Holy crap it's another blog from Dan, quick, get the family off to bed and pass me the bowl of nuts, this is one read I'm going to enjoy. Thank you Dan...thank you.
So because of all our various tenant problems, mainly that the guy won't pay his rent or move out of our house, we are currently failing miserably to pay rent in Sydney and a mortgage in London. Given our financial predicament, we thought what a cracking idea it might be to book a trip to Tasmania. After all, if you don't have the money the bastards can't make you pay for it, right?
After finding some rip-roaring fares on Virgin Blue we nip across the Tasman Sea and arrive in Launceston in Northern Tasmania. It's pretty grim, so we grab our hire car, slam it in first and get the hell out of there, leaving nothing but a trail of road kill and a whiff of burning rubber in our wake.
We opt for the scenic route taking in the Bay of Fires on the Eastern coast (nice long white sandy beach with no one on it) and Wineglass Bay further South (nice long white sandy beach with no one on it but you have to walk an hour to get there.)
All very pretty and the weather wasn't too bad either. I was fully expecting it to be chucking it down the entire time I was there, given I’d read the horrifying statistic that seven out of every ten days are rainy. Yes...I read it after I'd booked the tickets. Hey ho.
So we drive down to Port Arthur, a former convict settlement and the best preserved in Australia. It's a World Heritage site and, honestly it's pretty spectacular. They've done a spiffing job with the grounds. No one actually lives there anymore, it's just the town as it was back in the old days. We stayed at a guesthouse called Cascades (which also happens to be a convict settlement) about ten minutes up the road. Our cottage is sort-of cosy, it's where one of the soldiers used to live in the 19th century and looks like it hasn't been decorated since. There's an open fire place, a nice rocking chair and a faint hint of death about the place. Fuck, this cottage gives me the creeps. It's all decked out like a scene from Rosemary's Baby.
Alison decides this is a good opportunity to do the infamous Port Arthur Ghost Walk. I'm dubious but what the hey, not like I'm going to die or anything. So we follow this ample lady around the settlement who looked like she'd copped it in the face with a three iron. She recounts stories of death, mayhem and strange happenings to previous tour groups. All jolly scary. Of course, when the tour ends we have to jump back in our car and drive the ten minutes through pitch black forest back to the guesthouse. Meeting not a single other car on the way. Having been warned not to drive after dusk because the chances of hitting a wallaby or wombat increase tenfold. I opt to drive very slowly, the trees appearing eerily out of the shadows. Fuck this is scary. No radio. Nothing but silence. We arrive at our convict cottage. Now I'm even more spooked out. Fuck it, let's light the fire. I strike the match and watch the fire take hold. I glance around, the place is lit by one solitary light bulb in the ceiling. I glance towards Alison. I can't see her. Where the...? I suddenly realise the reason I can't see her is because the entire cottage has filled with smoke and my vision doesn't extend beyond the tears in my eyes. I start coughing, the smoke alarm beeps with a deafening blare. I start wafting a magazine near it. Nothing, blood pours down my ears. Smoke is everywhere. I open the front door. Alison goes nuts, she thinks the ghosts will get in. Outside, there’s nothing but total darkness and a lot of forest. Very Blair Witch. Whose great idea was this then? Eventually the fire righted itself and we went off to bed, wiping the soot from our faces. Neither of us slept very well that night, let me tell you.
We drove to Hobart the next day which is okay, not worth coming over the other side of the world for but there's enough to keep your interest for maybe...two hours. I kept thinking of that song Chris Tarrant used to play every day on Capital FM in the mornings. 'Hobart, Tasmania...that's my wonderful town!' It's not as wonderful as the song would have you believe. Tasmanian propaganda.
After a trip to the Cadbury’s factory (Alison's choice) and the Cascade beer factory (mine), we drove around to Cradle Mountain where it promptly rained for the rest of the trip. Nothing like going hiking in the pissing rain when you can barely see the person in front of you due to low cloud. And the cabin we stayed in there...oh don't get me started. It was called a cosy cabin and let me tell you there was nothing cosy about it. It was grimmer than a Tasmanian beauty contest.
So having had a vaguely interesting time we fly home. Now look, I know it was windy coming into Sydney airport and I understand the pilot does his best with the prevailing conditions. What I object to when we're less than two hundred feet from the ground is looking out the window and seeing ground, sky, ground, sky. I held on to Alison as hard as I could, until I realised she was sitting to my left. After apologising to the guy next to me for squeezing his hand so hard, I did a hail Mary and prayed for a positive outcome. The wheels slammed into the tarmac and I felt the aircraft swerve back towards the runway. Suddenly I was thrown forward in my seat as the pilot, apparently realising he was out of runway (and in Sydney the end of the runway is the Pacific), slammed on the brakes. The plane found its rhythm and we managed to slow. I thanked God I was still alive and had a sudden and urgent need to give money to Cancer Research or help out at a local old people's home.
So we're back in Sydney. It's a Monday night, about ten thirty and we're about to go to bed when the neighbours above us decide to have a karaoke party. Oh that's just...I sit there, stewing. Alison tries to calm me but this is not going to end well. A group of men upstairs are singing along to a Spice Girls track, and it’s by no means a decent rendition. I leave it fifteen minutes, before hopping out of bed, yanking on some clothes and walking up to their front door. I wrap three times. I can hear them inside. I wrap again. Nothing. They must be able to hear me. I knock three more times and suddenly the door is thrown open and the guy storms out saying things like 'Look we're allowed to be as noisy as we want until eleven, okay! It's just a bunch of guys having a bit of fun so don't start with your complaining because we're allowed to.' I was taken aback. I was only going to politely ask him to turn the volume down. We start arguing in the street. He's all over me, I hadn't even got a word out. Judging by the way he couldn't seem to make eye contact I surmised he must be on Ice. We argued some more. It ended with me threatening to inform the landlady, he practically chased me down the steps, berating me all the way. Jesus Christ. I got back in, slamming the door and breathing heavily. Felt like a scene out of Jurassic Park. Alison shook her head, her eyes giving me her 'told you so' look. I explained I hadn't gone off, he'd just started on me. She suggested he was probably drinking (or was on Ice). We sat there, unsure how to proceed. It had gone strangely quiet upstairs. Then I heard him come out of his front door and down our steps. Oh here we go. He probably went back to get the nine millimetre. Three knocks on our door.
'Don't you dare answer it.' Alison hisses. Three more knocks. I stand up. 'Sit down.' She says. I stand there. Three more. I go open the door, but Alison gets there before me. 'WHAT DO YOU WANT?!' She barks at him.
'Listen I just wanted to say I'm really sorry," the man stammers, ‘don't know what came over me. I'm not that type of guy normally. We'd just been drinking (or doing Ice) and I lost it. I'm really sorry.'
We accepted his apology and he asked if we fancied going out for a drink sometimes. 'Maybe' I replied, like yeah now I want to spend a couple of hours with you in an intimate setting, are you fucking insane?
Anyway, that concludes today's blog. I do hope you enjoyed it and I look forward to all your notes on grammar and spelling.
Until next time
Danster
No comments:
Post a Comment