So, a sad farewell to New Zealand this morning! Very easy check in etc at Auckland airport - very nice airport it is too. Very easy to move around and plenty of seats and restaurant outlets. Flight was smooth and I watched two films in the four hours. Well, 1.5 films actually…. I saw the whole of The Water Diviner directed by Russell Crowe and with him in the title role too. It was really really good and very touching. About a father's search for his 3 sons missing after Gallipoli in WWI. Just excellent. Then I watched nearly all of the Imitation Game which was also great. Must get hold of it to see the rest.

When we arrived in Melbourne I had to go through one line as I had an electronic passport and Bob the other, as he didn't. I went through in about 5 minutes flat and went off and got the bag. I could see Bob was going to be ages because the line was truly enormous. In fact it took him over 90 minutes to get through. We were going to take the bus and tram to the ship but we decided as we were running late to take a cab. It wasn't too bad at £30.

Lovely to see Aurora again and our initial impressions of Melbourne were that it was rather fabulous. I expected it to be more of the size of Auckland but it is much larger and with a far larger downtown area with lots of skyscrapers and modern buildings. We dumped our bag in the cabin and more or less turned right around and went into the city on the free shuttle which dropped us at Federation Square and Flinders Street. Our favourable impression of Melbourne only grew as we explored. There is a fabulous mix of architectural styles from the super modern and quirky, to the old traditional colonial age. Flinders Street Station was a very evocative sight. We also enjoyed the arcades full of traditional shops which were very reminiscent of the arcades in Leeds. In fact we sat in the Royal Arcade and had a lovely tea and coffee and it was almost a mirror image of its Leeds counterpart.

We didn't really have time to do too much, just a few hours, so we explored all around the central area. Found an art shop and got some art supplies that we were lacking and we also bought some tonics in a supermarket. Melbourne appears to be a foodie paradise. I don't think I have ever seen so many food outlets and restaurants in such a concentrated area outside of the Far East. So many different food choices from sushi, dim sum, do-nuts, bakeries, juice bars,Vietnamese…. You name it you could eat it!

Headed back to the ship at about 4pm having barely scratched the surface of this city. Another place we will just have to revisit. Unpacked our bags and got the old cabin shipshape again. Bob then got his birthday presents and cards, including one from El Capitano, a nice touch. He was really touched with all the FB messages too.

We took a bottle of Prosecco up on our own rear deck for the sailaway. It was still hot and sunny and we perched by the railing as Melbourne slowly opened up on the horizon and then faded. It was quite nice as the Headliner group came out by us and were very jolly. Also a strange male couple who got on today and who are getting off in Sydney and befriended us. They looked like very aged rockers ie bleached teeth, aged aged skin, long dyed hair, tight jeans with slight paunch… how unkind I am…. Basically imagine Bill Wyman or Ronnie Wood (if he were not stylish and was errr…. Gay :O )

After we'd swigged our fizz down we decided we should probably go to dinner and we had a nice table of 8 where everyone but us had just got on and were Kiwis. Took a fair amount of teasing about the cricket team and a bit about rugby but they were a nice bunch. Pretty tired so we turned in by about 10ish…..

STOP PRESS: Very exciting to get back to my cabin after dinner and find a phone message from some lady who has got my paintings. Apparently they had got mixed up with the tutor's "by mistake". This is even more hilarious than if they had actually been stolen. Imagine this poor guy who has sold a painting (at least one) to the Queen, leafing through his creations and finding my two daubs lurking there !!!! J J