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Archive Category: Travel
- to ohave to listen to a drunk weeing outside near where my head was
- to be rammed by a passing car
- for someone to break in and steal the van with us in it
- for the police to bust us for sleeping in a vehicle
- for M’s niece to knock on the door and ask why we hadn’t come to say hi
- Our four year old guest from Rosebank caught her first fish and ate it
- Her mother caught one too…
- Ian didn’t catch a fish
- Jen and M share the same birthday - March 29!
- We had a divine dual birthday breakfast at Muddy Waters Cafe
- Ian and I got the feeling that our proferred birthday gifts left something to be desired
- M got four Eric C. Hiscock books and Jen received a pink milky glass art deco ceiling light shade
- I’m sure they could both sell them on ebay
- The next day I left for a meeting in Canberra
- I like motel rooms
- I flew back to Queensland on Friday. Naturally there were no trains back to Hervey Bay that night
- I paid $25 and dossed down in a 12 bed dorm at the Tinbilly Backpackers. I could write reams about it, but have no time
- The next morning (Saturday) I got on the Sunlander - a vastly superior travelling experience when compared to the clinical sardiney Tilt Train
- Got home and merged with the couch
- Brisbane - 2 nights (car troubles)
- Rosebank - 2 nights (flooded in)
- Yamba - 1 night
- Nambucca Heads
- Anna Bay
- Mt Kurun Gai (this is not how you spell it, but whatever)
- Adelong
Travel Sickness
Thursday, 21 November 2002
Just dropped my brother Tom at the airport - he’s disappearing to London :o( I’m both sad and jealous…he’ll have an awesome time though…and I’m grateful that he moved out of my place a month before he left, because now all his crap is at my mum’s house ;o) I’ve set him up a blog, but he’ll have to find internet access, which I can’t see him paying for…anyway, if he does start updating his blog I’ll put a link over there on the left of the page…am going to have to retail therapy myself a treat to cheer up. Got up at quarter to six….am still counting down for this week to be over!
This is my first Moblog with Mfop2!
Monday, 12 April 2004
This is the body of my first moblog with Mfop2
Blogging From My PalmPilot
Friday, 16 April 2004
Here I am. I’ve got my brand new, sexy brushed metal palm pilot on the desk next to me. Can I use it with my keyboard or pocketmail? Nope. It’s fairly useless - but it has 64MB compared to my old Palm III (that I’m using to send this) which has 8MB. Am still not about the worth of this new Palm, but will give it a month. I am fast running out of time - I leave on Sunday at 11am, and seem to be losing time by the bucketful! I have so much to do - and am going to try and get the bulk of it done today so tomorrow is fairly stressfree (yeah, right).
Hola Cordoba
Thursday, 22 April 2004
Well, I made it to Spain in one pìece. Which is what my Pocketmail set up is not going to be in once I gather up all my rage and crush it under my heel. Here I was, all set up to be travel-communication guru, and my stupid Pocketmail Backflip won´t work in Spain. It only took $20US of my phone card to figure this out. Gah. he flight can be summed up in a word. Vile. Obviously it could have been worse, and it kicked serious butt over the last time I flew (which I would tell you about, but I have erased it from memory as too troubling) - I had my own screen, and every new release movie, silver screen classic, terrible US sitcom, interesting British doco, rockumentary to watch on whim. However, planes and I do not agree. Their air strips back the inside of my nose, dries my throat and plumps my ankles. My boss warned me about taking a sleeping tablet and dying of DVT and I did not heed him. After the first four hours of flying, I realised we were still over Australia, and decided to knock myself out. It half worked.
Dubai airport was odd. More like a large shopping center - albeit amazingly clean (though sprinkles of sand here and there - apparently it was a windy day outside). Anyway, to cut a bloody long story short (about thirty or so hours of it), I made it to Gatwick, got the bus to Heathrow, gaped at the snow on the side of the motorway and hissed at the sleet. Then got the oldest plane in the world via Air Iberia (we were seated between the engines surrounded by about twenty five Brits who all worked at the same company and were going to Spain - it could have been ugly, but it was more like the Office).
Arrived at Seville, my boss (the most disorganised person I have met) luckily didn´t know how to get to Cordoba, so we got a taxi. Huzzah! To those of you who are Melbourne savvy, this is like getting a taxi from Spencer Street station to Geelong. Out taxi driver must have been ecstatic. We hit Cordoba and our taxi driver handed us over to another taxi driver who actually knew where our hotel was (and if I hadn´t have brought a map with me, we´d still be wandering somewhere on the outskirts of town). The taxi couldn´t even drop as at the door, as the streets are too narrow.
(Have to go, boss is hovering. Bugger.)
Tiny Streets, Sore Feets
Friday, 23 April 2004
The Conference is over! Huzzah! I feel a lot better. I realised I’d been dreading each day, surrounded by all these specialists, with them all thinking that I was one as well. Each lunchtime I would eat all my lunch and then run off somewhere in the university and wrestle with the payphone trying to call home, or play games on my PalmPilot. Last night was the final dinner and now it’s all in the past. Thank god. The only blot on the horizon is created, of course, by the disorganisation of my boss, who told me to book four nights at this hotel when we actually needed six, so I have to share my hotel room with him for two nights. It’s kind of awkward - I mean, as a person he’s fine - but who wants to wake up bleary eyed in the morning to face your own boss in the other single bed about a metre away? Jeeez.
My only momentary disenchantment with Spain came when I watered the geraniums in the window box of the room formerly known as mine. It gave me a happy feeling. Then, as they gleamed wetly, I realised a large percentage of them were plastic - so much for that authentic Spanish look…
Today is my first day off - I have made two inroads with my boss. Yesterday I told him that I loath this fire stuff, and today I informed him that I don’t want to go to Seville tomorrow. Hooray for my bravado. Oops, here he comes again. Must dash *sigh*
London Calling
Tuesday, 27 April 2004
Am sitting in dingy London internet cafe with small dischevelled brother beside me. We are battling the British bureaucratic system (car hire places that say they need ‘proof of residency’ but reject passports, banks that will print a statement but refuse to include your address….) and will probably have to head to Brighton by train, the way things are looking. London is big. London is expensive. I knew both of these things before I got here, but now I really know them. Yesterday we walked our feet off; Tom insisted on walking me past Yves St Laurent, Prada, Chloe, Louis Vuitton…and kept looking dejected when I refused to go into any of them. This is in a city where you pay £200,000 for a one bedroom flat. Aie!
Was given various information and advice about travel, but of course was not told the most vital thing. Spain is cheaper than London so buy all your shoes there! D’oh.
All Praise The Nana
Thursday, 3 June 2004
My Nan sent me US $50 in the mail yesterday - much appreciated and very timely! I am back in the sun-drenched climes of Melbourne (for those not familiar with the wonders of Melbourne weather, that was sarcasm). Got to see my dad for thirty minutes as he picked me up from the airport and dropped me off at work. I had organised with my boss that I would be in at about 3:15pm to catch up on some stuff with him, as he is away for the next two days. This didn’t stop him from calling my mobile as I sat, three hours into my bus trip, somewhere in the vicinity of Noosa.
Boss: Hi
Me: [Forming my syllables with dangerous precision] Hel-lo
Boss: [Clears his throat like I should elaborate. I don’t.] Um, where are you?
Me: Sitting on a bus somewhere in the vicinity of Noosa. Why?
Boss: Well it’s almost 10am, I’ve been waiting for you to turn up at the office?
Me: [Can contain myself no longer - shriek piercingly] But I told you my plane doesn’t get in ’til half past twoooooo
Boss: [Freaked out soothing voice he uses when he senses I’m about to combust] OK OK, no, sorry, I…never mind. I probably wrote it down somewhere. That’s fine, I’ll see you when you get in. I had it in my head you were arriving yesterday.
Me: [Wondering if you can die from excessive eye-roll] No. To-day. At 2:30. This afternoon.
Grumble grumble.
On other more exciting topics a huge CONGRATULATIONS and HAPPY BIRTHDAY to PGR who has passed his Phd and has become a Doctor of Grasslands (or something similar). Big Claps! Oh. And in further news, I was sent to the Death Clock by Dave and after spending a while figuring out how to convert my weight into pounds I have discovered that I shall by dying on Sunday the 14th of July, 2052. Hopefully I will have thought ahead and arranged to be somewhere idyllic. As of now I have 1,518,230,075 seconds to live.
Consumptive
Thursday, 17 June 2004
Left Melbourne this morning, painfully early. Barely operational. Big thanks to my male parent for the lift to the airport (again). Have begun just to endure the trip rather than enjoy it. Actually that whol process is now a kind of blur. Was v.happy to see M again, and we used our small funds for a celebratory coffee/tea at the Muddy Waters Cafe. Home is looking too peachy for words. There are handles on all the kitchen drawers/cupboards, the light fittings are sorted, the front steps are painted (v.v.pretty) and the louvre windows in the front sunroom are clean. It is so nice to be home. My peas, butter beans, tomatos, capsicum and cauliflowers have been striving in my absence. Now if I just didn’t feel like I was getting the flu….
And, just to note, VirginBlue kick JetStar butt. Big time.
Stress, Cats and Travel
Monday, 19 July 2004
The thought of travelling down to Melbourne with M has been at the forefront of my brain since the whole valuation drama finished. However, as keen as M is to go to Dr Grass’s Phd Party, he’s not so keen on wandering the streets of Melbourne while I’m at work everyday - so I’ve been trying to keep a lid on myself. For my part, having to think about someone elses likes and dislikes, worry about who is going to feed the cats, be the one that has to plan the travel/accommodation and a certain other thing I can’t mention for fear of jinxing - I am close to going out of my head. On top of this my new favourite email program, Thunderbird, has carked it and is refusing to get my mail, so I have had to trudge my way through converting all my saved email into this format and that format until I settled on using Eudora (of course I could just used Outlook Express, but that would be too easy).
M doesn’t want me to plan his life while we’re in Melbourne, so I am trying to keep everything open ended. Usually I am the queen of ‘going to dinner’ for the majority of nights - when you’re working every day, it seems like the best way to catch up with people. Anyway - with all of this stewing in my brain I have not been sleeping very well - however this has been exacerbated by M developing an intense morning hatred of Saffron the Orange Cat (StOC) . I must digress and say that I’m glad my brother is somewhere in Croatia, because he would give M 110% support in this matter.
Unfortunately we built the cathome at the side of the house quite near our bedroom window. Some mornings - not every morning - StOC sits as near as he can get to our bedroom window and miaows loudly. He sounds like a pigeon in pain. He’s started to do it more and more, and whether it’s due to our recent spate of celebration or the coldness of the mornings, I have been roused about four days of the last five with M shrieking “FuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuCK! I HATE YOUR CAT” (he becomes my cat whenever he’s bad) and then running into the bathroom and flinging glasses of water at Saff through the window. The final straw was yesterday morning when M tore himself out of bed for the third time, spent some time at the sink and then I heard pounding feet running out the back door. I sneaked out of bed and peeked through the window. M, naked from the waist down, was standing at the cage throwing water in StOC’s direction and making hissing noises. I snuck back to bed. M came back, breathing in a slightly psychopathic manner. I said nothing. For a few minutes there was silence, until StOC - damp, but unbowed - let a few more pigeon noises loose.
M’s whole body went into spasm as he made (what I assume he thinks are) cat repelling hissing noises. I couldn’t take much more.
“You know that if you’d just fed the cats a bit of dry food when you went out there they would be quiet by now?”
The logic seemed to act on M like his hissing noises acted on StOC, i.e. they didn’t.
“Shut up.”
“Buy some earplugs.”
M huffed his head under the pillow and I ruminated at the ceiling, again cursing my brother for pinching my sleeping pills.
Private Investigator
Friday, 23 July 2004
We left at about 6am on Wednesday, having decided (a long and drawn out process of diplomacy and counter-psychology) to drive the van to Brisbane and leave it in the capacious backyard of M’s niece. We were unsure how long it would take to get to the capital of Queensland, because we have driven there only twice before - once we took a Calais with cruise control, and the other time we took the Humber and had a 25km detour crawling at about 11kmph because of a bushfire. Our van sits on 90kmph - so we were a little edgy about the timeframe as I had to catch a plane at 10.45am. So M (who had not begun packing or finished burglar proofing until after midnight) needed a coffee just after we cleared the wondrous town that is Gympie. We stopped at an unusually cool cafe and the woman who was serving reassured us that we would make it in time - particularly as we wouldn’t have to go through the city to get to the airport. So, clutching our takeaway coffee (M) and tea (me) we jumped back in the van - it was my turn to drive, because M, for obvious reasons, was now sleepy.
I drove and drove. It was a beautiful sunlit morning which got colder and colder as we drove further away from the coast. After another hour it seemed like we were making good time. This was when M decided that he really needed to wee. Of course we were on a particular stretch of the highway where there were no rest stops, or even places to pull over. Being male, M was unable to hold on very long and was becoming agitated. (My theory on men having no full bladder stamina hinges on the fact that they can usually whip it out and empty themselves without most people being the wiser. Vast amounts of people probably think that men just like standing near trees while looking meditative, but I digress.) Finally my time for revenge was nigh.
Many, many, many…oh, I will just distill it and say COUNTLESS times when I have been rather desperate for the loo, M has tortured me; waxing lyrical about the sound of rain on a tin roof, mountain streams, leaky taps, and pretty much anything else that may, in some manner, bring the sound of running water to my already tortured mind. Now it was my turn - the difference was, I began with subtlety.
“M, can you pass me the water bottle?”
My eyes were on the road, both hands on the wheel. M, suspecting nothing, handed me the bottle of water.
“Hmm,” I mused, checking that the top was on tightly. “Listen to this.” I shook it, and the contents slushed around delightfully.
M looked extremely pained. “Stop it, stop it. I really Need to Wee.”
I laughed evilly, while still looking at the road.
“No, I think you should really listen to this. The sound of All That Liquid. I suppose if you think about it, this bottle is really like a bladder, isn’t it? Fully of sloshy water….”
I shook it again. M moaned softly.
“Don’t, don’t. I really have to go.”
I was unsympathetic. “Do it out the window.”
“Noooo. It might splash back on me.”
“Yes, and you might get arrested for exposing yourself. Oooh! Look over there - isn’t that a beautiful lake!”
His eyes began to cross.
I continued. “I’ve been thinking about the plumbing at home. You know how our cistern keeps filling up to much and all that water is wasted as it drips through the overflow pipe…drip drip drip… We should really have a look at that when we get back. Turning the water off at the tap is just a pain.”
M’s jaw was clenched.
I kept pushing. “It was lovely walking on the beach yesterday. The waves, splashing down on to the shore - it was such a nice time. And that big boat we went and checked out - that was great!”
M began to giggle, and flinched. “I can’t believe you’re doing this to me. I was feeling very bad about all those times I’ve done it to you, but I thought that you would be above this kind of behaviour.”
I smirked. Shook the bottle.
“OK,” said M undoing his seatbelt, “I. Have. To. Wee.”
I shook my head. “We’re not stopping unless we see a rest stop. I’ll miss the plane!”
M looked at the bottle. I looked at M.
“You could wee in the bottle you know. That’s what private investigators have to do when they’re on surveillance.”
M brightened. “Really?”
I nodded.
He wound down his window, and I got to watch him try not to listen to the water as he shook it out of the bottle on to the road. Then he and the bottle disappeared over the seat into the back of the van. I got the giggles. There was the brief noise of a zipper, and I risked a quick glance behind me. Unfortunately, all I could see was the bottle slowly filling and M’s shoulders shaking with mirth as he tried to aim straight.
“Look at the road, eyes on the road!” he shrieked, as the van veered to the left.
I drove on. A very relieved M clambered over into the front seat a few minutes later, leaving a tightly stoppered bottle to slosh around in the back.
I made the plane on time.
Sleeping Rough
Monday, 2 August 2004
Friday night we had a lovely dinner at D & R’s house and M and I dossed down on the floor of their study for one of the best sleeps of our journey. We took D & R out to breakfast in the morning and got driven to the airport for our efforts 
It was so nice to have someone with me on the plane!! We sat right up the front next to the door where everyone comes in, which was moderately exciting. Once we hit Brisbane we took the excellent airtrain to Brunswick Street Station and walked from there to M’s niece’s place. Our van was so delighted to see us that it started first go! It was good to be back under our own steam. We cruised Brisbane and I ooohed and ahhhed at all the gorgeous Queenslander houses [sigh] and then, after muddling our way for about an hour, we went to see i-Robot (mostly because M, in his frenzy of Melbourne culture, had seen every other film that was playing). I kind of liked the premise, and I liked the robots, but the script? Not great. The plot seemed to fall off the rails quite often.
After the film we headed back to Newfarm (getting lost numerous times and entrapped on the wrong side of the river by the evil positioning of the Storey Bridge) and found somewhere to eat. Having a few bucks spare to do this kind of thing is a novelty for us - and it was divine. However we didn’t really have enough spare cash to warrant paying for accomodation - particularly since we’d thrown a mattress and a few sleeping bags into the van before we’d left home. So at about 10:30pm, after a glass of red and a gelati, we parked out the front of M’s nieces place and tried sleeping in the van for the first time. I spent the night kind of molded around the wheel cavity and woke up at every noise, expecting;
Suffice to say, I slept sporadically. We woke just after 6am, and M stretched. Suggested we might get going, and began to get out of his sleeping bag. There was the noise of a car pulling up behind us and M hit the floor with a soft whumping sound. Out of the last seven hours we’d just spent in the van, he’d chosen the exact same minute to sit up that a car with his niece in it had pulled up behind us. Luckily, from what M could see, his niece was in no condition to notice that there was a dead woolly mammoth parked out the front of her house, let alone a slightly shabby white van. We lay low for another half an hour and then got dressed. M wanted to wee into a bottle again, so I said that would be fine with me as long as I was in the front of the van at the time. After he’d finished exclaiming over the voluminous contents of his bladder, we set off to Wynnum for breakfast.
Welcome
Tuesday, 24 August 2004
The first of our scheduled four lots of visitors has arrived. My male parent - who endeared himself to us by buying a slab/carton of Coopers on arrival - was in the house for approximately five minutes and then went fishing with M. I am alone here with All. The. Beer. What to do?
Au Revoir…Again
Tuesday, 5 October 2004
I am leaving in about 15 minutes to be driven to Brisbane with Lisa and Dennis, leaving behind M, Saf and Mow 
I am very sad to be leaving, as I thought I would be up here until we moved down to Melbourne, however, my boss had other ideas. I leave Brisbane tomorrow for Perth and this stupid conference, where yet again I will know no one and know nothing. Lisa has suggested I take up smoking for the duration so I have an excuse to race outside a couple of times an hour and escape. I can’t believe I’m seriously considering it. Gah. There is no hotel booked, that I can discover - and of course, my boss knows nothing about anything. I give up. Bye. Expect some mournful I-am-a-social-incompetent posts from the west…
Blogging from Perth
Thursday, 7 October 2004
OK. I am blogging from an iMac in some litte coffee shop in the UWA. The keyboard is a floppy plastic thing that appears to be suctioned to the wooden countertop, but what the hell - it’s free. My boss took off to a ‘high level’ meeting five minutes ago, and I took the opportunity to slip away and give myself some necessary computer time. This conference isn’t as bad as the last one - at least I can understand the language, and actually know a few people. I dipped out of the ‘dinner’ (which was apparently more like extensive snacky things) at the winery last night and felt very decadent kicking back in my hotel room - we are two hours behind the time that I’m used to - so I passed out at about 8:30pm.
It was a welcome breathing space, having been a hostess for the past week. Lisa and Dennis let me scam a lift with them to Brisbane - and because they drove (well, Dennis drove - or, to be more specific, did his kind of half driving/half hooning) I was a malleable tagalong and didn’t do much but read my book and go out for a dodgy laksa. Of course, we turned up at the international terminal the next morning and were informed that my instructions were wrong - my flight left from the domestic terminal - thus I got up at 5am instead of sleeping in until a quarter to seven. Grrr. I was hoping that this wasn’t an omen for the next five days - so far it hasn’t been.
Jock and Steph - my very good friends - happened to be in Perth. They met me at the airport and drove me to the university - all waaaay too nice of them, considering that they were flying back to Melbourne that afternoon. It was lovely to see them - I donated them Lisa’s copy of Lauren Henderson’s Freeze My Margarita and they told me what I should do on Sunday - my one day off. I am going to go to Fremantle markets, and then to Rottnest Island to meet the Quokka of my dreams. Jock also commanded me to go to the Sail and Anchor - his fave Perth pub. I am feeling a little bit more confident about travelling with my boss this time. I have a hotel room of my OWN and I am not being such a boneless chicken. Huzzah! Am looking forward to Melbourne on Monday, though I will have only six days or so and will not fit in too much fun. Poor M is taking care of his sickly mother back home.
However, I heard from him yesterday that Oomoo is FINISHED! Oh my goodness - can’t wait to get back. I’ll be able to update mysmallboat.com once I get back to work - am now kicking myself that I didn’t bring my laptop. Times like these make my lust for a wifi card for my Palm T3 reach even greater heights. One of the conference people came back in after lunch having roamed the uni for a wifi point - he found two and was able to check his email etc. I was green eyed with envy. I even squeaked. One day I will get one, and no doubt it will be immediately superseded by something even cooler….d’oh.
Sunday Morning
Sunday, 17 October 2004
OK, so I submitted to my mother (what a surprise) and had a nice lunch on Saturday and then a wander around the shops - where I scored a rather excellent badge for my car (photo to to appear later). Naturally she made me fix her printer [sigh] but that was to be expected. I managed (for the most part) to bite my tongue and not shriek; “I told you not to buy this piece of antiquated crap that you call a ‘laptop’. It would be more useful as a doorstop.” Gah. Slow computers make my teeth grind, but ex-Education Department Acer laptops make me want to kill. Despite this, all was well - I went home to my temporary abode, ate the rest of Ellise’s leftovers and flicked between The Parent Trap and Crocodile Dundee.
Sonic spent the night on my feet, under the doona, which was a blessing as I was a freezing block of ice, due to my crappy circulation and inability to work the heater. I woke up at 5:30am, jumped in the borrowed Volvo and went to take on Camberwell Market yeeeha! Two dresses, two tops, two trousers (that it would later emerge that I was too fat to fit into), one man’s shirt, a Shure microphone case, Lauren Henderson’s Chained and a signed first edition of Peter Temple’s Bad Debts later I was driving back to the palace. No band practice…again. So I killed a few hours by putting more hair-dye and sitting in the sun with Sonic. The weather was divine. So divine that I didn’t really want to waste an hour of it by getting public transport from Hampton to Preston, but it had to be done. I tidied up, left the house/car keys in a burglar proof spot and carefully pulled the front door shut - usefully leaving my mobile phone upstairs in the study. ARGH! Proceeded to the station, where a psychic feeling came upon me which urged me to buy a ticket - so I did, and was pounced on by ticket inspectors two stations later. I was able to smile smugly, and wonder if they were getting penalty rates for working on a Sunday.
The tram journey from the city to Plenty Road should be bottled and sold as sleeping potion. I finally made it. Chris greeted me in between coughs and I got fed chocolate cake, beer, wine, chili prawns and a strawberry ice-cream. She made me watch Australian Idol - which was kind of like watching a car crash circa 1986, and I finally put faces to the names that I read about over at TSSH.
Oh. Other highlight. Met Chris and Jody’s new cat - Eric. He has stumpy legs and is a Burmese. Extremely cute. He goes to work with Jody at the nursing home - half the people there think Eric is a chihuahua, and the other half assume he’s their cat they haven’t seen for 50 years. Luckily, Eric appears to be very amiable - purrs on cue and is happy to be patted. His only shortcomings (ha ha ha) are his legs - and his I-am-a-lost-stray-who-may-never-be-fed-again routine at feeding time. Kind of like M and a bottle of good red.
Pulling the Wool
Tuesday, 19 October 2004
I was very lax and didn’t remember to book my train ticket from Brisbane to Hervey Bay until Saturday. Even then I didn’t book it. Why? Because when I tried, I was told that the train was full!! Yike! So I booked a seat on a [shudder] bus, but continued calling the train booking number on a regular basis. Poor Chris, Jody and Eric got up very valiantly at 5am to get me to the 6am plane. Chris’s flu/cold thing was so bad at that point that she coughed and hacked with streaming eyes all the way there, absently changing gears when necessary
The plane was fine. I hit Brissy at 8am and immediately called the train booking line, again. They had just had a cancellation. In business class. I was beyond caring, just wanting to get home, so I took it. It was only about $25 extra. That’s about $6 an hour (in bus terms - the bus takes about 5.5 hours, the train takes 3.5). It was worth it - and it meant I got to catch up with Ellise and Dave on arrival, before they took off back to Brisbane to fly home to their impeccably looked after house….hee hee. So I sashayed to Maryborough in style - the seat was about double the size, free juice on departure, a bathroom bigger than a cupboard and copious amounts of legroom. Plus - I also got to ogle Colin Firth in Girl With a Pearl Earring for the last 90 minutes of the journey. Too good.
Arrival! Fabulously happy to see M. Pashed him soundly - much to the amusement of the people on the train, I’m sure. Then got to see Ellise and Dave - which was lovely. We all chattered madly and decided to go and get a drink - as E & D had only about an hour or two to spare. M and I jumped in the van, and they followed in their fancy-pants hire car. M was busy telling me about what he’d been up to. Then he told me that he’d got me a very very exciting present for Oomoo.
I bounced up and down.
“What is it? What is it?!”
M shook his head secretively. “I can’t tell you. But you’ll like it.”
I groaned. We drove on for another minute or two.
“No!” declaimed M. “I have to show you what it is. Right now. It’s in the back of the van. I was going to wait until we got home but…”
He pulled over to the side of the road. The hire car pulled up behind us. Dave did a ‘what’s going on?’ face and I shrugged and said;
“I’m getting a present?!”
M opened the sliding door of the van.
“It’s quite big. It’s under the tarpaulin.”
Frazzled with excitement, I yanked the tarpaulin, and saw an arm. My first thought was - ‘He’s killed someone and needs me to hide the body. Oh. My. God.’
Then I yanked more of the tarp and found my brother!! I think I screamed loud enough to be heard by my mother in Melbourne (though she hasn’t called, so she might have missed it). I couldn’t believe it. I had been thoroughly done over by everyone - all of whom were cackling. Small Brother emerged slightly bedraggled, but still smartly coiffured. I laughed and laughed and laughed. And then apologised to him for telling everyone I knew he was a nob for not coming over. I had been so convinced that he’d decided to stay in London, but he had been here with M since Tuesday!! Unbelievable.
I had to drink three shandies to recover.
Postcards from the Edge
Wednesday, 10 November 2004
This arrived today from my sister and her squeeze who seem to be hiking, rafting, canoeing and walking over most of the South Island.
A Tilt Too Far
Tuesday, 16 November 2004
Holy crap. The train I use to get to and from Brisbane when I have to abandon M for Melbourne derailed at 1am this morning and overturned. This is very bad. Although, mathematically speaking, maybe my odds of having it happen to me have now improved? It certainly helps to confirm my already concrete decision not to go to Melbourne at the start of December (a decision also influenced by the sudden influx of phone bill, council rates, car registration - that my mother took her own sweet time to forward to me, and various other lurking debts).
God Help Me, Because She Won’t.
Friday, 10 December 2004
“Hi Mum.”
“Hi B.”
“Did we plan to have lunch tomorrow?”
“Well. It’ll have to be after yoga.”
“What? Lunch?”
“Well is it lunch? I thought we were going shopping so I could get you something for Christmas?”
[I grit my teeth. Doesn’t this woman know that the only thing I need right now is cash?]
“OK, that would be good. Where did you want to go?”
[This was my fatal error. She pauses for a nanosecond, and I know what she’s decided.]
“Let’s just go down Hampton Street.”
[Count to ten. Count to ten again. It doesn’t help. I start to whine.]
“But muuuuum.”
“But what?” she cuts in, and sniffs - “I’ve got a cold.”
“Um, I’m staying in Collingwood and getting around on public transport, and you, on the other hand, have just suggested that we hook up two minutes from your own house. Last time I checked, you had a car?”
[She does The Sigh. The one I will devote my life endeavouring never to replicate.]
“What do you have to get? A couple of trains?”
[I can practically hear her foot tapping. I am in Hell. I buckle.]
“OK, I’ll meet you in Hampton Street. What time and where?”
[We decide on a time.]
“What about your sister, have you seen her lately?”
I groan. Loudly.
“Mother. She is sitting a metre to my right. She works here now, just like you always said she should. Hello?”
“Put her on please.”
[I give the phone to my sister with such force that I almost insert it into the side of her head by mistake. She wiggles out of my mothers lunch invitation like an eel - something that’s easier to do when you live in the same city. She hands the phone back to me as I mouth evil curses.]
“OK then B,” says my mother, the noise of Southland Shopping Centre seeping down the phoneline but unfortunately not rendering her inaudible, “I’ll see you at 1pm in Hampton Street. Bye!”
I do growling noises down the phone
Later, on our way out to drinks, my boss says I look stressed, and that I needn’t be, because everything this week went off without a hitch. I tell him I just spoke to my mother, and paraphrase the conversation. To my surprise he recounts a very similar encounter that he had with his dad a few months back, and I feel a bit better. Then I have Christmas drinks and they improve me too.
The Bleeding Obvious
Monday, 13 December 2004
So I’m supposed to be meeting my mother at 1pm in Hampton, but I wake up, hang about a bit, and it’s absolutely pouring. I decide on a plan of attack. I will tell her that I’m happy to hook up with her in St Kilda, but I’m not coming to Hampton. It’s almost as much of a hassle for me to get to St Kilda as it is to get to Hampton - two trains or two trams - but it’s still closer, and besides, I’m trying to prove a point. But before I can make my masterful phone call, she calls me first. Bugger.
“So, are we still on for lunch?”
“Yeah, I’m happy to meet up mum, but Hampton’s too far for me to come. It’s totally wet, I’ve got no coat or umberella. Can’t you meet me?”
[Can’t you meet me for a change? Is what I want to say, but I am so composed and mature, that I refrain.]
The Sigh.
“Where? Where would I meet you?”
“How about St Kilda? It’s kind of half way.”
“St Kilda? St Kilda? I’ll never get a park.”
“Gee mum, I lived there for at least three years, and somehow I managed to find a park every day.”
“Ohhhh, I don’t know.”
[’Tell her to park in the Coles carpark!’ pipes Rachael, whose kitchen I am pacing.]
“Park in the Coles car park.”
“I don’t know know where that is. Just get on the train and come to Hampton.”
[I take a deep breath. A breath of battle, boiling oil and snorty horses.]
“No. Nope. I’m not coming to Hampton. And seeing as you’re not going to come half way to meet me, then lets just call it off. I’ll see you when you get back from the States.”
“So I’m not going to see you before I go?”
“Doesn’t look like it, no.”
[She argues with me for a few more minutes to no avail. We talk of other things. Then, before we hang up she says again;]
“So I’m not going to see you before I go?”
“MUM! Will you cut it out? You won’t get in your car to go further than three minutes away, and thus I’m not taking two trains to see you. Have a nice time in the US…”
“…but what about your Christmas present. Have you run out of make up yet?”
“I can’t wear make up in Hervey Bay, it all melts off. If you want to give me something, give me cash.”
“Well that’s not very Christmassy….”
I give up.
Wait & Bake
Monday, 13 December 2004
So after a late night out at the Empress, which was balm to my parched out Hervey Bay soul, I got the Skybus from Spencer Street at 1pm for my 2pm flight to Brissie. Get that? I began at ONE in the AFTERNOON. When did I get home? Well, everything began to unravel once I got to the Tilt Train platform - up until then, my journey was running like clockwork. I was wandering around Roma Street station when I saw that it said ‘Tilt Train Departs Platform 10 at 4:30pm’. I yelped. Obviously. Because it wasn’t supposed to leave until 5pm - or so it said on my ticket.
I hared my way through the heat to Platform 10 with about 12 minutes to spare. No train. Four thirty ticked around, as did five’o'clock…Nothing. As time passed, the sun eased its way over the platform, so a couple of hundred impatient people were slowly baking, craning their heads to see if the bloody train was ever going to materialise. When it did finally arrive, it was a big tease. As soon as everyone had disembarked, they whisked it off away from the platform, further down the track, for ‘cleaning’. I am quite sure that this is trainspeak for ‘kicking back with a nice cup of tea, while gossiping about the fallout from the last big crash in Bundaberg’. So we’re all cooking on the platform, kids are whining, people are trying to find patches of shade and I can feel sweat running down my back and getting soaked up by my dress.
The train arrived properly at about six thirty. Oh the bliss of air-conditioning - although it was almost forgotten as they announced that everyone’s arrival times were now going to be wrong as we were running an hour and a half late. [groan] The trip was just interminable, made more so by the teenage freaks sitting behind me, whom I wanted to gag with gaffer tape before we even hit Caboolture. We hit Maryborough at 10pm and then the bus took me to Hervey Bay, where I finally saw M (who had been asleep in the van) at 11pm. I could barely speak from tiredness and frustration. Poor M, greeted by a travel weary harridan. Think of all the places I could have gone in those lost hours. Gah. Tilt Train? Never again.
Broken Head?
Thursday, 30 December 2004
After my insomniac rambling, we spent the morning hiding the laptop/mixing desk/microphone etc in our secret hiding place, and managed to get on the road by midday. The main pain about getting anywhere from here is the time it takes to really feel like you are finally Going Somewhere New. I mean, it takes half an hour to get to Maryborough, and it’s not until we hit Gympie an hour later that it really feels like we are on our way. Naturally the first bit of car conversation went:
B: So did you pack your pillow?
M: I thought you packed my pillow?
B: Well I can’t do everything. I packed the food, hid the valuables, organised the sheets and blanket. I didn’t even think of your pillow.
M: [pouting] Great. Just great.
I could see he was pondering on driving ten kilometres back home to get his pillow, so I decided silence was the best option. Thankfully by the time we hit Gympie and infused him with coffee, he had recovered his bounce.
We made it to Brisbane on one tank of petrol and had to fill up. Problem. We didn’t have any cash until the next day. With visions of sleeping in the carpark of some trashed out Seven-11, I gingerly rang my bank to get an account balance. Revelation! They had not put through any of my transactions since Christmas! M and I did a salutory victory dance around a supermarket somewhere in Logan, filled the car, bought some treats, and continued on our way.
M was infatiguable. We hit Byron Bay after 8pm (after gaining an hour at the stateline - quite confusing) and went for a wander. It was completely overflowing with people. Every pub was packed to the rafters and had lines of people waiting to get in. Byron Bay has changed a lot - I haven’t been there for about eight years, and it is now a sort of hippy Noosa. Lots of same-y shops selling crappy jewellery, ‘arty’ souvenirs of the area and then the general real estate agents and jeans/surf shops that you see everywhere; the town seems to have become homogenised. Due to the fact it was New Years Eve Eve, there were a surfeit of testosterone fuelled 19 year old males with satellite groups of tricked up befrocked chicky babes, all eyeing each other off while wandering the streets. The people watching potential was huge.
As soon as we got to town it was obvious that we wouldn’t be able to stay anywhere legitmate like a caravan park. We noodled around to one or two, who just laughed at us, pointed at their ‘No Vacancy’ signs and wished us luck. M wanted to head back to Belongil Fields and try to camp there. I attempted to convey that I’d rather be operated on sans anaesthetic in the most tactful way I could. I urged him on out to the other side of town. We saw a sign for a caravan park at broken Head and drove a few kiometres down a dark narrow road through lots of trees. The caravan park was, of course, full - but the carpark wasn’t! We saw a few people in Kombies who were obviously dossing down for the night, and decided to do the same. I figured that the authorities wouldn’t bother singling us out if everyone was doing it - and anyway, all the action was about ten kilometres down the road in Byron.
M opened his single stubby of Stella Artois, and I popped a little ‘piccolo’ bottle of some strangely distasteful strawberry champagne. We toasted our journey and collapsed into fitful sleeps. Zzzzz. Zzzzz.
New Years Eve
Friday, 31 December 2004
We got woken up by guys discussing the surf conditions outside the van. It was only when we emerged that we realised what an amazing place we’d picked to stay!! Right near a toilet block, an outside shower, the caravan park shop and…the beautiful beach at Broken Head less than a two minute walk away. Oh splendid day!! We ate our museli on the beach and then headed out for a swim. How I missed waves. That’s right. Waves. The things that bay beaches rarely have. The water was completely clear, and cold enough to make it invigorating. It was lovely. We rinsed off under the outside shower - our surfboards stayed in the car - it was way too crowded with surfers all lying on their boards waiting for a break.
We headed back into Byron for a coffee with the money we’d saved on not paying for our accomodation. Or we tried to. Halfway there we were waved off the road, where a very large, and slightly apologetic man explained that as it was New Years Eve, all cars going into Byron would have to pay $60. Ha ha! As if. He was very nice, and even said if we needed to get something in town, we could leave our drivers license with him and reclaim it on our way back. Nooo. We explained that Byron was not an imperative part of our plans and that we’d be very happy if he could point us in the direction of Bangalow. So that was fine.
The van trundled us to Lennox Head, where, after casing every shop, I finally found a pair of sunglasses and we headed up to the top of the point where we parked and watched the surfers in action. I made us a cup of tea each with my little 12volt travel jug and felt very civilised. We decided to start our journey towards Rosebank, and wound our way through little places like Newerybar, Bexhill, Eltham (here’s a picture of the pub at Eltham….)
…we continued on our roundabout way through Lismore, and sang The Simpleton’s song of the same name as we drove around it. Spent serious time in the bottle shop debating on our New Years Eve drink of choice, bypassing the vodka/tonic/lime option in favour of two frugal six packs of Coopers. M picked up some cashews and a watermelon and we were off! Glad to get out of town. The drive to Rosebank was insanely picturesque. You would think that therefore I would have taken some pictures, but no, I was too busy drooling out the window as we went through Bexhill, Corndale, and finally…we reached Rosebank.
It consists of a shop/cafe and hippy gallery place. Thankfully it also had a phone box, and I called our hosts-to-be and asked for directions, which I scrawled on the back of an ATM receipt:
A few more minutes along Repentance Creek Road (it’s true - that’s what it’s actually called - very Coen brothers…) and we had arrived. Huzzah! We all kicked back for a while and said hello - I & J’s house was lovely, and the view from the deck was positively pastoral. M and I were scruffy from hours of driving, so we got some (more) directions and went swimming in a waterhole. I saw an elver. M went in, and came out smelling like a fresh water otter - I abstained. It was only when we got back to the house that they told us about the enormous catfish that lives at the bottom, and the python they saw swimming there. Thanks so much ;oP
We hung out on the deck for NYE and various guests turned up. The nibbles were beyond divine - nori rolls, vietnamese spring rolls, brie…it was lovely to be with people who like the same music as we do and who are into a lot of the same kind of things. I is a bit of a music afficionado and it was tres cool to hear some different kind of stuff - and some that I’d read about but had not year heard. Vodka and cranberry juices were liberally passed around, and by the time it clicked over to midnight, everyone was quite tired, but giggly. We sipped some champagne as people said their goodbyes. I retired to the van, while M stayed up and chinwagged a little bit longer. Finally I got a good sleep - until the angle that the van was parked on meant that I ended up being M’s mattress…apparently I was quite comfortable.
Bring It On - 2005!!
Saturday, 1 January 2005
New Years morning 2005 - largely hangoverless! We had poached free range eggs on amazing bread. There was no better way to start the year.
We hung around the house until deciding to take a trip out to another place to swim (one without the python) which (I think) turned out to be in the Whian Whian Forest. The water was cold! M and the hostly I. jumped into the water from a very high rock while the rest of us (including Baby Luka) plashed around in the shallows. It was hard to believe how hot we’d been - until it was time to walk back to the cars. On the way back M and I stopped at the Rosebank Shop and got everyone a pie each. These pies are highly recommended - particularly the gado-gado pie. Yum. Luka did not get a pie, he got mango (which I find loathsome, but he seemed to enjoy it).
It was on this day that we heard the ‘coffin story’ and also about the ‘anal candling’ prank. Beginning with the coffin…
At the back of I&J’s block is a lot of land owned by a couple. He is skinny, she is not. At all. So last year he decided to make her a coffin, so it would be all ready for when her time was up, crafted by him, for her to be buried in. He made (apparently) a beautiful coffin - extremely large to accomodate her buxom frame. (It makes me think of the fat female spider that eats the little male one, but I digress…). Just after the wonder-coffin had been completed, Skinny-man’s equally scrawny mother came to stay. She didn’t stay long. In fact, she died on site. I am not sure whether this was in response to the kind of hospitality that was on offer or just old age, but anyway, it was all over. Skinny-man got a quote from the people movers. It was going to be about $3000 to get his departed mother back to near where she’d come from. This did not please Skinny-man, and he wondered what to do.
Of course! He had a coffin all ready for action in… The Shed! Saying that it was slightly too big for the job at hand is something of an understatement - his mother could have fitted in it three times over with room to spare. But this was a man with a mission. He put his mother in the coffin, placed the coffin in the back of the ute, and drove down to the petrol station (not a short drive). There, he packed party ice all around his mum’s body until she was no longer floating around in the huge cavernous coffin and embarked on the 500 kilometre drive back to her place…The End. No further facts are known.
All around Byron and the hinterland are little hippy enclaves with a shop or a gallery or both. The windows of these places are often noticeboards for ‘Crystal Healing’ or ‘Women’s Worship Night - Bring a Plate, a Bead and Some Karma’ or ‘Support Group for Lactose Intolerant Gay Whales’. Things like that. This began to irk I., our host. So he decided, without informing his partner (he forgot) to put up a fake ad. It was for a course of Anal Candling (as an accompanying product to ear candling). I didn’t get the whole story, but it included recommendations from a famous Indian author; it said it would be fully cleansing, and only cost a few thousand dollars. People actually called him up about it. Of course, after a while, other people were in on the joke, but I. had still forgotten to tell J! She was hijacked by some toffee-nosed ladies of a ‘certain age’ at a classy little cocktail party - they were hysterical with laughter at what I. had done. J vehemently denied it. Anal candling? Don’t think so. Finally she escaped at about 3am and made it home. She shook I. awake and asked him if he knew anything about this weirdo candling thing that everyone was attributing to him. He barely bothered to wake….’Yeah, I did it…I forgot to tell you. Sorry.’
Orange Cake & a Spotless Mind
Sunday, 2 January 2005
We had decided to head back on the 2nd of January - M said he’d like to meander home rather than rush. But after a leisurely breakfast, followed by the other making plans to go to Poinciana Cafe* in Mullumbimby, a swim at Brunswick Heads, the suggestion of an orange cake and a viewing of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (which I had been dying to see for just about ever), we decided to ask if we could stick around just one more night. Then, just to make sure we weren’t overstaying our welcome, we offered to also cook dinner. What a day. I can say without doubt that although the year was only two days old, it was the best day of the year - midway through watching Winslet and Carrey chase each other through memories, J doled out pieces of the most outrageously amazing orange cake. It was still warm. M and I thought ‘what the hell - we’re leaving in the morning’ and brazenly ate third helpings.
*The Poinciana Cafe gets points for ambience, but their ‘Taste Plate’ is hugely overpriced - go for a tofu burger - fewer dollars and more clout.
Bunnybones & the Long Drive Home
Monday, 3 January 2005
What could possibly be the logical follow-up to days of waterhole dipping, poached eggs, orange cake and stories of candles and coffins? We’d barely made it through the first cup of tea when the phone call came through. I&J’s daughter’s rabbit, ‘Bunnybones’ (who had been holidaying at a friends place) had been eaten by a python. Truly. We had stumbled on a home where reality was immediately translated in urban myth…
We said our goodbyes to our new friends and old ones, tried to leave, stopped for M to locate his thongs, scalped a mango off the tree with the side mirror and turned left toward home. It was sad to go. We topped up the petrol tank at Mullum (that’s what the locals call it) and ended up winding our way through Pottsville and up along the coast to Tweed Heads. I had read a bit about the developments that the Tweed Shire Council had let happen, but nothing had prepared M and I for the monstrosities that clag up the coast on the way through from Pottsville to Tweed Heads. Compared to where we had just come from, it was ludicrous and depressing. Heading toward Kingscliff, huge amounts of the coast have been cleared and it looks like a cross between Pleasantville and a latter day insane asylum. Unbelievable. Googling “Tweed Shire Council” development brings up the fact that there is currently a Public Inquiry into the council - but from what we saw, the ‘public inquiry’ should actually just be replaced by a mass sacking of the bastards that let all the development go ahead. Oh, and incidentally, there is also a corruption probe into the council as well. I wish it was an anal one. They have just plonked a crappy faux beach suburban style estate right along the water. Don’t go there. If you have any taste or soul it will ruin your day. Alan Border & Co. will love it - considering they’re probably about to do a similar thing in Toogoom. [excuse me while I go and spit the rest of my bile in the sink]
We had a great swim at Tweed Heads, but we should have soaked our towels in the water. The trip back north was hellishly hot and seemed to take an aeon. M drove all the way through again, like a trooper. We made it home just before dark - the garden is a total wasteland, it hasn’t rained a drop. It was lovely to see our house again - thanks for letting us come and stay I&J - we had a blast!
Camping Trip
Tuesday, 8 March 2005
My relative quiet on the weekend was due to my absence. M and I drove to Elliot Heads, about 20km out of Bundaberg, and camped a couple of nights. It was very last minute, as you will see from our van packing:
But once we’d unpacked and sorted it all out, our campsite was admirable. The caravan park is fantastic, and there weren’t many people there, so we had our pick of spots. When we turned up, hot and tired from two hours in the van, the manager said take your pick of sites, and don’t worry about paying now, go and have a swim and we’ll sort it out tomorrow - lovely. The first thing I did on Sunday morning was sneak out of bed, wander the one minute walk to the beach, and jump in.
This is me, cruising in Oomoo near the mouth of the Elliot River.
We navigated for about 5km downstream, and saw multitudes of soldier crabs, long legged water birds and the occastional stinray the size of a doormat.
Weather or not
Tuesday, 8 March 2005
How does one pack a small bag for an eleven day trip, when the weather at ones destination reads as follows:
Tuesday
Chance of a shower this afternoon. A mostly cloudy day with a light to moderate westerly wind tending south to southwesterly.
Current Temperature: 18 C
Forecast Max: 20Wednesday
Morning shower possible then fine.
Min: 13CMax: 20CThursday
Fine.
Min: 12C Max: 22CFriday
Fine.
Min: 13C Max: 29CSaturday, Sunday and Monday
Fine. Generally warm.
It looks like I’ll be bringing two bags [sigh] - if only I knew where my shoes that aren’t sandals were. I last saw them before we moved here 18 months ago. I have a feeling that they’ve ended up in South Gippsland. Bugger.
Wednesday was weird
Friday, 11 March 2005
Have not, thus far, had time to even squeak, let alone blog. After a relatively (relative to last time) relaxed trip down to Melbourne, I was standing at the interminable baggage carousel and M rang to say that we had received and offer on the house! Revelation. It wasn’t what we are after, but it was quite near - so we decided to do a counter offer. Of course, I was unable to sign the documents - thus I had to arrange for them to be faxed to L’s husband’s workplace - L then had to hoon me into the city (where the traffic was so bad that I had to jump out of the car and run for it) so I could sign stuff and then fax it back. The same thing happened again and the very accommodating restaurant that we went to for dinner. Everything is still up in the air (and possibly shaping up for a sharp nosedive) as I type, so I will have to leave the story there…but the fact that someone was keen enough to make an offer is very comforting.
Later that night (after being driven by other nice people) to E’s house, I settled down on my mattress on the floor and prepared to cark it for six hours - hoping that I would wake up not looking too deathlike for my interview the next morning. Sleep I did. Only to wake three hours later in absolute fright…the kind of fright where you jolt out of sleep and breathe in so deeply that your toenails crinkle. I had been reading Joe R. Lansdale’s Savage Season on the plane, and a lot of it was so full on that I had to keep putting it down and taking little breaks. Anyway, it must have made quite an impression, because I awoke convinced that there was a Cottonmouth Water Moccasin on my feet.That’s right. I had the whole name in my head. After being rigid with fear for about 20 seconds, I realised that it was far more likely to actually be Sonic, E’s black cat rather than the only North American poisonous water snake. Logic comes slowly in the dead of the night.
Waify Bear
Tuesday, 15 March 2005
I am at work. It’s almost 7pm. They have stuffed up my pay, so I am trying to be more stringent with money than usual. The thing I hate about coming to Melbourne for work is that I always end up as a waif and stray for some of the time. The nights where I hang by myself. My friends that live here have their own regular committments to get on with…. rotfl
[In the middle of my sad little self indulgent whine, my mobile rings! It’s E - who has been let off early and she promises to cook me dinner and says ‘come on home’. I think I must be a bear of little brain to be consoled so simply. Au revoir.]
On Modern Cars
Thursday, 17 March 2005
For the 24 hours between Sunday and Monday nights I held a sincere belief that the car I drove all weekend was so forward-thinking that it turned on its own headlights when it sensed that day had turned to night. I loved it. It felt like I was driving a machine that had been injected with some kind of artificial intelligence. I was transported (truly). When I picked up D & E at the airport and congratulated them on their wondrous vehicle, E looked wide-eyed, as if to say “I didn’t know it could do that. How clever!” While D just lent over and began to laugh hysterically…and my belief began to wane…
U.S Passport Photos
Thursday, 17 March 2005
Today I convinced my workplace to pay for the renewal of my US passport - thank god. My boss has a fixation that they won’t let me into the US without it - even though I visited back in 2000 on my Australian passport without a problem. I decided that if I had to renew it because of a work-related visit, then work should shoulder the cost - $126!! Luckily they agreed. So after lunching with L, we took off to one of the two photo places in the city that the US consulate deems worthy.
“Oh no,” says the woman at the Swanston street Kodak Express Smiths.
“I know they have us on their site, but their information is wrong. I’m sorry.”
Grrr.
I come back to the office and look at the list again. I call the other mob who go by the fancy name of Van Der Toorren in the Block Arcade on Collins street. With an address like that, I should have known there would be a problem. The voice on the end of the phone is cultured.
“Hi, do you take US passport photos?”
“Yes we do.”
“And how much are they?”
“They’re $35 for a sheet of five, and the processing is overnight - you have to pick them up the next day.”
“Thirty-five dollars? Right. I only need two photos.”
“We can give you two photos…”
“Good.”
“…but it will still cost you $35.”
“Thank you, goodbye.”
At present I’m dossing in Collingwood - so I call the consulate approved Kodak shop in Smith Street.
“Hi, do you take US passport photos?”
“Yes we do.”
“And how much are they?”
“Twelve dollars for a sheet of six.”
“And how long do they take to process?”
“They’re instant.”
“What time do you close?”
“Seven.”
I just have to wonder what those Block Arcade people are actually doing when they are processing their passport photos. Dousing them in liquid gold? Employing Icelandic virgins to seal them with a kiss? I don’t get it.
A Recap
Wednesday, 6 April 2005
I have waaaay too much to write about - so I am going to cover the past two weeks in point form in an effort to clear my mental state and move on…
AMENDMENT: Ian says he caught a fish. But he didn’t write the theme tune, or sing the theme tune, so I don’t believe him.
Flight Centre: Search. Compare. Book. Yeah, right.
Wednesday, 20 April 2005
I have been living in denial. Not the river. The state of mind. Spoke to my dad today, and he brought up the issue I have been avoiding. He asked me how much it cost to drive the Humber up here, in those bygone days of cheaper fuel. I dug backwards in my brain. It cost $300. Three hundred dollars. With the current price of petrol, that would now be more like $450 - plus camping ground fees, and food. Then came the realisation that if I am going to be dossing in Carlton, there will be nowhere to keep my car. Actually, I won’t really need my car to get around if I am practically in the city already. My bass rig is already stashed at someone elses house - the only issue I may have, is getting M to and from Avalon airport when he comes down for the wedding we’re invited to mid-May. So I am thinking I might fly. Mule style. Clutching my laptop, winter clothes and guitar.
While watching Jamie’s School Dinners (loving it) I saw an ad for Flight Centre. Their motto is now Search. Compare. Book. It should actually be;
I went there. I searched. I compared. And then I did not book. I went to the VirginBlue site, and checked out what they had on the same day. What a surprise. Flight Centre only shows you some flights that are available. For example, on Tuesday April 27th, Flight Centre informs me that VirginBlue flight DJ308 leaves from Brisbane (to Melbourne) at 7am for $160. The VirginBlue site confirms that, yes, this schedule is correct, however, their price for flight DJ308 is, instead, $119. Interesting. I looked on the Flight Centre site for some small print that might excuse them, but it must be pretty small, because I couldn’t find it. Obviously they whack something on top of VirginBlue’s base price, but why don’t they say so?!! I think I am turning into a curmudgeon. Help! Help!
Sorted.
Thursday, 21 April 2005
I am going via Cattlestar. I am quite impressed that with less than a week to go, I could still get a $103 Brisbane to Melbourne ticket. Even though I swore I would never go Cattlestar again. Even with my Tilt Train ticket and airport trains and buses, I still make it to Melbourne for less than half of what it would have been to drive. This is some consolation for leaving my car behind. Now hopefully my new career as someone’s lodger works out… I wonder if they will expect me to eat dinner with them, and freak out if I don’t come straight home from work…. eeek!
Jeans
Tuesday, 26 April 2005
How many pairs of jeans does a person need? Is it a defence to say that the person in question always had trouble finding jeans that hit her feet, and so has begun hoarding every pair? So many jeans cannot possibly all go to Melbourne, so a jeans fashion parade was held. M was judge. Three out of the six pairs that I shimmied in and out of got 8/10 or more. So now there are three sad pairs of jeans, neatly folded, in my little wardrobe. They will not roam to Melbourne. Ack! I have to get up at 4.30am!!
Crap
Wednesday, 27 April 2005
This sucks. I have left our lovely house behind. Goodbye cats. Goodbye M - who got up like a gladiator to drive me to the train at 5am. It was totally sad and surreal. Surely I will go back there? We dropped the price of the house yesterday - but the website is acting up and I can’t update it. Anyway, we are…I won’t say desperate, but I will say EAGER to sell and get on with our lives - and if we have to do it with a little less money than we orginally thought, bugger it. We don’t care. I am at Brisbane Airport having totally forgotten what time my flight was - I thought it was 11am, and so busted my butt to get here and ran panting up to the counter.
This isn’t JetStar, this is Qantas. JetStar is further down.
So I raced back the way I’d come and sweated at the behind the desk, who looked down her nose, told me that JetStar don’t fly to Melbourne, they fly to Avalon, and that there was no 11am flight, I must be mistaken. I was about to mistake my arm for a tennis raquet and her head for ball, but I breathed deep, thrust my drivers license at her and told her to tell me when my flight was. It’s at 12.55pm. And so I wait. Berefty bear. Rash popping up all over my arms, hands…gah.
Arrival
Wednesday, 27 April 2005
Rach & Dylan, heroes of the hour (still recovering from their sandfly bites), picked me up from Avalon feeling sad and sorry for myself and drove me all the way to my mother’s place in Black Rock, where they left me. Only raising their eyebrows a fraction when she said;
‘Oh, I wondered how you would get here from the airport…’
If I had known as much Auslan as they do, I could have been very descriptive. Instead I waved goodbye and then showed my mum the first DVD I’ve ever made (I actually made it for I, J & Small C - but I am yet to post it). Dinner was made for me, white wine was drunk. I had an odd, long distance, disjointed conversation with M - both out of sorts with our weird new arrangement. Not helped by my mother reverting to 14 years ago and telling me to ‘get off the phone - if you want to call him back and talk longer, use my phone card!’ Yes, mother.
Then I spoke to Mr H - who said that he is of the opinion that I need a good slapping - which I am assuming refers to my last few dirge-like blog entries. Bastard. ;P May I point out that, yes, I am EAGER to leave Queensland - however, leaving Queensland with no money, no M, no car and no cats was not exactly the triumphal return that I had planned, throbbing soundtrack and all. Instead of leaving Queensland to the tune of the William Tell Overture, I skulked out to something more like Joy Division’s Love Will Tear Us Apart. For god’s sake, I want to be able to write the theme tune, sing the theme tune…
…it really doesn’t feel like I am properly back in Melbourne. It feels like I am down here for work and will be leaving in a week or two. I wonder when or if that will change?
Get me to the inner-city & take off that hair shirt
Wednesday, 4 May 2005
Goodbye Hampton, Black Rock and Sandringham - I am going to be a Carlton dweller as of Thursday. I went to see the room last night and met A’s mother, who is similar to a cross between Helen Garner and Germaine Greer. My room is upstairs at the back of the house and I get my own bathroom - I am very excited that I am going to have somewhere to stay until July. The thought of moving from one place to another every few weeks was not exactly thrilling me. It will be interesting to figure out how I’m going to live with (and around) these people that I’ve only met once, but I am very keen. I have always wanted to live in a two storey house - and I love the fact that I can pretty much ride my bike to anywhere I need to go… work, the Lumiere, the Nova, Brunswick Street, Collingwood…and depending on my stamina, maybe even Northcote!
I have had fun at my mum’s, but her groans in the morning when she has to drive me to the station, and her extensive and vocal disappointment at the haircut she had yesterday, make me think that the atmosphere at Carlton might be calmer and more conducive to a rash-free life. I won’t have internet access there [GASP!] so I may actually use my laptop to do some [ahem] proper writing. We can only hope.
Hazy Shades of Winter: Part 1
Thursday, 23 June 2005
Where to start?! Arrived home [sob] last Wednesday and realised just how much had to be done before d-day (yesterday). I can’t even remember half the things that happened in between then and my dad arriving. I do know that we went out to a last dinner at Angelo’s (after I had replaced a headlight on the Humber, so we could drive at night) where I had my favourite spaghetti marinara that I cannot recommend highly enough. It was lovely to see M again after about a five week absence, even though we were instantly submerged in logistics and goodbyes to his side of the family.
Thursday morning saw M turn into an anxiety ridden alien. He had to get the van to the auto-electrician at 8am and at 7.30am he was shrieking around the house in a complete state…
“Where the f@#k is my wallet? Someone must have got in during the night and they’ve stolen it. Either that or it fell out of my jacket at Angelo’s….maybe it’s in the van…”
He ran from the house, while I croaked from under the doona;
“We didn’t take the van out last night.”
He returned inside, still ranting, now looking to deflect the blame elswhere.
“It’s you. You. You came home and distracted me. This kind of thing didn’t happen while you were away. Goddamn it. Meet me in the cafe near the auto-electricians. The van could take all day.”
I had, by this point, shoved my head under the pillow, wondering what it was that I’d actually missed about him as I whiled away my time in Carlton.
“OK, I’m going now. F@#k it.”
“Remember to take the spare wheel of the trailer so we can get it checked for a leak,” I replied romantically, through gritted teeth.
And the back door slammed.
I eased my way out of bed, walked to the coffee table, picked up M’s wallet, had my first rainwater shower in quite some time, fed the cats and drove out of the driveway and up the hill. As soon as I got halfway to the top, mobile coverage kicked in and there was a text from M.
Bring wheel.
As I turned the car around, I pondered on ways to intensely annoy him for the rest of the day, and dabbled along these lines of thought until another text popped through as I (and the spare wheel) reached town.
I am sorry I was in a flap. I have separation anxiety.
I found M, threw his wallet at him, and wallowed in his apologies for at least ten minutes. After that, we went and found a toasted cheese and tomato sandwich, and made our ‘to do’ lists. They were scary. As we left, to begin to tackle the lists, the electrics on my Humber started going crazy. Dodgy indicators, mainly. We fiddled with the fuses and they came back. Then the left indicator died. The switch had broken. I managed to massage the indicator into performing, but it was getting worse. Perfect timing really, considering that it was being driven to Melbourne in four days time…
Au Revoir Lovely House
Monday, 27 June 2005
We had to be on the road by 11am. I managed to squeeze more into the back seat and boot of the Humber than anybody believed. We dashed into town to say goodbye to M’s mother and nephew and to fill up the van. In the meantime, my Dad drugged the cats :-0 and vacked the house (many, many thanks!). When we got home, we had One Hour. I arranged the electricity to get cut off, and did final packing (’packing’ meaning; stuffing odds and ends anywhere I could find a gap, and throwing things into the bin that should probably have been taken to the op-shop) while M gave our beautiful floors a final mop. Rick did some final Humber-whispering and assisted in assembling the new cat carrier.
I went to examine the cats. Saf was spread, whalelike, on the ground, looking like he’d had too many whiskies and white wines; while poor Mow had retreated to his bed box, and couldn’t be tempted to leave it. Dad had to help me get him. I stuffed both of them in a carrier each. They were drugged, floppy and unhappy. I began to worry about how they were going to survive such a long day of travel - four hours to Brisbane, then probably another four hours of waiting around and flying to Melbourne. Horrible.
M and I said goodbye to our house and I took some final footage of our acre - the trees, the little creek… It was very sad. But I almost didn’t have time for it to register. When I left back in April, not knowing if I would see the house again, I cried all the way out of town. This time, I was swamped by logistics and drugged cats. It was all over very quickly, which, I suppose, is a good thing. Dad took pictures as we drove the van, pulling the boat trailer, out of the gate for the last time.
Crossing the second state line…
Wednesday, 6 July 2005
Am typing from a ubiquitous McDonalds the other side of Albury somewhere. We have been inside the boundaries of Victoria for about 50 minutes, and the sun has come out, although there are grey clouds looming over the hills. I am desperate to write up our journey, if only for my own purposes of remembering everywhere we have stayed, the exciting things we’ve eaten, how we nearly got lost in a flood and the spelling mistakes on signs that have rendered us helpless. Helpless.
But that will all have to wait. We stayed last night in serious style in Adelong - a place that we have been once before (when we camped directly in front of the ‘No Camping’ sign and spent the morning swimming naked in the river) - this time it was waaaay too cold for camping, and we thought we would do the last night of our trip in a proper bed and breakfast - it was seriously classy. We should be drawing up to our new home in Melbourne in about four or five hours time. Our little Hi-Ace van (since it was repaired in Brisbane) has performed peerlessly. Yes, we are the slowest car on every freeway, highway and motorway that we have traversed, but it is a steady, reliable slowness. Vanee (as it shall henceforth be known) is packed to the gills and is also pulling a well packed Oomoo - M and I are also far more portly that we were at the beginning of the journey (or, that’s what it feels like) after indulging ourselves each night at dinner to the point that we rarely eat another thing until lunchtime the following day. Just for my own memory, we have stayed…
Now we are jumping back on to the tarmac for the close of our journey, plumper, damper and with a deeper knowledge of trailer auto-electrics.
It’s all Garbage
Wednesday, 28 September 2005
I am off in a few minutes to go and see Garbage play at the Forum. Am meeting L for dinner at our favourite haunt - the very unatmospheric Ito - which has startlingly good tempura vegetables. I am setting off blithely, having heard nothing of their latest album, but propelled by the rumour that this tour will be their last. Eeek! I didn’t go with my old housemate who saw them play the Palace years ago when somebody pulled off Shirley’s wedding ring and the band refused to play until it was handed back. I missed all the drama!
M is running around like a chicken, organising our next four days of sailing. We leave from Newhaven in Hoo-Ray! early on Friday morning and will be sailing to French Island and doing some general exploring of Westernport Bay. M is a wonder-bear. He has planned our meals each day, bought supplies - organised the lot! I think he’s hoping that I will have a fabbo time and beg him to take me sailing every weekend. We shall see. We are not so optimistic that we are not taking seasick remedies.
The Sea Adventure: The 3rd Day
Sunday, 2 October 2005
We awoke in the morning to find ourselves thankfully in the middle of the 30m wide channel. The sky was blue and the wind cold. The wind had been offshore all night, and as the channel ran quite close to shore, it had been a quiet sleep. M ripped out another wonder-breakfast; this time porridge with brown sugar and cups of tea.
I had almost begun to get used to weeing in a bucket, although I would shoo M to the other end of the boat and instruct him to look valiantly out to sea until the bucket and I were done. We motored for about ten minutes to get Hoo-Ray! into the right position to go close around Tortoise Head. We were aiming for Tankerton Jetty on French Island where the ferry from Phillip Island docks. The plan was to then hire bicycles and see a bit of the island, however, I was a bit dubious about this, as riding bicyles into strong wind up hills didn’t sound like the most fun we had ever had.
The scenery along the way was amazing. Lots of wind generators (as French Island has no mains power) and old farmhouse looking buildings. Cliffs. Once we left the shelter of Tortoise Head the ocean swell kicked in, as did a five foot wind swell from another direction. Things got rough and pokey. It was almost a repeat of our previous experiences, and was a little wearing.
We could see all the unregistered cars left in the car park and bashed our way toward land in about 25 knots, only to find the jetty swamped by waves.It became obvious that there was no way were were going to be able to tie up and land. We gave up and turned around to an easier point of sail. We headed for Cowes.
Slapped our way back through the rough water off Tortoise Head and then a fast sail (for little 16′ HooRay!) on a beam reach all the way to Cowes (can you tell that my prose has been edited for sailing cred by M?). The more wind there was, the more I was unable to fathom how anyone could liveaboard for any length of time. I found it impossible to go below for any reason, let alone read maps or contemplate making a cup of tea. The only way I’ll be a cruiser is on a large multihull, thanks for asking.
We neared Cowes, which appeared from the sea to be all pub and pine trees. There was a jetty, but again the wind and the waves were mostly onshore and made landing way too dicey. I was urging M to sail toward the public toilets, but it was impossible. I crossed my legs and hoped pathetically for the best. M took us around to the next cove, and made a kamikaze swing into the beach, where we dropped anchor five metres from the rocks. M gazed valiantly into the distance, while I convened with the bucket, my one true friend.
Then came one of the best bits of our adventure. We followed th’e long shore along toward Rhyll, down wind, right near the beach the whole way. It was gorgeous. I fell asleep in the sun and lost my sunglasses from Lennox Head over the side [sob] - but it was a lovely sail.
We neared Rhyll and pulled up on to the beach where we had the time before (it seemed so long ago…yeah, all of 24 hours!) We wandered a little, because as it was Sunday, all of Rhylls five or six shops were now open.
We avoided the cheesy restaurant, chock full of weekenders in faux yachting apparel (unlike our bedraggled salt stained selves) and headed for fish and chips. Well, chips and potato cakes and… pumpkin cakes - which I’d never had before, but welcomed gladly into my life. We went and sat down by the walkway in front of the beach, with the live jazz from the restaurant wafting over from behind us. It was sunny and beautiful. I became ever fonder of Rhyll.
During our noshing, my phone rang. My mother, with the sound of a shopping centre behind her.
Mother: Hi B, where are you? Am I going to see you before I go?
B: In Rhyll on Phillip Island. And no. We had our goodbye lunch last week, remember?
Mother: But I want to see you and M before I go…
B: Well you can’t see us, because We. Are. On. Phillip. Island.
Mother: [changing tack] Well… The other reason I was ringing is because I’m over at Southland [for some reason she’s never just ‘at Southland’ but always ‘over at Southland’] and I’m in the National Geographic shop…
B: [eating chips, eyes closed] Mmmmm.
Mother: I wanted your opinion.
B: [instantly awake. shock and awe] Really?
Mother: Your brother won’t tell me what he wants me to bring him when we see him in London, so…
B: [helpfully] Drugs?
Mother: What?
B: Nothing.
Mother: So, do you think he’d like a five foot blow up kangaroo?
B: To do what with?
Mother: [oblivious] As a joke! To sit in his room! Don’t you think he’d think it would be funny?
B: No. No I don’t. I think you should buy him duty free gin, like I did. He whined that it was only Tanqueray, but he still drank it, and liked it. He didn’t have to Blow. It. Up. How long does it take to blow up a five foot kangaroo, anyway?
Mother: [deflated] Oh. OK. So you don’t think so?
B: [emphatically] I. Don’t. Think. So
Mother: [does The Sigh] Alright then… So. I’m not going to see you before I go?
B: Yeah. If you want to drive out to Phillip Island… I’ll call you when we get home, as long as it’s not too late.
Mother: [mollified] OK then… Have a good time!
B: Bye!
M had devoured the rest of the chips as I talked my mother out of a decision that may have ended in her own matricide and was getting itchy feet. We wandered back toward Hoo-Ray! and realised, belatedly, that the wind had swung around. The boat was no longer in such a good position. M decided to take it around the other side near where we had just been sitting. I could have helped, but I took photos from shore instead.
Once Hoo-Ray! was sorted, we went on a walk to the General Store and bought some ice. By the time we got back to the boat with it we were hot. We paddled out and jumped aboard. I arranged some of my favourite white wine (Giesen Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc) in a bucket with the ice, while M talked to a couple of people who were standing on the shoreline.
I’d just settled back with the paper, when M suggest (in a way that indicated he was pining) to go for another sail while the weather was still good. I couldn’t believe it. We had live jazz for free, wine on ice, some snacky things, newspapers and gorgeous weather. M looked like a labrador. I acquiesced, hardly believing that it was possible.
Anyway, so we went for a good sail. M was desperate to beat my speed of five knots that we have measured on the GPS while I’d