Good day mate,

We are still in Australia with our last stop in Exmouth tomorrow...don't even try looking it up an the map...it's so small it's not on there!!! I believe we are going there to gas up for four days at sea before we arrive at Kota Kinabalu. Our last three stops were nice but just didn't compare to the previous ones!!! Adelaide Is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of South Australia, with a population of 1.1 million. Adelaide is most noted for its many festivals and sporting events, its food, wine and culture, its long beachfronts, and its large defense and manufacturing sectors. It continues to rank highly as a livable city, being in the Top 10 in The Economist's World's Most Livable Cities index. We were fortunate to visit while they were having the Adelaide Fringe. In our walk through the streets there were street entertainers on all the corners....jugglers, musicians, high unicyclist and dancers. I was approached by the local news station to be interviewed. He started asking me questions and as I was trying to answer, my "producer" was attempting to cue me in on what to say with hand and body signals!!! It was quite distracting as it is when you are on the phone and the person in the room is talking to you at the same time. Needless to say, I'm sure there was alot of editing but the piece they were writing was on being happy. I told them they picked the best person for the interview!!! They did ask my age and I stumbled a bit, only because my "producer" was egging me on!!! They gave the statistic that 74 was the happiest age by a survey of people!!! I told them I didn't think I could be any happier!!! Since we left before the evening news I don't know if it aired but I think I can say I am an international TV star...hahaha!!!

The next stop was Albany...another small town and I believe they coincided their arts and craft festival with the ship docking in town so they would have more customers. Indeed they did as we dropped a bundle....or should I say Shopper Ken dropped a bundle. He bought a Didgeridoo...a wind instrument that is covered with Aborigine art work....very cool and very large. Now, he has to learn how to play it which will take a lot of blowing and hot air...should be no problem for him. He also bought me a beautiful pearl necklace. The northwest part of Australia is known for their pearls and since Albany is a port city it's a great place to buy pearls.

Yesterday, I took a shore excursion with the goal of drinking wine and feeding kangaroos. Goal accomplished and it was a good wine tasting although we were on a bus for 3 1/2 hours and late for the ship. Luckily, the ship does wait for ship sponsored excursions. Known as the "friendly city" to its many international fans, Perth (and neighboring Fremantle) enjoys more sunny days than any other place in Australia, according to city leaders. We were told they have not had rain since Nov. 10th 2009 so it was very brown. I'm glad I didn't take the garden tour. Anyway, back to the tour...we went to Guildford, just east of Perth, which is the gateway to the fertile upper Swan Valley. One of the state's finest wine growing regions, it is a place of elegant vineyards and chateaux. We visited Sanford Wines where we were given a half hour for the wine tasting...clearly not long enough. They were having a big concert there that night...The Four Tops so the traffic was bad, which cut our time short!!! After the wine we drove to Caversham Park which offered us a complete bush experience!!! During our visit, we hand fed kangaroos and came face-to-face with koals, wombats and emus. I loved seeing the "joey" baby kangaroos. Did you know they are born the size of a peanut and then stay in their Mom's pouch for nine months. While we were there I was sure one was on its way out of the ouch...we could see it's legs!!! The tour guide said it would happen within the week. It was neat to see the animals, including Tasmanian devils and learned quite a bit of interesting info...just wish I could remember half of it!!!

Needless to say Ken was pacing aboard waiting on me, thinking we weren't going to make it back!! He had taken the train into Perth and had a lovely time along with some shopping, of course!!! We did make it back onboard and had one more sailaway party. I believe we had 550 new people come aboard. AT this point the ship is full of Aussies with only 150 Americans!!!

Ken has been playing producer quite faithfully and putting me in front of the camera which I really don't like but....it just isn't fun watch as I get fatter and fatter!!! As they say, we come aboard as passengers an go off as cargo!!!With that I must close, my room service breakfast just arrived..tsk tsk!!!

Love to all,

janet and Ken

qv@cunard.co.uk#4152
qv@cunard.co.uk#4152