Our first day at sea, and it’s smooth sailing so far. We spent yesterday morning exploring the city, known for its amazing architecture. The new market building was spectacular, a big building, but having end walls in glass lightened it. Some amazing pastries and coffee inside as well !  Disaster then stuck, with my camera making lots of strange noises and completely breaking down….Whilst the others went on a harbour cruise I scurried around town exploring options. A service centre had a quick look, several weeks to get a quote, but it looked terminal to him. I needed a new camera now ! Luckily the next door media mart had some options, and I ended up getting an updated Olympus OMD, so that I could use my existing lens collection. It also meant I knew how to use it straight away !

Boarding the ship was easy, bag drop, registration and walk aboard. Less personal than other lines, no smiling French Captain or even English steward to welcome you. Our cabin is very comfortable, and being a larger ship than we are used to we spent the rest of the day exploring. Over the next week or so I’ll post pics of around the ship. In the meantime here are some of yesterday. The first is MV Rottererdam in front of our “cubist” hotel. 

The new market hall

Cube houses

You need to update your house plan Michael and Lexie

And finally MV Rotterdam, a proper cruise ship rather than a block of flats on water

Till next time, rum punch cheers ! 

M & H 

All our travel plans went like clockwork today, and we are currently sitting in the Rotterdam nhow bar overlooking a fabulous bridge and the cruise ship terminal. Leon’s into a Dutch beer whilst the rest of us are drinking a pear cider, confusingly called Apple Bandit…… Tomorrow we will do a little sightseeing before embarking our cruise ship Mv Rotterdam. Cheers ! 

Those winter PJ’s came in handy, with a -2 this morning. We both slept better, waking at 3am for a cuppa and burst of heat. At 6am the frost was heavy, with the marina steaming away as the sun rose. Preparing T42 for her first run of year took a while, but by 9am we were all away. As usual the Wey did not disappoint, with some stunning water reflections. Showing Leon and Heather the first lock at Pyrford set a precedent, all 3 locks up and down were set against us. Leon gave Hazel a hand so by 12 we had made the New Inn at Send. By new they mean not that old as it was built in the 1600’s compared with the “older” one also in the village ! It also happens to be the meeting place for a Morgan 3 wheeler club, sadly none were in the car park. A superb lunch was followed by taking turns at the helm for the return journey. We judged it correctly with rain falling once we had made it back to Pyrford.

Morning frost at Pyrford

Proudly flying the TASSIE flag at Send, on the River Wey.

I’m a celebrity, please no photos…..

Tomorrow we fly to Amsterdam in preparation for the Baltic Cruise ! 

Tasotter and friends at RHS Wisley and Brooklands race track 

Well we are here at last ! After a years planning the 4 of us, and luggage, made it. A fairly uneventful, if long, flight with the usual attentive Qantas service. Heather and Leon enjoyed the club lounge and found premium economy much better for long legs ! The final secteor saw us 10 minutes early, with a spectacular descent right over London. All the tourist features were seen, notably Buck Palace, Tower Bridge and Kew Gardens. Kendall cars were waiting to chauffeur us to Guildford but the traffic on the M25 was an eye opener to some ! Penny has done a super job on T42 cleaning wise, it was much appreciated as by 9pm we were struggling to set up our bedding after starting up and motoring over to the other side of the marina to fill up the water tank. Strangely L&H didn’t want to swap their B&B ? We did, however manage a swift half of Stowford Press cider with fish and chips at the canal side Anchor pub…

At 1am this morning I woke up at freezing cold, so I started the boats heating, which ran till breakfast.. It felt like a breeze from the artic, which was confirmed when it started to sleet at Wisley Gardens ! As usual the Rhodos looked amazing, and Heather was amazed at the sheer number of unusual plants throughout the gardens. After lunch the tour departed for BROOKLANDS race track. As usual some great cars and planes to look at, culminating in a 4D virtual lap, in a D type Jag driven by Mike Hawthorn, around LeMans. The seats moved around in sync with the movie, giving a great feeling to some, others just felt queasy. 

Our final tour stop, at Brooklands Tesco was in order of needs…..a winter set of PJ’s for me ! A phone so Heather can contact us if they lost, and Port so that the fine Jaguar tradition of port and chocolates after a meal can be enjoyed.

We are experiencing some technical difficulties in uploading pics at the moment, so will post these in a later edition….

Well it’s that time of the year again when Tasotter takes off to Europe to continue our Narrowboat adventures. T42 won’t get such a workout this year, but there’s plenty of watery adventures coming up……A cruise around the Baltic Sea, unfortunately not in Voyager since going into receivership, a self cruise down the Caledonian with friends in a large cruiser, and 10 days in T42 on the Wey and Thames river. We will be visiting gardens in Cornwall, Surrey, The Lake District, Welsh Borders and Scotland. Car wise we will visit The British Car Museum, Brooklands and Malvern ( groan from HW, not the Morgan factory again ! ). To get us in the spirit of things our friends at Cruiseabout Launceston invited us to tour and dine aboard MS Sirena whilst in Burnie yesterday. A great ship with interesting cruises to do in the future perhaps ? In the meantime I look forward to sharing our adventures, packing has commenced !