Owld Phartz on Tour

Episode 5 – The Return to Aysh’t’n.

Singapore came and went in little more than the blink of an eye – nothing more than a glorified re-fuelling stop as we were quite seriously delayed from Melbourne and; despite the best endeavours of the driver, he couldn’t make up any time no matter how much he hammered the throttle.

The resulting delay into Dubai sadly meant that there was no time for retail therapy – so all the best laid plans for gift shooping went out of the window – although what we have seen is enough to add Dubai onto the list of future Owld Phartz Tours.

So it’s back to Aysh’t’n. We had planned to immediately lock horns with 3M’s (we have subsequently learned that K is no more), Big Danny and the rest at the Fox Cover Quiz mob – no Four Fox’ though (we have left one in New Zealand and the rest have run for cover not wishing to be humiliated by the owld-uns) – but that jet-lag thing was a bit of a bugger. Despite best efforts to get our body clocks back to GMT on the return journey, we are awake when we should be asleep, trying to sleep when we should be awake and with spells when our inner ears are confusing the brain into thinking that we are still on a plane or on gently rocking boat – a sort of slightly woozy, drunken feeling without incurring any expenditure on booze!

This is the end of the Owld Phartz’ Tour of the Antipodes and the Owld Phartz signing off.  Special thanks to the webmaster for allowing us to make use of his space to help us keep those back at home up to date with our travels (much cheaper than postcards!) and thanks to those who have read and been slightly amused at our escapades as well  ……………. but this will not be the last you hear of the Owld Phartz!

WATCH THIS SPACE FOR A FUTURE ANNOUNCEMENT!

Episode 4 – Homeward Bound

Adios New Zealand – G’Day Orstraelia!

The first leg of the homeward journey, not counting Wellington to Auckland, was the return encounter with Melbourne. This time we had the necessary paperwork and no pen-pushing passport person was going to stop us – unless he had a bloody big gun!

We stayed in a very nice hotel, right beside the World Trade Centre – the only problem was the car dropped us off at the hotel 10:00pm local time and guess what time the bar shut? Yes, you’re right 10:00pm! I tried to reason with the receptionist – tried all of the usual lines about the number of times I stay in Holiday Inn/Crown Plazas and in some cases, Preston springs to mind, I’ve had the barman pleading with me to go to bed at 4:00am! [Not for any sexual behaviour I must stress – but so that he could close the bar!]

Anyway, after raiding the minibar in the room, dawn broke on a warm, sunny Melbourne morning. While planning our day, it seemed as though the options were either;

• to visit the MCG for a tour of the ground and museum that is alleged to be similar to the pilgrimage to Lords; or
• go shopping!

It won’t take a genius to work out which option was selected from the menu!

Fortunately, many of the retail outlets had seating areas out front where I could while away a few hours in ‘people-watching mode’ with a rather pleasant cigar or two! I won’t bore you with all of the gory details, but the ratio of 5 hours, gawd knows how many shops visited and items tried on, but the good thing for my wallet was that there was only one purchase! Happy Days!

I’m finishing this episode off in the Emirates Lounge at Melbourne with a steady supply of liquid replenishment waiting on the flight to Singapore.

Until the next episode………… G’day

Wellington Retail Experience and South Island Expedition.

Well – it had to happen! The escorts Thornton were tasked to provide sherpa and mobile wallet facilities to the now, fully rehabilitated fire-breathing Home Leader! High Street stores, Boutiques, where nothing has price tags but there are strategically placed sofas – presumably to rejuvenate shoppers when they find out the cost of their purchase were visited with alarming regularity.

I could go into detail of the experience, the number of shops entered together with the ratio of purchases to things tried on but even my statistical interest wanes at this point.

Suffice to say we eventually retired [exhausted] to a wonderful Cajun/Deep South-type café/bar for a combination of solid and liquid sustenance just opposite to the cinema where the world première of The Lord Of The Rings took place – which was also at the foot of a hill that was used to film some of the middle earth sequences.

The next stage of the tour was something much more interesting. An Interislander ferry crossing from Wellington to Picton began the all-too-brief South Island experience – death by spectacular scenery! I did have a few ‘Kodak’ moments, but I doubt even David Bailey could do the scenery justice!

A two-hour drive was the first leg to Kaikoura – the whale-watching capital of New Zealand. Along the way, we passed a long stretch of coast where, no more more than 100 yards out to sea, was a large pod of whales – Orcas we think – splashing around, minding their own business, oblivious no doubt to anything else around them.

Did we stop the car and take the inevitable ‘Kodak moment’? Did we not! ……….. We’re in the land of whale-watching so there would be plenty of opportunity over the next couple of days to do that …………. or so we thought!

We passed up on the opportunity to go out on little boats chasing the little buggers, we might have a budding cox in the group but there was a limit to the proximity this writer wanted to get to an over-amorous Orca! Instead we visited another stretch of coastline where whales and dolphins were aplenty! How better to watch Orcas and dolphins at play than to be on dry land with a nice drink of something and a rather pleasant cigar?

Wrong again!

When we got to one bay-side watering hole mien hostess remarked on how spectacular the view had been a short while earlier – but nothing – not even a hint. The rest of the trip was similarly fruitless. Nevertheless, we could not have gone all of the way to New Zealand without spending some time in the South Island.

We stayed in the winner of the South Island’s “Best Irish Hotel of 2005, 2006 & 2007” – Donegal House. We did strive hard to find any of the other competitors, but that shouldn’t diminish the image of the place – it was excellent. The l’eau de liffy had not travelled particularly well, but at least it was cold, black and wet! There was also the spectacular vision of a peacock doing everything he possibly could to entice the peahen into a spot of rumpy-pumpy but she was having none of it! The number of times he strutted his stuff, fanned his tail feathers and made all sort of gutteral noises without success! I almost felt like throwing him some paracetamol to see if they would work!

We also went to a little town called Cheviot – it was closed!

Then it was back to Wellington for our last couple of days before the return leg of the tour begins. After our previous Melbourne experience, we have the requisite ETAs and trust our stay there this time is a bit more productive.

This is the Owld Phartz just about ready to sign off from New Zealand – we will of course try to update the tour records at our stop-offs in Melbourne, Singapore and Dubai.

Until then …………

Episode 2 – Busman’s Holiday – checking out Wellington ER Facilities!

Had a wonderful trip down – other than the slight mishap in Melbourne – and David Boone’s record for tinny consumption between England and Australia remains intact! There is of course the return journey to concentrate on and, perhaps with a couple of weeks intensive training I can do better!

The digs are excellent – the only downside is that they are slap bang among the main shopping areas, close to the harbour – methinks I will do very well to get her past the shops to the watering holes around the harbour!

Christmas Eve morning began well, the weather was absolutely lovely – other than a bit windy – but apparently that is to be expected in Wellington! I went out for papers etc in the morning and when I came back I found Maureen collapsed on the floor! The old nursing skills, that many thought were well consigned to history, came to the fore and, while summonsing medical assistance did all the usual stuff around ABC!

After a ride in a nice, shiny ambulance and some excellent attention at the equivalent of the A&E [puts local services to shame] it turns out she was very de-hydrated, a combination of the hang-over from a pre-tour viral infection, jet-lag and not drinking enough on the flight [something that I could NEVER be accused of!]. She was expertly re-hydrated with 2 litres of saline, some judicious dosing with anti-emetics and coupled with various testings and samplings – found to be as fit as 10 men. All she needed was a day or so of rest for normal service to resume.

Previous plans made for Christmas Day therefore went out of the window. We were very fortunate that there was an Arkwright’s store on the corner run by some wonderful folk from the Indian sub-continent and Christmas dinner was prepared with the help of microwaved “ping” dinners, microwaved Apple Danish pastries and ice cream with a bottle of something drinkable [pop for the invalid] a box of Quality Street and a series of stereotypical Christmas movies on TV. How many thousands of miles did we travel for that?

The health scare was quickly over – followed by something much more scary! She was like General Patton planning a military campaign when talking about her plans to “hit the sales”. Suggestions that she “ease herself in gently over the next couple of weeks or so” were pointless – so it looks as though Graham and I will be nothing more than sherpas and escorts on the next stage of community rehab!

More of the travails of the Wellington Retail Experience in later episodes – unless something more interesting happens!

We have had a couple of reccies around Wellington with our own personal tour guide – the webmaster has acquired an expert knowledge of the locale – as well as a groovy hat!

We’ve been to the Te Papa [National Museum] and the Botanical Gardens – very different experiences but both say something about the NZ attitude to life!

The weather has been very good and not nearly as windy as it is supposed to be.

After meandering around what seemed like endless shops and cafés [Wellington is apparently proud of the fact that is has more coffee-shops per person than New York; which shatters the macho sheep-wielding, beer drinking, hard living image of the All Blacks!] I first saw it out of the corner of my eye – talk about peripheral vision! An oasis in an otherwise retail-desert! A genuine Orish Bar – the Black Harp! I feel much happier at the thought of being used as a mobile wallet knowing that sustenance is never more that a block or so away. What makes it even more ironic is that it is close to a shop selling All Black memorabilia – the shop has a big sign saying “World Champion All Blacks” – I’ll have to get a photo of that! I also had to playfully rib the barman in the Black Harp as we were watching the Black Caps take and beat on the might of Bangladesh at cricket. At least by comfortably defeating Bangladesh, I said, New Zealand has at last a winning team in 2007 – what with the World Cup and all that!

Graham had pre-warned us about the expectations around the World Cup and the devastation at going out of the competition so early. The silver lining brigade must have been working overtime to draw this positive, taken from the Dominion Post sports pages on 28th December, when reviewing 2007.

“Jake White overcomes years of political interference to guide South Africa to Rugby World Cup glory. New Zealand finishes a gallant fifth equal!”

The webmaster is doing very well, loving every minute of life in NZ – so much so that we have been openly talking about the prospect of him staying here for longer than a year…… Come to think of it, that discussion might have precipitated the collapse rather than de-hydration! His plans for the next 12 months are beginning to be firmed up – I’ll leave it to him to tell you all about that as it happens.

We are about to head off to the South Island for a few days, to Kaikoura a place the tourist guide describes as “It’s all about encounters with sea creatures here – from whale-watching to dolphin swimming to crayfish devouring!” No unkind remarks about my uncanny resemblance to an albino, pot-bellied whale please!

Until the next episode………..

Episode 1 – Aussie revenge for the World Cup or Botany Bay?

The Owld Phartz have decided to follow Graham on his travels – albeit for three weeks and not a year ……… or more! In recognition of the tour, the Owld Phartz have been granted the Guest Writers status on the blog for the next couple of weeks or so. So welcome to the Owld Phartz on Tour Section.

Many of you will remember the colonisation of Australia through Stingray Bay, later becoming known as Botany Bay. It seems Melbourne Airport may be the new Botany Bay!

We had planned our journey with military precision – or so we thought ………. Newcastle to Melbourne via Dubai and Singapore …………. the 6 hour stop-over in Melbourne giving the opportunity for last minute Christmas shopping; even though it would be 2:00am local time when we got there the fire-breathing Home Leader’s capacity for retail therapy is well-known – so time of day should be of no consequence …………….. or so we thought!

We had booked luggage and passage through to Auckland, so there was no need to leave the ‘international’ [or flight-side is the technical term I think] bit of each point of stop-off, go through passport control, off-load luggage …….. OR SO WE THOUGHT!

However, as we were approaching Melbourne an announcement from the flight deck advised that all baggage had to be collected from the baggage reclaim. We were also told that we had to be processed through passport control. We were a bit puzzled about this as we assumed we would be staying flight-side but nonetheless complied with the request and proceeded to the passport control booths.

At passport control, we were advised that as we had neither visa nor ETA to enter Australia AND AS THE AIRPORT WAS ABOUT TO CLOSE ………… we would be entering Australia illegally! At this point it is probably worth emphasising that I did not think we needed a visa or ETA for the stop-over on the way down, but knew one would be needed for the return journey [that is my version and I’m sticking to it!]

The Customs Officer began talking about a $5000 fine for each illegal passenger – at which point the bottom lip did quaver somewhat at the thought of how many pints of Guinness that equalled! He began to allay our fears by continuing that they would take no further action if Emirates accepted responsibility to supervise us until the ongoing flight.

By this time we were joined by 2 other couples, one with a small child, who were in the same predicament as us – not advised by anyone that Melbourne Airport closes from 2:00am until 6:00am. Had we known of this arrangement, unless we were insane – or Sunderland supporters – WHO would have opted to spend 6 hours in ‘protective custody’ in an empty Melbourne Airport when we could have spent the time being pampered in the Emirates Business lounge in Dubai!

So …… sorted, or so we thought – the Emirates lady would chaperone us through the night!

WRONG AGAIN!

As soon as she got us away from passport control, she buggered off having told the lone security guard what was happening. He gave us a telephone number to ring him from anywhere in the airport if we got stuck and told us we could ‘wander round the airport for the next few hours – although everything would be closed! He also asked us not to go into any of the shops that were open [but closed] as they are alarmed and they were a bugger to turn off once they were started!

• Was this a double bluff?
• Could we have ransacked and pillaged Melbourne Airport?
• Drank the duty free dry?
• Deliberately enter ‘No Entry’ gates?
• Gorge ourselves on the well-balanced and highly nutritious menu options within the average airport burger bar?
• Was there really only one security guard – or were there thousands cunningly concealed about the airport waiting to catch us out if we even pharted in the wrong place and consign us to a lifetime of antipodean penal servitude?

Yes, you’re right, we chickened out of any further mis-demeanour and spent the next 3 hours meandering aimlessly around the empty airport buildings, plotting our escape [more accurately plotting our complaints strategy to Emirates] as well as scaring the crap out of one or two unsuspecting cleaning ladies we encountered on our travels who had obviously not been alerted to our presence! [Those cavernous, empty airport lounges certainly do amplify screams in the dead of night!]

Come 5:00am, as the staff were arriving to open up the Emirates Business Lounge the 3 couples and one small child were united in adversity! Dehydrated [more of that later] and starving – none of us had any Australian coinage to get any thing from the vending machines we encountered!

• We would take on the might of Emirates for their poor customer care!
• Maureen and I would not go directly to the Business Lounge and leave our Economy Brothers-at-arms to their own devices until the plane took off at 8:00am!

BOLLOCKS!

The comes a time when every man must look after himself. The prospect of hot showers, a change of clothing, copious amounts of food and drink, relaxing in a serene and tranquil environment overrode team spirit – although in my defence I did try to get our comrades access to the Business Lounge and when that failed smuggled them out food parcels [although I couldn’t find a cake big enough to hide the obligatory file or escape map].

The rest of the journey went as well as the pre-Melbourne bit and we arrived in Windy Wellington – and that was without me having any Guinness!

Must sign off now. Can you wait until the next enthralling episode of the intrepid travels of the Owld Phartz on tour? …………..

Until the next episode ………………..