Familiar faces at Bondi
Trip Start
Feb 04, 2008
1
72
105
Trip End
Jan 19, 2009
Bondi,
New South Wales,
Australia
Monday, July 7, 2008
skating, entered (and lost) a limbo contest and were generally humiliated by 9 year olds. Then after a Mexican
lunch we went upstairs to the cinema and watched Hancock with Will Smith. Obviously not WITH him... It was OK.
After this we gave Big D a call and arranged to head to his place in Bondi Junction and stay for a night or two.
Then ensued a gruelling 2 and a half hour drive through Sydney's suburbs, the city centre and out the other side.
There are three main factors that contributed to this 10 mile journey from hell -
Firstly our clutch was on it's last legs - We knew that there was something wrong of course but weren't sure what
at that stage
View from Dave & Dawn's flat
. It basically meant that barely any power was getting to the wheels so you had to rev the engine like *insert your own expletive here* to go anywhere. Great fun when there's traffic lights everywhere (all of which
seem to be on hills) and it takes you a full 2 minutes to accelerate to 40km/h!
Secondly the level of traffic was something that, although nothing by English standards, we hadn't yet experienced
in Australia. Also I still have some doubts about the abilities of many of the local drivers and can now
categorically say that the whole overtaking on the right rule is a good idea.
Finally - you know how there are some things that you just can't do? No matter how hard you try, no matter how much
you think you 'get it' you can just never quite pull off. For instance those of you who have ever had the
misfortune to hear me try and sing will understand. Or those of you who have ever left a sausage unattended while
Anna Taylor is about only to return to find a small bite taken out of it - she just cannot pass it by!
Well Debbie's thing is maps. She can read them. She can look at a map and tell you where you are sat right now, no
problem. She can find where you want to go easily enough
Will and Rich brave the sea
. Problem is as soon as you actually start to move she goes completely map blind. Literally within seconds it all falls apart and any directional query is met with a panicked
growl and a hastily guessed answer which is invariably wrong. I think I'll name it Cartophobia.
Eventually after what seemed like days of tortuous driving we made it to Bondi Junction and parked up to call Dave
again. It turned out that Dave had had to go back to work and Dawn (His girlfriend if you don't already know) was
still there too. So we were met by Rich a guy from Southampton who I had met once or twice before (something to do
with stealing Gingers hat). Rich had been staying with D and Dawn for a few weeks whilst off uni and was due to
head home in a couple of days.
After much tooing and froing with keys and swipe cards we finally got the camper into the underground parking area
(with literally just millimetres of clearance to spare) and went upstairs to check out the flat
Porky porkerston!
. It was a really nice two bedroom place and as it was on about the 12th floor it had an amazing view of the city. D & D were soon
home and we just chilled, and ate, and then Debs and I headed back to the garage to bed.
The next day we woke late-ish and then Rich, Deb and I got the bus from just outside the flat down to the world
famous Bondi beach. It was a really nice beach although much smaller than we had expected (much smaller than Manly
for instance) and it wasn't really warm enough to justify a swim. Although Rich and I did paddle and manage to get
soaked and covered in sand - he started it!
We walked along the coastal path and round to Tamarama beach. Played on the rocks a bit, watched the crazy people
swimming and tried not to get swept away by the waves. On the way back just as we rounded the corner and could see
Bondi again we spotted a waterspout/tornado over the next peninsular
Debs Art Attack!
. It stayed there for 5 minutes or so before disappearing and being replaced by a rainbow. Weird!
Back at Bondi we lunched at the awesome Bite Me burger bar. You get paper place mats and crayons to draw with (if
you can draw that is) and the food isn't bad either. I had a ridiculously large hotdog as well as fries, coleslaw
and onion rings. And then felt quite sick.
That night D & D finished work quite early so we all headed out to a BYO Japanese restaurant for dinner. It seems
there are more BYO than licensed places in Oz. It takes a bit of getting used to but it's certainly not a bad
thing. After dinner (Debs and I had some fancy Sashimi) we headed back and chilled out with a few movies. Dave made
us watch The Game Plan - Hmmm, think he's gone a bit soft.
The next day Debbie and I had a real lazy one
Will's Art Attack
. It was so nice to be at 'home' again. Something we hadn't experienced since we left Julie's a few weeks before. We watched movies, some How I Met Your Mother (of which we
are now addicts) caught up on a few emails and then Dave treated us to a classic Horgan roast in the evening.
Lovely jubbly.
On the Thursday we explored Bondi Junction a little bit. We strolled around the shops, Debs found a pet shop selling
labradoodles - whatever next! We went to the Salvos (that's the Salvation Army for those of you from country's who
can resist the urge to shorten almost any word and slap an 'O' on the end) and bought a unique collection of
cassette tapes to listen to in the van. This included the greatest hits of David Bowie, Frank Sinatra, Marvin Gaye
and Andrew Lloyd Webber!
Comments
Having Fun!
Dave's so goddam jammy, Jason Statham eh..well I suppose they would of been a restraining order put out if I was there!
The Game Plans got the Rock innit , goddammit