Having stayed up late reading, getting six hours sleep and waking in a better mood I was up on deck by 7.30am with coffee for my first look at Brisbane. Probably my last look at Brisbane too. I’m not sure we’re even in the same county. Yes, that picture includes a cluster of skyscrapers 25km […]

My body continues to want to be in New Zealand, waking up at what would be a respectable time there. Here it was 4am, and even forcing myself back to sleep only got me through to 7.30. At home I can wake up at 7.30, a cat will realise I’m awake and demand a cuddle, […]

I saw more boats in the marina when I went to find one that would return me to the ship. The police have a very large catamaran, larger than the one I eventually boarded. Back on board I could finally remove my shoes, then try and take off my socks without ripping the blister off […]

The late start today meant I could happily go back to sleep after waking at 5am and get up at a leisurely 7.30 instead. By 8am I’d had two coffees and we still hadn’t anchored, leaving me impatient to start the day. At 9.15am I decided to go and join the queue for a tender […]

Cairns city council offer city wide free wifi. This is a bad thing: Nowhere else offers wifi because the city do, but the city offering sucks. As an example, this is the city’s own website: “The server at www.cairns.qld.gov.au is taking too long to respond.” I wouldn’t mind but every site has started doing that […]

Waking up at 5am on a sea day is a waste of a good lie-in opportunity. Worse, a notice in the letter box told me that I’m being inspected at 7am tomorrow, by Australian customs. I guess I’ll pop along, say hi then just head straight ashore, if we’re there. On deck I wanted to […]

In the late 19th century a Royal Navy survey vessel formally charted an atoll to the east of New Guinea. Running out of ideas they named the islands of the atoll after the ship itself, which is why today I visited the HMS Conflict Islands. Without the HMS. This is what the Cruise Line would […]

Barely have internet so just a tiny update to confirm I’m still alive despite being shipwrecked this morning. I swam to shore, camera survived, have lots of other news but it’ll all have to wait until the 22nd Dec when I’m back in Australia.

Another day, another island in the Pacific. Or maybe the Coral Sea. I need an atlas. This one had a hill, which isn’t very big. By 9am I’d been over the top of it, photographed a man with a pig lying asleep on him and see the world’s biggest spider web. Fortunately it didn’t contain […]

A change in pace today, as I ditched my camera bag, put my camera in my dance bag, added a towel and the tube of sunblock, and got into a small boat to a small island. It’s a good sized small island, a couple of miles across, 14000 inhabitants. They were all heading to the […]