Tuesday May 24th
For those of you that have not as yet had the good fortune to have ventured over to New Zealand its easy to replicate the experience back home, simply print out the most beautifully scenic image that you can find on the internet, cut it to fit the dimensions of your windscreen and then just put your foot down.
Obviously there is a pretty major floor to this plan after a few seconds of driving but for that short interval you can at least experience some semblance of the tranquillity that lies in store, right up until you mow down the very first pedestrian that is.
Seriously though, it is exactly like driving into a different postcard every 100 meters or so, its so bad that my finger is hurting from taking so many photographs and Pauline has had constant motion sickness from my rather erratic habit of preforming 360s in the middle of a single carriage way in order to get the perfect spot!
The roads are absolutely astounding, perfectly suited to the grace and finesse of a sleek Italian sports car, winding and traversing around mountain after mountain, which is a bit of a pity as our motor home couldn’t be less like a sports car if it tried, so for us every corner is either a near miss or a lucky escape, its akin to driving a tonka truck on a scaletrix track.
We got a bit of a result though when we arrived at Christchurch, we had originally booked a 4 birth motor home but when we arrived they had upgraded us to a 6 birth, I swear that for that first night we were so unaccustomed to the room that we suffered from agoraphobia.
But once we got used to the space we realised that this is quite possibly the worst vehicle to have in New Zealand, the first tell tale sign was when it took us over an hour to find a parking space at the supermarket, it would have been a lot longer too if I hadn’t forcibly made an old age pensioner reverse his car out of the space I had ear marked.
Its a pretty formidable sight having a giant motor home reversing rapidly into your 50 year old vintage car and he didn’t look best happy, but youth conquered on this occasion!
We were also blown away by the fact that our shiny new vehicle was equipped with a TV and DVD player, which would have been fantastic had it not been for a gang of mountain parrots chewing off the aerial on our first night meaning that we could only receive a single badly scrambled channel, and only then we had to be parked on top of their transmitter.
Another downside to this is the fact that we now only have access to a single crackly radio station which spends the 90% of its time as static but then randomly shouts the odd word crystal clear, just as you are careering around a 90 degree turn, causing you to momenterily lose focus.
Still not to be defeated we decided to treat ourselves to Billy Connelly's New Zealand tour on DVD which was coincidently when we discovered that the DVD player doesn’t work either, still, luckily we had retained all of those wonderful card games that we had played over and over and over and over again in Australia.
Originally we had intended to follow the Billy Connelly tour in reverse order so the DVD would have been mighty useful, but take it from me, for an old guy my god does he move fast, we are already 3 days behind his schedule and we have only been here for 6.
Although the lack of electrical entertainment is a pain, it has afforded me the opportunity to write a complaint email into the car rental company and I have been having an email war with someone called Mr Smart for days, it has been an endless source of amusement to be totally patronising at every opportunity.
One of the other wonderful things about this new motor home is that you can put something in one cupboard and by the end of a journey they would have miraculously reappeared in another cupboard thanks to the incessant vibration felt throughout the back of the vehicle.
Not content with being unable to witness this spooky phenomenon actually happening Pauline took it upon herself to experiment a little further with this and decided to leave one of the cupboard doors open when we set of earlier today.
The culmination of which was a huge bang, followed several seconds later by a large fizzing sound as the entire contents of a neon orange cordial bottle proceeded to cover Pauline, Tyler, the broken TV, the broken DVD player and the remaining contents of our motor home with very thick, disgustingly sticky gloop, transforming us instantly into a travelling Tango advert.
We are now like the worlds shitest ice cream van, manned by little dayglo orange people and repleat with a jingle that consists of static and the occasion random word, and with absolutely no ice cream whatsoever.
Ohh yeah I guess I should also mention a little bit about New Zealand in this here blog, well lets see, so far we have taken an incredible helicopter ride over the Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers, they set us down on top so that we could wander about and sort of imagine what it would be like to have crashed there, as if to emphasise this they even let Tyler fly it for a bit.
Then today we reached Queenstown which is a very very picturesque town (as is pretty much everywhere we have been so far) but definitely the most touristy place we have been so far.
We looked at the local what’s on guide to see what we could sign ourselves up for and the special event for today was the topless bikini contest which seems to be a bit of a contradiction in terms and to be honest I don’t think I have the figure for that any more :-) Incidentally though Tyler was up for going and tried to persuade Pauline to have a quiet night in!
So instead we decided to plum for the Luge which totally rocked, it was in a location that was very possibly a former bond villains lair, but with every possible type of cool thrill ride stuck precariously on top of a mountain instead of just having sharks and laser guns.
For example you could throw yourself of on a para sail or a bungy jump or on the luge or on a mountain bike or you could fly above it on a helicopter or do a sky dive etc etc etc, it was like a giant testosterone filled mountain of death.
So as usual we fitted in perfectly well as we bounded up to the entrance surrounded by adrenalin junkies and potential suicide victims.
Still it was well worth it, the luge track was great fun and we got several goes at hurtling ourselves down the slick cascading runs with only a thin layer of plastic seperating our butts from the very hard looking tarmac beneath.
Tuesday, 24 May 2011
Thursday, 19 May 2011
So long, Possums!
Thursday 19th May
I really wanted to hate Sydney, not in a nasty horrible vindictive sort of way or because of anything in particular but merely for the reason that everyone else that I know loves the place and I hate agreeing with the crowds.
Well although it pains me to admit it, on this occasion I join the masses and concur that indeed Sydney seems like a really great place to be, and whilst I haven’t instantly sold my worldly possessions in a bid to stay there longer, its definitely somewhere I would like to visit again.
The weather probably helped as we had 5 days of crystal clear blue skies with temperatures that hovered around 20 degrees and seemed to put everyone there in a great mood.
We also had a right result with our accommodation and stayed in the heart of Darling Harbour in a pretty swanky apartment that had been converted from an old warehouse and was exactly the type of place that I love with loads of cool little architectural features throughout.
So when we pulled up outside in our dodgy looking camper van and then proceeded to drag box after box of dodgy looking tat that we had accumulated, through their pristine looking foyer in front of their other very formal guests, I am sure that they were extremely pleased to have us stay with them, we are probably exactly the type of clientèle they are trying to attract.
Still, for some reason they didn’t throw us out and after an hour or so of tooing and throing we finally managed to clear the contents of the van and instantly turn one of the nicest looking rooms that we have stayed in into a complete dive.
We then set about trying to take the van back, I say trying as the address that was in their book, that we took over an hour to navigate too, isn’t actually the address that we needed and with very little time to spare we only just managed to get it back in time.
An enormous sense of relief was felt by all, not merely for the fact that we wouldn’t have to sleep in that cramped little tin room another night but also for the fact that we didn’t get charged for the damaged we did to the other vehicle.
Words cannot describe how well we all slept that night, but suffice to say we didn’t venture out too early the following morning
For as long as I can remember one of the things that I have always wanted to do is see a whale in its natural environment, I remember sitting in front of the TV with my dad watching countless David Attenborough wildlife documentaries and longing to be able to see them up close for myself.
Unfortunately we always seem to have been in the right place at the wrong time on this trip, in western Australia we were one month too early to go swimming with the whale sharks although they had already been spotted, in SA we were three weeks too early to see the whales at the great Australian Blight although they had already been spotted, it really didn’t look as if it would ever come to fruition.
So you can imagine how excited I was when we casually walked around the harbour and there in giant letters written on the side of a giant boat were the giant words “Whale watching starts here Saturday May 14th”.
Hang on a bloody minute, today's Sunday the bloody15th, I thought to myself, bloody hell we may actually get to bloody do this!
So you can imagine how incredibly disappointed I was when we bounded recklessly up to the door to find it completely locked up and showing absolutely no signs on life.
So you can imagine how amazingly happy I was to learn that we had just missed them, but they would definitely be there the next morning and that yes they had indeed spotted whales yesterday.
So you can imagine how bloody frustrated I was when having woken Pauline and Tyler up at the crack of dawn so that we could go out on the first boat of the day, we discovered that in fact the first boat of the day was 12:45 as they weren’t running the morning ones until peak season.
So you can imagine the look that my wonderful family gave me having realised that I had dragged them around the harbour at stupid o'clock in the morning for absolutely nothing.
So you can imagine how completely unamused they were at the suggestion that we should hang around outside the booth until it opened 4 hours later, and how eventually I let them convince me to do something else for the remainder of the day.
So you can imagine how wonderfully ecstatic I was the following day when we turned up at 12:00 and there in all of her glory was the wonderful little lady who was going to exchange my hard earned currency for the 99% guaranteed chance of seeing these majestic creatures!!
So you can imagine how unbelievably gutted I was having spent just over three hours on what turned out to be the bumpiest boat trip since the titanic and not having seen a single poxy thing in the water.
Still, on the bright side, we may not have seen whales that day but we did bare witness to some of the most impressive projectile vomiting seen since the Exorcist.
What made it even more spectacular was the fact that this magnificent multicoloured mucus marathon was being generated by the fruit of my loins.
If the whales had decided to pick that precise moment, to jump out of the water and have a giant whale orgy, nobody would have noticed as everyone on board, including the staff, were completely transfixed on Tyler’s regurgitating abilities, waiting in eager anticipation for his head to start rotating and his body to levitate.
What was even more incredible was the precision with which he managed to direct his streams of stomach soup, practically missing the floor entirely he landed the vast majority on our 1 week old camera and the remainder on the sleeves of my new fleece.
So thankfully we didn’t see any whales on that voyage because if we did the mere thought of lifting my vomit drenched arm towards my vomit splattered face so that I could peer through the vomit encrusted camera is a little too much for my stomach to handle.
So you can imagine the look I gave to the guy on the way out who very gingerly handed me a free return trip for the following day!
On the bright side if we had returned Tyler would have lost enough of his body mass that we could have probably taken him as carry on hand luggage and saved ourselves a fortune on the flight to New Zealand.
We have done a little over 20,000 kms around Australia and still haven’t seen hardly anything, so as I am writing this from my seat on the plane to New Zealand, I feel a mixture of regret, relief and sadness.
I regret not having been more organised, for not having rented a 4x4 to go further into the heart of the country, for not having planned our visit in advance to ensure that we were in season for everything that we wanted to do and for not having more money to really be able to experience everything the country has to offer.
I am relieved that in a country where everything is trying to kill you from its tiniest wildlife right through to the pedestrian crossings that change to red as soon as you step foot on the road and force you to sprint across to avoid carnage, we somehow managed to survive it all.
But most of all I am genuinely quite sad to be leaving, if it weren’t for the dollar being so high I am sure that we would have probably stayed a fair bit longer and I am certain that one day we will be back and hopefully this time far more organised!
I really wanted to hate Sydney, not in a nasty horrible vindictive sort of way or because of anything in particular but merely for the reason that everyone else that I know loves the place and I hate agreeing with the crowds.
Well although it pains me to admit it, on this occasion I join the masses and concur that indeed Sydney seems like a really great place to be, and whilst I haven’t instantly sold my worldly possessions in a bid to stay there longer, its definitely somewhere I would like to visit again.
The weather probably helped as we had 5 days of crystal clear blue skies with temperatures that hovered around 20 degrees and seemed to put everyone there in a great mood.
We also had a right result with our accommodation and stayed in the heart of Darling Harbour in a pretty swanky apartment that had been converted from an old warehouse and was exactly the type of place that I love with loads of cool little architectural features throughout.
So when we pulled up outside in our dodgy looking camper van and then proceeded to drag box after box of dodgy looking tat that we had accumulated, through their pristine looking foyer in front of their other very formal guests, I am sure that they were extremely pleased to have us stay with them, we are probably exactly the type of clientèle they are trying to attract.
Still, for some reason they didn’t throw us out and after an hour or so of tooing and throing we finally managed to clear the contents of the van and instantly turn one of the nicest looking rooms that we have stayed in into a complete dive.
We then set about trying to take the van back, I say trying as the address that was in their book, that we took over an hour to navigate too, isn’t actually the address that we needed and with very little time to spare we only just managed to get it back in time.
An enormous sense of relief was felt by all, not merely for the fact that we wouldn’t have to sleep in that cramped little tin room another night but also for the fact that we didn’t get charged for the damaged we did to the other vehicle.
Words cannot describe how well we all slept that night, but suffice to say we didn’t venture out too early the following morning
For as long as I can remember one of the things that I have always wanted to do is see a whale in its natural environment, I remember sitting in front of the TV with my dad watching countless David Attenborough wildlife documentaries and longing to be able to see them up close for myself.
Unfortunately we always seem to have been in the right place at the wrong time on this trip, in western Australia we were one month too early to go swimming with the whale sharks although they had already been spotted, in SA we were three weeks too early to see the whales at the great Australian Blight although they had already been spotted, it really didn’t look as if it would ever come to fruition.
So you can imagine how excited I was when we casually walked around the harbour and there in giant letters written on the side of a giant boat were the giant words “Whale watching starts here Saturday May 14th”.
Hang on a bloody minute, today's Sunday the bloody15th, I thought to myself, bloody hell we may actually get to bloody do this!
So you can imagine how incredibly disappointed I was when we bounded recklessly up to the door to find it completely locked up and showing absolutely no signs on life.
So you can imagine how amazingly happy I was to learn that we had just missed them, but they would definitely be there the next morning and that yes they had indeed spotted whales yesterday.
So you can imagine how bloody frustrated I was when having woken Pauline and Tyler up at the crack of dawn so that we could go out on the first boat of the day, we discovered that in fact the first boat of the day was 12:45 as they weren’t running the morning ones until peak season.
So you can imagine the look that my wonderful family gave me having realised that I had dragged them around the harbour at stupid o'clock in the morning for absolutely nothing.
So you can imagine how completely unamused they were at the suggestion that we should hang around outside the booth until it opened 4 hours later, and how eventually I let them convince me to do something else for the remainder of the day.
So you can imagine how wonderfully ecstatic I was the following day when we turned up at 12:00 and there in all of her glory was the wonderful little lady who was going to exchange my hard earned currency for the 99% guaranteed chance of seeing these majestic creatures!!
So you can imagine how unbelievably gutted I was having spent just over three hours on what turned out to be the bumpiest boat trip since the titanic and not having seen a single poxy thing in the water.
Still, on the bright side, we may not have seen whales that day but we did bare witness to some of the most impressive projectile vomiting seen since the Exorcist.
What made it even more spectacular was the fact that this magnificent multicoloured mucus marathon was being generated by the fruit of my loins.
If the whales had decided to pick that precise moment, to jump out of the water and have a giant whale orgy, nobody would have noticed as everyone on board, including the staff, were completely transfixed on Tyler’s regurgitating abilities, waiting in eager anticipation for his head to start rotating and his body to levitate.
What was even more incredible was the precision with which he managed to direct his streams of stomach soup, practically missing the floor entirely he landed the vast majority on our 1 week old camera and the remainder on the sleeves of my new fleece.
So thankfully we didn’t see any whales on that voyage because if we did the mere thought of lifting my vomit drenched arm towards my vomit splattered face so that I could peer through the vomit encrusted camera is a little too much for my stomach to handle.
So you can imagine the look I gave to the guy on the way out who very gingerly handed me a free return trip for the following day!
On the bright side if we had returned Tyler would have lost enough of his body mass that we could have probably taken him as carry on hand luggage and saved ourselves a fortune on the flight to New Zealand.
We have done a little over 20,000 kms around Australia and still haven’t seen hardly anything, so as I am writing this from my seat on the plane to New Zealand, I feel a mixture of regret, relief and sadness.
I regret not having been more organised, for not having rented a 4x4 to go further into the heart of the country, for not having planned our visit in advance to ensure that we were in season for everything that we wanted to do and for not having more money to really be able to experience everything the country has to offer.
I am relieved that in a country where everything is trying to kill you from its tiniest wildlife right through to the pedestrian crossings that change to red as soon as you step foot on the road and force you to sprint across to avoid carnage, we somehow managed to survive it all.
But most of all I am genuinely quite sad to be leaving, if it weren’t for the dollar being so high I am sure that we would have probably stayed a fair bit longer and I am certain that one day we will be back and hopefully this time far more organised!
Monday, 9 May 2011
Australia with a capital C
Tuesday 10th May
Before we left on this little foray I was always surprised how few people, when asked, knew what the capital of Australia was.
Having been here it turns out that the majority of the Australians couldnt care less either, and practically everyone we had met along the way had never been there.
So on a whim and a minor recommendation from a 15 year old we headed into the capital, which incidently is called Canberra.
The story behind the city is great, they had two major cities along the coast vieing for the prestige of being named the capital (Sydney & Melbourne) but nobody could decide which one the accolade should go to.
So in a moment of sheer genius they decided to build a completely new city somewhere roughly in the middle of the other two but nowhere near the coast to make it interesting for anyone to visit unless forced too.
The end result looks scarily like Washington DC and even has similar sounding street names and buildings reminisent of the giant memorials.
Wow, this is scarily sounding like a proper travel blog and is getting dangerously informative, sorry about that, I had a momentary lapse in concentration!
So anyway, in our normal completely unplanned, unorganised and generally misguided way we arrived into Canberra without anywhere to stay, no idea what there was to do and only a vague idea of how long we would be there for.
As it turns out we could have stayed there a good while as there seemed to be heaps to do but Pauline had got it into her head that she wanted to go to the Campervan, Caravan and Camping supershow in Sydney so we could only stay a few days.
We noticed a flyer for Nasa's deep space exploration centre about 20 kms outside of the capital so we duly headed there with eager anticipation, extremely full bladders and absolutely no petrol (this new van has a very dodgy gauge).
Amazingly we did manage to make it to the complex without any of these factors causing us any major concern, even if there was a final dramatic sprint towards the entrance and the highly coveted amenities within.
The place was amazing, it had 4 supersized dishes in the middle of a cow field eerily listening for Extra Terrestrial farts occuring in the distant atmosphere.
It was truly awe inspiring but at the same time rather bizarre as the entire complex was a tribute to the great feats of engineering and technological accomplishments of the US.
I think that there is something about space centres that instantly transforms you into a big kid, it makes you walk around with your mouth agape at all the really cool stuff that they do and makes you jealous that you cant play with their toys.
Still, after I stopped being grumpy that the nasty man in uniform wouldnt let me climb up onto his giant dish or let me ride on his lunar landing buggy (I am sure there is a euphemism in there somewhere), I took some comfort in chastising Tyler for trying to and telling him not to be so childish.
After our fill of space related trivia and overpriced fizzy drinks we proceeded back to our vehicle to see if we could reach somewhere else before our van broke down.
Literally running on fumes we happened across what is quite possibly the oldest petrol station in the world, with ancient pumps that only registered cents and had "Unleaded" and "Diesel" written on crayon on their heavily rusted white antique bodies.
I got out and stood there like a fool for 5 minutes wondering why the petrol wouldnt come out before I finally got the courage to venture into the ramshackle shop to seek assistance.
What lay inside was quite possibly the oldest petrol station attendant in the world, looking as though he was about to keel over at the mere sight of me coming through the door before insisting on getting up and filling the petrol for me.
Well as it turns out I could have probably walked back to Canberra in the time that it took the guy to walk to the pump but we waited patiently and he finally go there.
He then cranked some metal lever and the whole pump proceeded to shake violently, then, having assumed what I felt was an all-to-smug look on his face, he grabbed the nozzle and chucked it into our tank.
The gauge shot up to $5 in about 10 minutes (it was $1.69 a liter) and the guy then proceeded to stand there like a fool wondering why the petrol wasnt coming out for a further 10 minutes before finally admitting defeat and informing us that he thought it had run out yesterday.
This would have been pretty useful information to have emparted prior to making the arduous journey from his seat to the pumps and he looked a little lost for a moment before adopting a huge grin and suggesting that we could always fill up with his "VX Super Unleaded" at only $2.69 a litre.
Needless to say we paid our $5 thanked him for the wonderful time we had spent together , which we all agreed had been far longer than we had initially anticipated and then proceeded to coast our way back through to Canberra.
The following day we headed out to Questacon, a giant child infested petri dish of scientific mayhem where practically everything is pokable, twistable, jumpable or broken.
It was fantastic fun and it took Pauline and Tyler less than a few minutes to identify the location of the shadow freezing exhibit (similar to the one in Perth on a previous post) and proceed to comandeer it once again in the name of stupidity.
They also had a 60s style phychedelic video maker and for some reason this inspired Tyler to assume the persona of David Brent from "The office" and proceed to perform his legendary dance to a growing crowed of bemused school children.
We also got the opportunity to learn a bit more about the deadly wildlife here in one of the free presentations that were running, this one concentrated on Spiders and once again convinced me that this country is trying to kill all of its inhabitants one by one.
From here we headed down towards Sydney in order to drop into the aformentioned caravan show which definately had a lot of similarities to the aformentioned science museum.
For example, here too everything was pokable, twistable jumpable or broken, however turns out that we werent meant to be poking, twisting or jumping on anything and definately broke more than a couple of things because of this.
The place was absolutely heaving with people handing over vast quantaties of cash for their opportunity to spend countless future days stuck in a metal box listening to their other halves bowel movements and longing to be in a hotel room instead.
Tyler was give a giant balloon by a kindly gentleman and I couldnt help noticing that it was a happy birthday balloon and that he also had a number 5 one in his hand.
What kind of sick, vindictive parents take their 5 year old to a Caravan show to celebrate their 5th birthday?
Probably the same kind of parents that stick their 8 year old son in a campervan for three months and drag him around Australia, but lets hope not!
Anyway we are now into our final week of our campervan adventure and have headed a little north of Sydney where we have once again cheated and booked into a cabin as we are all still ill and will definately commit murder if we spend another night cramped into the shitmobile.
Before we left on this little foray I was always surprised how few people, when asked, knew what the capital of Australia was.
Having been here it turns out that the majority of the Australians couldnt care less either, and practically everyone we had met along the way had never been there.
So on a whim and a minor recommendation from a 15 year old we headed into the capital, which incidently is called Canberra.
The story behind the city is great, they had two major cities along the coast vieing for the prestige of being named the capital (Sydney & Melbourne) but nobody could decide which one the accolade should go to.
So in a moment of sheer genius they decided to build a completely new city somewhere roughly in the middle of the other two but nowhere near the coast to make it interesting for anyone to visit unless forced too.
The end result looks scarily like Washington DC and even has similar sounding street names and buildings reminisent of the giant memorials.
Wow, this is scarily sounding like a proper travel blog and is getting dangerously informative, sorry about that, I had a momentary lapse in concentration!
So anyway, in our normal completely unplanned, unorganised and generally misguided way we arrived into Canberra without anywhere to stay, no idea what there was to do and only a vague idea of how long we would be there for.
As it turns out we could have stayed there a good while as there seemed to be heaps to do but Pauline had got it into her head that she wanted to go to the Campervan, Caravan and Camping supershow in Sydney so we could only stay a few days.
We noticed a flyer for Nasa's deep space exploration centre about 20 kms outside of the capital so we duly headed there with eager anticipation, extremely full bladders and absolutely no petrol (this new van has a very dodgy gauge).
Amazingly we did manage to make it to the complex without any of these factors causing us any major concern, even if there was a final dramatic sprint towards the entrance and the highly coveted amenities within.
The place was amazing, it had 4 supersized dishes in the middle of a cow field eerily listening for Extra Terrestrial farts occuring in the distant atmosphere.
It was truly awe inspiring but at the same time rather bizarre as the entire complex was a tribute to the great feats of engineering and technological accomplishments of the US.
I think that there is something about space centres that instantly transforms you into a big kid, it makes you walk around with your mouth agape at all the really cool stuff that they do and makes you jealous that you cant play with their toys.
Still, after I stopped being grumpy that the nasty man in uniform wouldnt let me climb up onto his giant dish or let me ride on his lunar landing buggy (I am sure there is a euphemism in there somewhere), I took some comfort in chastising Tyler for trying to and telling him not to be so childish.
After our fill of space related trivia and overpriced fizzy drinks we proceeded back to our vehicle to see if we could reach somewhere else before our van broke down.
Literally running on fumes we happened across what is quite possibly the oldest petrol station in the world, with ancient pumps that only registered cents and had "Unleaded" and "Diesel" written on crayon on their heavily rusted white antique bodies.
I got out and stood there like a fool for 5 minutes wondering why the petrol wouldnt come out before I finally got the courage to venture into the ramshackle shop to seek assistance.
What lay inside was quite possibly the oldest petrol station attendant in the world, looking as though he was about to keel over at the mere sight of me coming through the door before insisting on getting up and filling the petrol for me.
Well as it turns out I could have probably walked back to Canberra in the time that it took the guy to walk to the pump but we waited patiently and he finally go there.
He then cranked some metal lever and the whole pump proceeded to shake violently, then, having assumed what I felt was an all-to-smug look on his face, he grabbed the nozzle and chucked it into our tank.
The gauge shot up to $5 in about 10 minutes (it was $1.69 a liter) and the guy then proceeded to stand there like a fool wondering why the petrol wasnt coming out for a further 10 minutes before finally admitting defeat and informing us that he thought it had run out yesterday.
This would have been pretty useful information to have emparted prior to making the arduous journey from his seat to the pumps and he looked a little lost for a moment before adopting a huge grin and suggesting that we could always fill up with his "VX Super Unleaded" at only $2.69 a litre.
Needless to say we paid our $5 thanked him for the wonderful time we had spent together , which we all agreed had been far longer than we had initially anticipated and then proceeded to coast our way back through to Canberra.
The following day we headed out to Questacon, a giant child infested petri dish of scientific mayhem where practically everything is pokable, twistable, jumpable or broken.
It was fantastic fun and it took Pauline and Tyler less than a few minutes to identify the location of the shadow freezing exhibit (similar to the one in Perth on a previous post) and proceed to comandeer it once again in the name of stupidity.
They also had a 60s style phychedelic video maker and for some reason this inspired Tyler to assume the persona of David Brent from "The office" and proceed to perform his legendary dance to a growing crowed of bemused school children.
We also got the opportunity to learn a bit more about the deadly wildlife here in one of the free presentations that were running, this one concentrated on Spiders and once again convinced me that this country is trying to kill all of its inhabitants one by one.
From here we headed down towards Sydney in order to drop into the aformentioned caravan show which definately had a lot of similarities to the aformentioned science museum.
For example, here too everything was pokable, twistable jumpable or broken, however turns out that we werent meant to be poking, twisting or jumping on anything and definately broke more than a couple of things because of this.
The place was absolutely heaving with people handing over vast quantaties of cash for their opportunity to spend countless future days stuck in a metal box listening to their other halves bowel movements and longing to be in a hotel room instead.
Tyler was give a giant balloon by a kindly gentleman and I couldnt help noticing that it was a happy birthday balloon and that he also had a number 5 one in his hand.
What kind of sick, vindictive parents take their 5 year old to a Caravan show to celebrate their 5th birthday?
Probably the same kind of parents that stick their 8 year old son in a campervan for three months and drag him around Australia, but lets hope not!
Anyway we are now into our final week of our campervan adventure and have headed a little north of Sydney where we have once again cheated and booked into a cabin as we are all still ill and will definately commit murder if we spend another night cramped into the shitmobile.
Sunday, 1 May 2011
Another day, another camera!
Monday 2nd May
Unbelievably we have had to buy yet another bloody camera after our forth one gave up the ghost and started to produce completely white shots (which to be honest were probably better than the intended photos anyway).
Well, I really wish I had some exciting stuff to write about but we really haven't done a whole heap of late.
We have just spent 8 days on Philip island doing diddly squat so that Tyler had the opportunity to play with some kids during their Easter holidays.
It was nice not to have to drive and because they were fully booked we ended up in a bunk house for the week which meant that we had 20 kids in our room every day as we were the only ones with the room.
Whilst we were there Tyler had a surf lesson which was cool, it was most amusing watching him trying to haul a 7 ft surf board on his own through the very large waves, he would take a few steps forward and then be swept back to the beach whilst I was in laughing fits on the beach.
We got some fantastic pictures, or at least we would have done if they hadn't all come out white and made us realise that we needed another bloody camera.
I think we have come to the realisation that spending 3 months in a camper van together was a fantastic idea in principle but in reality it is way to long to be stuck together in a tiny metal tin on wheels.
Whilst our new camper van is definitely an improvement over the one we broke, it still lacks space and regardless of how we arrange things we inevitably get in each others faces, arses or armpits on an all too regular basis.
Also we seem to have got into a routine of driving somewhere, sleeping then just moving on to the next place without absorbing anything whilst we are there.
Admittedly our time frame is somewhat restrictive so we do need to keep moving at a fair pace but lately it seems that the driving has definitely outweighed the sites.
Ohh yeah and we are all ill so this week kinda sucks royally.
So instead of reflecting on all of the cool stuff that we haven't done, I thought that I would take the opportunity to talk about a couple of the general observations that we have made during our time here in Oz.
Apart from the obvious stuff like the fact that it's a bloody massive country and the majority of locals are off their tits crazy there are also other things that may be of interest:
1: When it came to naming places in Australia there seems to have been a couple of guiding principles that have been replicated over the vast majority of the country:
i. Lets just steal the name from England.
I am currently writing this from a caravan park in Stratford upon Avon (yes they even stole the names of our rivers) but all of the old UK favorites are here, Newcastle, Brighton, Cambridge and Cowes to name but a few.
ii. Lets wait until the acid kicks in for inspiration
This seems to be by far the most popular choice when it comes to naming a town with some real gems such as Woolloomooloo, Koombooloomba and Dooboobetic
iii. Lets wait until the acid kicks in and then name the place twice for good measure
Another popular choice with favorites including Wagga Wagga, Booti Booti, Boonoo Boonoo and the Bungle Bungles
You never really appreciate these names when they are just printed in black and white but they come into a world of their own when you ask someone for directions, it sounds more like a roll call for the Teletubbies than anything meaningful.
2. Australians do not know the meaning of the word censorship!
Take for example the radio, if they want to play a song that contains bad language they simply make a quick announcement that states "this next one contains some filthy words, if that's not your thing then turn over for a bit" and then they blast it out regardless of the time of day!
We were literally listening to bad mother fu*$!ng gangsta rap at 08:00 in the morning just when little johnny is tucking into his snap crackle and pops.
Unbelievably we have had to buy yet another bloody camera after our forth one gave up the ghost and started to produce completely white shots (which to be honest were probably better than the intended photos anyway).
Well, I really wish I had some exciting stuff to write about but we really haven't done a whole heap of late.
We have just spent 8 days on Philip island doing diddly squat so that Tyler had the opportunity to play with some kids during their Easter holidays.
It was nice not to have to drive and because they were fully booked we ended up in a bunk house for the week which meant that we had 20 kids in our room every day as we were the only ones with the room.
Whilst we were there Tyler had a surf lesson which was cool, it was most amusing watching him trying to haul a 7 ft surf board on his own through the very large waves, he would take a few steps forward and then be swept back to the beach whilst I was in laughing fits on the beach.
We got some fantastic pictures, or at least we would have done if they hadn't all come out white and made us realise that we needed another bloody camera.
I think we have come to the realisation that spending 3 months in a camper van together was a fantastic idea in principle but in reality it is way to long to be stuck together in a tiny metal tin on wheels.
Whilst our new camper van is definitely an improvement over the one we broke, it still lacks space and regardless of how we arrange things we inevitably get in each others faces, arses or armpits on an all too regular basis.
Also we seem to have got into a routine of driving somewhere, sleeping then just moving on to the next place without absorbing anything whilst we are there.
Admittedly our time frame is somewhat restrictive so we do need to keep moving at a fair pace but lately it seems that the driving has definitely outweighed the sites.
Ohh yeah and we are all ill so this week kinda sucks royally.
So instead of reflecting on all of the cool stuff that we haven't done, I thought that I would take the opportunity to talk about a couple of the general observations that we have made during our time here in Oz.
Apart from the obvious stuff like the fact that it's a bloody massive country and the majority of locals are off their tits crazy there are also other things that may be of interest:
1: When it came to naming places in Australia there seems to have been a couple of guiding principles that have been replicated over the vast majority of the country:
i. Lets just steal the name from England.
I am currently writing this from a caravan park in Stratford upon Avon (yes they even stole the names of our rivers) but all of the old UK favorites are here, Newcastle, Brighton, Cambridge and Cowes to name but a few.
ii. Lets wait until the acid kicks in for inspiration
This seems to be by far the most popular choice when it comes to naming a town with some real gems such as Woolloomooloo, Koombooloomba and Dooboobetic
iii. Lets wait until the acid kicks in and then name the place twice for good measure
Another popular choice with favorites including Wagga Wagga, Booti Booti, Boonoo Boonoo and the Bungle Bungles
You never really appreciate these names when they are just printed in black and white but they come into a world of their own when you ask someone for directions, it sounds more like a roll call for the Teletubbies than anything meaningful.
2. Australians do not know the meaning of the word censorship!
Take for example the radio, if they want to play a song that contains bad language they simply make a quick announcement that states "this next one contains some filthy words, if that's not your thing then turn over for a bit" and then they blast it out regardless of the time of day!
We were literally listening to bad mother fu*$!ng gangsta rap at 08:00 in the morning just when little johnny is tucking into his snap crackle and pops.
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