Blog 5 New Zealand, Posted Sydney February 16
Blog 5 New Zealand, Posted Sydney March 16
We had a lot of activity in New Zealand as we had stops on two consecutive days. Day 1 at Tauranga, a charming small seaside resort and Day 2 at Auckland, largest city in NZ with the highest sky tower in the southern hemisphere.
In Tauranga after we had explored the town we headed for a local winery, Mills Reef where we tasted many fine wines and decided to stay for lunch. Sue was most disappointed as they had sold out of New Zealand mussels but cheered up no end when they offered as a compensation two dozen oysters, tempura and natural at their super restaurant. The people here are very nice and we were reminded of the UK 40 years ago, thank god there wasn’t any Tony Blackburn on the radio!
We enjoyed Auckland too as although it is a large city it’s very compact and we wandered around, Albert Park was very pretty and from there we went to the Sky Tower where idiots jump off the top in a sort of mad bungy jump as you can see in the pictures and they pay to do it!! John had quite a hard job to even persuade Sue to go up it bu tin the end she loved teh views from the top and was glad we had done it. In the afternoon we caught a ferry from the harbour across to Devonport, somewhat different from its namesake in England, but very charming and old world. We finally had our lunch of mussels but it was at a pub where they took ages to serve us and they weren’t as good as they should have been, too much coconut cream and rather underdone.
All to soon our time on the Oriana is coming to an end. It seems no time since we joined, yet on Saturday John gave his 11th and final lecture which was well attended and much appreciated by the audience. Saturday is Valentine day and that night is a very formal evening with full evening dress and a concert by the ships company of the music of Motown. The standard of performance has been excellent and a few days ago they did a tribute to the music of Queen which really went down well.
On this trip John has managed to read the biographies of two very different Johns. First John Birt, a very readable account of his time at the BBC in which he justifies everything he did and at no time admits to any self doubt and the other of DJ Johnnie Walker. The latter was much more enjoyable and he did have the honesty to admit he treated me very badly by signing to Radio Radio for the money only 18 months after I had given him a chance to return to the BBC airwaves following his abortive and disastrous time in the US.
We got up early on Monday morning to watch the dawn break as we sailed into Sydney Harbour at 6 in the morning as it was well worth doing as it is one of the most impressive sights as the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge come into view. Even though it poured with rain as we disembarked it didn’t dampen our spirits, it’s wonderful to be back here and later the sun shone as we explored Darling Harbour and the fabulous fish market where Sue managed a dozen oysters.
More news when we move off to Melbourne where they have had the highest temperatures for a hundred years and many forest fires, we hope it will have cooled by Tuesday when we arrive.
We had a lot of activity in New Zealand as we had stops on two consecutive days. Day 1 at Tauranga, a charming small seaside resort and Day 2 at Auckland, largest city in NZ with the highest sky tower in the southern hemisphere.
In Tauranga after we had explored the town we headed for a local winery, Mills Reef where we tasted many fine wines and decided to stay for lunch. Sue was most disappointed as they had sold out of New Zealand mussels but cheered up no end when they offered as a compensation two dozen oysters, tempura and natural at their super restaurant. The people here are very nice and we were reminded of the UK 40 years ago, thank god there wasn’t any Tony Blackburn on the radio!
We enjoyed Auckland too as although it is a large city it’s very compact and we wandered around, Albert Park was very pretty and from there we went to the Sky Tower where idiots jump off the top in a sort of mad bungy jump as you can see in the pictures and they pay to do it!! John had quite a hard job to even persuade Sue to go up it bu tin the end she loved teh views from the top and was glad we had done it. In the afternoon we caught a ferry from the harbour across to Devonport, somewhat different from its namesake in England, but very charming and old world. We finally had our lunch of mussels but it was at a pub where they took ages to serve us and they weren’t as good as they should have been, too much coconut cream and rather underdone.
All to soon our time on the Oriana is coming to an end. It seems no time since we joined, yet on Saturday John gave his 11th and final lecture which was well attended and much appreciated by the audience. Saturday is Valentine day and that night is a very formal evening with full evening dress and a concert by the ships company of the music of Motown. The standard of performance has been excellent and a few days ago they did a tribute to the music of Queen which really went down well.
On this trip John has managed to read the biographies of two very different Johns. First John Birt, a very readable account of his time at the BBC in which he justifies everything he did and at no time admits to any self doubt and the other of DJ Johnnie Walker. The latter was much more enjoyable and he did have the honesty to admit he treated me very badly by signing to Radio Radio for the money only 18 months after I had given him a chance to return to the BBC airwaves following his abortive and disastrous time in the US.
We got up early on Monday morning to watch the dawn break as we sailed into Sydney Harbour at 6 in the morning as it was well worth doing as it is one of the most impressive sights as the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge come into view. Even though it poured with rain as we disembarked it didn’t dampen our spirits, it’s wonderful to be back here and later the sun shone as we explored Darling Harbour and the fabulous fish market where Sue managed a dozen oysters.
More news when we move off to Melbourne where they have had the highest temperatures for a hundred years and many forest fires, we hope it will have cooled by Tuesday when we arrive.
posted by Johnny & Sue World Travellers at
08:42
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