New Zealand!

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Monday 20th February:

We've just got back on the ship as it's 7 pm and we sail in 30 minutes time and our feet

throb, my hips are screaming and we've had a really excellent day here in Auckland. We

had an early breakfast on board and then headed straight for the hop on/hop off bus and

did the full 1-hour circuit of the city just so that we could orient ourselves. We then

hopped off in time for the highlight of our day: a sail on one of New Zealand's

America's Cup yachts. And it was brilliant. There weren't too many people on board so

we had space to move around and anyone that wanted to join in with the actual sailing

had plenty of opportunity. Richard helped man the grinders, hoist the mainsail, dragged

the gennaker sail back down into the sail locker and helped helm the boat. It was a

perfect sailing day: enough wind to make that boat really move without there being too

much wind to scare anyone. It was hugely exhilarating and buckets of fun too. They had

2 big yachts out in the harbour - ours was just for Cunard passengers and the other was

for general visitors to Auckland. So there were lots of mini races between the 2 boats

- most of which I have to confess we lost! But under blue skies and a very warm sun, we

were seriously glad of the breeze off the water and the time whizzed by.

Then it was back on the hop on/hop off bus and, because we knew where it went, we could

choose a couple of excellent destinations. First stop for us was at a place described

as an "Antarctic Encounter & Underwater World". They make 4 tons of snow every day to

keep their groups of Gentoo and King penguins happy and you get a ride in a little

motorised vehicle going through their enclosure including going past the glass walls of

their swimming areas. They really are major cute! Unlike the big sharks they have in

their walk through aquarium. The glass tunnel means you walk underneath and alongside

the sharks so you really get close to them ... whilst crossing your fingers that the

people who made the glass did a good job. Some of the sharks were properly big and so

were their teeth! Calmed down after that with a wander through the seahorse area. They

had lots of different ones and they are so pretty and so tiny.

Then we went from cute to scary by going up to the top of Auckland's Sky Tower. The

highest observation deck stands at 220 metres or 722 feet. The lifts have glass floors

and walls and then when you get up to the top there are glass panels in the floor - just

in case you haven't tested your sense of vertigo enough by then. But that is as far as

we went. Other nut cases can choose between two even scarier options: some walked

around the tower on the OUTSIDE on a metal mesh walk way and some total head cases chose

to jump off the top tied to a vertical wire: 11 seconds top to bottom. I prefered our

route: a coffee up top and then a lift gently back down.

Then we still had time for a bit of souvenir shopping and a beer in a great bar

overlooking the harbour.

So yes, we knackered! But it really was a great day.

It's now 10 at night and we've just got back to our cabin after a fascinating dinner.

We just started chatting with the couple on the next table who turned out to be

something quite big in the music production business. He had his own studio in London

where they live in Bloomsbury and still has one at one of their other (!!) houses in the

Hebrides. She's an artist and they are bringing their two children on this world cruise

as part of their all-round education. (Apparently the 6-storey house in Bath is just

too big and the place in the Hebrides is too remote for socialising so this is giving

them some social skills that they lacked!) After a while, two of their friends joined

us and we found ourselves chatting with Paul McCartney's manager and a man who'd been a

war correspondent for the Washington Post as well as doing some interesting work for the

US military. He'd been in Vietnam and the 6 Day War in the Middle East. He didn't say

he was exactly spying for the military but he did say he was reporting back to them. Oh

and Paul McCartney's manager's mum was the best friend of The Queen Mother. So we've

been regailed with stories of some of the biggest names in Hollywood and luvvie land:

Lou Grade, Zsa Zsa Gabor, the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin. What a weird and

wonderful way to end a day. Brilliant!

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