The world's largest ocean liner the Queen Mary 2 has departed Sydney, capping off a brief but historic visit to the harbour city. The $1 billion grand lady of the sea made her maiden visit to Sydney on Tuesday, arriving through the heads at 5.45am before docking at the Garden Island naval base. All of which was very nice, but did they have to make so much noise? As the QM2 came through the heads, it was accompanied but a flotilla of about 100 small ships and a small squadron of news helicopters. Lovely! Ideal in fact after a late night.
It was too tall, at 23 storeys high, to sail under the Harbour Bridge and too long to berth at the International Terminal at Circular Quay. At 7pm Tuesday, the liner was joined by her smaller sister ship, the Queen Elizabeth 2, the two greeting each other with the sound of their foghorns as the QE2 sailed past on her way to Circular Quay.
Where as luck would have it I was due to have share the best part of a bottle or two of crispy white with my Finnish friend. The locals response to the arrival was very refreshing. Full of awe and innocence that the worlds two most famous cruise ships had deigned to pop in to see Sydney. Up close the QE2 looked a bit rusty but I'm sure it is perfectly sea-worthy (remember where you read it first). Apparently there was a huge firework display but we missed that as the QE2 had blocked out the sky. However, I did get to share in the battle for a taxi home afterwards. So, I do feel as though I was a part of the whole historic experience.
That's Sydney for you. A little bit of history every day!
Go to this link to see a video
http://search.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/search/results.pl?tab=av&q=queen%20mary&recipe=all&scope=all&edition=d
No comments:
Post a Comment