Catching Up

Well, it's a perennial theme; sorry for being so slack at updating. We are going to give you a massive catch-up load of entries over the next few days. Bear with us.

VW Show/Easter

So then, Easter. We had a few options open, but decided to go for a new and exciting choice. A car show.

Having bought the VW, we thought maybe we should go the whole hog and see what VW obsessives do for Easter weekend. As it turns out, they drive their VW's to a big covered car park and show off. We decided to join the car nuts.

The show was due for Sunday, but a few souls gathered the night before to arrange stuff, drink and watch Herbie films. How could we resist?

Unfortunately for us, on the Saturday evening we stopped for petrol at our local garage. Not too dangerous an undertaking usually, but things went a bit wrong. Our suburb, Randwick, is home to Sydney's big posh racecourse, and Easter was race weekend. Many very pissed people were about on Saturday night, including one individual who managed to reverse his car at high speed into our bus while I was filling up. He then roared off into the night (with me running and screaming blue murder after him) leaving us with a badly dented bumper and severe forecourt rage.

After leaving a report with a policeman who clearly couldn't give a flying fcuk, we headed off. We had a great weekend of wine, pizza, and Herbie. There were lots of lovely people who really liked our bus and asked us questions about her. A lot of seriously beautiful VW's were present, and even Jo thought the whole thing worthwhile.

You can go here and click on '2006 VW Nationals Photos' to see what it was like. Sadly, our beautiful bus wasn't deemed worthy of anything more than being in the background. Philistines! Although the dents may have counted against us.


St. George's Day

23rd April comes around, and no-one remembers a thing. Apart, of course, from the ex-pat desperately clinging on to some bizarre idea of a barely existent cultural heritage. Hurrah for St. George!

We felt that the day should be marked in a suitably heart-felt patriotic manner. We swelled with pride as we took the only true path for the genuine Pom to celebrate such an event. Curry Night!

For those with a love of chillis and the food of the sub-continent, Australia is a cultural desert of epic proportions. A decent curry-house is a difficult to find thing. Bizarrely though, there are a good few specialist Indian shops doing spices and other stuff, so our choice was clear - if we can't go out for a good curry, then we will make it ourselves.

So, armed with a carrier bag or two full of herbs and spices, and a Cyrus Todiwala cook-book, we went to work. Hours later we were tired, but inviting our guests to enjoy home made onion bhajia, Goan prawn samosa, green fish curry, kangaroo kebabs, sag paneer, with pilau rice, roti's and paratha. Parsee-style bread-and-butter pudding for afters. Joy!

The suggested fancy-dress theme had died of death owing to late planning. Shame.

However, thanks to our guests and their generous beer offerings, we went to bed tired but bladdered, and with a fridge still half-full of beer.


Jervis Bay/Close Encounters of a Kangaroo Kind

A big diving weekend beckoned, and we got it at Jervis Bay. This was a Sydney Sub-Aqua Club excursion, and we had booked Aquatic Explorer for a couple of days of fun in the water.

Friday night and a convoy of people motored out of Sydney heading south. We waved as they passed us in the Kombi.

After a lovely Thai meal, we stocked up with beers and wine, and jumped into the inflatable taking us out to our aquatic home for the next two nights. Thanks to our hosts Lyn and Mick, we were made to feel welcome on board their obviously well-organised boat.

We had a fantastic weekend of diving, seeing a huge amount of underwater life, including grey nurse sharks, bull rays, lots of weedy sea dragons and many, many more. Thanks to Claire who was a more than able student, and the first ever person to qualify with me instructing. Yay!

Saturday night was a typical dive boat night, where we all understand it is of the utmost importance to get to bed early, relatively sober and ready for the diving activities early the next day. So, at 1a.m. I decided that as I could no longer see or walk properly it was time for bed. I think no-one noticed, apart from Nick, my late–night drinking buddy, but it’s possible that after the amount of rum he’d knocked back, maybe he didn’t either.

At the end of the weekend we were tired, recovering from hangovers and pleased with the diving we’d done. We unloaded the boat and bid adieu to our hosts. After loading the cars we headed off up the road.

5 km up the road I spotted a kangaroo on the side of the road. I knew that kangaroos were deadly beasts at night time, when they could run unpredictably across roads. Still, this was 3pm, and bright sunshine bathed the trees in a cheery glow.

No-one told the f*****g kangaroo, though, did they?

We approached, and Skippy started looking a bit twitchy. Fearing some ridiculous behaviour on his part I eased off the gas, and cruised to the opposite side of the road (no oncoming traffic green-cross-code-man fans). Skippy didn’t move. Skippy stayed still. Skippy waited until we were almost level. And the bugger hopped right into our path. No chance to move out of the way; we had a Skippy-sized dent in the front panel of the van, and one dead Skippy.

Bit of a downer for the weekend, and another big dent in our bank balance.

But, it’s not all bad, as you’ll see……