One Of Terry's Corners Of the Online World

Well queen_nephthys and I arrived in Brisvegas with no personal damage that wasn't self-inflicted.

We set off at 4 am on Wednesday. Melbourne was expecting snow on the hills, Ballarat had already copped their share of it and the temperatures were in single figures. Leaving early was a smart move. The Melbourne Ring Road was empty and we made good time north on the Hume Freeway, Still in darkness I got us as far as Sheppardton where we stopped for an incredibly unhealthy McBreakfast before queen_nephthys took us up across the border through Tocumwal, Finley and Narrandera. The countryside was flat and frost-rimed but the skies were clear and queen_nephthys had her usual car related mathematical problem. (She loses the ability to discern the difference between a 110 kilometre per hour speed limit and a 130 kilometre per hour speed.) On open country roads where the curves are all gradual and the visibility is basically unlimited this is only a problem when you reach the speed-camera arches that the New South Wales government kindly tells you are there before you reach them. Somewhere on this stretch, we barely missed a Major Mitchell's cockatoo which flew low across the car and got caught in the slipstream. The road train behind us caught it with the passenger side wheel and there was a cartoonish explosion of feathers as bird met Michelin at 110 kilometres an hour. Bad for the bird, but in the next two days we saw enough roadkill to fill a fleet of trucks.

Up through the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area which didn't look like it was getting a lot of irrigation, we changed drivers again at Forbes. ABC radio told us that east of us, half the roads across the Blue Mountains from Sydney were blocked by snow falls. We luncheoned at Parkes and stopped briefly at the Radio Telescope for some photos and souvenirs. queen_nephthys had never been there, so I enjoyed showing her the place. Eventually we rolled into Dubbo, a place where I lived for six months in the mid-1980s and booked into the Blue Lagoon motel. It was still mid-afternoon so after unpacking we walked around town for a while. Lots of changes, all for the better.

Then came dinner and the horrors that contained. Don't get me wrong, the SSS BBQ Barn is a good place to eat. They had a barrel of peanuts near the door, lots of rustic rural decor and friendly staff, but they did mention something that spoiled the experience for me. The Big Shank Challenge. I love lamb shanks. One of my favourite foods. Can't get too many of them. But this was something different. The Challenge is this: buy an entree and the Big Shank. If you can eat them both you get a free dessert of your choice. If you eat that, you get your name on the board on the wall along with someone called "Big Dick" Watson and other colourful characters.

My only excuse is that I had been awake since one am that morning and we'd been on the road for ten hours or so. I went for it.

The entree was calimari. I figured that was a safe bet. They have holes in them and these ones were about the size of the discarded bits left over after a bris. No probs. A little greasy but if you order seafood 350 kilometres away from the sea, you deserve that. Next came the side salad. Nice. Thousand Island Dressing. Then came the waitress to tell me that as I was allergic to the zucchini relish they served with the shank I'd get a double order of chunky fries. Okay...

I'm not sure if you've ever seen a cooked beef shank. They're like a football with a bone sticking out of one end. The bone is big enough to use as a hand-weapon. It's slow cooked so that the meat falls off the bone as you eat it. To be honest, with pepper sauce drizzled over it, it tasted good. But to eat it is like eating eight or nine large steaks, with two serves of chunky fries. I gave it my best shot and ate about three quarters of it. The waitress seemed disappointed. She asked me if I wanted to go outside, walk around the car park a bit then come back to it. But I was acutely aware that I'd need to drive for another 10-12 hours the next morning to get to Brisvegas, my tummy was sore and I wasn't feeling well at all, particularly after queen_nephthys made exaggerated yummy noises over her dessert of profiteroles.

I went back to the motel, laid down on the bed and made moaning noises until I went to sleep around 8.30. I was seriously mocked by someone who's name I won't mention.

Next morning I woke around two am and started to watch television. queen_nephthys gave up on sleep and we were on the road again by 3.30 am. The rest worked wonders on the Big Shank. I didn't feel too bad at all. Maybe my cognitive functions shut down the previous night so that my digestive functions could use all the resources on the combination of salad, squid, spuds and beef. I took the first shift up through Gilgandra to Coonabarabran, Astronomy Capital of Australia. queen_nephthys took over from there but being diabetic she was at a low ebb, so after 20 minutes or so I took over again and drove through the Warrumbungle Ranges in the dark. I did hit a kangaroo, but it was already dead and I didn't have time to dodge it. There was a slight bump but nothing damaging to the car. The macropod was way past caring about another tyre mark across its' neck. By the time we reached Narrabri, the sun was coming up and again, everything was frost-rimed and chilled as we did another McBreakfast - mine much smaller than queen_nephthys's due to my overindulgence the previous night. We crossed the Namoi River and bore on into wheat country, cold, flat and every town was heralded long before we reached it by the high-rise markers of wheat silos. We refuelled at Moree, which is famous for its artesian water spas, where the deep subterranean waters were hot when pumped to the surface. Cafe Omega there does a reasonable coffee. Across the Gwydir River and north east into Queensland, at Goodiwindi. Goondiwindi's sole claim to fame is Gunsynd, a race horse that won two Melbourne Cups a few decades ago.

From there we had a choice, the Gore Highway through Toowoomba or the Cunningham which was around 20 kilometres longer and much less travelled and would take us through Warwick. We chose the latter and it was scenic. I kid you not when I say that there are stretches of the road where road kill kangaroos are spaced around 100 metres apart - particularly between Inglewood and the aptly named town of Gore. In spite of this I recommend the Cunningham. Many fewer trucks travel that way and Warwick was a good place to pause for lunch. Once through there, the road goes through the Main Ranges and suddenly we realised that we had been travelling on a high plateau for who knows how long. The road dives downward for eight winding kilometres to the coastal plains where half the fruit and vegetables eaten in Victoria are grown. We drove between fields of spring onions, carrots and apple orchards. At a little town called Aratula we paused for a snack. I ate an excellent venison pie and we bought more munchies at the fruit market nearby. Fruit and vegetables there were incredibly cheap by Melbourne standards and the quality and freshness were excellent.

The Brisbane traffic was daunting for queen_nephthys after two days of rural driving but my expert navigation got us to the motel without tears, we booked in and headed up the the nearest shopping centre for basic supplies (milk, lip-balm, mineral water). One of my big concerns was that my sister Sandie's wedding starts at 10 am on Saturday which coincided with the launch of the new Harry Potter novel. Fortunately, the bookshop in the centre was opening at 7.30 am Saturday which gives me a reasonable window for whipping down there, getting a copy, coming back to the room, showering and suiting up and then on to Sandie's place by 9 am.

Last night was the wedding rehearsal in Springwood - I got to hang with all five of my nieces, who are cool. The downside is that their Christian cultist father won't let them read or watch Harry Potter - so I'm going to copy the movies for them and mark them "The Princess Diaries 1,2,3 and 4" so they can watch them at Sandie's place when they visit. I may also try to locate some second hand copies of the novels - so if anyone wants to donate, lemme know.

I crashed out fairly early and got up the same. Did a forty minute walk up and down the hills of Eight Mile Plains (in spite of the name, this place undulates a fair bit), ate a healthy breakfast of Swiss muesli and drank good plunger coffee using beans from Jaspers in Melbourne. (Yeah I brought the grinder with me, too.) My Mum and sister Linda arrive around lunch time, so we'll hang with them this afternoon. On Sunday we have brunch with drjon, and Monday, the thrill rides at Movieworld on the Gold Coast.

Days Later

Movieworld Rocks! The Batwing Spaceshot ride which takes you up a tower 60 metres in slightly over a second pulling 4.5 gees, then dragging you down it again at about 1.5 gees kicks arse. If you want a quick adrenalin rush, there's nothing like it. I did get queen_nephthys to go on the Wild West Falls Adventure Ride, the Scooby-Doo Spooky Coaster (which she may LJ about later) and the Batman Adventure Ride. Got t-shirts and other tourist crap and had a (bad) lunch at Rick's Cafe Americain, which is halal safe, BTW. The Police Academy Stunt show was good too. Weather was sunny, early 20s, unlike Melbourne :)

This morning we left Brisvegas and paused for half an hour or so in Byron Bay, where I got a takeaway chai latte (as you do) while watching the sun which had recently risen over the ocean. Lovely stuff. At Grafton we paused and ate a meat pie each and after driving between sugar cane fields and past banana plantations, we arrived here at Coffs Harbour, for a visit to The Big Banana where the frozen chocolate dipped nut sprinkled bananas are yummier than words can describe.

Gotta go, queen_nephthys wants the laptop.