20 Facts You Never Knew About... EGGS!

1. The shape of an egg can be described as a prolate spheroid, usually consisting of a prolate half and a roughly spherical (potentially even minorly oblate) ellipsoid joined at the equator, sharing a principal axis of rotational symmetry. Or - to put it another way – eggs are egg-shaped.

2. The many thousands of eggs adorning kitchen tables across the land each morning come from chickens. However, although the eggs typically consumed by humans are, by a large margin, chickens’ eggs, there are many other types of eggs in the world. These include ostrich eggs - which are huge - and pheasant eggs, which are fowl.

3. Also, ducks.

4. Oh, and then there's caviar. That counts too. It's fish eggs.

5. Fritzl. Moat. Shipman. Goering. You may think these gentlemen had nothing in common, but you’d be flat out wrong. As it so happens, the four of them each enjoyed the exact same thing for breakfast every single day of the week  – a soft-boiled egg, lightly salted, with toast soldiers for dipping. (Apart from Sundays, when Moat would choose to break his fast with a packet of honey-roast ham from his local Morrison's.)

6. The expression "dog eggs" does not literally mean the egg of a canine; this would be preposterous, for dogs are mammals and do not lay eggs in the traditional, biological sense. No, it just means dog shit.

7. Egg cups are thought to have been in use since prehistoric times, with some of the earliest dating back to the Bronze Age. It’s likely these early egg cups were in fact made of bronze, rather than the porcelain variety common today. They also probably weren’t shaped like miniature monks, VW camper vans or testicles.

8. The term "poaching" can be used to describe not only the act of illegal hunting, but also the process of simmering food - such as eggs - in liquid. It can also mean the act of illicit snowboarding, but this has about as much to do with eggs as stealing plants and animals. Unless of course you’re poaching wild birds, then stealing eggs from their nests. Then that’s pretty egg-related.

9. The largest omelette ever made contained over 110,000 eggs and was prepared by 80 chefs. Once finished, it was consumed by a single man, which was fitting as omelettes are a staple food for men who can’t get a girlfriend. He remarked at the time, "It was a bit on the plain side - could’ve done with some grated cheese."

10. When storing eggs at home, the optimum temperature is 4°C or below. It’s also possible to freeze eggs for future use, but this is only done by very weird people who smell of biscuits and have no friends.

11. At Easter, people often like to fill their faces with egg-shaped chocolate treats whilst watching The Sound of Music or whatever other film Channel Five happens to be showing. The reason we have chocolate eggs at Easter is neither interesting nor relevant. As for the idea of the Easter Bunny laying eggs for children to find, that’s just perverse. Especially if rabbit eggs are anything like dog eggs.

12. The egg-and-spoon race popular at so many primary school sports days is now often carried out with some kind of ball instead of an actual egg. This is an example of both political correctness and health and safety going mad simultaneously, all at the same time.

13. The scientific term for the study of eggs is Oology. The scientific term for a student of Oology is an egg-head.

14. Popular BBC general knowledge quiz "Egg Heads" is actually a misnomer, for the regular panel are not students of Oology, nor do they have shell craniums containing a yolk suspended in albumen. However, as an interesting aside, host Dermot Murnaghan once took half a dozen organic eggs from his local farm without paying.

15. The word egg can be used to form the basis of many puns, often found in newspaper headlines. Popular examples include 'egg-static', 'eggs-centric' and 'eggs-cellent'. People who use such lazy witticisms are themselves referred to as 'predictable cunts'.

16. Owing to their striking resemblance, small, virtually flat breasts are sometimes referred to as ‘fried eggs'. These are often a source of great frustration and disappointment to any gentleman hoping for a ‘sausage sandwich’.

17. The Latin word for egg, or egg cell, is 'ovum'. In human beings, the ovum is one of the largest cells in the body. Measuring in with a diameter of 0.2mm, they’re actually visible to the naked eye, should a naked eye be looking for one. Contrary to popular belief, this type of ‘egg’ doesn’t taste nice when scrambled with a dollop of HP.

18. King Egbert of Wessex was - ironically - not a fan of eggs, and on many occasions attempted to ban them across his realm and beyond. In the Anglo Saxon Chronicle, he is quoted as saying "þy geare geeode Ecgbriht cing Myrcna rice eall þæt be suþan Humbre wæs" or, in modern English, "Begone all the eggs of this fair land, through Mercia to the Humber, for I detest thee more than thou could ever knoweth."

19. Scotch eggs are not simply eggs from Scotland, but rather a snack consisting of a hard-boiled egg swathed in a sausage-meat mixture, coated in breadcrumbs and deep fried. They are popularly found at depressing family picnics, cheap wedding buffets, and underneath seats on public transport, usually half-squashed and covered in grime.

20. Scottish eggs, however, are simply eggs from Scotland.

Life's A Beach... And Then You Fry

The Australian Adventure
Part 7
Original e-mail date
Wed, 20 Sep, 2006

Hey up, one and all!

Here it is; the next thrilling installment of my egotistical ensemble electro-mail - love 'em or loathe 'em, they're longer than Shakespeare's collected works and harder to get through than War and Peace...

As everyone in Cairns was mourning the death of crocodile hunter and Australian legend Steve Irwin just a few miles up the road (well, almost everyone - within hours the evil text message jokes were whizzing around the town) and the humidity levels seemingly pushed themselves to an all time high, I decided it was time to leave.

Craig, living up to his MacGyver reputation, had splurged some of his hard-earned dollars on a white-water rafting trip, bungee jumping and a voyage to Fitzroy Island, and thus he decided to stay on in Cairns a while longer. I, however, had no such commitments. And so, on the Wednesday morning, I hopped on the Greyhound coach, and was gone.

On our journey so far we've met countless people that are travelling alone, and once you're over here you see just how they manage to do it. It's a bit like going down a really steep flume at a water park or swimming baths - possibly even the Waterslide to Hell... When you're standing at the top, peering over the edge, it seems really daunting, but once you've plucked up the courage to chuck yourself down you end up having a right old giggle.

My first stop on my one-man mission was, aptly enough, Mission Beach. I checked into a hostel less than 100m from the beach (as the advertisement boasted). Once I'd dumped my stuff in the dorm, I felt ridiculous - I didn't know what to do with myself! I walked around the village itself, which took all of three minutes, then went for a swim in the pool. Then, feeling adventurous, I wandered down to the beach. This is Australia, not Mauritius, but it was almost like a Bounty advert...

It was stunning, and pretty much deserted. The mountains of Dunk Island created a luscious vista across the sea, fading to blue in the hazy midday sky. After admiring the view I looked down and saw the most peculiar thing - a pile of tiny, perfectly sculpted sand-spheres. In the centre of the pile was a small, black hole, leading vertically downwards into the ground. Then I looked up, and it was like discovering that the pattern on your kitchen tiles actually makes up a chicken, and you can suddenly see it on every single tile (worse still, you notice the ones that have been grouted on upside down...) - the entire beach was covered in these miniscule sand-balls.

It was then I discovered the strangest thing - tiny beige coloured crabs, running around my feet, camouflaged by the wet sand. I realised that these were responsible for the carpet of sand-balls; they were clawing out their holes and leaving the excess sand deposited on the beach! After hunting down some fish in the rock pools and walking to the end of the beach and back, I sat down under a palm tree and continued reading Michael Crichton's 'Prey', suddenly imagining that a swarm of crabs would attack me a la the nanoparticles in the book...

For my evening meal I bought a burger with 'the lot', which meant lettuce, cucumber, tomato, carrot, cheese, bacon, a fried egg, a ring of pineapple and a thick slice of beetroot... I couldn't fit the bloody thing in my mouth. I've got to stop buying burgers with 'everything' on - I mean, pineapple? On a burger? What's that all about? It's hardly garlic bread, is it? (Ooh, it's the future - I've tasted it!)

That night I went to a bar called 'Coconutz' with a few people from the hostel. I was talking with a couple of fellow backpackers; a girl from England and a girl from Israel, and as they were pretty much the only females in the bar we ended up being besieged by a pack of Australian labourers. To be fair, they'd just got back from six months working over on the nearby island, so I suppose it was a little like re-emerging into society after a stint in prison. One even said they had to queue up for food like they do in jail...

The next morning I caught the coach to Townsville, which took around four hours of travelling. The small city was pleasant enough, if a little empty, and the next day I hiked up Castle Hill, a dominant feature in the town skyline. I opted to take the 'goat track' - I soon realised it was called so because only a mountain goat would have the stamina (and, indeed, a much better beard than mine) to climb such a steep route... Later, after my "Englishman Who Went Up A Hill And Came Down A Mountain" jaunt, I meandered my way along The Strand and took a dip in the artificial rock pool.  

My next stop on the coast was a little town called Ayr. Even though you could describe it as a real one-horse town, there was still a very dominant fast-food presence. (As Craig is so fond of saying each time he spots the golden arches on the horizon: "M for Mass Production; M for Capitalism...) However, scary looking clowns and colonels aside, I was pretty much all alone as I wandered around the streets, so I went back to my hostel.

Little did I know, I'd happened across Ayr during the one night of the year when anything actually happens in the town - it was the Ayr Water Festival. A couple of hours later and the main street was teeming with people, so I went outside to watch the parade. Afterwards, the crowds poured onto the street, and I peered down from a balcony in my hostel. Ayr is surrounded by sugar cane fields that are harvested by hand, and so these are often set alight to burn away dead leaves and venomous snakes. And, sure enough, as I watched the festivities from on high, plumes of smoke began to fill the sky as the sun went down.

At night I was sitting in the bar with a jug of what Australians laughably call 'beer', when, much to my surprise, a Scottish marching band paraded right through the middle of the beer garden. Later, I went along to the local club with a fellow called Pete from Leeds. The group on stage started playing AC/DC tunes, and so I nodded along accordingly. Bizarrely, the club seemed to be mostly full of fifteen year old girls, and yet I still got asked for ID on the door! But it started me thinking - despite only having one social event per annum, the large amount of teeny-boppers leads me to believe that in a few years time Ayr will be the place to go...

Next stop was Airlie Beach, yet another nice little coastal town nestled between green hills, and also the springboard for most visitors to the Whitsunday Islands. Here I met up with Tom, the drifter from Kent who we met in Melbourne. He'd volunteered his services on a boat for a couple of nights, so I spent my time relaxing by the lagoon, getting sunburn on my knees, and reading, reading, reading. Over the week, I tried out most of the hostels in town, (including one particularly weird one with a long, triangular attic dorm), and I even spent a night in Tom's van. At the end of the week Craig finally caught me up from his travels, and, that night, the three of us re-united hit the town. 

The next day, Craig and I embarked on our trip to the Whitsunday Islands on a boat called the Atlantic Clipper. We set sail in the afternoon, dropping anchor by one of the islands before nightfall. Everyone on board had brought bucket-loads of alcohol, but, perhaps because we were still suffering from the previous evening, we'd been quite conservative with our beer purchasing, so we didn't drink much on that first night. (I even had a nap; that's just how hardcore I am...)

The following morning we sailed to another island and took a short bush walk to a lookout point. From here you could see the famous Whitehaven Beach, with its ultra fine high-silicone sand. (It even squeaked when you walked on it.) That afternoon I went snorkelling, while Craig and some others did a spot of scuba diving. You're advised to swim in groups, so I went with an English lad called Michael and a Dutch guy called Pim who looked like my Uncle David. As far as I'm aware, however, this guy wasn't involved in the adult entertainment business...

The snorkelling itself was really good fun; like floating over a vibrant city. We saw dozens of beautiful fish of all shapes, sizes and colours; starfish, butterfly fish, parrotfish - one was so bright it looked like a 1970's disco. Conversely, we saw some mean looking denizens of the deep too - a small school of dark green fish with protruding brows reminded me of the underwater gangsters from early morning cartoon Sharky and George, crime-busters of the sea...

We had to tread water constantly as not to damage the coral. I was a little clumsy at one point, and broke a few small pieces off with my foot. However, it was OK, because when I glanced down I saw six or so fish of differing species swarm around and swallow it all up, so I know it went to a good home. We spent a few hours swimming around the bay, and then it was back to the Clipper for lunch and a much-needed cup of coffee.

That evening, everyone went a bit crazy and we all got very, very drunk. We started out with a few games of cards in the bar area, then we all went up on deck to play drinking games. It was someone's birthday, so the crew made a birthday cake (which actually tasted like a real sponge) and organised a "wedding ceremony" between the birthday girl and one of the horny young crew members. We were all given roles to play in the service, such as best man, maid of honour, etc. I was given the part of the "drunken uncle", and my speech consisted of me staggering to the front and shouting "You're all a bunch of wankers...! I've been a bit sick, and I can feel it burning the back of my throat..." and then staggering off.

Craig and I were sharing a cabin with a bloke called Big Al, someone else on our travels we've designated as a legend. (Everyone knows a legendary Big Al...) He'd fallen asleep early, so after the ceremony everyone on ship all piled into our tiny little room to wake him up. It was like the Guinness World Record for cramming as many people as possible into a telephone box - there were writhing bodies everywhere. It was manic! He took it all in good spirits though, and soon enough he was out of bed, necking a cup of Goon and playing his guitar.

Later, after yet more inventive drinking games (most of which were new to me, but I did bring a few old favourites of mine to the fore - The Which was particularly popular) the last few stragglers stayed up on deck singing Beatles songs, and an Irish girl called Anita sang a beautiful Gaelic song. Then, myself and a couple of others thought it would be a really good idea to strip down to our underwear and get in the spa. The water was at absolute zero; yes, that's right, the point on the thermodynamic temperature scale where heat energy is at a minimum: -273.15 °C. Well, maybe not, but it bloody felt like it...

The next morning, with most of the passengers still feeling rather intoxicated, we visited another beach, donned our stinger suits and all went snorkelling again. This time we saw turtles. Craig and I spotted a rather large one we decided to call Keith. It was amazing; we followed him for ages, swimming right next to him and stroking his shell. Then we went back to the beach, and, as if to reaffirm my masculinity, I dug a big hole in the sand and buried my feet in it. It had to be done at least once...

That night everyone met up for an after-boat party. Everyone was still feeling fragile, and even suffering from a touch of land-sickness - at times, it felt as though we were still swaying to the motion of the sea. However, soon enough, the party was in full swing again, and Craig organised the biggest chain of Jägerbombs of the trip so far.

The following day I felt the familiar mixture of pain, depression and guilt (mostly from spending too much money) that often accompanies a hangover. I can see why people warn you that the east coast saps your funds. All in all though, the boat trip was fantastic, and worth every penny.

We had to hang around Airlie Beach for most of the day, waiting for our bus. I think many parallels can be drawn between the life of the traveller and the life of the substitute teacher; seeing a new place each week, learning lots of people’s names, and generally feeling like you're in a constant state of transition. Our night-bus was two hours late, so we didn't board until after 10pm, and then it was yet another uncomfortable twelve-hour journey of fitful naps and a lot of fidgeting.

As we've travelled south, the scenery has gradually changed from the rich, green mountains of the far north with tropical trees and plants clinging to their sides, through flat wetlands and marshes to fields full of decidedly nonplussed cattle. We are in Bundaberg at the moment, famous for the rum of the same name (as in "Make mine a Bundy...") and also the one-time home of pioneering aviator Bert Hinkler. That's pretty much all it has to offer; we're only staying here for one night.

Photographic documentation of our peregrination is constantly being added to our usual nook of the Interweb.

Signing off for now,

Liam

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Higher Than Daniel Thompson's Loft

The Australian Adventure
Part 6
Original e-mail date
Mon, 4 September, 2006

Warning: This e-mail is extremely long. Any attempt to read it in one sitting without the aid of a cup of tea and some chocolate biscuits may result in acute boredom, fatigue, and in some extreme cases, dozing off. You have been warned.

Hey up, everybody!

Here it is; a collection of typed letters organised into identifiable words and sentences, which, in turn, shall relay to you our latest adventures and exploits.

So, the scenery has changed quite a few times since my last correspondence, and we've tucked a fair few miles under our belts. Leaving Melbourne was every bit as difficult and emotionally draining as I expected. Even though we had plenty of time, an hour before our coach was due to leave we were rushing around our room, cramming things into our backpacks.

We had to say so many goodbyes, and there were even a few tears at the bus station. Sleeping on the coach was horrendous, even though the driver put 'Shopgirl' on the TV, which helped send us to sleep a little (I enjoyed the Steve Martin novella, but the film version wasn't all that good.) The air-conditioning made the coach freezing cold; quite ironic really, as the bus company was called Firefly...

We arrived at Adelaide bus station at around 5:30am, and we promptly set our clocks back half an hour to local time. We dragged our rucksacks into the small and dingy bus station and collapsed onto the rows of chairs. Outside, it was cold, dark and raining. We decided to store our backpacks in the bus station lockers, but, typically, we picked the only locker that didn't work, shut the door and trapped our luggage inside. Obviously, the woman who worked at the bus station cafe had nothing to do with the lockers; obviously, no-one in the bus station was affiliated with the locker company at all; and, obviously, we had to phone the number on the lockers and get a bloke to climb out of bed and come down and get our bags out...

Presently, we checked into the hostel across the street. It was called Canon Street Backpackers, and had murals of Australian stuff on the wall - fish and kangaroos and criminals and things. It put me in mind of Myers Grove school. It was an OK hostel, even though the kitchen was a five mile walk from the reception - annoying, as they kept the crockery down there. Doubly annoying, when you want a cup of coffee and realise you've forgotten to collect a cup - you needed a Ghurkha guide with you to set up camp halfway up the stairs...

As day dawned in Adelaide, Craig took a nap on his bunk and I went for a walk. Within minutes I realised the dirty, sordid truth... Adelaide looked like England. Specifically, Doncaster. The overcast sky and cold weather didn't help, but it transpired to be a very ugly little town. Our photographs don't reflect this though - we made a pact not to take a snap of anything that looked remotely grotty. So we got a few nice shots of the river, the cricket ground, and the Victorian architecture of the university and library. Oh yes, and one of Craig mounting a statue of a pig...

Two days in Adelaide was more than enough. We met an English Language teacher from Leeds who had been living in Asia for the past four years, and we sampled the nightlife (one pub called the Cumberland Hotel), looked around the market (as we tend to do... maybe we should start up a website or something - market-hunters.com...) and caught a tram to Glenelg, a small town on the sea. There was nothing there, so we caught a tram back. (We quite like our trams too... light-rail-lovers.com)

On the Saturday morning we awoke and arose at an ungodly hour. We were in high spirits though - we were heading for the desert! Our first trip would take us two days, straight up the middle to the Red Centre. We’d booked with a company called Groovy Grape, and the mini-bus collected us from our hostel.

We spent the day on one long road through the desert called the Stuart Highway, which runs all the way up the middle of the country from Adelaide to Darwin. It's named after a famous Scottish explorer, who finally made it all the way from the south of Australia to the north on his third attempt. Unfortunately, he lost all of his teeth and went blind, then returned home to Scotland to die. Nice...

Our overnight stop was at a place called Coober Pedy, the opal mining capital of the world. It was so bizarre - most of the houses and buildings were situated underground; they were actually carved into the rock. (It put me in mind of David Essex on Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds album - "We'll build a brave new world! You know where? Underground...!")

Upon arrival, we had a tour of the museum, then dropped our stuff off in our underground hostel. Then we all went out for pizza in an eatery that was, disappointingly, on top of the ground. The brochure touted it as "the best pizza you will ever eat". (It wasn't. It was OK though.) Afterwards, we went for a drink in the world's only underground bar, then went back to our underground hostel again. (Can you see a theme developing?)

The museum guide explained that the reason why people build their houses under the ground is to maintain a constant temperature. Supposedly, even if it's boiling hot or freezing cold outside, the rock keeps the ambient temperature at around 24 degrees. Craig and I had no sleeping bags or quilts, and at 4am I was forced to get out of bed and wrap a scarf around my head whilst muttering, "24 degrees my arse"...

No opal mining is actually permitted inside the town; residents purchase a plot beyond the perimeter, and whatever they find is theirs to sell. However, although you can't actually dig in the town, people are also free to keep the opals they find as they construct their houses. As a result, the residents of Coober Pedy have quite large underground homes; they simply keep building extra rooms, from squash courts to swimming pools, in a bid to uncover a hidden trove. (Later in the trip, I met a woman who'd lived there for eleven years and didn't find diddley-squat...)

We hit the road the next morning. About half way between Coober Pedy and Alice Springs, we stopped to chat to a German guy that was walking along the road with his dog and two camels. Apparently, he's been trudging around Australia for twelve years! So, when you think about it, that means I was ten years old when he first set off. Crazy stuff!

By dusk we were in Alice Springs. We checked into the YHA, desperate for a good night's sleep. It was a shame when we realised we were sharing our dorm with a man who resembled a hippopotamus. He was like the Ugly Naked Guy from "Friends", laying on his bunk with his arse cleavage poking out from his boxer shorts, sweating, stinking, and, worst of all, snoring louder than a battery drill... not the best environment for getting a good kip.

Nonetheless, excitement and adrenalin prevailed, and the next morning we embarked on our three day trip into the outback! Our tour guide was called Vicky. She looked like the lovechild of Demi Moore and Roland Rat, coming across as a sort of Australian Calamity Jane. She was nice; very hyperactive and funny. Our mini-bus was amazing - it had four-wheel drive and looked like an army truck.

On the first day we drove to Uluru, a.k.a. Ayers Rock, stopping only to collect firewood. It certainly didn't disappoint. We went to the cultural centre first and learned how important it is to the Aboriginals of the region, and how they don't want anyone to climb it. Then we went ahead and disrespected their wishes and climbed it anyway... It sounds callous, but it had to be done. I wish that I had a stronger sense of character, or a larger stock of willpower, but when I saw the amount of tourists coming back down with such a look of elation on their faces it was too much to resist. It was a once in a life time opportunity, and we went for it. After the climb, we could see why they don't want you to climb it. Not so much because of the danger of falling, or even the threat of erosion, but more because we realised it truly is a special place.

The climb itself proved to be more difficult than it looked. There's a chain-rope for the first third, and it's a good job it's there because it's a lot steeper than you expect, especially when the desert sun is beating down. Part way up I felt like I was slipping, and a bit of vertigo kicked in, so I used a boost of energy to take me all the way to the top of the chain to a nice safe flat bit.

When Craig caught me up, I explained how it was going to be difficult for me to get down. It was the same when I was a kid, climbing up into the loft of my next door neighbour Daniel Thompson. I didn't really like clambering up the rickety step ladder and heaving myself into his attic, but it took even more courage when it was time to do the same thing in reverse. Same principle, I reasoned. Just a teeny bit higher.

Fighting hydration, we battled on. The last portion of the climb was less strenuous, but equally as hazardous. Without a chain to grab hold of, we had to negotiate the rock face carefully, with the wind threatening to tip us over the sheer drops on either side. Finally, we made it to the very top. As we stood there admiring the breathtaking view, the wind whipping our hair, Craig telephoned his mum and told her where he was. I called home too, but no-one answered. Typical.

Once back on terra firma (even though, you could argue, we'd never left it) we rejoined our gang. At sunset, we joined the other tour groups at the nearest looking point and took about a million of the same photograph. Boring, but mandatory. Then we went to our camp near the Yulara resort, made a fire, cooked our evening meal, then slept out under the stars - literally. We didn't have tents; just swags and sleeping bags.

The next day we got up at 5am and drove out to watch the sunrise over Ayers Rock and the Kata Tjuta mountain range. It was yet another ideal opportunity to take squillions of boring photos. Then we drove over to Kata Tjuta and did the Valley of the Winds walk... so yes, plenty more pics there too. After lunch we drove quite a long way to King's Creek Cattle Station, and settled down in a camp much more remote than the one on the previous night.

The stars in the Southern Hemisphere are amazing, especially when seen without any light pollution. Everyone was seeing shooting stars too, but I was always looking the other way. I did manage to see one before I fell asleep though; it was only small, but it was mine! I didn't really make a wish, only to fall asleep... and I did.

The next day we went to King's Canyon. (Yep, you guessed it - it was photograph city.) As we wandered around the canyon, with the desert sun high in the sky, we were thinking of the pints of lager waiting for us back at Alice Springs - we truly hoped it would be Ice Cold In Alice...(Oh yes, I've only gone and said it! You were thinking it, but I said it!)

We had a barbecue for lunch, then we called off at the cattle station so Vicky could call her boss. As coincidence would have it, we bumped into Leo, one of the Korean lads we met in Melbourne! Turns out he'd been working there for that past six weeks! It was unbelievable, bumping into him like that in a place so remote.

On the way back to "civilisation" (I use the term loosely - Alice Springs is pretty small), Vicky took us off-road. Most of us wanted to sleep, but we ended up taking a bumpy desert track for over 100km. It was amazing fun though, and we saw plenty of camels. No wild kangaroos though... rubbish.

That night we checked into a much nicer hostel called Annie's Place. The food there is really good and really cheap, so our entire tour group came round for a meal. Later, as everyone began to leave, a Texan guy from our tour called Zac decided to keep buying the remaining six of us shot after shot after shot. He got hammered, so we put him in a taxi. Fifteen minutes later the taxi turned up again with him still in it! Craig and I dragged him out and put him on a bench inside our hostel gate, but he rolled off onto the floor. Eventually, he fell back to sleep. The next morning, all that was left was his hat, sitting innocently on the bench...

The next couple of days we hung around Alice Springs. On the Thursday night we went to a saloon bar in the centre called Bojangles with a couple of German girls we met on our Groovy Grape tour. They have cameras on the wall, and apparently broadcast images over the Internet. Feeling touristy, we had a picture taken with a snake around our necks, as you do...

And so the next day we flew to Cairns, and that's where we are now. Thinking about it, we left the state of Victoria a couple of weeks ago, paid a visit to South Australia, travelled up to the Northern Territory, and now we're in Queensland. Cairns is situated pretty much at the top of the east coast; an ideal starting point for many travellers.

As a town, it's relatively small. Parts of it look quite American, but there is generally a Spanish '18 to 30s' holiday resort feel to it. Basically, it's full of young, British backpackers - apparently, there are more tourists here than locals. The centre is largely made up of Internet cafes and souvenir shops. The weather is not only stifling hot, but very very humid. As a result, it's hard to breathe and you sweat all the time. I'm currently taking two showers a day, but it's a losing battle...

The sea is across the Esplanade, but there's no beach. There's a man-made lagoon, with grass and a large swimming pool, but apparently all the beaches in the area are north of here, near Port Douglas. I'm sure I'll cope – it’s beaches all the way down the east coast. Plus, unlike Craig "Bronze God" Hithersay, I'm not that much of a sun worshipper, despite my yoga training. I like hot weather, don't get me wrong, but lying on the beach all day every day doesn't appeal to me.

Henceforth, Craig and I have decided we may well do the east coast separately - we want different things from it. Our plan is to buy a bus ticket apiece, then we can hop on and off at our leisure. It's far from unusual for mates to split up for a while when travelling; if anything, it is commonplace. We might end up sticking together for most, part or even all of the east coast, but having that extra bit of freedom will help us each do what we want to do.

For now, I think I'm going to drag myself away from this computer, go window shopping around the tacky tourist shops and maybe even treat myself to a cold shower or six. I realised the other day that I've been experiencing winter time for about a year. But that's all changed now. All being well, I've just entered the longest summer of my life... Bring it on!

Over the next day or so, we are trying to upload as many of our photographs as we can from our journey 'up the middle'. Naturally, should one wish, one can seek them out.

If you've made it this far, I salute you.

Take care everyone, and I'll be in touch again soon.

Liam

Gatecrashing the Great Ocean Road

The Australian Adventure
Part 5
Original e-mail date
Mon, 21 August, 2006

Hey up, everybody!

Here it is; it's overdue, it's scary, it's longer than ever - it's the über-mammoth Bumper Edition of my gargantuan self-reflective travel log!

I've been so busy in the past few weeks, working hard, playing hard, and trying desperately not to spend too hard! So much to report. Too much to report! Let me cast my mind back to a suitable point where I can resume... Ah yes. Our road trip along the Great Ocean Road. A good a point as any!

So, one weekend a few weeks back, a bunch of us got together and rented an eight-seater car. We hit the motorway and headed south-west. First stop was a place called Torquay, so I refrained as much as I could from doing Basil Fawlty impersonations. It was difficult, so very difficult... ("Don't mention the war, I mentioned it once but I think I got away with it!") It was essentially a surfers beach, much like Bells Beach, which we found a little further along the coast.

Later that afternoon, we happened across a picturesque seaside town called Lorne. All of us instantly fell in love with the place and wanted to raise families there - there was just something so inherently nice about it. We ate at the "Lorne Fish and Chip Shop" (est. 1954, and boasted the slogan "If it was any fresher, it'd still be in the sea"), perused the attire in "Lorne Girl" (the local equivalent to Topshop), and we even considered booking ourselves into the Lorne Hotel... forever. ("You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.")

The place lent itself to picture-postcard views; it had a river, with ducks (oh yes, ducks), a beautiful ranch-style backpackers' hostel with a bistro underneath, a quaint little supermarket, and even some plastic statues of women with oversized mammary glands. The only bad thing I could see about the place was an eatery called "Kafe Kaos" - I had mental flashes of me walking in there and falling down the stairs... Other than that, it was all groovy, and we spent the rest of the trip sighing and saying things like "I miss Lorne"; "I love Lorne" and "It's not as good as Lorne".

As we meandered our way along the coast, we passed through loads of little villages. Some of the houses were very strange - Australia seemingly allows its architects to go completely wild. One building perched on the edge of a cliff actually looked like the Jetsons' house. None of the towns were, however, as good as Lorne, though a breathtaking moment did occur when we saw a rainbow form across one of the bays; you could see it end right in the middle of the ocean. The photographs we took simply don't do it justice.

The State of Victoria is actually known as Australia's "Garden State" (although, unlike New Jersey, it wasn't the inspiration for the Zach Braff film.) There are lots of cows, and it's very, very green. Parts of it look a little like - dare I say it - Blighty. After taking a rather lengthy detour to find a lighthouse (we ended up just driving round the car-park three times with the radio on full blast to freak out the locals - we later discovered it was the lighthouse where they filmed, aptly enough, Round the Twist...), we pulled up at the Twelve Apostles.

Now, to be honest, I wasn't all that enthralled about seeing a bunch of rocks sticking out of the sea, but by the time we arrived the sun was setting, and we ended up going on a helicopter ride right over the top of them. I'm known for being unenthusiastic about these things, but it was my first time in a helicopter and I was loving it! Afterwards, we got talking to the helicopter pilots, and they invited us to a party that evening.

After coming down (both literally and from the adrenaline high), we drove onto Port Campbell, our stop-off for the night. It really was a one horse town - the only shop shut at 7pm and the nightlife made Rotherham look like Las Vegas. Luckily, we'd been invited, by-proxy, to the party at the aptly named Surf Club, so we checked into a small little backpackers hostel, had a quick nap, then turned up fashionably late.

It turned out to be a guy called Tom's 21st birthday party, and we walked into a room full of his family and friends just as they were making the speeches. We felt a little out of place, but we didn't care! We took full advantage of the free food and the free drinks, had photographs taken with the birthday boy and his grandma, and boogied the night away to the rock band that were playing. Everyone was wondering just who the hell we were! Afterwards, we all poured out of the club and across the street to another hostel, and we stood by the beach looking at the stars... but it was flippin' freezing so we went back to our backpackers. The next morning we hit the highway, stopping off at one of the many McDonalds in Geelong to reminisce about the beautiful Lorne...

Upon arriving back in Melbourne, we still had the hire car for another few hours, so we drove off to find Ramsey Street. It's actually called, disappointingly enough, Pin Oak Court, and, as everyone seems to say, it's much smaller than it appears on TV. I don't know how Billy Kennedy and Toadie used to play cricket on there.... Still, I've now walked down both Coronation Street and Ramsey Street, so I can die happy. Well, it's not the Nobel Peace Prize, but I can die marginally contented, anyway. And, it gave me plenty of inspiration for my Neighbours spin-off - Ramsey Street: 2150.

A couple of days after the road trip we checked out of the ultra plush Urban Central and moved round the corner to a hostel called, Bev and Mick's. (absolutely true - but not a Crokey-Boss in sight.) We've been living here for the past three weeks, and we really like it. It's situated above a pub, is quite small and has a distinct lack of wallpaper, carpets, and, in some rooms, ceilings. Craig describes it as "rough and ready", but the owners are very friendly and the atmosphere is really chilled out.

The pub downstairs is rather smoky so we don't spend all night there, but I've won the quiz a couple of times so we had to use up my $150 bar tab! On one of the quiz nights, they had bonus rounds. There was a race to down a pint of fizzy soda water and munch through a whole Boost bar. I came second, but I managed to be the champion of "Rock, Paper, Scissors". It was weird, I seemed to be able to read everyone's minds - it was like I was possessed!

We originally shared our room with a New Zealander - he was a 33-year-old bearded ex-hip-hop DJ called Jaz, and he was the laziest man alive. He was worse than me when I was living in Southampton - the guy NEVER got out of bed. He's since left, and we're now sharing with a Ricky Gervais look-a-like from Colchester called Tom. We've spent a lot of time with two girls from Northern Ireland called Lynne and Lisa (two of the Great Ocean Road ensemble who now also live at Bev and Mick's), and we made new friends at the hostel including Jaz's mate Mike (another Kiwi who reminds me of Garth from Wayne's World), and a German girl called Pia. We're loving meeting new people, but we're sick of constantly having to say goodbye... such is the nature of our Odyssey.

The last few weeks really have been a bit of a blur. On the tourist front, I checked out the TV50 exhibition at the Australia Centre for the Moving Image; Craig has visited the odd art gallery; we've visited the Royal Botanic Gardens and the Shrine of Remembrance; we went to a free wine tasting in a Bottle Shop; and we finally, finally made it to the observation deck at the top of the Rialto Tower. Don't worry, we took squillions of extremely boring photographs of the Melbourne skyline for you all to fall asleep in front of. The funniest thing about that day was the video they play when you go up the tower. It was the tackiest, most cringe-worthy promotional film for Melbourne that you could ever make - one of the lyrics to the cheesy overlaying song was: "Melbourne... It's a never-ending story!"

Last Friday a huge group of us went on a night out in St. Kilda. Well, I say we went out - we ended up spending the first half of the evening in the bar at Urban Central and then the second half inside another English-themed pub. I didn't come to the other side of the planet to be reminded of Slough. Nonetheless, everyone came out and it was a fantastic night.

A lot of my time in the past few weeks has been spent with a Mexican girl called Mariana. She used to live at Urban Central, but now has her own apartment in the city. She is studying environmental engineering at university here for one year as part of her course back in Mexico. She's here on scholarship scheme; not only is she bi-lingual, she's won dancing competitions, plays the piano, and writes articles that get published in Mexican newspapers. I think she wants to be some sort of environmental journalist.

We met about three weeks ago, and we got on really well. Yesterday we had a really nice day; we went out for coffee, did some shopping and then I cooked us a meal. It's been difficult though, because she has so much homework to do for her degree and I feel as though I'm keeping her from her studies. I do like her, very much, and it's going to be incredibly hard to say goodbye to her. Our time together has been far too brief, and I think it will be my most difficult farewell of the trip.

Employment wise, we haven't fared all that bad. We've had quite a few jobs - I took over Craig's job for a week at the building on Queen Street that's undergoing renovation. I had to put my practically non-existent DIY skills to the test - they had me sanding and varnishing tables! And I was introduced to the legend that is Jeff.

Now, I think he was a janitor of some sort, but he just used to sit there and drink tea all day. He wore the same knitted jumper each day of the week and even though he was in his late fifties he still lived with his mum. He was a fantastic guy though, and agreed with everything you said. His catchphrase was "Yeah, yeah... oh shit yeah!". I asked him once where he'd been travelling. He said he'd been to England, and thought London, Liverpool and Manchester were pretty good. I asked him if he'd been anywhere else. He said he'd seen a lot of Europe, including Germany, and he thought it was pretty good. He told me he'd been to Rome, and seen the Colosseum, so I asked him what he thought of that. He took a sip of his tea (his tenth cup of the morning), swallowed thoughtfully and said... "It was pretty good, yeah". Legend.

I worked alongside a Scottish lad called Gordon, who was a nice bloke. The guy who owned the building owned lots of backpacker hostels in the city, so we were always able to go for a free pint after work at Flinders Station Hotel, and, on occasion, we'd check out the seedy strippers in the nearby Hosies. It was quite a good little job, but I could only work there for one week as the inspectors were sniffing round and it was only a cash-in-hand job. The following week, Craig and I each did a day on another renovation job. It was horrible work for a miserable man. Somehow, when I introduced myself, the guy misheard my name as William. Instantly, before I had time to correct him, everyone thought that was my name, so I ended up having a full day of builders calling me Will...

We've both had jobs setting up stalls at the Melbourne Exhibition centre, and we've both spent a Saturday morning apiece washing cars at a second-hand dealership. My favourite job so far has to be the one I did for a couple of days last week at a little cafe in the South Melbourne Market. I had to load and unload the dishwasher, toast sandwiches, wipe down tables and take coffee out to people. It was great. The people were really friendly, and they wanted me to stay, but, sadly, it's time for us to move on...

Yes, in a couple of days we hit the road. We've been living here in Melbourne for a total of two months, and this city has really captured my heart. Maybe, time and funds permitting, we'll get a chance to visit it again in the summertime. For now thought, we're heading west, then north (via that big red rock thingy) then due north-east. And all in a week and a half!

So I suppose it will soon be time to finally buy a wide-brimmed hat, slop on some sun-cream and don my sandals and shorts! I won't miss the cold weather, but I will miss this amazing city.

I'll be in touch again when I can. Although the chronology has all gone to pot and they're getting a bit mixed up, the latest photographs, as ever, are at the usual address. You know the drill.

Speak to you all soon,

Liam