4th November 2009

Today has been our first stop in Bunbury, just south of Perth. Established around 1831 the port of Bunbury became a vital hub for shipping wheat as well as a port-of-call for the great whaling fleets. Today it is one of Western Australia's largest ports.

We had no excursions booked, preferring to do our own thing and after an early morning coffee and a quick check of our e-mail we went for a stroll round Leschenaut Inlet where we were extremely fortunate to see a dolphin with her baby and a ray. We also saw two large black cockatoos perched in a tree eating fruit. We had intended to go to Busselton which we had visited in March, but the wooden jetty is closed for repairs so we decided not to bother. Avril, Les and us must have been among the last tourists to visit this pier as it closed in June. The route back to the ship took us past some very expensive property, in the region of 1.5 million Australian dollars, and they looked lovely.

After lunch in the self-service restaurant, which included from the exotic Thai curry to the mundane egg sandwich, we went for a rest by the outside pool; however, getting a bit fed up at fending off the flies we moved to sit by the inside pool. After a while I left Rosalyn to have a sleep while I went to the gym. It was much more interesting to be able to look out on to the sea while using the treadmill instead of usually working out in front of the Jeremy Kyle Show!

Tonight we are going to the Captain's Welcome Aboard Reception which is the first of the 3 Formal Nights. Because of this, the entertainment will be later than usual and if I feel up to it I will add a further note about this before going to bed.

As I type this the ship is rolling just a little more than last night. This is to be expected as we round the southwest corner of Australia and so long as it gets no worse we are getting used to it.

There was someone we met who lived only 20 minutes from Bunbury and had travelled all the way to Perth to catch the ship having left her husband at home. Having said that she was not going home to have afternoon tea with him.

Well, I am now adding to my blog at midnight. On the way to the Captain's Reception we bumped into a couple who had come out on the same flight as us and had been with us in both Singapore and Perth. She firmly believed in the word FREE champagne and insisted we matched her drink for drink! As we would both normally have had just the one glass of champagne this proved fairly difficult and we opted out after our 3rd glass each and let her carry on drinking. After dinner we met up again and went to the show where she and her husband promptly bought us both a glass of wine. The show wasn't brilliant but we didn't care! We are now back in our cabin but neither of us dare lay down and have also had Gaviscon. Fortunately whilst tomorrow is a day on shore (Albany) it is at our leisure so we have no one to worry about; just us!!