Day 74
Friday 24 March. Sunny intervals. 24ºC. The journey to Phillip Island (which, contrary to my last blog, is not in Port Phillip Bay but on the open sea to the east) proved to be surprisingly long. Instead of taking the very lengthy, circuitous, route around Port Phillip Bay through Melbourne, we took a short cut by using a ferry from Queenscliff across The Rip to Sorrento in the east (see Blog 12). The ferry was a conventional RoRo, a sort of cut-down version of a UK cross channel ferry; certainly bigger than the Torpoint Ferry, as Port Phillip Bay can be very choppy and the journey takes forty five minutes. Notwithstanding the short cut, the journey on the eastern side of the bay took about four hours making a total time of six hours from start to finish. Quite a slog for Derek, but he seemed happy. We did break the journey up with lunch and a visit to yet another winery for a wine tasting; I am getting quite good at the latter and can appreciate the merits of the clarity, the legs, the nose and the slurping (‘a good bullshitter’ was the phrase that should most frequently have been found in my confidential reports)
Phillip Island covers about twenty square miles (roughly the size of Guernsey) and is joined to the mainland by a bridge, so no more ferries to get there. Almost all of the towns on the island are named after places on the Isle of Wight (Cowes, Rhyll, Ventnor), which gives it a homely feel. We are staying at a time-share property in Cowes on a small holiday resort complex, a two-bedroomed terraced house looking onto a small internal courtyard containing a tennis court and swimming pool. The accommodation is modern and well-appointed, with an open plan living area downstairs and the bedrooms upstairs, each with their own bathroom (joy). It is certainly an improvement on the place at Halls Gap, though it might be a bit noisy with all the other units attached and close: we will see. The maintenance of the property is, perhaps, a bit dicey. There was a shriek and a crash as Jane demolished the lavatory roll holder shortly after we arrived, and the entire hot tap assembly fell apart as I was having a shower later: a tricky problem to solve with hot water pouring out and me without my multi-tool immediately to hand. Otherwise, though, all right.
We opted out of eating in for the evening, not wishing to start the arrival with a major shopping expedition. Derek and Laura suggested eating at the local RSL (Returned Servicemen’s League) – the equivalent of the British Legion – which offered good value for money. I dare say that you can imagine my inner thoughts and it did cross my mind that this was moving from the sublime to the ridiculous after QM2; but that was an uncharitable thought and so we happily complied. What a surprise! Their RSL was far superior to out British Legion. It was in a modern, very slick-looking building, as good as a proper restaurant in terms of decor, both internally and externally. It had a huge bar and dining area about the size of a ballroom, with a good range of food, all reasonably priced. You ordered at a central counter, and the food was brought later. Members (i.e. ex servicemen) got a cheaper price, but anyone could use the facilities: you just had to sign in and prove identity. The only ‘let down’ to this fairly up-market establishment (apart from the raffle over the main broadcast) was the large section of the building set aside for pokies (see Blog 10) – it was like Las Vegas in there, people glued to the machines with glazed expressions. We went in to watch them play, like visitors to a zoo, and some didn’t seem very happy with us watching them; can’t imagine why…perhaps they thought that we brought bad luck. There was no skill to the games that I could see, it was all (biased) luck. And you didn’t put coins in the machines, you put in credit cards. Scary and sad, I thought, and very odd to our eyes.
Well we learnt another expression today. I was recounting to Laura about a road rage incident that we had seen yesterday, when some woman had shot out of a shop like a banshee and was screaming at a driver who was sounding his horn because of a car blocking his exit (“Go round! Go round! Ya want I kick yer car in!? Do yer? Go round it you…”).
“Ah”, said Laura, “that would be one of the bogans”.
“The Bogans”, I thought, “are they extra-terrestrials like the Vogons in The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy? Or does she know the family?” No. In Australia, a bogan is a person of the lower orders, whose behaviour does not quite come up to the standard expected of general society. A yob, in other words. So there you are, another word for the vocabulary.
Day 75
Saturday 26 March. Hot and sunny, 28ºC. The usual gentle start, to the sound of cockatoos and kookaburras. Cockatoos (the white parrots with the yellow crests on their heads – save you looking it up), by the way, make good pets and can mimic humans or telephone ring tones and other sounds. Interestingly, though, their life span is similar to or greater than ours and so aviaries ask you not to take one as a pet unless you are either young, or have made arrangements to look after the bird after you die; quite a few cockatoos have to be cared for in animal sanctuaries because their owners have died. Depressing thought.
After breakfast we drove in to Cowes town centre to seek out a second-hand bookshop that we had heard of. Jane, Laura and I love these places; Derek somewhat less so. Located in two containers (it’s that Mr Maersk again), the bookshop turned out to be veritable treasure trove for bibliophiles and we spent quite some time in there, leaving with a large bagful of books. The temptation was to dive in to reading immediately, but that would have been a waste in the good weather, so Jane and I set off for a walk in the sunshine. Our complex proved to be five minutes’ walk from the beach and we removed our shoes and wandered along the foreshore in the surf, in what has become the time-honoured manner. It was most pleasant. Eventually, we came to civilisation and we dried our feet to explore some of the town, though I suspect that the main aim was for Jane to have a gelato from a small Italian restaurant that she had spotted on the Esplanade. The ice cream portions here are very generous, and Jane loves ice cream almost as much as penguins and wombats.
Cowes proved to be a nice little holiday town, with the main street lined by variegated cypress trees that gave it a colourful shaded appearance. Like most Australian small towns the street was wide and had the characteristic electric power lines on poles, such as you see in the USA. There was a reasonable range of shops, but most buildings were restaurants, cafés and bars to support the vibrant tourist industry. It was all very relaxing and warm as we strolled back to the resort complex for lunch.
The afternoon had that sleepy tropical feel, so we acquiesced and crashed out for a couple of hours. I awoke to the screams of children. For a while I thought I had died and was in purgatory, being subjected to a final test by God while He decided where to put me; but no, it was real children and I was still on Earth. There were children in the swimming pool thirty metres away, a child in the tennis court four metres away, and toddlers in the children’s playground located right next to the house one metre away. All were screaming and yelling. Bless them, I do love to hear their little voices being tested to the full. I got up so that I could go downstairs and join the others outside, there to revel in so much happiness around me, smiling benignly at all and sundry. Marvellous stuff, Valium.
We had a barbecue using the communal hot plate in the evening, dining on kangaroo meat balls and beef burgers, washed down with Shiraz. Very Australian.
Day 76
Sunday 26 March. Overcast 21ºC. Not so nice today so we felt no guilt in tucking in to those new books. Something has been eating me, and it wasn’t Jane. I have insect bites on legs and arms, but no idea when I was attacked. I have come off remarkably lightly in Australia with regard to mosquitoes so far, but it appears that his area must have more than most and they are silent but deadly. Fortunately I still have that haemorrhoid cream.
As a matter of interest, Phillip Island, like Port Phillip Bay, is named after Admiral Arthur Phillip, who was the first Governor of New South Wales in the late eighteenth century when Australia started as a penal colony, and he founded the city of Sydney. He appears to have been a very competent Governor, dealing fairly with both the Aborigines and the convicts, before retiring to Bath in 1805. He died there in 1814, allegedly after falling from his wheelchair from a first floor window (not sure how he managed that). He is buried in St Nicholas’ Church, Bathampton and his ghost is said still to haunt Bennett Street in Bath. Something from home linked to where we are now.
I see that you are putting your clocks forward about now, so summer must be coming; here in Australia we will be putting ours back for winter next week, and we will then be only nine hours ahead of you. It still feels a long way a away.
The sun finally came out mid afternoon and so we set off for The Nobbies: a coastal rock formation on the western tip of the island, famous for – wait for it – penguins! The Nobbies proved to be very scenic, a nature reserve that is closed off to humans at night when there is a significant migration of animals. The Fairy Penguins (PC name, ‘Little Penguins’ – see Blog 15) are only about 8″ – 12″ in height and, each night, come ashore, climb the cliffs, and retire to their burrows at the cliff edge to be with their chicks. The burrows are like a rabbit burrow, but at the Nobbies, small hutches have also been created in wood to help them along. We saw the burrows, with penguins in them, as we walked along the boardwalks and we are due to attend one of the events, ‘the March of the Penguins’ later this week. This is when you can witness the birds coming ashore at sunset, regular as clockwork.
There was a warning sign at the Nobbies concerning the Copperhead Snake, billed as “Phillip Island’s Shy Snake”, a member of an endangered species, highly poisonous, with no specific anti-venom available. The notice urged us not to disturb the poor dear thing if we saw one, as the snake is shy and very rare. Stuff that, I thought, I am an endangered species. I don’t know who writes that snake’s publicity material, but I must say he has done a good job with the positive spin.
We paused at a winery on the return from the Nobbies and did the Australian Sunday thing. The place was heaving, with a folk singer strumming in the corner and massed tables full of drinkers. Clearly, these people were doing more than a tasting. Inevitably, we ended up buying three bottles of wine at $25AUS apiece – an amount we would never spend in the UK; it must be holiday fever. We bought a cheeky little Sangiovese and a very pleasant Pinot Noir. I could become quite accomplished and pretentious with this wine tasting, you know, given a bit more practice.
Finally, back to Cowes to stock up on victuals and enjoy the evening sunshine by the gelato shop with an ice cream. Excited by all those penguins, Jane entered a competition to see just how much chocolate ice cream she could spill down her shorts in the shortest time (I made that up), and then we were back to the happy homeland for supper.
Day 77
Monday 27 March. Sunny and very windy, 30ºC to overcast 21ºC. A Category 4 cyclone is marching majestically towards northern Queensland and we in Victoria, thousands of miles to the south, are due to catch the edge of it later today, with strong winds from the north, and heavy rain forecast. Winds from the north here, of course, are hot and dry. Another geographical fact that I haven’t mentioned, because it is obvious when you think about it, is that the sun here rises in the east and passes across the northern sky, not the southern sky as it does in the northern hemisphere. This is useful information if you are lost in the Great Australian Desert without a compass, and you want to head south for the coast and safety (tip: don’t aim for the sun).
At 1100 we set off to San Remo, across the bridge on the mainland, to watch the pelicans and sting rays being fed. It was very hot and windy out there – absolutely lovely I thought – but quite dehydrating. The feeding display is given by a woman from the local fish and chip shop, using scrap fish, every day at noon, and quite a few people had assemble to watch it. It was reassuring to note that my nemesis, in the form of five school coaches, had managed to find me despite all my efforts at hide and seek. The little monkeys. Pass the pill bottle.
The increasing wind unfortunately churned up the sea and prevented the feeding of the sting rays, though we could still see them as dark shadows in the water. Apparently the feeding woman usually feeds them by hand, holding the food under the sting ray because that is where its mouth is; she keeps well clear of the tail, however, and legs it rapidly if the fish turns because the sting will put you in hospital, or even kill you, if it hits you. She did feed the pelicans. The pelicans came onto the beach to be fed and they put up quite a display. They toss the fish around in their mouths to make sure that they swallow the food head first. If they were to swallow it another way then the fins and barbs would jam in their throats and not slide down. Australian pelicans are the biggest in the world and those we saw were bigger than a child and almost as big as the woman feeding them.
After this display we felt duty-bound to have fish and chips, and we ordered flake and chips for four in the restaurant. When it came, it displayed a neat approach to protecting the environment and saving on waste by not being served on any plates. Instead, all four fish came in one communal cardboard tray, and four portions of chips in another. Most novel; we had to just pile in like a medieval banquet. I broke my plastic fork on the fish, and spent some time looking for the napkins and finger bowls before discovering that there weren’t any.
As we left the restaurant the weather took on a change. I have never seen such a rapid transformation. Within five minutes the wind increased and veered to the (cold) south and clouds formed into a sullen grey mass. We headed for the car, pursued by a range of flying objects from twigs to empty drink bottles. The threatened rain didn’t appear, but it certainly looked like it was going to.
En route back we called in to the Vietnam Veterans Museum. It was something I wanted to do as a mark of respect, because the returning serviceman in Australia received just as disgusting a reception when they came home as their fellow US veterans. Even the RSL (see Day 74 above) refused to recognise them, claiming that Vietnam wasn’t a proper war. About a quarter of the Australian servicemen fighting in Vietnam were conscripts, and they were chosen by ballot, based on their birthday. So it was literally the luck of the draw whether they were called up or not. Before Afghanistan, Vietnam was the longest military conflict ever embarked upon by Australia (1962-1975). Of 60,000 men who served in Vietnam, 521 died and 3,000 were wounded. It was not until 1987 that Australia officially “welcomed home” the veterans of Vietnam; I saw a film of the ceremony and it was deeply moving.
As I write, it is dull and sullen outside, like a blustery day in autumn. Thunder is rumbling and spots of rain are beginning to splatter the windows. Good to be indoors, on the whole.
"A Very Vintage Chap..." 