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The Simple Life
Well where do we even begin with this tale? This has to be one of the best days that we've had since travelling and it was NOT because of Canberra, but it was the company!
Firstly we had all been arguing about who was gonna drive back as we all wanted to have a drink down there so we drew lots on the Friday and Gavan and Lyndsay were first up and Lynne and Mark were driving home. This was deemed a bad option by Lyndsay and Gavan in the morning when the hangovers from the previous evening were banging on the inside of their heads!
The pick up time was 8am but it was nearer 9 when we stumbled out of a cab at Europcar and the poor women behind the desk looked none too chuffed to be handing over the keys to a group of reprobates like us (the booze breath wasn't impressing them either!).
Lyndsay was in the driver's seat and all we had to do was to head back towards our house as the direct road to Canberra was on the next street. Simple you may think but with 2 Scots and 3 Queens in the car it all went t*ts up! Clearly everyone thought they knew a better route and before we knew it we had been in Watson's Bay and Rose Bay and nowhere near the road to the Capital!
After an hour of u-turns, shouting (the Scots) and hysterics (the Queens) we decided that enough was enough and a greasy brekkie was in order to kill the hangovers and set us up for what was looking to be a very long day! We stopped in Rose Bay and had a round of bacon butties and endeavoured to get on our way again.
Believe it or not but we got lost again and reckoned that Jeremy Beadle had been out the night before switching all the signs to make a big circle and that we were being followed by cameras!
We ended up in Bondi at which point Lyndsay pipes up "it's ok, I know where we are now" and proceeded to drive straight down a dead end street! Yeah good one Blondie! It all got very funny in the car when at 10.30 we drove back past the Europcar Depot, beeping our horn and waving in the window. I think it was surprise on the agents faces hahhahahahahhahaha! We were sorely tempted just to drive around Sydney all day and say so long to Canberra when we stumbled on the road and 2 hours late, were on our way!
A straight 3 hour drive on the one road should have been simple but not for us! Lyndsay managed to drive through the tolls without stopping and paying (or even noticing them!) and the singing was getting progressively louder and more dramatic! The great thing about Aussie roads and what makes you realise how big the country is that we neared a sign for McDonalds and were all so excited but instead of the standard 100 yards that you'd see back home it was a sign to say the next stop was 60km away! Teasing gits!
Anyway we made it to Maccas and were like a group of kids on a school trip hustling and jostling to get in the door first. Ya, we think that Australian's haven't quite seen the likes of this before! Being a warm, sunny day we wanted to eat outside but all the area was in the shade. Unperturbed Al, Gavan and Lyndsay dragged the chairs out to a sunny spot in the middle of the parking lot and started munching away. You should've seen Mark and Lynne's faces when they walked out, but not ones to be outdone they dragged their chairs over too.
The looks from the drivers coming off the freeway and into the car park to see us taking up residence was priceless! And we had a great old time to ourselves. You will be pleased to hear that we did tidy up after ourselves and it all went in the bin (plates and trays and all! What's Mickey D's doing giving you plates anyway!)
Princess Fagan resumed controls and it was a much faster trip the rest of the way to Canberra. We think that boy is a frustrated fighter pilot!
Eventually at 2.05pm we passed the "Welcome to Canberra sign". Little did we know that we'd be wanting to torch it when we drove back out less than 3 hours later!
If you have ever seen the Ewan MacGregor/Scarlett Johansson film The Island then welcome to Canberra! If not then imagine your dullest nightmare! Canberra is one of only 3 cities in the world to have been entirely planned and designed. The other two are Paris and Washington DC - so what the hell happened here then? Clearly someone was having a laugh. It's kinda like Milton Keynes on acid!
We decided to be a bit cultural and head to the Parliament. This was no mean feat. We got challenged by boy racers, squashed by buses and stuck on the never-ending roundabout! Swear to God we thought we were gonna die on that roundabout! There was no getting off! Eventually we made it and were amazed to find an underground car park for visitors! Can you imagine that at the Houses of Parliament or The Dail in Dublin? (That's their Parliament for all you uneducated out there!) Clearly not lived with terror threats for the last however long!
The building itself was immense and entirely white! Like a giant sanatorium! Ideal for the likes of Tony Blair hahhahahahahhahaha! Excited by being let out of the car (and being in one piece after Gavan Mansell's driving!) we were running around like headless chickens. Ignoring the relative calm we got photos star jumping by the fountain, running along the entrance and cat walk posing in the lifts! Oh and yeah we saw a wee bit of the history etc blah, blah, and blah! They have a huge portrait of the Queen (this country is more patriotic than the UK!) and we thought it would be funny to get a snap of Lynne and I saluting (cause Scottish folk luv her!) and then Gavan, Mark and Al posed for the shot titled "The 4 Queens". Wonder why we were getting funny looks?!?!!?!?!?
We sloped off and walked into a kind of auditorium thing and we were on the balcony above. The room had been set for a function that evening and they had a table of raffle prizes. Getting over excited by the feather boas on the table Lyndsay delicately shrieks "oh look you can win a lamp". The other 4 practically choked on their snorting and bolted out of the room only for Lyndsay to turn and see that there was a big group who were in with a tour guide, glaring in her direction. Oops, the blonde strikes again!
We did do our Good Samaritan bit though when Lynnith found an unattended bag and told security about it - see we're not all that bad hahhahahahahhahaha! Clearly it was only some saddo's sarnies!
Off we skipped to check out the town centre blissfully unaware of the carnage that we no doubt left behind!
How do we describe the centre? Sh*t hole wouldn't be too harsh! It was dirty, covered in bird poo and DEAD. The place is like Deliverance! Most of the shops were shut (or shut down) the bars not open and no people on the streets. The only thing moving was an old fairground carousel - spooky! We were losing our humour at this point! Suddenly we stumbled upon an Irish Bar (as you do) and ran for the sanctuary of a safe haven! How wrong we were! The place was dirty, dirty and the alarm went off as we walked in the door. Gavinda squawks "oh listen, the alarm, someone must've smiled!" Off to another good start then.......
Deciding to have some food and a beer we had more hilarity at the menu. Gavan being the only Irish had a good chuckle when he read "Grandma's Famous Nacho's". He was like "oh my gran was renowned for her Nachos in Monahan!" EH HELLO, has Mexican food even hit the shores of the Emerald Isle yet?!?!?!??!?! Too funny! As you are waiting to hear the food was horrendous and the drink not much better, so realising that we had came what we set out to do - visit the Capital and teach them bad manners - we hopped back in the motor and made a speedy exit with a "Free the Canberra 5" poster out the back window! Apologies to any Aussies reading this but you guys should've just let Sydney and Melbourne fight it out for the honour!
Fairly low key event on the way home - we were still in shock from what we'd seen that day but Marky Mark did still manage to make a hash of dropping the car off at the airport! Yeah we found Europcar fine - we just hadn't put any petrol in! So off we went again! Finally the car was handed over unscathed but the same couldn't be said of us!
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