What on earth happened?

I've just realised that is's almost four months since I posted anything about holidays.
The trip to New Zealand was enjoyable, although I was totally caught out by the weather.  The forecast temperature for our time there was a lovely cool maximum of 21 or 22 but it actually went into the high twenties most days - in combination with the 'down by the sea' humidity, I found this to be quite uncomfortable.
However, Wellington is a lovely place.  We got to see the Great War Exhibition at the War Memorial which was of course the main reason for the visit, and also a smaller exhibit they've got in place at Te Papa.  Both were just excellent and I'm so glad we got to see them.  We also did a tour based around the local Lord of the Rings movie filming locations and it was really well done.
While in Wellington we also discovered a restaurant chain which I would never have considered - it's Malaysian cuisine and I'd normally think this would be too spicy for me.  But, they have all sorts of options for the level of 'hotness' and the dish I chose was really nice.  The restaurant is called PappaRich, and there's one here in Canberra, so I think I'll give them another try.  Or maybe even more than one  :-)
The kitchen renovation I talked about in my last post is now complete - it went quite well and I'm very happy with the result.  Unfortunately while we were in New Zealand I started to get a back twinge which turned into a nasty pain.  So, for most of the kitchen renovation I was either lying on the floor in the lounge room, or staggering off to work and struggling through the day with a combination of lying on the floor there (!!) and pain killers.  After a fair bit of physiotherapy it's now sort of under control, although I still have to do my exercises every day (and it's not really going to get better any other way - two disc bulges, one disc hernia, and arthritic degeneration in a few places).  And, I no longer sit at a desk - both at home and at work I now use a stand-up desk.  It's all quite tiring but being tired is better than being in pain.... This all means though that there has been very little work done on the upcoming holidays; I've booked a couple of hotel rooms and the flight to Singapore, but that's about all. 
The direct flights between Wellington and Canberra seem to have been quite popular - both flights we took were totally booked out, and we ran into two separate people that we know while in Wellington.  However, Singapore Airlines have decided otherwise and have now cancelled these flights.  They have also cancelled the direct Singapore to Canberra flights - you now again have to travel via Sydney.  There is still a direct Canberra to Singapore flight a few times a week, and we were going to fly to Singapore with them for the cruise.  However, flying direct from Canberra does restrict your options if you need to be there on a particular day - for example, in order to catch a cruise!  And, it's a long flight in economy with a bad back.  So, we're actually going to go to Sydney and get a "Scoot" airlines business class flight to Singapore; it's probably not much fancier that most airlines premium economy but it actually isn't going to cost any more than the Singapore Airlines economy fare would have been, and my back will be a lot happier.

Tasmania Cruise - Day 6 (At Sea) & Day 7 (All over!)

Day 6 was one of our favourite sorts of cruise days - a full day of doing almost nothing!

So that this isn't the shortest blog entry ever - here's the view from our cabin:

We deliberately opted for this "obstructed view" because that's the sort of cabin we had booked on our (now abandoned) 38 day cruise from Southampton to Singapore - I wanted to be sure that I'd be ok with no balcony and not much view.  Probably would have been ok, but I'd still prefer a balcony.
Anyway, there's not much else to report, just the usual sadness at the cruise ending.
 
Now, we've just got to survive a kitchen renovation and my retirement, and then hopefully next October there's another cruise on the way!

Tasmania Cruise - Day 5 - Hobart

Well, I'm finally catching up on the blog posts - almost a month after the event!
Second day in Hobart we hired a car and - as in Burnie - had no real plans about where to go.
First drama - getting out of the city.  We decided to start with a trip to an "Apple and Heritage Museum", but we had an amazing amount of trouble getting out of the city in that direction.  Many of the streets in the city are one-way, and the map app on my phone didn't know about all of them.  And, at one point it told me to do a u-turn on a road that was effectively a free-way! We also ended up driving on a street that I'm pretty sure only allows bus and delivery traffic - oops.
However, we eventually found our way out of town.
The museum was a disappointment - I should have realised it would be once I saw that it was a 'site of interest' in the documents Princess prepares about their shore excursions.  The description was the classic "come here on a shore excursion to spend money on food and souvenirs but don't really expect too much else", and it unfortunately lived up to that standard. However, we found a cafe in town and had a nice coffee while considering our next move
We had considered going to the Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary and also to some wineries but in the end we decided against this.  Instead, we decided to go up Mt Wellington.  Unfortunately there was so much twisting and turning on the road that I managed to get carsick.  But, when we got to the top, it was absolutely worth it - spectacular views in all directions.

 This is the view of Hobart from Mt Wellington - the little white blob in the water is our cruise ship.

This is Paul on top of Mt Wellington

Fortunately, getting back into Hobart was nowhere near as dramatic as leaving.  We managed to find a servo to stop up the petrol (therefore avoiding having to pay the outrageous prices Avis charge to top up) and had no one-way street trouble either.
Disappointing afternoon back on the ship though - for some reason they were doing work outside our cabin.  Now, I understand that they are always needing to do minor maintenance, and I understand that sometimes this might involve multiple people bashing heavy hammers directly onto the metal hull just outside your cabin.  What I'm not happy about is the fact that we weren't warned - usually when there's going to be noise they let you know, but not this time.
Paul astoundingly managed to nap through a couple of hours of this (with a pillow over his ears!) but I couldn't.

Tasmania Cruise - Day 4 - Port Arthur and then Hobart

Two ports in one day today.
Overnight we sailed to Port Arthur.  This is a tender port, and one we have visited before.  So, we decided to stay onboard and have a lazy quiet time.
Once everyone was back on board, we sailed for Hobart at about 5pm and docked there around 7pm.
After dinner we had a shore excursion - a ghost walk.  Interesting tour; we walked around some of the older streets near Salamanca Place, and the guide told us stories about various historical houses, obviously concentrating on ghost stories.  I thought that they were going to include some pretend ghosts - I was quite sure that there was someone in the top middle window of this old hotel moving the black fabric around - but no-one said anything so maybe it was a ghost after all ......

The tour didn't go as long as advertised, and a few times she talked about 'showing us photos later' which didn't actually happen.  However, it was an interesting walk and talk.

Tasmania cruise - day 3 - Burnie

We arranged a hire car with Hertz, picked it up with no real dramas.  The plan was to have no plan, just get in the car and drive, which we did.  We found a nice little town called Penguin and had a coffee there.  Then, we went further along the coast to Devonport and had a look around the town.
Then, we got into the car and drove back to Burnie.
Doesn't sound too exciting but there was some lovely scenery and the weather was simply glorious
Tasmania was already on our list of 'places to see when we don't feel up to cruising any more' and today simply confirmed that decision.
Today also confirmed that there is apparently a total lack of supply of Travacalm in Australia at the moment. The pharmacies around home were totally out of stock - I asked at one and he said that the supplier is having problems and "everyone is going on cruises".  And, for interest I checked out a pharmacy in Sydney and one here in Devonport with the same results - no Travacalm.  I had enough to get me through this cruise, but I'm going to have to stock up somehow for next year's cruise!

Tasmania Cruise - day 2 - sea day

Classic, totally restful sea day for us.  Biggest decision for the day was whether or not to risk trying to get into the dining room on 'formal night' in clothes that were 'business wear' at best.  No problems, but still on our own at the dining table.

Tasmania Cruise - Day 1 - boarding

The ship was at the White Bay Cruise Terminal which is an abomination.  You can only get there by car, taxi or ferry, no other public transport and you certainly can't walk onto the docks.  I have now decided that any time we cruise into or out of Sydney in future, it's going to be on a cruise ship that's too big to go under the Harbour Bridge, so it can't be docked at White Bay.
If you're cruising out of Sydney from the Overseas Passenger Terminal, you can drop off your suitcases quite early, and then wander around the city until boarding time. No such option at White Bay.  So, we went into the city first and dragged our suitcases around in the rain until we found a place to sit and have coffee, then annoyed another taxi driver - apparently a $24 fare from the city to White Bay was beneath his dignity or something. 
Got on board quite quickly and found our cabin.  The whole idea of the cruise is actually gone now - the main plan was to make sure that we'd be ok in an oceanview cabin for a 38 day cruise next year, but we have just recently cancelled that cruise anyway.  Possibly a good thing, because I don't think I'd have liked this setup for 38 days.
However, for 6 days it's perfectly acceptable although a little noisy, there are three separate crew work areas beside it.
Went to dinner and found ourselves to be the only people at a table for eight.  Quick and quiet meal!