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Thanks to Nell for this one. :)
As promised, photos from aussie up on Flickr…
I’ll add more if/when I get then from relatives (Jen??)
xx
This is it – post number 300 on this wee blog. 300 posts in 18 months. Nowhere near one a day, which is probably good as you’d all get terribly bored with my life’s minutiae, but a pretty consistent rate. Well, consistent as far as I’m concerned! :) Thanks to my readers for returning, thanks to you newbies for stopping by. Muchos gracias people!
Well, I’m back in the UK after my month-long antipodean expedition, and believe me the amount of travelling I have to do on these trips is close to legendary! I landed at Heathrow at 06:20 on Sat morning, after an exhausting flight where there were in-flight entertainment problems on the 9 hours to Bangkok and someone’s disgusting progeny taking pleasure in kicking the hell out of my seat the whole way to London. Needless to say I didn’t get much sleep. Fucking kids! Shouldn’t be allowed to travel with the rest of us! Or, at least, parents given explicit sets of rules & regs to abide by, along with the threat of being thrown off the plane at the fuel-stop. Honestly – if I can be kicked off the plane for rude and aggressive behaviour, why can’t the bloody kid be kicked off for its highly disruptive behaviour? One of life’s little mysteries.
Anyway, landed fine, waited the obligatory 30mins in the passport queue and then another obligatory 30mins for my bag to appear. (thank god we didn’t arrive into Terminal 5!) Heathrow express to Paddington then Tube to Kings Cross, then Cambridge express before 20min wait for my bus for return home. Got home about 11:20am and presented Mark with his gift (which he loved!) and sorted my duty free and commenced obligatory cat-cuddling. Mark went off to see his kids and I lasted perhaps another hour before I passed out. I woke at 10pm when Mark arrived home, and I was in the same position I went to sleep in, except with a hungry cat on my pillow! The poor little blighter had been trying to wake me up for a few hours. He got a tin of tuna to make it all better… And because I’d slept for so long I couldn’t sleep at all Sat night. I was awake from 10pm Sat to 9pm Sun – then slept straight through til 4am today. Hopefully by tomorrow my sleep patterns with be somewhere near normal.
So yep – back at work here today. Met with boss this morning and told him that I’ll be actively looking for another job, and he sort of expected that. He was really nice actually, told me to let him know if there’s anyone he can call for me – and then told me I couldn’t leave because then things wouldn’t get done! :) All very nice to hear. So I’ll be actively looking for other work. Still don’t really know what industry I feel like getting in to – and I’ve done a hell of a lot of industries already! – but I know that I need a change.
So there you go – 300 posts and things are still moving along. I promise to sort my trip photos in the next few days and get them loaded on Flickr asap. xx
P.S. Happy birthday Evan, ya miserable bugger.
Tuesday we went to Batemans Bay. Dad plays lawn bowls, and he had to go do an umpires test at Malua Bay, so Jan & I dropped him off then headed on to Batemans for our errands and some window shopping. I posted a box of stuff back to myself in Britain so I wouldn’t have to pay excess baggage charges - $96!! I could have almost got a courier for that! Dad passed his tests and we’d picked up some lovely prawns and mussels for dinner – so apart from the ridiculous prices for Australia Post, everything was pretty good.
Yesterday we went fishing. There were mini-arguments about where we should go. We both won. :)
Dad likes beach fishing, but me not so much. Beach fishing isn’t at all interactive – you can’t tell nibbles from surf movements, you just sort of hurl your line out (hopefully) past the breakers and then leave it for 10mins or so before reeling back in to see if you’ve got anything. I’m not skilled enough at it to cast my own line out, it always goes sideways and I can never get it out past the breakers, so Dad does it for me. So all I get to do is sit there and watch the surf, occasionally put bait on my hook, smoke cigarettes and wish we were fishing somewhere else.
We went to the beach near Brou Lake, just north of Dalmeny, and beach fished for perhaps 2 hours before realising that we all had the same bit of bait on the hook as when we started, so gave up & went home for lunch. Lunch was pies from Bodalla Bakery (YUM!) and a wee lemon tart – also YUM!
After lunch we went to my preferred spot – off the boardwalk on Narooma inlet, where the water is almost crystal clear, a lovely blue, and I can do almost everything myself. Literally 30 seconds after I cast my line in, out came my first of 3 leatherjackets! 30 seconds!! Love it! :) My 3 leatherjackets were perfect size for toast (Jan’s preferred breakfast) and I also caught a wee bream that we threw back in with instructions to notify its parents of our yummy bait. (It didn’t, but we didn’t mind too much.) Jan also caught a leatherjacket for the pot and another wee bream, which we think could have possibly been the same one – what’s the learning curve on a fish? Anyone? Dad didn’t catch anything – which also happened last time I was here and we went out in the tinny (for those non-Australians – a tinny is a 12foot aluminium boat, a couple of metal seats and an outboard motor. Luxury! Just beware of touching the sides or changing seats on very hot days. But it does mean you can find fishing spots that those without boats can’t access).
We were on the boardwalk for perhaps 2 hours, and Jan & I caught all the fish, in between spotting the stingrays that inhabit the inlet (they just cruise up & down, eating fish bits from incoming boats, getting their photo taken – quite a good life really) and watching the enormous bloody pelicans skim over the water. Lovely way to spend an afternoon, especially since the fishes were throwing themselves on my line!
Today, Thursday 10 April and my last full day here, we went into Narooma and wandered about for a wee bit before heading off to Dalmeny Point for a picnic lunch. After lunch a few hours sitting in the sun were followed by a trip to Naroom a to pickup the fresh lobster we ordered yesterday – lobster thermidore for dinner tonight! :)
I’ve been so spoiled on the food front this trip. Thurs 27 = fresh fish & chips in Ulladulla on the way home form the train station. Fri = fish & chips for lunch, spag bol for dinner that I cooked. Sat = pies for lunch, steakfor dinner, I cooked. Sun = roast chicken, roast pumpkin & lost of roasted veges, I cooked. Mon = fresh flathead. Tues = fish & chips in Batemans Bay for lunch, prawns, then fresh mussels in white wine & cream for dinner. Wed = whole snapper (which I didn’t manage to finish on account of the size of my plate compared to everyone elses). Thurs = lobster thermidore!! WhooHoo! I’ve been properly seafooded, which is what I wanted. The memories of this fabulous aussie seafood has to last me until my next trip, after all, so there’s no point mucking about! :)
I’ve had a great time here, I really do like coming to Dad & Jan’s. And not just for the seafood! Really! :) Swimming in the sea, fantastic countryside, lovely wildlife (rosellas visit the balcony every morning, bellbirds everywhere, magpie and kookaburra song in the mornings, galahs eating grass-seeds in the lawns, fishies, dolphins in the sea that you can see from the balcony, seals, penguins…). If you’re visiting Australia, I heartily recommend the Sapphire Coast – the NSW South Coast. Bateman’s Bay to Bega. You won’t be disappointed.
I’ve had a bit of a fab time all round this trip. Nell & Gavin’s was lovely – it’s wonderful to be with my sister again. I miss laughing with her so much! Mum & John’s was good – brilliant to see all the family (tho exhausting!) and I’m glad I got to set Mum up on the internet. It should make our conversations much easier! ;)
But I think, after all this, I’m ready to go home. I want my own bed and to cuddle my cat. I’ll even suffer the bloody snow (now I’ve got a reasonable tan ;).
Oh – and as a final note – thanks to every one of my readers. I average 45 readers a day, and have passed the 11,000 total mark. This post makes 299, I should do something special for number 300 I think. Thanks for your support, thanks for your comments, and thanks for making me believe that someone, somewhere is vaguely interested in what I have to say. Bless your cotton socks. :)
See you in Britain. xx
‘there’s this stuff in the chemist called Quell’
Up at 05:30 this morning for a quick breakfast before heading out on Dad’s mate, Gary’s boat for a bit of deep sea fishing. And luckily I’ve got my body clock so well trained that I tell it I have to wake up and it does the job for me – I woke on my own at 05:22. Nice when things work how they’re supposed to. Tried to stay up late and watch the Bahrain F1 Grand Prix, but it started at 22:30 here and I was fading by then. Jan & I sat up for perhaps the first half hour, then both gave up & went to bed.
Anyway, up before the sun today, and at Gary’s house for 06:30. He’s got an 18ft fishing boat that he takes out as often as possible and offered Dad & me a mornings fishing which, of course, we jumped at. Gary had all the tackle and equipment, so we rocked up to his place and then with his other mate, John, headed down to the boatramp. On the way to the boatramp saw a pod of 4-5 dolphins frolicking off the beach near Dad’s. :) Quiet morning on the sea, very still and calm in the inlet, I was feeling quiet good about the whole thing. When we got out of the inlet and headed into the actual sea things got a bit rougher. The boat was being tossed a bit, partly because of speed, partly wind, but I could see a slight swell picking up – nothing to worry about though, and I was with guys experienced in these waters and the boat had plenty of lifejackets. I felt fine, looking forward to a good day’s fishing in the deep blue.
We headed out to the north end of Montague Island, about 5 miles off the coast, and paid a brief visit to the Australian fur seal colony there. The sun was just coming out from behind the clouds and I got a couple of lovely photos, as well as just marvelling at the lovely furry beastie’s amazing abilities in the water. And the fact that they really did like to show off! :) We headed around the eastern side of the island and then down to the reef on its southern tip, where the water shallowed to about 50-60ft to wet our first lines. Didn’t have much luck, seemed to feed lots of fish but none came on the hook! John caught himself a lovely big leatherjacket, but that was about it so we moved on to spot 2.
I was starting to feel a bit green around the gills at this point. See, a small boat tends to move to every single little wavelet in the bloody ocean. I was having trouble finding my sealegs, I seemed to have left them bloody far from where I really needed them. Despite the bit of toast and cup of tea that constituted breakfast, my stomach started to feel that there was a hell of a lot more in there than that. I held myself together with a stalwart determination.
Spot 2 fared better. We each caught a Maori Rasse, which are really pretty fish but not very good eating so they all went back in the sea. A few little rock cod also jumped on John’s hook (‘See it takes talent to catch one this big!’), and I got myself a small grouper, which was very pretty as well, but all also went back to the sea. Gary started asking if anyone had a banana on board, which apparently is the cause of most of the fishermen’s woes. We didn’t, but we were beginning to wonder where the fish were – we’d been out there about 2 & a half hours and only had one leatherjacket to show for it (good eating, but not my favourite – I was after a nice snapper). I was feeling greener and greener. My hands and feet were cold and my feet were tingling. I couldn’t stop yawning or burping, but the nausea seemed stuck in my chest – it wouldn’t come up or go down, it just sat there. Tried to concentrate on fishing, but looking down at the water made my head spin.
Moved on to spot 3 for a final go before giving up. Gary found the spot by GPS and said that he’d never come away from there without a few flathead (lovely eating fish!). I think by this point he was feeling a bit guilty that we hadn’t caught dinner and I was feeling poorly. I halfheartedly threw my line in again, lost some more bait, then gave up & just tried to control my stomach. The men kept it up for another 30mins or so and Dad also caught a lovely leatherjacket to add to the lonely one of John’s in the bucket. The guys were all giving me advice and apparently ‘there’s this stuff in the chemist called Quell’ which is brilliant for seasickness. Pity the bloody chemist was 6 miles away, onshore!! Anyway, shortly after they took sympathy on me and called it quits. The fish weren’t biting, only nibbling our bait away, and I definitely wasn’t up for an extended session. We packed up the gear and pointed the boat toward home. As soon as the boat started moving again my stomach felt better – it was purely the movement of the open sea in the drifting boat that made me queasy. Took a slightly circuitous route home so I could take some photos, and I was feeling loads better, before getting back to the boatramp about 11am.
John gave us his leatherjacket to go with our own, and Gary felt bad enough that we didn’t catch anything that he gave me half a dozen fresh flathead fillets from his previous trip out the day before! Bless him! Gary, we had them for dinner tonight – absolutely lip-smackingly beautiful! I do love a good bit of fishy. :)
Got back and went for a swim with Jan. It’s the middle of autumn here but the water temp is still 20deg and it was lovely! Spent an hour in the back garden with a book, trying to make the colour on the back of my legs sort of match the residual colour on the front of my legs. My sumburnt legs have healed really well, and they just look brown now – but only on the front. The back is still pommie white. Anyway, the hour yesterday and the hour in the sun today helped, there’s a bit of colour there now, definitely enough to prove I’ve been on holidays.
Saw on the news tonight that it’s still snowing in the UK! Hehehheeeeee! :) Got picture message from Begonia showing me the snow in her garden. I sort of half hope it’s still there when I get back. Only half though, because I want the warm weather to come now!
Have also made a decision about my job. My mind rests better. Tell you later.
hope all are well & happy & not suffering cold feets.. :) xx
At Dad’s now. Got here about 7:30pm Thursday, after rising at 6 so I could farewell John before he went out on his school bus run. Mum & me got to Tamworth airport about 8:30am, and waited around for 30mins or so before check in. At check in I was told that due to the ridiculously high winds in Sydney the 09:45 flight was delayed until 10:30. OK, I can understand that. They’d had an almost hurricane in Melbourne the night before, trees down, buildings damaged, people killed. So I called Dad, so he wouldn’t be waiting at the train station for 3 hours. No problem there. And yes, the plane took off at 10:30, or as close to it as nevermind. But it didn’t quite sink in that we didn’t see a refueling truck on the tarmac, though I realised that with the wind it was going to be a really pleasant flight and touchdown in Sydney could get a little hairy.
About 45mins into the hour flight, the Capt got on the blower to say that we were diverting to Newcastle – because we didn’t have enough fuel to stay in a holding pattern over Sydney for the hour it would take the controllers there to clear the queue. Only one of the runways in Sydney was working, and there was starting to be a bit of a parking lot overhead. So we went to Newcastle, had a lot of fun landing, and sat on the tarmac there (weren’t allowed out of the plane) for 45-50mins whilst we refueled and got a new landing window in Sydney.
Finally landed at 12:40, almost two hours behind schedule. Can’t blame anyone but the weather, so no point getting in a fuss about it, but was worried about Dad sitting at a train station (with no mobile phone) waiting for me and getting worried when I didn’t show!
Got on the train to Bombaderry 2 hours later than planned, and had to rush my way through baggage claim etc. Had no lunch because no time, and only a museli bar and a banana to sustain me til I reached Bombaderry (about 3.5 hrs later). Dad was waiting, and it was damn good to see him! But I was hungry, so we stopped at Ulladulla for some lovely fish before going on to Narooma. Got here about 7:15ish and I lasted maybe another hour before falling into bed.
Next morning I was up with the sun, which was good, because Dad and dog were heading out for their morning beach-walk. First thing in the morning is a lovely time of the day to be on the beach, and after a good hour walking we got home, had breakfast and headed out on mission 1: find a pair of Ugg boots for Christine. Headed to Tilba Tilba, a lovely little tourist town about 20kms from Narooma, and scored! Got in the car & headed to Bermagui for lunch. Were going to go to Bermi Pub, where we went last time, which does good honest food for cheap prices, but it seems to have gone a bit upmarket, and we weren’t up for paying $25 each, so ended up with fish & chips in the picnic spot on the point overlooking Horseshoe Bay. (I know, fish twice in as many days, but honestly, I so miss Aussie seafood that I could eat it every day!) Headed back to the house in time for afternoon dog walking and a wee rest in the shade before I cooked dinner for Dad. He’s 66 and never cooked for himself, and (possibly) thinks it’s a bit pointless to start now! Anyway, my spag bol got the nod of approval. :)
Haven’t done much at all today. Morning dog walking, and afternoon walking as well, before bbq dinner of prawns, steak and salad. YUM! Jan’s back from her bushwalking adventures tomorrow (she’s been bushwalking all week in Kosiosco Nat Pk, nasty weather and all!) and I’m doing a roast chicken to welcome her. My chicken’s somewhat legendary (in my own mind, anyway :) so I hope she likes it.
That’s it for now. Sunday tomorrow. Swimming and lounging, before going deep sea fishing on a mate’s boat on Monday. Never been before, quite excited! xx
I tell ya, I truly didn’t think my skin had become so pommie.
Nell was at the airport to meet me of a quite laid back flight from a 37deg and steamy Bangkok airport. The trip to Bangkok had been a trial – not only stuck next to two elders who felt like chatting (for 10 hours) but that my headphone jack wouldn’t work unless it was being held in a certain position (slightly up and to the right), and the plane was full so no movements allowed. Almost intermidable.
Arrived in Bangkok 10 hours later with the pre-requisite 4 layers of winter-in-britain clothing, and rushed myself to the bathroom to change into skirt, T and sandals – much more civilised in summery climes. Just enough time to have a cigarette and change clothes, then back on the plane for another 9 hours to Syd.
Mentioned my headphone problem to the purser tho, and he managed to get me shifted to the first row after business class, complete with leg-stretchy space, groovy fold up table and (somewhat disappointedly) a dodgy video screen. It did the flickery thing every half hour or so, but I gave it a stern talking to each time it did it by repeatedly hitting it on the back until it stopped. It didn’t get my carefully worded message, however, and flickered the entire way. But the other benefits of the change of seat made up for it. For a start, my legs could stretch in almost any direction they chose, I was sitting next to a good bloke who spent half a year mining to earn enough money to live overseas for the other half. He’d just been in Thailand for 7 months & was out of cash, so home to mine for a bit more cash to fund his next trip. Now that’s gotta be a nice way to live. (G’day to you, and all in Trundle!)
And as we were both happy people, we made friends with the steward sitting facing backwards in front of us for take off, had a chat and a giggle, and then he went off to serve drinks to the rich. He soon returned, though, with a glass (that’s a real glass, made of glass!) of champagne and a pkt of lovely cashews each! Bless you Simon! So when our dodgy cattle class drinks trolley came round we were already lording it up with champagne in real glass and cashews! WhooHoo! Simon was our friend the whole way & smuggled back a few choice titbits for us. I even scored one of the rich folks’ free giveaway satchel thingys with all sorts of creams & stuff in it.
Anyway, so Bangkok-Syd was much MUCH better than London-Bangkok.
Got to Sydney early enough to see the sunrise over the airport carpark, which is surely a momentous event in anyone’s books! Nell was incredibly happy to see me (and not pregnant, despite my suspicions, tho her & Gav are trying). Took quite a while to navigate Sydney’s ridiculous traffic situation, and we took a slightly scenic route that took me past classic Sydney haunts and ex-haunts – though Marrickville, Sydenham, Petersham, Leichardt (Max’s at Petersham is no more, btw – a sad loss to my musical memories of home), The Annandale (which on the upcoming board out the front listed ’special guest Jimmy Barnes’!!). Down through Camperdown to Glebe, the Fish Markets and up past Sound Level studios in Ultimo – where so much time was spent with various boyfriends and bands. Ah, the patience and loyalty of youth – not to mention the egos! :) Nell took me over the Harbour Bridge, then up the Pacific Highway to the Central Coast, where by 9am I was esconced on her verandah with a tea and a cigarette, just as I predicted. :)
I was trying to stay awake as long as possible, which is the only way I’ve found to deal with jetlag – get yourself in tune with the diurnal cycle of your destination asap – so we went to Erina Fair for a bit of retail therapy. Got myself two pairs of lovely heels (yes, heels! :) and a fantastic panoramic print.
Thursday, after a lovely 2 hr morning beachwalk, we headed to the beach for a wee bit of dipping of toes in the Pacific. In true british fashion, I dipped my whole body into a bottle of 30+ sunblock, armed myself with sunglasses, a hat and a picnic lunch, and off we went. Two hours later I’d had a lovely swim and it was getting a wee bit warm. I could feel myself starting to turn pink, so we retired to the house to eat our picnic. I had a shower to wash off the salt and discovered just how burnt I really was. My chest and arms were red, though they didn’t hurt much. My legs were a very fucking angry red, and started full on screaming about it later that evening at Nell’s parents for dinner. Next morning, despite generous repeated swatherings with 100% aloe vera, the fucking angry red had turned to murderously angry red and my legs were so swollen my knees looked like red cabbages. I couldn’t walk properly, hobbling around like a little old lady, and every time I stood my legs screamed with rage. And to top it all off Nell’s cat kept brushing itself against my aloe vera’d legs, leaving them covered not just in green goo but also punctuated with chunks of cat hair that was too painful to remove. I honestly never thought that my skin could be so pommie.
It’s 3 days after the burning now, and I just have to push push PUSH to you, good readers, the godlike abilities of the humble aloe vera. That spikey ol plant has been a life and leg saver. After two and a half days of almost hourly coatings, my legs were ok enough to wear jeans out to dinner with mates last night. My murderously angry sunburn is now just mumbling to itself in a grumpy way, and I’m well able to wear my new and terribly cute heels to The Church gig tonight.
So – must be off, time for another fantastic seafood lunch before the primping commeth this evening, along with a wonderful dinner and soundscapes to die for. love to all, wish you could be here. xx
