Sure, I'll taste your wine

Greetings,
We pick up our story at any one of hundreds of beautifully presented wineries in any one of dozens of wine making regions in South Australia.

“Would you like to try the pinot? It has excellent nose, with hints of blackberry, old tyre, and a cinnamon stick discovered at the bottom of a dirty-clothes basket.”
“Uh, sure. Give us a sip.”
Sniff. Swill. Chew. Examine. Tilt head. Raise eyebrow.
“Lovely, we’ll take six bottles”
“Very good sir”

The cellar door wine tasting ritual is a gentle dance of pretension, reverence, flourish and expectation, but one that we dance at almost every opportunity while in South Australia. Graz enjoys the dance, and so do I, but I have the slight feeling that I am being slightly conned every time. It’s not really a scam, it’s more like having Scarlet Johansson knock on your door collecting money for the Salvo’s, you tend to drop a bit more than you would normally be comfortable with, but you don’t really mind.

I understand that teasing wine aficionados is a bit easy, so I will stop now.
The small but perfectly formed wine region of Padthaway is where we see in the New Year, and after the crowds of people at Beachport, Robe and Kingston we were happy to find that the crowd at this van park consisted entirely of us, the obligatory permanent resident and the biggest kangaroo I have ever seen. So it wasn’t the craziest New Years Eve party ever, but we all enjoyed it.

Continuing west, the road we travel takes us beside the mighty Murray, and through the towns of Tailem Bend, Mannum and Murray Bridge. Despite the constant pressure it receives from irrigators and droughts the river at this point is grand and unhurried, easing along like an old gent in a Rolls Royce. House boats are big here, and it does look like a pretty cool holiday- cruising up the river with a few friends for a few days, and one that we will try to do in the future. The road winds its way towards the Adelaide hills and through the pretty little town of Birdwood, home to a cracking motor museum. I dig it and Graz does it, I cannot convince her of the beauty of the Lamborghini Miura but she does know a good Datsun 120Y when she sees one.

On the outskirts of Adelaide is the very pretty town/suburb of Hahndorf, which is German for “No, just sausage”. Zee Germans settled here 100 odd years ago and they obviously liked the old country because they have tried to replicate it in every way. Imagine for a moment the horror of hearing “oom-pah-pah, oom-pah-pah” every day of your life. It’s no wonder they like starting wars. The sausage is damn good though, as is the German beer, and the German bread, and the German cakes. From the beer-hall menu I wisely choose the platter of four different wursts, saukrout, some tasty mash-potato thing and a huge Kessler pork chop. Graz conservatively selects one of the few non-sausage dishes, some sort of roast pork, only to find it has been stuffed with the tasty little buggers. An absolute vegetarian’s nightmare. Best lunch ever.

I like Adelaide, Graz goes as far a saying she loves it. It is quite a nice city, with its abundant parks and parking, its nice old houses with price tags of only 6 digits, and it does have an excellent fresh food market in the centre of town, of the kind that every city in Australia should have but doesn’t. We wander the stalls tasting cheese at every opportunity. There is even a shop devoted entirely to mushrooms.

We have seen some rigs on our way around Australia, but none to compare with the behemoth that pulls in to our van park in Adelaide. It’s a huge modern double-decker tour bus, converted into a mobile house that could accommodate a dozen people without trouble but has only two occupants. In our little van we have to go for a walk outside if we want to get away from each other, they can just go downstairs. We are used to having rig-envy so it doesn’t bother us, but it is funny to see the owners of ‘regular’ Winnebagos and buses stare open-mouthed at this thing blocking out the sun.

South of Adelaide is the constantly mispronounced Fleurieu Peninsular, hence-forth referred to as the Perfler Peninsular, and it is here you will find Mclaren Vale and more excellent wineries. Sigh. A further 100 odd kilometres down the Perfler is Rapid Bay, a two maybe three horse-town tops, with a basic campsite right on a beautiful beach. You will need to look at a map to see what I am talking about but the bay sits on a point that sort of turns west, the effect being that despite the fact that it is at the bottom of South Australia the sea is to the north. Weird. We stay for a few days, do the odd bit of fishing, snorkelling, and generally laze about. It is a great spot that we eventually drag ourselves away from, and continue south towards Victor Harbour, which is where Adelaide comes to play. It’s like their version of the Gold Coast but without the chicks. Or the nice beach, or the nice weather. It’s not so much a sister-city as a retarded-brother-city.

We spend a couple of days catching up with some folks we had met way back in Tully in Qld, then get the hell out of there, never to return. We slip through Adelaide into the Barossa, another part of South Australia that has just started growing the odd grape. The Barossa town of Nuriootpa should just admit defeat and change its name to Nurioopta, because everyone not from there calls it that. That old tart Maggie Beer lives there and we drop by her house for a cup of coffee and some pâté. Actually, Maggie Beer’s Pheasant Farm is well worth a visit, if not for all the tasty pâtés and quince pastes then for the interesting collection of pheasants from around the world. I just re-read that sentence and I think I need to do more bloke-things.

The Clare Valley, (last one I promise) and more excellent wine, mostly Riesling this time. The highlight was the Jim Barry winery, not only for the excellent wine but for the fact that we were the only visitors that day so the accountant came out to serve us. She may have known plenty about amortisation and taxation law but she knew bugger-all about wine tasting, judging by the almost full glasses of wine she gives us to try. It made a nice change from the mouthful you normally receive but I had still to drive damn it and after three or four different wines I was having second thoughts. I don’t think they will let her out of the office near customers any more. Yeah, we bought some.

“Why don’t we stop in Port Augusta for the night?”
“Because Port Augusta is a toilet”
So we continue on to beautiful Whyalla…

Whyalla is actually a pleasant surprise, it is a dirty steel town, but the van park is right on the water and quite nice despite the fact that it is very hot. How hot? I have three beer showers during the day, that is, I stand under a cold shower drinking a beer. The tides here in the Eyre Peninsular are quite substantial and when the tide is out we walk out a kilometre or two out on the sand picking up blue swimmer crabs. They are an excellent animal, not just because they taste superb stir-fried with garlic and chilli, but because of their fighting qualities. This is how it goes. You walk through clear knee-deep water until you spot one nearby. You dash over to it and its first thought is to try to run away, but when that doesn’t work they stand and fight, extending their claws up and out in a manner that probably keeps the birds away but just makes us smile. If you are quick and careful you can distract them from the front while reaching around the back to pick them up and pop them in the bucket, or sometimes they just get the spear. One memorable big crab still has half a fish in one claw that he refuses to drop and continues to eat while he points his other claw at me. It was like fighting a fat kid. We are laughing so much we let him live.

Crayfishin'

Greetings,
The Great Ocean Road in the south of Victoria is indeed great, although I suspect it may be significantly greater in a Porsche than in a Nissan Patrol. Some other time perhaps. It leads to Lorne, which is a great thing for a road to do, and the Twelve Apostles, although unfortunately three of the apostles were not to be seen. One fell down a few months back and the other two just don’t exist. I suspect a cover-up. What other lies are we being told about our famous landmarks? This is a country that prides itself on literal place names. Won’t someone think of the children?

Port Fairy is a lovely old town, and would be home for a couple of days. We wander and Graz takes photos of the old houses she loves and I nod and say the right things. I also buy a kite from the town’s hippy kite merchant. He is loving talking to a new kite devotee, but he cools off somewhat when I deride the flame-juggling and flame-dancing antics of his fellow hippies.

It’s hot, and it just gets hotter as we continue westward into South Australia, so much so that we stop at a deserted beach for a swim. Amazingly, whilst I am inside the van changing the weather decides to change at that precise moment, and I emerge in my boardies to a temperature drop of about 15 degrees. So no swimming then.

Let’s play a little game, I will give you the answer to a question and you have to guess the question. Ready? Answer: Port Macdonnell. If you guessed that the question is “where is Australia’s worst public toilet?” then you are absolutely correct! The rest of Port Mac happily doesn’t confront the senses with the same heady mix of odours and insects, and is quite nice in its sleepy crayfish-town way. The crays aren’t for you and I however, unless you happen to live in Tokyo. Oh well, we have arranged a rendezvous in a few days with our friend Marty just down the road in Beachport, and he promises that we will be sick of crays by the time we leave…

Before cray-fest however, there is the small matter of Christmas, and ours would be spent in Mount Gambier, home of the famous Blue Lake (the people who named this lake could teach the 12 Apostles crew a thing or two). Mount Gambier is a surprisingly nice town with lovely old houses made from local limestone, and surprisingly cold. Our Christmas is spent huddled inside the van eating our Christmas treats as the wind and rain does its best to spoil things.

The Blue Lake is quite a marvel, and is apparently not blue from one of those blue toilet things, but is blue because of the temperature of the water and the dissolved limestone, or something like that. You aren’t allowed to swim in it so we will have to take their word for it. Nearby is the scarily named Devil’s Punchbowl, which turns out to be a large circular bowl-shaped depression in the hillside. What message are they sending with this so called “Devil’s Punchbowl”? The devil makes a lot of punch? The evil one has lots of friends over for drinks and nibbles? The nearby “Devil’s Jatz And Cubed Coon” only adds to the intrigue.

Up the road a way is Coonawarra, home of the fancy wine making soil ‘terra rossa’ (that’s red dirt to you and me), and it must have some effect because their red wines are pretty damn good. All the wineries are so accessible here that we (being poor travellers) have to limit the cellar doors we visit, mainly because I can’t not buy at least a couple of bottles at each place we visit. We grace Katnook Estate, Blok and Rymill with our custom, all of them excellent. The entrance to the Rymill cellar has a huge bronze sculpture of a couple of horses having a fight, and their bottle labels feature the same angry horses. It must be confusing for people who cannot read and just look at the picture on the bottle to judge its contents. The vineyards seem endless, kilometre after kilometre of perfect rows of prefect grapevines, so much so that we are surprised to learn that this region provides only 10 percent of South Australia’s wine production.

Back down the highway now to Beachport, and the aforementioned rendezvous with Marty, who normally spends Christmas holidays here with his family. His brother has a good boat and Marty takes me out scuba diving for crays, the first scuba diving I have done for about 20 years. Oh that’s right, my ears always give me grief when I dive, and this time is no exception, in fact they don’t come good for about a month afterwards. Inner Ear Barotrauma is my self-diagnosis (thank you internet). Coincidentally, Graz and I get on famously during the period where I can’t really hear very well.

Our dive in the extremely cold water yielded a total of bugger-all crayfish, although we did stumble over a cave with perhaps 30 or 40 Port Jackson sharks of various sizes piled in on top of each other. Marty bravely or foolishly pokes them with his gaff but they seem to be asleep. A few days later Marty dives alone and comes up with the goods, and the fresh crays are indeed excellent.

Apart from the good company, we are not really enjoying Beachport, mainly as the caravan park comes directly from the 9th circle of hell. It is jammed tightly with holidaying families who vie with each other to be the most obnoxious. The group close behind us has their tv loud enough for everyone to hear, and helpfully leave it on all day too, so now at least we have caught up on the goings on of The Bold And The Beautiful. The group next to us cheerfully tell us that they have been coming here every year for eight years. “On purpose?” is my choked response. The rest of the town is nice enough though. I turn 40. I feel old.

Later,
Brad and Graz

p.s. I should have asked earlier but if you would like to be removed from this mail or would like to be included please send Graz or I a note at grazgarrett@hotmail.com or bradreeson@gmail.com

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

Not much fishing, but...

Greetings,
And welcome back to the increasingly poorly named Fishing Tour Of Oz blog. Jeez, it’s been a while, and lots has happened. Warney, Sadam, Movember, and despite my slackness in updating this blog (sorry) things have still been happening in our little world too, just not much fishing.

I have read somewhere that residents of London are never more than 6 feet away from a rat at any given time, and I think the same thing happens here in Australia only with sharks. They have been a recurring theme, as we shall see.

We pick up our story on the Gold Coast, beautiful sunny day, nice waves, the Tugan beach all to ourselves, and Graz and I are frolicking like sea-otters. I catch a wave and on my way back out I see a large fin about 3 metres from where Graz is bobbing around in the water. I helpfully mention to her that there appears to be a shark behind her and that maybe we should head in to shore. She. Freaks. Out. I think her plan was to convince the shark that another shark had already attacked her and all the good stuff had been eaten already. Funny afterwards though.

We continue on our way to Byron Bay for a rendezvous with four of Graz’s girlfriends, Nessa, Janet, Petra and Michelle who had organised a spectacular house in the hinterland (Bangalow) for a few days. Good food, good wine, good bcompany, swimming in a shark-free pool, sleeping in a real bed, the only low point was the Swannies losing the grand final, and the fact that Byron is pretty touristy these days, eg. $6 to drive up to their lighthouse. Six bucks to see the outside of their stinkin lighthouse. You can’t even have a go of the big light switch.

The girls left for Sydney, and we moved back to the van. Oh well. Down the road a way is the very nice and peaceful Evans Head, and the meat tray I won at the bowlo was the metaphorical icing on the cake.


A few days later and we are in Yamba, which is like a miniature Byron without the bad bits. We are in town for a rendezvous with the Corr family, not the singing sisters but John, Cherry, Tim and Ellen. Yamba is lovely, as was the company. We reluctantly left the van and moved in to their beach-front apartment for a week of beer, golf, Uno, swimming and beer. The view from the apartment was sensational, except when the dolphins and whales were in the way. There were many highlights- learning to cheat at Uno, John and I jumping off the cliffs into the scary bottomless Blue-Pool, Ellen ripping it up in the surf, Tim ripping it up on the guitar, a game of golf amongst the kangaroos, and a memorable skim-boarding session that I am only now recovering from. All good.


You would think that the beach at Yamba sounds like quite a nice place for an aboriginal mission, compared to say Woomera, but they still trashed the place. It is kind of a shame really, especially as it is right on Rocky Laurie Drive, where John, Tim and I payed homage. We were very sorry to see them go, but the Corrs left for Sydney and we moved back to the van. Oh well.
Note to self: never go skim-boarding again.




Next stop, the farm for some of mum’s excellent cooking, then on to Hat Head, a sleepy little coastal town which I think pound-for-pound has the ugliest people in Australia. At the bowlo (no meat tray this time) I saw a woman who was the spitting image of my father, and he is not at all a feminine looking man. Also, Graz pulled a miniature person. He wasn’t a midget, he was just the size and shape of an 8 year old girl. And he was drunk. And stupid. I hope they are happy together.

Seal Rocks on the other hand, has no miniature people or scarily ugly women, just a couple of lovely beaches with some pretty good waves. One morning, when the waves had disappeared, I snorkelled off the point and found myself in the middle of a huge school of salmon. It was like crossing the road during the start of the City To Surf. Also, a sting-ray gave me the evil eye; those things have had such an attitude since the Steve Irwin thing.

We ducked back to Sydney for a few days, days that are to be honest a bit of an alcohol fuelled blur. It was great to catch up with everybody though, and we both really felt like ending our trip early and staying put, but no, we cranked up the rig and once again hit the road. We were rewarded almost immediately with a chance encounter with some sort of South Coast Low Rider ute club. It seems the kids these days like to take their Mazda Bravo ute and rip the suspension out so it drags low on the road. Cool. Oh, and put huge speakers in the back.

I’m sure I don’t need to tell you but a wombat is a pretty solid creature, at least the Kangaroo Valley specimen that used the steps of our van to scratch himself repeatedly certainly was. It was like an earthquake inside the van. Revenge was uppermost in our minds, but the standard method of leaving a flaming bag of dog poo on their doorstep did not seem to bother them at all, and we left, beaten. Our spirits low, we searched for something to lift the moral of the touring party. Two words; Speed Way. Or is that one? I hadn’t been to the speedway since I was kid and Graz had never been so when we saw that Nowra Speedway was running that night it was just too good to pass up. The fender benders were the best, particularly the bloke in the orange HQ Holden with the La Cucaracha horn, who would play it every time he bumped someone off the track. That song just never gets old. A sensational evening’s entertainment.

Narooma is great place, and on the day we passed through also had some pretty good waves, so out I go on the mal. Funny, I am the only bloke out there. These locals are pretty soft, I think to myself, until Graz’s frantic wave from the shore brings me in to the news I wasn’t exactly alone out the back. Yep, more sharks.

Sociable people that we are, we head towards Bermagui for a rendezvous with our friends Ross and Barb who have a lovely little farm just out from Bermi (as we call it now) on the road to Cobargo. Barb spoiled us with her sensational cooking and Rosco showed us how to play darts and even let me mow the lawn with his ride-on mower. I couldn’t find the horn. Later, all of us head back up the coast to Nowra for a weekend of dirt biking with Keels, Tex and Jools. An absolute cracker of a weekend, that only took about 2 weeks to recover from. I'm sure this stuff used to be easier...

end of part 1.

Remember, you can view the whole blog (including the pictures if you don't see them in the email) at http://fishingtourofoz.blogspot.com

later,
Brad & Graz

Fraser

Greetings,
Today’s blog is brought to you by the letters P, O and M, and by the number 78,000. This is the number of tonnes of tomatoes picked by pommy backpackers every year in the Bowen region. So remember kids, always wash your tomatoes.

As tempting as the job sounds, we do not join the army of tomato pickers. As my friend Chris would say, I would rather hit myself in the shins with a stick, so once again we pack up and hit the road, leaving behind Bowen’s beaches and peacocks. They are such a 70’s bird anyway, all skinny legs and paisley. Next stop, the rather lazily named town of 1770. If you haven’t heard of it yet you are the only one, because it is packed with people enjoying its not inconsequential charms. We arrive fairly late in the day and set up shop on the last remaining site in the caravan park. Excellent, a completely full caravan park. We are so close to our neighbours that Graz is kept awake by the snoring of the guy in the tent next to us. His snoring wasn’t that good though, and I reckon I could have taken him the following night but Graz didn’t want to stay for the showdown. You win this round sir, but one day…

Bundy! That’s what I thought too, but actually Bundaberg is not particularly exciting (nice though) and from its appearance the Bundy rum distillery could have been a fertiliser factory. I think that I was expecting some sort of Willy Wonka type place, but with utes and blokes fighting. Alas, no. We are on our way down the coast to meet Graz’s parents at Hervey Bay before heading to Fraser Island for a few days.

Fraser is quite frankly sensational. Not in a shiny, amusement park sort of way but in a subtle, calm nature-y way. Everything about it we found enjoyable, particularly the sensational lakes - if it isn’t already, a swim in Lake McKenzie should be on your list of things to do before you die. The beaches, the fishing (tailor, dart, a shovel-nose shark for Graz…what is it with her and sharks?), the dingos, it is all good. We got closer to a pod of dolphins than we had ever been, and it was from inside a car. Speaking of cars, never buy a second-hand Landcruiser Troopy from the Hervey Bay area, those things take quite a beating. The tomato pickers save up all their money, pile 11 of them into the rented troopy, and drive into the ocean.

Fraser Island is also quite popular with the whales, and on our return to Hervey Bay we join a whale-watching cruise and whale-watch. Again, sensational. The highlight of the day was probably the young whale learning to breech like his bigger family members. He got it right a few times, but even his failed attempts were pretty cool. I took a few shots (camera, not harpoon) that are going straight to the pool room.

Keeping the nature theme going, upon leaving Hervey Bay Graz and I eschew (that’s a big word isn’t it) the coast and its van parks and camp on top of a hill in a pine forest. The inland route also brings us past Steve Irwin’s zoo, which is still covered with flowers and cards and such. Quite sad really. Nearby is the excellently named town of Beerwah, so we stop for a beer at the also excellently named Beerwah Hotel, Beerwah Road, Beerwah. It is what Steve would have wanted.

later,
brad and graz

c'mon, you know you want to write to us:
bradreeson@gmail.com or grazgarrett@hotmail.com

Rain

Greetings,
It knows how to rain in Tully. There is nothing you can teach it about rain, you kids with your so called heavy rain, pah. The yearly record is 7.9m (which is the same height as the Big Gum Boot in town, coincidence?) which is by any measure, an awful lot of rain. The rain that fell on us over our last few days in Tully was not quite in the boot league, but it was still pretty impressive. The van sprung a couple of leaks during the heaviest part but all in all we faired pretty well.

Just as we were beginning to fear that the rain might never stop the sun eventually returned and the waters quickly receded from around us, which was good because we still had a couple of things to do here before we left Tully. One was to get a photo of the gnomes.A lot of the (old) folk who stay in van parks like to add some home comforts to their vans, welcome mats, herb gardens, etc, but our favourite is the gnome family. There is a basic rule in camping that any item you lug around should have more than one use, however the gnomes alternate uses escape me. Perhaps you can chuck them at the curlews when they are particularly annoying. Curlews are a brownish, greyish, non descript little bird with spindly legs that spend a a lot of time running around calling to each other in the middle of the night. The reason you might want to hurl gnomes at them is their mating cry sounds a lot like a woman being murdered, or if not murdered, at least poked with something hot or sharp.

Another thing I wanted to do before we left was to climb Tully’s Mt Tyson, an expedition I would bravely attempt solo. Drag my fat sweaty carcass up a hill while Graz sunbakes is a more accurate but less romantic description. I took a photo of myself at the top to indicate how fat and sweaty I was. Nice view from the top though.

Another clear day saw us (both of us this time) going for a drive up to Tyson Falls, via a road that was closed apparently. We took the ‘road closed’ signs as more of a challenge than a firm directive and ploughed on up the steep windy road. It probably sounds all macho and 4x4 but it was in fact a nice drive, even with the enormous potholes and the odd tree branch over the road. We didn’t quite get to the falls, but after about 3 hours of driving without seeing another car (we did see one guy hiking) we reached a nice river to stop for lunch. While I was walking the river bank I found a discarded fishing rod with Simpsons characters painted on the sides. As usual.

Apparently all good things must come to an end, so we packed our car and van, said our goodbyes and headed north from Tully. We would be returning to Cairns, again. Our friends Chris and Emma from Singapore would be there with a bunch of other people we knew for a Punters Club trip to the yearly Cairns Race Day. It was great to see them again, and the day at the races was a cracker, although I don’t think many people in attendance cared about the horses, it was more of a drinking event. Lots of drunken ugly people dressed in ill fitting clothes mingling with a handful of pretty girls wearing dresses that fit them. It reminded me of Graz and I. Later on Chris would introduce us to Jager Bombs (a drink), thanks Chris.

It was not all alcohol and flesh in Cairns, we also joined the punters club crew for a snorkelling trip out to the reef, which was a sensational day swimming around looking at coral and fish and turtles. Graz and I saw a couple of pretty good sharks, but it was ok, our wetsuits were hired ones...

Leaving Cairns (again) we headed south (again) for our next rendezvous which would be Fraser Island with Graz’s parents. On the way down we thought we would give Bowen one more chance and it turns out that it is quite a nice place. All the good stuff is just hidden from casual view. Away from the town itself, which remains pretty dull, there is a rocky coastline with plenty of sheltered bays and sandy beaches, and a caravan park that has peacocks running about (one took a liking to Graz). Bowen also boasts a more ‘european’ beach, which we enjoyed. Our friend Marty would have been proud...


later,
brad and graz.

also, thanks for writing to us, grazgarrett@hotmail.com or bradreeson@gmail.com

Hamilton

Greetings,
Chips. The world loves chips. If it doesn't come with chips you are not eating a meal, you are just fooling about. Chips, you complete me. Even
armed with this knowledge Graz is somewhat taken aback to find her thai green curry from the local Tully Heads restaurant comes served with the yellow sticks of happiness. Foolish woman. Next she will be complaining about the cask moselle, which like the grey nomads seems to have migrated north for its final years.

Tully Heads is still our home, and despite what my preamble might suggest we
are enjoying it. The elderly faces are starting to take on recognisable
characteristics, so we can say "g'day Bob" or "evening Pearl" with some
confidence that that is indeed their name, and we are enjoying the company
of our new friends Alan and Carlene and Ken and Marlene. It is tempting to
stay put and constantly feel young but we have a date to meet some old/young
friends Phil and Sheree on Hamilton Island, they being there for some
mucking about with yachts, so down the coast we head, sans caravan, for a
couple of days.


It is great to see friends again, and to be honest, young people. And it is not just me who is struck (figuratively) by all the bare flesh and beautiful
people around - Graz returns from a trip to the chemist all flushed from the encounter. You know how these pretty-boy chemists are.

Phil has kindly wrangled us a spot on the 50' yacht he and Sheree are on for the big Whitehaven Beach Party, which is a great day.

Picture a normally deserted pristine white sandy beach in the middle of the whitsundays. Now
picture it with hundreds of yachts moored off it and thousands of revellers getting drunker and pinker on it. There is the usual horde of poms but we have a great time anyway. Graz even climbs the mast in the bosuns chair.

The following day we sadly bid farewell to Phil and Sheree and head back up the coast, stopping for lunch at what I think is the only reason to visit Bowen, namely the fish shop. Damned good home made fish cakes. Later that night we receive word via drunken text that Phil's boat has won its race and they are into their seventh bottle of Moet. As usual, our timing sucks.

The weather has started to improve to the extent that after a couple of days
we head off shore in the little tinny to chase some mackerel between the
islands. It takes us a while to locate Secret Spot (in between I catch a
huge suckerfish) but when we do it is all happening. Three big fish the
first day, six the second. The water is glassy and crystal clear, 28
degrees, no wind, and the only noise to be heard is the scream of the reel
as the fish makes another long run and the giggling of the two gibberers on board. Graz catches the biggest fish but it is a great day anyway... We only keep three fish but that still amounts to about 8 meals-worth for two. The remains are fed to the local pelicans.





But without a doubt the highlite of the week is the $2 glass of tawny port served in a coke glass at the weekly darts night. It was a good as you can imagine.

later,
brad and graz

ps. if you feel like it please write to us, grazgarrett@hotmail.com or bradreeson@gmail.com