The Trip

South from Cairns has taken me past hundreds of kilometres of fields filled with cane and banana. The humidity is dropping but the temperatures have not. The Greyhound buses have proved to be efficient and good value for money. They threatened to charge me $6 each time I booked a stage and so far I have not parted with any money at all. Marvelous people. My first port of call was Airlie Beach. I had fantasized about this being like Mission Beach in the North which was empty, white, and beautiful. Instead I got a larger town with no beach but a big marina where we boarded the vessel which was to take us around the Whitsunday group of islands. I estimated that the ratio of Brits (mainly English from the North, oddly enough) and Irish to the Aussies here was 50:1. I'm not such a cultural snob that this matters a great deal to me, though non-English birds are a lot nicer IMO, but it gave the whole town an unpleasant feeling of being in the Balaerics. Too many Happy Hours gives rise to ...

So back to Australia. Coming into Melbourne after my 6 weeks in NZ was a little depressing but after getting back to my friend David's house it all slotted back into place and I felt fine. It was good to catch up with him and his mates again as my first time there was short. I have nothing much to say about Melbourne. It's a big city with one of the largest populations in Australia. It appeared free from pretensions and has a tram system that actually works. The centre is easily walkable and the taxis yellow. The MCG is massive and the weather this time of year cold and wet, like the UK. I met some of my mate's friends and had a good week and a half there. One weekend we spent out in the "country" watching some bogans trying to hillclimb in some tatty old cars. That was a highlight because it was ridiculous. Melbourne was the stopover before my push Northwards to Cairns in the Tropical North of Queensland. Queensland is regarded within Australia as the Hick State ...

What a session. What a match. What a series. The two best teams in the world locked in mortal combat for the past 7 weeks or so. A lot of late nights, booze, paranoia, fear, and ecstasy. And I'm supposed to be on holiday. In the end the better team won and credit to all who played (apart from Damien Martyn who was crap). It was magical to watch Warnie bowling throughout this series, seeing our batsmen stand up right to the last one, seeing Vaughn lift the tiny urn. To see our team who were tonked around the place for many long and terrible years build themselves into this Team is truly admirable. To win back the Ashes, divine. As the late St. Richie of Benaud would say, "Super effort that. Maaarvelous game all round." Amen.