Scotsmen in Melbourne

Johnny and Mack, my Scottish traveling companions, have introduced me to exactly how much a Scotsman can drink. It’s a lot. We’re hanging out in Melbourne while they wait word on whether or not they are going to go back to the oil derrick or move on to other employment.

The key trick to touring with drunken Scots is to get your drunk on early in the day. With a nice buzz on, any normal tourist junk becomes a wonderful drunken staggering thing. You have to moderate by maintaining enough sense so that the tour authorities don’t kick you out, so there’s no puking allowed. Other than that though, adventure awaits the intrepid sot.

Because I’m not as skilled a drinker as either Johnny or Mack, I am the designated nanny. It’s up to me to handle tickets and money and itinerary. It’s up to them to sing raucous songs and generally flirt with any young lass that strikes their fancy. Which pretty much means any female who seems to be breathing (and a few statues that weren’t).

Case in point: Puffing Billy is a narrow gauge steam engine that takes a couple of hours to slowly chug its way from Belgrave, through Lakeside and to Gembrook. You can sit with your feet dangling out a smallish boxcar as the train moves slowly along. Naturally, Johnny decided it might be a good idea to jump off, run alongside the train and jump back on. This, of course, is forbidden, but he didn’t think they’d stop the train to make trouble. So, we get to Lakeside park, Johnny jumps off and starts running — directly into one of those smooth-barked trees they have all over. Falls flat on his butt.

Seeing this, Mack lets out a holler and leaps from the boxcar too. He tumbles right away but I notice he’s holding his flask out like a soldier holding a rifle out of the water. What could I do? My charges had deserted the train. I jumped too. Nothing heroic, the train only goes about 8 kph anyway.

The embarrassing part was following the tracks through the rest of the park to the station so we could take the next train. I have to admit that these two have a knack for just skirting the edge of behavior allowed. At the zoo, they were filling their mouths with water and shooting streams through pursed lips at the, as Mack said, “Purrr litta creaturrrrs carsed by the good Lard”. It was pretty funny seeing a Koala with a wet and puzzled face. I think part of how they get away with it is the strong Scottish brogue they can pull  out when they need it — or when they’ve passed some alcohol level.

They haven’t gotten into any fights yet, unless you count verbal sparring. At the Belgrave station, Johnny, who talked us into the trip and apparently knows something about trains, kept insisting that ‘Puffing Billy’ wasn’t the oldest functioning steam locomotive. He said he’d seen something called the Wylum Dilly in Edinburgh and that Australians were out to con the tourists. The poor guide admitted that this wasn’t the original Puffing Billy, but that the original (in a museum in England, or New York, I forget) was older than the Wylum Dilly.

“Ach Mon, Ye dinna know yer arse from a one pint five two four meter cast iron dramway!”

Love these guys.

Driving to Melbourne

Well, I hooked up with two fellows from the hostel. We are all riding in my rental from Sydney, along the coast to Melbourne. Johnny and Mack are on vacation from an oil platform off Western Australia. Extended vacation. While they were out on leave, the platform sprang a leak (and then caught on fire lately). The thing has been pumping oil into the Timor sea for almost four months now.

The guys had me pull it up on the laptop — you can see the oil slick from space… J&M are a team out Scotland and they tell me they’ve given up on going back, so they have been in contact with a broker service who hires and sends folks out to other derricks all over the world. These two have been in Washington (the State) well, off the coast, so they know the US pretty well. I asked them about working dry rigs (land based) and both of them thought that was for wimps (the word was ‘pussies’ actually). Apparently, dust storms do not impress them as much as 30 foot swells and rouge waves.

So, J&M pay for the petrol and I’m paying the rent on the car. We originally intended to drive straight through to Melbourne, a ten hour drive from Sydney, but as soon as we got a good look at the coast and the ocean, we decided there wasn’t any hurry. Johnny bought a surfboard and a wetsuit — he’s been trying to get Mack to get out in the surf. The water is too damn cold for my tastes, so they both gave up on me. My thing is to set up on the beach (when there is a beach) and chill. I’ve got a new book, so that and a Fosters (along with the occasional bikini passing by) is enough for me.

The weather has been in the 70s, but it’s colder near the ocean.

This is at least a hundred tons of water on the move. Not for JB!

All the Aussies are pretty pale this time of year and they seem big on fishing from shore. So there’s always the danger of catching a hook if someone isn’t careful or simply too drunk to be fishing. We first saw real surfing pretty close to Sydney, at Kiama. Johnny got his board in Ulladulla and the first place we went afterward, Bawley Point, was for serious nut-job surfers only. So we backed up the coast a bit (northward) to Mollymook Beach where the surfing is easier. Easier, but not easy. Johnny got dunked bad enough that another surfer had to help him out of the water and we chased his board down the beach until Mack jumped in to retrieve it.

So, it’s beach bumming our way down to Melbourne…

Hunter Valley Wine

Still not sure if I’m on the permanent outs with Claire. For now though, I’m on my own.

In Sydney, you can rent a car for about $35 a day (AU). They allowed me to use my US driver’s license, but cautioned me about driving on the left (I told them I’d done so in England -fib) and the non-posted speed limits in built-up areas. You have to keep it under 50kph if there are streetlights and stuff.

Women Suck

What’s the phrase? “Act in haste, repent at leisure.” I get back from my jaunt with Jack (to the outback and his marijuana operation) and Claire goes ballistic! I’m all chatty about his enterprising attitude and how Australia seems to be more liberal about marijuana laws and she comes back with something like, “I don’t want to see that bloke, or have him in the apartment, and you shouldn’t see him ever again!” — All that in the high-pitched, righteous anger only women can do well.

Outback Marijuana

If you are going to visit the outback in Australia, prepare yourself for a long, bumpy, dusty ride. This is like Texas with the scrubby bushes and rocky ground. You really get the feeling that mistakes could be fatal.

Australian Weed

I was feeling a bit cooped up this week. Claire has school and I’m getting bored with ‘home life’.So I took my own advice on traveling and followed my nose and kept an eye out for some adventure. It started at the Kit and Kaboodle, a bar on Darlinghurst Road.

Deep Sea Fishing Out of Sydney Australia

Claire has school so I’m free to do some adventuring. 75 degrees and sunny — sounds like fishing weather to me!

How to Sneak onto a Charter

The University of Sydney

School is still in session for Claire and she thought it’d be fun for me to tag along with her to class.  I’ve always been curious what people actually do at a university so I figured what the hell.  Plus, Claire’s getting a degree in something that could mean future travel, and you know I’m a sucker for traveling.

Sydney Harbor Bridge and Balloonery

It’s tough to take a tour of Sydney with a Sydney native without boring them half to death.  Claire, having been raised in Sydney was sure to have seen all the stuff a first-timer like me would be interested in.  That’s why I decided to think a little different.

Sydney, Australian for New York

I have to admit to some bias. As much as I’d like to avoid the Ugly American label, I’ve always assumed Australia was, well, kind of third-world. I suppose it’s all the nature shows they have in the US. Everything Australian has a kangaroo or a snake in it. They always show you the dry and the dusty. Man, talk about being wrong.