Day 102 - We are home - September 4th



Just a little something for Ros & Arnold to
improve their quality of life for the trip from Sydney
to Brisbane



Kicked out of bed at 5:50am (as we passed Rangitoto) by Paula.  Usually, it is me kicking her out of bed when I am ready to eat.

Freezing cold up on deck but after a cup of hot lemon and with the sun rising, a great sail in.  Garry & Joanne as keen as ever with Jo dressed for Auckland weather.  Samoa this is not... Garry couldn't see the "deck closed" sign and headed up for his usual sail in video shots.  

We left a small gift for Ros & Arnold – the remains of the “Jelly Bean Flavoured Massage Oil” Ros bought for us in Sydney.  Sorry there wasn’t a lot left but just enough to get them to Brisbane as their friends will all have left - and they might just be at a loose end.  A fair few farewells (again) as we wandered around and although we had booked to get off at 8:30am, we ambled down to the Atrium at 8am having vacated our cabin, just in time to give Alana one last hug after her very tiring and emotional day yesterday (I still have to write up yesterday’s blog); another big hug for the lovely Barbara and we just walked off with no hassle, no queue whatever, thanks to the brilliant NZ Customs/MAF & Immigration.  Straight to our luggage and we were outside texting Julie to get  a move on at 8:15 as she had planned to pick us up at 8:45!

Home with 7 bags, two backpacks, a briefcase and another bag of fragile goodies.

First job for me was to try and start the car, as Julie had been unable to get in it.  After reading the handbook, I managed to get in (modern electronics...) using the hidden key and lock - and the alarm went off!  It appears that the modern docking key has an inbuilt battery that can only be charged when it is in the ignition and the engine is running, but the alarm does go off if you use the emergency key, until you dock it.  Fortunately it fired first time (good British engineering old chap...) and the key is now charging up again.

We headed for our favourite cafe only to find that it had changed hands last week...  The new owners seem to have problems with the English language and the coffees weren’t very hot either.  Oh dear.  Not a good start, though the Guinness meat pie (to the previous owner's recipe) was up to standard and within a minute or three, there were four couples to welcome us back home.  Great – and an invitation out already.

We (Paula & I and Julie) headed to Devonport to wave at the ship as it cruised past.  Couldn’t recognise anyone on deck (no binoculars) but no doubt they were there. Sob-sob...  Au Revoir though friends, not Goodbye.

So that is it then.  Just 350 emails to read, digest respond to and the rest of the unpacking to do, before updating yesterday’s blog and making a start on the video.

Maybe I’ll do a summary in a few days.  Thanks to all who have followed the blog and I hope it has been either fun, informative or at least, readable.

By all means add your comments.

To those still on the ship – enjoy the run to Sydney and raise a toast to absent friends as they make a start on making their own beds and sorting out the shopping, cooking, cleaning and actually PAYING for their food (Chinese takeaway tonight).
Postscript:  Oh dearie me - apologies to Logan (Spasm) - the battery in our digital scales seems to have gone flat too.. What a pity...