Arriving in and finding your way through the maze of rules, regulations and culture in a new country is part of the fun and part of the stress of cruising.

Take for example navigating your way into Sydney Harbour. The route is quite clear. That's not the problem. It's the ferry traffic, all of whom have absolute power. Working out who's going where, at what speed and if you're going to scrape ahead or duck behind is a real challenge when they're coming at you from ten different directions all while you're trying to get the ultimate shot of the opera house.

Add to that, one of the ferry companies runs the biggest ferries and they are totally symmetrical. Two bows!

You're trying to keep an eye on six different ferries all charging about, glancing from one to the other getting increasingly confused 'cause, look, one of them has two bows and you can't tell which way it's going.

Another weird thing is the bus queues. At home in the UK the first bod to arrive stands beside the bus stop. The next stands facing his or her back and so on. Not only does this help form an orderly British queue but it avoids the need for eye contact or conversation. Here in Australia, folk stand shoulder to shoulder, looking out into the street and it's a challenge to work out which end is the front especially when there's a stop at each end of the line.

As for Australian Rules Football.