Well hello,

It's been a while, but I'm sure you didn't really want to read too much of "Got up, brushed teeth, went to work....". So here's a conglomeration of our recent adventures compressed in such a fashion that it appears we are wild and crazy cats on a
Hell-bound ride to oblivion, baby. Or on holiday, anyway.

A quick mention of work - I am settling in nicely, have spent a couple of weeks on courses and meeting the great and good of the Hyperbaric Medicine world. As this is of little interest to about 99.99999% of the world's population I'll leave it there, I think.

Jo was struggling to find gainful employment as a result of the restrictions of her visa, which is piggy-backed onto mine. If effort in finding work was correlated with the level of work achieved she would be Governor of the Bank of England, Secretary-General of the UN, or some-such. Good news recently, however; finally success and a really good post. The only cloud is the official start date is not until halfway through June :-(

We're fitting in with life in Sydney as best we can - we have hosted a few barbies, and been out to a few dinners and suchlike. Many thanks to the members of Sydney Sub-Aqua Club (hereafter SSAC) who have mainly been our guests and/or hosts on these occasions

Incidentally, a funny thing happened at the dive club which I forgot to mention earlier. If you were never a student at Queen Mary and Westfield College in the early 1990's you may skip to the next paragraph as this will have absolutely no interest to you whatsoever. It just so happens that the SSAC is populated by a goodly number of poms, being a branch of the British Sub-Aqua Club, where most British divers get their training. As I settled into my comfortable bar-room chair, pint in hand, I got chatting to a number of the afore-mentioned poms. I would like to say that one of them immediately seemed strangely familiar, as I believe that's the kind of thing you're supposed to say in these situations, but it wasn't so. I did know that there was something up, though. As the evening progressed I thought maybe I had seen this chap somewhere before, and right at the end a searing flash of recognition occurred, although apparently no-one else saw it. "QMW!" was all I could say to this poor young fellow, who instead of staring dumbfounded at me, immediately recognised our common heritage. And so it came to pass that I met an old acquaintance known to a few of you out there in internet land - Alaric! I kid you not. He was accompanied by Anne, also an alumnus of that great East End institution. Things got stranger when they arrived at a subsequent club meeting with their old friend, Trigger (now a plasterer living in the Isle of Dogs). Well, I never did, etc. etc.

Didn't go to QMW? I told you you should have skipped that last paragraph. Don't blame me if it was incomprehensible.

And so, as ever, onwards. Our next big adventure was on the occasion of our first official holiday. The bunting and tickertape parade to signal our departure from Sydney never materialised, and thousands of environmental activists breathed a sigh of relief.

I have the good fortune to have some family in Melbourne, a short 1000km hop down the coast. Everyone flies and arrives feeling refreshed and ready for action. We decided to drive.

We arose on day one sluggishly, and in no particular state of readiness. Unsurprisingly it took us so long to pack the Kombi, get in provisions, and so on that we finally left Sydney late in the afternoon. Still, we were on holiday and what could possibly go wrong?

Our first brief stop was to have a look at the viewpoint overlooking Wollongong. It was nice and there was a kookaburra. We continued on.

At Kiama, we decided to leave the highway, as we had heard of the famous blowhole. It was ok.

We pressed on and stopped at our first campsite, at Nowra, right on the bank of the Shoalhaven River. We made a roaring fire which failed to burn any of the supplied logs, which had all the flammability of damp asbestos. Not a great barbecue, then.

We woke to sun, clear skies and a flat battery. Somehow it had drained despite our checking all our electrics. Sometimes technology seems to be there just to make you cry. However, a quick jump start and we were away.

Stopping only for morning tea at Milton, we drove on and reached Bateman’s Bay by lunchtime. We left the highway and drove off onto the local roads. Bateman’s is a pretty town, and a popular holiday destination. There's lots of arty and crafty shops, and great beaches.

Our plans centred around Guerrilla Bay, a bay on the rocky coast extending down from Bateman’s to Broulee Island. The bay is shallow, dominated by kelp, but has an interesting drop-off to rocks and sponges, or so our diving guide told us (thanks Nat and John!). It certainly was a pretty place, and we squeezed into our wetsuits and headed off into the deep. The water was cloudy, and a fair bit of surge made things a bit difficult, but we still managed to see a Port Jackson shark, and a Fiddler Ray.

We managed a few more k's down the road, before stopping at Narooma, where we found a great camp site right on the beach. After a quick session on the trampoline we cooked up our tea, which seemed to interest the local possum population no end. A quick call home for Mother's Day and it was bed-time.

Although we had enjoyed our drive down so far, we hadn't made much of a dent in the total distance required to make Melbourne. We pointed south and put pedal to metal (i.e. 0-60 in under 5 mins). All was going smoothly as we motored down the road, the sun shone, and the worries of work and jobs were left behind. The rolling hills and winding roads north of Bega rolled and wound under our steadily advancing wheels, until a large cloud of blue smoke appeared from our exhaust as all power disappeared. Bugger.

After a quick check up of our badly overheating engine we crawled off with sinking hearts, eventually making Bega, the next town. A mechanic looked at our engine, and it was decided that while we didn't have to turn round and go home, we would be stuck for a top speed at 80 or maybe 90kph. That’s 50mph to you, and not very fast when you've got hundreds of k's to your destination. Still, what can you do? Off we went.

We crawled along the Princes Highway, stopping at Davidson Whaling Station on Twofold Bay. We saw kangaroos hopping by the side of the road. We crawled on.

We crossed the border from NSW to Victoria late in the day and crawled on to camp between Point Ricardo and Cape Conran.

We bought fishing rods at Lakes Entrance (still unused, but maybe this weekend), motored through Stratford upon Avon (no, really) and had a look at 90 mile beach. Made camp at Rawson, up in the mountains and in the back of beyond.

Melbourne appeared eventually and we limped into town. We stayed with family, as I have relatives here. First we stayed with Auntie Vera, who is not my Auntie, but actually my Gran's identical twin sister. She regaled us with naughty jokes and more tea than you would have thought it was possible to drink.

Next up was a visit with Pete & Lorraine (Pete being Vera's son, my Dad's cousin and therefore my, er, well, who cares anyway?). We had a great time - wine, penguins, beer, koala's, you name it. Got to meet Donna's hubby Simon and baby Chelsea which was great. I spent a great deal of time under the bonnet poking at the VW's engine, and must thank Pete for his help. Unfortunately this was to no avail, and I am still laughing at Pete's ex-mechanic friend who arrived, cracked a stubby of VB, inclined his head and listened intently to the noise of our clattering machine. "Hmmm, that's rooted, mate" he offered, before wandering off in the direction of the fridge.

Still, the VW is an amazing beast, and we were able to drive (slowly) back to Sydney in 2 days on the highway. Mostly on 3 cylinders.

Bizarrely we were travelling back along said highway, when we saw a mass VW graveyard by the side of the road. We went off to investigate and found the most incredible field full of VW's slowly rusting away - Type I's, II's (including splitties with moss growing on them), notchbacks, squarebacks and more. All locked up and no-one home. A few questions to the locals and we discovered the owner is in Germany and return date unknown.

If that wasn’t enough of a slightly surreal moment we then passed through Holbrook. A rather nondescript rural town in up-country NSW, apart from the fact that it has a submarine parked by the side of the road. And this despite being many hundreds of kilometres from the coast.

After getting back to Sydney we made offerings to Tex-a-Co, the local God of the internal combustion engine, for our safe passage, and hotfooted down to the local VW specialists. $3000 poorer and we have a new engine and a big hole in our pockets.

There's a lot more to tell, but I need a rest. Next episode may possibly include: close encounters of the kangaroo kind; Sea Hunt; Oval ball excitement; VW shows and becoming a car nerd; St George's traditional curry night. How can you wait?

tara,
Seán