I think that there is probably someone that might be interested in the person that sailed on the under-mentioned vessel. Perhaps some of our NZ members may be able to cast some light on what follows. What I have written below is self-explanatory. I have much to do to finish the diary - i.e. to transcribe it. Terence Terence Miller – Dec. 3, 2008 My mother ‘Phoebe Miller’ sent me a diary more than thirty years ago with a note to say –“This is the diary I told you about.” Phoebe was a ‘home-help’ during the nineteen fifties in the city of Portsmouth, my birthplace, and I believe one of her charges gave her this diary. The person who gave it to my mother had to have been quite old to have been receiving ‘homehelp.’ The diary is a small notebook about 5/8ths of an inch thick. I have transcribed the most beautiful writing from the first two pages. I intend to transcribe the rest in the coming weeks and will, no doubt, come across more names and places. It is signed at the end by “your affectionate nephew J.G.Wilson," (the person who sailed on this voyage of the "Aorangi"). The RMSS Aorongi is not to be confused with a later and larger vessel the RMS Aorongi. I sensed this from ‘googling’ the name. Here begins the transcript. RMSS “Aorangi” is a clipper built vessel by Messrs. John Elder & Co. of Glasgow. Tis now 4 years old. She is 387 ft long and a registered tonnage of 4,163 tons and engines 9compound surface condensing) of 3600 EAP. Her crew numbers 93 hands all told. It was in this vessel at 4:15 pm on the 28th July 1887 that I sailed from Tilbury, London – bound for Wellington, New Zealand, at which place I was to tranship to a coastal steamer running round to Hokitika (?), a port on the West coast of the South Island of N.Z. 28th July 1887 – Thursday The weather on the day of our departure was exceptionally fine & the sea calm. so much so, that we could hardly perceive the movement of the vessel when she started. As we neared the Goodwin Sands, we passed the wreck of a vessel, nothing but a masthead being visible above the water. About the same time several steamers about the same build as the ‘Aorangi’ crossed our course on their way to the Thames. As night drew near we came in close proximity with the South Foreland and two splendid little barques with full sail set, which gives a very charming impression of a “life on the ocean wave and a home on the rolling deep” everything looking so very smart and trim. At 9.45 pm, I climbed up the fore castle ladder and sighted Calais. The moon at this time was shining brightly and the ship beginning to rock a little