2014 ..... and we are off again

In 2010 my wife Sandra and I embarked on a 50,000 kilometre, year long trip around Australia. Travelling in a Nissan Patrol, living in a tent and carrying all our goods and chattels with us, we endured unbelievable hardships – tales of which have achieved mythical status and become more harrowing with each telling. Bogged down to the axles in a remote, crocodile infested swamp in the Northern Territory : Stuck on a New South Wales beach with a rapidly incoming tide : The muddy hell of the Oodnadatta Track in South Australia : The now famous incident when my ear was torn off miles from any medical help and Sandra had to sew it back on with only gin as an anaesthetic and tea-tree oil as an antiseptic. We camped throughout what turned out to be Australia's wettest year for over half a century. All this, and more, was documented in grim detail in previous entries to this blog.

Any sane persons would have said “Enough is enough – we've done that – let's move on to something else”. However, I suspect a touch of something close to insanity runs deep in our part of the Douglas clan and, as I type these words, I am just a few days away from getting on a plane to start doing the whole thing over again. As before I intend to keep a blog and part of me wishes it to be a boring account of an uneventful trip with no disasters to record. On the other hand, I have come to realise that people are not really interested in peaceful, uneventful trips. As Sandra's sister Gill commented on the blog during the last trip “I only followed it for the disasters.” Here's hoping the 2014 trip is interesting but without too many disasters (although they have started already!)



Lex - as policeman in school play

Anatalia aka "Talia" - looking cute

Sandra has been in Sydney since November - she went ahead of me in order to do a bit of grandmotherly “bonding” with our three Australian grandchildren Lex, Anatalia and Jasmine. Presumably I was not going to be much good at “bonding” and was left behind to my own devices – which I suspect caused Sandra some worry as I came across an

Jasmine aka Jazzy - looking not so cute

email she sent to a friend saying that she thought that “James has gone a bit mad without my calming influence”. She may have had a point as I went through a dressing up phase when, in a matter of weeks I found myself performing as Maggie Thatcher (Heroes and Villains of the 20^th Century Dinner) – Santa's Big Elf (Rugby Club Santas Christmas Outing) – Santa Claus (Rotary Club Street Collection) and finally, Rab C Nesbitt (New Year's Eve Party)

Santa's Big Elf - looking even less cute !!

Rab C Nesbitt with Buckfast and another reprobate bringing
in the New Year in style

Sandra in the meantime was having no less an eventful time. A rather stunning picture of her at the wheel of a yacht – and looking very much the part – was followed by her expensive camera “jumping out of her bag” and heading for the bottom of Sydney Harbour. This was not an isolated case, experience had already shown that hi-tech cameras, Sandra and salt water are a fatal combination!



Pirates of the Caribbean - "Yo-Ho-Ho and a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon!"

 

 

After Christmas and New Year in Sydney a “break” was required and a beach house a few hours drive south was booked for a week long family holiday – ten people in all. When Sandra last went to Australia just over two years ago for the birth of Jasmine she was pushed onto the plane in a wheel chair as she had just broken her ankle. A day into their holiday I received phone and email messages asking for details of her medical insurance – she had fallen on the stairs in the holiday house and had broken two bones in the same ankle. She has assured me that red wine was not a contributory factor.

Early indications were that she would need surgery when she got back to Sydney to pin the bones together. However, for once luck was on our side, and she has been told that surgery will not be required – just strapping and rest. This was doubly lucky as, when I spoke to the insurance company, they told me that if surgery had been needed she would have been repatriated to the UK. She is now back in Sydney where she somehow sourced a scooter to help her mobility. She found she could really get up to speed in shopping malls - and was thinking of getting a crash helmet just in case !




Sandra on her mobility scooter. Note the two additions attached to the handle bars
now you don't get that on the National Health Service

 

 

Being the advance party Sandra was tasked with not only her “bonding” duties but to start to pull together the kit needed for the trip – vehicle, tent etc. With her broken ankle I suspect things may be a little behind schedule and I doubt if we will be ready to hit the road by the end of February as I had hoped. Particularly as Steven (our son) is in the throes of buying a house and I suspect that Sandra has offered my rudimentary house renovation skills to the project.

Finally, in this the first blog of the 2014 Australian Trip, it is with heavy heart that I have to reveal that Zara, our 11 year old Rhodesian Ridgeback, has had to be put down due to a sudden and very aggressive cancer. For eleven years she was a constant reminder of a trip Sandra and I took to Morocco with a group of friends where we rented a “palace” in Marrakesh which came with a complement of four staff including a delightfully rotund cook called Zara - who would probably have been mortified if she had known a dog had been named after her.

Zara is now at the bottom of a very large hole in the garden. This news will come as a relief to neighbours who, having noticed the appearance of a large hole and the lack of sightings of Sandra, may have put two and two together and made five!