From Mellow... to Mayhem!

It's Sunday morning, and we're going home today. Avalon Beach Retreat is a maelstrom of cases, bags, clothes, towels, shoes, and collection of tangled cables and miscellaneous chargers for cameras, DVD players and Mac. I've packed my hand luggage - which is the only thing that Mrs V insists that I do - so, in the interests of family harmony, I'm now keeping out of the way, tapping diligently at my keyboard.

We've got until 11 o' clock to vacate the house and - as it's now 5 past - I think we're a little behind schedule. Quelle surprise. Still, there's no sign of the landlord yet, so let's keep our heads and concentrate on the task at hand which is, I suppose, updating you on our exploits yesterday.

You'll be far from shocked to hear that, with the weather getting hotter by the day, there was nought for us to do but to hit the beach again. It was our last full day so we managed a relatively early start and installed ourselves on Palm Beach. It was pretty busy, it being a Saturday, but there was a very pleasant cosmopolitan atmosphere with a mix of young families, couples and groups of (well behaved) teenagers. I think I went on enough in my Boxing Day post about the stark differences between a day at the beach Oz style and its dirtier, louder and altogether less appealing alternative back home, so I won't labour the point much further, suffice to say that it was a nice, safe, chav-free environment that suited us just fine.

Tizer and I decided to dig a hole - well, I suppose it was mostly at my insistence rather than her's - but as my pit deepened she seemed suitably impressed and installed herself in it with glee. To be fair, this caused something of a sand-slide back into the hole, which I did my best to stem by digging around her, but I felt I was almost certainly fighting a losing battle.

We lunched on hot-dogs bought from 'Summer Bay' Surf Lifesaving Club. The sign outside actually said 'Summer Bay' - I assume it makes it easier for them when they're filming. The number of people all but queuing up to take photos of themselves in front of the sign astounded me. You will, no doubt, be proud to hear that I managed to resist the temptation myself.

After lunch all that was left to do was to make the most of our very last afternoon in Australia. It could have been a rather depressing and melancholy moment, but with the sun beating down from a cloudless sky, a gentle sea-breeze keeping us cool, children playing in the surf and Tizer destroying all the hard work I'd put into digging my hole, it would have seemed churlish to feel down. It's a truly beautiful spot, and so typically Aussie; I couldn't think of a better place to while away the last hours of our honeymoon.

Our last glimpse of beautiful Palm Beach

Come late afternoon we accepted that it was time to quit. We had the delightful Monica coming to sit for Tizer so that Mrs V and I could have our last night out together, so we needed to head back to get ready. We'd booked a table at Barrenjoey House, the restaurant we ate at on Christmas Eve, and if the delicious fish and mojitos we'd enjoyed on that occasion were anything to go by, we were in for a cracking dining experience to end our jolly hol.

Grown-ups showered and dressed in their finest (well, the finest we had left at this late stage in our trip) and Tizer bathed and pyjama-ed, Monica showed up bang on time. Tizer was very happy to see her again, charging towards her open arms shouting "Mony!". She's clearly made an impression, this lady. We'd booked ourselves a taxi to get us back up to Palm Beach and, as the house is set quite a way back from the main road and behind another bungalow, we went out onto the street to meet it. The allotted time for the cab came - and passed. We gave it 10 minutes, quarter of an hour, 20 minutes, then realised the awful truth: Taxis are a law unto themselves the world over and their reliability will only ever be surpassed by their cleanliness. It wasn't coming, and we were going to have to make alternate plans.

So, we headed back into Avalon and found ourselves at a little cafe/bistro type place on the corner of the crossroads in the centre of town. I ordered scallops and then salmon, as did Mrs V and, it must be said in all fairness, that this was the most appalling meal we'd had during our entire trip. Hell, this was possibly one of the worse meals we'd had in our adult lives - barring the odd and always unfortunate venture into a McDonalds (which in itself is something I choose to do about as readily as having root canal work). Over-cooked, over-garlicy rubbish. The wine was OK, but it wasn't particularly cold, and I'm really not the world's biggest fan of room temperature Sauvignon Blanc. This would have been a crying shame at the best of times, but on our last night it was a horrible disappointment.

We left, without bothering to be offended by desert or coffee and ensuring that we didn't leave a tip, and made our rather dejected way to the tapas restaurant that we'd had such a starkly contrasting evening in only two nights previous. Whilst we were in no mood for anymore food, we did have the energy for a mojito or two and that - combined with another pleasant chat with Charley and the barman - restored our faith in Avalon once again. By the time we made our way home to relieve Monica (who no doubt, by now, had taught Tizer the full Spanish text of 'Hamlet) we were feeling a little more chipper. After all, one has to be philosophical about these things, and one bad meal out of 60-odd can't really be sniffed at, can it? Just a shame it was our last night, that's all.

Tizer was away with the fairies and Monica was, once again, watching Spanish TV when we got back. We had a lovely long chat with her about Chile - which sounds like a fascinating country to visit - and she even gave is the card of a friend who runs a travel agency out there. So - watch this space for an upcoming Chilean blog, perhaps...

Well, still no sign of the landlord and his cleaning team, but by the looks of things we're very nearly packed (I say 'we', but as I've already pointed out, my input has been minimal to say the least). And so, it looks like it's home time, dear reader. The next blog I post will be from a much colder place on the other side of the planet, and the next proper bed I'll sleep in will be my own - in about 40 hours time. So long, Australia, and thanks for the time of our lives.

And relax...

With only two full days of our month long Hong Kong and Oz odyssey left to enjoy, we decided to take things easy, relax, laze, chill and make the most of the truly wonderful weather before returning the leaden skies and frigid drizzle of Blighty.

The grandest plan we had for the day was to head back up to Palm Beach and hire a boat (we'd seen a large sign alongside a jetty saying 'Boats For Hire' and had a sneeking suspicion that this might be the place to go), but when we got up there the salty sea-dog boat-hiring-fella regretted to inform us that he was boooked out for the day, so that was the end of that.

Instead, we bought some sarnies from a little waterside caff, then set up our deckchairs facing Pittwater to munch on them pensively whilst watching the seaplanes come and go. I mentioned the seaplanes in my post yesterday and, for those who've never seen one before, they're a wonderfully novel spectacle, very much redolent of 1930's 'noirish' thrillers. Once the planes land they plough their way over the water to tie up at the jetty; when the doors open you almost expect men in trilbies and sharp suits accompanied by women wearing even sharper suits and brandishing cigarette holders to step out.

They seem to come in and out every half hour or so, and watching them take off is great. Firstly, they plod out into the centre of Pittwater to get a decent run up. Then they slam the throttles on full, seemingly oblivious to the small sailing-dinghies and waterskiers in their path, and charge over the water towards the headland, finally taking to the air and ascending fast to avoid the lighthouse (but only just, by me reckoning). I like seaplanes; it's official. Everytime one came into land I delighted Mrs V (or, at least, I like to think I did) by shouting "The plane, boss, the plane!", although even I have to admit to tiring of it after a few hours.

Mrs V took Tizer off to do a little beachcombing and I settled back with a beer and my book - which has been barely touched this holiday due to our pretty frantic schedule. And for an hour, nothing disturbed me but a couple of seaplanes and a handful of rather persistent ants that insisted on biting at my feet, a hardship which I felt - under the circumstances, I could more-or-less live with.

The rest of the afternoon was spent being generally idle, so it only makes sense that by the time we got back to the house we were, of course, absolutely knackered (ain't it always the way?). We'd been on the go, pretty frenetically, for the best part of four weeks now, and I think this was the night where it all caught up with us. So, what else could we do but put Tizer to bed (she was out for the count too), order a curry from the place in Avalon, crack open a few beers and veg out on the sofa in front of a DVD.

Curry - average, but nice and spicy; beer - ice cold and Australian; DVD - 'Finding Nemo', which you can't really beat if you need to turn your brain off for a while. Actually, we've seen it a few times before, but we were struck on this occasion by the dentist's neice - the one for whom Nemo is intended as a gift - and her "Wake up little fishy!! Why won't you wake up?!" line. It reminded us of a certain, little someone in our life, but we couldn't quite recall who... If you haven't seen the film, do so soon. You'll like it.

"You know we belong together...

... you and I for ever and ever. No matter where you are, you're my guiding star". The lonely, the sad and the displaced amongst you will, no doubt, recognise the opening lines to the soap-opera behemoth that is 'Home and Away', the setting for which we found ourselves in today.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Palm Beach - the uber-affluent little town at the end of the Barrenjoey Peninsula where we dined on fish and mojitos on Christmas Eve - doubles as the fictional Summer Bay, home to the strangely popular tale of everyday Aussie folk. This far up the peninsula there's only a couple of hundred yards between the Pacific and Pittwater - a long swathe of golden sand being pounded by the ocean on the one side and a smaller beach facing calm water, yachts and seaplanes on the other. The beaches run parallel then culminate in a great hunk of rock which opens up like a hammer-head, about a quarter of a mile wide and a couple of hundred feet high, with a splendid 19th century lighthouse on top. And it was to this lighthouse that we were to venture today.

So, after an early lunch at a smashing street cafe in Avalon, we drove up to Palm Beach. The guidebook instructed us to park at the beach car park, about half a mile from the headland, and to prepare ourselves for a "400 meter beach walk, followed by a 600 meter hard climb". Hard climb, you say? In 80 degree heat, you say? Oh joy. Actually, it wasn't too bad, and it was slightly overcast which helped to keep the worse of the heat at bay. They were right about the hard climb though, and it was all the worse for Mrs V who elected to have Tizer on her back in the funky little 'toddler sling' we bought just for such an occasion.

It was quite a slow slog over some pretty rough ground and I started to wish that I'd brought some sturdier footwear with me. It was about this time that a teenage girl in flip-flops went striding past me (but not before casting me a worried kind of look the likes of which I'm pretty sure paramedics are trained not to use when dealing with patients suffering heart attacks) so I re-doubled my efforts, managing to stay a few steps behind her in an attempt to show what a fine state of health I was really in.

Finally reaching the top I quietly congratulated myself at being able to keep up with a skinny girl in flip-flops and awaited the rest of my little family, who had managed to lag behind somewhat. It wasn't long before Mrs V hove into view around the last bend in the path with Tizer clinging to her back like a shaved baby gorilla. I couldn't work out whether the look on my darling wife's face was that of grim determination to reach the top, pride at my ability to scale the headland so quickly or - possibly - something else. Hard to say really.

We all sank a considerable amount of luke-warm Evian in an attempt to re-hydrate then walked the last bit of track to the lighthouse and some wonderful panoramic views of the ocean, mainland New South Wales and the peninsula behind us. From this vantage point it felt more like being on an island than anything else, almost surround by water as we were. There was a refreshing and much appreciated breeze whipping around the top of the headland, so we lingered for a while to make the most of the view and recover our strength a bit.

The walk back down was hard on the knees, but was much less strenuous than the ascent. It was also great fun to pass red-faced tubs-of-lard on their way up, sweating, panting and asking desperately, "Are we far from the top?".

"Ooh, you've got quite a way to go - you're not even half way yet" I replied, with sadistic relish.

We were soon back at sea level again and, with understandable relief, Mrs V released Tizer from the sling so that she could toddle along the beach by herself. Time was against us - we actually had a babysitter booked so that Mrs V and I could go out for a meal together - but we still hadn't been on 'Summer Bay' beach, so we scooted over to the Pacific side of the peninsula for a stroll down the sand. It's a gorgeous beach, you can see why they like to put it on the telly five nights a week.

Tizer went for a paddle, but clearly wasn't aware that the 'surf was up' and got a drenching, the poor mite. Still, unlike Queensland, there are no box jellyfish in the sea around Sydney, so the worse she got was wet, rather than - well - dead.

Back at the car, there was a slightly unpleasant scene to be endured as we de-sanded a wet two year old who'd just half-walked, half-crawled across 400 yards of beach, but once she'd been stripped to her nappy and hosed down from a standpipe in the car park she quielty settled into her seat for the relatively short drive back to Avalon.

Our babysitter for the evening was Monica, who hails from Chile, and is an absolute delight. Tizer has been fortunate enough, over the past couple of years, to travel quite extensively and has had baby sitters from London to San Francisco and Las Vegas to Barbados, not to mention the spots we've already visited in Hong Kong and Oz so far on this trip, so she's pretty much used to the whole, varied experience. But Monica is head and shoulders above the rest and Tizer took to her instantly. She has a grown up daughter of her own and is much more the 'motherly' type than some other sitters we've had, and once she'd settled down with Tizer to read a bedtime book, our dear daughter barely lifted her head to say 'goodbye' as Mrs V and I headed into town.

We'd booked a table at a tapas restaurant in Avalon and, it must be said, this place was really quite a find. During the day Avalon is very much a streetside Cafe Society kind of town, with a slightly limited selection of places to dine out on an evening short of an Italian, a curry restaurant and - our choice this evening - The Different Drummer, all but hidden away above the shops on the old Barrenjoey Road. Everything was spot-on, from a smashing mojito at the quirky bar, to the wonderful service from the barman, our waitress and Charley, the thoroughly pleasant manager of the joint. And the food is top notch too, a really nice selection of well-cooked, tasty tapasy things: deep fried risotto balls, marinated lamb, spicy beef skewers and some particularly good patatas bravas. And we had a great bottle (or two?) of Rioja to go with it too.

The only downside was the flying cockroach that tried to get itself entangled in Mrs V's hair part way through the meal. I'm sure by now, dear reader, you're already aware of her absolute fear and loathing of these creatures, so I won't go into too many details of her reaction other than to say, it wasn't great. Charley the manager came over to apologise profusely, but we explained there really was no need; if you sit on a first floor balcony, in Australia, in the middle of summer, these things will happen from time-to-time. It really wasn't a reflection on the restaurant.

As Oz has the same (if not stricter) laws banning smoking indoors, we excused ourselves after finishing our tapas to go outside for a filthy ciggy. Charley looked around the - by now - mostly empty restaurant (which was understandable, it was pretty late on a mid-week night - either that or Mrs V's acrobatic display with the roach had scared 'em off). He told us to sit back down and brought us over an ash tray. What a nice fella. I know smoking is a dirty, smelly, unhealthy habit and I'm not promoting it in any way, I'm just pointing out that it was a nice touch on Charley's behalf and finished a wonderful evening off very nicely.

We returned to the house to find Monica watching a Spanish channel on TV (which makes sense - she is Chilean) and a peacefully sleeping Tizer in her room. Monica had had a lovely time with her, apparently, and was more than happy for us to re-book her for Saturday - our last night in Oz. We thanked her and sent her on her way then - mercifully - took to our bed rather than put me through the humiliation of another game of pool, thank god.

This morning Tizer got up and came into our room, as she often does, and we heard her singing one of her favourite ditties, 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star'. But there was something wrong - the words (such as she knows them) didn't sound right. Then Mrs V spotted it: "She's singing it in Spanish," she gasped. Clever girl, our Monica...

Boxing Day Beach Bums

Well, Christmas Day may not have brought is the blistering sunshine we'd hoped for, but today certainly made up for it. As the tabloids like to say when the temperature in Britain tops 80 degrees for more than two days in a row - 'Phew, What A Scorcher!' We were, perhaps, a little fuzzy-headed from the gluttony and alcohol abuse of the previous day, but were raring to go once we'd glanced outside at a blue and cloudless sky and realised that this was, most resolutely, beach weather!

So, we loaded towels, deck chairs (pilfered from the veranda), buckets, spades, a gallon of suncream and a handful of beers into the car and head off to find a nice beach somewhere (we're on a peninsula, remember, so you're never too far from the sea). But first we needed a picnic; it being Boxing Day we really should have been ramming the picked-over leftovers of the previous day's turkey between two slices of bread, but we'd gone traditional yesterday and needed something a little different today. We opted, instead, for a trip into Avalon where we bought some quiche, pastries, fruit and smoothies. Then we headed off in search of a beach.

We carried on along Avalon main street, which climbs up and over the spine of the peninsula, winding it's way up the wooded hillside past some pretty pricey looking real estate. Then, over the crest of the hill you're presented with stunning views of Pittwater (the calm, non-ocean side), dotted with yachts and motor boats and water-skiers. Driving down towards the water we found a beach-side car park at a place called Clareville, which looked pretty much what we were after. A long crescent of golden sand backed by a wide stretch of grass which seperated some even more expensive looking houses from the beach. It was pretty busy but we found ourselves a decent spot, set up our deck chairs and presented Tizer with her bucket and spade.

The vast majority of folk sharing the beach with us appeared to be local familes, and there was a really pleasant, sunny, 'British Bank Holiday' vibe to the place. I say 'British Bank Holiday' vibe - of course said vibe is based purely on distant, childhood memories of '70s beach holidays: the sun shining high in the sky, we'd play cricket on the beach, eat sandwiches with real sand in them (we didn't mind) and lap at fast-melting ice-cream cones with strawberry sauce and hundrends-and-thousands on top. Then we'd load ourselves into the car and drive home along free-flowing open roads, ultimately falling asleep on the back seat. If we were lucky, the next thing we'd know would be waking in our bed the following morning, our father having carried us in from the car without ever disturbing our slumber.

The cruel reality of Bank Holidays nowadays is, of course, starkly different where - on the off chance that it isn't sleeting - a trip to the beach involves dodging crowds of teenagers smashed on White Lightning, avoiding used condoms left partially buried in the sand and eating mystery meat products from condemnable fast-food stalls before spending the following three days stuck in a traffic jam, choking on the fumes of thousands of slowly overheating people carriers.

Thankfully, Clareville Beach was very much the model of my childhood holidays circa 1977. Children paddling in the sea, grandads snoozing on deck-chairs, picnics being picked at, sandcastles being built (then flattened). There was a compelling game of cricket in the offing which was steadily proving rather enthralling to watch. A family group of 12 or so were playing in the 'no team' tradtion of beach cricket whereby once the batsman's out he immediately becomes a fielder and one of the other fielders goes into bat in his place. One dad was acting as both captain and umpire, organising his fielders, deciding who came into bat next and passing final judgement on some pretty athletic appeals of 'Owzat?!?'. Sorry to go on, but it would never happen like this in England. We'd 'muck about', or cheat, or argue, or just get too damned drunk to play properly. This was proof postive that the Aussies take their cricket seriously and end up having a much better time for it. It probably also goes to explain why us Brits are so crap at sport by comparison.

I happily munched on my quiche, sipped my ice-cold beer, and thoroughly enjoyed the game. Some of them were very good, especially the younger lads - I swear I spotted a googly being bowled at one point. Mrs V and Tizer went for a paddle and left me in my deck-chair to soak up the sun, watch the cricket and generally wonder why everything is shit in Britain.

As the afternoon wore on the locals started to wander back to the beach houses behind us and spark up their barbecues, so we decided to pack up, head back to Avalon and do the same. Trekking back up the beach towards the car park, a deck-chair under each arm, the tightness of the day's sun, sand and sea on my forehead and the back of my neck, it struck me how much the whole experience took me back to the beach holidays we had in Cornwall when I was a kid. How come they can still maintain this care-free, family oriented lifestyle in Australia, whilst back home we're blighted with tracksuited, foul-mouthed chavs, cut-price Stella in plastic glasses, stereos pumping out distorted bass from the open windows of a pimped-up cars and an all pervading sense that something might 'kick-off' at any moment? It's all rather depressing when you think about it. So let's move on.

Back at the Beach Retreat, we showered, cracked open a bottle of white, swept up the day's cockroach carcasses and whacked some tucker on the barbie. Fair dinkum, if I didn't feel like a real Aussie! We flamed the steaks we'd picked up from the butchers in Avalon on Christmas Eve, along with a nice bit of pork and some corn. Mrs V - aware of her mysterious appeal to mosquitos - didn't want to eat outside, which seemed a shame, but we still had a slap-up meat-fest indoors with yet another outstanding bottle of local Shiraz. The evening was only really marred after Tizer was put to bed and I managed, once more, to play pool like a one-armed monkey, with Mrs V beating me back-to-back at another four or five games.

A splendid day, the likes of which you don't get all that many of in life. Tomorrow, we're going to visit a lighthouse and hangout with the guys from the Surf Club at Summer Bay.

So, Here It Is. Merry Christmas.

Seasons Greetings to you, one and all! Christmas Day is finally upon us, all the way down here in Oz, and what a wonderful day it's been.

It all started last night, really. Tizer was tucked up dreaming of whether reindeer really can fly, we were playing pool and sinking a little too much Shiraz again. Now, it had been our intention to get an early night in anticipation of Santa's arrival, but before we knew it midnight was upon us and it was suddenly Christmas Day! Emboldened by a mixture of Christmas spirit and red wine it seemed like rather a fun idea to text and 'phone all and sundry to wish them all the best that the season has to offer. Of course, it was only lunchtime on Christmas Eve back home, which I think confused one or two people, us included.

I'd downloaded some Christmassy tunes onto Mac, so we stuck these on (Fairlytale of New York, Merry Christmas Everybody and - of course - Merry Christmas Everyone from the one and only 'Shakey') and opened another bottle of wine. All very jolly, but for some reason I seemed to have forgotten how to play pool and Mrs V was trouncing me at game after game. Enough was enough, and bed was a-calling.

We awoke on Christmas morn proper to find Tizer still asleep - at 2 years old she's not yet quite giddy enough to wake us up at some god-awful hour telling us that Santa's been, though I'm sure she'll start with vigour next year. It was warm and sunny, odd for Christmas but far from unpleasant. We roused the recumbent Tizer who quietly accepted a round of toast, before starting to eye the handful of presents Santa Claus had left for her (clever bloke that Santa, finding us half way around the world like that).

In the interests of keeping the weight of our luggage down on our numerous flights, we'd had to put some thought into what presents we could get for Tizer that wouldn't involve us spending a small fortune on excess baggage charges. In fact, Mrs V and I had employed the same train of thought in our presents to each other, and it proved an interesting exercise in relative frugality at a time of year that's normally about over-spend and excess.

All the way from the North Pole, Santa brought Tizer a funky little electronic keyboard, an inflatable kangaroo called Karl, a couple of DVDs and a ballon-animal-making kit. See, all fiendishly lightweight, especially the inflatable items. She was delighted with her haul, bless her, hammering tunelessly at the keyboard and demanding that her mother make dog after mis-shapen dog with the modelling ballons, while all the time clutching Karl jealously under her arm.

Tizer warns Karl that this is going to hurt him an awful lot more than her...

I gave Mrs V a couple of games for her Nintendo DS which, whilst not particularly imaginative presents, were well received and appreciated. Mrs. V, clever girl that she is, got me tickets to see Micheal McIntyre (very funny stand-up) in February, which clearly showed that she'd employed much more thought than me. Wonderful idea though, really looking forward to it.

I played with Tizer whilst Mrs V prepped the turkey and slammed it in the oven, and we spent a thoroughly pleasant family Christmas morning together. Things were spoilt a little by Mrs V's insistence on beating me stupid at a couple of games of pool (I have no idea why on earth I'm suddenly playing so badly), but the emergence of a chilled bottle of white helped to ease my bruised ego.

Weather-wise, whilst dry and warm, it wasn't the wall-to-wall blazing sun, Christmas dinner on the beach affair we'd hoped for. Not that we minded - it was in low 70's, slightly cloudy, bit breezy. Had to be a hell of a lot better than what they were suffering with back home. Speaking of which, I got a 'phone call early in the afternoon from Ian, one of our chums back home. It was the early hours of Christmas morning for them, and as he was clearly blathered and I'd barely touched a drop, it was a strange old conversation and yet again one of those moments where you realise how far away from the UK you really are.

We'd planned for the turkey to be ready mid to late-afternoonish, so decided to go out for a walk to get our appetites up. Well, once out on the street, you could definitely tell it was Christmas Day: kids on new bikes, kids on new skateboards, kids on new roller blades and - this being Oz - hoards of kids with shiny new surfboards tucked under their arms heading for the beach. We followed them down that way, watched a few of them surf, then had a little stroll around the park behind the beach and checked out the kids flying their new kites. I'm sure Australian parents in other parts of the country still buy their children Playstations and X-Boxes for Christmas, but they sure as hell don't in Avalon. It was all very quaint and old-fashioned, and I rather liked it.

Returning to the Beach Retreat for our Christmas dinner we found the familiar scent of turkey and t'all t'trimmings (as we say in Yorkshire) wafting appetisingly around the house. And it was delicious. For Mrs V and I this our first such dinner together, without parents, great aunts etc. We even had a cracker each, which my mum had insisted on us taking away with us. And yes, we wore the hats. Equally cracking was the Penfolds Cabernet Sauvignon Bin something-or-other that we drank with dinner - it was a pricey wee number (and would have been even more so back home), but sooo worth it. It was getting dusk outside as we tucked into our Christmas pudding, and just to confuse ourselves I put BBC Radio 2 on over the internet. Well, it was 5am Christmas morning in Radio 2 Land and Roger Royal was playing 'Walking in the Air' as the UK woke up to a day we were already more than half way through. Bizarre; it felt a bit like having two Christmases...

After eating, rather than passing out on the sofa in front of the Bond movie (de rigeuer for many at this time of year) we called on my parents via the webcam. Once again, it being Christmas morning for them, it was like Christmas Day Part 2 for us. Later on my Aunty, cousin and her little boy showed up, all gathered around the webcam and we were able to raise a glass together with a toast to the season (and all that). Terribly clever this technology.

Once Tizer was in bed we cracked open another couple of superb reds, played a little more pool and generally had a truly wonderful night together, the sort of thing we'd never manage to do at Christmas at home. Before we retired we set the Mac up in the garden outside, poured another large glass of wine, lit a cig and called my parents on the webcam again. They'd just finished their lunch and joined us in a glass of wine, chatting away for a good hour or so until we pointed out that it was well into Boxing Day for us and we really should get some sleep.

But not before there was crash of shrubbery and swaying of branches in one of the trees which overhangs the garden. What the devil was it! Maybe the spider we found the other day was just a baby and now the big mamma spider was coming to get us! Peering tentatively up into the tree we saw - well - an animal. I guess there aren't too many times in one's life when one can see a hairy, four-legged, bright-eyed creature, about the size of a small dog, staring at you out of tree without actually being able to say "Oh, look, there's a...". But that's Australia for you. We had to check on the internet and discovered that our garden is home to a potaroo, a marsupial quite common to these parts. So we've called him Paul and have taken some photos of him. Here he is now:

Leaving Paul to his own devices, we carried on for another half hour chatting to my parents, then bid them ta-ta and squeezed in another game of pool before bed (and yes, I lost. Again). A cracking day, and possibly the longest Christmas Day I've ever had. Just a shame we can't do it like this every year.

'Twas The Night Before Chirstmas...

...and all through the house, nothing much was moving, mainly due to the large quantities of industrial strength bug spray that we've used liberally both inside and out earlier this afternoon.

Four cans of the stuff we've gone through, and it's mighty powerful. The indoor spray is to be used around the edges of walls, windows and doors and certainly has a pretty impressive effect on the cockroaches. Out they shoot from whichever nook or cranny they're hiding in, desperate to get away from the relentless campaign of gassing. Little do they know that it's already too late, and they seldom get more than two or three yards before they feel honour-bound to flip themselves onto their back and die slow, agonising and wiggly-legged deaths. Serves 'em right, little bastards.

They've been driving Mrs V to distraction, and whilst we spent most of the day out-and-about, her mood has suggested that the roaches have never been far from her mind. The outdoor spray - which I was in charge of, being the man of the house - is sprayed in a perimeter around the property. A proverbial line in the sand, so the instructions on the tin suggest, that will ne'er be crossed by any creepy-crawly - unless it's a particularly suicidal one. And it really seems to work too. A bug came tootling across my 'ring of steel' (as I'm now calling it), made it about a foot over, then quietly pitched over on it's back and died. Result.

You also need to spray around doors, windows and under window sills. This is fun. One sweep of the spray beneath the sill and all manner of wildlife falls out; roaches, beetles and some pretty sinister looking spiders (having referred back to our landlord's copy of 'The Ladybird Book of Spiders That Can Make You Poorly' I feel I may have taken out one or two funnel-webs, which is scary).

Now, don't get me wrong - I'm very much the animal lover and find the diverse wildlife out here fascinating - but it's just not all that pleasant sharing your 'home' with a bunch of roaches. Perhaps there's a bug spray out there that only targets cockroaches, but if there is, this one ain't it. It decimates entirely, and whilst I feel genuinely bad for the spiders and ladybirds, if it can put a smile on Mrs V's face in time for Chirstmas morning then it's a price worth paying. Sorry.

We went on a shopping trip into town this morning, not just to buy several gallons of industrial strength roach spray, but also to pick up everything for our Chirstmas lunch tomorrow. Months back, when we first started planning this trip, we had pretty grand aspirations of doing the whole 'Christmas-on-the-beach' thing so beloved of ex-pats, but as the big day has got closer - and after speaking to quite a few locals on the subject - most people still seem to opt for turkey with all the trimmings. We've turned our back on most things 'Xmas' this year, so we decided we'd go for it - on the condition that we could actually find a turkey in Australia on Christmas Eve.

Which we did; big bugger of a thing from a cracking family butchers on the main street of Avalon. We also treated ourselves to a couple of steaks the size of toilet seats to chuck on the barbie later in the week. Then onward to a couple of different green grocers (more of those gigantic, fresh veggies) and a rather nice deli. All sorted, we dropped our perishables off, launched an attack on the indigenous wildlife that Chemical Ali would have been proud of, then, having rendered our home-away-from-home uninhabitable for the next few hours, headed on up the peninsula for a drive.

I say peninsula, for that's exactly what it is. The Barrenjoey Peninsula to be precise, with the South Pacific to the east and a calm patch of water called Pittwater to the west. We had our hearts set on a pint or two, but having passed a couple of pubs that actually had queues outside - the likes of which I haven't seen since the opening weekend of 'Star Wars' -  we realised that the Aussies take Christmas Eve way too seriously and decided to carry on driving up to the end of the peninsula, which culminates in a little town called Palm Beach. Otherwise known - to retired widows, students and the terminally unemployed - as Summer Bay, setting of the soap 'Home and Away'.

Unlike it's alternate soap opera persona, Palm Beach is swish, with luxurious looking villas climbing up the wooded hillsides all staring out across the turquoise sea. This is Serious Money territory, appparetly, with the likes of Nicole Kidman et al having holiday homes here. Very beautiful it is too. We happened across a rather attractive bar/restaurant called Barrenjoey House and, remembering the queues coming out of the pubs further down the coast, decided that this was a much better spot to stop for a drink and - perhaps - a bite to eat.

I ordered what turned out to be, quite frankly, an absolutely outstanding mojito, a few sips of which convinced me that we should check out the food to see if it was anywhere near as good. And it was. We all had fish goujons (made out of a fish I've never heard of and can't remember the name of) with chips and home-made tartare sauce. Bloody marvellous it was, so I had another mojito to celebrate. Not a bad way to spend Christmas Eve, when you consider the mayhem of cramming oneself into an overly busy, overheated pub back home.

After dinner we took a wander on the beach, then headed back home to put Tizer to bed, sweep up the cockroach carcasses, open a bottle of wine and play a few games of pool. All terribly civilised.

Right - must be off. Santa is due and, apparently, he knows if you're sleeping and he knows if you're awake. So, I've decided I better be good, for goodness sake. G'night...

Onward To Avalon!

Something that should be shouted from atop a mighty steed, don't you think? Or have I been watching Ivanhoe to much again...?

So. This is it. Our last lot of digs. The last week of our month long Hong Kong and Oz Odyssey. I'd like to come out with the standard line and say "it's flown by" and in a way that could be true, but the feeling I'm left with - approaching Christmas as we are - is how long we've been away and how far from home we are. Not in a homesick way, you understand - Chirst no - I mean, the sun keeps shining, the food is great, the people a delight etc., etc., and I'd much rather be here than freezing my arse off in Blighty. But now that we're onto the final stretch it's given us pause for thought and reflection, and it has - thus far - been a bloody great trip and one that will stay fondly in our memories for many, many years to come.

Anyway, less of this pondersome meloncholia, we've still got a quarter of our honeymoon to get through yet; let us not fritter it away in such a fashion. We're in Avalon, a bohemian little seaside town an hour or so north of Sydney, renting a wonderful house just a minute's stroll from a beautiful, golden, sandy beach. And this is where we'll be celebrating Christmas too; the trimmings are on the tree, courtesy of our landlord. I don't imagine it took him too long, the tree being all of 10 inches high, but it's the thought that counts and the tree - along with the tinsel around our front door - have added a strangley festive air to proceedings. Well, it is about 80 degrees outside, there were a pair of kookaburras on the lawn this evening and we're thinking of having a barbeque tomorrow (what, with it being Christmas Eve) so it's all a little confusing a present. Mind you - you certainly won't be hearing any complaints from me.

Our flight up from Melbourne was a blessedly short one, and nowhere near as god-damned awful as our journey down from Cairns. Melbourne airport, when not being shutdown by thunderstorms, is actually rather a neat and efficient place, and we were checked in, bags dropped and enjoying a doughnut and a coffee airside without so much of a hiccough (yes, that's how you spell it). The doughnut must get a special mention, incidentally, for it was purchased from the King of Doughnut Purveyors - Krispy Kreme. Oh yes. Seldom will a finer doughnut pass your lips, unless it's one of those proper ring types that are deep fried at the seaside, then put in a paper bag which instantly goes translucent from the fat, before receiving a diabetic's-death-sentence in sugar. If Homer were here, I think I know what he'd say (that's Simpson, by the way, not the Greek poet who was, apparently, much more partial to a waffle).

Tizer eshewed the offer of a doughnut, instead opting for a sausage roll. Now, this is something I was only vaguely aware of before we came to Oz, but apparently the Antipodean idea of a sausage roll varies slighty from our own. The variety we came across were all from a company called 'Four'n'Twenty' (something of an Australian institution, apparently), and they came warmed, in a little plastic wrapper. Now, doubtless, they have in common with the British sausage roll a pretty high proportion of mulched up pigs' eyeballs and testicles in them, but beyond that they're a different beast all together. They seem to mix sausage meat with minced beef (or possibly lamb) and herbs and spices to achieve something altogether more palatable. Hell, they're actually quite nice. In fact they tasted rather like a Cornish Pasty to me, but without the lumps. Tizer certainly approved, but then she'll eat almost anything as long as it's warm and used to have a face and four legs.

We boarded our flight with a surprising lack of hassle considering our previous experience with Qantas Economy so far on this trip. We'd been allocated seats about two-thirds of the way down the plane this time, and I was rather glad this was our last flight with Qantas, as I'm pretty sure we'd have ended up being allocated seats in the rear toilets before too long. This was to be - thank whatever deity you like - a quick flight; just a one hour hop back up to Sydney. The main bonus as far as I was concerned was that it meant that we didn't have to endure another 'meal service', just a 'snack' apparently, so I was rather glad for this small mercy.

The crew - all male, all over 40, all sporting shortly cropped grey hair - made Graham Norton look like the kind of tatooed bruiser who'd beat you up for looking at his pint a bit funny. Apparently, there are some mean and nasty people out there who claim that Qantas is an acronym for something other than Queensland and Northern Territories Air Service, and these guys certainly lived up to it.

As I say, there was - mercifully - only a snack service on this flight, so once the crew had doled out some sad looking sarnies, a choccie biccie and a searingly hot coffee which, by now - some 12 hours later - is probably still too hot to approach without wearing an asbestos suit, they came round with a selection of fruit.

"Orange? Banana, madam? Would you care for an apple, sir? You know what they say - it'll keep the doctor away. Mind you, if you had my doctor you wouldn't want him to stray too far." Cue theatrical wink.

"John! John!! This gentleman asked for a vegetarian sandwich. Have we got any loaded? No? Sorry sir, they haven't loaded a vegetarian option. What's that John love? Oh, we have now, have we? Sorry about that sir, you just can't get the staff nowadays, one vegetarian sandwich coming right up". Then, whispered: "It's his age you know, such a shame...". Cue theatrical wink.

I loved 'em. They really made the flight much more entertaining. Certainly better than the piss-poor in flight 'movie' which seemed to comprise of one long, interminable Qantas advert.

Disembarking at Sydney airport was delightfully smooth and uneventful. We even managed to collect our luggage without being accused of master-minding a major drug-smuggling cartel, which was an improvement on our last visit. We picked our car up from Hertz - a beast of a thing, a Ford Explorer, I think - which has without doubt done nothing for our carbon footprint, darn it. Never mind, I'll plant a shrub when we get home.

The drive up to Avalon was great - we got to go over the Harbour Bridge, which I was pleased as punch about. We then meandered up the coast, in brilliant summer sunshine, past beachside towns filled, predominently, by surfer-types and their surfer-type-friends. All terribly Australian. And, realising we were no longer hotel guests and would soon have a kitchen again for the first time in three weeks, we stopped off at a supermarket to stock up on provisions.

Although it was a relatively humble shop in a little town (amusingly called Dee Why), it just went to prove that Melbourne's Victoria Market wasn't a one off when it came to fresh food. More huge 'caps', gorgeous leafy salads, fat, ripe tomatoes, fresh ginger, bak choi, and all of it - I mean all of it - Australian grown. Makes you sick doesn't it? Especially when you consider that Tesco at home sell mange-tout from Kenya, spring onions from Egypt and leeks - LEEKS for crying out loud! - from Spain! I swear, if Britain ever became the victim of some kind of world-wide import embargo we'd all starve to death in a month.

Having stocked up on oodles of lovely, fresh local produce we drove the last half hour up to Avalon and the bungalow (or 'Beach Retreat' as the landlord calls it) that we'll be calling home for the next week. It's a wonderful property, it really is. It has three bedrooms and a massive central living and dining area with - get this - a pool table! It's also got a pretty decent kitchen for a rented property. We have our own private garden, a little veranda complete with 'barbie' and deck chairs, and a climbing frame for Tizer to try and injure herself on. All part of living the Australian Dream...

There is, however, one part of living the Australian Dream that has caught us (or at least Mrs. V) at little unawares. The bugs. Or, to be specific, the cockroaches. Apparently it was unseasonably wet last week, which has caused the roaches to up-sticks and move into somewhere a little drier then their usual abode, namely Avalon Beach Retreat. I'm not keen on cockroaches, but Mrs. V really, truly, cannot abide them. They're not small ones, either. A good two inches long, some of 'em, and mighty fast they are too.

Then there was the surprise that awaited us upon our return tonight. After enjoying a thoroughly tasty pizza and a bottle of local red in a litte Italian place in the town, we took a gentle stroll back to our Retreat. We unlocked and opened the door, stepped inside and turned the lights on. This startled a couple of roaches which went scuttling across the floor before I quickly despatched them with the aid of my already trusty, long handled broom. Then we noticed something else lurking beneath the dining table. Something bigger and rounder than a roach. Something about the size a of large bloke's hand. Something with eight, thick, hairy legs.

"Oh my god," cried Mrs. V, her voice a frantic, hoarse whisper, "It's a spider!". Now, if there's one thing that my dear lady wife hates more than cockroaches, it's spiders, and this was one huge f**king spider. And whereas they don't normally bother me all that much at home, I was aware that this particular, monstrous arachnid probably deserved just a little more respect than the poor, scared creatures that scuttle across our lounge floor from time-to-time.

Thankfully, our landlord has been kind enough to leave a selection of books for guests (one can hardly call a handful of paperbacks and a few guidebooks a library) and one of these books just happens to be on Australian spiders. Admittedly, as literature goes it seems to be aimed at the under 12s market, but when you're living in a country where certain arachnids are capable of killing you within 10 minutes from a single bite - and this bugger looked like he could probably gnaw your leg off to boot - beggars certainly can't afford to be choosers, so it seemed prudent to check out whether or not we had a potential killer on our hands.

Our eight-legged friend, it transpired, was a Huntsman spider - one of the biggest spiders in Oz. Poisonous? Yes; deadly? Apparently not. It would only bite 'if threatened' and whilst it would hurt like buggery, you'd be pretty unlucky if it it killed you. This made me feel slightly better, but not by much. So, approaching him with long-handled broom in hand and hoping that the reassuring smile on my face would convince him that I didn't pose any kind of threat, I tentatively gave him a gentle prod toward the open door. Unfortunately, rather than heading outside with friendly tip of his hat and a cheery 'Ta-ta' as I'd hoped, he scuttled up the leg of one of the benches which sit either side of the dining table and glowered at me.

Spurred on by the sound of my brave wife whimpering some 30 feet away at the opposite end of the house and encouraged by her helpful advice of "Get it out!" I gave it another nudge with the broom. This time it decided enough was enough and made a dash for the open utility room door, the floor of which was - regrettably - strewn with three weeks worth of dirty laundry awaiting the refreshing delights of the washing machine. And it was into this pile of clothes that he disappeared.

There was nothing else for it; I started tentatively lifting shirts, socks and items of underwear with all the extreme caution and trepidation you would expect of a man looking for a poisonous spider the size of a side plate in pile of dirty clothes. And there he was! I gently picked up a T-shirt about two-thirds of the way down and found him quietly sitting on top of a beach towel. A plan quickly formulated in my mind, and hoping beyond hope that my nerve would hold I delicately gathered the edges of the towel around the spider, creating something that looked rather like a giant fluffy wanton (with venomous arachnid filling).

Holding my fluffy wanton at arms length  and heeding my good lady wife's sterling advice of "Don't drop it!", I tiptoed out of the utility room, across the living room and stepped out onto the lawn. Inverting the towel, I let it fall open and the spider plopped gently onto the grass. Emboldened by the whole experience I even instructed Mrs. V to fetch the camera so I could take a photo, which she duly did, no doubt mightily impressed and a little light-headed after witnessing her man's astounding spider taming prowess. I managed to get a half decent photo of our friendly neighbourhood spider before we watched him scamper off over the grass into the humid night, the theme from 'Born Free' playing gently in my mind.

After which we necked an awfully good bottle of Shiraz, played a game or two of pool and brained a couple of errant cockroaches before retiring to bed (or, in my case, to Mac).

Tomorrow, dear reader, is Christmas Eve and we're going shopping for a turkey (and maybe some bug spray)!

 

Red Wine Hangover

That's right. Red wine hangover. Each hangover has it's own special signature. For me, the lager hangover is a predominantly nauseous one, offering a churning stomach and the distinct impression that a large marsupial has shat in ones mouth. The whisky hangover is a doozie, especially if - like me - you're partial to the peaty smokiness of Laphroaig. The self same taste of burnt peat, so invigorating whilst you're sipping a dram or seven beside a crackling open fire, returns the following morning, bringing with it a cotton-wool head and dicky tummy, leaving you feeling that your tongue was used to clean out the grate of said fire while you were asleep.

But the red wine hangover is a specialist. The red wine hangover concentrates almost entirely on the head, giving a headache of such proportions that the sufferer may be forgiven for believing they're experiencing a full blown embolism. And this is what the dear Mrs V and I woke with this morning; a pulsating, behind the temples affair that took a couple of co-codamol (the pain killer of kings) a few litres of Melbourne's finest tap water and a walk through the chill drizzle that had blessed us once again, before it would even consider receding.

'Why were you suffering so?' I hear your cry. Well, that rather nice looking Italian I told you about yesterday turned out to be an absolute gem of a place. Il Solito Posto is a restaurant of two halves, so to speak, one - a classy trattoria; the other - a basement bistro. Being the plebs we are we opted, of course, for the bistro (to be fair, we tried to book at the trattoria but couldn't get in).

It's a delight of a place, down some stone steps to the basement which is all dark wood bar, cramped tables and blackboard menus on the walls. It's one of those cracking spots where all you can see of the outside world is peoples' feet going to-and-fro on the pavement above. All terribly evocative, just a shame you can't smoke inside in Victoria, that would have completed the atmosphere to perfection. I briefly thought they could do with some pictures of Mussolini on the walls, but that would probably be overkill.

As I say, the menu was purely blackboard and nothing more really other than soups, pasta and salad. Perfect. A delightful waitress talked us through the options; it was all in Italian, which seems a tad over-the-top when you're 10000 miles away from Italy and the staff have to take the time out to translate for the clientele, but it all added to the 'atmos'. We both opted for a simple pasta dish (her tomato, me seafood) before being hit by the wine list. I say list - it basically looked like half a ream of copier paper clipped to a clipboard. But boy, did this place know its wines! Quickly and correctly identifying the look of confusion on our faces, the waitress asked us about the kind of wines we liked, contrasted them with what we were eating, then brought three bottles over to let us have a taster. Bloody marvellous! You don't get this down TGI Friday's, I can tell you.

We settled on a wine (after much complimentary tasting, of course) and devoured our fresh, simple and exceedingly tasty bowls of pasta with gusto, along with another great rocket, pear and parmesan salad. Then we asked our waitress what she had by way of a decent local Shiraz. Out came three more bottles to help us settle on one that suited our base English palates and we finally decided on a corker, the name of which entirely - and perhaps understandably - escapes me. It was so nice, we had another bottle. Then - I think - we moved onto ordering by the glass. I mean, you don't want to over-do it, do you...?

We finally paid up, tipped in the manner of pissed tourists (heavily) and swerved and wobbled our way the two blocks to our hotel. Emboldened by our love of all things alcoholic, we headed to the Martini bar within the Westin and compounded our boozy/foodie evening with a couple of extravagantly named (and priced) cocktails, which was a fine idea on top of a gut load of wine, or at least it was if you like feeling ill.

Anyhoo, heads were understandably thick this morning, but a dawdle in the drizzle seemed to have cleared things up sufficiently, so we extended our dawdle a mile northwards of our hotel to the Queen Victoria Market. I love markets, and this one is outstanding - and huge. It's housed in a number of vast shed-like structure, each one selling a different range of food or goods. There's one for meat, one for fish, one for deli produce, and a huge area is given over to fruit and veg, the size, freshness and variety of which you will never - and I mean never - see the like of in Britain. Bell peppers the size of a baby's head (they call then capsicums or 'caps' in a typically Oz shortening), massive red onions, and salads that - when put on display across the market stalls - look as extensive, green and lush as a rainforest canopy.

Then there's the sheds full of tat (there's no other way of describing it I'm afraid). But it's thoroughly entertaining tat, from 'Simpsons' towels to bush ranger's hats, scented candles to DVDs, and smoking paraphernalia to the perennial cuddly koalas. Great fun, and as the weather was - well - pissing it down outside it was the perfect place to spend the rest of the morning (and some of the afternoon).

Stepping back onto the street during a lull in the rain, we only managed to get a couple of blocks before the weather worsened and finally led us to take a trip on Melbourne's famous City Circle Tram. One was passing, so it seemed a shame not to.


Not only is this route plied by some wonderful old vintage trams, it's also free and seemed like the ideal place, at the very least, to shelter from the rain for a while. As it's name suggests, it follows a circular track all the way around the city and even has a (albeit recorded) commentary pointing out interesting sights and buildings along the way. Tizer thought it was great and that, combined with the rather incessant rain outside, made us go round twice. We're crazy like that.

Lunch, in stark comparison to the fantastic meal last night, was at an 'Irish' pub call Bridie O'Reilly's, the food in which was - in no uncertain terms - an affront to humanity. They should have some kind of roving UN Ambassador to deliver us from this kind of thing. Everything that came out of the kitchen looked like a fried lump of fat and, in Mrs V's case, that's exactly what it was. She sent her first 'steak' back, but when it's replacement arrived it looked even worse, so we quit. It wasn't even worth complaining; we tipped like sober and rather miffed tourists (not at all) and ventured back out into the rain.

The crap food had taken the edge off the day a little, and the red wine hangover - supplemented by a pint of piss-poor Guinness - was starting to creep back, so we returned to the hotel for a Westin Sit Down in the Westin Bar and enjoyed a Westin lager or two. The hangover has been banished once again and we're now looking forward to a 'night in', with a few more drinks and a bite to eat in the (really very good) hotel restaurant.

We're moving on again tomorrow - the last leg of our trip already! - flying to Sydney, then driving north for an hour or so to Avalon where we're renting a house in which to spend Christmas. Yes Christmas, bet you'd forgotten about all that malarky, hadn't you? We certainly had...

Flying South

It was time to say 'ta-ta' to Thala and set off airport-wards for our flight down to Melbourne and, as per for the forecast, cooler climes. A shame really, I think we were getting rather used to the heat, the cane toads (massive, they are, and they were everywhere around the hotel), the beautiful lorikeets, the endless Coral Sea vistas and the laid-back tropical atmosphere.

We'd spent our last full day in Port Douglas firmly ensconced at the hotel. A rest day is what we'd promised ourselves and a rest day is what we had. A late start, a light breakfast, then some quality time by the pool which we had entirely to ourselves for most of the day. Mrs V and I took it in turns to take Tizer in the pool, interspersed by catching up on a book, sipping on a cool beer and generally wondering why we hadn't booked to stay here for another week.

We also discovered, later that afternoon, that Thala has wireless (and free) internet access. I bring this up now as our one travelling companion I haven't had rise to mention much of yet is my trusty MacBook Pro, who I like to call Mac. And before you say anything, it took me all of 5 minutes to come up with that name.

Mac has been an essential piece of kit so far on this trip, allowing me to email hotels, check-in for flights, keep up (almost) with this blog and - thanks to its groovy little integral webcam - say 'hi' to Ma and Pa back home. As all of this has been dependent on wireless internet access, we've been quite fortunate so far as the hotels in Hong Kong and Sydney both had oodles of it, all for nowt. Thala, on the other hand, had a PC for guest use in the reception but nothing at all of the wireless variety - at least not according to the bumpf in the room. So, for the past four or five days we'd been pretty much incommunicado.

This particular lazy afternoon by the pool, I decided to boot old Mac up just to let him know he hadn't been forgotten when - hey presto! Bars and bars of lovely, free, wireless internet! Wish I'd known a bit sooner, mind. Then again, perhaps it was good to 'get-away-from-it-all' for a few days. Either way, we celebrated by giving Mum and Dad a tinkle. It was half 5ish in Queensland, so half 7ish in the morn back home. It being a Wednesday, my parents would probably be up and about, which they were. Tizer, as ever, was delighted to see them and tried to give the screen a hug, and I gave them a roaming, internet tour of Thala, such as the wireless connection would let me. One of the waitresses even came over to say 'Hello' in a delightfully thick Aussie accent which can only have added to the whole feel of the piece, so to speak.

We dined in the hotel that night, with a blissfully sleeping daughter by our side. Beautiful food, surroundings, wine - really couldn't fault it. We even managed a couple of after-dinner G & Ts and a chat with a pleasant English couple who'd got married at Thala the week before. Then to bed, ready for an early start the following day.

I was genuinely sad to be leaving Thala; it felt as if we'd just got into the pace of things in time to leave, which is always a shame. But the nature of our trip meant that it was time to move on, and another delightful Qantas Economy flight lay ahead of us. Oh happy day. Over three hours of it this time, which I really wasn't looking forward to. We'd tried to upgrade the night before, but we'd got such cheapy tickets that it was going to cost somewhere in the region of 900 quid, and even a inveterate Business Class Snob like me couldn't bring himself to hack that up for a relatively short flight.

But first, having driven south toward Cairns once again, we had to drop the hire-car off. And it looked like rain. Now, I know from experience that different countries and even different car hire firms have different rules when dropping your car off. For Avis, at Cairns airport, the system seems to involve a woman in very comfortable shoes ("What is a protective dyke? Is it a woman in comfortable shoes saying 'Don't go near there'!") accosting you as soon as you step out of the car. She looked to me as if she'd been living in the outback for the previous three weeks or so - wide brimmed ranger's hat, multi-pocketed shorts for keeping knives in, wrap-around mirror shades, and she rather looked like she could do with a shave. Probably smoked roll-ups and had a sexually non-descript friend call Val. Anyway, without a 'Hi', 'Hello' or 'How are ya?' she pointed accusingly at a scratch on the rear bumper of the car and told us, abruptly, "That wasn't there when you picked it up".

"Well of course it was", I replied, hoping it was true, whilst attempting to man-handle a two year old, a push-chair, three cases and hand luggage from the car in tropical heat, at the same time as trying to spy a luggage trolley. And all the while watching the ever blackening sky which appeared hell bent on providing us with an utter soaking at any time.

"Paperwork" she/he barked.

"I'm sorry?" I enquired.

"The paperwork you were given when you picked up the car".

"Yes. Fine. OK. Can we just get our luggage sorted out?” I replied, feeling my proverbial rag starting to slip through my fingers.

"Ah, yeah. Rain", she said, as the heavens opened. She strode manfully to the dry refuge of her shack, no doubt the interior walls of which were adorned with pictures of monster trucks and K D Lang, whilst we got piss-wet through. Too late, we decided to shelter back in the car, as it really was coming down now as if someone had turned a hose on. Wet and hot. Well, to misquote the great 'Good Morning Vietnam' one more time, 'That's nice if you're with a lady, but ain't no good if you're in the jungle'. And it's not that great if you're stuck in a rental car, with your luggage getting drenched outside, a threatening lesbian rolling cigarettes in her hut mere metres away and a flight to catch in less than an hour.

The rain stopped, as they say, as quickly as it began, and we stepped - pretty much soaked - back out of the car to finish putting our luggage onto the trolley. Our hairy legged tormentor ventured out of her hut and was once more coming back to harangue us. We'd found the paperwork- which was, by now, in danger of turning into papier-mâché - and thrust it at her, explaining that it clearly showed (thank god!) that the scratch on the bumper was there when we collected the car. Reluctantly, and with the kind of bad grace you'd expect from a six year old boy who's been told to stop tying fireworks to the cat's tail, she printed us a receipt and was on her way.

Matters weren't helped by the unwelcome sight of a long queue for check-in snaking towards us as we squelched into the terminal. And we only had about 15 minutes before our flight closed. If anything, the time spent in the queue allowed us to dry off quite nicely (you're never wet for long in the tropics) and once we checked-in we were informed that there was no rush anyway as our flight was delayed by an hour and a half.

The departure hall was the kind of hell that first made me start saving my pocket money very hard indeed so that I could avoid it completely and use the Executive Lounge instead. Screaming kids, bored looking teenagers plugged into their iPods, adults in ill fitting track suits stuffing their faces with overpriced airport sandwiches showing scant regard for the very real possiblilty of contracting bochelism prior to boarding their upcoming flight.

A recovering alcoholic in a Santa suit was milling around giving sticky sweets to the children. Generously assuming he was employed in some way by the airport, I allowed a rather dumb-struck Tizer to accept one, but then confiscated it as soon as Old Soak Santa had stumbled away. Tizer wasn’t all that bothered either, which says something.

I'd barely had time to spill a cup of steaming hot coffee over my foot and eat half a stale muffin before our flight was mercifully called. But then, of course, this was Qantas Economy, so it wasn't going to be a great deal better once we were on the plane. And it wasn't.

Our seats were about mid-way down the plane and - as Qantas don't employ anything as common-sense as a priority boarding system for those travelling with small children - we squeezed our way uncomfortably through the cabin carrying three lots of hand luggage and a wriggling toddler. Not an easy task. We managed to prise ourselves into our seats and settled in for the long haul. I know, three hours and a half hours isn't really long haul, but in economy it certainly feels like it. I hate to keep banging on about this, but it was pretty awful.

Tizer was well behaved throughout, but then she usually is, bless 'er. We stuck a DVD on the portable player for her and she was happy enough with that. The food was terrible; almost inedible, to be honest. It was some sort of curry. One of the cabin crew was billing it as a vegetable jalfrezi, whilst another was introducing it as a chicken korma and I can assure you - not a word of a lie - they were exactly the same meal. It had a label on the foil lid that said 'Curry' so, at the very least, you've got to give the crew 10 out of 10 for imagination. I dipped at the sauce with a piece of bread, then hungrily devoured the chocolate biscuit that came with it instead.

We landed at a very soggy looking Melbourne, more-or-less on time, to be told that we were exceptionally lucky to be doing so. A thunder storm had passed through earlier that afternoon and had completely closed the airport, shutting most of the electrics down. They'd been re-directing flights to Sydney, apparently, and had only re-opened just in time for us to land.

We decamped from the plane, relishing the sensation of blood flowing back to our feet again, and headed for baggage retrieval. We'd booked a car to collect us a couple of days before and were glad to see the driver waiting for us with our names on his little sign. Then we waited for the baggage conveyor to start. The airport may have re-opened but, clearly, no one had told the bright and industrious gentlemen who work in baggage handling. It was almost an hour before all of our luggage came off, and by the time we headed for our waiting car I worked out we'd been on the move for nearly 7 hours.

We were shattered, and matters weren't helped by the sight of the car that awaited us. What we'd booked was an 'executive' SUV so that we'd have lots of room for our luggage. What we got was an off-white stretch limo with beige velour seats, the likes of which you might expect to see in a bad 70s porn movie. The real down side was that whilst there was plenty of room to do whatever it is people do in these dreadful stretched monstrosities, there wasn't all that much space for things like suitcases or push-chairs. The driver - who went by the name of Dieter, looked about 75 years old and may or may not have been a Nazi war criminal - manfully managed to get the push-chair wedged into the front seat. He also completed a task equal to anything they ever set on the Krypton Factor by somehow fitting our luggage into the boot, but only after five or six aborted attempts and what looked to me like a minor stroke.

An hour later and we were pulling outside the Westin Melbourne; Dieter leapt from the car with the sprightliness of a man half his age and transferred all of our luggage to one of those hotel trolley things (I'm sure there's a more concise term for them, but that's the best I can come up with for now). We tipped him accordingly, of course. It wasn't his fault we'd had to show up at one of Melbourne's finest hotels in a Porn Limo.

The Westin, from where I'm now typing this blog, is a very pleasant hotel. I'm in the bar (of course) enjoying a Peroni and waiting for Mrs V to settle Tizer with the babysitter we've booked for this eve. We've got a smashing room, a 'Westin Studio', which is a great size and has a massive bathroom. One thing I have noticed is the overuse of 'Westin' on this property. The studio is a 'Westin' as is the bed. The bathroom is no normal bathroom, oh no. It's a Westin Spa Bathroom. We have Westin Towels in there, along with two Westin Robes. You can order a Westin Burger from room service. Tizer, on arrival at the hotel, received a Westin Kids Club Pack. Still, as I say, it's a very nice hotel.

Melbourne's a lovely city too. Bloody cold, mind. It was about 16 digress today and it peed it down most of the afternoon. Quite a shock to the system after the sultry climes of Port Douglas. There's a lot of charm to the place though, and you'd be forgiven for thinking you were somewhere in Northern Europe rather than a city of such a southerly latitude. Trams pass up and down the tree-lined avenues past Victorian facades and street side coffee shops. There are up-market restaurants and fancy looking fashion stores all over the place and it feels strangely like 'home', an image that's probably helped by the clouds, rain and rather chilly breeze that led us to quit our day's sight-seeing early today and take refuge in the hotel bar.

One thing that must be mentioned, however, are the flies. They are - to put none too fine a point upon it - bloody annoying. If anything, that's the bonus of the rain, as they only seem to come out when it stops. But, chirst, they are persistent little buggers and they don't take no for an answer, seemingly hell-bent on landing actually inside your mouth. Wave your hands around your head as much as you like, it won't put them off. They say you get used to them after a while, but Mrs V seems a long way from that...

We started our day with some very sad news. We'd spied a little coffee place in the square in front of the hotel so grabbed a table there for a spot of breakfast. Then we got a text from home informing us that Bill, a good friend and neighbour of ours, had died. We knew he'd been very poorly, but he was a rather private gentleman and I don't think many people, us included, realised just how ill he was. We've been neighbours for 13 years and it was a heck of a blow finding out so far from home.

He was only in his early 60s, a former army-man who served with the Coldstream Guards (they're the ones in the bearskins outside Buckingham Palace). He and his wife moved to our village around the same time I bought our current house. We used to go round to each others gaffs after the pub on a weekend to play a particularly bastardised game of poker to which only Bill seemed to know the rules, a fact that was usually reflected by the way in which he'd taken most of our money off us by the time we staggered homeward in the early hours. He'll be sadly missed, the old bugger.

Nonetheless, we're on the other side of the planet and, short of sending a couple of conciliatory text messages, there's little more we can do. We took Tizer's photo with the very jolly Santa in the square, then walked the few blocks down to the 55 storey Rialto Tower, which has an observation deck offering what I imagine are pretty stunning views when it's not raining.

As I mentioned earlier, we have a sitter tonight, so we're heading out to a little Italian place we've found a couple of blocks away. Piles of fresh pasta and a couple of bottles of red are the order of the day, I think. And we'll be raising a glass or three in memory of Bill. "Pame!" Bill, as you (and the Greeks) used to say...

A Cable Car Named Desire

Another darned day in paradise. I woke, as is the norm, before my slumbersome spouse and stepped out onto the balcony of our bugalow to see what the weather had to offer (and was presented with the vista above). Sunny? Check. Hot? Check. Gentle sea breeze to take the edge of the humidity? Check. That'll do, thought I, and went back inside to wake wife and daughter for yet another exciting adventure - a cable car ride over the rainforest.

Not wanting to delay our departure more than was absolutely necessary we breakfasted on chocolate out of the mini-bar (the health-kick can wait 'til the New Year), tramped stickily up to reception and had one of the staff bring our cavernous SUV round for us. It's wonderful that they offer this 'valet' service, not just because it saves us the walk down to the car park but also as they're canny enough to stick the air con. on full wack, so that by the time we get in it's all nicely chilled.

We were heading south, back towards Cairns, and the Skyrail Rainforest Cableway which climbs up over the mountains to a little town called Kuranda. After an hour's drive, we parked up at the Skyrail terminal and stepped from the cool airconditioned luxury of our car into the kind of heat that comes from the shimmering tarmac beneath your feet rather than the sun above. It was hot, hot, hot.

We made a dash for the shade of the Skyrail and bumped into nice middle-aged couple from our boat trip on Shaolin. They'd just come down from Kuranda and, whilst Mrs. middle-aged had had a delightful time, Mr. middle-aged had liked it considerably less, suffering from a problem with heights. Oh dear. So that's snorkelling and cable cars out. They were waiting for a coach to take them on the 'second part' of their tour - whatever that might be, we tend to feel the same about coach tours as we do cruise ships - so we bade them farewell and headed for the Skyrail.

The cableway itself is over 4 miles long and climbs up the mountainside over some of the oldest rainforest on earth. There's just the right amount of room in the cable car for four or five adults or, in our case, 2 adults, one child and a push-chair. All loaded on board the main cable grabs the car and all but hurls it up over the trees. Quite exhilirating. Within a couple of minutes we were already enjoying wonderful views of the trees below, climbing toward the first mountain rigde, enjoying stunning vistas of the coast and the sea behind us.

Tizer thought it was fantastic, immediately squishing her nose against the cable car window with a look of complete delight on her face. There are two stops along the way before you get to Kuranda, and we were approaching the first one after quarter of an hour or so of skimming the treetops. We were helped, push-chair and all, out of our cable car by a really friendly member of staff (they were all very good, putting the surly teenagers you get working in many of the UK's tourist attractions to shame). We took a wander along the decked walkway that leads off into the rainforest and joined a little guided tour where a terribly knowledgable ranger type - kitted out in the de rigeuer khaki shirt, shorts and bushman's hat - spouted forth about the different trees and plants, how they pollenated and some of their medicinal properites.

Back onto the skyrail, this time with the push-chair travelling behind us in its own cable car, the kind lady at the station having told us we may be a little more comfortable that way, which was nice. The next stop, another 20 minutes up the line, once more had a decked path to follow which brought us out to the edge of a gorge, complete with waterfall, cutting its way through the rainforest. Having taken the obligatory photos, we re-joined the skyrail again and completed our journey to Kuranda.

Now, whilst the cable car trip was possibly one of the highlights of our holiday so far, Kuranda, by comparison, was something of a disappointment. It often seems to be the way that certain journies - especially those of the 'scenic rail' variety - generally end at a pretty pointless destination, the journey itself being the thing that really draws to tourists. Kuranda, originally a mountain retreat of bohemian artist types, was now just one long drag of tacky shops selling tourist tat - hats, T-shirts, digeridoos, boomerangs. Shop, after shop, after shop of the damn stuff. There was a small park at the end with a little playground that we briefly thought Tizer might like to visit, but it was stinking hot and the local police seemed to have chosen it as a venue for hassling some Aborigne kids, so we turned heel and headed back to the skyrail.

Despite the disappointment of Kuranda, it didn't really bother us, as the trip back was just as spectacular as the trip there. Okay, so it was still the same route, same rainforest, but this time we could stay on all the way through and really enjoy the views. It was late afternoon by this time and the sun was low enough to really show off the multitude of greens in the rainforest canopy as we passed over it. We even so a cockatoo, though failed miserably to get a photo of it, succeeding only in taking a slightly blurred picture of Tizer's arm and the top of the seat.


Yes, it was all a bit touristy (we even bought the photo of us that's automatically taken as your cable car comes into 'land' back at the terminal, for crying out loud!) but it was a top notch day out. Tizer loved it, pointing back at the cable cars and saying "Again, again" as we left, which is always a good sign.

We managed to get back to the hotel in time to change and head into Port Douglas for dinner. We found a rather nice little tapas (and pizza) restaurant, and Tizer - whilst getting some cautious glances for our fellow diners when we first arrived - was pretty much well behaved throughout. She didn't like her pizza, unfortunately, as it was herbed to an extent that just about completely obscured the cheese, but she enjoyed sharing my tapas with me. I finished the meal with an Espresso Martini which was not only deliciously invigorating but really bloody strong. Just about put me on my back (and probably would have done if it wasn't for the conter-acting effects of the caffiene).

We finished the evening off sitting outside a bar across the street from the restaurant that had a pretty good singer/pianist type doing a good mixture of songs that Tizer enjoyed having a little dance to. Then back to the hotel, and the prospect of a 'free' day tomorrow. Nothing planned. Nothing at all. Hell, we may even sit around the pool in the sun and do - well - nothing. Oh, the hedonistic lethargy of it all...