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little route variation, no large vessels and no tanker experience) Rhodesia Star.
We went to a local bar (the ‘Oceana’) close to King’s Cross and saw the night out
with a somewhat salacious floor-show.

We had such a good time – though the morning on the gangway was heavy-
going as I watched various members of the crew coming aboard obviously having
been to places far more salacious than anything that we had witnessed – that we
decided to have a repeat performance the following afternoon. During our walk-
about to find a suitable watering-hole, we happened upon a large crowd milling
around outside a hotel, and thinking that something interesting was going on,
moseyed over to see what it was. And as we approached the crowd, out of the
hotel walked The Beatles! I would like to say that we walked over and shook
hands with Ringo … but we didn’t. (Had we done so, I suspect that we would
have risked being torn apart). Times were, of course, different (tickets for their
Adelaide concert were (up to!) $3.70 per seat), but the clamour and the crowds
were well up to the mania exploding across the world. After that, anything would
have been an anti-climax, but I can only recall from my notes that we drowned
our sorrows in ‘a dive of much lewdness’; if I could be more explicit, I would be.

Two days later, somewhat tired, but much in love with Australia, its weather, its
culture, its vigour and a good number of its citoyennes, we sailed away to the mid-
way point of our voyage around the world; New Zealand, in particular Auckland.

The Tasman Sea, which divides Australia from New Zealand, lies within a
notorious weather system. Partially protected from the ferocious Southern Ocean
by Tasmania and the southern extremity of Australia, it is subject to extremes
of wind and storms. The cyclone, as it is called in the south-west Pacific, is a
phenomenon which ships, even the largest, endeavour to avoid; by observing the
barometer, the mariner (bearing in mind that in the southern hemisphere the
cyclone spins anti-clockwise because of the Coriolis effect, which also directs the
bathwater down the drain) can often avoid the cyclone’s effects, but the direction
a system takes is difficult to predict with accuracy.

The run to Auckland, however, provided no drama of this sort. We spent
twenty-four hours there, and I walked around a city-centre that was pleasant
if not very stimulating. The country’s population being less than three million,
and the economy being based upon little other than farming, millions of sheep
especially, the nation seemed like some sort of economically-parlous temperate
paradise, even the local accent being a much toned-down version of the
Australian twang (‘Strine’, as wags termed it). Leaving there for Suva (where I
chose to remain aboard, no more free tours being offered … perhaps fortunately),
where we enjoyed Saturday, we departed from there to enjoy another Saturday as
we crossed the International Date Line en route to Hawaii.

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