It won't surprise you to know that we didn't get an early start to the day! Don went out for our morning coffee (as he does every morning) and we set off south from Cairns to visit a rain forest. En route we stopped at Bebinda to visit the Boulders. This is a spectacular waterfall. It is an Aborigine sacred place. The story (in brief) behind this rock formation is that a young girl fell in love with a young boy from a different trible and when they weren't allowed to marry she threw herself into the water and the boulders were thrown up and the waterfall was formed. To drive through to the Boulders you have to drive through the town of Bebinda. This is just like the town in Neighbours (for those of you ... read more

(There should be 6 PHOTOS and - eventually when uploaded successfully - a video for this posting, so SCROLL DOWN to see them if they do not appear within this text frame.) We had a lie-in this morning. Sleeping is moreish; the more you get the more you want! Once we got going we decided to walk through Fitzroy Gardens. Amongst other things the park is home to Captain Cook's house, the oldest building in Australia. It is also home to beautiful gardens. We crossed the park and decided to follow the Golden Mile Heritage trail, passing old buildings of architectural significance housed among the high rise buildings of modern Melbourne. Among them was the Scots Church, the burial place of Dame Nellie Melba, a renowned soprano in Europe and particularly Britain (19th C). All along ... read more

From the 16th floor we can see the trains and trams and bicycle lanes (as well as cars). For some unknown reason it always takes forever to get out and today was no exception. Two hours it took to organise two overnight bags, make a couple of phone calls and get out. We left our suitcases with the concierge as we are coming back Saturday night. We are off to East St Kilda to spend Shabbat with the Rabbi Moshe Loewenthal family. The Loewenthal "clan" are family friends but Don and I have not met the Australian family yet. Then into the car to drive to Hertz. There we found out that we were able to use the toll roads (scream). By the time we sorted out Hertz we had passed another hour. By this time ... read more

It's 5:30am and we have 2 text messages on 2 separate phones. Panic short lived by the discovery of Vodafone welcoming us to Australia. Turn over and go back to sleep for one lovely hour. Last big Kosherica breakfast and more farewells and more futzing before leaving the ship. Don got by Australia immigration to have his shoes because we were honest enough to declare we had been on a farm in NZ. I get off scot free. (Makes a change!) We take a taxi to collect our hire car from Hertz which is to be our new mode of transport for the next 5 days. He has this magical brainwave to leave 2kg of stuff at the Marriott where we will stay (again) in Sydney. After driving around for what seemed like an eternity to ... read more

Heading west and rocking on the waves of the Tasman Sea, I think that we took some advantage of that extra hour's sleep. Don woke the ship up with a colossal sneeze at about 5 am. His cold is breaking out. We went in for breakfast and as usual closed the restaurant. We were looking at a map of Victoria to Melbourne with Sylvia and Michael. We are driving there from Sydney and they advised us where to go and where to stay along the southeastern coast of Australia. We went to a Q & A session with Yehuda (the owner of Kosherica) and his chief organiser of cruises, Aliza. It was interesting to hear of all the challenges and strategies involved in organising one cruise. Yehuda's favourite place is Costa Rica so we could very ... read more