The Inconcise Canberra-Adelaide Australian Dictionary

Mount Kosciuszko [mount kozzy-osko] proper noun - Mainland Australia's highest point. Kosciuszko is aboriginal for 'drab, boring, non-entity of an ear-and- nose-intruding-fly-infested mountain'. A walk up said mountain is likely to be regularly interrupted by passing concrete mixers en-route to the building site for Australia's highest toilet.



Bournda, Wilsons Prom and Croajingolong [boorn-da, wil-suhns prom and however you want to pronounce it] proper nouns - National Parks that showcase some of New South Wales' and Victoria's finest and most diverse scenery. Beautiful windswept beaches, sheltered lagoons, massive sand dunes, rugged coastlines, grand old forests, vast tracts of native bush and a multitude of indigenous flora and fauna.


Meat Pie [meet pahy] noun - Australia's national dish. A hand-sized pastry parcel containing largely meat and gravy, and consumed as a tasty takeaway food snack. Tastiest pie (to date) was a marvelous steak, bacon and cheese concoction from the much-lauded 'Paul's Pies' in Yarram.








Melbourne [mel-bern] proper noun - City of sport. Home of the Australian Open tennis. Also famous for being home to Kathleen and Frank (Damian's Ma and Pa) who kindly accommodated a pair of smelly travellers for a few days. Cheers for the birthday cake guys.




Great Ocean Road [greyt oh-shuhn rohd] proper noun - A road (a fairly great one) that runs alongside or close to the ocean from the outskirts of Melbourne to a few hundred kilometres short of Adelaide. Area is home to abundant dangerous wildlife; including snakes, echidnas and koala bears.





Burns [burnz] noun - Robert that is (not the damage caused by fire, heat, radiation, electricity, or a caustic agent) - Scottish poet who is remembered annually on January 25th. Having spent the day of the 25th driving through villages and towns carrying such names as Dundee, Stirling and Hamilton, you'd think it would be a simple task to locate some haggis, neeps and tatties. Twas not tae be. We consoled ourselves with a few drams of good stuff.





Australia Day [aw-streyl-yuh dey] noun - a legal holiday in Australia, the first Monday after January 25, commemorating the landing of the British in 1788. To celebrate this day, Aussies generally get together round the barby, clutch their stubbies, listen to old Kyle and Rolf Harris hits and participate in a series of bizarre events and challenges. These would traditionally include speed-esky-loading, thong-throwing, croc-wrestling and skulling XXXX (four X). To mark the occasion, we joined a couple of friends and a few friends of friends down at the billabong and tried (with varying degrees of success) to walk on water.

East Coast FFFAT

Continuing on the east coast friends and family free accommodation tour, we duly turned up on the doorstep of Big Damo and Big Ezza to ruin their domestic bliss. Main items on the agenda included drinking lots of Coopers Pale Ale, eating snags in the backyard, playing touch rugby (a faux pas we paid for with the loss of walking ability for a few days), doing some museums and exploring the deserted, tumbleweed-strewn, ghostlike streets of the nations capital city.

It's a strange place Canberra. It's difficult to dislike the place as there's nothing much to dislike. It's difficult to get over excited about the place as there's nothing much to get over excited about. It's quite pleasant, if unspectacular, and reeks (in a rather pleasant fashion) of bland, neutral, insipid neutrality. Guess it's kinda like Switzerland...erm, but without the mountains, chocolate, cheese fondue, army knives, offshore bank accounts and cuckoo clocks (Jools: shut up Kev)

Criggage Update: Nothing to update.

Sydney Devine

Missing out the unappealing concrete jungle that's the Gold Coast, we took an overnight bus from Brisbane to Sydney. We proceeded to bring in the New Year in the usual style at a barefoot lawn bowls club with a group of folk dressed as insects.






Acknowledgements

Special thanks to Catherine, who put us up for a night, made us drink lots of beer and introduced us to half of Sydney's gay population. Also big shouts to Annie and Al who we stayed with for 4 nights, and who, despite work commitments found time to take us on a nightly culinery tour.



P.S. Here's a picture of me looking particularly 'manly' on the Manly ferry!