Some local argy bargy

Peter Fitz Simmons is quite a vocal sports and also social commentator in the Fairfax News. And whilst I don’t really share his unlimited devotion to rugby, I can surely empathise with his overtly atheist views.



And the celebration of world youth day, for which I had already become subversively active, triggered a few shots from Fiz, as he is known for short, which, in turn, triggered a few letters to the editor brandishing Fiz for his ‘relentless’ rage against the oh so wonderful and timidly cowering catholic church. That letter prompted me to write the following letter in response

31st August, 2008

Re.: Letters to the editor 31st August, 2008, Denis Collins, Blackheath

Denis Collins, I guess Fiz will stop, what you call in your temperate, measured words, hysterical diatribes, (talk about people in glass houses being careless with rocks) as soon as the assorted churches, christian or otherwise, stop telling all and sundry what to do and not to do. Stop their obsession with sex. Stop their homophobic ranting. Stop preaching utter nonsense, such as creationism as pseudo science. Any chance there?

Getting to early September, I somehow had enough of the cold and rang Ute to tell her, that I would come to Flying Fishpoint for a few days, in order to soak up some warmer temperatures and a bit of tropical ambience. And there was a new rain forest walk which I would like to visit near Innisfail. Gesagt, getan


trip 4

5th September, Sydney – Cairns – Flying Fishpoint
10th September, Cairns – Sydney

The funny thing with this trip was, that it basically rained on all but the first day – when we did our rain forest walk – but it was warm and created a wonderful atmosphere for sitting around, reading, eating drinking and, in the evenings, playing lots of Yatzee with Dominic, Helga, Tony and Ute.







It was also a pleasant coincidence that my good friend Thomas from Adelaide spend some quality time in Flying Fishpoint as well and I was pleased to see him.






In September our political scene hotted up a bit, thanks to the machinations of the liberal party which, as yet, has to come to terms with the idea of being in opposition. For most of the year they had the misfortune of being led by Brendan Nelson. (3 Photos in this following section are taken from the Internet)



He is a nice enough guy, but, as we would say in our Australian vernacular piss weak.

His public performance often left things to be desired. His arguments on camera became increasingly mangled and contradictory and by August, almost all people in the liberal party room were talking about having to replace the poor bastard. The polls showed him, at times, on a 7% approval rate, compared to that of his opponent, Kevin Rudd at 65% plus. Not a very good look.

At the same time the liberals were still somehow dreaming about Peter Costello, the former Treasurer and wannabe leader for so many years putting up his hand to lead the party.



But he had made, in more than one convoluted way clear, that he had no particular interest anymore in such a job. But as it often happens, politicians don’t believe politicians if they say no to something which they would be expected to say yes to. Such is politics.

In all this unproductive rumbling about the liberal leadership, Brendan Nelson was obviously asked many times whether he felt that he still had the confidence of his party or whether he would be leaving the leadership and make place for somebody else. And in one of those tedious interviews, his response was: “I am going nowhere”

And that response, using the common Australian interpretation means something slightly different from what he intended to say, but without intention, he described his situation perfectly. He was going nowhere with his leadership. And neither was his party.

In those days I wrote to a friend

Green Point Palace 15th September, 2008

letter to a friend

…… Speaking of the Howard era. We are currently spoon-fed with titbits of the Costello memoires. Seeing the Libs squirm and the ALPlers grin like a Cheshire cat with lots of crème around its mouth is a sight to behold.

Not that there is a lot of real news in it. We always knew that Howard is, what we call in German, a Winkeladvokat. They are masters in re-interpreting commonly understood terms so that they actually mean the opposite of what everybody else understands them as meaning. He carries the moniker lying rodent not for nothing and bestowed on him by his own party.

And the ALP in NSW is just getting a whacking at every turn possible. Nathan Rees, our new Premier, can hardly keep up with the number of apologies he has to issue on a daily basis. The next few by-elections – due to MPs leaving the sinking ship in droves – will end with a big mauling of the NSW ALP. Deservedly so, one has to say. The council elections on the weekend were just a warm up run.

As you can see, we live in interesting times – the way the Chinese, euphemistically, wish.

From me, however, best wishes for interesting times in the best of German/Australian tradition. All the best


PS: this letter was written last night and saved, just before the power supply of my PC said for ever good bye and switched off the computer in an uncerimonial fit. Which meant I had to lug it to West Gosford to a computer repair shop and replace the power supply.

During the ensuing 15 hours, Brendan Nelson has called for a leadership spill after having been white anted for the last 9 months (he is an absolute dill) And as every ALP man worth his/her salt would know, you don’t call leadership spills unless you know exactly the outcome. And Brendan got that one wrong (and not only because he is an ex-ALP and liberal now) by the looks of it. In other words, we have the member for Wentworth, Millionaire and bonvivant Malcolm Turnbull now in the leader’s chair.

Whether that will change anything is a different question. But here we go – she’ll be right mate, as we Bavarians say so eloquently –

And if I don’t send this e-mail now very soon, the big machine in Switzerland might have created a new black hole in which we all disappear.!!........

And there he was, Malcolm Turnbull in the role of leader of the opposition.



One of his dreams came true. However, since his party, or he, cannot decide on any policy or anything constructive to hold the government to account, he resorts to childish accusations of Rudd or other ministers, one of those being to criticise them for their extensive travel, in particular it such dire times when the world financial markets come to a melt down. Never mind that Kevin Rudd spent most of the time on the trip, for which he was so severely criticised, in NYC and other parts of America, at the centre of the malaise and talked extensively with many of the players in this game in order to obtain as much first hand information on facts and possible solutions as is humanly possible.

But Mr Turnbull wanted him at home in order to be able to have a go at him in parliament. And it got a bit up his arrogant nose that these one on one confrontations simply could not take place . this prompted me to write the following open letter to Malcolm Turnbull


Green Point (NSW) 24th September, 2008

Open letter to Malcolm Turnbull

Dear Malcolm,

I think in your valiant efforts to show those neo luddites on your and the other side of the house what a ripper new leader you are, you are losing a bit of touch with reality and logic.

Your constant moaning about Kevin 07 not being in the house but spending a week in NYC contrasts, in the logic capers, a bit with your moaning and groaning about the government doing bugger all but setting up inquiries into all and sundry.

If the latter were true – as you insist it is – there is nothing for Kev to do right now other than to wait for all those reports to flood his desk. So he might as well use the time for a fleeting visit to NYC with some potential for national benefit.

And as far as communicating with those neophytes (as you might regard those ALP masses back home in Canberra) there is this thing with the little squiggly bit, you know, the thing which OzEmail was into big time, which has miraculously dispensed with the good old postal dove and allows for pretty good and timely communication of all sorts of things. (even taking into account that NYC is far behind Canberra – 14 hours according to my world clock - to be precise)

Or is the real reason for castigating Kev for his travel the fact that his absence might take a bit of the gloss of your first week performance in parliament as the new and oh so brilliant economic manager.

I agree, on the TV news at night it might sometimes look a bit like Romeo and Juliet in the balcony scene with Juliet having left the balcony for a quick pee. Makes Romeo look a bit superfluous!

Coming to think of brilliant – manager – merchant banker – world financial markets – etc – I would think that you should be the first – inflated ego and volcanic temper allowing – to fly somewhat under the radar and hope for the tsunami to wash over you without a lot of traces of damage – image or otherwise.

It is, after all, your professional colleagues – those brilliant merchant b(w)ankers, who managed to manage their fortunes into oblivion and now stand – cap in hand – at the tax payers’ funded trough (a mental picture which is more commonly associated with politicians rather than the proud and self-appointed guardians of private enterprise) waiting for the morsels of public money to fall into their laps.

I don’t know whether the inventors of PPPs (public, private partnerships) had this kind of scenario in mind without telling the great unwashed.

Malcolm, sit back, relax, count the left over cash if you must but think of a new and better way than dear old Brendan could, to provide this country with, what it needs for the political oxygen to flow, a convincing political ALTERNATIVE.

My second birthday party

With mid October approaching, it was time to start the preparations of my second birthday party in Green Point Palace. On the 15th of October, my dear friends Dorothea and Helmut arrived in Green Point after a longish tour through Australia in order to have a week of rest and recreation.





Being avid gardeners, they both helped me very skilfully to beautify my ‘garden’ with new plants and some trimming of bushes and existing plants which were in dire need of a green thumb, which eludes me entirely. So those two earned their keep in Green Point Palace for more than just one week. And as it so happens, we had long days and long evenings sitting around and chatting. Eventually, on Saturday the 18th October, the day had come to welcome many good friends from Sydney and from around Australia in Green Point for the second go at turning 60.









Around 20 people made it a very memorable day. I did all the catering myself and tried to somehow replicate the lunch menu which we had enjoyed in Kampala a few months earlier.

The guests from overseas and interstate had the first right on all the available accommodation and the house proved itself again by offering 8 people one or several nights a bed to put their head to rest. And no makeshift here. Everyone of them slept in a real bed. The practical thing in all this is the fact that I do have a bed in my office, as well as a little bathroom and shower. that means that all other amenities can be made available to my guests, which makes it comfortable and relaxing for the host as well as those hosted.

The last big trip of the year – and some good timing

The following Wednesday it was off again for me to start my 5th trip for the year.

Since I was hell bend on paying for this trip out of frequent flyer points, of which I have plenty, I had to do the booking of the flights myself.

Airline websites might be suitable to book a flight from A to B and return, but when it comes to booking a trip half way around the world with some 10 or so destinations on the way, they fail miserably. And when it then comes to the game of spotting free seats for the avid Frequent Flyer (FF) than the thing becomes completely useless. Why, for example, the Qantas website lets you put in all the destinations you want to fly to, provides you with a selection of seats to chose from and then, after all sectors have been defined, tells you that one of the sectors – but not which one – does not work for the FF is beyond me.

After spending about a day on assorted airline websites with frustration growing into unhealthy proportions, I decided that the only way to do this was by way of human interaction. So I called the Qantas people and explained to the girl on the other end of the line that I needed to go to Singapore, Kampala, Hamburg and back to Sydney. That I did not like flying more than 8 hours at a time and that any routing, which would include those must have destinations would be fine with me. I even indicated that my timing was reasonably flexible, just to give me 12 days in Kampala, about 10 in Hamburg and the rest was up to her.

With these instructions in mind, she came back to me with the schedule below. The 3 Mumbai stop overs were a result of my eccentricity of not wanting to fly more than 8 hours at a time.

trip 5

23rd October, Sydney – Singapore
25th October, Singapore – Mumbai
27th October, Mumbai – Kampala
5th November, Kampala – Mumbai
7th November, Mumbai – Hamburg
11th November, Hamburg – Munich
15th November, Munich – Faulueck
16th November, Faulueck – Hamburg
17th November, Hamburg, Mumbai
20th November, Mumbai – Bangkok
22nd November, Bangkok – Sydney


Singapore was on my agenda for two reasons, stop over and meeting up with Ute and her Mother Helga.



Helga usually visits Australia between October and February and Ute had planned to pick her up in Singapore and using the opportunity to show her a bit of the town, where she, Ute had been about 20 years ago for the last time. Ute, being the left over hippy as I am, had some good memories about little India, where she booked a hotel for herself and Helga.



I must admit that my appreciation of the charm of those parts of town is slightly less developed and I found the Carlton Hotel somewhat more to my liking.



The main thing, though, is the fact that I need internet connection in the hotel.



Anyway, we had some very nice days in Singapore and did some sightseeing like going over to Sentosa for a walk through the botanical gardens there.





And one night we had a very enjoyable dinner in Boat Quay where a long line of restaurants rolls out the welcome mat for the interested diner.





The thing with these restaurants and their ‘guestcatchers’ is that they compete very heavily with each other and on a 1000 m walk you have some 20 odd menus thrust in your face by people who wish to convince you that theirs is the only place worthwhile considering for a dinner. And those catchers can sometimes be rather persistent to put it diplomatically.

They use a few ways of enticing you, one being to offer a bottle of wine for free. Once this happens for the 3rd or 4th time, you can start making counter offers, by saying, well, we have been offered so far 3 bottles of free wine, how about 4 (the 3 bottles free is a lie) In other cases where normal defence proved to be blessed with little success, we switched to speaking German, looking at the hapless catcher and talking fast and furious in a tongue, which he or she was utterly unfamiliar with. Realising that the conversation ended in a serious cul de sac, they usually gave up.

We then decided – after walking past all the restaurants on offer – that we would make our decision based on occupation of the restaurant. The logic behind it is, that the more people – local people in particular – sit in a restaurant, the better it is likely to be. And on that basis, we found a very good place with a very agreeable dinner menu and a reasonable wine list as well.

A couple of days later I made my way to Mumbai. For the three stop overs I had booked myself into the Fariyas Hotel,



in walking distance to the Gateway of India,



close to the water front but at a reasonable. The most enjoyable thing about the hotel was an outside area on the roof, where they served alfresco dinner. This part of the establishment was usually fairly empty because it was not air-conditioned. Most of the guest seemed to prefer sitting in the adjacent dining room where the guest were almost snap frozen and a serious fur coat would not have been out of place. Something I often encountered in Mumbai this time. Arctic temperatures in closed rooms.



It reminded me a bit of our first experience with a fridge in Kampala. Some years ago, when I bought the first fridge in Masaka road, I left it to Johnny and Patrick to put our shopping into the fridge. Here one has to say that for all the boys it was the first time in their lives that they had the luxury of a fridge. And when I came to the kitchen some time later and looked at the fridge, I found a very strange distribution of goods between fridge and freezer compartment. The freezer contained 12 raw eggs, 2 cans of Tuna and my cheese, whilst things like minced meat and all the other groceries were in the fridge compartment. Asked by what kind of principle they had done this, the answer was ….well these are the most expensive items…..

In other words, the logic was, the more valuable the colder. And I had this uncanny feeling that in Mumbai this principle was used in an inflationary manner.

In Kampala this time, our activity was focused on Wunderbar and GPSS. Let me explain.

Some time ago I started renting a little piece of land in the local market, so wonderfully named Wankulukuku. Early in May we have bought a large container and plonked it on the ground there. And this container is going to be home to two little businesses, one being a second hand clothing boutique and the other a small office services business, which offers things like type writing, CD burning, laminating, printing, photo copying and eventually also sells small office items, consumables such as note pads, pens etc.



It has taken a while to get all this organised. By the time, my guest had arrived in May, all they could look at was the empty container.



By now, writing this, the boutique is already in full operation and has had a good pre-christmas trade. and the office service business is expected to start operating early next year.





the boutique had been named Wunderbar by some of my guest who so often and in excitement looked at all these things and said… oh ist das nicht wunderbar…. And my boys, always being intrigued by foreign languages, asked me, what wunderbar means. And upon hearing the meaning they decided that this was a good name for the boutique.

We arrived at GPSS (which stands for Green Point Secretarial Service) by way of a little competition. I organised a little name finding competition where we designated three judges – Grace, our neighbour, Moses our office manager and Parker our accountant and soccer nut. Since as judges they were excluded from the competition, they each received 10.000 shilling for their duty. Whilst the winner of the competition could go away with 30.000 Shilling. All name suggestions were raised within 12 hours and delivered to me, allowing maximal 5 different names to be suggested by each contestant. I typed them all out and provided the selections anonymously to our judging panel. And they then came up with GPSS as the winning entry. Arnold was the lucky guy who came up with this name. One of the entries made me laugh. It makes more sense in German than in English and it was “Holz Computer Services” (Holz translating to timber or wood and, of course, also being the first part of my family name)

And so these days went by with a lot of work and discussion on the new enterprises. the interior was sketched and then built during my days there, the roof came on the container and by and large the excitement was great and palpable amongst all the boys. Now we have three businesses in the market, since also Figaro has his barber shop there. And it’s only about 25 minutes walk from Masaka Road, so handy to get there.





With these two little businesses in place and the hope that they will sustain their operators and helpers, we are a significant step further in our main plan for Kampala and that is to create a viable economic base for all the 12 boys.

Looking back on 2008 I must confess that I feel a certain degree of pride having achieved this in the last few years since I have been active in Uganda. It has made a huge difference in the lives of those young men who, when I met them first in 2004 lived on the streets of Kampala, most did not speak English and their outlook for the future was bleak to say the least.

Now all of them have a secure roof over their heads, can eat at least one meal a day, all speak English, 5 have a drivers license which enhances their chances of getting a job, even if it is only temporary.

One has a trucking business now which makes very good money, and all of them have changed their attitude towards life, working, achieving something in life. They now feel that it is in their grasp to make a decent living.

And, what I find most rewarding in all this, is the fact that most of them have had some form of reconciliation with at least parts of their families, from which some had been excluded on the basis of their sexual orientation. The fact, that many of their relatives were happy to come to my birthday lunch invitation, full well knowing about my being a gay man, seems to indicate that some at least have changed their views and attitudes on this subject, which in so many instances shows itself to be so cruel and inhuman in this country and parts of its society.

After the usual and heart felt farewell at the airport it’s off for me, once again and for the 10th time since 2004 to say good by to my friends and, this time, fly to Mumbai and then Hamburg.

In Hamburg we had a few pleasant days, this time with my accommodation, as so often, provided by sister Beate and brother in law Klaus Martin. Visiting friends, some work and planning my next excursions was the order of the days.

I had made plans of going via Nuernberg to Munich by train. I often now use the train instead of the plane as it does not take much longer and is more comfortable. The first two days were filled with client visits and then we had our traditional Stammtisch in Munich.



Of course all the Africa travellers from Munich were there and a few other friends. Even Dorothea and Helmut, who had just arrived back from Australia two days earlier, joined us and you can imagine that there was a lot to talk and tell about.

At my next and second last stop over in Mumbai I had allowed myself 3 days to be able to re-discover the city a bit after having been there in the eighties for the last time (except for my stop overs during this trip) So I did some walking and sightseeing and also walked a few times past the Taj Mahal Hotel and took a break at the Leopold Café.





Obviously not knowing that about 24 hours after my departure heading towards Bangkok, these places would become the scenes of fighting, shooting and murder in the bloody Mumbai clashes which have been reported on so extensively in November.

Bangkok once again served as a brief stop over destination, just for two days during which I did not do very many touristy things, but had a fair bit of work on my computer.

In Thailand I have on a number of occasions experienced the benefits of language skills. During one of my last trips it had been at the airport, where I was suitably assisted by my language skills. I was waiting in my line and observed in the next line an increasing number of Thai airline staff trying to convey some apparently important message to a passenger who obviously did not speak much English let alone Thai. This went on for quite some time and both sides seemed to become more and more frustrated.

One the of senior Thai guys was desperately trying to phone for an interpreter, if only he knew, what language skills he should ask for. To me, the helpless passenger looked very much like a German or Swiss. So I crossed over to the other line and asked whether I could possibly help. Everybody looked at me with the big question mark in all their faces saying …we don't know, do you speak his language?….. I turned to the bewildered passenger and asked him in German which language his native one might be and with a very familiar southern Bavarian sound the answer was …ja mei Deutsch halt (well German, of course).

The rest was kids play. I explained to the Bavarian the question, translated the response and the problem was solved in less than a minute.

Soon it was my turn to lift the oyster on the scales again and they nearly jumped out of place with the overweight being thrust upon them. The signs of worry on the face of the petit Thai girl behind the counter were very effectively blown away by the senior Thai guy with the mobile phone who made it very clear that this passenger could take an elephant onto the plain if he wished because he just had saved a few lives from absolute misery. Smiles all round and with a locally customary bow I thanked for their understanding and graciousness and was on my way to the flight.

This time it was in the hotel restaurant at breakfast time and the problem was a group of elderly French visitors whose English just did not cover any menu item. And after the increasingly bewildered Thai waitress started to throw the towel and leave those equally increasingly bewildered French pensioners to their own devices, I scrambled together all my french vocabulary and offered to give it a go to translate the menu as best as I could. and with a bit of help and imagination, we managed for those poor sods to understand most of what was on offer. That same evening I was offered a thank you wine at the bar for free. Nice gesture.

Anyway, I made my way to the airport again after 36 hours in inner city Bangkok and flew to Sydney. Just in time, before 12 hours later, all Bangkok airports were closed by the protesters and left thousands of tourists stranded with no way to go anywhere for a few days.

As they say in Hollywood: timing is everything. Or as they say in German Das Glueck ist immer mit die Doofen (good luck is always on the side of those simple minds)

Back home – but not completely

Back in Green Point Palace it was once again a matter of getting back into the swing of things. And whilst jet lag does not affect me at all when I travel north, it has a bit of an hang over effect when I come back. So in the first few days I tend to get up in the morning at about 3.00 o’clock beautifully dressed and nowhere to go. Well, it is usually the computer and/or the internet which get a passing visit, before it is time at about 6.30 to walk to the news agent and get the papers and get ready for my famous breakfast.

Earlier in the year, in August I had taken some photos during a sunset, which I wish to share with you









Some time last year I got thoroughly fed up with the offerings of bread in our super markets. Except for some pumpernickel, there is not very much which would float my boat, Hence I bake it myself these days. Very simple really. I buy the baking mix, slice a few olives, take a few capers some kernels of sunflower and some roasted pine nuts and make my dough. And I use buttermilk instead of water. All very yummy.

One last trip – I promise

Since late November, our clients have kind of fallen into a longish winter slumber and whilst there were still a few requests for quotes, nothing really happened. and this feeling of an early Christmas break became even more profound in early December.

Hence Jochen decided to fly to the often mentioned Flying Fishpoint (FFP) for a few days between 22. and 26th of December to celebrate Christmas with Ute, Helga and Tony and Dominic.

Around the 12th December I went online to see whether I can burn some more frequent flyer points. but those airlines had decidedly other ideas. No way Jose are you flying on your points at this time of the year. You pay big time for that sort of luxury.

Well I tried all three, Qantas, Jetstar and Virgin and the cheapest I could come up with was about $800 Dollar for the privilege. Trotzkoepfchen Jochen reacted accordingly and … unter absingen unflaetiger Lieder…. (which translates to …whilst singing rude songs) I left the electronic shopping mall for air tickets and decided I can do better, by car, with camping and the lot.

Trip 6

15th December to 20th December,
car trip from Green Point to Flying Fishpoint
26th December to 28th December
car trip return from Flying Fishpoint to Green Point

And so it came that on the 15th of December I got into my thoroughly prepared car and took a drive towards the north.







As I said, my assorted clients from around the world had shrouded themselves in silence since mid November, starting, what I interpreted, as a long, extended Christmas holiday period.

What’s a self employed person to do in such a situation? Go on holiday for a few days, of course.

That’s when I started on Monday the 15th December to make my way up the coast. For those who want to look it up on the map, I was heading towards Port Macquarie, then Byron Bay,







Brisbane, Bundaberg, Rockhampton, Makay, Townsville







and then Innisfail, Flying Fishpoint.

By and large I planned a “follow your nose” trip, meaning that I would stop over where I liked it. And that’s what I do/did. Had some plans to visit an old friend in Byron Bay only to find out 24 hours earlier, that he had sold his house there last week and moved to Brisbane. Ok, Brisbane was added to the list of stops and I had a very nice afternoon and evening with Ron.

On the weekend before leaving, a new client from the UK – referred to us by another client (I like that) - sent an e-mail asking for 2 quotes, which were dutifully sent before my departure. But sometimes, clients can have a very strange sense of humour, and it seems that they thought, they needed to entertain me a bit more during those long afternoons/nights on assorted camping grounds. And – I could hardly believe it - requested another 8 quotes in the last 3 days, placed two orders for early January, sent one questionnaire for me to work on before Christmas. Thus, those camping grounds turned into airy offices with a view of the ocean.



And thanks to an almost faultless mobile internet connection, the e-mails flew and still are flying, forth and back like there is no tomorrow.

Camping trips are a distant memory for me. I think it was the trip with my brother through Scandinavia, some 30 odd years ago,



that I pitched a tent the last time. Things have changed since.

The funny thing is that preparing for a 2 week camping trip through Australia seemed to take much more time and effort than preparing everything for a 6 weeks trip around the world. Anyway it’s great fun so far.

I even bought myself a Sat Nav system which comes very handy, in particular once you approach a city and need some guidance to either the camping ground, or other sights within the city. I selected Richard to give me all my directions. And Dick and I have become good friends. Sometimes he seems a bit annoyed when I don’t follow his directions (which he spots immediately) and tells me …turn around as soon as you can…. And I love the way he pronounces the final information. …. After 500 meters turn left and you have reached your destination….. Whilst all the other announcements are made in a fairly matter of fact manner, this last one is done to sound as if a just won a million in a lottery. Very funny.

My little green Merc, in its 11th year now, has been stripped of all but the driver’s seat to make space for various cooling boxes, other boxes, the camping bed, the lap top and what else a person needs for a camping trip.

The newly acquired inverter converts the juice which is coming out of the cigarette lighter into 240 volt usable for re-charging batteries, mobile phones, MP3 players and even the lap top. It’s the first time in 11 years that I actually use this cigarette lighter!!

Another joy of such a trip, or the preparation for it, is that you can give a shit about weight of luggage. Whilst when preparing for an overseas trip the kitchen scales have become an essential planning tool for packing the suitcase, weighing individual items and adding the grams all up, here you just throw things into the basket, Italian espresso machine, breakfast box, 12 bottles of wine, etc. Wonderfully careless. Which, however, also means, you end up with a whole box of things which you, as it turns out, will never use during the trip.

Anyway, I made it in one piece to Flying Fishpoint where I sit at 38 degrees and around 90% humidity, classic tropical and a very powerful argument to do bugger all! Hence I leave it at that.







Whilst I gave myself 6 days for the way up to FFP, I had a shorter trip in mind for the return trip. I decided to take the inland route on secondary highways. And whilst these are not as broad as the Bruce Highway, they have practically no traffic this time of the year and lead you through some nice hilly country and some very small and backwater towns. Those conditions make speeding – driving 120 where 110 is allowed – less accident prone. And thus allows to cover a reasonable distance in a days drive.

My first stop is in Makay and on the second day I get to Tambo, which is about 200 km north of the Queensland/New South Wales border. In Tambo I decide to book myself into a cabin rather than sleeping in the tent. I felt I needed a real bed to relax before embarking on another 800 or so km drive. And would you believe it, at about 21.30 an almighty storm breaks loose and it rains and hails the whole night until about 4 in the morning. Lucky boy in my bed!!

After a refreshing 9 hours sleep I hit the road once again, aiming for Bourke or even Dubbo. Once the roads have dried up by about 9.00, the drive becomes fast and there is, again, no traffic what so ever. Sometimes I can drive for about 50 km without encountering a car in either direction. Arrive in Dubbo at about 15.00 hours which prompts me to check the length of the rest of the way by putting Green Point into the sat nav as the next destination. 5 more hours appears doable and off we go. well it becomes a long day of 14 hours driving, covering 1300 km, but it got me home in one piece by about 22.00. I must admit that I cheated a bit with all this calculations, in that I did not change back my wristwatch from Queensland time, which is one hour behind NSW! But there is nothing wrong with a bit of self-delusion!!

The last day of the year

And now, I am back and as I type this, it is 17.45 hours on the 31st of December 2008
I almost made it. In a few minutes some friends will come along for a glass of Champagne and then we are approaching the final hours of this year. A year which has been good and eventful. And if you have read through all this, you deserve a drink yourself!

I wish you all a happy new year and hope to see some of you in 2009. All the best und herzlichst

Euer
Jochen




And for the end, a wonderful joke (in my humble opinion) which looks to the future

One sunny day in 2009, an old man approached the White House from across
Pennsylvania Ave, where he'd been sitting on a park bench.

He spoke to the US Marine standing guard and said, "I would like to go in
and meet with President Bush."

The Marine looked at the man and said "I'm sorry Sir, but Mr. Bush is no
longer president and no longer resides here."

The old man said, "Okay" and walked away.

The following day, the same man approached the White House and said to the
same Marine, "I would like to go in and meet with
President Bush."

The Marine again told the man, "Sir, as I said yesterday, Mr. Bush is no
longer president and no longer resides here."

The man thanked him and, again just walked away

The third day, the same man approached the White House and spoke to the
very same US Marine, saying "I would like to go in and meet with President
Bush."

The Marine, understandably agitated at this point, looked at the man and
said, "Sir, this is the third day in a row you have been here asking to
speak to Mr. Bush. I've told you already that Mr. Bush is no longer the
president and no longer resides here. Don't you understand?"

The old man looked at the Marine and said, "Oh, I understand. I just love
hearing it. "

The Marine snapped to attention, saluted, and said, "See you tomorrow, Sir."