“A grand sea on today; one moment we are in a valley & the next on a mountain. It is also considerably colder now. Our friend was quite near us this morning & we found by looking through the glass that she had got a lot of horses on board. Yesterday afternoon Ada had a fit of some sort or another (I suppose through the change in the weather) & is now in her bunk not feeling over bright. Daisy is helping Sails while the guv’nor is lying down for a rest, Clara & Brown are doing a little in the spooning line & I am enjoying myself by watching Joey write his diary from my bunk. Of course not much can be done but play cards etc of which luckily we have a small stock as we brought our box of games with us. After a smoke we turned in at 10.

We saw the southern cross to-night for the first time but it is nothing grand.”

Extract from A.Whelen’s travel journal aboard the Hesperides sailing from England to Australia in 1878