April 2004

Week 53: Monday 5th to Sunday 11th April

This week saw the four on tour celebrate their 12 month anniversary. To mark the occasion they were joined by Ads, Dan, Jon, (who had just returned from a weeks trip to Melbourne and Canberra) Chris and a few others at Bondi. There we had a few drinks and ended the night on the dance floor. Good Friday meant no work so all but Phil and Ads went to the zoo. We all met up at Circular Quay and headed to a German bar in the Rocks to see Ads, Dan and Jon off. They were leaving to head up the coast and it was possibly the last time we would see them. Of course, we would see them in England. It had been a good laugh living with them and things wouldn't be the same without them. As we had to leave on Sunday, Matt and Phil did their share of the cleaning while Liam and Rich went to watch the Sydney swans beat the Geelong cats in an Aussie rules football match. We all met up in Kings Cross after the match to celebrate Chris�Ebirthday and ended up in the Empire for a dance. Time had come for us to leave our nice flat and by midday we were out and on our way to our new home, a hostel in the city. Not as nice as having our own place but it would do for a couple weeks. That afternoon, Matt, Phil and Rich went to Newtown and did a very strange thing, sat in a cafe and had coffee and cakes, What's going on there?!

Week 54: Monday 12th to Sunday 18th April

The week started on Easter Monday and after checking into the Wanderers on Kent hostel we embarked on our bank holiday adventure. We had decided to go to Central Station and catch a train to a randomly picked platform at 1215 (the time we left home in 2003). Now as we are not the most punctual of people we missed that. Instead we agreed on a $15 budget and got a random person to pick a numbered piece of paper out of Matt's hand. 10 was picked by a station worker so we headed to the ticket office and asked the man where we could get for $15 on the line to Newcastle. After a bit of button pushing and numerous bewildered looks we were told it was Morriset. We boarded the train and spent the next 45 �E60 minutes wondering what we would find in Morriset. Bugger all was what we found, sorry not entirely, we saw a tractor, a very lame memorial park a few abandoned Bi-Lo shopping trolleys and a country club. We made our way to the country club and had a drink. While we were there we were introduced to Keno, a gambling game; gambling is huge in Australia.

The aim of the game is to guess heads, tails or evens 80 numbers are drawn randomly 1-39 are heads and 40 �E80 are tails. If by the end of draw of 20 balls there are more heads then heads is the winner and vice versa. We were getting pretty hooked but managed to pull ourselves away and return on a late train back to the hostel. All in all it was a bit of a strange day out, but we thought it was funny.

Matt was shopping around flights to the UK still, as he needed to return home for his Grandmothers funeral, he managed to do that and fit in another session at the Powerhouse museum with Phil where they made another tune and saw a new gambling exhibit.

Wednesday night was pool comp time at the PBH, none of us managed to win but we managed to win a few beers anyway as we fooled the barmaid into handing over one of the semi-final prizes, a 6 pack of beer.

Matt flew out on Thursday and that left the others to work and for Phil to sort out a car for our road trip. The weekend saw the remaining three go to a house party with some of Liam and Rich's work mates, watch football and see a man about a car.

The car seemed pretty good but we went away to have a think about it and look else where. We had been looking for a station wagon (estate) probably a Ford Falcon or Holden Commodore for around $2000. That would fit four and our stuff plus camping equipment that came with the car.

We now had one more week to find our trusty steed!

Week 55: Monday 19th to Sunday 25th April

We had arranged a time to test drive one of the cars we were interested in and on Tuesday we went to meet the Canadian couple who were selling the 1985 Ford Falcon Stationwagon. Our first impressions were that it looked as good as it should for its age, it had been about a bit so it had a few bumps and scratches. We didn't mind this as long as it drove well and was reliable, we leave the good looks to ourselves. So off we went for a drive, Andrew took us away from the city centre traffic and let Phil and Liam test the car. After a drive about town we returned to their flat still pretty impressed by the smooth running and general good condition of the car. None of us are car experts so we really had no idea if buying the car would be a mistake. It's a big decision to spend a lot of money on something you are counting on to get you around the sixth largest country in the world. After some deliberation we decided on a price we wouldn't go over and started talking money with the very friendly and genuine Canadians. The price it was up for was $2100 and we weren't going to go higher than $1800. Rich started the bidding at $450 much to Andrew's disbelief but we quickly pointed out we were joking, we're not too sure if he appreciated that too much. Well to cut a not too long story short we ended up agreeing on a price of $1700, which we thought was pretty good considering it had a shed load of camping equipment with it. And we are sure the Canadians were pleased with the price too, it's just a case of eventually meeting in the middle where both parties are happy. We paid a deposit and walked away relieved to have secured our transport for our Australian leg. The rest of the week was much the same, Rich and Liam were working long hours to get as much money as possible, the only other points of interest were outings to see Starsky and Hutch at the cinema and a trip to the worlds largest screen at the IMAX. On Wednesday evening we returned to the PBH to enter the pool competition again. As we said earlier we managed to con a barmaid out of a 6 pack of beer, when we arrived at the pub we got collared by the girl as she had spoken to the guy who should have received the prize. She was clearly unimpressed, so much so that she refused to let us enter the pool comp for a while. With a bit of sweet talking we managed to persuade her to let us in, and very thankful we were, as Phil managed to go right to the final and eventually win a nail biting match against a fellow Brit. It wasn't quite the spectacle of the 1985 World snooker championship final between Steve Davis and Dennis Taylor, nor was the prize money as generous but he walked away pleased and $50 better off.

At the weekend the three went out for a curry in Glebe, which turned out to be very very good, not quite up to Birmingham standards but close. A trip to Kings Cross followed with some Premiership action followed by more drinks in the World Bar. As it was ANZAC day on Sunday (Anzac Day is held on 25 April each year to commemorate Australians and New Zealanders killed in war and to honour returned servicemen and women) we thought we would catch the dawn parade. Now you would think that wouldn't be a problem as we were out in town and not asleep. Yep we managed to miss the main bit as we were farting about on trains after staying in the bar for too long, ah well there is always the parade.....no we fell asleep and missed that too, hopeless, absolutely hopeless.

After our sleep we went and picked up our new car and parked it somewhere safe (and free). That evening we tried to make amends by going out to the Cargo bar and witnessed the famous two up. This is a type of betting game (surprise surprise) that is only played on ANZAC day. The definition of the game is; a gambling game where two coins are tossed in the air and bets placed on a showing of two heads or two tails. The two coins are placed tails up on a flat board called the kip. The ring-keeper (the person in charge of the two-up ring) calls come in spinner, and the spinner tosses the coins. It looked like a good laugh but we didn't place any bets, we had no idea what was going on.

Week 56: Monday 16th to Friday 30th April

Eventually the day had come to leave Sydney and hit the road again. We checked out of Wanderers and headed off to Katoomba, in the Blue Mountains, where we would spend a couple of days before coming back to Sydney to pick Matt up and begin the trip up the coast. Felix seemed to enjoy his first real journey with Four on Tour at the helm, we pulled into our campsite early evening. We had fish and chips and a couple of pints at the local before getting back to the tent. Our first night of camping was absolutely freezing. The warm Aussie climate was superseded by the altitude and we slept in the warmest clothes we could find in our rucksacks. In the morning we had to take Phil to the local hospital to be treated for frostbite in his big toe!

We failed to mention earlier that we named our new car Felix. We decided on that name as it is a person we have met on the trip who like our new car is old, a bit worn and battered, trusty and tempremental. For those of you who don't remember or don't read all of the journal, we met Felix on a train from Poland to Lithuania. A very clever tramp who was very interesting.

After we had gathered our stuff and thawed out in the sun we saw some of the sites of the Blue Mountains. Some of the sites were incredible and breathtaking. Sheer cliff faces, vast gorges and tall mountains. We saw the Three Sisters, which inevitably had an Aboriginal story to explain why these tall rocks were left protruding on there own. There's also some story about erosion. There was a rainforest board-walk which you accessed via a cable car and exited by the steepest railway line in the world, which is an old coalmine line and is worryingly vertical. We managed to survive this and moved onto a bush campsite for the evening, which was about an hour off the main tourist route. The ground was very basic in the sense that it had no facilities apart from a hole in the ground for a toilet and a park bench. Due to the sub-zero conditions of the previous night we weren't taking any chances and decided the three of us should all stay in the two man tent, which is smaller than your average Wendy house. It was very snug to say the least and with No space between us we dreaded to think what the rock climbing students next to us thought of the situation. Never again.

We gladly evacuated the Wendy house in the morning, had breakfast and headed to Sydney to pick Matt up from the airport. Once reunited we did some last minute shopping before leaving Sydney, in style, via the Harbour Bridge with the Opera House in the background. A few hours later we arrived in Nelsons Bay (near Anna Bay). Whilst setting up the tent we met Paul, who was camping nearby, a top bloke from the Central Coast who came to the local with us for a few beers. We got to the pub and got stuck into a few rounds which is when we discovered Paul's hidden talent, which was betting on the dogs. The subject came up due to the TAB screens all over the pub. He proceeded to explain to us all about his illustrious gambling career. We took it with a pinch of salt until he predicted the winner of the next race, and the next, and the next. This guy had a success rate of about 80% and this is no word of a lie. Race after race he predicted the outcome. It wasn't long before we had to have a flutter. Our first bet was unsuccessful but sure enough our fortunes changed and by the end of the evening we had made enough money to pay for the night. We hastily wrote down some betting tips and continued to have a great night with Paul keeping us amused with his typically Aussie sense of humour. After a drunken walk back to the camp site and a few more laughs we hit the sack for the night.

In the morning Paul was very helpful again and proceeded to give Felix a good servicing. Radio, radiator, oil, the works and we were very grateful. A nice bit of luck bumping into a mechanic come John McCririck esq tipster, on our first real day with the car. The rest of the day was spent pampering Felix with new tyres, door lock buttons, a new ford badge and manuals before getting some miles under our belt and ending up just south of Taree in a place called Old Bar. A sleepy town with not a lot to do. We did manage to find a pub, thanks to the guy in the pizza take-away, who gave us a lift there.

Taree shot to fame for the Four On Tour in Korea when we bumped into Tyrone White. He had always said that we should pop in and visit his dad at his hardware store and that was the main aim for the day. We were fortunate that he was around. His hardware store turned out to be a massive warehouse selling building supplies. We spent about an hour with Mr White chatting and having a cuppa and swapping stories about Ty's travels. Just like his son Mr White was a great bloke and it was a pleasure to meet him. We carried on to Port Macquarie, a small town with a country village feel to it. We had fish and chips here before reaching Coffs harbour in the evening. The night was spent at the local hotspot, Plantation. Where we got seriously drunk in the first real party town we had reached since Sydney.

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