Pills `n` thrills and bellyaches

Sunday, 23/09/2012 - 101 A.D.

We got up early this morning because there was a lot of driving to do. The boys were going to hit the Great Ocean Road, while Harry stayed home to look after Otis and get a few things done.  Plus there was no room for all four of us and the luggage in the car. The Great Ocean Road is listed by the Australian National Heritage and is 151 miles long in total, built by returned soldiers between 1919 and 1932. Given that we’d be out all day doing our circuit and would barely cover a short patch of Victoria, it was yet another reminder of just how vast this country is.

Above is a shot of Bells Beach, where we stopped off for a quick leg-stretch and view. It is home to The Rip Curl Pro Surf and Music Festival, which I gather is some sort of event that is big on the surfing circuit. As you can see above, there weren’t any surfers out there today, but that is because the cross current was coming in at a 2.7 overflow curl when you need at least 3.6 mixed with a beach wind of 12 hectares per furlong. Or it might’ve been a bit too cold. Either way, it was good to get a look at the Southern Ocean, a vast expanse of majestic blue sitting before us. Next stop south is Antarctica!

We stopped for butterfish, flake and battered saveloy and chips at the small town of Apollo Bay, then headed slightly inland and took a detour to look for some wild koalas. Liam claimed that the last four times he’d taken people to this exact spot they had seen koalas in the trees and today was no exception – strike five! Unfortunately they were a bit too high up to get a good picture, and besides, as good as it is to see them, koalas in the wild is a bit like old news. Now we want to photograph snakes and, errr, crocodiles, the latter of which we definitely will not see in Victoria (same probably goes for the former, given it’s not dry enough). I also forgot to say that earlier on the drive we saw a group of five kangaroos hopping across the rolling green hills, which was a cracking sight, but once again the superfast skippers were too quick for my camera shutter.

The main draw on the Great Ocean Road is The 12 Apostles, which is a collection of limestone stacks jutting out from the water in dramatic fashion. They were formed by erosion of the cliffs which formed caves, which then became arches, which in turn collapsed, leaving the free-standing “apostles” which can be up to 45 metres high. I actually think there are less than 12 of these stacks…or maybe it’s more…but either way it’s not exactly 12. Still, that’s erosion for you, it never waits. But erosion had created a spectacular sight and it was well worth the long drive to get here.

 Do we look a little windswept in the picture above? That’s because there were icy gales blowing straight off the ocean, so cold that my face nearly froze and I thought I’d got earache. Shame really, because we would have spent a lot longer staring out at the apostles had it not been so chilly. And just as we were walking out of the car park, I spotted coming straight towards us the two German girls who we’d shared a room with back in Canberra. I put on my best smile and tried to make eye contact, but they walked past with faces to the floor. Given that they’d just come back from the viewing point they were probably too cold to see anything, let alone a lanky English bloke with a big silly grin.

After that it was the long drive back to Melbourne and Liam was good enough to drop us off at our hotel. We are staying in the Baden Powell Hotel in the eastern suburb of Collingwood, and those who have been paying attention will be aware that it’s where my Aussie Rules Football team are from, though I’m not sure if the ground is anywhere near. It’s a double bed in the room, but at least it’s en suite, though curiously the bathroom is not enclosed, i.e. there’s a space above the door. Good job there’s a television so we can turn the volume up loud if needs be! It’s a bit of a comedown sharing a bed again after having separate rooms at Liam and Harry’s, but we can suffer this last hardship because in Asia we will be living like kings, right?

Hmmm… 

Monday, 24/09/2012 - 102 A.D.

This is an anti-malarial pill, doxycycline to be precise. I have to take them to prevent some very nasty bites from some very nasty mozzies. This particular anit-malarial needs to be taken 1-2 days before arriving in an affected area and four weeks after leaving one. That means I’m still going to be popping these little green pills back in England in deepest January when this trip is a distant memory! The white ones in the tub are paracetemols and the brown ones are multi-vitamins for a bit of extra protection. I popped my first green pill this morning and I’m pleased to report no side effects so far. At one point I felt as if I was feeling a little sickly, but I’m sure that was just psychosomatic. Tim feels fine as well, his oncoming cold somehow having disappeared (not for the first time on this trip!)  

Our last day in Australia would be one for getting things done. Although we were yet to explore the centre of Melbourne, we’d been told that there were relatively few highlights to see anyway. The Melbourne experience is all about living here over time and taking it all in, living as a Mebournian – apparently it’s been voted the most liveable city in the world, not sure by who, but I’m pretty sure the jury did not consist solely of Melbourne residents.

Things we did today included:

·         Turning up to the popular Victoria Markets, which is closed on Mondays.

·         Trading in the guidebook for a new Elmore Leonard novel (in light of no south east Asia guidebook being available).

·         Eating lunch at Hungry Jacks, which is basically Burger King, but somehow a little more tasty.

·         Sending stuff back home in a cardboard box via sea mail. It takes three months, so by the time it gets back…we’ll probably get back as well!

·         Getting out some Singapore dollars to pay for a taxi ride to our hotel.

·         Having a haircut at a place called Jets Hair Stylist…

I think the young oriental girl did a reasonable job, don’t you? Back at the hotel we found that the staff had come in at some point to take away our towels, but had neglected to provide us with fresh ones. When we went a-huntin` for them, no one was around and the bar below the hotel was closed on Mondays so couldn’t ask around in there. However, there was no time to ponder solutions as we were meeting Liam and Harry for drinks at 7.15 in the city and we had to gobble down a couple of $5 pizzas before heading out. 

The current trend in Melbourne is that the coolest bars are down grubby side alleys within buildings made to look like they are derelict (in many cases they probably are!) Apparently there are 200 or so bars like this in the city. Unfortunately it was still Monday and therefore a lot of the places we sought out were closed. I enjoyed drinking in the establishments we did get to and I didn’t mind paying $38 dollars for a round of four drinks. In a way, it was a fitting farewell to the ever-expensive Australia.

So, having conquered another country, what are my thoughts on leaving Australia? I found it difficult to adjust at first, struggling initially to get into the hardcore backpacking scene that dominates the east coast. It didn’t help that I arrived here tired from a month in a camper van, missing an iPod and sleeping the first night in Cairns airport. Oz for me was never somewhere I had a massive desire to go to, more like a place to pass through on the way to other climes. Still, I’m really glad I did pass through, even though I didn’t do the regulation snorkelling, rafting, etc. All that will just have to wait until another time, and possibly another incarnation. There are a lot of positive things I could say about this country, but I think the guidebook summed it up best when it said, “…there is a general feeling that things are okay…” and I agree with that. Everything is okay here, it’s a shame it’s also a little pricey for us Brits, but the people are ultra-friendly and they really know how to run a Greyhound service. Right now though, I think Australia has suffered because it directly preceded the looming behemoth that is Asia…a behemoth that looms ever larger…only an eight hour flight away now…

With a little help from my friends (Australian version)

Friday, 21/09/2012 - 99 A.D.

Our last Greyhound journey (possibly in our lives) wasn’t a disaster, but it could have gone better. Heading out into the Canberra night, we overshot the terminal and realised we were heading north into the suburbs, just as the rain started teaming down. After a quick reconnaissance, we marched soggily into the bus station, but there was a bit of a crowd and when our vehicle came there was no chance of us getting two seats each to ourselves. Guess we’ve been spoilt during our time travelling through Oz! At least the allocated seats they gave us were next to each other so we didn’t have to fall asleep on a stranger’s shoulder.

I slept sufficiently, but didn’t hit the dream sleep stage until just before we arrived in the Melbourne terminal, which means feeling more groggy during the embarking process. A middle-aged foreign couple were sitting across from us the entire journey and the woman asked how we managed to sleep as much as we did on a bus. I simply replied, “Practice.”

Melbourne Central Station looked just like Leeds. With the weather overhead, it could have been Leeds! Our first two nights here would be spent staying with Liam and Harry, two of Tim’s friends from his university days (in Leeds - where else!) Liam and Harry met in their first year at university and have been together ever since, getting married last year. Five years ago they moved down under and have been in the Melbourne area ever since. Tim had always threatened to come and see them on the other side of the world, but they somehow didn’t think he’d ever make it…until now! And he brought his eccentric older brother with him just to seal the deal! Liam and Harry live in Sandringham, a southern suburb of Melbourne, so we caught the train and made our way to the house, arriving just before 10 a.m.

With the residents both being at work, the house was empty, at least of humans. It was great of them to leave a key out for us and make ourselves at home, even though it felt a bit like being a squatter. We met the two Bengal cats, Leo and Lola, who were very affectionate towards us and not in the least bit perturbed by two strangers being in the house. Even more affectionate was the new puppy, Otis, who had been left outside because he’s only been with them a few days and needs constant supervision when inside. We brought him in for a bit of a play and then ran around the garden with him, hoping to tire him out. When he refused to tire, we simply came inside and left him out there. To whine and whine.

Though it was seriously tugging at the heart strings, we switched on the television to drown out the whining. An episode of The Sopranos came on, which we consumed with relish. Plus it stopped me from dozing off on the couch, my brain obviously in search of some more dream sleep. By the time it finished it was time to feed Otis, so we opened the patio doors to let him inside and gave him his grub. Just as he was finishing, one of the cats strolled in and Otis became incredibly keen to sniff its rear end in greeting. When cat ran off, Otis chased it, we chased Otis and found him in the front room, so excited that he’d weed on the rug. Otis was soon back outside and whining to come in again as we cleaned up the mess.

Liam is quite the DIY expert and he had all of the entertainment systems rigged up to the one box operated by a single remote control. Unfortunately this caused us some problems as we went to resume our TV viewing, at one point having vision but no audio on the lounge television and audio but no vision on the projector in the front room. As Tim was trying in vain to unmuddle the situation, I turned to Otis and asked if he knew how they worked. Otis? Otis! How the heck did he get in when we shut him out??? Crafty little pup had only gone and figured out how the cat flap worked! So now we had to shut him out and also lock the cat flap from the inside and, as he tried desperately to use his new door (and subsequently bashed his head on the plastic), his howls of desperation became more intense. I almost wept.

Instead we tried to get online and book our next accommodation, but for some reason the internet seemed down…something we inadvertently did? Probably, the way things were going. We needed to get out of the house, so we headed out to the off licence (or “bottle shop” as they call them here) to get some wine in for the evening’s meal. We had a short wait upon returning before Liam and Harry came home from work for the weekend (I really miss that Friday feeling!) They were surprised to hear that Otis figured out the cat flap and not surprised to hear that he’d weed. We also then discovered that dear little Otis was responsible for the internet being down as he’d pulled the telecoms box from the outside wall and chewed away at the cables. Bless him!

We sat down to a curry that evening and Tim, Liam and Harry reminisced over many memories of living together when students. Our hosts have done lots of travelling on their gap years and beyond, so they could give us plenty of advice regarding places we plan to hit. Even Otis finally calmed down and went to sleep in his basket like a good little pup, the issues he’d caused us during the day all being forgiven. 

Saturday, 22/09/2012 - 100 A.D.

I didn’t get up until 9.45 in the morning – haven’t been up that late for over 100 days! There are some whom I work with who would never have assumed that was possible three months ago! To be fair, it wasn’t planned. Not having a phone anymore means I have nothing to set an alarm on, and Tim slept in another room so I didn’t have his to wake me. Fortunately no one else had been up that long, so I didn’t look like a complete lazybones. And Otis hadn’t whined in the night, so all was well.

We are now in the state of Victoria (population 5 million, size of the UK) and Australian Rules Football is massive down here. Typically the first question you’ll be asked after your name is “Who do you barrack for?”, translated as, “Which Aussie Rules team do you support?” I’d decided that I should barrack for a team so I went for Collingwood, who recently qualified for their fourth semi-final in a row, which they went on to lose. Tim chose the fellow Melbourne suburb side, Hawthorne, who would later that evening win their own semi-final. Just my luck! It’s reminiscent of how I’m doing in our family’s Fantasy Football League – although I am not taking it too seriously this season I am currently bottom of the table, even getting trounced by my mum’s and my aunt’s teams!

After a late breakfast, followed closely by a quick lunch outside, we hit the road on a fine spring day. We drove south along the bay, then into the countryside (looking as green as English meadows) to a place called Red Hill to undertake some wine tasting. Hair of the dog? Sort of. We probably only had two small glasses-worth, but because we got through eleven separate wines it feelt like more. From Riesling to moscato via chardonnay, shiraz and tempearmillo [SIC], my palette was playfully pulsating. They all tasted the same to me – fantastic!

Suitably tippled-out, we got back in the car and drove to Arthur’s Seat, a nearby look-out point that provides excellent views of Port Phillip bay. Next up we headed down to the beach and took a stroll along the small pier, indulging in the first ice creams of the new summer season.

Our final spot of the day was Point Nepean. We were looking for the area where a former prime minister of Australia went for a swim and never came back. Apparently sometime in the 1950s Harold Holt went down to the sea, completely on his own, and took his clothes off to have a dip. His body was never found and the country had to elect a new prime minister. And if anyone remembers a certain episode of Neighbours back in the day, this story may well have provided the inspiration for Harold Bishop’s infamous vanishing act.

That even we got to enjoy our second excellent Aussie barbecue, this time with delicious prawns sizzling away. We started the meal with a couple of oysters each – my first time – the first one slipped down my throat nice and easy, but the second almost caused problems and needed a double swallow! Also on offer on the menu tonight was kangaroo meat, which had a very distinct flavour, but was delicious. All this exotic cuisine is good practice for the up and coming Asian experience!

Power to the people

Thursday, 20/09/2012 - 98 A.D.

Going back to Wednesday night and our triumphant session at the quiz, we still hadn’t met our roommates and it was gone 10.30. This wasn’t the end of the world, but when you’re going to be sleeping in a room with strangers you like to have a fair idea who they are, even if you don’t say a word to them. Tim didn’t sleep great the night before, so he turned in early, but I was still winding down from the excitement of winning the free jugs of beer. After watching a bit of telly in the lounge and seeing the clock pass midnight, I decided to hit the hay, but only after listening to a couple of chill-out tunes on the new iPod, so I stopped on the sofa by our room. Immediately two young ladies scampered (and I do mean “scampered”) past the sofa and I turned my head in time to see them enter our room. Now there was a bit of a dilemma – either go straight into the room to strike up conversation, yet look as though I’d purposely been waiting outside for their return, or leave it a while for them to get settled and lose the chance of, ahem, making new friends. I compromised and waited a few minutes.

Tim had been asleep, but he told me later that he woke up when our roommates arrived, but pretended to still be asleep because he didn’t want to go through all of the meet-and-greet malarkey, unlike his older brother. He said that the two girls, who were German (where else?) were chatting quietly to each other, but as soon as I entered the room they stopped talking completely. Who knows why, but it meant I felt a bit uncomfortable about starting any dialogue, so I just picked up my wash kit and went to clean my teeth. Unfortunately I didn’t take my swipe card with me, so couldn’t get back in the room and had to tap meekly at the door, hoping someone would come to my aid and I wouldn’t wake up people in the neighbouring rooms. One of the German girls opened the door for me, and smiled, but said nothing, so I just went to bed and made sure I didn’t stare across the room at them as I listened to the wisdom of Karl Pilkington on the iPod.

The alarm went off at 8.30 next morning and Tim and I were alone in the room. No worries, I took myself off for a shower to wash away the traces of beer from the night before. When I came back, one of the roommates was there, packing up. What you need to remember is that I was dressed only in my sleep shorts and a long way from being respectably clothed. After a good ten minutes I realised she wasn’t going anywhere, so not wanting to risk accidental exposure, I took myself back off to the showers to get changed. A little closer to check-out time, with all clothes on, we shared some conversation with the German girls, but nothing Earth-shattering. And thus the challenge of sharing a 4 bed dorm with two females is now complete and we won’t need to visit it again.

Time to explore Canberra, which has a very strong capital city feel to it, a little like Washington D.C.. Although we weren’t planning it, we stumbled into the flower festival on account of the site being quite close to the YHA. I’ve never been to the Southport Flower Show, so I’ve no idea what to expect, but I don’t really think this event is in Southport’s league, despite the reception girl saying that people come from as far away as Perth to attend. My opinion is that once you’ve seen one tulip you’ve seen them all, and I’ve been to Amsterdam (twice).

The weather was at that stage where it could go either way, which made us feel even more as though we weren’t in a typical Australian town. Canberra is not littered with billboards and posters advertising snorkelling dives, adventure treks or outback excursions like every other place we’ve passed through. There are lots of statues, lots of monuments, the streets are planned and all lined with trees, and the grass is actually green. Quotes from former prime ministers are etched into marble walls and black swans glide across the still waters of Lake Burley Griffin under the watchful eye of Captain James Cook ,who of course discovered the island in the first place.  

As we headed towards Capitol Hill, our route took us through a miniscule piece of bush land, but suddenly from out of said bush appeared a kangaroo! It bounded across the path and into the other side of the bush, leaving us stunned. Yes, we’d seen and stroked plenty at Australia Zoo, but this was a wild kangaroo, messing around a few hundred metres from where the Australian Parliament sits. We didn’t want to venture into the undergrowth, but we were keen to get a closer look, so we split into a circling movement of the area, hoping to draw it out. Tim succeeded in sending it my way, but the critter was that fast a hopper that by the time I’d got the camera ready for snapping, Skipper had hopped off into the distance. Despite an extensive roo search of the area, we never saw it again.

The Australian parliament building is open to the public and we went inside for a stroll. There are various displays that you can wrap your minds around, such as What is democracy?, portraits of governor-generals past and present, details on what the Queen’s role in the whole thing is, and photos of every member of the Aussie parliament. We also got to go into the public gallery and watch over the daily business of the house. Unfortunately it wasn’t a cut-`n`-thrust session of prime minister’s question time (for that you need tickets), rather there were about five people in the whole house, including the speaker, and a member of the opposition was droning on about the problems with the country’s dental care system. We were only in there for about five minutes, but I almost dozed off. There was an amusing incident when a lady went through the security scanner and had to remove her shoes because of the metal tags. She then continued into the gallery, leaving her shoes still on the desk, to the bemusement of the security guards who didn’t see her wander off.

So that was the new parliament building and at the other end of Federation Mall was the old parliament building, which really didn’t look that old. These days it serves as a museum, which we didn’t enter, and across the grass from it sits a small porter cabin with “Aboriginal Embassy” painted upon it. There was no chance such a structure would be permitted to stand outside the new parliament building, although inside that we had seen a small exhibit detailing how the government recently said sorry to the aboriginal peoples for the horrors of the stolen generation when aboriginal children were forcibly removed from their families. I’ve not said a great deal about the aborigines in this blog, mainly because I really haven’t mixed with them, though I have seen them out and about, but that has been less and less the further south we’ve got. Basically, whatever you have heard about the situation over here, from what I can tell it’s all true. 

Strolling away from Capitol Hill, we came across a sculpture garden which contained either a prototype or a rip-off of the Angel of the North. It also contained millions of school kids, they really are everywhere and it must be an annual pilgrimage for schools to send their pupils to the capital territory the same way that ours go on trips to London. I tried to do one of my planks leaning against a metallic sculpture, but I couldn’t keep my back straight enough. Plus the school kids were pointing and laughing.

Our final port of call was the Australian War Memorial, which is more of a museum than a memorial, and is the other main thing that you go and see when in Canberra besides the parliament building. By this point we were a bit knackered from much walking, so after making it through the first world war exhibits, we were a little dismayed to realise that we still had the second world war to get through. That said, it was an excellent all-round display, as you’d expect from a museum in a state capital. Every day at five o`clock they have a closing ceremony in which they commemorate a particular act of bravery, then finish with a blast from a bagpiper. Quite moving, really.

So that was Canberra, capital of the great nation of Australia and unlike any other city on this massive island. We were only staying the one night, which didn’t give us enough time to grow any marijuana for personal consumption. We’re currently camped out at the YHA, waiting for the night bus to Melbourne. Maybe we’ll meet Swiss Simon at the bus stop and see if his baptism the other day has caused him to stop smoking. Tim’s has done nothing for him except helped bring on a cold, though the beer from the quiz may also have helped with that.

All around us school kids are trying to sneak into their friends’ dormitories and teachers are yelling at them to stay in their own rooms. Looks like the YHA is going to be full for a while. I’m almost glad to be sleeping on the bus tonight!    

 

Keep your eyes on the prize

Wednesday, 19/09/2012 - 96 A.D.

My time in Sydney was coming to an end…at 12.30 pm today, to be precise, as we left the YWCA and headed to the Greyhound pick up point. After dumping our gear in the queue, I went to attend to some business, and while I was in the lavatory, Tim was baptised at the bus stop. It was a little like a flashback to Vegas, I’m not sure if they were missionaries or just crazies on the loose, but Tim only got away from his new urban reverend by claiming his bus was approaching so that the guy took his hand off his forehead. Whatever it was he doing, we need all the help we can get! This guy below wasn’t so lucky, but more about him later.

We boarded the bus to Canberra with no problems, and no crowds, as we’ve come to expect from Greyhound Australia. Canberra…what do we actually know about it? Not a great deal. It was chosen as a neutral site for the capital of the country because Sydney and Melbourne couldn’t decide which of them it should be. The surrounding area is technically a state and is known as Australian Capital Territory, but it’s not very big in comparison to the other states, even Victoria. And I’ve been told you can legally grow marijunana there…surely that can’t be true?

The bus journey was only three and a half hours long – like seconds passing to us after our 14, 15, 16 hour behemoths of the past. On the way I saw a dead kangaroo at the side of the road…well I suppose you have to see one at some point. And on the approach to the bus terminal I saw plenty of cockatoos kicking about in the grass – free, rather than in cages as we’d seen in New Zealand, but we drove past too quickly for me to get a picture. And I think Tim was dozing so he took no snaps either.

Upon alighting we got talking to Simon from Switzerland, who is the guy being baptised in the photo above. Apparently the preacher promised to cure him of smoking, which is something he’s aiming for, but because his English wasn’t so great he ended up getting the full baptism package. Simon is not like the Grayboys in that he doesn’t book his accommodation in advance, just turns up like the old school backpackers and asks if there is a room available. This is why he ended up walking with us to the local YHA where we’d booked a room and he hadn’t. He was doing a 3 month tour around bits of the world, claiming that 3 months was enough for him and after that he would want to go home to his own bed and a clean bathroom. We hardened our sunken hearts as we told him that we’d just done three months and had another three to go. 

As mentioned in an earlier blog post (if you bother to read them all – I wouldn’t!), Canberra was proving hard to find accommodation for, so we’d had to book into a four bedroom dorm – the first time in Australia. It was also a mixed dorm…would we get two cute young honeys who saunter in sensual motions, or two strapping blokes with legs like tree trunks? We’d have to wait and see. Unfortunately Simon was turned away because the YHA was full due to there being some sort of flower festival on. Yes, you read that right – Canberra’s equivalent of the Southport Flower Show was taking place and it was a bloody good job we’d booked in advance. And, as we checked in, the girls behind reception confirmed that marijuana is indeed decriminalised here, but only for personal consumption. Seems strange to do such a thing in an area where all the politicians hang out! I also got told off by the girls for stating that I sometimes leave the tap running when I clean my teeth – apparently this is a big no-no in Australia, and there are posters all over the walls saying how it is a really dry country and every drop needs to be preserved. Yawn! Maybe we should send them some litres from our English reservoirs and get a bit more spending power over here, i.e. not having to buy $7.80 pints of beer, but more about that later.

We went up to our room on the second floor and prepared to say in our most polite English accents, “Oh hello there, I am James, and he’s Tim,” but there weren’t no one there in the room, although the other two bunks were occupied. So were they girls or boys? Hmmm, upon examining the evidence to hand, it was difficult to tell – bra’s slung idlly across the rucksack are usually a tell-tale sign – but in this case we had only a pair of small orange trainers to go on. Oh and some unidentifiable lotion that looked quite girly, rather than…err….boyly. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve no great desire to share a room with two girls, but it’s something we haven’t done yet, and this trip is in many ways about breaking new boundaries. Anyway, they weren’t around so, after fitting the sheets to my top bunk, I went to have a shower.

At this point instant karma caught up with me. When you’re on the road you occasionally get the urge to do something naughty. The Sydney YWCA showers had been fully equipped with shower gel and shampoo which were topped-up daily by the maids. They probably weren’t the best products available on the market, but they did for me. I was running a bit low on both and had two small empty plastic bottles in my wash kit, so I thought I’d steal a bit and get the bottles full for the next leg of the journey. It took a while, but I’m a patient man, especially when there’s 30 minutes before check-out time and I’m already packed up. So, upon arriving in the Canberra YHA I went to have a shower and use the stolen shower gel. I must have been in there for about a minute before my rogue elbow knocked the plastic bottle to the floor and the lid shattered, spilling the contents down the plughole. You, dear readers, may perceive this as a simple accident, but I perceive it as Fate sending me a message – “Don’t steal nothing, coz I can easily take it away from you just like that!” Sorry, Fate, won’t do it again.   

While I’d been showering, our room companions had not returned, but Tim had been out on a scouting mission and noticed that the bar down beneath the hostel was doing a pizza and a pint (not a schooner) for ten dollars if you showed your YHA pass. So we hit it. While chomping on my ham & pineapple, I noticed that there was some kind of trivia night taking place from7.30 onwards -  a trivia quiz night! Great – I’d wanted to do one in Sunday, but was denied - now we could sign up and have a go! And so we did, not caring if there was a strong Aussie bias to the questions.

We got our quiz papers and made ready…here’s a selection of what we got…

Q. Who had a hit in the 1970s with Rock on?

Q. If Polly put the kettle on, who took it off?

Q. Name Madonna’s two children and the fathers of those children?

Q. In popular tradition, how do you kill a werewolf?

Q. What did the founders of the Mattel corporation call their children?

Q. Which is the most northerly city out of St. Petersburg, Moscow and Stockholm?

Q. Who originally had a hit with Shake, rattle and roll?

Q. What was the nickname of the British 7^th armoured division in World War II?

Q. In Star Wars, where was Chewbacca born and which planet was he from?

Q. Which heavy metal band’s drummer only has one arm?

Q. What does AT & T stand for?

Pretty standard, eh? Right – until you hear the Aussie-based questions, like Which river in Tasmania made the news in the 1980s because blah-blah-blah? And Which five Australian rugby teams have all won the cup in the 1990s? Plus there were only two of us in the team, so we didn’t have the big group dynamic that I’m used to back in the Guest House pub in Southport. Anyway, come halftime and the first stage of marking the answers we were pleased to get our paper back and not be in last place…more like lower mid-table…like Fulham in the premier league. At this time we also had to suffer the setback of buying a couple of pints for $7.80 each. Come on! It was a decent-ish place, the type of venue you have a drink in after work, but $7.80? Well, that was it for us, no more plans to get another one in later. How do people not from Australia go for pub crawls in this country?

And then magic struck. The quiz master (who in a strange way looked just like he could have been a quiz master in any English pub) brought in his wild card, or in his lingo, his “spot question”. Basically he asks a question while standing at the bar and the first person to get to him with the correct answer written down wins a jug of beer. And his question was this:

Q. In what year did the great plague of London take place?

Well it’s GCSE history, isn’t it? I frantically scribbled down 1665, passed the paper to Tim and he ran up to the quizmaster and shoved it under his nose. “Spot on!” the quizmaster declared, also adding that it was the first answer he’d been presented with (that boy can sprint when he needs to!) And so we got our jug and didn’t have to deal with anymore extortionate Aussie bar prices. And if you’re reading this, Mr. Handley from Ainsdale High, and I doubt that you are, I say thank you nonetheless!

An aside – they do a bit in the middle where everyone in the pub has to stand up and put their hands on their heads or on their behind. Quiz master tosses a coin and if it’s heads then everyone with hands on their behind sit down (and vice versa) and this keeps going until there is only one person standing. Simple, but effective, though I doubt it would work in the Guest House – I’m envisioning something akin to a rugby scrum as people rush the bar!

The quiz went into its second half and we dropped from lower mid-table to something like third from bottom. But we weren’t bothered, what with being foreigners and the quizmaster even popped over for a chat, commenting on how he’d visited York and had family in Gravesend, Kent and really should visit them again sometime. And then he read out his second spot question for the night:

Q. What is the most common name for a pub in the UK?

Red Lion! Again I wrote it, Tim delivered it, and that jug was heading our way. The quiz master was in hysterics, laughing into the microphone, “Once again it’s our British visitors who have got the right answer!” Oooh and that jug of beer tasted so sweet because of it! We got nowhere in the end for the quiz itself, but had a great night, much merrier than we thought.

Upon returning to the YHA (well past the 10 pm cut-off for quiet time) there was still no one in our room. I didn’t know this at first, given that I stumbled in and fumbled around with the light switch for a long time trying to turn it on, worrying that I sounded like some kind of sinister night prowler. However, there was a pair of jeans discarded on the desk, so someone must have been here at some point….then left. It was getting late, and Tim had gone straight to the toilets and seen a naked Phillipino guy standing in front of the sink and washing his Y-fronts. Just when you think everything’s gone normal again, it reverts to crazy.

And what of our mystery roommates? Find out next time…

Middle of the road

Tuesday, 18/09/2012 - 95 A.D.

Just to reiterate why I always put an incremental number at the start of each post, followed by “A.D.” – it refers to the number of days After Departure, i.e. how long we’ve been on the road. I originally calculated the trip as being 191 days in total, but given that we lost a day crossing the international date line from the USA to Fiji, it’s more like 190. And if this is the 95th day then we are exactly halfway through our great adventure!

Here are some observations from this halfway point:

We need to stay still in more places and smell the roses (not just the sweaty areas).

We can cope with 4 person dormitories, but no more, and that’s only occasionally.

Anything electronic that I bring with me will break at some point.

White T-shirts will not stay white on the road.

Wherever you go, there will always be nice people and there will always be complete wallies.

Aeroplane food isn’t actually that bad (even if it’s got onions in it).

Long term travelling is only possible with mental toughness and an abundance of creams.

Nothing feels better than a fresh towel (at least in the better accommodation).

Eye contact, a smile, and a polite English accent can get you almost anything.

Our final day in Sydney was a slow one. We went east across the city towards the area known as Paddington, heading for the Australian Centre for Photography. Not sure what we were talking about, but we strode right past the building and kept walking for almost another kilometre. That prompted a lunch break, during which we observed some kind of small chaffinch-type bird defend its territory from two hungry pigeons twice its size. The pigeons were that persistent that I rewarded them with some crisps, making sure there was enough food for everyone, especially the angry chaffinch. This was also a useful opportunity to slap on the suncream – once burnt, twice shy!

[Is she looking at him or checking to see if the bus is coming?]

Upon doubling back and finding the Australian Centre for Photography, we saw that the featured exhibition was “Beyond the last sky” – a selection of contemporary Palenstinian photography and video. Yeah. Some of the exhibits weren’t bad, but on the whole it was a little bleak, though many would argue that so is the plight of the Palestinian people, but I don’t want to get into all that.

[In this shot of a jazzed-up refugee camp in Ramallah, James makes the dramatic gesture of turning away and focusing on other things. This simple turn of the head reflects the wider world’s ignorance at the downtrodden amongst us and, on a greater level, it demonstrates man’s incessant need to avoid the inescapable horrors that lurk over everyone’s shoulder.]

Tim was arted-out by this point and he went back to the room to chill, but I wanted more and headed for the Art Gallery of New South Wales. The various exhibitions here weren’t as bleak as the one just witnessed, but they were still pretty bleak. And I’m fast going off modern art if it looks like it’s been assembled straight out of a garbage can. Speaking of garbage, I had to throw out a pair of briefs that didn’t survive the emergency stitching I applied to the holes that had somehow developed. I won’t tell you where said holes were, nor shall I print a picture of the abandoned underwear, but it seems that in light of me having run out of electronic things to break, it’s the turn of the garments to go the way of the great Greyhound in the sky.

[An Andy Warhol.]

[A dandy ***hole.]

The rest of the afternoon was spent trying to find a used book shop where I could exchange Rum Punch and purchase my next literary challenge – had no joy and rain was threatening again. Therefore I came home with some bleach and soaked White T-shirt in it (hey it worked before so it can work again!) I can imagine what you’re thinking – “Why go to all that trouble when you could simply buy another T-shirt?” It’s true, but the items in my inventory are like troops in my platoon and I don’t want to leave them, especially not those that protect me from the elements. They are my soldiers and they have families waiting for them back home in Blighty and it’s up to me to reunite them with the wardrobes they left behind when they signed up to help me on my travels. Does that sound crazy? Yes? Well I’m entitled to a bit of insanity after 95 days at sea!

["Have I broken this iPod already?"]

So, it should be a quiet last evening in the YWCA. However, every night there is a Japanese girl who sits motionless on the couch just outside of our room. She’s there from about 9 p.m. and has still been there each night when we’ve gone to bed, saying nothing, doing nothing, just sitting. I am wondering if she is really there, as she reminds me a bit of Sadako from the Ring movies. It’s been nearly seven days since I watched that rented video tape…I wonder if…hang on, the phone’s ringing…even though I don’t have one… 

Wired for sound

Monday, 17/09/2012 - 94 A.D.

You know this guy? Oh yes, you do. It’s Karl Pilkington, the mate-cum-emotional-punch-bag of Ricky Gervais and master of the miserable Mancunian wit. This guy should be the ambassador for Britain to the rest of the world, if only because of his sheer level of popularity across the globe. I don’t know whether it was An idiot abroad or the The office or the various podcasts, but everyone we run into, no matter their nationality, has heard of and loves him. After quoting Pilkington references at the rate of several an hour with Cass and Tim, I thought he was worth a mention. 

It was to be another What Carcass Day, but by default, rather than out of necessity. As mentioned in yesterday’s blog, Timbo was off to visit his colleagues at Sydney’s Unilever office with the aim of maybe coming to work down here at some point in the future. That meant he had an hour’s train ride north to Epping, wherever that was. Me? I had an hour’s train ride south to Miranda, wherever that was.

I’d finally sorted out the iPod situation, one which had been a musical thorn in my side since Cairns. Deciding that it would be a bad idea to buy a brand spanking new machine that could easily be lost, stolen or eaten, I decided to opt for a refurbished pre-owned job. After coming close to ordering one through Ebay and Gumtree, I found a chain of computer shops called E. B. Games that did them with a three month guarantee. Okay, so given that I’ll only be in Oz for another week, the guarantee doesn’t mean much, but at least it fills you with a bit of confidence. Plus one of the shops actually had a 5^th generation nano with 16 gigabyte capacity – the rarest of the rare! So I had to have it.

Therefore I found myself on a train heading for a place called Miranda in the southern suburbs of Sydney, not exactly a tourist destination. But it is near Botany Bay…but so is the airport, which is where I was separated from my iPod in the first place! No, don’t think about that. My now-that-I’m-35-resolution is to contemplate less. And possibly to do more, but definitely to contemplate less. Move on, Jimmy, don’t dwell on the past. Incidentally, Tim occasionally calls me “Jimmy”, but only ever when we’re on one of our treks and he needs to get my attention quickly. I’m not going to contemplate why that’s the case, but I’d make a few notes just in case I forgot to mention it at a later date.

The E. B. Games store was located in a shopping centre called Westfield that was oh-so-fortunately located right next to the train station. I went in, showed my order number, got the merchandise, got out, and got back on a train heading north. My whole time in Miranda couldn’t have been much more than ten minutes. It felt like being on a special forces mission – get down to the pick-up point undercover, acquire the secret microchip and get out of there as quickly as possible before the locals get wise to your presence. And the goods were in mint condition, at least on the outside. I wouldn’t be able to tell just how well it worked until I got back to headquarters.

Anyone know what “pokies” are? We’ve been wracking our brains for ages because we keep seeing signs for them everywhere. See if you can come up with the answer by the end of this post. And what of this post? What was I doing next? Oh yeah, having my lunch on the train and heading for a world famous landmark – Bondi Beach. Yeah, yeah, I’m not exactly a beach person, etc., etc., but the end of the line I was on went to Bondi Junction so as I’d paid for the ticket I thought I might as well pop down there for a look. And I had sod all else planned for the afternoon.

You’re expected to alight from the train and get a connecting bus for the 1.6 kilometres or so to the beach, but I was having none of that. I needed to walk off that Chelsea-QPR goal less draw from the night before. And the sun was really starting to come out. First thing in the morning it had been grey skies all over and the vague threat of rain and consequently I’d not even brought suncream out with me. Who do I think I am? Never leave home without the suncream!

Cass and Tim had told me that Bondi Beach was certainly the most famous beach in the country, but by no means the best, not even having the greatest surf on offer. As you know, I’ve seen a few beaches in my time here and when I arrived I found the clifftop walk along the ocean more of a thrill than being on the actual sands. Plus it was very quiet, probably due to being a Monday afternoon and the aforementioned grey skies putting people off. Anyway, I couldn’t stick around too long because of the fear of sunburn.

I also had to get back to base to see if I’d received an email from a priest. Paul the priest, to be exact. Accommodation in Canberra, our next destination, was proving tricky to find. We had planned for two nights on the 18^th and 19^th, but could only get a room for the 19^th. Therefore we’d tried to couchsurf on the 18th and Paul had tentatively agreed to put us up, but he hadn’t been in touch for the last few days and we had to make a decision. If he’d emailed when I got back then we’d happily surf across to his parish, but if he hadn’t then we’d book another night in the YWCA and stick around in Sydney, which is a city we’re more than happy to do another night in. Upon returning to the room, there were no priestly emails, so that put an end to any Father Ted-style shenanigans we may have had planned. Some would say that’s a good thing. We just thought it might be yet another adventure within an adventure.

After booking the extra night, I got down to business with my new toy. Upon powering it up I learned that the iPod was previously owned by someone called Julie who must have been a child given the picture of a birthday cake with few candles on the screensaver, as well as the gargantuan amount of crap teeny bop music spread across the 16 gigabytes. I immediately removed the screensaver, the dross that counts for "muzak" these days and set about adding my own fantastically kool tunes to the memory.

And then it rained in Sydney. And pokies are slot machines.