundred and fifty knots plus in a similar number of yards.

 

 

‘Bird of Paradise’ in the garden of Sharon’s flat

 

Looking north towards Surfers Paradise

 

 

Sharon, Janis’s sister was at the airport to collect us in her car and very swiftly she took us to Burleigh Heads, some ninety kilometres to the south on the sunny Gold Coast of Queensland, where she lives in her comfortable top floor flat.

 

Sleepy Koalas near Burleigh Heads

 

Since then she has been the perfect hostess and tour guide taking us somewhere different every day that Janis and I would never have managed to know about had we been here on our own.

But on the following day, Friday, Sharon had to go to work so  we were left to our own devices. It was a good opportunity therefore to visit my old shipmate Robin and his wife Jan. 

He came to pick us up and took us for lunch at his lovely home in nearby Bundell. Robin and I had sailed together as teenagers on the ‘Gladstone Star’ and only recently had our courses crossed again since then.

He and Jan were travelling around the Uk last year and had visited Janis and I on the boats whilst we were in Birmingham so they invited us then to visit them on our arrival in Queensland.

It was a wonderful day and we had a lovely lunch. Robin and I chatted on as one does over nearly remembered reminiscences of fifty plus years ago and the time flew by. Soon it was time for our host to bring us back to Burleigh Heads where Sharon was waiting to guide us on a local walk around the town and onto the beach.

I was amazed looking north along the beach to see hazily in the distance the tall skyscrapers of Surfers Paradise sticking up so close together on the far horizon and as the Sun set its light was reflecting so vividly on the mass of glass of the high buildings.

 

Two Sisters and Blue Sky at Surfers Paradise

 

….. and exotic flowers with liquid nectar…..

 

Staying within five minutes of the beach at Burleigh Heads means that we’ve spent a considerable time on it or in the gardens close to it where all kinds of entertainments go on, as the Sun sets especially. The main shopping James Street itself isn’t too far away either while the plentiful pubs and cafés along the waterfront spill out beneath colourful blinds onto the pavement just over the road behind the beach. All the way along to Surfers Paradise small townships and suburbs have made the most of this golden beach frontage.

 

…..while strange looking birds roam near the beach

 

On the beach are drummers and anyone can join in with their own drum; it’s surprising how many different types there are while fire jugglers throw and twirl ‘bundles’ of fire up down and roundabout very cleverly during the dusk, as darkness draws in and hundreds of brightly coloured Cockatiels fly in to roost, squealing en masse like Starlings in the tall palms around.

The climate is wonderful of course, that is in between showers of rain which can be heavy at times but mostly the population all seem to be on permanent holiday where the most important and largest item of swimwear is the surfboard.

Without a doubt servicing the tourist is the most important industry on this coast and probably in the whole of Queensland as it doesn’t stop at the beach. Just a few kilometres inland is the dense  and lush Australian Bush as not far away are the national parks associated with Mount Warning, the centre of an enormous prehistoric volcano, now eroded mostly away but whose high perpendicular escarpments are now covered in rich dark green forest, which provides homes for a myriad of varied and colourful wildlife from Birds through to Butterflies to Leeches and Lizards, all of which are exotic. I find it all breath-taking and amazing.

 

Nocturnal green frog at Springbrook

 

We spent a day at Surfers Paradise and while young bronzed bodies soaked up the hot Sun in their apparent immortality oblivious to the health dangers they were taking, we took a two hour trip on a boat in the canal just behind the dense ‘high rise’ to see the super yachts and five million dollar plus houses of the rich. Many of them were unoccupied I noticed.

However we have also been into the bush and we three spent two nights at a backpacker’s hostel at the small hamlet of Springbrook in the national park of the same name. We tramped many miles and saw wonderful things as already indicated. The highlight was feeding the very colourful wild birds from our hands in the natural garden where we were staying and a night walk to see bright green nocturnal frogs and giant spiders lurking in their webs.

Janis’s friends from Lincolnshire, Steve and Tina on holiday came to visit us at Burleigh Heads and stayed for three nights so we had a great reunion with them.

 

Feeding the birds at Springbrook

 

My final observation of Queensland is that it seems to lack culture generally and the only form of regular entertainment apart from the beach is the cinema at the multi screen giants. However there are traces of live theatre around in the form of amateur dramatics and Sharon had managed to book tickets last night at the community centre at Tugun, one of the aforementioned local suburbs, where the local amateur group performed very adequately Alan Aykbourne’s farce ‘How the Other Half Loves’. We were able to take a picnic supper and ate it at tables prior to the show beginning.

And that’s it old chum! You’re about up to date. Having had no acknowledgement of my email from Cheryl at Kate Boats I wrote again to her yesterday concerning your battery change and engine service so hopefully all will be done before Janis and I return home on Tuesday 3rd March. I do hope that things are well otherwise with you.

Until the next time I write, all the best.We shall soon be home now. 

Haarst to Christchurch

Monday 2nd February

Dear Futurest

Here we are again, this time back in Christchurch after a busy four or five weeks travelling around the South Island.

We arrived here last Tuesday afternoon and as we came into the suburbs of the city clouds arrived en masse for the first time since we had left and it began to rain. Earlier in the day coming down through Arthur’s Pass from Otiro, where we had stayed the previous night there was not a cloud in sight and only the tightness of the mountains around us reduced the area of blue above.

After Arthurs Pass we actually drove through a bushfire area and were shrouded for quite a way in thick smoke as helicopters buzzed back and forth dousing the fires with enormous buckets replenished from the nearby Lake Pearson.

The cloud has remained with us all the time at Christchurch and though the rain has held off mostly during the day it has looked a bit dull sometimes.

However we have been okay staying with Janis’s Mum again as she looks after us very well. We‘ve been  quite quiet since arriving, generally winding down after our hectic trip. We’ve been mostly making ourselves useful around the garden helping with the different different jobs that need to be done.

 

Mt Cook on the right and Mt Tasman across Lake Matheson

 

But before then, after Haarst Township our exotic trip continued up the West Coast Road to the small town of Hokitika, situated on the River Kaniere which drains down in a braided fashion lazily across white bleached pebbles from the lake of the same name in the foothills of the mountains  behind and slips across a wide sandy bar into the Tasman Sea.

 

Hokitika at sunset

 

 

 

Like many other small towns on this side of New Zealand, Hokitika began in a flourish in the early 1860’s when somebody panned some gold and the rush was on as people flocked here mainly from Australia to seek their fortune. The port became very busy and stayed that way for a long time after the rush ended just a few years later.

We stayed at a backpackers hostel above a shop selling Pounamu (the name for the native greenstone jewellery) for two nights and enjoyed the beach and the sunsets in particular.

After the Sun had gone down we made our way to the local glow worm grotto and after dark had descended I was amazed on seeing the bright pinpricks of light all around me. It was as if I was looking at the night sky in the middle of an ocean. They were so clear I could almost imagine the Milky Way just beyond.

At Hokitika too I enjoyed for the first time that New Zealand delicacy Whitebait. I had the tiny little fish fried in an omelette between two pieces of bread as a Whitebait sandwich. This omelette is the normal way of eating the delicacy and is known as a Whitebait Pattie.

 

The pub at Otira almost unchanged in 150 years

 

Beside the Model T (that’s the lorry of course)

 

 

The following day we set off inland towards Arthurs Pass and spent the night at a delightfully comfortable back packers hostel high in the foothills of the steep mountains just south of the small, almost derelict town of Otira. The hostel was like a well designed New Zealand country cottage (single story with a red corrugated roof) and on the one night that we were there, we found ourselves completely on our own. The following day we arrived in Christchurch.

We remain here till this Thursday when we set off for Queensland where we plan to stay for a while with Janis’s sister Sharon. That should be another experience to which I am looking forward.

The days pass quickly old friend and we shall soon be home. Though I am enjoying my tour it will be good to get home in early March.

Today I emailed Cheryl at Kate Boats to remind her to have your leisure batteries changed as well as give your engine a service, so soon I expect you’ll be hearing all sorts of stuff happening around you. It’ll just be Rob coming aboard to do the jobs.

I’m so busy that I haven’t managed yet to compile the set of photos that I promised in my last letter but I’m still working on it and it won’t be too long I hope  before I get them them through to you.

So until the next time old chum, all the best.

Haarst Township

Thursday 22^nd January 2015

Dear Futurest

I sit here enthused for the moment at the grandeur around me, on the south bank of the Paringa River. Currently it’s a shallow stream meandering across a wide river bed of white smoothed pebbles, deep in the West Coast Region of New Zealand’s South Island and the whole scene is quite magnificent.

Earlier this morning I was thrilled to witness the deep blue of the Tasman Sea again and to hear the roar as the surf hit the white sand and shingle beach.

 

 

The Tasman Sea with local inhabitants

 

From the beach across the dunes

 

The weather is perfect, as it has been for the whole period of our stay in New Zealand except for one day’s rain and I’m so glad I came.

I am sitting in a deck chair in the shade of a native Maruka tree, well protected from the intense heat of the early afternoon Sun and ahead of me, across a wide area of dunes covered now after generations with low vegetation, stretches a string of tree cloaked mountains. In the far distance I catch a glimpse of the snow capped peaks of the Southern Alps shining in the sunlight and I am inspired.

Luckily I remembered to bring along my laptop computer today otherwise I would have been sunbathing with Janis, after our picnic lunch of local smoked salmon sandwiches and tea brewed on Janis’s little camping gas stove. It’s been a delightful experience, another to add to the number that we have already shared so far.

Because of the rampart of high mountains running down this side of the South Island this area was until quite recently almost cut off from the rest of the country, being sustained by ancient cattle and sheep trails only. Even now there is just one main road, which, in a lengthy and roundabout way, connects all parts.

It is on this road that Janis and I have travelled since leaving her niece’s house at the southern end of Lake Wakatipu over a fortnight ago

 

 

Giant fern about to uncoil

 

After leaving Becky’s house we spent a few days at Te Anau on the lake of the same name at a comfortable family run backpacker’s hostel and spent our sunlit days walking the numerous tracks in the area. Most of our walks since arriving in New Zealand have been in the deep bush unique to this country and all have certainly been long enough for me to feel the healthy exercise. Every day we have walked more than five miles and though that appears to be nothing to the young mountain gazelle that accompanies me, I am very proud of myself on the accomplishment.

 

 

Reflections by a lake called Marian

 

 

The bush track up to Lake Marian

 

From Te Anau we motored across to Milford and joined a local ship, the ‘Milford Wanderer’, on an overnight trip along the breath-taking fiord. The Wanderer is a recently built modern ship but with many features to remind one of her Edwardian predecessor, such as dark wood panelled companionways and cabins, and sails which are set just for photographic show now on this powerful twin screw motor vessel.

 

 

Milford Sound with Mitre Peak on the left

And were able to

 

 

Seals basking in Milford Sound

 

We were served with a bounteous three course dinner in the evening after we were under way in the late afternoon, while an excellent full English breakfast the following morning couldn’t have been better. We anchored quietly overnight in calm waters in a cove and were able to admire the splendour of the night sky as well the mooring lights of the Wanderer’s sister ship nearby. On this trip we found ourselves close up to seals and saw many dolphins jumping in the sea ahead of us.

 

 

The majestic Stirling Falls on Milford Sound

 

 

From Milford we returned to Becky’s for two more nights and during the day in between, Janis and I experienced an exciting helicopter trip around Queenstown enabling us to explore a different thrilling aspect of the surrounding mountains as well.

Leaving the helicopter we were able to look around Queenstown, the largest habitation in the area, which thrives on tourists and while there we visited a below zero bar and enjoyed a cocktail in a glass made of ice; another unique experience for me.

The next day we set off for Haarst Township further north on the west coast crossing the high Crown Range of mountains to do so. The metalled, or sealed road as they call it in New Zealand was only completed in the 1960’s and before then the best way of contacting the region was via the sea, only the high mountain passes offering any sort of substitute. So even today there are few people here and Haarst itself, named after an early Victorian explorer and surveyor, consists only one or two single story houses, a backpacker’s hostel where we are staying for two nights and a number of corrugated roofed restaurants with the local delicacy Whitebait being top of the menu.

Even though Janis and I are very happy with the solitude here we move on north tomorrow to see the Fox Glacier, to which I’m looking forward. It’s all so wonderful.

Fifty years ago when I last came to New Zealand I was never able to experience all this grandeur and when I recollect actually in detail, all those years ago were only spent in the nearest pub in the ports on the east coast. I never saw this side of the country at all and working aboard ship I was never able to see the many amazing features all over. So I feel very privileged to be able to see it all now, the thoughtful planning of which I have to thank my splendid travelling companion. The whole trip has gone extraordinarily well to plan thanks to her.

There are so many amazing photos to show that I shall send you a good selection of these by separate mail.

And how are you old friend? I hope all goes well being on your own with only ‘Roots and Wings’ to keep you company, though even she is moored some way away. The winter weather doesn’t appear to have been too bad in Warwick so far and I hope therefore that you are not feeling it too badly.

After a couple of days at Fox Glacier we shall be returning to Christchurch to stay another few days with Janis’s Mum before flying on to Queensland to see Janis’s sister Sharon. Then during the first week in March we shall be flying home so it won’t be too long now before we are reunited.

Until then old chum all the best for now.

Lake Wakatipu

Dear ‘Futurest’

A very happy New Year to you and I hope all is well at home.

I did hear that England has had a layer of snow in parts recently, which is quite normal for this time of year I suppose, but difficult for me to imagine scorching in thirty degrees of sunshine here in New Zealand.

 

Typical New Zealand home

 

A local duck variety

 

Janis and I are now well established in our tour of the South Island. We are currently staying with Janis’s niece Becky at a delightful little hamlet called Kingston at the southern end of the vast Lake Wakatipu. There are a few typically New Zealand single story houses here with a corner shop that also doubles as a cafe and a post office. There is a derelict railway line with an old steam locomotive called ‘The Kingston Flyer’ sadly rusting away there and we are surrounded by vast ranges of mountains some of which are still covered with snow in parts even in this height of Summer.

 

Fields of wild Lupin on the Canterbury Plain

 

 

 

Myself posing at Lake Tekapo

 

There are few roads in the whole of the area, one main one runs the full length of the lake through the largest built up area called Queenstown and up as far as Glenorchy right at the northern end, where we visited yesterday.

 

Mount Cook in the hazy distance

 

Most tourists visit Queenstown but we have the benefit of Becky, who is an excellent tourist guide knowing so much of the countryside around here. We were in a four wheel drive Suzuki and were able therefore to travel to all the normally inaccessible parts, up dusty gravel tracks and dried up river beds through narrow ravines. The flies bite like mad but it’s all been very exciting.

I have seen lots of strange birds, like the Tui, called the Parson Bird because of its white collar with a ruff at the front. It also has a very tuneful song. Also there is the small Fantail, about the size of our Robin with a long tail that he keeps spreading like an open fan. But most fascinating and amazing of all are the tall mountain ranges that completely surround us. This is real Hobbit country.

 

At and In Paradise

 

We spent over a week in Christchurch with Janis’s Mum, who apart from being a kind host was also an excellent guide. She took us to see the sad ruins of that once great, proud and pretty city before we set off south to Lake Tekapo. Here we stayed at a Backpacker's hostel for two nights and viewed the southern night sky from Mount St John alongside the lake. 

All was perfect.

 

Dried up River bed or almost

 

Our next stop is Te Anau another little town at the southern end of the lake of the same name. We travel on there tomorrow, always hemmed in by mountains all around.

Even though we are enjoying a lovely time in NZ and everybody is so friendly and welcoming, I am missing you and will be grateful when we return safely home. Today by email I confirmed your dry docking with Tooley’s in Banbury for the beginning of April.

All the best old friend. I shall write again soon.

Perth

Sunday 28th December 2014

Dear Futurest,

We are now drawing near the end of our memorable stay in Western Australia. We flew in last Tuesday afternoon from Sydney, after leaving the  fantastic ‘Voyager of the Seas’. A quick revictualling was all she needed  before she disappeared over the horizon again, towards Fiji on her next whirlwind trip with another four thousand excited passengers aboard.

At Perth airport we met Sharon, Janis’s sister and battled through a wall of heat outside the air conditioned airport buildings to find a taxi. This was no trouble as there were hundreds available.

 

Agapanthus and Pine in Perth

Exotic Frangipani….

….and Hibiscus

 

Soon we met Leonard, Janis’s Dad at his home. He lives on a retirement development similar in style to the McCarthy and Stone idea we have in UK, except here in Perth the dwellings are laid out as tasteful small bungalows instead of a block of flats. There are also one or two flats furnished for visitors and we are happily staying in one of these while we are here.

Everything is amazing here in Western Australia, especially the weather. Each morning we have woken to cloudless skies of crushed emerald with temperatures well into the thirties. The weather never varies apparently and can be guaranteed throughout the year. Rain, what little there is, conveniently falls only during darkness hours.

 

Sunset over the Indian Ocean at Scarborough, Perth

 

Janis’s eldest sister Raeleen, arrived on Christmas Eve and though we had a memorable and very happy Christmas, I have to say that it didn’t quite feel the same as it does with the air temperature hovering around freezing point or worse and with the possibility of having real snow outside.

Here in the shopping malls little children dressed in festive tinsel are greeted by Santa Claus looking most uncomfortable and almost incongruous in white woolly beard and scarlet fur coat sitting amongst cotton wool snow. Somehow I feel it doesn’t fit in with the azure skies and searing heat outside.

Every day we have been out visiting or shopping somewhere with Leonard insisting in doing all the chauffeuring though with plenty of positive help from the back seat. I think he and his girls are particularly happy being together at this time of the year; a rare happening these days since all four live so far apart.

Leonard has two brothers living in Perth and with them and their families we spent Christmas Day at one of the cousin’s homes. There were thirty four in the party altogether and I was made to feel very welcome by uncles, cousins, both once and twice removed together with spouses. The hospitality was  typically generous and Australian.

Leonard has took us to Fremantle one day and it was great to be able to see the port that I used to visit, so many years ago. After forty or fifty years the place has obviously changed but the wharves where our ships tied up are still there, even though they are not used now as they were originally intended. There are expensive yachts and ferry boats tied up there now and the adjoining sheds have been turned into classy tourist shops and restaurants. We spent a long time at the Maritime Museum along the quay which painted a vivid history of all the different immigrants that have passed through Fremantle over the years.

We  have walked in the city and sunbathed on beach at Scarborough and Rockingham and Some of us have actually plunged and frolicked in the warm Indian Ocean.

But tomorrow morning early Janis and I have to leave this wonderful paradise. We fly to Christchurch in New Zealand on the next phase of our trip to begin five weeks of exploration in the land where Janis was brought up; Aeotearoa, the land of the long white cloud; the land where Hobbits now reside.

I think of you often old Friend and recount all the stories of you and and me together to the locals here. They are most interested always. I hope all is well with you and the weather is not too cold so as to cause drastic catastrophes aboard.

Be assured that I shall write again soon.

From

Old Salt (the Ancient Mariner)

 

Sydney Bound

Thursday 18th December 2014

Dear ‘Futurest’

Here we are in the Tasman Sea again, having in the meantime circumnavigated the the North Island of New Zealand. We are heading back to Sydney now, the port from which we left ten days ago and our estimated time of arrival is on Saturday 20th December.

 

Our luxurious cabin aboard the ship

 

The cruise aboard this magnificent ship has been wonderful and though it has rained occasionally, as I remember it was always prone to do in New Zealand fifty years ago, this hasn’t spoiled our experience too much, as it has thoughtfully only commenced during our shore leaves just as we were returning aboard.

 

The ‘Voyager of the Seas’ berthed at Auckland

 

There was only one occasion when the weather was a little less discriminatory and that was on the day we docked at Tauranga when the rain began soon after we berthed and continued throughout the day till we sailed.Janis and I arrived back at the ship in this case thoroughly wet through having climbed to the seven hundred feet or so summit of the local Mount Maunganui.

Of the five ports visited in five consecutive days only Auckland, our first port and Wellington, the capital of New Zealand, were of any size. The others, Tauranga in the Bay of Plenty, Napier in Hawke’s Bay and  Picton our only port in the South Island, were really not much larger than villages.

Auckland and Wellington are graced still by much of the Victorian architecture that displays their early British heritage and Napier, which unfortunately was completely destroyed by an earthquake in the early 1930’s, was rebuilt completely in the Art Nouveau style popular at that time. This is now listed and the town looked very spruce since the exterior paintwork has been maintained so well ever since. During the ship’s stay there the passengers were rightly entertained in the streets by musicians and singers imitating that Gatsby style period. Many fine pre-war motor cars were there as well waiting to be hired with suitably dressed chauffeurs.

 

 

Art Nouveau street in Napier

 

 

Statue of ‘Pania of the Reef’ today

The same spot in May 1958 with crew of MV‘Imperial Star’

Of course I took my camera ashore on all occasions as there was many strange birds and flowers to record.

During our shore leave in the last port of call Picton, Janis and I boarded a small aeroplane on floats and were treated to a thirty minute flight around the creeks and islands in the area.

Flying a bit bumpily at an altitude of 1000 feet the thick tree covered promontories and sandy bays, mostly untouched by Human hand and the water so clear that one could see beneath the surface to great depths, could be appreciated so much more. It was magnificent.

But now we are on our way back to Australia, for Sydney Airport on Saturday afternoon, to catch a plane to Perth in Western Australia, where we have been invited to stay with Janis’s father till after Christmas. That will be wonderful too as it was 1968 when I was last in this city.

So how are you old friend? Looking at the BBC weather forecasts in your area over the last few days, it doesn't seem that you would have suffered too much from the freezing cold as temperatures seem to have hovered above freezing point day and night. Long may it continue.

I think of you a lot and miss you of course. This is the longest that you and I have ever been apart. I know your leisure batteries are suspect and I have arranged for Rob the engineer to come aboard a bit later on to change them ready for next year’s cruising. So when he clumps aboard don’t worry old girl and you will feel so much better when he’s done the job.

 

The midships shopping area etc of ship

 

In the meantime I’ll sign off and write again probably from Perth. Since there is no economical wi-fi aboard the ‘Voyager of the Seas’ it is not likely that this letter will be forwarded till we arrive in Sydney. But the date shown at the top is the date of writing.

Goodbye for now old friend

From

Old Salt the Ancient Mariner