Not Fake News. Urban LegendsContrary to rumours, I do sometimes escape my cloister.
This time my ( generous ) hosts Roger and Karen took me seeing the sights of Brisbane, from the South Bank.
There are acres of public space running alongside the river.
In case I need to say it again, the larger Australian cities I’ve seen on this trip have spent much money and time on creating beautiful outdoor public spaces.
Then to Mt. Gravatt Lookout, and home.
After today, it’s unlikely I’ll return to stay in Cairns.
The simple reason – you can’t swim in the sea there. This day by way of consolation, started and ended with dips in the Briny.
In Townsville, at 7.30 a.m., the bathing belles on the beach advertised the small bay. They’d already been in, and scoffed off suggestions of Salties. The water was beautifully warm.
Townsville is now my favourite town in Far North Queensland. Its waterfront is better equipped, there is sand in place of Cairns’ mud, and there are cafes and other tourist traps all along the while.
After again wrestling my push-bike in and out of the van for the second of dozens of times, I followed the Coast South-East to Airlie Beach.
I arrived mid-afternoon to a breezy little seaside town which has an official population of 1,208 people.
It’s compact, and as with Townsville ad Cairns, the town centre is right next to the seaside. Also like those two towns, I soon discover a large public area close to town, equipped with picnic areas, large open spaces, and toilets.
Again there’s a chlorinated pool labelled a “lagoon” like the ugly sister right next to the beach.
Coming into town I discovered an open secret. That is, Liberty fuel. It was selling at around AUD $1.35, competing with prices as high as $1.65 elsewhere.
Since it’s dawning on me that petrol costs won’t be much less than the cost of van hire, I start choosing petrol stations more carefully.
I headed for the higher-up and leafy suburbs this night, looking for slightly cooler temperatures.
I got some sidelong glances from a couple of elderly strollers at dusk, but a cheery “hello” put them at their ease, and I slept a little more comfortably.
1980, Tamaterau, Whangarei, New Zealand A bunch of kids, including me, are walking up a country road. A ghetto blaster is perched on the shoulder of the largest, and “Deadlock Holiday” is playing.
They ( 10cc ) weren’t among the Cool Kids, but neither was I.
2021, Cairns, Queensland, Australia>. I’m riding down a side-road when a feral-looking dreadlocked brother takes a u-turn, and starts bike-stalking me.
I’m on my way to Jucy rentals to pick up my van for the trip from Cairns to Brisbane, and this first 2 km leg of the 1800 km road-trip isn’t going well.
I make a couple of u-turns, but he tails me, like a fighter pilot.
“Stop following me, bro,” he growls.
I’m not too sure where’s where, so I hit the after-burners and scarper off towards a gang of workers a few hundred metres away. My stalker disappears.
An hour or so later, all kitted out with a cigarette-to-laptop charger, and aux sound cables I’m on my way.
I arrive exhausted at around 6pm , and wolf down a lazy dinner of sardines and whatnot.
It takes me a few minutes to discover that Townsville city centre, set on the beachfront like Cairns, is beautifully laid out and with all the mod cons a tourist could want.
It takes me much longer to figure out how to set the van up for the night. I finally doze off sometime around 2 am after meandering the town looking for the best parking spot.
I’m a rank amateur at the this game.
I’ve run across – not over – some strange birds here on meandering through the city, but pelicans? Who knew?
Seems they’re regular visitors, coming to these parts in winter to breed.
They enjoy the mudflats, so Cairns, with its mudflats stretching hundreds of meteres off-shore, is perfect.
My own southern migration plans are back with the committee after a school-friend from last Millenium kindly offered to put me up in Brisbane.
Maybe the biggest regret of the South-East Asia jaunt was failing to take time out to explore more.
So it seems that not taking the chance to catch up with him, and see some of the Big Smoke, on my way south, would be a mistake.
It’s two-nil to PB Tech in the home-and-away online shopping games.
But you know the rules – let’s not talk about the war.
Instead, let’s talk about buying phones online. The fast decline of my old phone started when I pried off the back cover to do some surgery with blunt instruments.
A few weeks later, the sim card slot no longer slid out, and my attempts to wrangle it back into shape resulted in a banana-shaped back cover. Go figure.
With the upcoming escape to Oz, my daughter suggested the inevitable had hit the fan, and it needed replacing.
After poring over specs and costs etc at gsmarena.com, I settled on a Redmi 9 ( no “Note”) , cheap at Dick Smiths.
I bought that online on June 15, thinking that even if it was being imported from Australia, it would arrive in time.
Not. When I hadn’t heard, or received, anything a week later, I looked up the tracking. It was nowhere to be found.
Since Dick Smith’s is now 100% online, and one doesn’t get to talk ( even by text chat! ) to a real person, a busyness of emails followed.
They were “opening an investigation”, which may take “up to 10 working days”. After repeating myself a few times, I think it dawned on them that what I wanted was a phone, and not an investigation. Thank you.
They did eventually refund the money, leaving me to scramble about again.
I found a Redmi Note 9T at PB Tech.
They had delivered within two days an SD card I bought soon after the Dick Smith’s Redmi buy.
And so it was with the phone, which arrived less than 24 hours after I’d ordered it.
So here’s to PB Tech, which delivers stuff pronto with no palaver.
Unlike some other outlets. Which suspicious minds might think advertise products knowing that their delivery tracking is broken, and they don’t have to stocks to meet demand.
It’s official – i’m on my way out of this cold rainy Isle to soak in the sun.
For a bit. Maybe as brief as three weeks, but perhaps for as long as three months or more. I don’t ( yet ) have a return ticket.
Destination ? Cairns, Far North Queensland, in the Land of Oz, where it’s warm.
Maybe the 16-month stint in South–East Asia messed up my thermostat, but this winter – my first in the “Winterless North” since 2018 – has been brutal on this skinny old bloke.
I wouldna thunk of Cairns, except that it kept cropping up in conversation with Japanese students at Engoo.
is D-Day. I’ll be leaving Whangarei late afternoon, and arriving in Cairns close to midnight.
I’ve got a room booked in an AirBnB house for the first week. I plan to spend most of that beetling around for ( cheaper ) longer-term digs.
I’m told by an Insider in the airBnB game that at NZD 270 / week, I’m getting a good deal. But at that price, a 3-month stay may be a stretch.
But, barring Aussie customs deciding that they don’t want another recidivist Kiwi, I’m hoping to at least dodge the worst of the remaining winter.
“Good things take time,” says the old TV ad – but I’m unsure whether it applies to books as much as cheese or wine.
Rumours from the Pit has been (self-)published by Xlibris.com.
For me, it’s the end of a saga which began nearly 25 years ago. Here’s how.
I’d landed – again – back in my hometown Whangarei. After licking my wounds for a while, I began to look around for something productive to do.
Meantime, my old friend Carl Wyant was talking ( via letter ) about putting together a collection of his newspaper columns for publication.
Around that time, I got my first PC, having used them since the early 1990s in two previous jobs as Joe The Reporter.
And for want of anything better to do, Carl or I – I can’t remember which – nominated me to transcribe his best columns to digital format.
There followed three months or so of slugging away on the PC, in between a storm of letters. These were typed and posted, just like the 1970s. I use the word storm because a fair few of them bordered on … irascible.
My test from Day 3 of quarantine has come back ‘clear of anti-bodies’.
Not negative. I’m not entirely sure what the difference is, but I’ll take it anyway.
Here they use a novel system of counting, so that Monday – when I landed and arrived here – was Day 0. Hence the test is from Thursday.
The no news is good news system got to me, so I phoned for the result. The voice on the other end pressed a couple of buttons, and presto, a result.
I’m generally feeling fine. The interwebs, which were foobared on the first day of online teaching, are behaving themselves. I’m getting regular walkies in the designated areas ( er, mostly ).
My biggest challenge at the moment is turning a blind eye to the desserts being delivered with my by-request ‘low-carb’ meals. Today, beautiful cooked meals, times three, and the desserts? Chips ( crisps to some ) for two meals, and pineapple lumps ( 75% sugar ) for the other. So far I’ve resisted, reminding myself that shortly afterwards I’d feel anything but fine.
I have a handkerchief if you need it.