4 x 4 beached as...

Today I'm really happy; I get to drive a huge 4x4: it's a brand-spanking-new Toyota Land Cruiser and I'm going to drive it on the beach. My boss, his wife a couple of colleagues Emma and I are going for a beach run.
I hit the beach at 40 kph, confident my giant all terrain terror of the beach will plough through it. After all I have deflated the wheels and I've locked the wheels in 4x4 mode.
Vroooaaaarrrr! puttiputtiputti pet...
What's this? it doesn't go, I get bogged within 40 meters of hitting the beach. WTF?!A couple of regulars: guys that do the beach thing all the time, watch, grin, and start talking:
- Mate, you got yer gearbox set to 4x4?
- Yeah!
- Mate, you ain't got it set to 4x4.
- You're sure?
- Mate, your front wheels ain't turning, mate.
- Really?
- Fair dinkum mate.
Fuckerthefuck they're right, I feel bad and step on the gas so hard, I must have ejected sand into the stratosphere.

We drive for half an hour or so, and find the perfect spot on the beach. Champagne, beer, fishing rods and chips. Perfect let's fish. After a day where rain showers passed us left and right, the rain-gods figure they've been nice enough and open up the hose. It's raining cats and dogs and we choose not to fight the elements. Besides, it'll be high tide in an hour or so and you have to get off the beach.
We find a restaurant in Noosa and have a good meal.

Millmerran

About 4 hours west of Brissie lies Millmerran, a very small town. Nothing much happening here except brown snakes, zillions of rabbits and quadrizillions of kangaroos.
But then a few years back, it happened, coal was discovered and lots of it. The power plant I visited is built on its own lands and underneath lies enough coal to power the station for the next 160 years at full throttle.

They excavate about 3m of top soil and after that lies 6m of coal, and it's quite good quality as well. The 850 Mwatt plant runs 24/7 and during the night the entire complex is managed by 3 people.
I went there for a couple of days and felt super welcome. I was invited to a restaurant 3 times and had good fun.

We had to take a car for 45 minutes to get to the nearest restaurant. On the way the driver, a true Aussie, kills a couple of rabbits on purpose. Of course chocking to me, but here they try to kill them whenever they can, there are just too many of them.

The whales are still here

It's still whale season here at Brisbane and as a little gift to my wife we went to see them.
The whale were a bit uncooperative the first hour, they didn't seem to care too much about us and kept a 100 meter distance.
Suddenly 2 adults joined the group and we got the grand-show, the whale smashed its tail on the water about 50 times and breached (jumped) twice. Wwwoooooaaaawww.

A new Passport

It's that time again, passport renewal time. This time in Brisbane Australia. The sun is up and it's beautiful day, I smile while walking to the consulate and the people smile back at me. I walk into the consulate, a very small office.
To be read through Dutch eyes:

- Haauw arg joe sseur?
- Not too bad (translates: really freaking good mate)

- Vie arg ferry biezie, joe must veetabit.
- You're all right (translates: you bloody tosser, I hate waiting)

- Jess, zèr arg toe piepel veeting
- Two? (translates: what's this daft git all about: 5 minutes and I'll be out of here, yay!)

After about 45 minutes. (yes, 45 minutes...)

- Hoez nekst?
- That'd be me! (translates: anybody cuts in line, dies right here, right now)

- Joe vant a niejoe paspoort?
- That's right. (translates: well observed, Sherlock)

- Joe must let make a foto.
- Must let make? (translates: Oh boy, this monkey doesn't speak English)
- Jes, must let make!

After about 20 minutes while waiting for my freaking pictures.

- voed you filin zis formulier?
- okay. (translates: do I have a freaking choice?)

Another 20 minutes later

- sseur?
- Yes? (translates- what the flip-flying-fuck have I been waiting 20 minutes for?)

- zèt vilbie 150$
- 150$ ?! (translates: 150 bucks! you bloodsucking maggot!)

- jes, ent joe vil hève to veet srie wieks.
- Three weeks?! (translates- fuck off mate, get real!)

- I hoop joe hèff a koed deej!
- Thanks (translates- I hope you don't, you bastard)

Needless to say that the Brisbane honorary consult is a old wanker who gets paid too much and who should have retired 130 years ago.
I have to go to Philadephia in a month, so I really hope my passport comes through by then.

Capital City

So why does Australia have this silly capital city called canberra?

Well here we go. Melbourne was the capital of Australia for quite a while, but the Sydneysiders (inhabitants of Sydney) as they are said: "hey guys, our city is greater, better, bigger and just lovely. We're the Capital!". to which the Melbournians replied: "bugger that and bugger off mate, we're it, and you're not." The Sydneysiders insisted and so did the Melbournians. This stand off lasted for quite a while and suited the Melbournians just fine. ("gni gni gni", they said, "we're still it").

But then a Solomoneske bloke said: "well if you're not going to play nice, the new capital shall be: Canberra". "Canberra?!" The Melbournians and Sydneysides yelled out. "But that's just a village." And the Melbournians added: "that Village is in New South Wales, just like Sydney, that's not fair. We should find another village in Victoria -Melbournes state- and name that our new capital".
The Canberrans, quick to realize the exploitability of the situation, said: "why not create a mini state or territory around us?". And so it happened: the Australian capital is neither Sydney, nor Melbourne, neither does it sit in New South Wales or victory. The Austrlian Capital Territory was created around Canberra and is now (since 1988 a self governing entity).

Melbourne:	Down one Capital City status
Victoria:	Down one Capital City
Austrlia:	Gained one territory (Australian Capital territory)
Sydney:	Gained nothing, lost nothing
New South Wales:	Down lots of surface to a new territory
Canberra:	Big winner, from idiot village to Capital City.
World:	Up a good laugh at this silly story.

Motorcycle license

Well, a few people are not going to be happy reading this: We got our motorcycle licenses! Yaaaay.
After a few lessons we went for our test and now we are deemed competent.

So after a few hours of fooling around on a parking, we take the road.
It starts out pretty bad: one of the students stalls, the driving instructor moves over to stop to wait and Emmanuelle ignores his feverish gestures to stop also, and continues down the road. I can see the instructor is dissapointed.

Now: this is what should probably scare you: we took 2 hours of theory, 8 hours of practical and 'hey-presto', one 'unlimited' bike license each.

I had been told that you'd probably get your license with a box of corn-flakes, but this is really quick. Cool, so now, all I need is a shit load of money to buy Emmanuelle the bike she likes (a BMW) and buy me a Suziki.

Kiwis and Kangaroos

The Australians (Kangaroos) and Kiwis (New Zealanders) have something of a discord between them, not only shown during Rugby matches.Its the same thing as the Norwegians and Swedes have or Dutch and Belgians. One has a distinct feeling of superiority over the other and the other feels that the first are cheap, loud and egoistic. Very funny and all in good fun. For example, if an Australian does not pay a round of beers when its his shout, the Kiwis will say he's doing an Australian Haka. (Picture the Australian searching for his wallet in his backpockets, then his frontpockets, then his breast pockets in a New Zealand Haka style.

However, a very offending animation has just been released that threatens the very foundation of southern hermisphere peace.This animation depicts the very thing that Kangaroos laugh about when making fun of kiwis, its aimed mainly at the Kiwi accent. This animation almost made me wet my pants. It is very funny.Enjoy brew!

River Festival,

An armada of ships makes its way up the river. Thousands flock toward the river shores. IT's River Festival!!

Today there are free BBQ's and beer is shared among friends.
We're having beers and Chips at the StoryBridge Hotel and planes are flying over in formation. At dusk we make our way to the Kangaroo Point bar where a couple of friends await us.The fireworks go off on 5 different barges across the river, off the highest towers and off the bridge. I have never seen so much fireworks going off at once! It lasted for about 30 minutes and at the end a F1-11 swoops in from the sky, flies low over the river and Dumps & Burns his fuel.The sound was as strong as the force was strong with Luke Skywalker.
A lovely evening for sure.

Adelaide

A collegue and I flew out to Adelaide, pumped with adrenaline and ready to go hard and heavy as our account manager had warned us for a heavy week of work. 9 days of work to be done in 4.5 days. That's working at 200%.
Once we arrived, we saw the tempo of most people was that of between a snail on valium and a sleeping sloth. After the first few hours we realized the client expected much less than we thought, basically we had finished all we had to do in the first 5 hours. Damn, now what? We can't fly out, we can't leave, we're stuck! We chose to mingle a bit with the local workforce.

The mere mention of the word 'Work' was enough to make 5 grown up men sigh heavily and melodramitically "ah yes... the 'W'-word!". The 'W' -word, as they call it, is evil: 'that of wich we do not speak'.
The heaviest activity I've seen all day is when an Australian swimmer got the Gold medal. Most people were looking at the television. WHAT? A TELEVISION?, yes a television with FOX cable and everything, we're talking Sony Bravia here.

Quite remarkable to see so many people do absolutely nothing.

The origin of this work-ethic is uncertain, it would certainly have to do with spineless, weak and non-existent leadership. So, looking around people stare at e-mails, look at the Olympic on the television. Surf the internet, read the news paper. Judging by holiday stories, the cars they drive and number of times they mention expensive things most non-workers make a very decent living.

Now I've got a problem, for a consultant costing over $2000 a day, I at least need to look a bit busy... don't I?? So I look at my computer with a deep frown and write this ...

New Appartment

Well here it is.
We'll be moving next week, so you'll get a few pics from the interior. For now just a couple of pics to show the location.
And eh... oh yeah... It comes with a pool and a tennis court :o)

Splash the Cash

This weekend we are going to buy buy buy. We need stuff for our new apartment, so we need a car. I have hired a car at the local shop a Chrysler Cruiser PT convertible! And it's a red one too. Midlife crisis here I come :o)

It's a sunny weekend so top down. We visit all the super stores and a couple of smaller stores and bought a myriad of stuff and things. Don't forget we have nothing. After a weekend of hard work we decide to drive down to the Coolonga beach and have a picnic.

Now I don't know which car to buy. A 4x4, a convertible, a cheap car (and get my motor driving license).

I really liked this Chrysler PT...

Emmanuelle vs Sales guys

We've got a new apartment and we're moving in there by the end of this month. It's an unfurnished apartment so if we'd move in there right now, it'd be a very empty, very depressing hole. Remember, we don't own a spoon. So let’s spend all of our money! Yay!
My wife, having lived in Morocco, is very used to barter for good prices.

A bed - 50% off.
The salesperson says: 'If I'd sell all my furniture at these prices, I'd be out of business by the end of the month.' Emmanuelle - Sales Guys 1-0.

A couch - 20% off.
The salesperson went down to 35% but after a call with his manager he came back with 'I can't go no lower than 20% or I lose my job'.
Emmanuelle – Sales Guys 2-1

Electrical appliances - 40%
After a very long, violent blood ridden fight over percentages the Sales guy gives in and drops his guard. My wife, blood thirsty and aggressive jumps in and closes the deal.
Emmanuelle - Sales Guys 3-1

Did I tell you I love my wife? :o) I do not want to negotiate with her over money, ever. The only thing I can tell is that she'll be buying our car and our house, not me.

French vs Ozzies

Rugby: a sport I used to play every Wednesday and Saturday and now I'm having a hard time remembering the basic rules. My lovely wife decided to purchase a couple of tickets for the game at the Suncorp stadium.

We arrived just in time to purchase beers and fries and run for our seats. Kick off! aaaaaannnd... before my first handful of fries and sip of beer the Wallabies have taken the lead by 10 points. The ozzies around us made sure we'd seen the French get trampled and explained to a high degree of accuracy why the French sucked.

Okay, time to cheer our team on. allez les blues!, allez les blues! ALLEZ LES BLEUS! The Ozzies looked at us, first to make sure we were not Euro-Hooligans and then even start chanting with us. I guess they knew they were going to win.

My wife got into the spirit of it and yelled so loud that Sebastien Chabal -a French Player- looked up at her, smiled and said something to his team mate who looked as well. Without hesitation my wife grabbed her shirt and did the old 'I'm-showing-my-boobs-but-there's-another-t-shirt-underneath'. Now everyone around us is laughing.

My non-patriotic wife stole a yellow scarf just before the 30-3 score saying she had nothing to do with those losers in blue out on the field. That was fun I guess Emmanuelle made about 30 new friends, or at least people that will recognize her in the street.
In the end the French out-sucked a black hole and lost 40-10 being very lucky to get a try in the last minute.
I'm getting tickets for the Oz vs All Black game in September.

Whales

Okay, so about 20 minutes drive from our home, there's a charter that takes you to watch whales.
Great! Let's do that. On the boat, a pretty quick catamaran, we see Moreton Island, its beaches the woods and the blue waters.

Once out of the bay and onto the ocean it takes us about 15 minutes to find the first pod of whales. I crack a couple of jokes:
- Where are the Japanese whale hunters?
- Can we get a Whale sandwich over here?

Here they come, blimey, these are big buggers. A pod of three is joined by a pod of five and later by another pod of three. There are a couple of dolphins around, but they are not the stars of this show.
They get a bit excited and start jumping out of the water and have a good look at us.
They come in really close and... whhhssssshhhhh!!! a spray of water and whale breath right in the face. It smells like fish that has been dead for 3 weeks.
We stay around them for a couple of hours when they decide they had enough of us and take off.

Great Barrier Reef!

Oh crap, it’s early, okay let’s hurry because today we’re going to the Great Barrier Reef!
At 08:00 AM we boarded a superfast mega luxurious cat and blasted close to the speed of sound through the waters to the outer barrier reef. After a flying low (mach 0.9) for an hour and a half we arrived at the first dive/snorkel site. and... the bloody sharks greet us. They're only babies but mum can't be far.

Splash! let's go and visit Nemo and Dorie. It doesn't take long to find a lot of fish. Emmanuelle and I leave the group and go snorkling in a large lagoon. Lovely, truly lovely.
The second site and third site are very nice indeed. A huge groper swims by and a couple of sting rays swim by.
I will return there but I'll be honest, the red sea (Sharm el Sheikh and Hurgada) are a bit better then the GBR. The colors are not that intense, and there are large area's where the coral has died.

Skyrail

Over the tops of the Trees back to the water. Skyrail is a tourist trap, but a lovely one. It flies through the mountains over the tree tops and gives a good impression of how inaccessible this tropical forest is.

KSR Train

The KSR train is one of the tourist attraction in the vicinity of Palm Cove. The KSR is a train winding through the mountains. 15 tunnels, very steep ....We took the train and had a fresh breakfast. Champagne (or rather an Australian variant of the bubbly), some very nice cakes and quiches. At a certain point the train nears a waterfall so close, you can see the individual drops and feel the droplets.

Palm Cove

To welcome Emmanuelle I had booked flights to Cairns (northern Queensland) and then a car to go to a resort a bit further up the coast. After all Emma had only been travelling for 36 hours, so I thought we'd fly some more.

I got the best room in the Hotel, after all 'noblesse oblige'. Palm cove is no more than a collection of resorts by the sea. The Pacific Ocean stretches for as far as the eye can see and the palm trees by the beach make it very nice place for long beach walks. The only thing missing is truly blue water, it has a grey color to it.

Apparently Palm Cove is Marriage central: walking down the beach at sun set we spotted 5 couples get their marriage pictures taken on the beach. (a picture perfect beach, I'd say).

We hired a car, and drove around a bit. Basically the surroundings are tropical forest and beach. It has some history fro a country where nothing is older than 2 centuries. The locals died en masse last century when they tried to create a long railway line between Cairns and the more northern cities. The death toll was so high, that the powers that be decided not to tempt fate and stopped the construction of the rail way at Kundura.

The Wifey!

It's 18:00 I haven't slept well last night, I'm quite excited because my wife will land in one hour. I haven't seen her in 125 days. All I can say: it's been too long.

The doors of the international arrivals gate open and... no. That's not her. Okay, this time then, Nope... After a little wait I find myself a bit nervous. And when I least expect it... there she is. Exactly how I remembered her.
Kisses, hugs, smiles. All is well.

She woke me up 4 times that night to check whether it was really me and we talked a bit. Happy happy joy joy, life in Australia can now truly commence.

We'll have to start from scratch and rebuild everything, from car to home, from clothes to friends. That'll keep us busy for a while.

Evaluation

Righto, after a couple of months in Australia, time for an evaluation.

Nature:
Well, nothing on earth quite compares to Australia, from lush green forests, to ultra dry deserts, to rich seas teaming with fish and dolphins. Australia is also very close to the least explored land in the World: Papua New Guinea. I'm sure I'll visit that country soon.

Groceries:
They have everything and more, the stores resemble American stores where the is choice o galore, however the portions seem more European. (No gallon sized bottles of ketchup, or garbage bag sized bag of chips).
One thing really sucks: they don't sell paprika flavored chips. So bring me some when you're visiting :o)

People:
Very friendly, easygoing and real. Most people are immigrants or 2nd generation of immigrants, people who came to Australia to live a better life, not to fuck up. I have seen some racism against the original inhabitants of Australia.

Work:
You work harder here than in the Netherlands (I think most of the world works harder than in the Netherlands). Everybody can, and does, work from home. Work is very social (BBQ, Beers) and everybody flies at least a thousand times per year for work around Australia.

Family:
The city of Brisbane now boasts the highest concentration of grand children in the World. Just kidding: actually the family is quite far away, and yes it's a hell of a trip to visit the rello's.

Housing:
Far more expensive than Europe. A mortgage runs at 8.7%

Politics:
The biggest political things that happened in Australia in the pas few months are:
1. A politician got in trouble because he sniffed the seat of a female colleague after she had left.
2. The prime minister organized a thinking group (1000 Australians from all walks of life) to 'design the Australia of the future'. Although the results so far are a bit weak, I liked the idea.

Money:
Ridiculous salaries are being paid here in Australia (Truck drivers earn up to 140K AUD and Teachers demand 100K salaries) this combined with an AUD that's getting stronger against all major currencies and an inflation rate that's quite low makes Australia one on the wealthiest countries in the world.

Conclusion:
Work and visa permitting, I'm staying in this country. The lifestyle is better, the beer is better and world politics and trouble do not excite us very much.

Fishing part 2

Mhhuwahahaaa.
It’s fishing time! After having worked 25 hours a day in the past 2 weeks. I decided it was time to reward myself.
Last time I went fishing nothing was caught, this was revenge time! Last time a few guys chose to have a WA brekkie and after the first 4 waves hit the bow, all this beer was lost again to the sea. Hurl, barf… you get the picture. Same thing this time. Overconfident blokes stirring up each other to drink beers. This time it took 10 waves to get 5 guys so sick people in HonKong must have heard them throw up.

So we’re out behind Rottnest Island in some pretty deep water (120m) when my rod goes plink, plonk. This is a fish. Okay stay calm, be cool, let him nibble a little, a little longer… a little… Wham! Got him!

Right, this is no small guppy! 10 minutes into the fight the awkward rod make all my muscles ache. By now the 20 other fisherman are watching me struggle. I can’t show them weakness; this is a man’s sport, a noble sport, for true man, not for wimps. So I fight harder and after a grueling 20 minutes my opponent shows himself. It’s a Mulaway also called ButterFish and it’s a monster: 11.8 Kgs.

Throughout the day fishermen congratulate me on this big catch, and even the captain says it’s been a while since he’d seen such a big one.

I continue fishing and catch an Yellow eye and some Skippies.

I called Tony, a bloke whom I met at the client, and told him he could have the fish if he’d give me a ride to the Airport. Sure enough, he met me at the jetty and sure enough he was very impressed by this fish. Man that will not fit in my fridge. (Tony is a Scottish bloke with a nice access (Sean Connery style).

An albatross flies by to see me off, back to Brisbane for me.

Afraid of flying.

Those who know me a bit, know that I don’t like flying.
It’s not natural to rocket through freezing air at 850Km/h in a device made of parts fabricated by the lowest bidder. To me it has always been a bad idea.

I know the cliché is that you get killed quite a bit easier on the road. And now I believe it.
I just got of a flight and got into a cab. As most Cab’s in Australia they are driven by young immigrants or very old men.

This time I got one of these old men. He said he worked 6 days a week 12 hour shifts. And this was this last day, he had 2 more hours to go.
Now, imagine: a 76 year old geezer, seriously deprived of sleep, in a car that had: 590.000 kms (!). Now that would be regarded as less safe by some. Interestingly I felt more secure with this old fogey than in a plane… There you have it.