Day 40 Sydney G'day mates! I had mixed feelings on arriving in Sydney; we were saying goodbye to Gail and Barry who we'd just spent the last 40 days with, looking forward to seeing Nev, Kate and Sharon and feeling ever so slightly homesick! When I saw Kate and her 'baby bump' I was very homesick for Helen and baby Eric! We spent a glorious day in Sydney, the sun came out, the temperature rose and we went to Bondi beach. What more can you wish for. Lunch was ...

Day 35 Auckland NZ Woke up this morning and said to Phil, 'it's a bit grey out there isn't it? He said you'd better come and look, but make sure you're decent. Well I'm always that! Anyway, we'd docked right next to an apartment block, the lady opposite was laughing at our palm tree, how very dare she! We had beautiful weather for walking around a city. First up was the Sky Tower, thought we'd get there before the rush, but there was no problem and hardly a que...

Day 33 Nuku 'Alofa, Tonga Raining, raining, raining, oh and hot! We went on a tour today around the island. On first look out this morning, we noticed a marked difference from Pago Pago, which was almost mountainous to a very flat island indeed. The air-conditioning on our bus worked a treat accept when it rained so we had to close the windows! We saw the royal palace, which is being modernised, the royal tomb and then went to the western side of the island whe...

Day 30 Pago Pago, American Samoa But it's pronounced Pango Pango. It's said that when the discoverers of the island came to put it on the map, they didn't have an 'n' on the typeset so they named it Pago Pago! We had a great taxi driver who wore a Somoan skirt! He took us all the way along the east coast of the island and then dropped us off at Tisa's Barefoot Bar on the beach. We ordered the local beer, and then had an hour relaxing in the ocean, which was ab...

Day28 Crossing the Equator We crossed the equator at 10.46 precisely. In the afternoon, King Neptune invited us to an initiation ceremony.The back of the ship's decks were packed but I managed to push my way in to take some photographs. One of our onboard friends, Steve, was chosen for one of the initiation ceremonies where he had to kiss a fish and had 'shark's insides' smeared all over him. He was then thrown in the pool which was later drained (a number of ...