Day 120: Happy Birthday To Me (27/05/2011)

By Greek law, it only rains on one Saturday between May and September and when it does it comes with such force that a third of the Athenian population get washed out to sea. And so it was that today was that day.

Conventional rain aims to soak you in the traditional way by falling from the sky and catching you if it can, on the way down. Athenian rain is cunning; so cunning in fact that aerial protection of whatever calibre is ineffective. It defies gravity and hammers into the pavement with such force that it bounces right back up at you, bypassing what ever protection you may have complacently assumed would do the job.

The bus deposited us into this vortex of five dimensional rain, accompanied by thunder and lightning that lashed and crashed about Symtagma Square, close to the parliament buildings. Protesters scurried for cover as we made a desperate, electrical appliance saving dash from the bus stop, across the square and into the Metro. It would have been easier to swim the length of the Metropolitain fountain, and probably drier too.

When we made it down to the Metro, we were welcomed by the cast of the next Greek disaster movie. The ticket areas and platforms were awash with a tide of dripping human flotsam, washed in on the surging waters. Even a representative sample of Athens' vagrant canine population had sought shelter there. We waited for Spiros Gyllenhaal to save us but when it became apparent that he was draining his fourth Ouzo elsewhere, we caught the train to Konstantinou and the Hotel Achilleon, were fortuitously, they proclaimed to the world, in an amusingly fitting magnetic fridge magnet, that life begins at 40.

It certainly seemed that way later, as we ploughed through the thirteenth bottle of something toxic.

Tom, Jenny, Adrian and Clare toasted me into my fifth decade at a variety of watering holes in the Greek capital and Adrian even brought fizz to the party as Clare and I enjoyed a few pre-match sharpeners in the hotel bar before the evening's proceedings kicked off in earnest.

Simon was due tomorrow lunch time and the boat hand over was also scheduled at Kalimaki Marina for 12.30pm. But yacht chartering companies are no slaves to the deadline. Invariably, a team of hard working deck hands make everything ready in good time but inexplicably things always seem to get held up by a heavily stubbled Greek type who assures you that the boat papers will be returned from the harbour police in the next half hour.

For 'heavily stubbled Greek type' read picky charter company owner taking an overly detailed interest in the smooth running of his maritime empire. For 'harbour police' read slightly overweight Greek naval fellow packing heat, valiantly assisted by a bevvy of doe eyed underlings in skin tight fatigues. Cumulatively their role is to spend 60 minutes perusing your papers, ask you whether you plan to pump sewage into their blue flag marina, and charge you the princely sum of 1.91 Euros for the privilige.

It would probably be cheaper and quicker for the Greek state to give every yacht charterer 100 Euros at handover and send them on their way. This would dispense with a creaking bureaucracy and protect Greece's precious water cleanliness credentials by expelling beer fuelled yachtsment out to sea promptly, rather than have them loitering in harbour, defiling the town quay with their emanations.

And so it was that we set the stage for tomorrow's battle with The Kalimaki Massive by arming ourselves with blinding headaches and the slightly wired sensation that comes with sleep deprivation; perfect allies in the war against petty injustice.

Happy Birthday me!

Thanks to everyone who helped to make it happen.

Day 119: The Catalan Connection (26/05/2011)



I am sure that guy is watching me!















With my 40^th birthday fast approaching and sailing in the Argolic Gulf beckoning as a reward for surviving this long, we flew from Bristol to Barcelona to stay with Clare’s brother and sister-in-law, Pat and Elena for a couple of days before getting on with the serious business of loafing in the sunshine.

I say Barcelona because that is what Ryan Air calls Girona, overlooking the minor detail that it is 40 miles away. You make that mistake once, whatever the Ryan Air destination you select. After the angry red dawn of indignation, the day light of realisation reveals that 12 euros cannot be a money making fare between Bristol and Bath, let alone a destination nearly 1,500km away. Sometime soon, someone will realise this and Easy Jet, Ryan Air and a host of others will simultaneously implode in a cloud of straw donkeys. Until then, the improbable financial equation will balance and we will continue to travel a significant proportion of the earth’s surface for less than the cost of cinema ticket.

Sadly, Pat and Elena had to work during the day, but in keeping with our form for ruthless exploitation of friends and relatives over the last few months, they bought us a delicious dinner at their new haunt, 'El Melic'. This may translate to 'The Belly Button' in Catalan, but as we loosened our belts after the starters, I was seriously considering sneaking back in the night and rearranging the letters to spell 'El Gastric Bando'.

Or at least I would have, had all Catalunya's heavy lifting equipment not been fully engaged on other more pressing civil construction projects at the time, such the widening of the Llobragat high street to accomodate my pendulous girth as we swayed home, full of great wine and excellent food.

The following day, my 35mm camera having only recently been discharged  from intensive care following the Otway Light Station Coffee Tsunami (Day 39), I went to the camera shop to buy a replacement. It was only fair to put anyone within earshot, out of their misery. I had bleated on about doing it, ad nauseam since Otway. I had extracted more than generous birthday cash on the explicit understanding that I would. My pictures were becoming increasing indecipherable on account of the dried coffee on the inside of the lens. It was a no brainer.

No surprise then, that I ummed and ahhed, paced and scratched my chin and generally gave a master class in the art of indecision whilst agonising over whether it should be the Cannon EOS 550D or the Nikon 5100.

Eternal thanks then to Clare, as Pat was rocking gently in the corner, weeping quietly, and the sales assistant was bleeding from the eyes whilst trying manfully to answer my increasingly arcane questions about which was less likely to slide of a yacht deck in a force 4. The sudden and burning desire to possess the Cannon may have had something to do with the sudden and burning pain in my ear as Clare first grasped and then twisted it further than anatomically wise, whilst calmly but vehemently whispering comparative advantages of the Cannon's 18.2 megapixel sensor.

Decision made, we went home, only to discover instruction manuals in Portugese and Spanish only. Fortunately, the unthinkable consequences of jamming the rotator cuff mechanism into the flange assembly aside, it all seemed pretty straight forward. Within the hour I was taking equally bad pictures, only in 18 megapixels rather than 4.

Boarding the plane for Athens, more than one traveller must have arrived home, wondering whether they were under surveillance, so diligent was my snapping in the terminal.

Instead, it was my Truman Show moment as we boarded. Mr Bleeding Eyes from the camera shop was checking boarding cards at the gate as his Friday job. A dead likeness of Adrian (anchorman) was sitting to Clare's left on the plane and Simon's doppelganger (sail trimmer) brushed past as drinks were being served.

Are there cutbacks at the studio?

Day 42: Tsunami (11/03/2011)

It's a great view of Melbourne from the 43rd floor of the AMP Tower.

Just another great thing to add to a day full of great things.

Exploring the National Gallery. Eating lunch in the sunshine. Buying a CD of street Flamenco from a pendulous Iberian Siren. Director's Box seats to watch The Rebels play The Sharks to a nail biting Rugby League final in a one point in it, end of season clincher.Fish and Chips and a beer for under $6.00. Flame grilled cocktails in a dark side street bar resembling Sweeney Todd's.

Sadly, not so good for the east coast of Japan, rocked by a massive earth quake and then washed away by 20 foot high tsunami waves. Jaws slack in the queue for late night kebabs, we watched the waves roll in, whole neighbourhoods submerged and water streaming inland.

They say Fukashima is under water and they have a nuclear power station.

Suddenly, the world seems a much smaller place.

Day 41: Taxi! (10/03/2011)

Mooching in Melbourne we experienced the full spectrum of life.

$70.00 for Clare's haircut in a swanky up town salon.

$7.00 for mine. And that included a free beer while he shaved my head and The Doors played at ear bleeding volume; the walls adorned with what can only be described as erotic gypsy pin ups in varying states of undress. I could have got a tattoo if I had wanted it. After a beer it didn't seem such a bad idea.

Instead I scared myself repeatedly on the walk home, catching a glance of my newly shorn appearance in every window I passed. The whiff of dope at every door way marked the territory and possibly explained the shambling Aboriginies congregating around the park benches as I passed. I might have been a bit scared but a beer before lunch bouyed me up and my new haircut seemed to intimidate them more than it did me.

Haircut raising an occassional eyebrow that evening, Dirk and Victoria's Bon Homie stretched to its elastic limits as they entertained us at Melbourne's Taxi. Not a kebab and a Strongbow in the back seat of a cab as the name might suggest; rather a twelve course Degustation Menu at the eponymous retaurant, peopled by the beautiful and patrician accolytes of the fine city. And that was just the waiting staff.

Sashimi, pork belly, coconut soup, elaborate chocolate and caramelised sugar nests; each course was a triumph of.....of......

Well, it was delicious anyway.

And I think they were extra nice to us.

May be because I looked like I might have caused trouble give the slightest provocation.

Or perhaps because I spent the afternoon perched on the Pope's Kneeler.

Really, I did!

Day 40: The Russians Are Coming (09/03/2011)

The word 'Gullible' has been removed from the dictionary, apparently. Or so the good burghers of Port Fairy would probably believe.

If you kept a straight face.

After all, it was they that jailed a hoaxer who let it be known in 1855, that the Russians, already hilt deep in the Crimea, were also planning to launch a pre-emptive strike on Port Fairy (population 9).

You can't help wondering whether this was just an opportunity for the Town Elders to settle a few old scores by coming down hard on a first time offender, in lieu of asking any searching questions of themselves, about the nature of past town expenditure.

In 1811, Port Fairy bought some very large cannon forged in England, when prices were peaking in the preamble to some Napoleonic Peninsula bashing in 1812. In 1835, they invested heavily in a Battery and Powder Magazine upon rumours circulating of further hostilities with some imagined foe.

Either they had a persecution complex or the local Sea Bass population really was massing for an attack.

Nowdays Port Fairy is a pretty, well-heeled seaside town, populated largely by equally well-heeled tourists. The fishing boats are gone, replaced by yachts and the cannon and battery? Well, they do what they always did. Nothing much. But the town is still small. Small enough in fact for yesterday's hotel manager, Brynn, to scour the cafes and restaurants to find us and personally return Clare's mobile phone that she left in the room.

And it turns out the hoaxer was right all along.

The Russians did come; they just didn't bring their tanks.

Day 39: The Twelve Apostles (08/03/2011)

Today is Pancake Day!

We celebrated by buying a plastic spoon from the supermarket to eat our cereal, having lost yet more cutlery along the way.

After the savage but greatly under reported Coffee Tsunami at Otway Light Station, the camera was laid to rest, cold coffee still leaking from its innards. Of no lesser significance was the loss was the orange and carrot cake that was also engulfed by the brown tide that surged across the table, mere nano-seconds after the waitress turned her back.

The casual observer may have attributed the disaster to my poor motor control, as my reaching hand spasmed at the critical moment unleashing hot caffeine hell. The more astute will recognise the malign confluence of The Two Backpackers of the Apocalypse, as we have now been labelled, and the Furry Lieutentant of the Dark One (aka Wombat Terror).

Bearing this in mind, and pausing only to accept a free replacement from the waitress who inexplicably felt responsible for the spillage, we headed for the Twelve Apostles to seek absolution from whatever unspeakable sins of a former life that were responsible for these Marsupial machinations.

The Apostles are limestone stacks eroded from the cliffs beyond Otway and before Port Fairy. The Twevle are merely a few of the formations that litter the coast line for ten miles. Their beatification is a recent occurence, having previously been known, less pleasingly perhaps, as the Sow and Piglets. There are really only eleven now since a recent collapse. The spectacular fall of London Bridge arch just down the coast, stranding terrified hikers, illustrates the dynamic erosion that created the formations and which is continuing the process, with no respect for the requirements of the tourism industry built upon them.

After exploring the strange enclosed bay of Loch Aird Gorge where 57 perished in a nineteenth century maritime disaster, we passed the Bay of Martyrs, a mini-me version of the Apostles, before leaving the coast and heading a short distance inland to the Tower Hill State Game Reserve. Emu and Kangaroos lounged lazily in the roadway, unconcerned by our presence, in a way that made the behaviour of the animals at Wilson's Promontory seem capricious.

Arriving in Port Fairy, we booked into the Ashmont Hotel, discovered the manager had lived a mile from us in Bristol, chased crickets across the threshold, missed the famous pie dinner at the Irish Bar due to the chef's mysterious incapacity, and settled for noodles at the Kung Fu Kitchen while the local dive team complained about sharks at the next table.

All appeared to have been forgiven.

Day 38: The Great Ocean Road (07/03/2011)

After the perils of Wilson Promontory, any exposure to wild life was always going to be a risky proposition.

Undoubtedly sensing our trepidation, Dirk and Victoria lent us the Subaru for a trip up the GOR. Built after WW1 to employ demobilised soldiers, it took 18 months and 3000 men to excavate a path 250km long into the coastal rock. Remote communities were connected for the first time and the area developed rapidly.

From Abbotsford in Melbourne we drove to Torquay beach for lunch.

Following Lonely Planet's advice, we stalked the fairways of Anglesea Golf Club in search of the kangaroos that do much of the work of the green keepers. Two coffees and a slice of cake later it became apparent that they had retired from the heat of the day and we moved on, not entirely unhappy with our brief sojourn to middle class Victoria.

At Split Point Lighthouse we climbed to the highest elevation on the coast line and learned about the isolated life of the keeper and the small community that grew up around the tower. A combination of the remoteness of the location and the onset of the telegraph, for which a station was constructed adjacent to the lighthouse in 1854, caused bad feeling between the rival technologies.

The tower keeper was clearly reminded of his reduced status when the telegraph swept into town and provided the burgeoning colony with a near instantaneous means of communication. He must have felt a certain schadenfraude when the under sea telegraph cable from Split Point to Tasmania was severed in 1857. Already frosty relations cooled significantly to the point that tower keeper and telegraph manager, though living in houses less than 50m apart, communicated with each other by tart written missives directed via their respective headquarters in Melbourne, five days ride away.

The acrimonious correspondence can still be seen at the public records office but while the tower still warns shipping of the perils of Eagle Rock, the telegraph has been consigned to history.

Fire's burned dangerously close to hill side houses at Teddy's Lookout and the vista was heavily wreathed in smoke for 20  miles in either direction along the coast. Even the azure sea dulled as the smoke robbed it of its refraction. Inland and uphill, we hiked to Erskine Falls for spectacular views of a 40m cascade before pausing for longer than intended at Kennett River.

We searched long and hard, for Koalas in the trees there, but saw none. Until that is we saw one, and then saw dozens once we knew what we were looking for. High in the Eucalyptus trees, they sat wedged in the forks of branches, motionless and all but invisible. Undoubtedly benefitting from the narcotic effects of the Eucalyptus leaves that are their staple diet, they loll in a soporific state, waking only to eat, mate or occassionally stumble into the path of a passing car.

Wallabys bounded across the path ahead of us as we descended. Brightly coloured parrots ate from our hands, more fearful of each other than us.

Finally striking camp at Apollo Bay we spent a windy night adjusting tent pegs and tightening guy ropes as the tent bucked and rocked in the gale. Somewhere between dusk and dawn we snatched a few hours sleep and woke to clear skies as the front had blown through.