So after Adelaide we took a nice train ride to the station nearest to Torquay, North Shore/Geelong. We were stopping here to visit Amel’s aunty Felicity who she hadn’t seen in about 6 years so she was to pick us up at the station and we were staying with her for the two nights. So we got off the train maybe twn minutes late and there was no sign of her. So we waited around a bit but still no sign. So Amel rings her dad to try get a mobile number for Felicity, but she doesn’t have one but they come to the conclusion that she must be at a different train station in Geelong, not North Shore/Geelong. So Amel’s dad rings Felicity’s son in the hope that he knows a way to contact her. He suggests paging her at the other station and sure enough about ten minutes later Felicity arrives at the station to pick us up, confusion and catastrophe averted.
Torquay was another lovely, quaint little town. It’s a seaside town mostly populated by older or retired people but we had a great time. We took a lend of Felicity’s Volvo and drove a little bit of the Great Ocean Road as far as Lorne. We didn’t make it to the 12 Apostles as it was too far but we got to see Bell’s Beach and some beautiful scenery. It was so good to sleep in a proper bed too and we slept at least 11 hours both nights.
After Torquay we took the hour long train into Melbourne City where we were to meet Chrystalla, another of Amel’s cousin’s, and we stayed with her for about 10 days having good times!
We arrived in the evening so went straight for some food at Hungry Jacks, worst I’ve ever had. Tasted great going in but wow it was sickening about 20 minutes later. We got an early night for the next day we had nothing planned and achieved nothing but buy food for the week. The next day, this is Wednesday now, the 28th October, we got up early and got on a train into the city of Melbourne. When we got off the train we instantly found ourselves down alley ways that were packed full of cafés and people and it was awesome! We then had no plan of what to do so we wandered around fairly aimlessly. We discovered the musuem so decided to go there… it was international kids day and I think it was policy to poke the kids with sticks on the way in just to make sure they were crying loudly. Very annoying! There was some good pieces though including a little section that included the worlds forth computer, and oldest surviving, intact computer. The kids ruined it though.
We then strolled around different shopping centres and things trying to kill time really as we were meeting Felicity’s three sons, Seb, Raf and Tal, for drinks in Seb’s cocktail Bar, 1806 later that night. We ended up going to see Astroboy in the cinema which was alright.
Then we headed over to 1806 for some delicious cocktails and some nice beers with the three guys and Raf’s wife. Beautiful little bar about ten minutes walk from the centre of town, so good in fact that we went back a few nights later to start off a night out. The premises itself used to be a theatre and the bar is surrounded by what used to be the facade of the stage. All the rigging is still above it and the red velvet curtains hang from the two sides and top.
I cannot remember what we did on the Thursday so it must have been nothing too interesting… But on the Friday we went to the DFO in Essendon then Chrystalla dropped us off at Tal’s house for dinner where we met his six year old son Sigmund or Ziggy as he’s known. In the space of about two hours he had demonstrated his knowledge of CD players beyond just pressing play, he picked out and sang along to loads of Beatles songs, not the kiddy/Ringo songs, serious ones and also immitated any special effects that were in the songs. He mocked and immitated my accent and then put on a dress before going to bed. At the end of the night it had started raining so Tal offered us their spare car that they were trying to sell so we didn’t have to get the train and let us keep it as long as we needed. That was pretty sweet.
On Saturday we went into the city with Chrystalla to the Victoria Markets which were massive. We saw lots of cools things and even found an awesome comic book store. We then went up the 280 metre Eureka building to the 88th floor. The lift up was awesome! Think it took about 32 seconds, travelling at 9 metres per second. It also had rocket noises playing as it went up. Was cool. Up there the views were amazing! You can see the whole city, including the MCG, the massive Cricket/AFL ground that holds over 100,000 people. We saw the Rod Laver arena where they play the Australian open tennis, there was so much! There was also a lot of ANZ bank buildings which was weird.
That night there was another couple of friends staying at Chrystalla’s so we had a big barbie and headed into the city drinking. Had some more awesome cocktails at 1806 then headed to the casino where I won $30! Woo!I then spent Sundaydriving around alone as the girls went girly shopping. Sunday night we went to meet Amel’s old boss from New Zealand, Peter Jones. We had some food and some walks and some nice Belgian beer.
On Monday we went out to the Yarra Valley to visit the TarraWarra Estate winery for some samples! Yum! Some how I drove so didn’t drink much but most of the wine was red which I don’t drink so it worked out. We then had lunch in Healesville and found a brewery afterwards where we sampled so nice ‘White Rabbit’ dark beer while watching some guys put it in bottles and pack it up. Monday night was easy going in front of the TV. On Tuesday it was Melbourne Cup day, the “Race That Stops a Nation”, a horse race. So we decided to go to a pub with a bookies in it and have a little flutter. Before going I looked up the odds etc and found there was three Irish horses in the race so I felt almost obliged to back one. Then someone mentioned one of them on the TV, a 40 to 1 shot. Crime Scene. So we all put a bet on him each way and he came in a nice second which paid us 11 to 1. Myslef and Chrystalla had $5 on him and Amel had 2 or 3. $34 for me! woo! I should now play lotto. Good things come in threes…
The rest of our time in Melbourne was spent chilling out until we hopped on an overnight train to Sydney on Wednesday night…
So, now we’re in Sydney, our last stop on this journey. It’s a little sad but I think ultimately we’re both looking forward to getting back to a bit of normallity. It has however, been an awesome time and it’s not over yet!
We’ll be back in Brisbane either the evening of Tuesday 10th or the morning of Wednesday 11th, haven’t decided what train to get yet. Until then we’ve got some things to do in Sydney. We’re gonna go to the beach out in Bondi, go to some musuems, maybe go up the tower thing and up a pillar of the harbour bridge. On Monday we’re going to see a show in the Opera House called ‘God of Carnage’, should be pretty awesome.
But that is the future and blogs such as this a generally about the past. So since Amel’s last update of crashing into a cow, which was a wonderful experience, we’ve spent the last two weeks in Adelaide and Melbourne, with a stop in Torquay.
Adelaide was lovely. We’re not sure if it was the fact that we were back in a proper city for pretty much the first time since we left Brisbane, or whether Adelaide is actually as good as we thought. It’s a very quaint, European city with some beautiful buildings and streets and places to see. Surprisingly we were both fairly sprightly on our first day considering the horror of the Ghan. We had a little stroll around the city and thoroughly enjoyed it.That evening we took a stroll down to China Town and a great big indoor market but it was 5pm so everything was closed, including the restaurants which was a bit weird. So, we went to some dingy little hotel bar and I ate some quail, tasted good.
Next day we caught a tram out to Glenelg, a nice little seaside town about 30 minutes from the city. It reminded me of Bray, except nice. We had a great day, played some video games, ate some good “souvlaki” and took a stroll along the pier and beach, then ate some Danish ice cream. Very nice place is Glenelg. On our final day we took it easy around the city again and then got an early night in preparation for or 6am train ride to Torquay.
I have a tale of terror and madness to share with you all. Eoin and I only barely escaped with our sanity. Let me tell you the story of our most recent trip on The Ghan. We were all booked and ready for the Alice Springs to Adelaide leg of our journey, a rail journey that covers some 1500 kilometers.
We took our seats and departed right on time at 3 PM, Northern Territory time, and everything seemed normal. We were a little dismayed to find that in our carriage there were no less than 3 children under 3 years old. Three smelly, crying, slobbering little darlings that seemed to be allowed to wander the aisles at will. One of them was wailing at any given moment. Inconvenient but tolerable, especially with the assistance of ear phones.
5 hours into our journey we heard a wet thump from ahead of us, followed by a jolt under the wheels as we passed over something on the tracks and slowly the Ghan ground to a halt. Our carriage was closest to the front of the train, so we could hear events from the direction of the engine most clearly. Everyone in the carriage peered out the windows or looked at each other in bewilderment, and the general feeling was “What on earth was that?!”
Some moments later there was an announcement over the PA system, to inform the passengers of the occurance. Apparently the train had collided with an “Extra Large Cow” and the two front wheels of the locomotive had come off the rails. The Ghan had been derailed. By an Extra Large Cow. I’m not even taking liberties here, she actually said “Extra Large Cow”. Great.
We were trapped. Trapped like mice in a trap. Like sharks in a net. Like a turtle flipped over on to his back. Trapped in the middle of the desert in an air conditioned metal tube with 56 other bodies and 3 screaming babies. Admiral Ackbar could not have foreseen a better trap in his life.
Further PA announcements over the next 5 hours raised our hopes and then dashed them to hell. The first was “The engine drivers are going to try and roll the train backwards a few meters and then forward again to try and get the wheels back on the track” This failed. The next announcement explained that “The engine drivers have disengaged the locomotive off the rest of the train and they’re going to roll that backwards and then forward again to try and get the wheels back on the track” This was also the opposite of success. At this point people were starting to get restless and frustrated. The sun had set and tension was running high. We had been stationary for 5 hours when the final announcements came through before lights out. They were waiting on a response from a rescue team that were coming to assess the situation. Why the engine drivers couldn’t assess the situation was beyond my comprehension.
Eoin and I and the other sinners in the Red Seats Carriage all attempted to get some sleep. It was quite restless for me, as the Red Seats are almost completely wrong for sleeping. I squirmed and wriggled and flipped about trying for some semblance of comfort. I must have nodded off at some point but I was awake again some time before dawn and the train was in motion. Backwards. Great.
It transpired that they were towing us slowly back towards Alice Springs, and we would be stopping again at the first place where two trains can pass, and wait for the Northbound Ghan that would be bringing us a replacement locomotive and also some additional supplies. They towed us, backwards, at around 40 kms/hour two thirds of the distance that we had travelled already. Great.
We sat and waited for the Northbound Ghan and the new locomotive it was bringing. The waiting was the most frustrating thing of all, that and the uncertainty of what was going on, when we would be getting to Adelaide, if we would be able to check into the hostel, would we lose our booking deposit and how would this setback disrupt our future travel plans. The good staff of Great Southern Rail did do good for us though, taking all the details of accommodations and connecting flights and doing their best to get in touch and make sure no one was left high and dry.
One highlight was one of the staff strolling down the carriage, when his radio went off. A voice at the other end said “So do I just press the button and talk?”
When all the repairs and swaps were done and we were finally underway again there was a sense of relief for everyone even though we knew we were nearly where we had started from. We settled in for the remainder of our journey in the hope that it would be uneventful.
Eventually at 3:00 AM, 34 hours after we left Alice Springs and 13 hours late, we disembarked in Adelaide. We were tired and very smelly, and fell gratefully into our beds at the hostel. Best Bed Ever.
We’ve been staying and working in Darwin NT for a while now, and I have come to the conclusion that the vast majority of people in this town are nuts. Mental. Mad as a box of badgers. Every second day there’s a new news story about a talking cat or a 6 foot snake in the toilet, or a drunken thief crashing cars into trees three days in a row. UFO sightings are common too. A personal highlight for me was the drunk man that broke into a closed pub, took off all his clothes and wandered around the bar naked, drinking whiskey for 2 hours before he was caught. The locals I speak to and work with are nice people, good people, but they all have tales to relate of crazy antics and incidents.
What is it that drives Darwinites (Darwinians? Darwegians?) to madness? Is it the heat? The humidity? Is it the knowledge that its only weeks away that it will start raining and won’t stop for 3 months? Is it the ants and bugs? There is enough ants to drive me crazy, they’ve gotten into two boxes of cereal and into my sugar container which is the worst thing in the world to discover at breakfast time.
Another thing I’ve noticed up here is that Territorians don’t care about sports. While the rest of the nation is going crazy with the two biggest finals of the year, first the AFL Premiership (well done Geelong Cats!) and the NRL Grand Final (better luck next year Parramatta Eels) no one in this town either knows or cares. Darwin doesn’t have a team of their own in either League, which may spark their disinterest, but its the Finals! Even I enjoy the finals and I couldn’t care less about football!
Our stay in Darwin will be over in 5 days, we are leaving here on the Ghan on Saturday, and I, for one, cant wait. We have stayed here for 9 weeks, which is the longest time we spent anywhere on this journey. Now we will be covering the greatest distance in the shortest amount of time as we have only one month left on our rail pass. We’re going to Alice Springs and Uluru and then to Adelaide, and see what happens from there. I’m quite excited about Victoria, so many people I want to catch up with there.
As for the Lisbon Treaty – I have found that I have an opinion, and no one to discuss it with except Eoin, because I live in Australia now, and many Australians have misguided views about Europe including but not limited to “Ireland is part of the United Kingdom” and “Lisbon is on the north coast of New South Wales”.
I’ll be posting some pix from our Kakadu Trip soon, so look out for that.
So at the moment in Ireland there is a small bit of a referendum going on. There’s this thing called the Lisbon Treaty that has been put to the people of Ireland to vote whether they want it or not, seems pretty simple.. hehe. Last year, June 2008, this treaty was put to the same people and fairly soundly rejected and although there have been “guarantees” made on a number of points in the treaty, it is still, essentially the same treaty that is now being voted on.
For those that don’t know, mainly you non Europeans, unless you’ve been living under 6 rocks with earplugs and eye masks forever, the Lisbon Treaty is to do with the European Union, of which Ireland and 26 other countries are a part of. This treaty replaces the ‘rules’ set out by the Nice treaty that was put in place a few years ago and essentially changes the way Europe works. It’s a massive document full of legal jargon that most people struggle to comprehend. It sets out things like: a more democratic and transparent Europe, a more efficient Europe, A Europe of rights and values, freedom, solidarity and security, Europe as an actor on the global stage (all taken from here).
The treaty addresses things like taxation, a common European defence force, human rights and attempts to make processes in Europe more streamlined and better for it’s people.
There has been an unbelievable amount of scaremongering from both Yes and No sides, resulting in almighty confusion among the voting public. I don’t think this will be a bad thing for Ireland, nor do I think it will be particularly good. It doesn’t benefit us but it doesn’t hamper us, which is exactly the way it should be for all 27 nations.
The main problem at the last vote, in my opinion, was the Governments complete incompetency in explaining the treaty to the people. From what I remember they dodged a lot of questions, that were fair questions and had fair answers, just the ministers couldn’t answer because they, themselves didn’t understand the treaty. They, in a way, sprung the referendum on most people, announcing that there was going to be a vote within a month. It seemed to be a case of “sure it’s grand, just vote yes and you’ll be grand”, which is all well and good down the pub, but not when you’re the Taoiseach. They completely mishandled the situation and people like me (although I didn’t vote (registration problems)) were confused and saw it as an opportunity to embarrass the government and their stupidity (I would’ve voted no).
On a side note, I can’t vote this time around either because I’m out of the country. I think this is pretty ridiculous and shows, to some extent, how backward Ireland is. Ok fair enough, I’m not planning on living in Ireland again so I probably shouldn’t have a vote, but I’m sure there are people that are out of Ireland that are entitled to vote (on reason’s other than official state business, as they do get to vote) and would vote, they just happen to be out of the country at the wrong time. Americans overseas can vote in their elections so why can’t we?
Anyway, this time it is looking like a resounding yes vote and I’m mostly happy with that. It seems that the No vote side this time have completely messed up their chances with some of the shite about abortions etc that they’ve come out with, although Mr. Cowen didn’t seem to do much more than last time, he didn’t really have to. I’d love, in some sort of sinister, sado masochist, type way for the treaty to be rejected again. It is very embarrassing and demeaning to vote, and show your opinion as a nation, only to be told you were wrong and that you’ll have to do it again in order to get it ‘right’. It’d be a real kick in the balls to the incompetent Irish government and the European hierarchy, and show that little old Ireland can’t be bullied.
Having said that, however, I do honestly think that the yes vote is the right decision. This referendum is not a vote of approval on the current government, it’s not about showing that we’re better than all those fancy Europeans, it’s about making life better for everyone in Europe.
Ireland has benefitted enormously from being a part of the European Union and although that’s not a reason to vote yes, it is a factor in deciding who to trust. All these new countries are in the exact same position as Ireland was 20 years ago and it’s only fair that we give something back. We’ve turned into an awfully racist nation, and probably the biggest hypocrites on the planet since we got rich.
In the end this whole mess can be squarely blamed on the current Fianna Fail government and their continued uselessness.
P.s. Darwin’s still awesome and hot, hot, HOT! Woo! Sorry for the long winded-ness.
Edit: Cóir and Libertas (the no side) have conceded only two hours into the count.
Eoin and I persevere here in jolly Darwin. The weather has not been inclement, with rain being an unexpected and unusual nocturnal occurence and the balmy days regularly hitting 32 degrees or more.
We have had a few pieces of luck, firstly that we have found more suitable accomodations at Barramundi Lodge, which is a budget motel on the edge of the city, a short stroll to Domino’s in one direction and a brief jaunt to Skycity Casino in the other. We are in a studio apartment, with a kitchenette and air conditioning, there is a pool for our use and bicycles are available for hire should we so wish. It suits our needs perfectly.
Another bit of luck is that after 7 weeks of hunting Eoin has finally achieved employment and will begin in the typing pool next Monday. When our ailing bank balances are replenished our stay here will come to a close as we will continue our train journey south to Alice Springs and then on to the southern states.
Day to day life here has been subdued, as it is often too warm outside. I, for one, have been reading P.G. Wodehouse’s Psmith series of novels, and have found them very entertaining and humourous. Eoin continues to wrestle with The Count of Monte Christo and is determined to complete this epic novel.
Well, I can’t have Eoin getting all the attention can I?
I’d just like to say for the record that Eoin never ever entered the boot of the Camry – this was a work of fiction on his part.
Also, I too have read many books during this holiday, if I had to guess, I would say somewhere around the 35 proper novels mark. But this isn’t exactly unusual for me and as such is not worth mentioning. I am a bit upset that some comics I ordered at the end of last year have arrived – not to me, but to my parental home. It’s a bit of a pickle but I’m just going to have to wait.
I have started working, at good old Domino’s Pizza, which I love. You may scoff all you please, but you probably hate your job. Feels good man.
While Darwin is a nice enough city, I don’t want to stagnate here for too long. There are many local wonders I am itching to see like Kakadu and Litchfield National Parks, and the wild jumping crocodile tours. After these I am excited about the epic rail journey on the Ghan, which is quite famous, and stopping at Alice Springs to visit Ayres Rock/ Uluru. But until we have some more solid funds, we’ll be living the lives of paupers, in the hostel dorms, with the bugs and lizards and evil creatures of the young, drunken, backpacker kind. Right now I’m in a room full of men, one cowboy (no really, literally a cowboy), one Aussie and one Irish lad and Eoin. Good times, happy memories. And also loads of sarcasm.
I’ve been reading a lot of books lately. Guess that’s what travel boredom does to you for you may know that I don’t read many books. In fact I don’t think I’ve finished a book in over a year, possibly longer. I’ve tried starting lots of different books, even spent a lot of money on some over the past few years but never had the time or the patience to finish them.
So during our last week in Cairns we popped into a bookshop to have a browse and I happened upon a book by Nick Cave, ‘And The Ass Saw The Angel’, for only $10 (he also has a new novel out, ‘The Death of Bunny Munro’ but it’s 35 bucks!). So I bought it and read it within a week. This got me thinking about other books that I would like to read so I hopped onto Project Gutenberg to download a few freebies. Amel has an eBook reader which is quite handy but it’s not so bad reading on the laptop.
Since Cairns I have read the following:
And The Ass Saw The Angel – Nice Cave
Dubliners – James Joyce
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
Through the Looking-Glass – Lewis Carroll
And I’m currently about a third of the way through Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s ‘The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.
In this time I’ve also re-found my interest in comics that I had as an awkward teenager, in particular Batman comics or graphic novels. I’ve read four of these in the past week:
The Man Who Laughs – Ed Brubaker/Doug Mahnke
Gotham by Gaslight – Brian Ausustyn/Michael Mignola/P. Graig Russell/David Hornung
Tower of Babel (Parts 1-4) (JLA) – Waid/Porter/Geraci
Arkham Asylum – Grant Morrison/Dave McKean
I’m really quite enjoying this life of leisure, if only I had a guitar and some money…
So I finally got out of the boot in Katherine, another hole of a town. The didn’t even have a McDonalds! Was quite weird, loads of people just wandering around the street at night with no shoes on. So as you can probably understand we didn’t stay in Katherine for long. We checked into a decent enough hostel where we had a 4 bed dorm to ourselves, which is probably a first (they seem to leave dorms empty until others are full so they don’t have to clean them). We drove around looking for food for a bit and ended up in Red Rooster, which was gross. The only eateries were that and a local chipper/pizzeria that looked worse. We spent the rest of the night watching TV in the hostel.
The next morning we casually checked out as we had only 300 odd kilometres to Darwin. We arrived in Darwin just after 12 and as the hostels are so expensive up here, $30 + a night we decided to treat ourselves to a nice, proper hotel, so we stayed in the Mantra Pandanus on Knuckey Street. It was quite nice. On a side note, as we were driving into Darwin we went passed a motel called Leprechauns and had a giggle at this. So as we were checking into the hotel I got a text from a friend of ours that we had met in Ayr to say we should drop into them on our way as they were staying in a campsite on the road into the city called… Leprechauns! We got lost in the hotel and eventually found our room, dumped our bags and drove on out to Leprechauns where we had a nice chat for an hour or so in the midday heat, which is ridiculously high! It’s hitting around 32 degrees every day. That night we had a luxurious dinner in Nando’s then a few drinks in the hotel bar and retired to bed.
The following day we had to drop the car back and check into a hostel. We found one for $28 a night just on the edge of town, a block from Domino’s which is across the road from the rental drop off. So a little before 4 we decided to pop up to Domino’s to see if Amel couldn’t get a job there. She wasn’t exactly ecstatic to ask in case they said no. So I dropped her off and waited outside. About 15 minutes later she came out with a uniform and had to be back for 5:30. Perfect! We dropped the car off and headed back to the hostel. To celebrate I headed out to the pub with our friends from Ayr where we met some of their other friends. We had a nice drunken evening which involved 2 friends of friends of friends bouncing over a table full of drinks, down some steps, killing each other and also some dirty jokes with the bouncer in McDonalds. Darwin has a McDonalds, take that Katherine!
Nothing much has happened since then, Amel’s been working and have been looking. We’ve changed hostels, as the other one was full, to one right in the centre of town. It’s nice but expensive and quite loud. Been woken up at least twice each of the past two nights to people stumbling into the room loudly. We went to visit a motel today where the owners have said they could do us a deal on a double room, long term for cheaper than the hostel as the rainy season is coming. I have to ring tomorrow to confirm but it’s all looking good that we’ll be moving out there on Monday.
I have now been in Australia for near on 4 months, since the 12th of April. Australia has a reputation of having lots and lots of dangerous creatures that will kill you if you look at them squarely and I guess that’s true but I haven’t seen any. Not wild ones anyway. I’ve seen some wild kangaroos, wallabies, koalas, lizards, a couple of big spiders, a single, solitary snake and a few crocs from a distance but nothing that would kill you and have yet to have a close call with anything. Then again I have mostly been living in cities and built up areas.
