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Published: February 20th 2024
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Cruise Day 2 - Sun 18 Feb
We slept really well on our gently rocking bed! When we awoke we were just south of Margaret River, rounding Cape Leeuwenhoek lighthouse just after 7am (so we were told). We had taken the quilt/doona out of its cover for the night, as is our usual routine, and left a note for Larry asking for a light blanket, so he remade our bed with a top sheet and light blanket. He’s a champion.
We decided to select our brekkie from the buffet this morning - King’s Court. Beautifully cooked bacon (the way we like it Chari), eggs and tomatoes followed by some pineapple and melon pieces. Things are done so differently to minimise germ transference - they pass everything to us, including our utensils. They even squirt the tomato sauce on with a bulk container. The lady who brought my coffee to me let me know that the clocks had moved forward an hour overnight. They had misprinted the day and date in the daily program so we weren’t sure.
We had been planning to go to the Catholic mass but missed out because of the time change, so we went
to the church service based on the merchant navy’s service which included that wonderful hymn about the perils of the sea, and featured a wonderful pianist for each and every hymn we sang. After the service we went up to the library where we read the news of the world (it seems Cunard no longer produce the Australian news, just the US and British). Tom then went to a lecture about Australian history but did not find it riveting - I found the chairs by the windows on deck 3. I had sat in these chairs in 2004 when we were in tumultuous seas being chased by a hurricane in Northern America on our way to Quebec, marvelling at way our ship powered through huge waves - for she is an ocean liner, built for the North Atlantic, not a cruise ship to find a port in any storm. Today the seas were not so rough and I loved sitting there watching the waves and enjoying a skerrick of internet coverage from the mainland.
The ships navigator gave his report at lunchtime, but he also commented on all of the hundreds of people who lined the shore as we
left Fremantle, how wonderful it was. We went to lunch at the Britannia restaurant and asked for a table for 2 - and this time we were in a row of four tables for 2 - erghhh!! We actually found that the British couple next to us were delightful - an elderly couple from York. But two hours of polite chat is still just exhausting. We enjoyed roast pork for lunch followed by sticky toffee pudding. On our way out Tom had a word with the maitre d’ who found one “private” table for two for dinner and changed our allocation to that one. So that’s the term we must use in future.
After lunch we returned to our cabin for a nap - we did have plans to attend more events, but we slept through them lol. Then it was time to shower and prepare for our formal dinner night - back and white gala. Of course there was a photographer on our way to the dining room and he spent some time arranging our poses for the camera. We look forward to finding them tomorrow. Dinner at our new table was just delightful. Everyone was given a
glass of champagne, courtesy of the captain. We had smoked salmon for starters, followed by roasted cauliflower soup, the most wonderful beef wellington (with the last of last night’s Billi Billi Shiraz) and I finished with carrot cake cheesecake (which was awful) and Tom had the choc soufflé. After dinner we wandered to the Royal Court Theatre where a pianist performed all sorts of music, from big band to musicals and classical.
Then we had to put our clocks forward an hour again.
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