Blogs from Adelaide, South Australia, Australia, Oceania - page 99

My hands were a little black from the grease and other associated fluids from pulling out a radiator from a Datsun 200B for Karen (Gordon’s daughter). It was only 10am and already the sun was pounding down some awful heat on us. Gordon popped out his head from under the car and asked, “Are you a little dirty there, John? I bet you arts students never get your hands dirty!” “This is what retirement is all about” After finding a radiator that we wanted, a side steel fitting of the radiator just didn’t want to hold on so we had to try and weld it on. We probably could have just left it out in the sun to bake and that would have nearly done the trick. We’re trying our best to weld it on but ... read more

Day One - November 30, 2002: Adelaide - Sydney - Bangkok I stayed up until 2:30am, packing my bags, on the Friday night before we left and only got four hours sleep. But I was so nervous about my first overseas trip that I wouldn’t have been able to sleep anyway. On the way to the airport it seemed I was not the only nervous one as Dad was driving through red lights on the way there and didn’t realise until we said something. Mum, Dad and Tammie saw me off at the airport, although our first hitch came quickly with Tony being unexpectedly bumped to an earlier flight without me. At least the flight to Sydney was almost empty and was a pretty easy trip and I felt the need to knock back some beer ... read more

A while back, at the hostel, I met someone who was travelling around Australia following a similar route to me on a bus pass. Rather than being time limited, like the one I had to get down from Darwin, this allowed you to take as long as you liked, with as many stops as you liked on a specified route. It was also dirt-cheap (considering the distances involved) and make things even better, there was a $120 discount for holders of Student Union cards, and mine was still valid even though I'd long since finished at Brighton! Mike and I had very different ideas as to what we wanted to do in Australia, so we decided that we would split up and go our separate ways. We would, obviously, meet up again for the flight to ... read more