tie me kangaroo down sport, tie me kangaroo down..

Here's a rough transcript of today's events:

° Got up at 7am.
° In a cab at 8:15 to the airport!
° 9am check-in for flight at 10:50.
° At 10:30 we get an announcement that the plane is broke.
° 2 hour delay.
° At 12:30 the plane is not fixed nor going to be. There's more chance of me going on a low-carb diet than them getting SQ238 off the ground.
° Flight is re-scheduled to 10pm.
° No it isn't, it'll be fixed in 5 minutes. Actually, I can see the airplane mechanic from the window. He has a white face with a big squidgy red nose and giant feet. Looks like he's got a flower that squirts water at the pilot too.
° Oh no, the plane won't be fixed. 10pm again. I was right, the mechanic is clearly a clown.
° 2pm and we're given a room in the hotel over the road. Well done singapore air. This isn't so bad. Hilton. I can see why Paris H does okay. Includes lunch and dinner. A buffet! That's where I get my compensation...
° 8pm back to the airport. Flight due at 10pm still. Gets in at singapore at 3am and our flight to bangkok leaves at 8:45am. Great. The couple at the check-in desk next to us are losing their rag. No, they've lost it. Like a scene from the docu-soap airport. Tools. We should get another hotel at singapore airport. If not they've got a swimming pool and free internet. Could be worse. I could be married to psycho-wozza in the next line...

We lose a day in bangkok, but i've caned two buffets, and we lounged around watching mtv for six hours. Every cloud has a silver lining.


And for the last week......


8th january
Drove the Great Ocean Road from Melbourne to Apollo Bay, back to Portarlington. The road was built after WWII to create jobs for returning soldiers. It was built as a tourism attraction to rival California's Pacific Coast Highway. It is very scenic, nice small towns, great surf beaches, wildlife... Lots of wildlife. The Koalas are just sleeping in the trees above the road. Excellent. And we finally saw some (non-dead) 'Roos. And an Echidna. A bit like a hedgehog. We were very pleased with our wildlife spotting!


9th
Woke up to the smell of smoke. Bush fire! We're all going to die! Help, help. At this point, Joey told me to shut up and pointed out that the smoke was from a fire some 250km along the coast, that a change in the wind from a Southerly to Easterly, had brought our way... Quite weird. The sky remained very hazy and quite dark, and the smell made everything smoky...

We drove further up the bellarine peninsula so that we could catch up with Sally (a girl joey used to work with who's back in oz). Over to Joey: spent the day in Ballerine with my friend Sally, her Dad and new baby Harrison...lovely lunch (thanks Sal) and much fun baby cuddling. Really nice to see Sally and catch up on all the news...top day!

Back up to melbourne.


10th
Time to give the van back. Despite the relief of moving out of the van (3 months in total) we were a bit sad to give it back. This country's so damn big, you feel like you've just scratched the surface and want to carry on round to Adelaide and Perth. One hour later we've checked in to the relative luxury of the newly decorated holiday inn melbourne (an absoloute steal) and all van sadness is totally forgotten...

Melbourne is supposedly the most english part of australia. Known for it's food and culture. Culture? Australia? Surely some mistake? Maybe it's a bit early for us to judge, but at first glance it looks okay... Spent the afternoon orientating our good selves (which translates to me looking at interesting old buildings and Jo looking at shoes). Back to the hotel where phil and fiona met us for a food court dinner, a few hands of blackjack and the cinema. The Holiday. Have you seen it? Diaz, Winslett, Black and some other bloke. If you're a Shiela, it's okay. Otherwise, not so hot. I think joey was dehydrated by the end of it... Must have been all that crying.


11th
After all the time in the van, we felt it time to get vain. Which of course for me equates to a £5 haircut. For joey it was hair, feet, eyebrows etc etc. With time on my hands I did what I do best; hit the foodcourts. They say that Melbourne's not in the seeing or doing. More just relaxing, eating, drinking, and taking it all in. Worked for me.

Had dinner cooked for us in the evening by the luton-travellers. Spag bol. Just like home!


12th
Dossed around in the morning. Then planned on some more cricket misery. Eng v Aus one day (Day/night) at the MCG. What can I say. It's an incredible ground. 100,000 seats 80,000 of them full. And it was rowdy! The MCG is to the SCG what The Oval is to Lords. More of a people's ground. We met up with mike stephenson who I used to work with at Amex. He's emigrated to Melbourne with his family. We had a few beers whilst watching england get battered again (despite KP's and Freddie's efforts)...


13th
General shopping and strolling. Went to the shopping mecca of Chapel street. I think Jo was in some kind of comatosed state as she went from shop to shop on autopilot. We also saw some parks and the state museum which had an excellent display on trainers/sneakers. All the history and influences. Pretty cool.

14th
Last full day down under. How would you spend it? Probably want to do something typically Australian? Beach? BBQ? 'roo watching? Maybe some sport? No. A Neighbours tour. Infact the official Neighbours tour. Now if there's an official tour, there must be unofficial tours too. I didn't realise neighbours was such a big deal. Anyway, we were booked in for the 1:45 tour. Or so we thought. Got there at 1:30 and guess what? They didn't have our booking and the tour was full. Cue dissapointment from Mrs. H and relief for me. Some free souvenirs and tat certainly eased the pain. There was another couple who had been hanging around for about four hours waiting for a cancellation (they hadn't booked though). It was their last day and they were flying later. The tour office offered us directions to get there ourselves via taxi. AU$50 each way. The other couple asked us if we wanted to split a cab to see Ramsey Street as they only had $25 left. Well it doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out that we would have had to foot the cab bill back. Also, whilst the tour would have been enlightening/bearable (joey's/my perspective), a quick look up Ramsey Street would be as much fun as removing your own wisdom teeth. So we told the other couple we'd give it a miss. The reaction was priceless. I believe it would be described as "stropping off in a huff". She turned on a six-pence and steamed off down the street leaving her bloke red faced. Like we'd ruined her holiday. If she was that bothered, she'd have had the sense to book it, or got some more cash from an ATM. How we laughed as she sped down the street with steam coming out of her ears... Tool.

We got over it quickly. A couple of shandies, some grub and a return to the cinema. "The pursuit of happyness" (as opposed to happiness). Watchable, but a bit slow.


15th
I think I've mentioned enough at the top.