Australia - A film by Bazza

Well, it's nice to know they've planned the release of Australia's most expensive film to coincide with my arrival home. A celebration of my return if you will.

After some mild jet lag (soul delay in the words of William Gibson) it was back to the family ranchlet (or the closest thing I have to such a thing) for some time with the brother, sister in law and niece. Time does indeed seem nonlinear in small children and the year since I last saw my niece has presented yet another, completely different, version of her then I remember.

During my time on the farm we had a stonking lightning storm which carried on for some time. The photo below was taken in pitch darkness.

During a somewhat less stormy day I took the opportunity to wander around and take some other photos of the place.
The following weekend we had Tim's bucks party which consisted of hiring a bus (and having to convince the guy my UK license entitled me to drive it), go-karts, Mexican for dinner then some very manly action at the strippers. All interspersed with a lot of grog. We decided to have a ballerina theme for the stag....

Allow me to now present the other face of Jeckle and Timmy:

A couple of weeks after this, and more bumming around at Haden's, Tim's and a bit of work in Melbourne and Canberra, it was back to Melbourne to assist with last minute wedding plans.

Now, one would expect weather in Australia in late November to be, generally, pretty nice. Come the 7 day forecast however and extreme storms where predicted. This prediction only got worse as the weekend drew nearer and the idyllic beach wedding with the backup marquee in case of bad weather was looking ever more unlikely. Come Thursday a plan 'C' was agreed upon and a shitty little Angling club hall (complete with dead fish on the walls and general fish motif) was booked. We got through to Saturday morning and it was PISSING down. It even started hailing at some points and there was snow in the mountains. 60Km + winds were predicted and delivered. At about 10:30AM me and two other groomsmen went to organise the relocation of the ceremony. The marquee guys gave us the ever helpful advise of; "Yeah, we could probably put it up but can't guarantee it won't blow down". Thus we found ourselves at the angling hall trying to make the most of it and reorganise things. Turns out the Elwood sailing club was right next door and due to the shit conditions no one was sailing. I stuck my head in to see if some cars could be moved. The place was SOOO much better and perfect for functions. After a bit of sweet talking and a greasing of palms we had a new venue for the ceremony.

Anyway, the rest of the day went pretty well and everyone made the best of the shit weather and we all had a ball. After speech it was 2 hours of heavy drinking for me and then some memory loss.

The Bridal Party at the reception (sans me). Congratulations Tim & Michelle!

Next two weeks I'll be up in Sydney for work before back for some R&R. Then....REEF TRIP!!!!!!!!!!!!

The best of British

This is another catchup post to summarise the events of the last four weeks proceeding my migration South. Karaoke was the first activity on this list and it saw a combination of Uni friends, UK friends, old friends and new friends all gathering together to belt out some classic tunes. After a slowish start and lots of people coming and going we finally got properly underway with some properly good tunes belted out by all.


The following weekend Brigitte and I hired a car (a convertible Peugeot 307 - hello ladies (and gents)!) and then drove all the way across England to Bristol. We nosed around Bristol, which is actually very nice, on Saturday. Had a lovely dinner at a little country pub Saturday night before driving to Bath on Sunday. Below is a representation of the culmination of 2000 years of history and culture from the ancient Roman settlement of Bath.


The following week was to be my last in London for 3 months so there was a number of drinking opportunities to be had. First off the rank was a very belated (12 monthsish) catch up with Greta and Emily from M&K wedding fame. This was followed up the next night with work drinks/dinner and, two days later, roller disco. All very good fun if somewhat taxing to my alcohol tolerance.

Sunday was then used to pack up and stow my stuff from London before being seen off at the airport Monday morning by my favorite French national. 26 hours later (and one business class upgrade!) I landed in Melbourne where Tim and Michelle very kindly picked me up from the airport.

Tim's bucks party to come.....