Tuesday 13th March: Today has been a total relaxation as we’ve been at sea. We crossed back over the Equator late this morning so watched other people being covered in gunge. We would have to give the prize for the smelliest crossing the line ceremony to the Queen Elizabeth. Here on the Mary it was largely food dye and spaghetti. No match for the QE’s rotten vegetables and fish guts! We went to another lecture today and I really enjoyed this one. Cunard have art galleries on all their ships and they’re run by Clarendon Fine Art from Mayfair. That means we can hardly afford to look, never mind actually buy anything from them but one of their people did a talk today on Rolf Harris and it was fascinating. I learnt loads about ... read more

Monday 12th March 2012: Oh my good gawd it was hot today. It was 31ºC with 75% humidity. I don’t even manage to sweat that much in the gym! Richard described today as like walking around inside a recently boiled kettle. But it was worth it because Papua New Guinea is like nowhere else we’ve ever been. We’re on the island of New Britain – which is just south of New Ireland - and much of this place was wrecked by a double volcanic eruption in 1994. Thanks to the work of the volcano observatory here, the islanders got 2 days warning of the eruption so most people were saved. 5 though lost their lives here and the main town was wiped off the face of the earth. As we were driving through what ... read more

Sunday 11th March 2012: An interesting start to our day today: we solved one mystery and discovered a new one to add to our To Do List! We went to a lecture given by Dr Stephen Payne. Not a name we expect anyone to know but it turns out he is the naval architect who designed the Queen Mary 2. He’s going to deliver 6 lectures and today’s was about the Mauretania. So here’s the mystery we solved. Richard’s mum had always said that she sailed from her home in Canada to her new, married life in England on the Mauretania. But we learnt recently that the Mauretania was sold for scrap before mum left Canada. So did she mis-remember or did we mis-hear? We learned today that the Mauretania had been such a ... read more

Saturday 10th March 2012: Today marks the half-way point in our 4-month long sabbatical and it’s been a lovely, sunny, lazy day. We’re now in the Tropic of Capricorn in the Coral Sea and the humidity level is rising significantly. Over 60% today and it will get wetter yet. It made our time in the gym somewhat less than invigorating this morning. Just knackering!! We went to a lecture today … and quickly regretted it. It was by the Fiction Reviewer of the Sunday Times and he talked about various journalistic critics – theatre and book reviewers. But he had no visual aids and I don’t know about you but I can only listen and pay attention to someone talking for about 7 minutes and then I drift. He talked for 50 minutes solid ... read more

Friday 9th March 2012: What an interesting day. Or at least we managed to get enough interesting things into one hour this morning that was more than enough for the rest of the day! Painful start – back to the gym for the first time since leaving the Queen Elizabeth. About the only semi good thing I can say is that I broke a sweat a lot quicker than I did nearly 2 weeks ago! And then it was breakfast and we really enjoy going to the main dining room and socialising and we hit lucky today. A table for 6 with everyone really nice. And then all the lights went out. And all the engines stopped. And the emergency lighting came on. And we all thought surely we’re not going to become a ... read more

Wednesday 7th March 2012 A quick update on yesterday: We had dinner in the open air at the Opera Bar before going in to the Opera House for the Ukulele Orchestra concert. The building is amazing. And so too was the orchestra. You might think it would not work for the ukulele to play David Bowie, Kate Bush, Talking Heads, The Sex Pistols and Frank Sinatra … but by golly it did. The hall was a complete sell out and the roar from the crowd was fantastic. It was a truly memorable experience. For today, Wednesday, this is not the most exciting day of our trip: we had to leave our lovely apartment. But it has to be said that our departure was as smooth as it could possibly be. A man arrived at ... read more

Tuesday 6th March: Joy of joys, this is the third day in a row of sunshine. And great timing too as we met up with Julie, one of my sister's friends who lives near Sydney, and went for a wonderful walk through the botanical gardens with at least one objective being its well-known cafe for a brew and a hard munch through some Anzac biscuits with their wonderful syrup and oats flavour. There's been so much rain here this summer that the gardens are stunning - everything is lush and gorgeous. And with apologies for bringing the subject up yet again, we found fruit bats. Hundreds of them hanging from trees throughout the gardens. They really are very cute when you can see their furry little faces and you can see clearly why they are also ... read more

Monday 5th March: Luckily the forecasters got it wrong again today as we have had wall to wall sunshine all day long. We had plans for all sorts of weather but kicked straight into the day with great weather activities and, as on so much of this holiday, we headed up the nearest tall building. In Sydney that meant going up the Sydney Tower. At 1,014 feet it's a bit lower than the Sky Tower we climbed in Auckland but it's still a blinkin' long way up. The visibility was magnificent and it was decidedly odd watching aeroplanes flying into Sydney airport next to Botany Bay ... and below where you're standing! Before going up the tower (in a slow and way too clackety lift) they put on a 4D film showing some of Sydney's highlights. ... read more

Sunday March 4th: Contrary to the weather forecasts for today, we woke up this morning to clear blue skies and very hot sunshine. Which meant this became our beach day and if you're a visitor in Sydney, where else do you go if not to Bondi Beach. It was everything we could have imagined it to be. The most gorgeous clean, soft, cool, pale sand. Crystal clear water. Lovely gentle rollers giving some nice surfing to those that can. Lots of lovely lifeguards in a jaunty red and yellow combo - although the little hats they wear are a serious fashion faux pas! And then a couple of poms padding in the shallow bits. It was excellent. They are so well geared up for visitors with loos, changing rooms, lockers, showers, and loads of cafes and ... read more

Saturday March 3rd: What a great start to our day today: a Skype call to a large dollop of family. I honestly don't know how people used to cope with the separation on either a long voyage or, even worse, upon emmigration. The internet and Skype must have made a huge difference as it makes such a wonderful call when you can actually see the people you're talking to. The family have all gathered for my nephew's 30th birthday celebrations and it was good to feel a tiny part of it. After breakfast we hit the Sydney ferries again - our £30 investment in a week's travel ticket has been brilliant and today we made that money go ever further by going almost all the way up the river, this time to the site of the ... read more