Wanna –Be Chief

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Hi all,

Firstly, my apologies for “cocking up” my last blog, and missing entering the some of the text, but hey ho, there you go!!

We are struggling so much to blog at the moment, it is getting to be near impossible with the work thing going on.

I type this on Monday 7 Feb 2011; we are on a week’s holiday and sitting in the shade on a scorching hot day, in the Warrumbungle National Park, near Coonabarabran.

The blog you are just about to read , was a blog from Christmas Island, when I was there on my last trip between 13 - 30 January 2011 and, so as you can appreciate we have some catching up to do.

So here we go:

As you are all aware, I am out of bed ridiculously early every day, get to my desk about 05.45 am and work generally a 12 -13 hour day, so its not unreasonable to say when I get home, I am knackered.

Well the other day I walked in to the flat, took about 3 steps in and thought to myself, “wow the cleaners have been in a made my bed”, and not only have the cleaners been I but I have a new TV set and an extra table.

The bizarre thing about this statement is we have to look after our own rooms on CI, do our own laundry, ironing and linen, so the chance of cleaners being in was Zero!!

It took me about 10 seconds for it to register that I was not standing in what was “my room” but the room, directly underneath mine.

I panicked as I saw a pair of what could only be described as Ballet type slippers on the floor, and my suspicions were confirmed.

I turned on my heels and hurried out of this room, my mind was racing, say the lady occupant had screamed, honestly this was an honest mistake, brought on by the fact I was tired after a long day. Well that was my excuse and I was sticking to it.

Back at my room, I had had time to change as a gang of us were going out tonight to the Skanky ho for dinner.

It was absolutely pelting it down with rain out side so I grabbed my brolley and walked off down to the Ho, which was only about 8 minutes away.

When I told my colleagues what I had done, they were rolling around with laughter, all threatening to expose my misdemeanour to Caroline, as if I am scared of her.

Just as we were getting up from the table, one of my colleagues asked me if I was going in early in the morning and could she have a lift.

“No worries”, I said, stand by the car at 05.15 and I will take you in, I pick Rob up at 05.30 so we should be right.

I walked home, climbed in to bed and that was that, until the next morning.

I went down and Chris was standing at the car at 05.15, I put my hands in my pockets to look for the keys but could not find them, we searched for 15 minutes until I had to phone Rob and ask him to come and collect me.

All day at work, I hunted high and low, but no keys came to light, just after lunch I borrowed a car and Rob and myself went back to my place to look for the keys, thinking that it would be easier to look for them in the day light.

When we turned the corner in to my cul de sac, the car was gone.

Rob instantly bursts out laughing, someone has nicked your car mate, I looked at him and said, “this has got Paul and your signature all over this, I wagged my finger and said if I find you are anything to do with this, I will cut your Knxxxckers off”.

I phoned Paul and said, “Ok smarty pants, where’s the xxxxx car”, he protested his innocence and said he had nothing to do with it.

Whilst laughing his head off, he said, “how can your car be nicked, we are on an Island in the middle of the Indian Ocean?” This was no consolation, and warned him of the same fate of Rob, if I found out he had something to do with it. Paul had to put the phone down from laughing so much.

Rob and I drove around all the places we thought someone would hide a car, we looked everywhere, and on route, I phoned a guy who had organised the car for me to explain the situation. He didn’t seem particularly phased by the incident and said, “don’t worry I will get you another car organised, and I will tell the owner and the police what has happened.”

We drove back to work and I said to Rob, “it would be worth a spin around the car parks to see if, by some strange occurrence the car had found its own way in.”

I said we will look around the top car park then may our way down through them all, Rob said what if we find it “ON TOP” of one of the containers, and I said, well if it’s up there we will just have to get it down.

When we drove in to the car park, there she was at the end of one of the rows, I went up and checked and there was my umbrella in the back, I checked the doors and they were unlocked, but no keys were inside.

I went back to my office and phoned my colleague, “hey mate, I have found the car, it has miraculously appeared in the car park, I think, some one was yanking my chain.” I put the phone down and decided to look in the car again for the keys.

I went back out side and saw two people I knew, who are our clients, the first lady said I heard you were back on the Island and asked after Caroline, the second lady just stood listening whilst I told them the story of the missing car.

Once my story had been told the, 2nd lady held up the car keys and said, “I guess these are what you are looking for?” and went on to explain that she found a set of keys on the work top of her flat as she had flown in last night.

Yes you guessed it, it was the flat, below mine, and I must have put the keys down, as soon as I had walked in.

She explained how impressed she was that her company had not only sorted her flights and accomodation, but had left her a set of keys for a car in the car park. I was so embarrassed I could have died these things always happen to me.

The story had gone around the whole of Christmas Island, all my colleagues where constantly having a dig, about losing my keys and in another woman’s room to boot.!

That Saturday I had an invite to dinner at Rob and Junes house, when I arrived the house was as busy as ever. June had set the table and we all had a named place setting.

I need to set the scene first so you can follow this one:

Last night we were all down at Tracks Tavern, drinking, horsing around and playing pool, I left about 11.00pm and the following morning I picked Rob up at the usual 05.30am to go to work.

When Rob, jumped into the car I asked him what time they had left the pub and he said they managed to get away about ¾ of an hour after me and proceeded to tell me what had gone on.

We work with a guy “Junior” who is from Samoa, he is a giant of a man, with such a gentle nature and he is a real chief of a tribe, junior is not his Christian name, but his middle name and I once asked him how he carried out his chiefly duties, so remotely from his tribe, and he told me that he did it, via the internet and mobile phone.

I was really impressed with the thought of how our modern technological society has impacted on everything. Anyway I digress.

As you may imagine, Christmas Island is very multi cultural, Junior is from Samoa, Rob’s mother is from Tonga, Andrew is Australian, John is from Scotland and I’m from England, these constituted our multi cultural evening in the pub.

When I left the conversation in the pub some of the others said that they felt because Junior was a real life Chief, they were “Wanna-be Chief’s” and felt it only fair.

So when we all rocked up for dinner the following night, June had set the place mats, with Junior at the head of the table, Pulungi Chief (John) and Wanna-be chief and chef for the evening Rob at other places

My mate Rob, is a chef, “not a chief”, by trade, I have made two attempts to take a bottle of Boronia Masala to Christmas Island with no success, as the first bottle was confiscated and the second bottle, we will just say, didn’t make it.

The reason I wanted to get this bottle of Massala over to CI was at Robs request as he said he would make me a Zabaglione, which is a desert, but he would only make it with Boronia Masala.

Whilst sitting in the lounge, he brought around an entre, which was sword fish and Tuna Kebabs with lime which were absolutely delicious, followed by Chicken kebabs.

I won’t go through the whole menu, but we had an amazing dinner and great fun, the desert was brought out and Rob had made a Pavlova with Zabaglione made with Champagne which was awesome, but Rob being the perfectionist he was overly critical of his creation.

There were 2 packs of red cards on the table, which June had told us not to look at, until after the meal. Finally, when we were given permission to look at the cards, we each had to take two cards, and you had to ask anybody at the table the question that was on it.

The questions varied, from things like “what was the first record you ever bought?” to “when was the worst time that you were sick?” and stuff like that.

We had such great fun and such a good dinner and to me, this is what makes Christmas Island so special.

It was soon time to go, so we all departed as it was work again in the morning and my bed was calling.

The weather on Christmas Island this time has been unbelievably bad, I had some people over to see me, in a business capacity and they were delayed by 3 days as the cloud was so low the plane could not land, which we all found hysterically funny.

When I knew our holiday had been approved, I thought to myself that unless I got a suitable window of time, I could see me being delayed and it would be holiday that would be a casualty if I didn’t get home in time.

I decided to leave the Island on Saturday 29th Jan so would have a night over in Perth, where I could catch up with Cliff and Sue, then fly on to Canberra on Sunday afternoon and be home for late Sunday evening, and providing all things went to plan, I would have a week in the Canberra office, before we went on Holiday.

Saturday came and I was up and out of bed about 3.00 am, cleaned my room, ironed my shirt for work this morning, loaded the car and picked Rob up at 05.30. My plane wasn’t leaving the Island until 3.00pm so I had plenty of time to do some work, pack up my work bag and computer and get to the airport.

It was raining cats, dogs, Lama’s, Giraffes, the whole lot this morning, bloody typical, I am excited to go home and its sod’s law, I will be delayed, still I did laugh when my recent guests were delayed so it was my own fault and that’s Island life for you.

I went to fill my car full of petrol and said to Michelle, the lady who works in the Post office Monday to Friday, the Petrol station on Saturday mornings and the airport when required do you think the plane will land today and she said it landed yesterday and it was far worse than this, so she didn’t think there would be any problems.

I got to the airport in plenty of time, the flight had been delayed from Perth which wasn’t a good omen, still the weather on CI was starting to look pretty good, so I was hopeful I would get off the rock today.

Soon enough the jet appeared from the low cloud and landed on the runway, apparently and I need to check this, but Christmas island is the 6th most dangerous place in the world to land, as there are no electronic navigational aide’s you have to fly in “The old fashioned way” by sight.

Soon I was sitting in my seat, with the plane hurtling back down the runway, that gentle push from the engines and the beast eased skywards, through the low cloud, to a beautiful blue skyscape above the weather

I was homeward, bound, firstly looking forwards to seeing Cliff and Sue and then, flying on home, to Canberra, to see my girl.

I got to my hotel just after mid night, threw my bags down, got into bed and woke to a very sunny Perth morning. I texted Sue early and soon the three of us we were sitting in a café in Perth waiting for our breakfasts to be served.

It was just excellent to see them, they looked so well, and we all talked about our travel aspirations. Cliff and Sue have a grand plan, which is really exciting, but it would be totally inappropriate to share it as it’s their business.

Sue had been working all night, at the hospital, I was amazed she seemed so awake, but we chatted on whilst having brekkie. We all jumped in their truck and they took me for a spin along the coast and there we see hundreds of people on the beach, the surf life rescue were doing the patrols and the helicopter was in the air, shark spotting.

We got back to Cliff and Sue’s house where Sue, excused herself and slid off to nap on the bed, Cliff and I spoke about boys stuff and soon it was time to go. Cliff and I loaded my luggage into the Prado and off we went to the airport.

I thanked Cliff for their hospitality and went to check my luggage in. Four and a half hours later the 737 was touching down in Canberra, it was 11.00pm by the time I was walking through the new terminal, looking for Caroline.

There she was her beautiful smiley face, its great to be home.

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Photos

Rob & Junior
Happy Cooking

Set Table
All Ready and waiting for dinner guests

Chief Pulungi
I think it means pretend chief.

Guest Chief
A Wannabe chief!

Guests
A Table full of Guests