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January 31 Take me down to the paradise city, where the grass is green and the girls are pretty...So, I'm now onto my fourth day in Melbourne - and I must say, it's a pretty cool place! Though it's Australia's second biggest city, you can pretty much get around on foot - and it's very much a melting pot of arts and culture.
As many of you will be aware, it's also where Neighbours is filmed!
Amusingly, you can actually go on 'Neighbours nights' here, where you go to a club and get to mingle with some of the stars of the show. Proud to say though that I've never ever really watched Neighbours - although this ignorance led to me falling foul of what, to be fair, was quite a good prank, courtesy of my friend Ste.
"Make sure you check out Erinsborough," Ste had advised, when he learned I'd be spending some time in Melbourne. I duly looked it up in my guidebook to find there wasn't a trace of the place - probably due to the fact that it's actually the fictional suburb where Neighbours is set... as I was to discover, much to my embarrassment!
Cheers Ste... you toerag!
Still, lack of Erinsborough aside, it was certainly all happening when I arrived in Melbourne just before lunchtime on Sunday. Up in the north of the city, there was a music festival taking place called Big Day Out... and pretty much as soon as I'd got my bearings, I decided to wander up there, half-thinking that I might buy a ticket and go in.
However, I didn't bother in the end... mainly because I wasn't all that fussed on the line-up - with most of the bands playing being the sort that angry teenagers with bad eyeliner listen to!
I did sat on the grass outside though and listen to Kasabian for a bit... who seemed to be going down a storm.
I then headed back into the city centre and checked out the 'sporting quarter', where you can find the famous Melbourne Cricket Ground and the Rod Laver Arena - Australia's equivalent of Wimbledon - within a stone's throw of each other.
The Rod Laver Arena was actually hosting men's final in the Australian Open tennis that very night - and with 'ground passes' still available at a mere $20, I decided on a whim to buy one!
I must say, I'm not really much of a tennis fan... however, I do like going along to random sporting events just for the experience and to take in the atmosphere.
Wandering around the Rod Laver complex, I was amused to discover that you could actually buy tennis balls from the official merchandise stands that had been used in the women's final the previous day - or so they claimed! At $4 each or three for $10, it was tempting - not least because it would enable me to legitimately make the proud boast that Maria Sharapova had had her hands on my balls!
Arf!
So what of the actual tennis then? Well with a ground pass, you don't actually get to go and watch the game live in the centre court - however, you can watch it on a massive screen just outside. The two competing players were Switzerland's Roger Federer and Chile's Fernando Gonzales... and I decided to support the latter, purely because the Chilean fans were really cool! Indeed, given that us Brits tend to just ridicule our homegrown tennis players, it was heartening to see the Chileans getting wholeheartedly behind 'Gonzo' - although sadly, he proved to be no match for Federer.
So that was the tennis done and dusted - however, it was by no means my last sporting action of the day! For back home, Nottingham Forest were playing Chelsea in the FA Cup, with the kick-off at 2pm English time. With the game being televised in the UK, one of the pubs here had managed to access it via satellite - and so at 1am, I found myself enjoying the surreal experience of watching Forest attempting to pull off a shock!
Needless to say, this didn't happen! However, it was a nice to get to watch the mighty Reds - as when I flew out here, I thought I wouldn't get a single glimpse of them for quite some time! And there were actually half a dozen other Forest fans in the bar, which made for some good banter.
So, I packed quite a lot in to my first day in Melbourne - and to cap it off, I had to sleep in the bloody hire car again, due to the fact that all the hostels were completely booked out, probably because of the Big Day Out and the tennis. Thankfully though, I'd secured a bed in a hostel from the following night... and so having bid farewell to the car, I've been very much enjoying sleeping in a proper bed again these last few nights!
As for what I've been up to - well, over the last few days I've just been generally taking it easy really, and wandering aimlessly round the city. I've also met another Forest fan, a top bloke called Evan from Ipswich. Scarily, it seems my enduring status as a semi-celebrity within Forest circles is still very much alive and well... as I was just sat watching the world go by in the lounge area of the hostel where I'm staying, when Evan wandered over and said "Hey, you're Rich Fisher, aren't you?"
Needless to say, I was VERY surprised!
Oh, and I've done a bit of culture vulturing too, by going to the Victoria National Gallery - where, amusingly, they have an exhibition of called 'Sneakers', which consists of 300 pairs of trainers from all different eras!
Mikey B - you'd have loved it! January 30 East-bound and down, loaded up and truckin'. We're gonna do what they say can't be done..!Well, yesterday's blog entry saw me update you all on the three-day tour that I went on of Australia's Northern Territory. Now, I shall move onto my next escapade - my 2,600 'road trip' from Alice Springs down to Melbourne! Naturally, this started off with me picking up my hire car. After doing a bit of shopping around, I'd decided to go with Europcar. For one, they offered competitive rates. However, the thing that truly swung it for me was the music they play when you ring them up and get put on hold - which can only be described as a soft rock epic, featuring lyrics eulogising the company! I can only assume that Europcar went to great expense to get Foreigner or Van Halen to record this for them! "Europcar... you'll go far... you will find no better car!" goes the song. And I've had this stuck in my head for bloody days! As it turned out, the 'no better car' I ended up was a white, five-door Hyundai Accent. Now the first thing I noticed about this vehicle was that it had an automatic gearbox - however, this was something I quickly got used to as I departed Alice Springs and started heading south down the Stuart Highway. So, with the 'driving rock' playlist that I'd made on my iPod blaring through the stereo, I was off - and with there being no such thing as a speed limit in the Northern Territory, I well and truly 'put the hammer down'! It all felt very exhilarating as I watched the amazing scenery - mainly arid desert and bushland - fly past. It all felt a bit like being Burt Reynolds in Smokey and the Bandit... and I quickly discovered that the Stuart Highway is a fairly remarkable road. Running pretty much down the middle of Australia from north to south, it is one of the country's major roads. Yet despite this, it only has one lane in either direction! Saying that, a single lane in either direction is all the highway needs really - as it doesn't really see all that much traffic! Indeed, as I thundered deeper and deeper into the outback, I went through periods where I literally went 15 or 20 minutes without seeing a single other vehicle! Which probably explains what is called the 'bush wave'. Yes, I was to discover that, when driving through the remote parts of Australia's Northern Territory, it's considered only correct and polite to wave to any other motorists that you encounter! This brought me no end of amusement, with the truckers in their huge 'Road Trains' - some of which had as many as three huge trailers! - generally being the most receptive to the wave! Generally speaking though, I actually saw more animals than people! Wildlife sightings as I ploughed on south included a huge lizard, emus, wild horses, camels, and loads of cows! Indeed, a lot of the land that the Stuart Highway cuts through is used by cattle ranches. But there's generally no fencing... and so the cows can often be seen just wandering across the highway! You certainly don't get this on the M1 back home! At one stage I actually had to stop and wait for a good couple of minutes whilst a group of cows made their way across. There was a point whee it looked like they weren't actually going to move... and I thought I was going to have to get out the car and do that thing that Crocodile Dundee does, where he tames any beast that stands in his way by thrusting the 'sign of rock' in their direction, and making a sort of humming sound! Fortunately though, they eventually got a shift on! One animal I sadly didn't see - despite lots of road signs warning of their possible presence - was kangaroos. At least not live ones, anyway! Yes, I'm rather sad to say that I barely went a few minutes without seeing some 'roo roadkill by the side of the highway. The tragic thing is is that a lot of the 'roos that get hit by cars and left for dead still have their 'joey'* tucked away in their pouch. There's actually a rescue centre, which I visited, in Alice Springs that rears baby 'roos that have been found in this sort of scenario... and then releases them back to the wild when they're big enough to fend for themselves. Ahh! So, that was the wildlife. The second thing I noticed, meanwhile, about the car was that it guzzled petrol at quite an alarming rate! Happily though, 'gas' out here costs roughly half what it does in the UK... so this wasn't really too much of an issue economically. However, I did start to panic a bit at one point when the petrol guage started to run low with no sign of any petrol stations ahead! Indeed, I discovered that there are parts of the Stuart Highway where you can drive 100 kilometres without seeing a single petrol pump - and I started having visions of getting stranded in the outback and perishing in the heat! Fortunately though, a roadhouse appeared on the horzon - and after this close scrape, I got into the habit of stopping to top up with petrol regularly, even if the tank was nowhere near empty! So that was day one. Having planned out a route, my intention had been to cross the state border into Southern Australia - which has a different time zone to the Northern Territory! I was then hoping to reach a town called Coober Pedy by dusk, and stay there overnight. However, I was enjoying the driving so much that I decided to plough on, and ended up covering more ground than planned - around 1,000 kilometres in all - before parking up at a roadhouse and sleeping in the car. I was quite surprised really by my progress, because I hadn't exactly been going at the most ferocious pace - indeed, I was stopping regularly to take photographs and enjoy some of the scenery. I'd also had a quick shuftie at Coober Pedy too, which is actually one of the world's most renowned places for Opal mining. In fact, the area has such a strong focus on mining that most of the town's people actually live underground! There's underground hotels and an underground church! Very surreal... So, after a good night's sleep, I made an early start and pressed on south. This was actually the least interesting part of the journey - as after bidding farewell to the Stuart Highway, the roads became much the same as they are back home in the UK. Still, I pressed on, and after passig through Adelaide - where there appeared to be lots of all-day boozing going on due to it being 'Australia Day' - and making an unplanned stop at a cheese farm, I successfully made it to Victor Harbour on the south coast of Australia, where I'd planned to stop for my second overight stay in the car. Now the main reason I'd decided to stop at Victor Harbour is because there's an island just off the harbour where a colony of wild penguins live! The island is connected to the mainland by a causeway - and if you make the journey over in the evening, you can see the penguins return from their day's fishing out in the Southern Ocean! This, needless to say, was amazing! Though it was completely dark, I'd gone on a guided tour, where the guide uses an infa-red torch to point out the penguins. Apparently the light from the torch doesn't bother them remotely... and we saw loads of them, flopping out of the water and chuntering at each other! I duly discovered that the penguins live in burrows by the cliff-side - which they dig with their wings! And amazingly, the baby penguins stand waiting at the entrance of their burrows, waiting for ma and dad to return with the fish. This was possibly the cutest thing I've ever seen! Oh, and having bizarrely failed to stop a single one during the 1,800 kilometres I'd driven so far, my trip to the island also saw me spot my first wild kangaroo! So, onto day three - which saw me cross another state line into Victoria. In doing this, I accidentally broke the law - as it's illegal to transport fruit in Australia from one state to another... yet five miles after 'entering Victoria' (don't tell David Beckham - arf!), I realised that I still had a bag of grapes among my provisions for the trip. Oops! The highlight of the drive through Victoria was undoubtedly the Great Ocean Road, which is renowned as one of the most stunning coastal drives in the world. And it didn't disappoint! Indeed, as well as some amazing scenery, there's even a giant cheese factory right at the start of the road - though sadly it had closed for the evening by the time I was passing through. My only regret about the Great Ocean Road is that I was obviously driving... and so couldn't really enjoy it fully, due to the small matter of having to concentrate on the road! Nevertheless, it was still pretty breathtaking - particularly with me having planned my trip so I'd be driving along it at sunset. By nightfall, I'd reached a coastal town called, amusingly, Torquay... where I stopped and partook in my third night's sleep in the car! Torquay is only actually an hour or so from Melbourne - in other words, I'd nearly made it! Naturally, I felt jubilant at this - and as I crossed the bridge the next morning that's essentially the gateway to Melbourne, I felt like some sort of homecoming hero. Indeed, as I arrived into the city, it appeared that bunting had even been hung out to herald my arrival - though as it turned out, this was actually for the Australian Open tennis! Overall then, a tiring but nevertheless amazing experience! And after spending three days in a group situation during the tour of the Northern Territory, it was nice to get a bit of 'me time'. I'm also quite amused to report that I managed to navigate the whole 2,600 kilometres of the trip without even using an roadmap. No, all I had to go off was the Australian map that's in the back of the Lonely Planet guide - which has a scale of approximately 50 kilometres per inch! * Al - I can hear your 'Deacon'-based sniggering at the back! January 29 For those about to rock! We salute you!Okay, well I've got a bit of a backlog to get through in terms of updating you all on what I've been up to here of late in sunny Australia. And it's a tale of two parts really - the first being my three-day/two-night whistlestop tour of the Aussie Northern Territory at the beginning of last week... and then, my epic, four-day, 2,600 kilometre road trip from Alice Springs down to Melbourne immediately afterwards!
Without further a do, I shall tell you in this blog entry all about the our of the Northern Territory.
Now this trip was an organised tour on a minibus, and it saw me join 19 other travellers of various nationalities - including some Belgian, German, Swiss and Korean folk... as well as a smattering of fellow Brits.
It all began at the unholyhour of 6am, when were all picked up from our respective lodgings in Alice Springs. We were duly introduced to Micah, who would be our driver and guide for the next few days - and as soon as we had everyone on board, we sped off into the outback.
Now the first thing that happened was that we were each implored, one by one, to go to the front of the bus and talk about ourselves for a few minutes, and answer a series of questions - what animal would you like to be, when was your first kiss... that kind of thing. Needless to say, this was slightly embarrassing - however, it was a great way of breaking the ice... and indeed, as a group we quickly built a great rapport.
And unbelievably, there was even another Forest fan! Hi Lee, if you're reading this!!!
First stop on the tour was a camel farm, which was really interesting. As well as camels, the farm had various other animals including kangaroos, emus and a dingo!
Suffice to say though, it was the camels that were the main attraction - and I was very surprised to learn from our visit to the far, that there are actually more wild camels here in Australia than in any other part of the world!
That said, the camels aren't native to here. Basically, what happened was that a load were imported from Afghanistan back in the 1800s when the first Australian railways were being built - the logic here being that they could carry more equipment and survive for longer in the outback without water and food than horses.
And naturally, when the railways had been completed and the camels had fulfilled their purpose, a lot of them were simply released into the wild - where they've flourished. Ironically in fact, there's actually quite big business here in Australia in breeding camels and exporting them back to Arab countries!
Next stop meanwhile was a certain huge red rock. Now you may know of this as Ayers Rock - however, I'm going to refer to it from now on by its original Aboriginal name, Uluru.
Basically, the rock was actually christened Ayers Rock by western explorers when they first visited central Australia in the early 1900s. However, seeing as the westerners basically caused a whole load of misery to the Aboriginal people, I'm gonna disregard that name and stick with the original one.
But anyway, enough history - am pleased to report that Uluru was everything I hoped for and more. Before we arrived there though, we had a bit of a false alarm. As the bus thundered through the outback, what looked like the rock suddenly appeared on the horizon - and naturally, we all got very excited! However, it turned out that what we thought was Uluru was actually a giant cardboard cut-out that's been erected by a nearby cattle station to fool tourists!
Crazy Aussies!
Now since I've come back from this trip and told people about it, one of the first things they've tended to ask is "Did you climb the rock?"
Well... the idea of doing so certainly appealed to the intrepid side of me. However, through a visit to the Uluru information centre, we discovered that the Aboriginal people, to whom the rock is sacred, don't like people to climb it.
Indeed, they even have a derogatory name fpr people who do climb it - 'mingers'! This apparently means 'flies', with the phrase coming from an amusing observation that, from a distance, the rock looks like a giant turd... with the people who climb it being the flies on the turd!
Not liking the thought of being called mingers, all of us in the group decided to respect the Aboriginal people's wishes by opting out of the climb. Instead, we all walked round the entire perimeter of the rock... a nine kilometre hike.
Needless to say, this was quite hard work in the baking afternoon sun, but it was worth it, with amazing views at every turn. We then got back on the bus and drove a few miles away to watch the sunset over the rock... which was amazing! Whilst watching the sun go down, we also enjoyed dinner cooked on a stove by the redoubtable Micah, with the help of some other members of the group.
The grub was also washed down with copious amounts of booze, which we'd bought during a piss stop at a roadhouse earlier on in the trip. My choice of tipple was red wine. Amazingly, the roadhouse was selling it at $22 a bottle... and then just an additional $3 for a four litre box! Naturally, I went for the box - and while I didn't quaff the whole lot that first night, I was sufficiently trolleyed by the time we called it a night to not really give a rat's ass about the prospect of sleeping in just a sleeping bag in the desert, amid all the flies, lizards and other creepie crawlies!
Incidentally, four-litre boxes of wine are known here in Australia as 'goons'!
So, that was day one - day two saw a ridiculously early start of 4am in order to see the sun rise over Uluru. Again, this was amazing!
The rest of the tour meanwhile saw us visit various other sights, including the King's Canyon. This was spectacular - we crawled on our bellies and leaned right over the edge, and also went swimming in a watering hole at the bottom... as soon as Micah assured as that there'd definitely be no crocs in the water!
As with Uluru, the canyon provided amazing scenery. There's also a natural ampitheatre adjacent to it where Rolf Harris once apparently did an open air gig!
Another highlight of the trip was a walk out into the bush, where Micah drew upon his Aboriginal roots by showing us some of the bushtucker still eaten to this day by Aboriginal people. This included a grub that he dug up from under the ground - and heroically, one of the group duly ate the grub without flinching while it was still alive!
Overall then, a great few days - though very tiring with all the walking and sleeping out in the open air! It was quite nice in a way to great back to Alice Springs and get freshened up... though it was sad in a way to have to say farewell to the group. We had a right laugh together, not least whiling away the hours spent travelling around on the bus by spinning cheesy tunes on people's iPods and singing along!
That said, after showering and whatnot, half of us met up again and went out on the piss in Alice! Amusingly, we ended up in a bar called Bojangles, which is riddled with webcams that beam live footage from within the bar across the world wide web! January 28 Get the motor running! Head out on the highway! Looking for adventure! In whatever comes our way!Well, my last blog entry was written in an internet cafe in Alice Springs a week ago - and what a week it's been!
First of all was the three-day/two-night trip into the bush, which was amazing. Then, after arriving back in Alice Springs for a well-earned night's sleep, I picked up a hire car and commenced a 2,600 kilometre journey down to Melbourne. Where, after three full days on the road, I finally arrived today!
It's all been an amazing adventure, and I shall write a full account of it all in the next few days. You should have had the full skinny on my trip into the bush days ago, as I spent about half an hour typing it out in an internet cafe before I left Alice Springs - however, the bloody computer then crashed, resulting in my lovingly-written account being lost forever!
Damn internet cafes!
For now, all I want to do is sleep... and am quite glad I now have a few days here in Melbourne to simply meander about and generally not do much!!!!
Happily, the hostel I'm staying in here is the best I've stayed in so far by a mile. You can even actually have a bath here! Heaven...
Oh,.and the Nottingham-dwellers among you will be amused to know that it's situated in a part of Melbourne called Carlton! Sadly though, there aren't any leisure facilities here that are quite on a par with the mighty Richard Herrod Bowls Centre..! January 21 What are you sad about? Every day you make the sun come out...Well, greetings from 'oop north' - specifically, the small town of Alice Springs, where I landed a couple of hours ago.
Must say, I'm not a massive fan of flying - however, the two-and-a-bit hour flight from Perth was actually pretty amazing. This was mainly because there was barely a cloud in the sky - and so from my window seat, I could still see miles and miles of Australia drifting past me below. At 35,000 feet, it looked stunning, and it really offered a flavour of how isolated vast swathes of Oz are. There were literally hundreds of miles of just bushland and golden desert, with no trace of any buildings or roads or people.
There was also some impressive scenery meanwhile inside the cabin, what with Qantas having seemingly gone to great lengths to headhunt their prettiest air hostesses for this particular flight!
What's more, far from the matron-ly uniforms generally sported by air hostesses on British airlines, most of the Qantas trolley dollies actually wear slinky dresses that give the impression that they're about to slope off to some sort of swanky cocktail party!
Which is nice!
As it happened, the plane on this occasion was half-empty... so for most of the flight, the trolley dollies seemed to be sat round twiddling their thumbs. Being sat right at the front of the plane, I got chatting to one of them, a pretty redhead called Belinda - and bizarrely, she became ridiculously flirtacious towards me when it came up in conversation that I was from Nottingham!
"Great!" I thought. "Mile-High Club here I come!"
Alas though, it quickly became apparent that she thought I'd said "Notting Hill" - with 'Notting Hill', as it turned out, being one of her all-time favourite films.
So that was it really between Belinda and me! I mean, cute as she was, I don't think there could ever be any future for me with a girl who likes crap romantic comedies starring Hugh Grant!
But anyways - enough of the flight... what are first impressions of Alice?
Well my first thought upon stepping off the plane were how much hotter it felt than Perth - probably something to do with the fact that Alice is smack-bang in the middle of Australia, and thus doesn't get any breeze off the sea like Perth does.
And as for the rown itself - well I must say, it hasn't taken me too long to work out that it's not the most exciting place in the world... to put it politely!
There doesn't seem to be a lot here really - although one thing that is interesting about the town is the large amount of Aboriginal people here. I just went on a quick wander through the town, and all along the main high street, there were small groups of them sat out on the pavements... some of them hawking Aboriginal artwork... and others just simply sitting there enjoying the sun.
Of course, it's not the actual town itself that inspired me to come Alice - it's more its location... as it's within striking distance of Ayers Rock! And not being one to rest on my laurels, I'm actually leaving at 6am tomorrow to go on the three-day tour that I mentioned in my last blog entry... which takes in the rock, along with various other attractions that Australia's Northern Territory has to offer.
So, an early night for me tonight, methinks!!! January 20 The boats in the harbour slip from their chains... head for new horizons, let's do the same...Well, it's nearly two weeks now that I've been in Perth. To be honest, I love the place, and I feel like I could stay here forever. However, there's still lots more of Australia for me to see - and so with heavy heart, I've firmed up my plans to move on...
Specifically, I'm off tomorrow (Sunday the 21st) to Alice Springs - smack bang in the middle of Australia.
My main reason for heading to Alice is because it's within striking distance of lots of cool places - not least Ayers Rock! I'm actually going on a three-day organisedc tour, leaving on Monday 22nd - which, among other things, will see my spend a night sleeping in the desert under the stars in the shadow of aforesaid rock!
Am VERY excited!
I've already written in this blog about how I've felt slightly overwhelmed since I got here about the sheer size of Australia. nd Indeed, the thing that led me on that train of thought was when I started looking into how I'd get to Alice Springs.
With Alice only being a few inches on the map from Perth, I'd foolishly assumed it'd only take a few hours overland - in actual fact though, it's around 2,000 miles!
As such, I'm actually flying there! And then, after I've been on aforesaid tour, I'm hiring a car and driving a further 1,500 miles down to Melbourne on the south coast.
I must say, I'm VERY excited about this - as I've long dreamed of doing the 'big American car trip'... where you drive for hundreds of miles through the desert with the windows down, and Bruce Springsteen on full blast!
However, it occurred to me that it's possible for me to have much the same experience here... only with the added possibility of spotting kangeroos and emus!
I've already put together a 'driving rock' playlist on my iPod. Needless to say, it has 'Gimmee All Your Lovin'' by ZZ Top, 'Summer of 69' by Bryan Adams... and most of 'Greatest Hits Volumer I' and 'Greatest Hits Volume II' by Queen! I've also flung a few truckin' anthems in there, so I can pretend I'm a truck driver, all lonesome and missin' his wife..!
All being well, I should be arriving in Melbourne on Sunday 28th January - perfect timing really, as the mighty Nottingham Forest will be lambs to the slaughter that day away at Chelsea in the fourth round of the FA Cup!
The game is live on the BBC back home in England - so all being well, I should be able to find a pub in Melbourne where I can watch the inevitable spanking! January 19 Whales and dolphins! Whales and dolphins! Yeah!Today I did something truly amazing, if I say so myself. Yes, I swam with wild dolphins!
Now I'd love to say that this came about through me having gone for a dip in the Indian Ocean, and that a few of the big fishy critters happened to come meandering along!
Needless to say though, it was slightly more contrived than that... in that I went on an organised boat trip.
Nevertheless, it was still an amazing experience!
The dolphins were swum with at a place called Rockingham, which just under an hour by road from Perth. It's basically a small coastal town - and for whatever reason, over a hundred dolphins have made the town's bay their home.
Now you're probably thinking "Well, the dolphins aren't going to stay for long if tourists keep diving in and disturbing them!" However, it's all very strictly controlled - as quite rightly, the bodies here in Australia that preside over the welfare of animals impose strict rules to protect the dolphins. As part of these rules, only one tour operator is allowed to go anywhere near them - and only once per day.
What's more, even when you're in the water, there are strict 'dos' and 'don'ts' in terms of how you interact with the dolphins - for instance, no touching them, and definitely no feeding them!
The day started with a 7am departure from Perth, as the dolphins are apparently very much 'early birds'!
I, as most of you will know, am not!
Still, sometimes you have to make these sorts of sacrifices...
On arrival at Rockingham, we got off the bus and onto the boat, where we were issued with wetsuits and snorkels. The boat then embarked on a cruise round the harbour - and incredibly, within about five minutes, two dolphins appeared and actually began chasing the boat, leaping up out of the water on the waves!
There were about 40 of us in total on the boat... abd when the guides found a good spot we dropped anchor, and then took it in turns to dive into the water in groups of ten. I had four goes in the water, each lasting about five minutes - and each time, it was incredible! At one point, I had a group of four dolphins, including a baby, circling me and checking me out! They're quite clearly very curious, sociable and playful animals... not to mention utterly beautiful.
Floating in the sea with them, it just fet like being in some sort of dream. On a number of occasions, they swam within inches of me, and actually appeared to make eye contact!
It was also amazing to hear the sounds they make - a high-pitched, bird-like whistle!
It was also a fascinating day in that we learned a lot about the dolphins from our guides. For instance, we learned that they never actually sleep properly - they just bob to the surface of the sea every so often and 'powernap' for 15 seconds. And when they do this, half of their brain is still actually conscious, to stop them from drowning!
Amazing creatures - and I must say I felt utterly privileged to have the opportunity to spend a bit of time with them in their natural environment. It was without doubt one of the best and most fascinating things I've ever done... and I'll cherish the memories forever.
I must say though, there were two things I learned about only AFTER I'd gotten out of the water for the fourth and final time - and I'm quite glad that this was the case.
First of all, I learned from one of the guides that a stingray had been spotted at one point during the day in the very waters that we'd been swimming in!
Needless to say, I'd have probably shat myself at the thought of jumping in if I'd known that such a beast lurked beneath. As they say though, ignorance is bliss - and having learned in hindsight that I survived stingray infested waters, I guess I could lay claim to being harder than Steve 'The Croc Hunter' Irwin!
Secondly, it was also only after having gotten out of the water for the final time that I discovered that the guides - who had also jumped out into the water with us - had been equipped with anti-shark electro-shock equipmment. Being an inquisitive sod, I duly asked them why this was so - and duly discovered that it's not unknown for sharks to meander into the stretch of water that we'd been swimming in!
Again, I was glad that I only learned about this AFTERWARDS!
So, a great day - although the entertainment by no means stopped with just the dolphins. No, as our boat made its return journey back to Rockingham harbour, we actually got pulled over by the Aussie sea police!
Apparently, the captain had sailed within restricted waters, or something... and was ordered by PC Jobsworth to report to the sea police copshop straight away upon docking back in Rockingham.
All in all, far too much excitement really for just one day!
As for now - well, I'm back at the youth hostel where I'm staying... and have just been wowing a group of Swedish people about my dolphin encounter.
And it's funny... because the first thing they asked was "Did you get any pictures?"
I duly showed them some of the snaps I took off the boat - but they were disappointed, having hoped that I'd gotten some actual underwater pictures of the dolphins.
Now I did consider buying one of those underwater cameras and trying to get some pics with that. However, I relented - because it just struck me that there are some times in life where you should simply enjoy the moment, rather than worrying about trying to get the perfect photo.
I mean, imagine you're having the best shag of your life - you're hardly going to stop mid-way through and go "Eh, 'scuse us me duck, but d'ya mind pausing a wee moment while I get the Pentax out?"
Unless, perhaps, you're Paris Hilton..!
Nevertheless, I have just uploaded the pics that I did take on the dolphin trip to my photo gallery, along with a load more from my first few days here in Australia. Enjoy... January 18 I placed a bet inside the launderette, with a girl from Wallasey...It's funny, but I felt slightly angst-ridden as I left to UK to start my travel adventure here in Australia.
I suppose it was always likely that I'd get 'cold feet' at some point - however, I genuinely started to get quite jittery as to whether I was doing the right thing.
It might sound daft, but I started reading into all sorts of things.
For instance, when Celebrity Big Brother started just a few days before my departure, I started wondering whether Face from the A-Team being one of the housemates was fate's way of saying "Rich, don't go! You'll miss your chance to watch one of your favourite ever TV characters doing the washing up and mumbling for two weeks!"
And similarly, when Nottingham Forest snapped out of their recent fecklessness by knocking Charlton Athletic out of the FA Cup the day before I left, it was as if they were saying "Rich! I know we've been crap for weeks... but if you clear off now, you're sure to miss a barnstorming end to the season!"
In addition meanwhile, I also had some more general worries. As most of you know, I was ridiculously busy up until Christmas, holding down two jobs and raising money for a statue of Brian Clough. Then, over the Christmas period, I spent a couple of weeks running around like a blue-arsed fly getting everything ready for my trip.
How, I wondered, would I make the transition from sort of pace to... well, just living the simple life of a workshy vagabond for five months?
Would it not make me feel how you feel when you jump off a really fast ride at the funfair?
As it turned out though, I needn't have worried. I've found it hasn't taken me very long at all to get into the groove of this whole traveller lifestyle. And I love it!
Here's a typical day. I'll wake up at about 9am, and then drag myself out of my shared dorm bed to partake in the free breakfast that most of the youth hostels seem to lay on for residents. After that, I'll have a shower... and then it's simply a case of deciding what to do for the rest of the day. And often, it's not a lot! There have been some days when I've done a particular activity - yesterday for instance, when I went on the wine tour. But some days, I happily while away the time by just wandering around the town, usually ending up at the beach... before heading to Coles (the Aussie equivalent of Tesco) and buying whatever I fancy cooking myself for dinner.
Sometimes I feel a bit like a character out of Home and Away. And incredibly, in terms of accomodation and food, my stay in Australia is only costing me equivalent of about 15 quid a day!
And as for the nightime - well, the hostel I'm staying in at the moment has a really nice courtyard, so I've generally spent my evenings sat there talking and chatting with the other residents.
I must say, I had worried that I'd get fed up of spending so much time by myself - however, that's not really been an issue. At the hostel, there's usually people around to chat to... and I've met some really cool folk from all walks of life and all parts of the world. And when there's not - well, I always have my iPod and a good book to keep me entertained.
So, all in all, absolutely no regrets about doing the whole travel thing. That said though, a few realities are starting to creep into the idyll now I've been away for nearly two weeks. Earlier this week, for instance, it suddenly occurred to me, to my horror, that I'd run out of clean clothes!
Needless to say, when you fantasise about going off and seeing the world, sitting in a laundrette is not one of the images you tend to conjure up!
Still, I did manage to put off the dreaded laundry chore for a couple of days by simply going out and buying some new grots - and also a pair of flip-flops... on the basis that I don't need to wear socks with them and will thus be producing less dirty washing if I rotate them with my trainers.
Amusingly, flip-flops are actually known out here as 'thongs'! This confused me no end when I was examining my receipt after I'd bought them, along with a few grocery items, from the supermarket.
"Cheese, olives, bread... THONGS?"
At first I thought it was the powers-that-be's way of telling me that I need to start arse-flossing - but then, the penny dropped. Crazy bloody Aussies! January 17 The orchestra played the sweetest serenade, we laughed as we put away your wine...Well, today has been a fun day - as I went on a wine tour!
This basically involved getting on a minibus with a load of other people, and then going on a tour of SIX different vineyards around Swan Valley, a prominent wine-making region just outside of Perth.
Now the omens were good from the start, with the coach passing through Bassendean on its way out of the city - which, as those of you who have read my previous blog entries will know, is the place where Rolf Harris grew up!
This was mentioned by Claude, our excellent tour guide . And astonishingly, it turned out that one of the other people on the tour - an Aussie lady in her 60s - had some relatives who knew Rolf personally!
As well as Bassendean, the short drive to the Swan Valley also saw us drive past Perth's main cricket stadium. "For the benefit of any English people on board," Claude announced smugly, "the stadium on our right is where we recently reclaimed the Ashes!"
This, needless to say, was not the first time I've had the piss ripped out of me by the Aussies for the recent capitulation of the England cricket team! I'm sure it won't be the last, either!
But anyway, enough of the journey - what of the actual purpose of the trip?
Well... at each vineyard, we were able to sample up to a dozen different wines and ports! As you can probably imagine, it all got pretty messy - although we were also fed with platters of cheese throughout the day, so there was something other than alcohol being ingested!
Even so, I was so pissed by the time we got back to Perth that I ended up going to Kings Park and falling asleep on the grass for over an hour!
But as well as being an opportunity to get lashed, it was actually really interesting to get a bit of an insight into how wine is made. Though I was slightly alarmed to discover that the proprietor of one of the vineyards shoots any parakeets that dare swoop down to try and quaff his grapes! January 15 Play your didgeridoo, Blue... play your didgeridoo!It's funny, but when I decided I was definitely going to go to Australia, one of the first things I did was to sign up for email alerts from Ticketek - one of the main agencies Down Under for gig tickets etc.
I duly started getting emails with ticket details for gigs taking place down here - and started drawing up a mental list of who I'd be going to see.
However, a thought then occurred to me. "What is the point," I mused, "in going all the way to the other side of the world, only to just do the same sorts of things that I do back home - i.e. going to see bands?"
As such, I decided to scupper my initial plan to catch various performers including Burt Bacharach and Roger Waters. However, I did end up going to a gig last night!
The band I saw were an Australian act called Emdee. I stumbled upon an article about them in a local paper - and as soon as I started reading about them, and learned that they were doing a gig not far far from Fremantle (where I'm staying) I just HAD to go and check them out!
Basically, Emdee are a four-piece. However, rather than the traditional vocals/bass/drums/guitar combo, Emdee are vocals/bass/drums/DIDGERIDOO!
Basically, they formed because their didge player was sick of people viewing the didge as a 'novelty' instrument. He wanted to prove that it could actually be a lead instrument in its own right in a band context.
And I've got to say, the gig was AMAZING, with some fabulous virtuoso didge-playing! The didge guy actually had a stand set up on the stage with four didges attached to it, and kept alternating between them. The rest of the band were ace as well - the backing they afforded to the didge was very eclectric, and bordered at times upon being full-on drum'n'bass!
I danced like a loon - although the only snag was was that I enjoyed myself so much that I lost track of time and ended up missing the last bus back to 'Freo'!
I didn't have much cash on me and so a cab was out of the question. "Ah sod it," I thought. "I'll walk it."
Naturally, this decision was largely borne out of the fact that the route didn't look very far on the map! However, Perth to Alice Springs (a journey I'll be making next weekend) doesn't look all that far on a map either - and yet it's over 2,000 miles!
I duly found myself punished for my typically British inability to comprehend the sheer scale of Australia, as I walked for miles upon miles without any sign of Freemantle appearing on the horizon!
In fact, it ened up taking me over THREE HOURS to walk back!
Still, it was funny in a way... and the exercise certainly won't have done me any harm.
And frankly, it was worth it, as Emdee were the best thing I've seen in the way of live music in ages! If any of you are interested in checking them out, I bought a copy of their latest album on CD, which I'll actually be posting home shortly due to the fact that I have nothing to play it on (in terms of having means to listen to music out here, I only have my iPod with me). I'm sure either my brother or my dad will be happy to burn copies for anyone who's interested.
Alternatively, I'm sure their stuff must be available on the web... January 13 Don't go acting the fool, Curl... just keep me cockatoo cool!Well... according the the 'entry time' for this latest missive, it's the middle of the afternoon as I write this.
That, however, is UK time! Here in Australia, it's actually the early hours of the morning! And yes, the reason why I'm sat in front of an internet screen at this unholy hour is cos I feel a duty to keep tabs on the first Nottingham Forest match to take place since I buggered off to the southern hemisphere!
Yes, the mighty Reds are taking on Yeovil as I type this words. It feels strange not being there - and even stranger to think that, this time last week, I was sat at the City Ground watching Forest's triumphant FA Cup 'giantkilling' against Charlton!
So much has happened since then. I'm now at the end of my fifth day in Australia... and I must say, I'm loving it!
For one, the weather is glorious - and I don't think this is entirely unconnected with the fact that, within just hours of arrival, I was completely free of the bronchial cough that I'd been plagued with for seemingly weeks prior to my departure. No more having to swig Buttercup Syrup out of the bottle like some sort of junkie!
But other than no longer coighing my guts up, what have I been up to?
Day one saw me check out Perth City - and it's a cool place!
The thing that struck me the most as a first impression was simply how laid back it is. There's hardly any traffic in the city for a start - possibly something to do with the fact that a lot of the bus services in the centre are actually free!
At pedestrian crossings meanwhile, pedestrians stand casually and wait for a green man, rather than risking life and limb jaywalking across the road just to save a few 'precious' seconds. A subtle difference, sure... but nevertheless, these sort of things make Perth stand out as being strikingly different from most cities in Britain, where you get the feeling that everyone's in a rush.
Perth is also very clean. It's also quite picturesque in a chrome-y, modern kinda way - with amazing views of the riverside to be had from a massive park called King's Park, which is up on a hill overlooking the city.
But enough of amazing views and cleanliness. A lot of people have asked me what it was that inspired me to choose Perth as my first port of call in Australia. And the answer is... yes, it's where one of my big heroes, Rolf Harris, is from!
Naturally, one of the first things I did when I got here was to get a train to Bassendean - the suburb some seven miles out of the city centre where Rolf grew up! Thanks to a bit of research that I did before flying out to Australia, I managed to find the primary school that he went to, the street where he was born, and also the stretch of water where he learned to swim!*
Naturally, I felt a bit like a pilgrim going to the Holy Land - and an added bonus of the few hours I spent in Bassendean was my first ever sighting of parrots in the wild!
So that was day one - days two and three meanwhile saw me head up to... Scarborough!
Yes, there really is a beach just up from Perch called Scarborough - and as soon as I heard about it, I just had to head up there to check it out. As it happens, it's actually one of Perth's foremost surfing beaches - and I enjoyed a really relaxing couple of days just lazing on the the golden sands and going for the occasional paddle in the Indian ocean.
As for days four and five, they have been spent in Fremantle - a small city adjoining Perth. Upon arrival, I checked into a youth hostel for just two nights. However, I immediately loved 'Freo' so much that I quickly booked for a further seven nights. It's basically a really bohemian sort of place, with loads of cool shops, bars, a beach, and quite a lot of other interesting attractions. These include a Shipwreck Museum, which is really interesting... and also a disused prison which was used in the 1800s to house convicts brought over from the UK.
I actually went on an evening tour of the prison by torchlight. And let's just say that it proved to be way, way more creepy than any of the mental health institutions I came to know during my time working for the NHS!
Another part of 'Freo' that I've quickly come to love is the market, which sells pretty much everything under the sun - including trays with about eight different types of cheese for just five Aussie dollars (a mere two quid in sterling!) My best purchase though from the market was a tub of moisturiser containing emu oil, which I bought mainly for comedy value really... but also out of a slim hope that it might help with the severe sunburn I acquired during my two days in Scarborough.
Yes, I got sunburned! What can I say - I'm British and I never learn!
Happily though, the emu oil seems to have done the job!
Anyways - I'm back off now to check up again on Forest! Will endeavour to get some Aussie photos added to my gallety soon!
* For the benefit of those of you who don't share my boundless love of Rolf, one of the great man's lesser known talents is as a swimmer! He actually competed at quite a high level in swimming competitions as a teenager! January 09 Oh my God I don't believe it... I've never been this far away from home!Well, pleased to say that my travel adventure has gotten off to a smooth start... and am currently enjoying my first day in Australia in the fine city of Perth!
The flight over here, needless to say, was a bit of a ballache. As someone who struggles to sit still for more than five minutes, 11 hours to Singapore and then another six hours to Perth was always going to be a challenge for me!
Nevertheless, full marks to Qantas, who did everything possible to make it a pleasant experience! And in-flight entertainment has certainly come a long way in the six years since I last took a long-haul flight - each seat on the plane had its own small TV screen, and you could choose from literally dozens of movies! Naturally, I went for 'Snakes on a Plane' among others!
Also, Qantas also served me a veggie curry for breakfast - how cool is that?
And they merrily provided free booze!
But anyhow - after arriving in Perth at 3am local time, I slept like a log and am now spending my first day just chilling out and getting my bearings. First impressions are that it's a really nice place - very laid back! January 04 Pushing up the ante, I know you've got to see me. Read 'em and weep - the dead man's hand again...Well, the countdown to my departure to sunnier climes has well and truly begun. As I write this, it's Wednesday night - and in just four nights' time, I'll actually be on my flight to Perth, first stop on my forthcoming round-the-world adventure!
For the record, that's Perth in Australia as opposed to Perth in Scotland - not that you probably needed that clarifying!
Needless to say, I've spent much of this week running around like a blue-arsed fly, trying to get last minute stuff sorted out. This has included fairly mundane things such as getting last few vaccinations done so I don't die of any unpleasant diseases. But there's also been a few more notable things.
First of all - in what was perhaps quite a major oversight, I only realised last weekend that I needed to get a new passport!
Fortunately, the UK passport agency does a 'fast track' service. However, I discovered that this would involve having to go in person to my nearest regional passport office, completing all the relevant paperwork, and then waiting FOUR hours to get my means of admission to other countries!
Now my nearest passport office is Peterborough - a notable place for me, in that it's the very city where I first drank a pint of beer in a pub! This monumental occasion was way back in April 1994 when, as a 14-year-old, I travelled on a coach to see the mighty Nottingham Forest play away at Peterborough United. My shocking underage drinking was just the start of a great day - as the game saw Forest secure promotion back to the Premiership, thanks to a 3-2 win in front of an army of 12,000 delirious travelling fans... most of whom invaded the pitch afterwards, myself and my brother Al included!
Despite these happy memories though, Peterborough is NOT the sort of place where you want to have to kill four hours! Indeed, the city very much has a 'town that time forgot' feel about it. The high street still has a Wimpy restaurant - and naturally, this was my first port of call after I'd completed my passport paperwork! But while this was an amusingly retro experience, I was disappointed to discover that they no longer sell burgers called 'Benders' like they did when I was a kid. And after finishing my breakfast, I felt slightly distressed as I wondered what on earth I could do to kill time.
Thankfully though, this ended up not being an issue - as shortly after leaving Wimpy, the passport office rang me to say that they were running well ahead of schedule, and that my passport was ready! So, little more than an hour after arriving in Peterborough, I was back on the train back to Nottingham again!
Meanwhile, something else I've done in view of my travel plans is write a will - so if the worst happens and I do end up being mauled to death by dingos in the outback, at least it'll hopefully be fairly straightforward for my family to sort out my modest estate!
Of course, having to put down in writing what you want to happen to your stuff should you happen to snuff it IS a bit morbid.
However, I like to think I succeeded in throwing in a bit of light amid the darkness! For the template document I used for my will has a section where you can outline any specific instructions for your own funeral - and naturally, I thought it was only appropriate to use this to stress that I would like 'Ace of Spades' by Motorhead played at my funeral!
As Lemmy himself would say - that's the way I like it baby, I don't wanna live forever! January 02 For careers you said you want to be remembered for your art. Your obession gets you known throughout the school for being strange. Making lifesize models of the Velvet Underground from clay...Today I read something utterly ridiculous in the news. Yes, watchdogs have banned TV networks from running any advertisements for cheese during children's programmes - because apparently, cheese is officially as bad as junk food!
As someone who rarely goes a day without partaking in some sort of cheesy goodness, I just want to say that this ruling sucks donkey cocks.
You can get the full skinny by clicking here.
Anyway, that's my rant over with for the day!
What else to report?
Well something quite amusing that's happened lately relates to my pet parrot, Doris.
As you may be aware, parrots are quite destructive creatures by nature - and Doris is no exception. Whenever I buy her a new toy and put it in her cage, she'll immediately set about destroying it with great gusto! Which is funny in a way... but also kinda annoying, as parrot toys are quite expensive for what they are, and you end up spending quite a bit when you have to buy new ones every few months.
Recently though, I had an idea...
Basically most of the toys that Doris likes are made predominantly out of rope - and her main method of destruction is to chew through the rope.
"So," I thought, "why don't I simply get a supply of rope - so I can use it to fix Doris' toys each time she wrecks them?"
I duly typed in 'soft cotton rope' in the 'search' box on eBay - and quickly found a ten-metres of the stuff priced at no more than what you'd pay for a single parrot toy. The purchase was duly made - though it was only when the rope arrived through the post a few days later in a package, marked 'Sent by Bound-To-Please Bondage Supplies, Birmingham', that I realised that it was clearly manufactured with very different uses in mind!!!
No idea whether either of my parents saw the package when it arrived at the house - but if they did, they're probably convinced now that I get up to all sorts of deviant sexual behaviour!
Still, this probably wouldn't bother them unduly - nothing much shocks them!
Talking of my mum and dad meanwhile - I've written already on this blog about the fact that this last Christmas was a bit of a damp squib in our household. However, in the interests of giving credfit where credit's due, my folks excelled themselves this year in the art of the 'amusing comedy present'!
Many of you will be aware that I've long found endless amusement in the comedian Mike Reid - or Frank Butcher, as he's known in his EastEnders alterego.
Well... check out the image below for a showstopping video starring the great man that appeared in my stocking!!!
Goodness knows where my folks got it from! Pleased to report though that the vid is as crude and offensive as you would expect! There's even a cameo appearance from the dude that played Nick Cotton in EastEnders! You can 'ave me hat, you can 'ave me shoe... but you can't have a go on me old bamboo!So, another New Year has been and gone. And for me, this particular one was dominated by - of all things - the city of Leicester!
New Year's Day, you see, saw Al and me make the journey up north, to watch Nottingham Forest play away at Oldham Athetic - which always going to be a tricky game for the mighty Reds. After all, not only were they going into the fixture on the back of a dodgy spell form, it also just so happened that Oldham were one of the teams breathing down their necks in the league table.
However, it was only when we saw who the referee was that alarm bells truly started to ring. A Mr K A Friend, from... yes, Leicester!
Now anyone who knows anything about footy rivalry will know that there's no love lost between Forest and Leicester City, to put it politely! So the decision to have Mr Friend in charge of a game involving the mighty Reds was questionable to say the least.
And frankly, Mr Friend proved to be the most lame-arsed excuse of a friend Forest could have had. Indeed, if there's ever been a worse performance from a referee, I'd love to hear about it!
Now these comments probably sound like sour grapes, given that Forest ended up losing the game 5-0!
Don't get me wrong though, I'm not trying to blame the score entirely on the ref. I'm pretty sure the mighty Reds would've probably lost regardless, as they played like a feckless bunch of clowns for most of the game.
Nevertheless, key decisions Mr Friend made that had a big impact on the game included:
- Sending off TWO Forest players, in each case for offences where even a booking would've been harsh.
- Awarding TWO penalties to Oldham, one where the foul wasn't even in the box, and one where the 'fouled' player committed a blatant dive.
And as if that wasn't enough, Mr Friend even pretty much set up Oldham's fifth and final goal, by getting in the way of Forest's Jack Lester when he was trying to bring the ball out of defence... causing him to lose possession on the edge of his own box. Needless to say, the ball fell to one of the Oldham attackers... and within about five seconds, it had been dispatched into the back of the Forest net!
Unbelievable...
You'd have thought this would all have made for a miserable afternoon. However, us Forest fans are made of stern stuff after all the crap we've had to watch over recent years - and when it became apparent that the battle on the pitch was beyond winning, we threw ourselves wholeheartedly into the challenge of winning the one OFF it... yes, outsinging the Oldham fans!
This wasn't actually that difficult. Indeed, given that their team were giving one of their promotion rivals a proper pasting, the Oldham fans were remarkably silent - something which we goaded them for mercilessly. "Five-nil, and you still don't sing.."
There were also numerous other demonstrations of the ability that us Forest fans have to keep our sense of humour in even the bleakest of situations. Shortly after Oldham went 4-0 ahead, a group of shirtless nutters decided to start a conga - and within minutes, this had swelled to a line of 50 people as it snaked around the away end! By the time Forest were reduced to nine men meanwhile, there were frenzied cries of "Off! Off! Off!" each time one of the remaining Reds players committed a foul - in the vain hope Mr Friend would dish out a couple more red cards, something which would result in him having to abandon the match!
But while this is all very funny, the fact remains that no-one would ever CHOOSE to see their team get a 5-0 shoeing.
Still, it's probably a good thing really that my final Forest league game before I clear off on my travel adventure was a complete nightmare. Not long ago, I had mixed feelings about the fact that I'd be missing a big chunk of the first decent season the Reds have had in eons. However, after this debacle at Oldham, I feel quite relieved that I won't have to watch the hapless bunch of so and sos for quite some time..!
To add to the general sense of woe, we got bloody drenched in the rain as well... and I had to make do with a bag of bloody crisps for lunch, due to vegetarianism seemingly being an alien concept up in Oldham*. I'm pretty sure these things were all the fault of Mr Friend as well!
Happily though, idiot refs were by no means the only thing that Leicester had to offer this New Year. On the flipside, I have the place to thank for two excellent nights out, after I decided to go there for a couple of days to see in 2007 with my great friend SuperKev and his lovely fiancee Becky.
SuperKev is a mate I met at university... and him and Becky decided to spend New Year in Leicester due to Becky's family being from there**. With Nottingham less than an hour away, they invited me to come over and join them - and we had a great time. We certainly packed a lot in over the two nights I was there. As well as quaffing a healthy amount of booze and singing 'Money for Nothing' by Dire Straits on karaoke, I well and truly proved that I'm back to full health after the evil gastric flu that I had over Christmas, by eating the sphincter-punishing combination of both a Mexian meal AND an Indian meal in the space of the same day!
Amusingly, the Mexian restaurant we went to had a resident children's entertainer, who came over to us while we were eating and made us hats out of balloons!*** He also made me a balloon parrot!
Last but not least, we also went to the cinema to see 'Night at the Museum', which I'd heartily recommend. For me, the most amazing thing about the film was the unexpected (foe me, anyway) appearance of a particular actor who I've always had a soft spot for.
Indeed, just hours earier, I'd actually been moaning about the fact that I hadn't had any DVD action over the Christmas holiday period - and by that, I mean I didn't see any films with Dick Van Dyke in them!
So imagine my glee then when DVD turned up in 'Night at the Museum'!
Sadly his part didn't involve him employing the crap Cockney accent employed to such legendary effect in Mary Poppins. Still, I wasn't complaining!
* One of the burger vans by Oldham's ground did sell Spam, black pudding and tomato rolls though! Classy...
** Amazingly, Becky's mum's house - where we stayed - is less than a mile from where skiing legend Eddie 'The Eagle' Edwards lives! Shame I didn't bump into him during my stay - I'm sure he'd have gone white as a sheet at the sight of me, after he failed dismally to teach me how to ski during a two-hour lesson I had with him back in 2004 at Tamworth Snowdome..!
*** Amusingly, the balloon dude bore an uncanny resemblence to Mark 'Ormster' Orme, one of the guys I play football with! Any of you who know the Ormster - a man legendary for having got married in Vegas by an Elvis impersonator! - can check out the resemblence by viewing my photo gallery, where there's a photo of the balloon dude... |
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