Hill-forts to Geelong in 80 Hours!
Jan. 5th, 2005 09:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
capn_n_pyeWhen we left off we were trapped by the Replacement Pole telling us how much he liked his new housemates. Poor lamb almost had a stroke when we finally managed to communicate that we were moving out. We give the place a month before accumulated filth consumes the house.
We had a few days to pack up, which is almost worse than having to pack in a hurry - it gives you too much time to store up ‘last minute’ jobs. We had grand plans of taking a taxi to Dav’s garret with all the last minute things for his place (like our faithful blue TV - farewell, adieu sweet friend!). A few days before we left, we looked a the pile of bedding, beanbags and the like and decided, bugger it, we’ll hire a car. We left on a Sunday - not bad, we thought, just pick up the car on Saturday, return it Sunday afternoon, not a problem. Except the Saturday just happened to be the first of January, and no one works then. And England’s shut on Sunday. Oh, and Monday’s a Bank Holiday, no nope, no one’s working then, either. So we said bugger it twice, we’ll just get the bloody car for four days and save some stress. It turned out to be a really good move!
With a car, and a (mostly) characteristically non-drinking Dav, we weren’t restricted to Bournemouth for the New Year. So we hung out at Bosvegas for a bit, where we (but not Dav) finished off our cheap-Grolsch-from-the-ferry and had a surprisingly good dinner with mystery-freezer leftovers. If anyone else accidentally mixes spaghetti bolognaise sauce with a Rogan Josh chicken curry, don’t worry - they’re both tomato-based, and the beef and chicken combines really well! Ahem. Anyway, thus fortified, we headed towards Salisbury, and Old Sarum for midnight.
You would think that knowing that Old Sarum is an ancient hill-fort and presumably lighting deficient, one of us would have thought to bring a torch. Well, we think we’ve shown in the past that we don’t hold with all that old-fashioned ‘thinking it through’ guff. Luckily there was enough moonlight and the paths were okay, but even so, Stinky spent the while time knowing it was just a matter of time before she toppled off an earthwork and the other two would have to spend the new year looking for her before the rats got her. Imagine her joy when her traditional non-sure-footedness deserted her - not a slip was made! We also didn’t bother grabbing a map, so after some creative navigation, we only just made it to the outer defences overlooking Salisbury for midnight. We didn’t realise why the cathedral was dark, or why there were no official fireworks until later - it was as a sign of respect for the tsunami victims. However, everyone else in Salisbury didn’t give a toss, and backyards all over town exploded with fireworks. When they got bored/ran out of explosives, we picked our way over to the main fortifications and rattled the gate to see if they’d somehow forgotten to lock up the central castle. They hadn’t, but there’s no fence around the olde cathedral ruins. So we had a wander around to see if it looked different in the dark and ran into a group of other people who had the same idea as us. They thought they’d be the only ones up there and we’d guess that they certainly wouldn’t have expected to run into Australians. Well, we are everywhere! We tried texting people to wish them a happy new year, but there was no way the network was going to let us. We stood there trying to make messages fly, but they were too busy. We thought we got one off earlier in the day (in response to good ol’ Mum and Dad taunting us about them having a barbie on New Year’s Day) but we managed to beat that message home - it arrived around midnight on the 4th! At least Julia sold her phone - poor Caroline’s stuck with hers! (new number TBA)
As we headed back to Bosvegas, Nature put on a wildlife bonanza for our enjoyment. Rabbits and foxes abounded, and Stinky spotted a deer wandering out of the New Forest. The most interesting thing we spotted was the badger, which didn’t run away (we didn’t do it!).
With our last full day we realised we would be very silly if we had lived next door to Christchurch all this time and never seen their priory with the Miraculous Growing Beam. So off we went in our little car, to see their Norman castle remains, and have a look at one of the priories that survived the dissolution of the monasteries. A couple of hundred years ago someone suggested building a new one up the hill, but all the building materials somehow ended back at the old site - spoooooky. Then there was a roof beam that was too short, which they all stressed over and went home to worry. When they got back in the morning it wasn’t just long enough - it was too long! Miraculous! Anyway, the priory and Christchurch were very pretty, but we decided we’d fry a larger fish.
We made a dash to Dorchester, where they’ve got a hill-fort way bigger than Old Sarum called Maiden Castle. Of course, when we got there and started walking up theriver of slippery mud and sheep shit path it started raining. And it got harder. And harder. We struggled up the top of one of the massive earthworks, said ‘Wow, that’s big! What, we’re nowhere near the middle? Sod this!!’ then scurried back to the car just before the rain soaked through all the way through our coats. We were lucky our coats dried in time for us to catch the plane! The car-hire company is also lucky, cos now their car smells like wet wool. Mmmmm, tasty.
If we’d decided earlier to get the car we might have driven to Heathrow, but instead, we hopped a National Express bus to the airport. Heathrow (or at least Terminal 4) was packed. We’d thought we’d catch a bus that would get us in about an hour earlier than we needed, just to be on the safe side, and ended up checking in only ten minutes earlier that we needed to. If we’d got there late, maybe we wouldn’t have had to sit right up the back of the plane!
Thus began the days that Time Forgot. Or that Time Thought About Too Much When He Was Off His Head. We headed off to Heathrow at about 4:00pm on Sunday and got home at 5:30am on Tuesday. What happened to the day in between? We have some small explanations, but nothing satisfactory. Our plane was late - it was coming in from South East Asia, and we can’t complain about it because it was due to the troubles down there. The best thing that can be said about the flight was the new travel-sickness drugs we took - they last 24 hours, don’t mess you up to well and work so well that ‘Julia Spews A Lot’ didn’t go green - or even grey! Still, we’re fairly sure one of us left our brains in on the plane and one of us never brought them in the first place (we’ll let you figure out who did what). We couldn’t figure out why there were so many deaf people on the flight - everyone seemed to be signing at each other. It wasn’t until we arrived in Melbourne that we realised Melbourne was hosting the Deaf Olympics, which explained a lot. But there were more adventures to be had before we got there.
Singapore airport was as clean and well organised as ever (with BIG cactus gardens!), and the stop over wasn’t too long - checking back in took longer than the break we had! Moose waited until Singapore to play up going through the x-ray - we think he was asleep at Heathrow. He must have done something to draw attention to himself, because the Singaporeans made Julia empty her bag and x-rayed everything again. Eventually they said what they were looking for so Julia opened Moose’s backpack, swatted him for trying to stop her and handed over the tiny handcuffs we picked up in Italy. They looked very serious and took them away. Upon their return, we were informed that 1.5cm diameter handcuffs were not allowed and had they been real, we would have been in trouble. Caroline couldn’t stop sniggering at the silliness of it and we can’t really believe they bothered to confiscate them. We strongly suspect they wanted tiny handcuffs for themselves, because we watched the two women play with them! Now we’re cranky because our baby-bondage-terrorist plan has been foiled! Moose was crankier and started making a fuss, but we pointed out the deal we made with him - behave or go back and live with the Poles - and he shut up.
We made it through Australian customs without a problem - we pointed out our muddy shoes from tromping around hill-forts, but they didn’t want to wash them. If there’s an outbreak of foot and mouth, it’s not our fault, okay? Despite being ridiculously early in the morning, Mum and Dad were waiting for us, and whisked us away to Nonna’s. We had our third breakfast in 24 hours, but this time with our grandmother and aunt - last time we saw Auntie Rita was saying goodbye in Viterbo, north of Rome! When we started to sway in our seats, we were taken back to Geelong. We roamed around the house, checking out things that have changed and Stinky said hello to all her cactus. It must be jet lag because we couldn’t stay on a single task for very long - packs are half unpacked and look like they exploded ooh, look some photos but oh look there’s packages we sent home let’s see what’s in them and what was that we’re having roast? Real meat? Oooh, look, bed!
It is nice to leave winter behind, but you know that story about Oz having summer? Rubbish! It's made up by Home & Away and Neighbours to trick unsuspecting Brits and expats down south. Mind you, 20 degrees and thunderstorms feel positively tropical to us at the moment. And the whole ‘not being dark by 4:30pm’ thing’s good, too. In between other things, we’ve been revelling in having SHOES! and CLOTHES! BOOKS! HANDBAGS! and NO POLES! We still try to take our own toilet paper to the loo, and it feels really odd not to wearflip-flops thongs in the shower. We went through our wardrobes saying ‘Why hello there, I remember you!’ Somehow we managed to stay awake until 9:30pm, and neither of us remember ever falling asleep that quickly before.
Julia’s been off driving her car just to be confused at which side of the steering wheel has the indicators and which has the windscreen wipers. A trip to Safeway was awfully exciting (all that readily available Asian and Mediterranean food!), not to mention when we accidentally wandered into the beer fridge of the bottleshop. They were really polite about asking us to stop building a beer-fort and occasionally kissing the Boag’s mountain. Anyway, we'll see what happens when the jet-lag wears off. Maybe then we’ll be able to spell and keep a train of thought long enough to finish a sentence. We’ll get ourselves organised and head down to Somers over the next couple of days - got to see if we can have a real summer! Problem is, getting organised to go to the beach involves packing again, and we’re both over-excited at having more than three tops each. Our packs have more in them for two weeks than they did for nine months and we’re okay with that. What we’re not okay with is the spiders.
One of the most rewarding things about being in the UK was being able to frighten the Brits with off-hand tales of how vicious our spiders are and how unbothered we are by them. But when a huge (for its kind) white-tail spider (black, nasty and very, very poisonous) fell out of a jumper Caroline was folding, she shrieked like a little girl and bellowed for Julia, who came running with tools of the spider-slaughtering trade. Broom, a shoe and fly-spray in hand, Caroline yelled at the spider to get off her bed. When that didn’t work she nudged it gingerly with the broomstick (just in case it ran all the way up the handle and got her), flicked it on the floor and beat it to death with the shoe. Then she had to go for a bit of a lie down and a nice cold beer to calm her nerves. Welcome home!
Being home means that this is probably our last proper epistle! We’ll have to think about that though – someone said that you’re never truly home until the last thing you posted gets home too. So, thanks to the Royal Mail, we’ll probably be ‘away’ another six months!
We had a few days to pack up, which is almost worse than having to pack in a hurry - it gives you too much time to store up ‘last minute’ jobs. We had grand plans of taking a taxi to Dav’s garret with all the last minute things for his place (like our faithful blue TV - farewell, adieu sweet friend!). A few days before we left, we looked a the pile of bedding, beanbags and the like and decided, bugger it, we’ll hire a car. We left on a Sunday - not bad, we thought, just pick up the car on Saturday, return it Sunday afternoon, not a problem. Except the Saturday just happened to be the first of January, and no one works then. And England’s shut on Sunday. Oh, and Monday’s a Bank Holiday, no nope, no one’s working then, either. So we said bugger it twice, we’ll just get the bloody car for four days and save some stress. It turned out to be a really good move!
With a car, and a (mostly) characteristically non-drinking Dav, we weren’t restricted to Bournemouth for the New Year. So we hung out at Bosvegas for a bit, where we (but not Dav) finished off our cheap-Grolsch-from-the-ferry and had a surprisingly good dinner with mystery-freezer leftovers. If anyone else accidentally mixes spaghetti bolognaise sauce with a Rogan Josh chicken curry, don’t worry - they’re both tomato-based, and the beef and chicken combines really well! Ahem. Anyway, thus fortified, we headed towards Salisbury, and Old Sarum for midnight.
You would think that knowing that Old Sarum is an ancient hill-fort and presumably lighting deficient, one of us would have thought to bring a torch. Well, we think we’ve shown in the past that we don’t hold with all that old-fashioned ‘thinking it through’ guff. Luckily there was enough moonlight and the paths were okay, but even so, Stinky spent the while time knowing it was just a matter of time before she toppled off an earthwork and the other two would have to spend the new year looking for her before the rats got her. Imagine her joy when her traditional non-sure-footedness deserted her - not a slip was made! We also didn’t bother grabbing a map, so after some creative navigation, we only just made it to the outer defences overlooking Salisbury for midnight. We didn’t realise why the cathedral was dark, or why there were no official fireworks until later - it was as a sign of respect for the tsunami victims. However, everyone else in Salisbury didn’t give a toss, and backyards all over town exploded with fireworks. When they got bored/ran out of explosives, we picked our way over to the main fortifications and rattled the gate to see if they’d somehow forgotten to lock up the central castle. They hadn’t, but there’s no fence around the olde cathedral ruins. So we had a wander around to see if it looked different in the dark and ran into a group of other people who had the same idea as us. They thought they’d be the only ones up there and we’d guess that they certainly wouldn’t have expected to run into Australians. Well, we are everywhere! We tried texting people to wish them a happy new year, but there was no way the network was going to let us. We stood there trying to make messages fly, but they were too busy. We thought we got one off earlier in the day (in response to good ol’ Mum and Dad taunting us about them having a barbie on New Year’s Day) but we managed to beat that message home - it arrived around midnight on the 4th! At least Julia sold her phone - poor Caroline’s stuck with hers! (new number TBA)
As we headed back to Bosvegas, Nature put on a wildlife bonanza for our enjoyment. Rabbits and foxes abounded, and Stinky spotted a deer wandering out of the New Forest. The most interesting thing we spotted was the badger, which didn’t run away (we didn’t do it!).
With our last full day we realised we would be very silly if we had lived next door to Christchurch all this time and never seen their priory with the Miraculous Growing Beam. So off we went in our little car, to see their Norman castle remains, and have a look at one of the priories that survived the dissolution of the monasteries. A couple of hundred years ago someone suggested building a new one up the hill, but all the building materials somehow ended back at the old site - spoooooky. Then there was a roof beam that was too short, which they all stressed over and went home to worry. When they got back in the morning it wasn’t just long enough - it was too long! Miraculous! Anyway, the priory and Christchurch were very pretty, but we decided we’d fry a larger fish.
We made a dash to Dorchester, where they’ve got a hill-fort way bigger than Old Sarum called Maiden Castle. Of course, when we got there and started walking up the
If we’d decided earlier to get the car we might have driven to Heathrow, but instead, we hopped a National Express bus to the airport. Heathrow (or at least Terminal 4) was packed. We’d thought we’d catch a bus that would get us in about an hour earlier than we needed, just to be on the safe side, and ended up checking in only ten minutes earlier that we needed to. If we’d got there late, maybe we wouldn’t have had to sit right up the back of the plane!
Thus began the days that Time Forgot. Or that Time Thought About Too Much When He Was Off His Head. We headed off to Heathrow at about 4:00pm on Sunday and got home at 5:30am on Tuesday. What happened to the day in between? We have some small explanations, but nothing satisfactory. Our plane was late - it was coming in from South East Asia, and we can’t complain about it because it was due to the troubles down there. The best thing that can be said about the flight was the new travel-sickness drugs we took - they last 24 hours, don’t mess you up to well and work so well that ‘Julia Spews A Lot’ didn’t go green - or even grey! Still, we’re fairly sure one of us left our brains in on the plane and one of us never brought them in the first place (we’ll let you figure out who did what). We couldn’t figure out why there were so many deaf people on the flight - everyone seemed to be signing at each other. It wasn’t until we arrived in Melbourne that we realised Melbourne was hosting the Deaf Olympics, which explained a lot. But there were more adventures to be had before we got there.
Singapore airport was as clean and well organised as ever (with BIG cactus gardens!), and the stop over wasn’t too long - checking back in took longer than the break we had! Moose waited until Singapore to play up going through the x-ray - we think he was asleep at Heathrow. He must have done something to draw attention to himself, because the Singaporeans made Julia empty her bag and x-rayed everything again. Eventually they said what they were looking for so Julia opened Moose’s backpack, swatted him for trying to stop her and handed over the tiny handcuffs we picked up in Italy. They looked very serious and took them away. Upon their return, we were informed that 1.5cm diameter handcuffs were not allowed and had they been real, we would have been in trouble. Caroline couldn’t stop sniggering at the silliness of it and we can’t really believe they bothered to confiscate them. We strongly suspect they wanted tiny handcuffs for themselves, because we watched the two women play with them! Now we’re cranky because our baby-bondage-terrorist plan has been foiled! Moose was crankier and started making a fuss, but we pointed out the deal we made with him - behave or go back and live with the Poles - and he shut up.
We made it through Australian customs without a problem - we pointed out our muddy shoes from tromping around hill-forts, but they didn’t want to wash them. If there’s an outbreak of foot and mouth, it’s not our fault, okay? Despite being ridiculously early in the morning, Mum and Dad were waiting for us, and whisked us away to Nonna’s. We had our third breakfast in 24 hours, but this time with our grandmother and aunt - last time we saw Auntie Rita was saying goodbye in Viterbo, north of Rome! When we started to sway in our seats, we were taken back to Geelong. We roamed around the house, checking out things that have changed and Stinky said hello to all her cactus. It must be jet lag because we couldn’t stay on a single task for very long - packs are half unpacked and look like they exploded ooh, look some photos but oh look there’s packages we sent home let’s see what’s in them and what was that we’re having roast? Real meat? Oooh, look, bed!
It is nice to leave winter behind, but you know that story about Oz having summer? Rubbish! It's made up by Home & Away and Neighbours to trick unsuspecting Brits and expats down south. Mind you, 20 degrees and thunderstorms feel positively tropical to us at the moment. And the whole ‘not being dark by 4:30pm’ thing’s good, too. In between other things, we’ve been revelling in having SHOES! and CLOTHES! BOOKS! HANDBAGS! and NO POLES! We still try to take our own toilet paper to the loo, and it feels really odd not to wear
Julia’s been off driving her car just to be confused at which side of the steering wheel has the indicators and which has the windscreen wipers. A trip to Safeway was awfully exciting (all that readily available Asian and Mediterranean food!), not to mention when we accidentally wandered into the beer fridge of the bottleshop. They were really polite about asking us to stop building a beer-fort and occasionally kissing the Boag’s mountain. Anyway, we'll see what happens when the jet-lag wears off. Maybe then we’ll be able to spell and keep a train of thought long enough to finish a sentence. We’ll get ourselves organised and head down to Somers over the next couple of days - got to see if we can have a real summer! Problem is, getting organised to go to the beach involves packing again, and we’re both over-excited at having more than three tops each. Our packs have more in them for two weeks than they did for nine months and we’re okay with that. What we’re not okay with is the spiders.
One of the most rewarding things about being in the UK was being able to frighten the Brits with off-hand tales of how vicious our spiders are and how unbothered we are by them. But when a huge (for its kind) white-tail spider (black, nasty and very, very poisonous) fell out of a jumper Caroline was folding, she shrieked like a little girl and bellowed for Julia, who came running with tools of the spider-slaughtering trade. Broom, a shoe and fly-spray in hand, Caroline yelled at the spider to get off her bed. When that didn’t work she nudged it gingerly with the broomstick (just in case it ran all the way up the handle and got her), flicked it on the floor and beat it to death with the shoe. Then she had to go for a bit of a lie down and a nice cold beer to calm her nerves. Welcome home!
Being home means that this is probably our last proper epistle! We’ll have to think about that though – someone said that you’re never truly home until the last thing you posted gets home too. So, thanks to the Royal Mail, we’ll probably be ‘away’ another six months!
