Festively Plump

Greetings,
If you are planning a trip around Australia, or indeed the world, I think I can safely say that Canberra would be close to the top of your must-see list. And of course, just under Canberra on your list, in an underlined sub-category, perhaps with an asterisk, would be Fyshwick. Actually, it was late and it sounded good in the brochure, but it was in fact a pretty feral caravan park. It is the first caravan park we have seen that has it’s own bar, and it doesn’t look like it gets many drop-ins, just surly looking permanent residents. Noice.

Just out of Canberra the drought turns up, with a vengeance. Thousands of acres of bare ground, with perhaps a sad looking lone sheep poking around for visual impact. In fact, we don’t see green pastures until Western Australia, but that is getting ahead of ourselves. We are heading for Jindabyne for a fish and a beer with my friend Graham, who in an excellent piece of luck is the licensee of the Lake Jindabyne Hotel. It is great to catch up with him and Monique, but the trout fishing is pretty quiet, even after walking for miles up the beautiful Thredbo River. Graz sees a big Brown snake though, so that’s nice. I can tell when she has seen a snake because she does this sort of break-dance move and sounds like one of the Three Stooges.

No snakes however on the walk up to Mount Kosciusko, I think the flies carried them away. What is up with flies? Up in the mountains? They are absolutely thick up there. What do they do for the rest of the time when a human isn’t strolling past? Play cards? There is nothing else there for a fly to be even slightly interested in. So when life is getting you down, just think that it could be worse, the highlight of your day could be some backpacker’s back-sweat.

Our loose itinerary was to head through the mountains into Victoria’s high country, but unfortunately it is on fire (I think it is still burning now) so we head towards the coast and Eden, a town with some good fishing apparently. On the day we choose to head out the bay is very smooth and the wind is barely a whisper. Something feels not quite right however, so we choose to not go out in the boat and instead fish from the wharf. Plenty of Port Jackson sharks (sharks again) are landed before a huge storm blows up in a matter of minutes, and the previously glassy bay is now a washing machine. The sea was angry that day my friends…

Just to change the subject somewhat, the bloke at the bottle-o had his Triumph Rocket III motorcycle parked out the front, all 2.3 litres of it. I know that the girls reading this are starting to nod off but for the boys but it was pretty damn cool.

Driving from Eden into Victoria, I am suddenly struck with terrible fatigue and overwhelming sleepiness, at least that is what the road signs tell me I am feeling. Approximately every 8 seconds I am reminded to stop and have a break otherwise I WILL DIE! – I don’t know how anybody gets anywhere in Victoria with all those damn hypnotic signs telling you that you’re getting sleepy. Fighting off the terrible sleeping sickness, the road takes us to Bemm River and a remote beach where we would find our mascot for the rest of the trip. I don’t know where He-Man came from before he washed up into our lives on that remote stretch of sand but I know where he is going – around Australia stuck on the front of a Nissan Patrol.

His first night with us is at the enthusiastically named Paradise Beach. Perhaps a better name for it would be Hot Smoky Fly-Infested Windy Beach. To be fair to Paradise Beach and indeed the whole stretch of Ninety Mile beach, it was pretty hot and smoky from the fires and on a good day it may well be paradise. But when we were there it sucked. In fact, the whole drive to Melbourne was pretty hot and smoky which is a shame because it is probably very nice when not on fire.

When you roll up with your van to a large city like Melbourne you can be pretty much assured that the caravan parks are not going to be in the absolute best suburbs, and so it turns out. Not that Coburg isn’t nice though, let’s see, it is handy to the airport, it has excellent coffee, and you can get a kebab 24 hours a day. Melbourne is Australia’s fashion capital apparently, and judging by what was on offer in Coburg the ladies this season will be wearing a full head-covering sack with some sort of letter box opening for the eyes. In basic black.

At this juncture, I abandon the whole caravan thing and jump on a plane up to Sydney for my mate Tony’s 40th birthday. It is great to see old friends, and it is a cracker of an evening, at least the parts I can remember. After some yum-cha with my old man the following morning I head back to Melbourne, just like some sort of jetsetter, and we get the hell out of Coburg and head for the Great Ocean Road.

Bells Beach. I should really have gone in for a surf, it’s Bells for goodness sake, but for some reason I figure the crowds will be a little thinner furthher down the road and so choose not to. Later that day we hear on the radio about a shark attack at, you guessed it, Bells. This being the week before Christmas and me being festively plump, I think I can safely say that I would have been the tastiest thing in the water that day. Travelling Bums 3, Sharks 0.

As always, we would love you to drop us a line, bradreeson@gmail.com or grazgarrett@hotmail.com and if you cannot see the pictures in this email please go to the website http://fishingtourofoz.blogspot.com

cheers,
brad & graz