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So in another fantastic example of living history which I got to experience; I got behind one of the spokes of the capstan and started walking in circles to pull in the anchor.

I am writing this as a diary while sitting up in the fighting top on the foremast on the Endeavour tall ship replica, talking about living life to the fullest!

I didn’t need to arrive at the Endeavour until 8-30am so the morning was spent relaxing, having a last long hot shower, breakfast and then a taxi ride to the ships that make up Tuia 250 celebrating the dual heritage of European and Polynesian ships who traveled over the oceans to New Zealand; 3 tall ships (Endevour, Spirt of NZ and the Tucker Thompon) and 3 waka including the Fa’afaite who navigated from Tahiti to New Zealand using only the stars.

A few weeks ago I was looking online to see when the Endeavour replica ship was going to arrive from Australia as part of Tuia 250, celebrating not only Captain Cooks mapping of NZ but the pacific islanders who travelled around the Pacific Ocean using only the stars. While doing this investigation I noticed that the Endeavour actually takes fare paying crew, So I then thought – WOW and yes

After a great week in Melbourne staying in Luke’s very generous home it was time to head back to our house in Auckland, but we are not flying out until 6.45pm so we still have most of the day in Melbourne.

The only site we are going to visit today is the Shine of Remembrance, which was built after WW1.

Our final full day in Melbourne and today Julianne is going to rest and recover while the boys and I jumped in the car with Robin navigating again to visit several historical ships.

Today we all heading into Melbourne City along with Luke via the trains Once we were at Federation Square Luke took across the river to the National Gallery of Victoria; an art gallery which I didn’t even know about and was a great surprise – one of the advantageous of being a local.

Thursday is the day Julianne and I split up; Julianne is going to the Australian Tapestry Workshop a place she was very keen to visit whereas I wanted to visit the Royal Australian Air Force Museum at Point Cook with the boys.

Today is the day for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child! This is the main reason I am in Melbourne in the first place and involves two separate plays one after the other. Robin who is now 10 was asked months ago if he wanted to go, and he said yes.

Today I am back in the car, and this time heading out to Bendigo to do something a bit different and adventurous, I’m heading deep down into a gold mine.

Our second full day in Australia was spent in the centre of Melbourne city. I discovered that big Luke has a handy train station just down the road from his house – so instead of having to drive in we caught a train from Melton Station through to Southern Cross station in the City.

On Sunday the 13th of October, I decided to introduce Robin and Luke to the weird and wonderful wildlife of Australia by visiting the Healesville Sanctuary, which specialises in just Australian wildlife.

Today I’m off to Melbourne for nine days and the main reason is to see the Harry Potter plays!!

We ended up with an Air New Zealand Skycouch, so me sleeping, and Luke watching Paw Patrol

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is the official sequels to the books / movies. JK Rowling said she would never write any more Harry Potter books and instead she decided that the next chapter would be a set of two plays instead of novels. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is only available in Melbourne near us, so to Australia it is.

On Sunday the 23rd of June Auckland City had a free public transport day in celebration of reaching 100 million public transport trips in the preceding 12 months. This is a great achievement and shows all the hard work to create a completely new bus route system combined with the new electric trains is working as more and more people are using public transport to get around our city, including me to and from work.

The 6th and final day of the tramp, 10 kilometers to be traveled over gently slowly descending terrain which after yesterday was a nice but what became boring walk.

The fifth day was the longest hardest day of the tramp and involved crossing our second saddle, the Little Wanganui Saddle at 1087 meters with a steep 300 meters climb first up. I was a tad worried about this long day and this big climb, but the climb up to the saddle was actually surprisingly ok.

The fourth day of the tramp was another short day of only 8.6 kilometers through some lovely South Island beech forest but also through some rough patches.

The morning involved climbing up 200 meters to the top of the saddle and the going was actually quite easy. The saddle is at 1009 meters and stone hunt at just under 800 meters so several hundred meters required uphill over several kilometers.

The second day walking the Wangapeka Track was a nice short day of only 8 kilometers with another 200 meters gentle rise during the day.

The first day of the tramp is an easy 11 kilometre walk with just under 200 meters rise in height while walking alongside the Wangapeka River.Most excitingly within 15 minutes Julianne spotted 5 Whio (Blue Duck). The Whio is a very rare NZ bird, and is unusual for a duck in that it lives in fast flowing rapids such as in the Wangapeka River.