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Hello everyone, I hope you are all well.
When I left you all I was still on the Gili Islands and our stay there was extended due to the fact that they are paradise. We had planned to stay there for 2 weeks max, but ended up staying for 18 days and the only reason we left was because we were flying to Australia. We had a very enjoyable final week in Gili. We decided we would make the most of our time there. One evening we went for a nice seafood dinner with our Dutch friends mentioned in the previous post. The restuarant is beautiful, right on the beach in the sand. The fish was as fresh as you could wish and we were all enjoying our food when for some unknown reason Monkey jumped up in the air with a shout as if he was startled by something. He said he had felt something tickling his shin, looked down and a lizard was crawling up his leg. Now, Monkey was obviously a little rattled by the whole affair so i thought I had an opportunity for a bit of bant. As he slowly settled back down to his food I saw my window of opportunity. I had been eating a seafood kebab and slipped the skewer slyly under the table. Monkey had finally forgotten his ordeal and was enjoying his food. I gently ran the skewer quickly across his feet and up his shin. Monkey almost hit the roof, letting out a girly squeal in the middle of the restaurant, his knees slamming up into the underside of the table almost spilling everyones beer. his face was a piccy when he saw me bring the skewer out from under the table. 1-nil old boy, 1-nil.
On the subject of anecdotes, I must go back some time and retell an incident from Bangkok. When writing this blog I totally forgot the story so I must tell it now. We were having a night out on Khoasan Road in Bangkok, 6 of us were there, Myself, Monks, Morgan and our three Canadian buddies. We were joined by two rather strange Thai girls. One of whom had a tank with a small turtle in, a red eared slider if I am not mistaken. She decided it would be a good idea to let us all hold him. We passed him round the table and the whole thing went off without a hitch. However, 6 or 7 beers later these girls decided to pass the little blighter around again. Everyone was passing him around and then he got to me. I had him in one hand and a beer in the other. I thought it would be a bit of giggle to make out like the turtle was swigging from my beer, I moved the beer towards the turtle and was about to make out like he was a swigging his favourite tipple when, upon seeing his own reflection in the amber nectar, he must have been reminded of the pleasure of swimming, of his natural habitat, of the freedom of the nautical lifestyle. He leapt and plunged straight to the bottom of my beer. Everyone looked stunned! I froze, WHAT DO I DO??? And then I went into action, I up ended the beer onto the table and the turtle lay there on his back kicking wildly amongst the beer mats. I looked horrified at the Thai girls, they poured water onto the little guy and got him back into the tank. He was all over the place running sidewise, up and down, going a hundred miles and hour. Fortunately the Thai girls didn't seem to put out by it all but I thought it was best to get out of there before the thing started vomitting all over himself and passing out. Afterall he was in a glass of Chang, ABV 5% and everything.
After leaving Gili we went back to Bali for a couple of nights and then flew to Cairns in Northern Queensland n Australia. We have had a great first few weeks here. We had a few great nights out in Cairns and visited the racecourse for the Cairns Cup. I didn't win a single race but it was still a great day. We have spent a few days with Andy Morgan's family, on arriving we went to stay with his Uncle Dale and Aunty Des. After almost 3 months of Pad Thai or Nasi Goreng it was unbelievable to be eating grilled meat, pies, chips, potatoes, coleslaw! The fridge had more than 1 type of ham! CHEESE AND RED WINE. It was utter luxury. We stayed with them in the Tablelands for a bit and then headed to Innisfail to stay with Andy's Uncle Tom and Aunty Coleen. We went out fishing with Tom one day and he told us we would most likely catch Mackerel. When he took out the baits and hooks I was surprised by the size, mackerel I have caught in England were about a foot long so when I saw the bait was 6 inches I wondered what was going on. it turns out Spotted Mackerel are a tad larger. When Monkey caught the first one I thought it was a shark. The are about 3 feet long, big powerful fish with real teeth! We had a successful day. We pulled in 13 all told, Morgan catching 3, I caught 5 and Monkey caught 5. Monkey pulled in the catch of the day, an absolute monster who almost pulled him out of the boat. It was a real battle of wills which Monks eventually won. We got them home and Tom showed us how to fillet them and we had them chopped up and bagged up in no time. We had mackerel and chips for dinner.
We are now in Townsville, job hunting and staying with Andy's Uncle Gav and Aunty Marie. We have had a great time here, we cooked them a 3 course meal consisting of bruscetta and proscuitto to start, mackerel with chips, spicy salsa and salad as a main and chocolate oat cake to finish. Unfortunately Monkey has left us now to travel back to England to study in Law School or something or other. Loser. However we have a campervan hired and are going to be setting off on our east coast adventure very soon. It is very exciting.
I hope you don't all miss me too much and if you want to see what I am up to check out the photos on faceyb. Much love. x
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