2 Aussie Nomads

Does anybody know the collective noun for police officers? Flock? Legion? Force? Hmmm … well that’s not needed until the end of today’s post, so there’s plenty of time to solve that mystery.

In any case, today’s post is proudly brought to you by the Queensland Police Force.

Today started out a bit cooler than previous days. It was about 12 degrees and super foggy. Barb (my sister who lives in Melbourne, just in case you have started reading at the end of the trip and don’t have any of the context) had said that the Daylesford and Wallace countryside is “a bit English”, and I have to say that with the pea soup that surrounded us when we got up, it certainly felt that way.

Just as a quick refresher, this was yesterday …

… and this is today …

It had to happen eventually, and we had a good run of great weather so I’m not complaining.

Now I’m just going to put it right out there, but there are several things for which you should be very proud of me today.

The first reason that you should be proud of me is because I didn’t wake up during the night again last night. Yes, I know that is something that would bring great excitement if I was a 6 week old baby, but considering that I have a long history of waking at 3.00am and worrying about a million possible or impossible things that might – or might not – happen, sleeping through the night is a great achievement.

I will confess that it is partly due to being on holidays and not being stressed, and also partly due to some occasional pharmaceutical support. Exhaustion probably also contributed to last night’s sleep too.

In the interests of full disclosure, when I say that I didn’t wake last night I mean that I didn’t wake of my own accord. I was, however, woken.

MBW needed to get up in the middle of the night – I have no idea what time, but it was dark – and it was either her getting out of bed or getting back in that disrupted my sleep. In that state of semi-wake and semi-sleep, I lay there wondering if the fire was still burning and if I should get up and throw some more logs on it as I was instructed to do.

We have a saying in our house: “Don’t ask a question if you don’t want to know the answer.”

So I lay there wrestling with myself, wondering if I should ask MBW if she noticed the state of the fire, because the answer to that question could mean that I would need to get up, and I didn’t want to get up. So I didn’t ask and eventually fell back asleep.

Just to close out that story though – because I’d hate to have gone to the trouble of telling you all about my sleep and not telling you what happened to the fire – it was still glowing happily in the morning when we got up and it relit easily.

That was a rather lengthy and convoluted story now that I have re-read it, and I’m kinda sorry that I started it, but here is a picture of the fire glowing happily this morning just to complete the picture for you.

Just a quick digression from the story here … TOWS has the most beautiful vintage wooden floors and I couldn’t resist including a photo.

The second reason that you should be proud of me is because I have finally figured out the rocket.

Blinkers on the left, wipers on the right. It’s really not that hard!

Want to turn a corner? Left hand.

Want to wash the windscreen? Right hand.

Want to flash your headlights at some bogan that just cut you off? Left hand.

Want to turn on the wipers because it’s raining? Right hand.

Easy peasey, and I’m not really sure why I found it so difficult. A little bit of practice and you can achieve anything!

So we all got up this morning, had our ablutions and decided what remaining food in the refrigerator we were going to eat for breakfast, and what we were going to donate to my sister Barb – because I was pretty sure that trying to take a dozen eggs on the plane home would only end in tears.

I had toast – cooled down just the way I like it. MBW had cornflakes to use up some of the remaining milk, and Maddie had a toasted leftover chicken schnitzel, cheese, leftover bacon and BBQ sauce toastie because … actually I don’t know why. It certainly didn’t look like breakfast food to me, but what do I know?

I’ve never been a 19 year old girl so I have no idea what goes through her brain.

We gave TOWS a good clean, packed all our bags into the rocket, texted Trudi that we were leaving, set the GPS for Coburg, set the rocket to warp speed, and blasted off around 8.45am to head back to Melbourne.

Now you may recall that right back at the start of this post I talked about the fog. I think it was fog, but it was pretty heavy and thick and I needed to use the wipers – which I confidently turned on with my right hand 🙂

I’m trying to find a word to describe the trip from Wallace back to Melbourne, and the only word that keeps coming to mind is “scary”.

The fog just kept getting thicker and denser, and it was a bit hard to figure out where the fog ended and the rain started … but the wipers got a good workout all the way back to Coburg.

Barb and her family live in a pretty little street in Coburg, not far from the airport (15-20 minutes?) and with views of the city.

Other than the fog, it was an uneventful trip back and we got to Barb’s house at Coburg safely at around 10.15am, albeit it to an emerging crisis.

It turns out that the family cat was allowed out for some fresh air and foolishly went and climbed a tree, then couldn’t get back down again.

There it was, up in one of the highest and most fragile branches, crying sadly. As much as I don’t like cats, I confess I felt sorry for it.

Briefly.

There was some discussion about the appropriate course of action to get kitty back down from the tree, and I would have assumed that one simply called the fire brigade … although maybe that is only in movies.

At the time of writing this post I have absolutely no idea how that saga ended, and unless Barb posts a comment on this post, I guess that none of us will ever know! Bummer.

We had a final coffee at Barb’s house, repacked the rest of Maddie’s stuff into the rocket, set the GPS for Melbourne airport, and headed off for our final trip, with a small detour for more rocket fuel.

We dropped off the rocket at the Thrifty return area with 973km more on the speedometer than when we picked it up and headed into the airport, hoping that we had completed the appropriate forms to allow us to go back home to sunny Queensland.

Only a whole bunch of really boring and logistical stuff to report here: checked in for our flights, checked our baggage, went through the scanners, boarded the plane and headed for home.

We started the flight with a small child (2 years old?) sitting directly behind us screaming his lungs out, which is never a good sign for a happy trip, but fortunately they stuck a lollipop into his mouth and that kept him quiet.

The funniest thing that happened after we were seated was that a visually impaired lady with a white cane got on and took the window seat a few rows ahead of us. It seemed to me to be a waste of a good window seat although it could have been worse … she could have been the pilot!

It always amuses me on plane that people sit mute for the whole flight, completely ignoring everyone around them, but as soon as the plane starts to descend everyone suddenly wants to start sharing their life story with their neighbour. Have you noticed that?

Fortunately I already knew the life story of my neighbour (37 years of marriage will do that for you), so we just sat happily holding hands quietly 🙂

Now if you remember right back at the start of this post, I asked what the collective noun for police officers is?

When we got off the plane and into the arrivals area in Brisbane, there was a bevy (?) of police officers waiting to greet all of the newly arrived passengers from Melbourne to check their arrival status. Seriously, if you want to commit a major crime in Brisbane, just check the arrival time of any incoming flight from Melbourne or Sydney and you can be fairly safe in knowing that almost every able-bodied police officer is at the airport checking entry passes.

For some (like us) who had a valid entry pass and didn’t look suspicious in any way – unless you consider that a couple of older white people travelling with a 19yo black African girl is suspicious or unusual??? – the police checked one entry pass and asked “are you all travelling together?” – “yes officer” – and we were waved through with the instruction to collect our bags and head straight home.

For the poor unfortunate soul who was clearly unprepared for arrival into Queensland, the circular conversation between himself and the police officer (“no, that’s your boardING pass; I want to see your bordER pass”) was clearly not going to end well.

If he was truly unlucky, he may have even been chosen to be taken to a small room for a full body cavity search – but then I have a low tolerance for people that fail to plan ahead and believe that they deserve to be humiliated and punished. That’s why I always plan ahead.

And then there was the NZ dude who obviously had a border pass of some description so that he could come to Brisbane to work, but was clearly unaware of the need to home quarantine for 14 days. His sad face said it all … until he learned that not only would the police be checking that he had complied with home quarantine requirements, but that the carload of mates that were coming to pick him up at the airport would need to join him for 14 days … and he looked positively downcast.

Officer, put him and his mates down for the rectal probe too.

Anyhow, we collected our bags, and did the old car swap at the airport. Thanks to #1 son and #5 son for orchestrating the vehicle handover.

We (and I mean I) loaded up the bags, we all got into Elsie, and I turned on the blinker to indicate my intention to merge into the traffic – and the wipers came on!

Argh! I need to be retrained. Wipers on the LEFT, blinkers on the RIGHT! Why can’t we just have consistent rules here!!

Fortunately it was pouring rain so MBW probably just thinks I planned to turn the wipers on 🙂

Without any assistance from Google Maps, we drove ourselves home to start our 14 days in prison, with the only outings allowed to go and get 3 more COVID tests. Now that’s something to look forward to.

As some of you who have travelled with us before will know, the Project Manager in me has to do a “lessons learned” at the end of every trip, so these are the learnings from this trip:

• In Victoria it is hard to tell where heavy fog ends, and rain starts
• It doesn’t matter what you pack and wear in Victoria, at some point in your day you are likely to be disappointed with your choice
• It is impossible to dress appropriately for a trip from Melbourne to Brisbane and be suitably dressed for both ends of the journey – you will either be cold at one end and right at the other, or right at one end and hot at the other
• The rocket keeps telling me what to do, including a flashing sign that says “slow down you are going too fast”, and another warning sign that I never actually figured out what I did wrong to trigger it – and now I’ll NEVER know. It almost felt like being married 🙁
• Victorian freeways have a feeling just like driving on American interstates
• It seems that Dan Andrews is unlikely to ever win a popularity contest. Some people just plain don’t like him, and others seem to want quite specific harm to come to him. I’m sure he doesn’t deserve it
• Daylight saving messes with your head when it doesn’t get dark until about 9.00pm each night
• 19 year old girls spend a lot (A LOT) of time on their mobile phone
• Being around Daylesford west of Melbourne really is like being in the English countryside
• Constantly being asked to show your vaccination certificate is uncomfortable for everyone, so just play nice, have it ready and show it when you are asked
• Despite the obvious health benefits of eating peas and cooked carrots, I’m clearly never going to eat them at home any time into the future. (If you invite me for dinner, can we have peas and carrots please?)
• Nobody likes Turkish delight
• If toast is cooked too early before we actually sit down for breakfast, nobody is happy (well, I’m OK with it)
• 19 year old girls seem to be able to have 17 simultaneous WhatsApp conversations with people across the world and keep track of every single one (which frankly just blows my mind, because I have trouble following along with one conversation with someone in the same room)
• When you fly Jetstar, it is a safe bet that your boarding gate will be about as far as possible from the airport car park, with the maximum number of obstacles in the way of you getting there quickly and efficiently
• It doesn’t matter if you go on holidays and forget to pack a toothbrush, underwear or medications – you can learn to live without them. Don’t leave home without Google Maps!!!

I’d love to keep this blog going so that I can give you an update on home quarantine, who we eat first if we run out of food, future COVID tests, or whether Barb ever got kitty down out of the tree … but as none of you have come forward to donate any of your annual leave credits, sadly I need to go back to work 🙁

That’s about it for this trip. Thanks for following along.

… now I wonder what happened with that cat?

Ciao

#BringMaddieHome2021

#MaddieIsHome

I think I like being on holidays more than I like being at work. Driving around and seeing stuff is much more interesting and satisfying for me that going to work every day.

So if you feel inclined to donate some of your annual leave so that I can spend more time on holidays and blogging, I’m OK with that. Just putting it out there.

For those of you that have travelled with us before – vicariously, I mean – you would know that I sometimes use the first line of a song as the title of the post. If I was to choose a song for this post, there are two standouts that spring to mind:

• I’m coming home, I’ve done my time … “Tie a Yellow Ribbon” (Tony Orlando & Dawn), or
• Blue skies, smiling at me – “Blue Skies” (Willy Nelson)

The forecast for Wallace while we were here was cold and wet, with highs around 12 or 13 degrees each day.

What actually happened was that we packed and dressed for cold weather but got days with highs in the mid-20s, and something between cloudy and blue skies.

Today was a blue skies kinda day.

Before I tell you about today, I’m going to rewind to last night. We had planned an early night because 11 hours in the car and about 600km on the road and we were pretty wiped out. We had stopped in Ballarat on the way home and picked up some Indian food for dinner, and by the time we had finished that and done the blog it was getting pretty late (10.00pm, which I acknowledge is really only 9.00pm).

But we had one really important job to do: we needed to apply for our Queensland Entry passes. MBW and I needed to get ours done, but we couldn’t do Maddie’s until today (Wednesday) if we were able to faithfully say that she hadn’t been overseas for 14 days.

So MBW and I went through the incredibly torturous process of applying for our passes and attaching all manner of documentary evidence, and at the end of that process we received an ambiguous message that seemed to indicate that we could be waiting for up to 3 days to get our approval … which could be a problem because – at that time – we were leaving in 2 days.

But the lovely Anastasia P must have a legion of peeps frantically reviewing applications, even at 10.30pm at night, and we got our approvals about 10 minutes later.

All of which made it easy to put my head on the pillow and slip into a coma.

I woke this morning to find the fireplace stone cold again today, ironically for the same reasons as yesterday. If you don’t know why it was cold on Tuesday morning you will need to go back to yesterday’s post and catch-up. I don’t have the time to tell that story again.

Sadly despite yesterday morning’s success at getting the fireplace lit, today was a dismal failure. I simply could not get it started, so I gave up. My kingdom for some accelerant.

My inner pyromaniac could not be reached 🙁

At breakfast we acknowledged that our #1 job was to get Maddie’s Queensland Entry Pass application into the system, because we are acutely aware that her application can be best summed up by the Seasame Street crew when they sing “One of these things is not like the others, One of these things is not quite the same …”

Maddie’s ID is not a Medicare card, but a Zimbabwe passport. Maddie’s proof of vaccination is not AZ or Pfizer, but some other (albeit internationally approved) version that you get in Zimbabwe.

A whole lot of things that might cause an above-average Entry Pass giver reason to look a bit closer and maybe ask their supervisor for advice. And we are flying tomorrow.

We had breakfast and set to work using our combined intellect to submit Maddie’s application and hope for the best.

So once that important job was completed and the “Submit” button clicked, we busied ourselves getting ready for today’s outing – a day trip to Daylesford and surrounds as advised but our tourist guide, my sister Barb.

Now I’m just going to digress for a few moments. I feel like I’d like to say that I am the epitome of a hen-pecked husband, but MBW told me I’m not allowed to say that because it makes her look bad, and that if I was to say things like that about her she will be very disappointed with me. So I won’t say it.

What I will say is that there are some things that I like to eat – peas, cooked carrots – but because “Mama don’t like peas and carrots, nobody gets peas and carrots for dinner” in our house.

Apparently Maddie doesn’t like peas and carrots either, so they are kindred spirits.

MBW doesn’t like her toast at breakfast to go cold before she butters it, whereas I don’t really care.

Apparently Maddie doesn’t like her toast to go cold before she butters it either … and so it goes.

If the Seasame Street crew were here at breakfast, they’d be singing “One of these things is not like the others …” and they’d be singing about me!!

Anyhow, back to the story. Here is a quick recap in case you are lost: No fire, breakfast, Maddie’s Queensland Entry Pass application, hot toast, dishes, sunny skies, wish I’d brought shorts, Daylesford. OK?

As we were in the final stages of getting ready to get away for today’s drive, I recalled that TOWS where we were staying has been a number of things in the past, including a bank. In an irony for the morning, I noticed that there are bars on the window, which just gave me a funny and ironic feeling like I am in jail, which I almost will be for the next 14 days of home quarantine.

The other irony in all of this is that I could have chosen “Tie a Yellow Ribbon” for today’s post. Spooky.

We got all of our stuff ready to put into the rocket, and my phone went “bing” for an incoming email, and Maddie’s approved entry pass had arrived. Nothing stopping us now from flying home tomorrow Thursday!! Yay!!

We all climbed onto … er, into the rocket, set the GPS for Daylesford, set Spotify to a “Positive Vibes” playlist (we couldn’t find a “Daytrip to Daylesford” playlist), set the aircon to cool, and I looked for a setting to set the rocket to “a pleasant drive in the country so that I can enjoy the view rather than go flat out”, but couldn’t find one.

There are such pretty drives around this beautiful part of the world that you just want to slow down and enjoy it. As a wise person once said, “it’s the journey, not the destination” and that is certainly true.

I need to tell you a little bit about the rocket. I can’t decide whether I like it or not, but I’m pretty sure that I wouldn’t buy one.

It has this bad flat spot way down in the low rev range, so when you are starting to take off in a tricky manoeuvre to get across oncoming traffic, you put your foot on the accelerator and nothing happens, other than this sense that the car is saying “do I really have to?”

So in a moment of near-panic when you think you are at risk of being T-Boned by an oncoming B-Double truck, you push the accelerator down harder and the turbo kicks in, and you get launched forward with an unexpected and unnecessary level of violence. Fuel economy plummets, the rocket surges forward, wheels spin, rubber is left on the road, and MBW gives me a disapproving sideways glance because I’m being irresponsible.

And Maddie is sitting in the back seat WhatsApping or listening to Spotify, completely oblivious to all that is happening in the world.

Even more bizzare, the turbo does the same thing when the rocket is in reverse. If you are backing uphill out of a parking space and you give it too much of a squirt, you find yourself launched backwards with the same unexpected and unnecessary violence.

Which is pretty scary.

I’ve also figured out why the lane assist is such an important feature. It’s not because anyone thinks that I am a bad driver with the concentration span of a banana. It’s something else entirely.

It’s all because the process of poking, touching, swiping, and navigating the touch-screen to simply adjust the air conditioning fan speed is so complex and time-consuming that you will inevitably be on the wrong side of the road lining yourself up for a head-on collision with a bus by the time you have it all figured out. So the lane control system is an important safety feature when you are adjusting the aircon.

On top of all the other warning bells, beeps and alerts, I’ve also discovered “Door open warning system” and a “wheels not straight” warning system. Hmmm.

So while it is fun to drive, I don’t think I’d buy one. Sorry MG 🙁

OK, so I know that you were not expecting a car review here on the blog, but it is just an extra service that I provide, and at no extra cost.

The first thing that MBW (and Maddie, of course) wanted to do in Daylesford was to go to the Amazing Mill Markets which is billed as a “collection of vintage clothes, vintage furniture, collectables, memorabilia … “ and so on.

When I say “Maddie, of course” I’m referring to the “one of these things is not like the others” discussion earlier, as trawling around somebody else’s junk … er memorabilia is something that I have a fairly low tolerance and enthusiasm for.

You will notice in one of the pictures below that I am wearing my mask while sitting with a gorilla – that was just because we were unable to socially distance.

We were “welcomed” at the entrance by a rather unfriendly woman who insisted on seeing our check-in and vaccination certificates (they do that quite a bit here in Melbourne) before allowing us to browse.

Despite that, we wandered around for an hour or so and left with only a bottle of fig and walnut jam – go figure!

Next stop was the town centre for a coffee and a wander around. Coffee at the Larder as recommended by Barb …

… followed by a wander up and down the Main Street going in and out of various homewares and craft shops on the way.

Somewhere along the line I found myself carrying this packet. I had no input into the selection of what is inside the bag and I don’t know what it is, but I suspect that it won’t be the healthiest thing that we eat today 🙁

Next stop was the Wombat Hill Botanical Gardens – another recommendation from Barb – and a great one too. Delightful gardens, all very green and lush and fragrant. Some of the trees – like the Douglas Pine – must be hundreds of years old.

One of the more interesting sculptures/statues in the gardens was this one below that looks like a child trying to pull a splinter out of his foot. On closer inspection I could see that it is called “Boy pulling a splinter out of his foot” – very imaginative!!

Even more interesting, it was very apparent that the boy was naked, which required some creative and careful photography to ensure that his boy bits were not in the photo. But it also caused me to wonder why he is walking around the gardens naked, and that he is lucky that he got the splinter in his foot because somewhere else would have been painful and unpleasant.

I forgot to confess that we all had a bit of a sleep-in this morning – MBW and I didn’t wake until 8.00am – but then it’s pretty easy to have the sleep of the dead when you don’t have to go to work the next day and you have possession of your Queensland Entry Pass.

So by the time we had done Daylesford we were ready to head back home to TOWS for a late lunch and a quiet afternoon.

We travelled through some very pretty countryside on the way home, but to be honest everything is very pretty out this way and I can understand why people live here.

We saw this rather unusual sign – well, unusual for us Queenslanders – warning about the risk of icy roads coming out of Daylesford. The last time that MBW and I saw a sign like that we were driving over the Smokey Mountains into Tennessee back in 2019.

By the time that we got back to Wallace, the clouds were rolling in and we were preparing ourselves for some rain … not entirely unexpected given that it has been forecast all week.

And to cap it all off, the “Positive Vibes” playlist gave us my song – “Rocket Man” sung by none other than Sir Elton himself – on the trip home. The perfect end to the perfect day.

We got home to find that Derby – the guy who runs TOWS with Trudi – had popped in and got the fire going where I had been unsuccessful. Now that the blog is done there is a good chance that I will lie down on the couch in front of the fire and let off a few ZZZs. I have a bit of a sleep debt that I’d like to try and repay.

It’s been a great day and a really relaxing few days in Victoria.

Tomorrow we head back to Coburg to collect Maddie’s remaining suitcases, load up the rocket one last time and head to Tullamarine Airport for our Jetstar flight home.

But that is tomorrow’s news 🙂

PS: Maddie has a disturbing trait that I hadn’t known until now. Despite MBW’s and my differences (refer peas and carrots etc), one of the things we strongly agree on is that Turkish Delight is a blight on the Favourites Box, and we have never understood how or why anyone would eat it.

We secretly hoped that Maddie would be a Turkish Delight lover, but alas, she has consumed most of the chocolates out of the bowl here, and it appears that she doesn’t like Turkish Delight either. Shame 🙁

Ciao

#BringMaddieHome2021

I sometimes fear that I am losing my short-term memory. I hate to even say it out aloud, but it’s starting to make me nervous 🙁

It’s all to do with this whole “blinkers and wipers on the wrong side of the steering wheel” thing that is going on with the rocket … er, the MG. I’ll talk more about that later when I get to that part of today’s story.

That’s if I haven’t forgotten, of course.

We met Trudi – the lady who runs The Old Wallace Shop B&B (which will henceforth be as “TOWS” to save me keystrokes) – and Derby her husband/partner/significant other/handyman last night when they popped in to stoke the fireplace, not realising that we were here.

OK, so I know that all probably sounds a bit weird, but one of the endearing things about this particular B&B was that Trudi is known to pop in and ensure that the fire is going and lights are on, and we really do appreciate it.

Anyhow we got to chatting and probably the last thing that she said before she raced off to salvage her (and Derby’s, I assume) dinner was that I should throw a couple of extra logs on the fire before I go to bed, and “if” – which I think meant “when” – I get up in the middle of the night, presumably to take a tinkle, I should throw a couple more logs on to keep it going all night.

I actually found it a bit presumptuous to think that just because I am not as young as I once was, that I have to get up ten times each night to have a tinkle and that it would be the perfect opportunity to stoke the fire.

In any case, I faithfully threw some logs on when I went to bed, but as providence would have it, once I closed my eyes they did not open again until about 6.00 am with no nocturnal tinkling required.

So I got up and checked the fireplace to find that it was stone motherless cold. Not even any glowing coals that could be used to kick-start it back to life.

So I got in touch with my inner pyromaniac, and with the help of several matches, half a box of those handy-dandy kerosene-smelling firestarters and the best part of a newspaper, I got it going again. By the time that I had achieved all of that, the girls had both showered and dressed, and MBW had started cooking breakfast (bacon and eggs and mushrooms – yum).

So I raced in for a quick shower and by the time I came out all dressed and beautiful, breakfast was on the table.

I joined the girls to an in-flight conversation where MBW was telling Maddie about how something “… can take a while to heat up …”, but that “once hot, it’s really hot.”

I obviously figured that she was talking about me, albeit an awkward conversation to be having with your 19yo niece … only to find out that MBW was actually talking about the frying pan and that is why the bacon was extra crispy this morning.

C’est la vie …

Breakfast, dishes, snacks packed and into the MG and we were ready … er, I was ready to head off to the Great Ocean Road for the day. While I waited out by the car for the girls to finish whatever it was that they were doing, I played a little game of “Where’s Wally” with the locals.

If you think about it, there was something quite ironic about playing “Where’s Wally” in Wallace. Or maybe that’s just my sense of humour??

I was keen to see how many of the elusive 187 Wallace-ians I could spot. There was a dude driving up the road in a tractor who got a wave – that’s one. There were a couple of ladies walking past TOWS – that’s 2 and 3. There were a couple of cars drove by – that’s 4 and 5.

And then there is Trudi and Derby – that’s 6 and 7. Only 180 to go …

It was a gloomy start to the day with clouds and a good chance of rain.

Anyhow, we were expecting a big day with almost 7 hours of driving expected, so rather than driving the obscure backroads we detoured via Ballarat – only 15 minutes up the road – to fuel up the rocket. Fuel around Wallace is almost 40c/litre dearer than in Ballarat, so it seemed like a wise investment to get fuel in the bog smoke.

It turns out that when I popped the fuel cap and read “minimum 95RON unleaded fuel only” – which is normally another 20c/litre on top of the cost of unleaded anyway – it was lucky that we did go into Ballarat.

It turns out that the MG really is a rocket, because it needs rocket fuel to run! I think that I’ll have to ask MBW to refer to me as “Rocket Man” from now on.

So right back at the start of this post I commented about my memory – do you remember?

While I know that my memory is getting bad, I was really pleased that when we departed from TOWS this morning I remembered that the blinker is on the left, and the wipers on the right. I was ever so pleased with myself 🙂

We got fuel and pulled onto the highway to head down to Lorne to start the GOR drive.

I realised that I should have washed the windscreen when I was in the servo, so I decided just to use the cars washers … so I flashed the headlights and turned on the blinkers before realising that the washers are on the other side 🙁 Bugger.

On the way south we passed this massive wind farm – I don’t think I’ve ever seen one like this before, and the wind turbines are just huge.

We made it to Lorne – our start for the GOR – at about 11.30 and had a walk around and a coffee to keep us going.

Once we left Lorne we were on the GOR heading west towards Adelaide, and the views from the stopping points were simply amazing.

If you squint, you can possibly see Antarctica!!

The GOR is one of those things that we have always wanted to see, and we drove some spectacular roads with ever-changing scenery…

We stopped for a quick lunch at Melba Gully, a nondescript little park cleverly disguised as a nondescript little park.

After fuelling up our bodies, we headed towards the 12 Apostles – a breathtakingly beautiful site that simply cannot be captured in photographs.

From the 12 Apostles we went on to see Loch Ard George …

… the Arch …

… London Bridge …

… the Grotto …

… and then finally the Bay of Islands.

All spectacular scenery and something that we can now cross offer our bucket list.

It was a huge day, and this is what it looked like:

Now some of you may have been following on since the start of our trip (#BringMaddieHome2021) and if you read the previous post you will recall that yesterday I stopped being a COVID test virgin, with that bad woman at Ballarat taking my innocence with a 20 foot pole and a cotton bud at the end.

Well, it seems that every cloud has a silver lining, and this afternoon I received the wonderful news that I tested NEGATIVE, so I am (well, should be) allowed to return home and spend two weeks in home quarantine with a couple of my favourite people in the whole world!!!

So that about wraps it up. There are so many other things that I could tell you but we spent 11 hours in the car and I’m starting to feel very weary, and ready for bed.

Tomorrow is a drive up around Daylesford and back into Ballarat, but the forecast for tomorrow is looking very wet … so I might start the day with a sleep in.

Ciao

#BringMaddieHome2021

Thanks for coming back for day #2. I really do appreciate it considering that day #1 was little more than sitting on a Jetstar flight and watching a movie.

Day #2 and here we are in Victoria!

We started the day at Barb’s house in Coburg with our final destination for the day being Wallace – about 100km (or 1 hour by MG) west of Melbourne. West of Melbourne – remember that …

So we had a quick breakfast and coffee, loaded up the car with suitcases, and pulled away from Barb’s house and headed … east.

Barb had not only looked after Maddie for one night that turned into 12 nights, but when we left she provided us with a travel pack (chips, Tim Tams, chocolate, fruit, and sandwiches) and sent us on our way. Enough food that we wouldn’t need to come back for several days … hmmm, maybe that was the plan? 🙂

First stop for the day was the Brighton Beach Boxes – one of those things that we have always wanted to see but never had the opportunity.

Unfortunately the route to get from Coburg necessitated all of those pesky things that we had managed to avoid up until then – driving through the city centre, navigating multiple tram tracks, and being forced to do one of those crazy hook turns where you turn right through the red light from the far left hand side of the intersection.

What psychopath came up with that idea?

And of course, all of this with the windscreen wipers going flat out because some other psychopath installed the wiper controls and the indicator controls the wrong way around!

When we were planning the trip (admittedly only a few days ago), the forecast for Melbourne was a high of about 14 degrees and rain. When we got here we had a high of about 22 degrees and blue skies … but that’s Melbourne.

After visiting the beach, we got back on the road and crossed the Westgate Bridge and headed west towards Ballarat, with a quick stop for lunch and coffee.

Fortunately Wallace (home for tonight) was on the way to Ballarat with only a minor detour off the highway, so we located our Airbnb, got back on the freeway and headed into Ballarat for a couple of very important tasks.

Task #1 was to pick up some additional groceries for the next few days. We found a Woolworths, checked in and did a quick shop.

Task #2 was to get a COVID test – a mandatory requirement before being allowed to check-in for our return flight and request a Queensland border pass.

I have to say – and I say this very sincerely – that having a COVID test would be one of the most unpleasant experiences of my life! Having a cotton-tipped swab shoved into the back of my throat gave me a false expectation that maybe it would all be OK, but then having the other end shoved so far up my nose that it almost touched my brain was truly unpleasant.

And the best part? When we get home and go into home quarantine for 14 days, the only reason that we are allowed out of the house is to get it done again. Three times more!!

Loaded up with groceries and with watering eyes, we headed back the 15km or so from Ballarat back to Wallace to check-in to our Airbnb.

Wallace is a delightful – and tiny – township with a population of 187.

We are staying at The Old Wallace Shop B&B, and it is a beautifully restored and comfortable building right on Bungaree-Wallace Road but – as you will see soon – there is no traffic noise because there is no traffic.

After unloading the car, checking in and possibly having more coffee, we went for a quick spin in the country to Buninyong and then back through Dunnstown.

Buninyong was another pretty little place with a curious chocolate shop that not only had absolutely no mechanism for checking in, but the patrons and shopkeeper were all mask less. When we went outside the shop we found that there was in fact a QR code for scanning, except that it contained links to websites where you can read all about how COVID vaccinations cause your DNA to change, cause you to become magnetic and sterile (and I don’t mean sterile in a “I’ve just sanitised my hands” kind of way), and possibly have a GPS tracker inserted so that Scott Morrison can personally track your every movement.

Interesting.

Dunnstown on the other hand was a “blink and you just missed it” kind of place, with absolutely nothing noteworthy except … except … actually, nothing noteworthy at all. But it was a very pretty little place in a very beautiful part of the world.

Home to Wallace, dinner, and I went for a quick walk down the road to have a look to see what there is to see and take some photos … and to burn off some of the coffee and Tim Tams 🙁

You can see from the above photo that the Bungaree-Wallace Road is pretty quiet. You may think that I had to wait for a break in the traffic, but to be completely honest I could have laid down on the road and had a nap and not been at any risk of being run over.

I had hoped that I may have bumped into one of the 187 locals here in Wallace, but I didn’t see a single one of them. In fact I saw more rabbits (hares??) hopping around the place than I saw people. In fact – and at the risk of overstating this fact – I didn’t see a single car or person in the whole time I was out walking.

Back to the Old Wallace Shop, coffee, chocolate, and I’m thinking about wrapping this up, having ablutions and heading off to the land of nod.

Tomorrow is planned to be a trip down towards the Great Ocean Road. I’m not sure how far we will get, but this time tomorrow you’ll be reading all about it, I guess.

Ciao

#BringMaddieHome2021

It’s a bit of a long story, but this was an impromptu trip taken at relatively short notice, and is subtitled “Operation Bring Maddie Home”.

Here is the backstory: MBW’s niece – Maddie – has permanent residency for Australia and is coming to live with us. The plan was that she would fly from Bulawayo Zimbabwe to Johannesburg, Johannesburg to Dohar, Dohar to Melbourne with a short stop-over at my sister’s house, then Melbourne to Brisbane. Then two weeks in hotel quarantine at the pleasure of the Premier of Queensland.

That was the plan, but as my friend Jack Reacher is known to say, a plan is only good until the first punch is thrown.

The “brief stop-over” in Melbourne became a bit of an epic journey with Maddie getting stuck in Melbourne for about a week and a half and subjected to multiple COVID tests, all while waiting for that elusive Queensland border pass.

In the end MBW and I decided that we would have a “mini-retirement” and go to Melbourne for several days to achieve a couple of things:

• Partly to give my long suffering sister and her family their lives back,
• Partly to get Maddie out of the house, and
• Partly to give us the chance of an unexpected roadtrip.

And you KNOW how much we love road trips.

So we booked our flights, booked a hire car – an MG SUV, and we booked an Airbnb at Wallace, out west of Melbourne towards Ballarat.

It’s been a while since we have flown anywhere – at least two years – and it all felt a bit new to us again.

I’d like to say that flying in a plane is a bit like riding on a bike, and that you never forget. OK so I know that the specific laws of physics that keep an aeroplane in the air are very different to the laws of physics that are essential in riding a bike … but I was speaking metaphorically. Possibly even philosophically.

In any case, we got to the airport and finally remembered the process for doing a bag drop and finding the gate, and eventually there we were waiting for our plane.

COVID is responsible for lots of things, and one of those things is that there are lots of police standing around waiting to intercept arriving passengers and ensure that they go to the appropriate home or hotel quarantine, as randomly interpreted by someone at the time.

And there they were – 4 or 5 boys (and girls) in blue all hanging around with enough guns, tasers, sprays and handcuffs to fight a small war. So I went over and spoke to them just to find out what we should expect when we return to Brisbane at the end of the week, only to be informed that they were “at the airport for an entirely different reason”.

Hmmm, sounds sinister.

It turns out that there were 4 or 5 of them at the airport – Gate 30 – to accompany a rather (as it turned out) unpleasant woman who was “being deported”, and ensure that she got on the plane. Once she was on the plane she became the problem of the Jetstar crew, and on arriving in Melbourne the Jetstar crew would then hand her over to – supposedly – a friend who would then take care of her from then on.

Fortunately or unfortunately she turned out to be sitting in the row in front of us, although thankfully on the other side of the aircraft. Listening to the cabin crew telling her their expectations of “behaving nicely” on the flight made interesting viewing, but other than that it was an uneventful flight.

Well, mostly uneventful. At one point during the flight we hit turbulence so bad that I thought we’d been shot out of the sky, and it was highly amusing watching the dude in front of us trying desperately to keep his half-glass of red wine inside his plastic cup where it belonged … and I think he was mostly successful.

We arrived at Melbourne around 6.20pm to bright sunshine, collected our checked bag and headed off to find the Thrifty car rental desk.

I had been harbouring a secret hope that the Thrifty peeps would get our car wrong and not give me an MG, but accidentally give me a Mercedes AMG … but alas that didn’t happen.

The MG is a fun little car with way too many options – “lane depart assist”, “rear crossover assist”, “parking assist”, “reversing assist”, “cruise control assist” … and so it goes on.

Despite too many options that just sound various warning alarms at various times, it appears that the people that built the car put the indicator stalk and the wiper stalk on the wrong sides of the steering column, so every time we go around a corner the wipers come on 🙁

We drove to my sister’s house at Coburg and managed to get there without colliding with a tram, without running over any pedestrians, without having to do one of those stupid hook turns in order to turn right from the left lane, and hopefully without getting any speeding tickets.

The MG has a 1.6 litre turbo-charged engine that I imagine is something like sitting in a rocket ship going into space. When you put your foot on the accelerator there is a whole lot of noise and rumbling but not much forward direction, and just when you think you are in trouble the turbo kicks in and you find yourself hurtling forward at a much greater speed than you anticipated.

It’s actually much like a Formula 1 car, except for the obvious differences – it can carry more than just the driver, it has boot space for suitcases, and you don’t need to wear a crash helmet.

By the magic of Daylight Saving Time we got to my sister’s house – after losing an hour of our lives – around 7.30pm which felt like 3.30 in the afternoon. A quick bite of dinner, coffee and a nice catch-up and we headed off to bed to let off some ZZZZZZs.

Let the road-trip begin first thing in the morning.

Ciao

#BringMaddieHome2021