Musis Respublica Floret
Al's World Tour - Cairns
Please be warned that some may consider the language in these reports to be a bit strong!
No Wucking Furries, yew bladdy sandgropers!
Australian Translation: I have no worries at all, my fine West Australian friends.
Reporting from the land of the Convict, Oztralia! I was here some 8yrs ago, and I was pleased to see a few memorable things were still around. The hilarious sports-comedians, Roy&HG have replaced their TV show " Club Buggery " with a new show continuing the theme called " The Monday Dump " . And Australia's best-selling cheese is still " Coon " cheese (after the founder John Coon, honest), with the offensively catchy slogan " Nothing tastes like coon " .
Again, upon entry into Oz I proudly declared my pilchards to the quarantine officer, who just looked at me a bit strangely before ushering me on.
When I last wrote, I'd booked on a dive course over three days. The boat crew were typically relaxed Ozzies; the safety was concise, consisting of " if you hear the crew screaming then grab an orange thing and jump off the boat, ok? " !
The briefing for my first ever night dive was equally disturbing. Regarding encountering sharks at night, apparently their eyes light up in the torchlight, and if you saw them coming towards you still, then you should quickly shine your torch beam away from them .... he didn't need to mention that you'd then have to hope that you don't feel the jaws of death smashing into you out of the darkness to the crashing tones of an underwater cello!!!!
Feeling somewhat more nervous than I already was, deleriously humming " show me the way to go home " from THAT scene in Jaws, I entered the water and turned on my pathetically puny looking orange torch which cut a thin yellow beam through the water.
Sure enough halfway through the dive the bloody thing sputtered out! I was " mildly concerned " , and began looking around for my buddy, just able to see some shadows from the eerie torch beams of other divers arcing around and lighting up the reef from time to time. Cooly and calmly, I began frantically smashing the torch off me bonce in a controlled fashion, and mercifully the crap beam eventually trickled on, allowing me to find my buddy and stick to him like glue, making a mental note to buy some new board shorts back in Cairns!
The sunshine of Airlie Beach was a blessed relief from night diving. We stayed in a dorm with a creepy German backpacker, who sat opposite Caryn in his lovely blue Y-fronts having a chat. He suspiciously asked what the pills were that we were taking and I explained they were the end of our course of anti-malarial pills. He looked panicked, and I added deadpan " It's very contagious; most people catch it from the first few minutes of airborne contact " . He freaked out and said " Oh no! I am leaving zis room immiediately " before I could explain sarcasm to our fine Germanic friend!
Later, we went to a wee zoo, where you could meet domesticated ozzie animals. I " cuddled " Wally the koala, or more the vicious little bugger lashed his claws onto me and began exuding eucalyptus leaf stench onto me shirt. The zookeeper explained that most Australians are worried that koalas will piss on a handler, but that they don't do that as they're very clean animals and wouldn't want to get their fur wet. To demonstrate the theory, he popped Wally on the bench whereupon he gave an amazing display of projectile pissing before jumping up into the keepers arms and leaving a wee urine stain, like a tipsy pensioner in chinos at the cricket. Koalas may not piss on you, but they certainly don't shake!
The highlight of any trip to Oz has to be that huge sand island, Fraser. 10 of us, piled into a 4WD, with loadsa camping equipment and beer, and drove off. I volunteered to drive on the first day at 7.30am, but the van owner came up, gave me breath a quick smell and said " someone been drinking the night before? " . I did recall something about quaffing several jugs of lager and running around the barbecue tables the previous evening(morning) so sensibly relinquished my no.1 spot for the back.
Noteable incident on the 2nd night, when we found a secluded spot away from the official campsites and set up base. Caryn &I had our tent a little away from the others, which was swiftly moved back when our first couple of dingos came in searching for food! Around the campfire the ghost stories eventually came up, and to a man/woman we all SHAT IT when there was a tremendous snarling as the dingos had crept up and tried to run off with our rubbish bags right behind us!!! Woahhh!!!! Good timing by the dawgs!
Onto Brisbane - a beautiful cosmopolitan city, home of the XXXX Brewery; basically an ideal place for a pissup. After a long night in an Irish bar, we proceeded on to the Palace Backpackers Club, where the average age of today's backpacker seemed to be about 17. They played a classic 80's Ozzie track, " The Angels - Ever going to see your face again " , which has a gap in the chorus where I was told everyone shouts the unofficial chorus " No way! Get f*cked! F*ck off! " (similar to shouting " POOFS! " at various well-timed gaps during the English Rugby Anthem, " Swing Low " ). Myself and Caryn jumped up at the obligatory moment and began shouting the chorus ..... to stunned silence... there were a crowd of spotty, pierced adolescent faces in skater troosers with disgusted " what are the oldies doing? " expressions. Felt incredibly embarassed, like a disco-Dad, and suitably reminded that my 30th is fast approaching!!!
Still, this wasn't to ruin the evening's final photocall with some classic Brisbane street art. Post kebab I spied Brisbane's main shopping street's famous life-size painted cows. The rest is photographic history, duly witnessed by the Brisbane constabulary who unfortunately happened to be parked just round the corner (street art abuse is obviously a regular occurance in Brisbane as they didn't seem too upset!).
Further down the coast, we stayed in chilled out Byron Bay for a couple of days, joining an incredibly chilled " Jim's Alternative Tours " . This goes to the nearby town of Nimbin, which is the drug- capital of Australia, where they have the Hemp Embassy which contains a massive joint (like twelve feet long!) which is frequently taken along to pro-drug demos throughout the country.
For some strange reason in a local cafe, I found myself
totally unable to move, and amused myself (but not my fellow cafe-goers!)
by coming up with anti-drug/new age slogans in the style of an aging House
of Lords peer:-
" where there's a bongo, there's a bong "
" where there's a white dreadlock, there's a child out of wedlock "
" where there's tye-dye solution, there's your social security contribution "
I'll get my peerage yet!
After a relaxing week in Sydney, we flew into Ayers Rock to join our cheapo backpackers camping tour that we'd booked a few weeks previously. I wondered why there were so many middle-aged couples with suitcases on the tour, then realised we'd been upgraded to the " Safari in Style " tour (as opposed to " Camp in Crap " or something). Staff for all the cooking, wine with every meal, and champagne at the rock! Woohoo!
I was most amused to find that the aboriginal word for yellow is " wanka-wanka " . On the way to the cultural centre, the van hit a small cyclone, which the driver informed us is called a " Willy- Willy " . You know where this is going, don't you?
You know when you use " rude " words every day so they're just not funny? Like working in IT where backing up a database is called a " dump " and it was hilarious the first time you said it? Well, after proferring to our Aboriginal host at the cultural centre that a yellow cyclone would be called a " wanka-wanka willy-willy " and guffawing like a hyena, he looked at me strangely and replied with a deadpan " yes mate " , before carrying on with his schpiel!!! I was most disappointed at the lack of rise!
Anyhow! Final destination Western Australia. After a few weeks touring round, our final destination of the trip was ... suitably terrifying. We visited a national park, in which was a huge tree called the Gloucester Tree.
This is a 60m tall Jarra-wood tree (suposedly very solid) that was originally used as a fire-spotting post, being so high. A series of metal staves were hammered into the wood around the trunk allowing the spotters to climb up to a rickety metal platform on the very top. Today this is a tourist attraction, with the platform rebuilt and some bloody chicken wire tacked onto the outside of the metal staves, which made no bloody difference to the feeling of safety, as far as I was concerned.
This is definitely one of the most stupid things I've done. I am terrified of heights, but frequently try to overcome this by confronting me fears whenever possible. This was something else. Apart from anything else, 60m up a metal ladder was pretty strenuous, but I was hyperventilating with fear so much that I didn't notice! Furthermore, when we got to the top, a real gale started blowing and the platform began swaying. I honestly couldn't speak.... and as you can imagine getting down was 10 times worse! What a way to finish the trip - one of the scariest experiences of me puff!!!!
Soooo... it's all over now! Back in Edinburgh for a few weeks, and typically it's grey and bloody freezing, with the only upside being that we stuffed South Africa at rugby last weekend.
Any wiser for the experience? Definitely. Looking forward
to getting back to work? No danger. Skint? Abso-bloody-lutely! But well
worth it.
Signing off,
September 22nd 2002
Alan Mitchell
RHS 1984 - 1990
Wherever Alan goes he always carries a small tin of pilchards
- The Pilchards wrestle a crocodile
- Al cuddles a koala
- Al adds his own interpretation to the street art in Brisbane
- Al and Caryn sup champers at Ururu.