Long Time No Sea Reunion, Melbourne

Ex Lady Sailors at the Reunion

When we flew out from Auckland last Thursday for Melbourne we were both a little unsure if we would enjoy the ‘Long Time No Sea’ reunion (an ex Navy thing).  While we both knew people who were going, I guess it was the unknown that was our concern.  Our feedback?  The weekend was brilliant. We both met people at the Reunion that we had not seen for some 20 or so years and in most cases we took up conversations as though we met up every week.

The event was held at the Amora Riverwalk Hotel, Melbourne  – a 15 minute walk or a 5 minute tram ride to the city centre. The accommodation was excellent and the venue was totally suitable for the Reunion.  The Reunion had both formal and informal components and was run superbly. Our thanks to George, Kel  and the organising committee for a great weekend.

If you are New Zealand Navy or ex Navy and you have never been to a ‘Long Time No Sea’ Reunion I urge you to consider attending the next one – you will have a great time.  While it is primarily an ex pat event, the organisers made the New Zealand attendees feel very welcome.  We will still have the motorhome in Australia in 2015 so we will be definite attendees.

I believe the next Reunion is to be held in Adelaide in 2015. I am not sure whether the dates have been finalised.

L to R Rod, Dearne, Louise, Brian

While we were in Melbourne we caught up with friends we  ‘cultivated’ while we were on our river cruise in Europe last year.  On the trip there were four couples who developed a great travelling relationship and we ended up doing most things together.  I think it started with us all being the first to ‘happy hour’ each night!! Brian and Louise came to our hotel and we spent an hour together catching up on the last 12 months.  It was great seeing you guys again and hopefully we will end up on another cruise together in the future.

We are now heading up to Canberra to spend a couple of days with Chuck and Ali – Rod’s brother and sister in law.  While we are there we will be trying to finalise the shipping of the motorhome with Australian customs. We now have a shipping date of 14 June.

We will update the blog in a couple of days.