I met Tripp at the bar of the Great Northern Hotel. We had both been waiting ten minutes to get served, not because the bar was busy but because there was no one behind it. It’s sometimes easier to buy a house in Australia than it is to buy a drink. My father wouldn’t approve. He did a five-year apprenticeship in bar management and in his day could keep four orders in his head at a time. In Australia they hire backpackers who think that stacking glasses is more important than serving customers.
In an Irish pub, you’d be disappointed if you hadn’t been asked for your order before the front door closed behind you. I remember being in O’Donoghue’s pub in Dublin on a busy Saturday night, The crowd was three deep at the bar but suddenly I saw a guy who seemed nine feet tall asking me what I wanted. He was on a small step ladder behind the counter and I was served in the length of time it takes a pint of Guinness to settle.
Unfortunately, while Ireland has exported its pub culture to the rest of the world, we haven’t included the service culture. Bars are quite often left unattended here while the staff change barrels or nip out to the kitchen. That would be a cardinal sin in the old country and would more than likely lead to a lot of missing spirit bottles when the barman returned.
Tripp, as it turned out was American. You don’t meet many yanks here. They are unlikely to visit Australia in search of ancestors after all and they are not great travellers generally, unless they are in the military and are invading some unfortunate country.
But one thing Americans are is assertive and when the young barmaid deigned to turn her attention to our end of the bar, he caught her attention first. He asked what low alcohol beers they had and she replied “we have Cascade Light in a stubbie”.
He ruminated for a minute before saying “OK, I’ll have one of those, I’ve got a couple more drinks to order but you might want to get that first”. In doing so, he touched on two of my biggest frustrations. Why can’t people order everything in one go? It saves time, you know. And if there is only one choice in the particular beverage you are after, why do you need to think about it? Maybe I’m getting grumpy in my old age, but when he next asked if they had non alcoholic cider, I felt like suggesting that he might want to take his group to a church meeting and not a pub.
He then tried to pay by credit card and was delighted to find out that he could use his pin number rather than his signature. Unfortunately he couldn’t remember his pin number but wasn’t overly concerned because he thought he had it recorded in his phone. That resulted in some furtive searching in the bottom of his back pack and then three failed attempts at entering the code before he realised that the numbers in his phone were the combination for his home alarm.
At this stage, the transaction had taken so long that closing time was imminent. I stepped in and offered to pay for the Yank’s drinks using that old fashioned method called cash. I embarrassed him in the process and he quickly produced a $50 dollar note, leading to audible sighs from the barmaid and myself.
He picked up on my accent and said “Heh, you’re from Ireland. I was over there last year. Gee, you guys have a swell country but where are the leprechauns? We searched the whole country and didn’t see one”.
“They all died out in the 1950’s,” I said. “That’s when lawnmowers were introduced. They lived in gardens you see and they didn’t stand a chance. Most of those mowers came from America. So I guess you guys are to blame”.
“Wow” he said. “I never knew that. But where did all the pots of gold go?”
“How do you think we financed the Celtic Tiger?” I said as I finally caught the barmaid’s attention.
While I was waiting, I asked Tripp what he thought of Australia. He was disappointed not to have seen any kangaroos on his trip to date. It turned out that he’d been in Melbourne for two days and hadn’t made it out of the City. I told him that Kangaroos liked to ride around on the back seats of trams and he made a note to check that out the next day.
This led us to a discussion on how Australia is the only country in the world that eats both animals on its national emblem. It’s difficult of course to talk about food with an American without them salivating. Tripp headed back to the bar and ordered three meals. I noticed that he changed something on each order. No onions with one, mayonnaise on the side with another and beef instead of chicken in the third one. It got me thinking as to why Americans do this. Is it to ensure that their meal is cooked fresh and not something prepared in an out of state warehouse four days ago and reheated? This would be a noble endeavour. But I suspect that their motives are more mercenary. They tip, even when abroad where it’s not required and thus expect some effort for their extra contribution.
I noticed that Tripp had avoided the kangaroo option on the menu despite my advise that the best place to see a Roo in Australia is on a dinner plate.
The barmaid departed for the kitchen to explain Tripp’s complex order to the Chef. I was left alone at the unattended bar. My criminal mind kicked in until I saw the surveillance camera peering down at me. We live in a monitored world and that’s something I also blame Tripp and his countrymen for.
Monday 28 February 2011
Tuesday 8 February 2011
Cyclone Justin and my part it's downfall
The night was still before Cyclone Justin hit Cairns. We sat in a fake Irish bar on the pier and joked about how calm it was before the storm. I was with my sister and we were planning to catch an “Oz Experience” bus the next day and work our way lazily down Australia’s east coast.
Being Irish, we were used to rain, but of the soft and drizzly variety and wind that at its strongest could shake the barley. We couldn’t even imagine what was to come. Rain that would fill empty swimming pools and wind that would rip up trees and hurl them across roads like an angry giant.
We were woken at 6am by the landlord of the hostel we were staying in and advised to pack quickly and make our way to the basement. Outside the rain was hopping off the streets and the palm trees along the shore were bent over like a penitent Japanese politician.
News and rumours swept through the nervous group that huddled there. We were about to be evacuated to the hospital apparently, as that was the only concrete building in the neighbourhood. We also heard that the pier we’d been drinking on the night before was no longer there and that the town was cut off from the outside world.
Then suddenly a rickety old bus turned up and a hippy looking driver jumped out into the rain and made his way towards us. “Anyone here for Oz Experience?” he shouted over the din of the storm. My sister and I stepped forward. “We are, but surely you’re not going out in that weather?” I asked.
He looked at me with the sort of withering expression that I later learned was reserved for soft foreigners. “It’s not called Oz Experience for nothing mate” he answered as he loaded our back packs onto the bus.
The normal road out of town was indeed blocked and he’d heard that the police were patrolling the coast looking for idiots like him and forcing them to stay put. He wasn’t a stay put kind of guy though and found a small inland road that headed into the hills. We were all Europeans and he reasoned correctly that he could fool us with some local meteorology. “Cyclones only affect the coast,” he said. “It’ll be blue skies once we get over that ridge”.
After we’d got off the bus to move the tenth tree from our path we started to lose faith in his folky wisdom but nevertheless saw it as an adventure and a chance to show off to members of the opposite sex (the purpose of all group travel after all). But our excitement was soon tested when we reached the first river on our trip. This was my first trip to Australia and I’d been surprised in the previous days at how wide riverbanks were compared to the trickle of water that flowed through them. I was soon to learn that those trickles could turn to a torrent in a matter of hours.
Beauty, our exotically named driver, slowed as he approached the bridge. The river was already over the road and all that was visible were the side rails and some marker posts that showed the water level at above 7 metres. He studied the situation and figured that returning to Cairns would dent his reputation among his adventure-seeking passengers. His plan was to empty the bins underneath the bus by moving all the backpacks upstairs and to leave the bin doors open. His reasoning for this was that the river could meander calmly through the bus as we inched across the bridge.
Someone, of an engineering bent, then pointed out that we couldn’t actually be sure that the road was still there, as we couldn’t see it. Beauty asked for a volunteer and a bronzed Dane stepped forward and agreed to walk in front of the bus to ensure that tarmac was still present.
We gathered at the front to watch his progress. As we neared the middle of the bridge, the water had risen above the young Dane’s waist and was inching it’s way up the stairwell of the bus. Gradually however, the incline rose towards the far bank and we sensed victory in our battle with the elements. When we reached dry land, a huge cheer went up and Beauty beamed, confident that one of the Scandinavian girls on board would be hanging on his every word later that evening.
Our troubles were only beginning however. Just when we got back to top speed, the taillights of a Police car appeared ahead of us. They were stopping traffic from getting to the bridge we’d just crossed and the last thing they were expecting was a run down old bus full of European backpackers to sneak up behind them.
Rather than admit that he had recklessly endangered the lives of forty tourists, Beauty lied through his teeth. The river had gone down he claimed and the bridge was fine. “Then you’ll have to go back across it”, the cop explained. “Because the next bridge along has been washed away”.
We had no choice but to turn around. The marker was now saying 7.5 metres and the light was fading. The young Danish scout had just about dried out from his first outing but he gamely headed back into the raging torrents. The bus was quieter this time. The police had spooked us and brought us back to reality.
We limped into Mission Beach as darkness fell, a town that has been virtually wiped out now by this years cyclone. Back then; it was just a shop and a hostel but felt like paradise to us after our long day battling nature and Beauty’s stupidity.
We spent the next five days there, waiting for the roads to be reopened and fighting for beer space in the hostel fridge whenever the electricity came back on.
I ended up getting to see very little of the east coast as a result but developed an appreciation for the awesome power of Australian weather. I just hope Beauty has retired. Or else there will a bunch of Europeans in Queensland this week doing something stupid, yet living to tell the tale.
Being Irish, we were used to rain, but of the soft and drizzly variety and wind that at its strongest could shake the barley. We couldn’t even imagine what was to come. Rain that would fill empty swimming pools and wind that would rip up trees and hurl them across roads like an angry giant.
We were woken at 6am by the landlord of the hostel we were staying in and advised to pack quickly and make our way to the basement. Outside the rain was hopping off the streets and the palm trees along the shore were bent over like a penitent Japanese politician.
News and rumours swept through the nervous group that huddled there. We were about to be evacuated to the hospital apparently, as that was the only concrete building in the neighbourhood. We also heard that the pier we’d been drinking on the night before was no longer there and that the town was cut off from the outside world.
Then suddenly a rickety old bus turned up and a hippy looking driver jumped out into the rain and made his way towards us. “Anyone here for Oz Experience?” he shouted over the din of the storm. My sister and I stepped forward. “We are, but surely you’re not going out in that weather?” I asked.
He looked at me with the sort of withering expression that I later learned was reserved for soft foreigners. “It’s not called Oz Experience for nothing mate” he answered as he loaded our back packs onto the bus.
The normal road out of town was indeed blocked and he’d heard that the police were patrolling the coast looking for idiots like him and forcing them to stay put. He wasn’t a stay put kind of guy though and found a small inland road that headed into the hills. We were all Europeans and he reasoned correctly that he could fool us with some local meteorology. “Cyclones only affect the coast,” he said. “It’ll be blue skies once we get over that ridge”.
After we’d got off the bus to move the tenth tree from our path we started to lose faith in his folky wisdom but nevertheless saw it as an adventure and a chance to show off to members of the opposite sex (the purpose of all group travel after all). But our excitement was soon tested when we reached the first river on our trip. This was my first trip to Australia and I’d been surprised in the previous days at how wide riverbanks were compared to the trickle of water that flowed through them. I was soon to learn that those trickles could turn to a torrent in a matter of hours.
Beauty, our exotically named driver, slowed as he approached the bridge. The river was already over the road and all that was visible were the side rails and some marker posts that showed the water level at above 7 metres. He studied the situation and figured that returning to Cairns would dent his reputation among his adventure-seeking passengers. His plan was to empty the bins underneath the bus by moving all the backpacks upstairs and to leave the bin doors open. His reasoning for this was that the river could meander calmly through the bus as we inched across the bridge.
Someone, of an engineering bent, then pointed out that we couldn’t actually be sure that the road was still there, as we couldn’t see it. Beauty asked for a volunteer and a bronzed Dane stepped forward and agreed to walk in front of the bus to ensure that tarmac was still present.
We gathered at the front to watch his progress. As we neared the middle of the bridge, the water had risen above the young Dane’s waist and was inching it’s way up the stairwell of the bus. Gradually however, the incline rose towards the far bank and we sensed victory in our battle with the elements. When we reached dry land, a huge cheer went up and Beauty beamed, confident that one of the Scandinavian girls on board would be hanging on his every word later that evening.
Our troubles were only beginning however. Just when we got back to top speed, the taillights of a Police car appeared ahead of us. They were stopping traffic from getting to the bridge we’d just crossed and the last thing they were expecting was a run down old bus full of European backpackers to sneak up behind them.
Rather than admit that he had recklessly endangered the lives of forty tourists, Beauty lied through his teeth. The river had gone down he claimed and the bridge was fine. “Then you’ll have to go back across it”, the cop explained. “Because the next bridge along has been washed away”.
We had no choice but to turn around. The marker was now saying 7.5 metres and the light was fading. The young Danish scout had just about dried out from his first outing but he gamely headed back into the raging torrents. The bus was quieter this time. The police had spooked us and brought us back to reality.
We limped into Mission Beach as darkness fell, a town that has been virtually wiped out now by this years cyclone. Back then; it was just a shop and a hostel but felt like paradise to us after our long day battling nature and Beauty’s stupidity.
We spent the next five days there, waiting for the roads to be reopened and fighting for beer space in the hostel fridge whenever the electricity came back on.
I ended up getting to see very little of the east coast as a result but developed an appreciation for the awesome power of Australian weather. I just hope Beauty has retired. Or else there will a bunch of Europeans in Queensland this week doing something stupid, yet living to tell the tale.
Wednesday 2 February 2011
Advance Australia Where?
Australia Day
“Happy Australia Day”, celebrating 223 years since convicts first landed on these shores.
Most countries celebrate their national day on the anniversary of their independence from the yoke of colonialisation and other tyrannies. Australia celebrates its national day on the 26th January to commemorate the day in 1788 when colonisation was imposed on the indigenous people who lived here.
Although, in fairness, the people on those 11 boats could be forgiven for thinking there was nobody here to colonise. Captain Cook had called the country “Terra Nulis”, even though a few spears had been chucked at him when he landed in Botany Bay. That was in August, which is winter here, which might explain why the dead white men who picked the holiday went for the criminal coming, because it happened in summer.
I spent this year’s Australia Day in Adelaide, a city that shows all the signs of perfect town planning. Unfortunately, you can’t plan culture and history and it does have a feel of been taken out of the box and assembled like a piece of IKEA furniture. I told someone I was planning to spend four days in South Australia and he advised that I should spend two of these in Adelaide because “I’d see everything there was to see and never have to do it again”.
In fairness it was much better than that. It seems to have more Indians than the Mumbai central train station at rush hour. This meant that I could indulge in my delight for curry. Lately, I’ve been feeling a bit dicky after a butter chicken and Nan bread. As my mother used to say about onions, “I like them, but the wee bastards don’t like me”. I think it’s because you can’t find a decent curry in Melbourne. Adelaide, on the other hand, provided a meal that sat in my stomach like a sleeping lamb.
Its also hard to complain about a city that has proper ocean beaches at the end of a tram line and nestles underneath rolling hills that provide some of the best wine in the world.
It seems that every Australian town and city has a parade on Australia, in much the same way as Ireland does on St Patrick’s Day. The sun tends to shine in Australia though, which I always think is a big plus in the parade stakes. In Ireland on 17th March, you are as likely to face rain as you are to trip over 14 year olds on their rights of passage drinking session. My memories of Irish St. Patricks Day parades are shivering in an ill-fitting scouts uniform while marching behind an exhaust chugging fire engine or wearing my Gaelic football outfit while passing a ball to another freezing companion on the back of a float (a skill I was never able to replicate on the pitch incidentally).
The Adelaide parade had decided to honour all ethnic groups that immigrated to the City. South Australia has large German and Polish communities and they added most of the colour to the proceedings. I was particularly impressed with the South Vietnamese contingent. Apart from the fact that they were boldly ignoring the fact that there is no “South” in Vietnam anymore, they were proudly wearing the same uniforms they had worn when they scrambled aboard the last choppers out of Saigon in 1975.
It seemed a wonderfully multi cultural event, recognising all that is great about Australia. The people who came here and the welcome they received.
That night we headed down to the beach to watch the sunset. The other thing that happens on Australia Day is that anyone over 14 and under 30 finds a way of wearing the national flag (bras and shorts are particular favourites) or draping themselves in the flag like a Spanish matador with his cape.
I find this a little unsettling to be honest, not least because when I see it, all I notice is the large Union Jack in the corner. Call me an unreconstructed old bigot, but can’t they come up with something a little more local than a piece of cloth most famous for being planted in lots of places that it ill belongs? Botany Bay being one of them.
But I find this cringe to the mother-country strange in other ways. Australians seem to dislike the English even more than we Irish do. I noticed this during the recent Ashes series, when, in my need to defend those that are attacked, I found myself cheering for the Poms. It was an uncomfortable feeling, made better by the fact that the Poms won and none of my family were watching me.
Australia’s attitude to England was also evident during the recent tennis. It’s well known that Andy Murray is British in the London based media until he loses, when he reverts to being Scottish. The opposite applies here. Murray is portrayed as Scottish in the Australian media when he is doing well. But come Sunday night when he choked like a victim of the Boston strangler, he suddenly became British.
So why, you might ask, do they insist on having the Union Jack in their flag? Every year at this time, it comes up for debate on talkback radio and in the editorials of liberal newspapers. But nothing will ever change, because inertia is the biggest factor in politics. And besides, those sixteen-year-old girls in the flag bikinis like the way the stars of the Southern Cross tend to nestle around the nipple area and the Union Jack rubs against the part of the body that even Irish republicans would like to wipe it with.
The night was finished off with fireworks. They were nice, but you get fireworks in Australia when ten year olds win a cricket match, so the novelty has kind of worn off.
Perhaps Captain Cook would have enjoyed them when he arrived in 1770. But then, that would have suggested that there were already people here.
“Happy Australia Day”, celebrating 223 years since convicts first landed on these shores.
Most countries celebrate their national day on the anniversary of their independence from the yoke of colonialisation and other tyrannies. Australia celebrates its national day on the 26th January to commemorate the day in 1788 when colonisation was imposed on the indigenous people who lived here.
Although, in fairness, the people on those 11 boats could be forgiven for thinking there was nobody here to colonise. Captain Cook had called the country “Terra Nulis”, even though a few spears had been chucked at him when he landed in Botany Bay. That was in August, which is winter here, which might explain why the dead white men who picked the holiday went for the criminal coming, because it happened in summer.
I spent this year’s Australia Day in Adelaide, a city that shows all the signs of perfect town planning. Unfortunately, you can’t plan culture and history and it does have a feel of been taken out of the box and assembled like a piece of IKEA furniture. I told someone I was planning to spend four days in South Australia and he advised that I should spend two of these in Adelaide because “I’d see everything there was to see and never have to do it again”.
In fairness it was much better than that. It seems to have more Indians than the Mumbai central train station at rush hour. This meant that I could indulge in my delight for curry. Lately, I’ve been feeling a bit dicky after a butter chicken and Nan bread. As my mother used to say about onions, “I like them, but the wee bastards don’t like me”. I think it’s because you can’t find a decent curry in Melbourne. Adelaide, on the other hand, provided a meal that sat in my stomach like a sleeping lamb.
Its also hard to complain about a city that has proper ocean beaches at the end of a tram line and nestles underneath rolling hills that provide some of the best wine in the world.
It seems that every Australian town and city has a parade on Australia, in much the same way as Ireland does on St Patrick’s Day. The sun tends to shine in Australia though, which I always think is a big plus in the parade stakes. In Ireland on 17th March, you are as likely to face rain as you are to trip over 14 year olds on their rights of passage drinking session. My memories of Irish St. Patricks Day parades are shivering in an ill-fitting scouts uniform while marching behind an exhaust chugging fire engine or wearing my Gaelic football outfit while passing a ball to another freezing companion on the back of a float (a skill I was never able to replicate on the pitch incidentally).
The Adelaide parade had decided to honour all ethnic groups that immigrated to the City. South Australia has large German and Polish communities and they added most of the colour to the proceedings. I was particularly impressed with the South Vietnamese contingent. Apart from the fact that they were boldly ignoring the fact that there is no “South” in Vietnam anymore, they were proudly wearing the same uniforms they had worn when they scrambled aboard the last choppers out of Saigon in 1975.
It seemed a wonderfully multi cultural event, recognising all that is great about Australia. The people who came here and the welcome they received.
That night we headed down to the beach to watch the sunset. The other thing that happens on Australia Day is that anyone over 14 and under 30 finds a way of wearing the national flag (bras and shorts are particular favourites) or draping themselves in the flag like a Spanish matador with his cape.
I find this a little unsettling to be honest, not least because when I see it, all I notice is the large Union Jack in the corner. Call me an unreconstructed old bigot, but can’t they come up with something a little more local than a piece of cloth most famous for being planted in lots of places that it ill belongs? Botany Bay being one of them.
But I find this cringe to the mother-country strange in other ways. Australians seem to dislike the English even more than we Irish do. I noticed this during the recent Ashes series, when, in my need to defend those that are attacked, I found myself cheering for the Poms. It was an uncomfortable feeling, made better by the fact that the Poms won and none of my family were watching me.
Australia’s attitude to England was also evident during the recent tennis. It’s well known that Andy Murray is British in the London based media until he loses, when he reverts to being Scottish. The opposite applies here. Murray is portrayed as Scottish in the Australian media when he is doing well. But come Sunday night when he choked like a victim of the Boston strangler, he suddenly became British.
So why, you might ask, do they insist on having the Union Jack in their flag? Every year at this time, it comes up for debate on talkback radio and in the editorials of liberal newspapers. But nothing will ever change, because inertia is the biggest factor in politics. And besides, those sixteen-year-old girls in the flag bikinis like the way the stars of the Southern Cross tend to nestle around the nipple area and the Union Jack rubs against the part of the body that even Irish republicans would like to wipe it with.
The night was finished off with fireworks. They were nice, but you get fireworks in Australia when ten year olds win a cricket match, so the novelty has kind of worn off.
Perhaps Captain Cook would have enjoyed them when he arrived in 1770. But then, that would have suggested that there were already people here.
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