Lots of things have been happening on the prepatation front and yet it's all a bit surreal - only 21 days to go before we sail from Sydney.
A bunch of people on the same cruise on Volendam have connected through the Roll Call message board on the CruiseCritic Web Site sharing ideas and information. We've even organised to meet for drinks in the Crows Nest Bar (courtesy of Holland America Line) on the first day at sea. Should be fun.
The tickets eventually arrived in the mail. Our TA got the street number wrong - but we're very fortunate to have good neighbours with initiative to sort out the problem rather than just send the package back. Hopefully that's the first and only little disaster to occur.
There's been lots of reading to do - finding out about what to visit and to do during our numerous shore excursions.
I've had in mind for a few weeks that it might be fun to use a GPS unit to plot my coordinates on a chart to get an idea about our progress. But what to use as my "chart" was the first challenge. I got lucky remembering that we have an old copy of a Readers Digest Atlas (with the pages falling out) in amongst the vinyl records and coffee table books in the lounge. These pages aren't too large (A3) and with the addition of some intermediate parallels (latitude) and meridians (longitude) drawn on with a fine pencil, I'm all set to keep the ship's navigator honest ;-). Knowing roughly where we are should be helpful to identify bits of the coastline.
As I write this post, MV Volendam is on the cruise to Auckland immediatly before ours. It's been fun to check out her arrival and departures using the webcams in Lyttelton and Wellington (so far). She arrived in Wellington just before midnight last night (local time).
The next day from the same webcam location I've snapped a shot of the interisland ferry "Aratere" leaving the Wellington ferry terminal.Dec 21st - only 16 days left!
With work finished for both of us and the extended family Christmas gatherings completed early this year, the countdown and final preparation has started in earnest.
Writing up some lists of things to pack have commenced. Asking our neighbour to feed the goldfish (actually it's black) and collect the mail whilst the kids are also away, are some of multitude of domestic issues that need to be sorted. We still haven't completed our Christmas letter (yes another blog) - maybe that should get priority over cruise planning today??? There's still more reading / research needed about activities and places to visit the ports in the North Island.
The South Island is pretty much sorted (well that's probably an exageration - let's just say I have a few ideas about what to see) and the tickets to see Wicked - the Untold Story of the Witches of Oz at the Regent Theatre in Melbourne has also arrived.
The ship is now heading south on the last 14 day cruise before we join her in Sydney. Today Volendam is berthed in Tauranga and as you can see from the webcam picture the weather there is absolutely brilliant.
We've just learnt that good friends Warren, Michael and Brett will be helping bring the Farr 65 Infinity III (racing as Pirelli) back from Hobart at the completion of this year's Sydney Hobart Yach Race. Depending on wind and sea conditions there's a good chance we will pass each other at sea as Volendam steams down the NSW south coast on the first afternoon.
Posts
