Thursday 7th March After 5 days at sea we have arrived in Osaka, Japan. We were expecting it to be quite cold but it has been very sunny and during the day it has been warm. We had to get up early to queue for Japanese immigration at 7 am. The queue went from one end of the ship to the other and back again but once it got going it was fairly quick. We went on a tour this morning starting at the Sumiyoshi Taisha Shrine. There is a lovely bridge called the Taiko-b...

Friday 1st March We have had two extremely hot days at sea with monsoon rain yesterday. This morning we arrived in Rabaul, Papua New Guinea. The photo is the view we had first thing this morning from our cabin balcony - an active, smoking volcano! It's how you imagine a volcano should look but you don't often get to see smoke rising like this. Rabaul is actually built inside a large caldera and as you can see is surrounded by active volcanoes. The volcano in th...

Tuesday 26th February Yesterday we sailed passed lots of islands as we entered the Great Barrier Reef marine park. Today we are anchored just off the northern coast of Queensland. It is very, very hot and sunny today - the temperature is about 37 degrees. We took the ship's tender over to a place called Yorkeys k*** and then went by coach through Kuranda village to the Rainforestation Park. We got on a WW I I army duck for a trip in the rainforest both on land ...

Sunday 24th February As we left Sydney Harbour at midnight on Friday the captain had already warned us that we were going straight into gale force winds. He was absolutely right and there was a large swell all through the night and all day yesterday. At times yesterday the gusts reached hurricane force! So lots of movement on the ship and a very grey sea for most of the day. It's hard to believe we are just of the coast of Australia! It was warm though but the ...

Friday 22nd February (Afternoon) The weather is rather cloudy this afternoon but a very pleasant temperature particularly for sightseeing. Right next to our ship is the Rocks area of Sydney. This is where the First Fleet landed and started the colony. It is the most historic part of the city. The row of houses in the picture were built in 1844 by an Irish immigrant and are now a museum. They were lived in until the 1990's - we had a guided tour and the museum i...