My Boy Lollipop

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DAY 355


I woke up scratching this morning, I realised that Andy was already up and out of bed and a mosquito had obviously sneaked in and was having a feast on me! I felt completely worn out by my nights sleep, it was not a refreshing one at all, I felt as though I had slept heavily and partially disturbed by the rain, but I still got up at 7.00 and there was my usual cup of tea waiting for me.

Andy was sat updating his CV and getting ready for his interview today, it was all I could do to focus on drinking my tea at that time of morning. Eventually I wandered off for my shower, came back and had breakfast of toast and jam, and then I went to reception to hand over $20 in exchange for the iron.

The $20 is just in case I don’t bring the iron back and believe me it is not something that I particularly want to keep, I hate ironing, always have done and always will! But still it needs doing so while Andy got himself showered I ironed him a shirt and pair of trousers so that he looked decent when he goes for his interview.

Andy was worried about his hair being too untidy, lets not beat about the bush here but he has been looking a little bit like Shirley Temple recently, of course worrying that any minute now he may burst into a rendition of "My Boy Lollipop".In the time that I have known Andy I have never known him to have such long hair, he really does look like a surf bum now, the salty air causing the soft blonde, sorry Grey waves, he does want me to add tanned and gorgeous but I will leave it to your imagination.

We headed into town, and parked up just behind Flinders Street Mall, it says that parking is $3.00, but it does not say for how long, is it all day, one hour or per minute? Probably the most expensive car park in Townsville anyway as it is in the town centre.

We go and find somewhere to sit down and have coffee and a chat to while away the time before Andy goes in, and when he does I go off for a wander around the shops. Now this is the main shopping street here in Townsville, but obviously it needs considerable refurbishment, some of the shops are closed down and clearly look as if they are about to be bulldozed, but I see that as a good sign, they are spending money on redevelopment which can only mean one good thing, jobs!

I see some clothes shops, none that I have particularly seen before in Australia, and a couple of very minimalist boutique type shops that appear to have very few clothes but lots of expensive interior design, there is nothing particular that I am looking for but really just figuring out what the shops are like here, what is considered main stream and what is the best. Don’t get me wrong, I am no fashion guru, but I know what I like and coming from England where I knew exactly where to buy clothes for work and for dressing up, I am now plunged into having no idea.

A woman in one of the shops, Cue, starts chatting to me and gives me the heads up on this particular brand, not overly expensive but from what I can tell fairly good quality. I wander around the centre seeing what is around, I find a couple of surf type shops and venture in for a browse, eventually buying myself a pair of much needed shorts as I now have 2 pairs that are worn through and falling apart, the green pair which I particularly now hate after having worn them so frequently and they are terribly baggy.


I was hungry and could no longer wait for Andy before getting myself some lunch, so I went back to the coffee shop we stopped at earlier to buy some lunch.

I sat on a bench and waited for Andy, a pigeon joined me looking anxiously at my cheese and ham filled croissant, it was the pigeon we saw earlier, he looked as if he had a broken wing and walked with a limp, he spied a piece of cheese that had dropped on the table and wanted to walk up and take it but kept walking away, so I moved it closer for him and with a little apprehension he finally wandered up and took it.

He continued to watch me eat, when I finished I stood up and brushed the crumbs off me and soon the pigeon tucked in. Not long after I saw Andy coming down the steps, so I went over to meet him.

We had done everything in this part of town so went back to the car park and headed out.

Damn, we forgot to pay for the car park ticket so we re parked the car on the 6th floor and took the lift down to the bottom so we could pay our dues. This car park has one pay station on the ground floor despite access to the mall from the 6th floor! Ticket paid, back in the lift, back in the truck and we were off again.

Down at the barrier, the machine had other idea’s though, may be it was having a bad day or some one had previously upset it but it had no intention of letting us out. In went the ticket, out, in, out, it was having none of it, a car came up behind me and I knew if he honked his horn I would have got out to speak to the other driver.

Instead Caroline, experienced in such car parking matters after battling with similar problems in the NCP car park in Southampton for a couple of years, was trying to placate the machine by being nice to it, but this tactic also failed, Caroline went and told the driver behind about our predicament and it would be advisable if they went to the other lane and so they did.

When the car had moved through the barrier we switched lanes, in went the ticket and up went the barrier, we were free and repatriated back to the bitumen.

Through town we went, I wanted to stop at Repco to get a new air filter for the truck, I was fed up with constantly buying the simple paper type from Nissan Dealers, as they can only be described as rubbish, they work fine but then get so clogged with dirt they obviously loose their efficiency, fuel consumption goes down, power out put decreases etc etc.

I have always been a lover of K&N filters and used them on the dirt bikes when I was riding, they have a guarantee for a million miles and have to be cleaned every 50,000 bitumen miles, don’t forget if we take going to the cape as an example our total distance was something like 2500k’s and 85% was off road, so common sense has to apply.

We have done our research on the K&N site and found the correct part for our model and year of Nissan Patrol, we go in to Repco and they have 1 in stock, excellent, we purchase it and get back on our way.

Back at camp we fix up some lunch (well for me anyway as Caroline had already given in earlier) and an easy afternoon well what was left of it, Caroline edited the blog and I just pottered around doing little bits and pieces like cleaning all the dust and stuff out of the vents in the fridge and obviously fitting our new air filter.

Caroline suggested that we go for a swim, it had gone a bit cloudy so thought why not, we grabbed our towels and togs and went for a swim. I have to say that this pool at Big 4 Townsville is probably the best one we have had on our tour, Caroline is much better at getting in nowadays, she just spends about 30 seconds analysing the degree of coldness before getting in compared to the 10 minutes she used to spend, going through the Monkey Stage.

The swim is great, it was not that cold, but as the afternoon is not that hot the temperature differential is less.

Whilst still light we start to get our evening meal prepared, disappointed with my last attempt at chicken covered in oats I want to give it another go. The last semi failure I had was getting the oats to stick to the chicken, as the chef who told me how to do this dish categorically said that the oats will just stick to the chicken, without any aid of a bonding agent (NO THEY WON’T) we have found out the hard way.

Caroline and myself sit down and talk about this engineering conundrum, we need a suitable bonding agent and Caroline suggests an egg, so I find an egg and wisk I up a bit, the chicken had been cooked through and the agent applied then the chicken is rolled in oats.

45% of the oats stayed on so this is better, but we are not there yet, definitely room for improvement, I have a plan, for the 3rd attempt. If anyone is reading this and knows of the answer please e-mail us on the blog, as my next attempt involves either, Cocky’s Joy or balsamic glaze, both of these have a more viscous texture and may bond the oats better, we will see.

We eat our dinner and find that it’s not too bad, a little disappointed but also happy that we are making baby steps forwards.

Caroline’s friend Heather calls her back and they have arranged a dinner tomorrow night, which we are both looking forward to, I think Caroline is looking forward to finding out how they have adapted to Australian life in their first year here and perhaps comparing “notes”, albeit both will have a different experience as they settled down and started working almost straight away.

I sit for the rest of what is left of the evening playing on Caroline’s Nintendo DS as Caroline is watching an episode of Packed to the Rafters on the laptop, I find her chuckling to herself every now and again and wonder what she is laughing at.

It is soon bedtime, we have had a good day, we edge a little bit closer to the “end of our year” and my thoughts are drifting that way.

We would like to pick up some work soon, not necessarily permanent, just some contract work or even casual just to top up the piggybank really, I would really like to go around again, mopping up the things that we have missed but that would not be done by going around again, maybe in 20 years time you could have a chance at saying that. This country is so huge I wonder if you will ever see it all but you have to try its well worth it and we have not even considered how we will fit in New Zealand and all of the other interesting islands that are in reasonable proximity to Australia.

So with those thoughts goodnight all, until tomorrow bloggers.

KJ xxx

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Photos

Shirley Temple
He's got more hair than he has ever had

Townville Sky
Looking over Ross River Dam

New Power Lines
Dangrous Job, pulling new HT power lines in with a Heli