Tony & Wendy's Travel Blog

Sunday – hot (32C) and sunny.

How variable the weather can be. One minute 16C the next 32C, such massive variations.

After a morning cleaning up, well to be honest Wendy doing most of the work and me battling with SQL, we drive down to St Kilda for a stroll along the beach.

The roads into St Kilda are gridlocked. The suns bought everyone in the Southern hemisphere to this beach. Hardly room to park a handkerchief on the beach, never mind a towel or a thong (that’s an English one) like bikini bottom. Worse than Blackpool in it’s heyday. Not a knotted handkerchief, black socks, braces and deck chair anywhere to be seems.

Lithe young female bodies strewn everywhere. Oh to be young again in body, instead of a 16 year olds mind trapped in a 60’s year old body.

Call in at the Beachcomber Restaurant to hand over a Red Cross food parcel to Simon and Hayley. It’s Bedlam. They’re even queuing to get a table. Looks like hard work to me.

Have a drink and a stroll down the beach and along the pier.

Then it’s back home for dinner and packing.

Monday – up at the crack of sparrows again.

Drive to the airport. Drop the car off and then gird my loins to cope with the airport.

Whatever happened to those halcyon days when air travel was exciting and an enjoyable experience. Long gone. Replaced by a series of queues and processes designed to inflict the maximum misery. Sadly I don’t think there’s any concept of customer care or service. It’s almost as if the whole shebang is doing you a favour.

Yet, I have to confess that once on board, even Quantas, go out of their way to provide a good service. You feel like a customer again.

Well it’s goodbye Oz. After 10 weeks we still can’t understand a word of the airport announcements that jabber out.

What did we like about Oz. I have to say most things. People were very friendly and it’s very English. Weather is great, you get to see the sun nearly every day. Fantastic scenery and generally very civilised.I won’t mention the scrots on the tram, sadly, that’s the same the World over.

What didn’t we like. Well really there was very little – yes this is Victor’s blog – and I have to scrat around for something negative to say. I suppose the vast distances; road works; traffic and most of all those left hand lanes that fizzle out with a sign “Left lane ends – Merge right”. Personally I felt right lane having to merge left is safer.

Whilst I think we’ll still concentrate on the USA, it’s a lot cheaper, we have to say that Oz has the real benefit of being so much more English – sad the English at large!

The acid test is would we come back. Yes, absolutely, despite the long flight. I’m up for November and December next year, not so sure that Wendy’s so keen so soon but we already have enticing opportunities. However if we do it again I think we’d do the trip in one day. Stopover was good to see places but it means two days of misery in place of one and double the airport misery. Better to get it over with in one hit. Also I don’t think we’d travel such distances. Once here we’d choose a destination / area and stick to it.

Areas of choice would probably be Sunshine Coast, Tweed Coast and Melbourne.

Friday – warm and sunny.

New iPad mini and iPad 4 goes on sale today. Don’t we live in exciting times!

We’ve decided to pass on the mini. iPhone for mobile / on the go and traditional iPad for home, coffee table use. Wendy wants the new iPad 4. What Wendy wants she usually gets – who am I to argue. To go with it she gets a bright read case – very girly.

We may be keen but we’re not going to join any overnight queue for the Apple product release raz-a-mataz. After breakfast we drive down to the Apple store to see if they’ve anything left.

Times must be hard they have iPad 4’s left on the shelve and even iPad mini’s. Wendy gets treated to a white iPad 4 32 Gig. Awesome retina display quality and very fast. 

When I get it home and load on all our photos we find there’s only a 5Gig left. Cock up of the first order. Retina display obviously needs nearly twice as much storage, compared to iPad 2 – some may say it’s a marketing ploy.

Drive back down to the Apple store to change it for the 64 Gig – no problem says Mr Apple.

Meanwhile Wendy gets her weekly shopping fix.

Generally a lazy nerdy and Apple config sort of day. 

Saturday – warm and sunny.

Off on the metro into Melbourne. Metros full of women tottering around on 6″ heels; brassy frocks and silly hats and men in black – could it be Melbourne cup ladies day? Some entertaining eye candy.

Catch the free city tram around to docklands and harbour town for a day out. Well we all make mistakes! More sterile than a scalpel fresh out of an autoclave and as much atmosphere as a programmers barbie bash.

Catch the tram back for a walk along South Wharf and South Bank.

Pity about the river Yarra it seems to have all the mud on top. Fall in that and you’re dead. No amount of stomach pumping is going to save you.

Some great street entertainers en-route.

Well it’s goodbye Melbourne, as cities go, one of the nicest. Something for everyone and very laid back. I can well understand why it rates No 1 city to live in.

Very multicultural but can’t say I’ve seen many Aborigines. Perhaps they’re all in the outback.

Is it PC to ask where they’ve all gone? At the time of first European contact, 1788, it is generally estimated that the  population was at least 314,000, some argue even half a million. Yet as at 30 June 2006, there were 517,200 or 2.5% of the total population. From 100% to 2.5% of the population, not much of a birth rate growth! I wonder why?

Hold your horses, that means the population of Oz is about 20 Million. Bloody hell all this land and natural resource, including a very valuable abundance of sunshine, and only 20 million. No wonder the economies prospering

How can anyone (aka Wendy) spend so much time in the info centre shop? Anyone would think it’s an Apple store!

Wednesday – warm, cloudy and some showers in the afternoon.

Up at crack of sparrows.

Drive through Melbourne traffic to the great Ocean Road. Actually built by survivors of World War 1 as a memorial to their fallen comrades.

One of the top ten scenic drives in the World.

Call into Torquay and look at the famous surf beaches, otherwise not much else there.

Then it’s Anglesea and the lighthouse at Aires Inlet. By now it’s 28C, humid and for the first time the flies are out.

Drive on to Lorne and have another exotic lunch in the park. Then to Toms lookout for yet another photo opportunity.

Finally get to Apollo Bay and find a Motel for the night. Start off at the Comfort Inn but the rooms like a murky prison cell. Abandon and find a pleasant apartment in a Motel.

Free Wifi and its unlimited. What they forgot to mention is you can’t get a signal. Why is it so difficult!

Disappointing choice for dinner. No Subway; no MacDonalds; not even a sausage barbie.

Call into a drive in bottle shop – off license. Good ole Bruce on his way home to Sheila can drive his Ute in and pick up a slab (24 pack) without having to get out.

Watch the Ned Kelly DVD. Villain or hero? Must say this interpretation is more of hero outlaw, much wronged by the corrupt police of the time – a lot of police in those days were ex-convicts.

Thursday – rain, clouds and wind.

In view of the weather we give up on our drive down the other half of the Great Ocean Road. Looks like we won’t get to see the 12 Apostles. Just not worth the extra 2 hours drive in pouring rain, making a total of 6 hours driving. I’ve put some pictures off the Internet to make up for it.

Decide to drive back along one of the highlighted inland tourist routes. Gourmet and wine route it says on the map and recommended by tourist info lady. Mind you she’s the one who said it best to see the 12 Apostles on a day like today as you can better picture the ship wreck coast in storm and tempest – mad as a hatter.

Anyway back to our route. She seemed to forget to mention that it was a single, almost dirt track, mountain road and I should have a machete and chain saw with me to clear away the fallen trees. Despite it all we made it. Can’t recall much in the way of food or wine offerings along the way.

Now for some cultural enlightenment – How to eat a TimTam Ozzie style:

1 Bite off the top left and bottom right hand corner at an angle of 45 degrees. Yes you can eat those bits.
2 Have a cup of hot tea ready.
3 Gripping TimTam in mouth dip the the bottom half in the hot tea and suck for all you’re worth.
4 Quickly lift TimTam out of the tea before it melts.
5 Continue sucking melted TimTam core through the middle.
6 Eat the rest of the TimTam

Foreign aid. What a load of whackers our politicians are – see foreign aid map. 

£93Million to Somalia. A country that has just stoned a woman to death for “having a naughty” (sex); is a hotbed of terrorist activity; famed for it’s piracy; has had £85 Million of foreign aid “go astray”. Why do we support such barbaric countries. On top of this they send Millions, of money that we don’t have, to India and Pakistan who are that strapped for cash they can afford a nuclear weapons programme and India even has a space programme. I’m spewin.

How can these politicians live with themselves. Marvellous isn’t it we’re not near the top in many World rankings, but when it comes to foreign aid as a % of Gross National Income we seem to excel.

Foreign aid definition:
The transfer of money from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries.

Usually nothing good to say about the French but at least they don’t stand any nonsense: 

France kicks out devout Imam who called for jihad, Jewish genocide and corporal punishment of woman.

Oh dear how sad! Pity our PC, do gooder, numbskull politicians don’t do the same.

Tuesday – hot and sunny in the 30’s.

Wow Philips today launch a web-enabled LED light bulb, capable of interacting with smartphones and tablets to automate lighting in the home using integrated wireless technology. Don’t we live in exciting times. What’s next?

Lazy morning to recover from yesterdays drive. Then after lunch we catch the train into Melbourne.

I see over here the taliban and fundamentalists have a car hire Company – Rentabomb. Jihadist attempt at financial suicide – not a good investment.

Catch the free tram up to the Central Library to see the free Ned Kelly exhibition – notice how the word free keeps recurring. See his suit of armour. Must have weighed a ton and produced some serious burns in these temperatures. People had never seen anything like it and as a result thought it was a devil. Villain or hero – opinion seem divided. 

Then walked up to the Old Melbourne Gaol and actually paid to go in. Quite an interesting place complete with gallows. Also had an interactive tour of the police station house next door. Got banged up. Made it quite entertaining.

Then it was coffee and a free tram back to the station to play at being a commuter.

The tram journeys were a valuable Ozzie cultural experience. So far we’ve loved nearly everything about Oz but today we saw the disgusting side.

Waiting for the tram it seems that there is zero understanding of queueing. What a bloody free for all.

The trams another example of this free for all. Not one of the young scrots bothered to get up and offer an elderly lady her seat. Just to add insult to injury when a seat came free one of the scrots dashed to fill it. I’m spewin!
Whatever happened to manners and respect? Sadly I don’t think any of them even understand the concept.

Take their smart phones off them and make them walk!

A sad reflection on Ozzie society. But they’re not alone. Is this a product of multi-culturism? Can I say that? Is it PC to ask? Who gives a dam.

Get our free copy of the Mx paper to pass the time on the commute home. It’s really entertaining even if it does take all of 5 minutes to read.

Fascinating to watch what the regulars do. Read the free paper; play on iPhone or iPad, the poor play on their Androids; have a snooze; read a Kindle or even a book; pick their nose; excavate wax out of your aural cavities; listen to music on giant headphones; scratch their balls or mappa tassie; phone home to tell kids, and everyone else on board, why you won’t be home on time to take them out; write your blog.

But heaven forbid you talk to anyone that would be seriously freaky.

It’s also consoling to know that for the couple that have everything theres a new long distance vibrator remotely controlled by yes, you guessed it, an app. Apparently you even get to choose from a range of different settings.

As if there’s not enough stupidity in the World. Now there’s a transnational university class on terrorism. You’re required to plan an hypothetical terrorist attack. Students have to factor in methods of execution, funding, number of operatives, target and government reaction. Where to sign up. Well of course only in America and to add insult to injury It’s in New York. Good job it’s transnational, wouldn’t want foreign terrorists to be disadvantaged. I suppose the US government will be issuing visa and offering grants to overseas students, especially Afghan Nationals.

Meanwhile if you’re a couch potato and want to diet, watch a horror movie. It seems that fear from watching a horror movie can burn off 113 calories in 90 minutes – equivalent of a 30 minute walk. “The Shining” burns the most calories.

Sunday – hot and sunny.

Up early for the long drive up to the Ned Kelly country and our tour along the great Alpine road.

To relieve the boredom and keep me awake a kangaroo bounces out. If we’d have been a second earlier then Wendy would have been rattly away from inside a roe’s pouch. 

Stop at Bright for lunch. A lovely little tourist town fortunately not spoilt. This seems like a great location for a house swap. Plenty of walks, places to see and plenty of character. No big cities. An Ozzie equivalent of Sedona

Waitress is one of the most bubbly we’ve ever encountered and very helpful. Must be the mountain air. 

Take the long windy drive up to Mount Hotham.Then drive on to Harrietville an even smaller and less spoilt village – very quaint. Everything seems to centre around the general store, come post office, come petrol station, come tourist shop. You name it they sell it. Another lovely location, unspoilt despite the ski trade.

We stay in a lovely 5 bedroom ski lodge at Dinner Plains – yes that’s the name of the ski village. It’s practically deserted. Go out for dinner. With a name like Dinner Plains there should be plenty of choice. Wrong! We’re lucky the central hotel is open. What’s on the menu? It’s a barbie, that should be good – these Ozzies know a thing or two about barbies. You can have sausage, sausage or sausage. To be fair there were 3 different types. Guess I’ll have a sausage.

Have to say it was very enjoyable and our Canadian chef went out of his way with the condiments and his home made blueberry barbie sauce. Then totally unsolicited he bought out a load of his home made fudge for us and gave us a cartoon of his barbie sauce to take home. A real character even if somewhat eccentrically dressed in a banana suit – apparently his Canadian Sunday church wear! A great and memorable evening.

Monday – hot and sunny. 

Delicious bacon and eggs for breakfast – my first in Oz.

Then we have a wander around the delights of Mount Hotham ski resort – it’s deserted. It’s a shame to see a grown man cry – not enough snow to ski on and the lifts were shut. I have to pass on my ambition to ski in Oz.

Have a look around where Kurt worked when he was up here – how anyone can call being at a ski resort work amazes me. How lucky can you get. 

At least the general stores open for coffee.

The Great Alpine Road certainly lives up to its name. Stunning views, goes straight through the ski resort and is a typical mountain road with switchbacks, z bends and some great drop offs for the unwary. Must be real fun when icy.But at least there’s signs on the road edges telling you to keep left or right rather to avoid dropping off the edge Seems some what obvious in summer but I suppose in winter when there’s snow banked up you can have numpties driving off into oblivion. Mind you it’s amazing that some scrots haven’t somewhat mischievously twisted the signs around – fatal.

On the way back we call in Bright again for fridge magnets and lunch.

Then visit Wangaratta, what a great sounding name, doesn’t it just roll off the tongue. Sounds typically Ozzie.

Apparently Ned Kelly’s last stand was in Glenrowan on 28th June 1880 where he was captured and carted off to Melbourne jail to be hanged.

Friday – grey, miserable and rainy.

Lazy day. Wendy gets her weekly treat and goes to the supermarket whilst I spend the morning checking the accounts, credit cards and statements.

By lunch time I’m ready to stick every bankers
bum on a barbie.

Yes, its the usual crap of passwords, stupid 
favourite phrase – name, place, book etc – most of which I’ve forgotten or have probably changed since last logon. Who are these numpties who think this crap up – about as much common sense as a politician.

Then we have Newcastle Building Society who can’t seem to understand the basics of accounting. Statements in the rest of the banking world is  Opening balance + All transactions = closing balance. They can’t be bothered showing the transactions.

But then dig a hole and bury me, it just doesn’t get better than this! The award for stupidity ofthe month must go to “The Post Office Credit Card”. You’d think the one thing a bank would be able to do is add up money. Not really too much to ask me thinks. Well these lunatics struggle with this:

• Statement just doesn’t add up. It’s only about £2,000 out on £3,000, a mere smidgen.
• Nearly 50% of transactions are missing – maybe it isn’t a screw up on the addition you may think!
• Now I know adding 30 odd items up may just set the abacus alight, but hang on they can’t even add two numbers together.

They’re all 20 cents short of a dollar. What chance do we stand with bankers who can’t add up. No wonder they got us into this mess. Bwankers!

Recent surveys of US adults indicate that many Americans hold at least some pseudo-science beliefs:

Astrology: 52%
ESP: 46%
Witches: 19%
Aliens have landed on Earth: 22%
The lost continent of Atlantis: 33%
Dinosaurs and Humans Lived Simultaneously: 41%
Noah’s flood: 65%
Communication with the dead: 42%
Ghosts: 35%
Actually Had a Psychic Experience: 67%

Saturday – cold and grey but no rain.

Up at a sparrows fart to drive up to Ballarat.

Try and visit the Eureka Stockade. They’ve nearly finished a lovely new visitors centre but alas there’s no where to park yet, to at least see the site of the Stockade. Planners they don’t have enough brains to give themselves an headache.

Visit Ballarat for a stroll around. Nothing to get excited about. Wendy was quite scathing. It reminded her of Accrington. Fair condemnation.

Drive onto Sovereign Hill, an outdoor museum that tells the story of Ballarat’s first gold rush in 1851. A great day out with loads to see and do. Full of people in period dress, plenty of live demonstrations and buildings of the period.

The Wheelwright demonstration was awesome. Just think they made these wheel hubs out of green wood, while it was soft enough to work, and then had to leave it for 2 – 3 years to mature and harden up. Machinery involved to speed up the processes was an impressive demonstration of the ingenuity of industrial revolution – 1860’s.

Live gold pouring demonstration was amazing, especially as the resulting gold ingot was worth $175,000. Fortunately they keep using the same gold and it’s not eroded or warn out!

A great day out. Pity it was so cold. Unusually, well worth the money, and good to hear it was not for profit.

Tuesday – warm and cloudy.

The forecast was warm and sunny so we set off to enjoy the Mornington Peninsula. Alas, like weather forecasts the World over, they were wrong. It turned out very cloudy.

Drove down to Point Nepean National park on the very tip of the Peninsula. Used as a quarantine hospital and has a fort there to protect the entry / exit of Port Phillip bay – it’s less than 10K across to the other side so very narrow entry to the bay. Hence the fort and gun emplacement. Had our exotic lunch and a short walk the lookout point, but clouds put us off our planned walk.

Historical snippets of useless information:

In 1877 Russia attacked Turkey so they built fort Napoleon here to protect the entry to the bay. Did they not know that it was occurring on the other side of the World and they didn’t start until 1880 – the Glory of Empire!

The first allied shot in the 1st World war was fired, on August 5th 1914, from fort Napoleon – see it did come in handy after all – on a German ship trying to flee the bay after the declaration of war. The ship returned back to Portsea.

Drove up the West coast road of the peninsula. Not very impressed really. Lots of lovely beaches and little towns, but alas not a single beach cafe for coffee. By the time we got to Frankston we’d had enough and I was suffering withdrawal symptoms. Perhaps the clouds were unkind to the area.

Mistakenly avoided the toll road, being tight again, and ended up going through Springfeld. What a disaster. Queued at the train crossing whilst 6 trains passed; traffic lights galore; road accident, which caused a major hold up because the police were too dammed lazy to park their cars to a void lane closures.

Bit of a disappointing day really.

Never mind a few non PC jokes help:

A sheila in a V8 was going way too fast and got pulled over for speeding.
The cop walked to her car window, flipping open his ticket book, when the sheila said, ‘I bet you are going to sell me a ticket to the Queensland Policeman’s Ball. ‘He replied, ‘ Queensland policemen don’t have balls.’ There was a moment of silence. He just realized what he’d said, closed his book, got back in his patrol car and left.

Bruce was walking down the street on his way to the pub when he saw an Afghan bloke standing on a fifth floor balcony shaking a carpet. He shouted up to him “What’s up Abdul, won’t it start?”

Bruce went to Bondi Beach.
He had the eski next to him, and had a great time watching the sheilas in their bikinis, but after two sixpacks of VB he fell asleep for several hours in the midday sun and got horrible sunburn, specifically to his upper legs.

He went to the hospital, and was promptly admitted after being diagnosed with second-degree burns.

With his skin already starting to blister, and the severe pain he was in, the doctor prescribed continuous intravenous feeding with saline, electrolytes, a sedative, and a Viagra pill every four hours.

The nurse, who was astounded, asked, ‘What good will Viagra do for him, doctor’?

The doctor replied, ‘It won’t do anything for his condition, but it’ll keep the sheets off his burned legs.

Wednesday – warm and sunny.

Up at 06:00 – yes this is supposed to be a holiday and no it wasn’t to catch the live Apple mini launch.

Catch the bus to Glen Waverley and then Metro to Melbourne to be in time for our 09:30 walking tour of Melbourne.

Tour was an eclectic mix,full of interesting snippets of information on history, architecture and events. Explored the Lanes, little traffic free ginnels through Melbourne. Visited some stunning old buildings that have been preserved and protected from the property boom. Learnt how to navigate Melourne – use the Eureka building as a reference point.

Visited some unusual shops, even one selling every button you can imagine. Shop owner uses her knowledge to find a matching button – see search engine picture – all done by hand and experience, no web or PC. Chatted with a Kiwi Graffiti artist whose passion is creating these elaborate murals. Visited Chloe, late 19th century pornography or work of art? Judge for yourselves.

Stopped for coffee in a lovely quirky coffee shop. Saw bits of Melbourne that we’d never have noticed. Indeed a lot of locals go on these tours and are amazed at what they see that they’ve walked past every day.

A great 4 hour walking tour from a passionate volunteer. Thanks to Andrea. All free from the tourist info office. 

Now we need to return to do the other bits of Melbourne we were told about.

Moral is – best things in life are free – check out free tours. Wander around and look up.

Mean while Apple have launched the long suspected iPad mini. Not really for us as they’ve also surprised everyone with a fourth generation iPad, complete with A6 processor – exciting stuff. A good job Wendy took my advice and held off on a new iPad. Consensus seems to be that the mini is really a tad small, we have iPhones for portability. With our eyesight, go for the new 4th Generation iPad.

Better still they’ve launched a new 13 Mac Book Pro with Retina display. I was planning on replacing my 11″ Mac Air with a 13″ and 256G of disk space. Need the extra disk space and larger screen would be good, especially with Logmein etc. TheMac book Pro is a tad heavier but the retina display and faster processor is very appealing. Hmm!

The new iMac is stunning and thin but I really can’t justify an upgrade yet:-(.

In the Lap of Nutters:

Maidstone Council has rejected an application for lap dancing to take place at a town centre venue in Maidstone, Kent.

The Christian Legal Centre supported local nutters who climed the usual bollox that such a venue was not suitable in an area being regenerated by the council where there are already schools, churches and shops nearby.

Objectors ludicrously claimed that the application would effectively be turning Bank Street, where the premises are located, into a sex street.

Saudi Government claims many innocent persons have died and been injured with this film – “Innocence of Muslims” – as a root cause. Funny I thought it was the savage rioters who threw their toys out of the pram yet again.

Here’s one I think most apt:

The three directors of Fosters, XXXX and Coopers were travelling together to a meeting, when their limo broke down.
Fortunately it was right near a pub, and it was 10 AM so it was just opening, so they went inside to wait while the driver fixed it.
The Fosters director ordered three stubbies of Fosters Lager for them and they drank it all while chatting business stuff.
When the beers were gone the XXXX director got up, went to the bar, and came back with three stubbies of XXXX.
They continued to talk business and some time later the stubbies were empty again so it was the Coopers director’s turn for a shout. He got up and went to the bar, and said to the sheila behind the bar; three of the same please.
The sheila was surprised and said hey mate, you’re the Coopers director, why do you order XXXX?
To which he replied; well, I thought it was still a bit too early to start drinking beer yet…. 

And a few more to lighten the day:

THE FINAL WORD ON NUTRITION:

After an exhaustive review of the research literature, here’s the final word on nutrition and health.:

1. Japanese eat very little fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than us.

2.Mexicans eat a lot of fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than us.

3.Chinese drink very little red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than us.

4. Italians drink excessive amounts of red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than us.

5. Germans drink beer and eat lots of sausages and fats and suffer fewer heart attacks than us.

6. The French eat foie-Gras, full fat cheese and drink red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than us

CONCLUSION: Eat and drink what you like. Speaking English is apparently what kills you.

Sheila was standing in the bedroom in the nuddy, looking in the big mirror.

She was not happy with what she saw and said to her husband, “I feel horrible; I look old, fat and ugly. I really need you to pay me a compliment.’

Bruce replied, ‘Your eyesight’s damn near perfect.’

Monday – sunny but cool, just nice.

Up early to drive down to St Kilda to pick Simon and Hayley up. Then it’s a two hour drive out to Phillip Island. Fortunately it’s motorway most of the way. Motorway, with roundabouts; traffic lights; bus stops.

Very scenic island. Visit Churchill’s farm, an old homestead of some early Ozzie settlers. A tad disappointing, but interesting to see the ingenuity and applied common sense of these days. For instance a cooling larder – see picture – where water trickles down over the hessian and the latent heat of vaporisation keeps the contents cool; door closers, to keep the heat out, made of string, pulleys and weights.

Then it’s a visit to a koala sanctuary. Lavish picnic, actually get sandwiches. Obviously out to impress Simon and Hayley. Never realised their young – the koalas that is – were kept in a pouch. Great board walks helps you get to see them in their natural habitat. Have 
the delight of a mating session as a male tries to mount a reluctant female, she’d obviously got an headache. All this goes on up and down a tree 60 feet above ground. She’s a vicious little bitch in defending her honour. Really difficult to know whether the male was successful, being a typical Bruce it could have been over so quickly.

Interesting to hear a young Mother give her children some enlightened and impromptu sex education when asked what are they doing – “they’re just fighting”.

Next stop the Nobbies. Supposedly thousands of seals basking in the sun, complete with purpose built centre complete with merchandising opportunity. Where are they all? As rare as a Taliban in a pinnie washing up the dishes. Apparently all seals have “gone fishing”.

Finally it’s the penguin centre. Again a lovely purpose built centre.

The little penguins – Eudyptula minor (Eudyptula = good little diver, minor = smallest) – come ashore at dusk every night to minimise the risk to them as they cross the beach. A cynic might say its to take the Micky out of the humans, but perhaps it’s just the wonder of evolution.

We troop down to the beach to get our good viewing spot. Don jumpers, mountain jacket and waterproof to keep warm, alas no long johns or ski mits. Simon and Hayley are on the premier viewing package unlike us poor pensioners.

Joy, sat there freezing our bits off whilst waiting for 2,061 little penguins to pop out of the sea and poke fun at 1,000+ humans freezing to death. Hurry up. How do we know how many. Well according to a fairy story told by the rangers, they’re counted every night!

Meanwhile, for entertainment,while some numpties on the front row have decided to eat some donuts and are bewildered as to why the seagulls are hovering, swooping down and shitting on them.

Then better still, in true Oriental fashion to mimic the other family, we have the ultimate stupidity as a japanese family, sitting in front of us, start feeding the seagulls biscuits. As you can imagine I have a few choice words. “Don’t be so stupid. I don’t mind them shitting on you, it serves you right, but why should the rest of us suffer.”

What’s with these surgical masks the Orientals seem to love wearing?Is it some form of national OCD? How can you respect men wearing pink or polka dot masks!

Finally groups of the little blighters – I do mean the penguins – pop out the water. “Should we cross the beach.” “No not yet.” “Quick get back in the water it’s safer.” “Yes, let’s cross.” “No, not yet.” “Yes, it’s safe now. Banzie let’s go for it.”

Watch several groups cross. Difficult to really see them in the dusk. Better and closer view of them as you walk up the boardwalk and you can see them staggering home. They stop at regular intervals for a rest / power nap. Mind you can you blame them they’ve been out fishing all day and hopefully have a belly full of food to feed their young with.

No photography allowed – not that the Orientals want to understand that. Apparently flash upsets the little blighters. But oh did we mention you can buy pictures in the gift shop.

Our pictures were download from their iPhone gallery – don’t think thev’ve realised that flaw in their marketing strategy. There’s a great BBC wildlife documentary on it all here.

Then it’s the long drive back. After a great day out with good company.

Saturday – warm and sunny.

Drove down to Brighton and explored the coast down as far as Mordialloc for a coffee. Learnt a new word Tisane – apparently it means any herbal drink to distinguish it from tea. How sophisticated.

Picture shows the best and cheapest way to get into Oz. Whilst the other shows one boat that just made it. Apparently in Oz they spend at least $1.04 Billion on Asylum seekers – mainly from Afghanistan. A lot of Ozzies are up in arms about it all – so what’s new!

Had a very pleasant walk along Brighton front. Not spoilt, no kiss me quick hats or thong shops anywhere.

Are Ozzies all colour blind? What’s with all the cabs called black cabs and yet they’re yellow.

Why do pigeons and seagulls stand on one leg? Is it to get sympathy and be fed scraps? Apparently no ones really knows. But the strongest theory seems to be that it’s to keep warm. Birds don’t sweat.

Here the savages go again. Toys out the pram and no doubts an opportunity to riot:

The National Geographic Channel’s Washington, DC headquarters has increased security after being inundated with terror threats over the upcoming release of the film Seal Team Six: The Raid on Osama Bin Laden , according to a source.

The full-length feature film is the first dramatization of the U.S. special forces operation that killed the mastermind of the September 11 attacks in Pakistan last May.

According to a New York Post source, the channel has been bombarded with phone calls and blogs posts from Muslim extremist groups warning that anyone airing a film like this is asking for trouble.

A spokesperson for National Geographic told the Post that the channel will air the film no matter what, adding, we are big believers in the First Amendment.

Well now I’ll be doing my damdest to watch it and will post any links to it here.

Sunday – cool, sunny and windy.

Drive down to explore St Kilda. Again another exotic lunch by the sea watching the wake boarders. Very windy but ideal for them.

Have a pleasant walk along the front down to the fun fair, then it becomes like Blackpool. Joy there’s a market – unfortunately unlike a French market they stay open until 17:00. Windy and cool like Blackpool, but at least the rain keeps off until we get back to the car.

Thousand of cyclists are out racing around the bay. What a healthy place.

Lunacy abounds in the UK. Fancy being arrested for calling a police horse gay; calling scientology a cult; cafe owner arrested for displaying passages from the bible on a TV screen. Unbelievable, what have we come to. Love this speech by Rowan Atkinson on Free Speech and reform of Section 5 of the Public Order Act – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gciegyiLYtY. He advocates desensitising (my theory) and more free speech.

The http://reformsection5.org.uk has my support. Do we really need the police and the courts to deal with insults? Should we not just accept that the risk of insult is a fair price to pay for living in a society which values free speech?

Hello, here we go again. Getting ready for “Christmas” offence:

Halloween banned at Seattle School: “costumes could offend”. why are they pandering to an imaginary offence?