'Boo hoo', he said, flicking at his bottom lip, 'toughen up boys, this is springtime! Wait till summer, then it gets hot!' We're in the hottest part of Oz. It can get to 52 degrees here. Do these people have regular skin!
It's very hot.
Phil and I are carrying and laying stone pavers, baking, Anne's helping, melting. This is the Outback and it's 42 degrees celsius. Unprecedented heat. The sun - it beats down with a relentless fury as if to drive us to despair!
No amount of water helps. The mantra 'Pee clear twice a day - hydrate or die' has a curiously forlorn ring to it.
The sweat is pouring off us in rivers, evaporating as soon as it hits the parched, dry earth. A red faced Welshman sits on the back of a Toyota 4x4 and looks buggered.
Our heads are pounding; the rocks we're carrying are blisteringly hot. The earth 'neath our feet scolds us. A cigarette is lit off an all too rosy cheek.
Why are you so cruel mother nature? To harm and torture innocents like this!
Our tenderised flesh grown ever pinker.
Oh, for the goodly rain of home! The miserly sunshine! The gloom of cloudy days!
It's sunshine again tomorrow they say.
Bloody typical.
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Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Sunday, November 2, 2008
The Bushman's Farewell To Queensland
We were given a copy of this poem by Narell Howarth in Upperstone. No one apparently knows who wrote it, but we think it most certainly must have been a Pommie, thus, his inclusion here in the Whinging Poms. We, of course, love Queensland. This fella, you see, well, had a few issues.
The Bushman's Farewell To Queensland
by Anon
Queensland thou art a land of pests
From flies and fleas one never rests
Even now mosquitoes round me revel
In fact, they are the very devil,
Sandflies and hornets just as bad,
They nearly drive a fellow mad.
The scorpion and the centipede
With stinging ants of every breed
Fever and ague with the shakes
Triantelope and poisonous snakes
Goannas, lizards and cochatoos
Bushrangers, lags and jackaroos
Bandicoots and swarms of rats
Bull dog ants and swarms of cats
Stunted timber, thirsty plains
Parched up deserts, scanty rains
There's rivers here you sail ships on
There's nigger women without shirts on
There's humpies, huts and wooden houses
There's men who don't wear trousers
There's Barcoo rot and sandy blight
There's dingos howling half the night
There's curlews wails and croaking frogs
There's savage blacks and native dogs
There's centralists, flowers and stinging trees
There's poisoned grass and Darling peas
Which drive the horses and cattle mad
Make the sheep, just as bad
And then it never rains in reason
There's droughts one year and floods next season
Which wash the squatter's sheepe away
And then there is the devil to pay
To stay in Queensland, Oh land of mutton
I would not give a single button
But bid thee a long farewell
Thous scorching land of sunburnt hell.
Back to the Cheeky Homepage
The Bushman's Farewell To Queensland
by Anon
Queensland thou art a land of pests
From flies and fleas one never rests
Even now mosquitoes round me revel
In fact, they are the very devil,
Sandflies and hornets just as bad,
They nearly drive a fellow mad.
The scorpion and the centipede
With stinging ants of every breed
Fever and ague with the shakes
Triantelope and poisonous snakes
Goannas, lizards and cochatoos
Bushrangers, lags and jackaroos
Bandicoots and swarms of rats
Bull dog ants and swarms of cats
Stunted timber, thirsty plains
Parched up deserts, scanty rains
There's rivers here you sail ships on
There's nigger women without shirts on
There's humpies, huts and wooden houses
There's men who don't wear trousers
There's Barcoo rot and sandy blight
There's dingos howling half the night
There's curlews wails and croaking frogs
There's savage blacks and native dogs
There's centralists, flowers and stinging trees
There's poisoned grass and Darling peas
Which drive the horses and cattle mad
Make the sheep, just as bad
And then it never rains in reason
There's droughts one year and floods next season
Which wash the squatter's sheepe away
And then there is the devil to pay
To stay in Queensland, Oh land of mutton
I would not give a single button
But bid thee a long farewell
Thous scorching land of sunburnt hell.
Back to the Cheeky Homepage
Friday, October 17, 2008
But I thought you had it?
Where has it gone?
Isn't it there?
Where?
By the thing next to that little fella thing.
What? No.
You had it last.
But I gave it to you.
I put it down!
Where?
I don't know!
Why are you asking me then?
Because I thought you had it!
What are you looking for?
The fun and games of living three to a van.
Come and join us while we play the "let's keep it here from now on" game.
Watch open mouthed as Anne tears the van apart looking for the mossie repelant, gives up then blames us for having to look daft in front of people as she applies factor 30 sunblock at nine at night, leaving the inside of the van looking like a fight between three sumos chasing a badger took place.
Stand agog as Phil spends an hour moving stuff, tidying things, and putting items away only to have it all pop back up and splay itself in disarray as soon as he turns his back.
Laugh out loud (lol, he he he) as Gareth looks for the lighter to start the gas cooker, searches the same place nine times, hassles Phil, hustles Anne, harries passersby, and attempts the age-old abusing invisible foes game, muttering obscenities, only to find it where he least expected it, in his pocket. You knew that was where he'd find it all along didn't you.
Have a gander at the 'where's the map?', 'what map?', 'the map map!' shenanegans. They amuse no one in particular, but they keep appearing.
Be a fly-on-the-van-door while we ask the questions on almost nobodys lips, like "whose dirty sock is this?" "why is there a pair of wet grundies on the drivers seat?" "do you have to put your armpits so close to my face" and the oft-repeated seldom answered "what's that smell?"
Honestly, and you thought you had it bad! Pff.
Isn't it there?
Where?
By the thing next to that little fella thing.
What? No.
You had it last.
But I gave it to you.
I put it down!
Where?
I don't know!
Why are you asking me then?
Because I thought you had it!
What are you looking for?
The fun and games of living three to a van.
Come and join us while we play the "let's keep it here from now on" game.
Watch open mouthed as Anne tears the van apart looking for the mossie repelant, gives up then blames us for having to look daft in front of people as she applies factor 30 sunblock at nine at night, leaving the inside of the van looking like a fight between three sumos chasing a badger took place.
Stand agog as Phil spends an hour moving stuff, tidying things, and putting items away only to have it all pop back up and splay itself in disarray as soon as he turns his back.
Laugh out loud (lol, he he he) as Gareth looks for the lighter to start the gas cooker, searches the same place nine times, hassles Phil, hustles Anne, harries passersby, and attempts the age-old abusing invisible foes game, muttering obscenities, only to find it where he least expected it, in his pocket. You knew that was where he'd find it all along didn't you.
Have a gander at the 'where's the map?', 'what map?', 'the map map!' shenanegans. They amuse no one in particular, but they keep appearing.
Be a fly-on-the-van-door while we ask the questions on almost nobodys lips, like "whose dirty sock is this?" "why is there a pair of wet grundies on the drivers seat?" "do you have to put your armpits so close to my face" and the oft-repeated seldom answered "what's that smell?"
Honestly, and you thought you had it bad! Pff.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Is it poisonous? Lesson 1
Why does it have to be able to do that?
We all know of the snakes and the spiders right? That Australia is home to the deadliest of these creatures. Fair enough, we can handle that.
But what's with everything else?
I mean come on! Bend an ear for a second and listen in to these campfire tales of deadly creatures, on land and in the sea, invertebrate and mammalian, on legs or in shells, that bite, poke, spear, spit, inject or just attack. And that's just the feild mouse.
The box jellfish and the irukandji jellyfish are lethal! I mean just plain unecessarily brutal. The former, also known as the Stinger, has four clusters of up to 60 tentacles containing millions of microscopic capsules capable of firing upon contact with human skin a venom-laden injection that can induce, in large enough doses, severe trauma, leading in some cases to an agonised death. The more you try to struggle and move, the more venom it fires, so the more tentacles touching you the worse the pain. It's unbelievable really. They swarm from Tropical North Queensland to the foot of the Barrier Reef, colonising the warm shallow waters West also. This means that the sea is off limits during summer, from about October through to about March. Did you hear that? You can't swim in the sea during summer because chances are you'll meet with one of these fellas and suffer immense, agonising pain, if you're lucky, and death by screaming if you're not. Am I alone in thinking, eerm, you what? Oh, and the Irukandji, you can't even see this fella, but his sting, while not as toxic as the Box Jellyfish, packs one hell of a punch. Invisible and deadly - the stuff of childhood nightmares.
Now, look at that nice Cone Shell. Isn't it pretty, so colourful and benign looking. Pick it up, have a look inside - and get harpooned in the face by a venomous toxic barb! Que, you what? The Cone Shells use venom to capture and immobilise their prey, and they also have a marked effect on the central nervous system of mammals too. The Conus Geographus, or Geography Cone, a pretty red-striped shell, is vicious, able to fire at it's victms a harpoon-like barbed projectile laden with enough paralytic toxins to render you a gibbering wreck, then put you in a coma. Can you hear the sea if you put one to your ear? Sure you can. You'll be floating face down at the bottom of it, sleeping with the fishes, mate.
Have you actually seen the size of a Redback? It's tiny. No bigger than the tip of your finger, but if it nips the end of that finger for some reason, you better have a plan, because if you don't, you may die. Now consider this. The redback, a spider, in comparison to a human, is tiny. Yet it can kill an human. Now why would it want to be able to do that? Why is it necessary that it has such toxic ability? What does it eat? Just how venomous does it need to be? At some stage in the past did they hunt and kill Tyrannosaurus Rex? Why is something so small so bloody deadly? It just boggles the mind.
Sodding March Flies. I mean really. Come on! Before the Mossies turn up for the evening shift, these things, almost two centimetres long, with a proboscis like an elephants trunk, fly around all day, with the tenacity of a ping-pong ball on a string, attempting to drive that javelin of a sucker into you and suck for all it's worth. And it's stupid, and slow, but desparate and persistent. I've shrieked as one buries itself in my finger, and then watched, horrified, as it clings on, even as I shake my hand wildly like an epileptic rapper, and it's only as I pound my hand onto the table that it relents and dies. Sometimes it flies off. But it'll get you through your jeans, a long-sleeved shirt is no bother, but as i said, it's really slow, so you kill it, but then 20 of them come to its funeral, so you kill them, you can't sit, or work, or do anything, so it's the killing fields, you're ever on patrol, where-the-hell-is-that-one-I-missed-ten-minutes-ago, the glint in your eyes grows manic and singular in purpose. Genocide. Create a mausoleum of dead flies for your petty enjoyment and satisfaction. Utter madness. The horror, oh, the horror.
We all know of the snakes and the spiders right? That Australia is home to the deadliest of these creatures. Fair enough, we can handle that.
But what's with everything else?
I mean come on! Bend an ear for a second and listen in to these campfire tales of deadly creatures, on land and in the sea, invertebrate and mammalian, on legs or in shells, that bite, poke, spear, spit, inject or just attack. And that's just the feild mouse.
The box jellfish and the irukandji jellyfish are lethal! I mean just plain unecessarily brutal. The former, also known as the Stinger, has four clusters of up to 60 tentacles containing millions of microscopic capsules capable of firing upon contact with human skin a venom-laden injection that can induce, in large enough doses, severe trauma, leading in some cases to an agonised death. The more you try to struggle and move, the more venom it fires, so the more tentacles touching you the worse the pain. It's unbelievable really. They swarm from Tropical North Queensland to the foot of the Barrier Reef, colonising the warm shallow waters West also. This means that the sea is off limits during summer, from about October through to about March. Did you hear that? You can't swim in the sea during summer because chances are you'll meet with one of these fellas and suffer immense, agonising pain, if you're lucky, and death by screaming if you're not. Am I alone in thinking, eerm, you what? Oh, and the Irukandji, you can't even see this fella, but his sting, while not as toxic as the Box Jellyfish, packs one hell of a punch. Invisible and deadly - the stuff of childhood nightmares.
Now, look at that nice Cone Shell. Isn't it pretty, so colourful and benign looking. Pick it up, have a look inside - and get harpooned in the face by a venomous toxic barb! Que, you what? The Cone Shells use venom to capture and immobilise their prey, and they also have a marked effect on the central nervous system of mammals too. The Conus Geographus, or Geography Cone, a pretty red-striped shell, is vicious, able to fire at it's victms a harpoon-like barbed projectile laden with enough paralytic toxins to render you a gibbering wreck, then put you in a coma. Can you hear the sea if you put one to your ear? Sure you can. You'll be floating face down at the bottom of it, sleeping with the fishes, mate.
Have you actually seen the size of a Redback? It's tiny. No bigger than the tip of your finger, but if it nips the end of that finger for some reason, you better have a plan, because if you don't, you may die. Now consider this. The redback, a spider, in comparison to a human, is tiny. Yet it can kill an human. Now why would it want to be able to do that? Why is it necessary that it has such toxic ability? What does it eat? Just how venomous does it need to be? At some stage in the past did they hunt and kill Tyrannosaurus Rex? Why is something so small so bloody deadly? It just boggles the mind.
Sodding March Flies. I mean really. Come on! Before the Mossies turn up for the evening shift, these things, almost two centimetres long, with a proboscis like an elephants trunk, fly around all day, with the tenacity of a ping-pong ball on a string, attempting to drive that javelin of a sucker into you and suck for all it's worth. And it's stupid, and slow, but desparate and persistent. I've shrieked as one buries itself in my finger, and then watched, horrified, as it clings on, even as I shake my hand wildly like an epileptic rapper, and it's only as I pound my hand onto the table that it relents and dies. Sometimes it flies off. But it'll get you through your jeans, a long-sleeved shirt is no bother, but as i said, it's really slow, so you kill it, but then 20 of them come to its funeral, so you kill them, you can't sit, or work, or do anything, so it's the killing fields, you're ever on patrol, where-the-hell-is-that-one-I-missed-ten-minutes-ago, the glint in your eyes grows manic and singular in purpose. Genocide. Create a mausoleum of dead flies for your petty enjoyment and satisfaction. Utter madness. The horror, oh, the horror.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Stop whining
It's going to be a long trip. That much we know. Something else we know is that it's going to be tough. Taxing. Draining. Energy sapping. Why-are-we-even botherin-I knew-we-should-have-just-stayed-at-home-where-there's-a kebab-shop-up-the-road-and-a-bottleshop moments are likely to crop up. Gareth and Phil are like brothers from another mother usually, but what if, after three days driving, cooped up in a van Gareth's habit of breathing through his mouth gets on Phil's nerves? Will Anne survive the whole way with two smelly boys without kicking one of them in the throat?
On this page we get rid of these petty things. We release them, let go and breathe again (through our noses!!!)
If we have somewhere to vent all this and get some gee-up from people, a little encouragement along the way, then the dry and dusty kilometres will fly by.
Laid back, easy going, no worries?
NOW WHO ATE THE LAST TIM TAM?
On this page we get rid of these petty things. We release them, let go and breathe again (through our noses!!!)
If we have somewhere to vent all this and get some gee-up from people, a little encouragement along the way, then the dry and dusty kilometres will fly by.
Laid back, easy going, no worries?
NOW WHO ATE THE LAST TIM TAM?
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