Tag: Australia

The Characters You Meet, Vic2 Comments

Only in Melbourne!

Itching for Hitching

I make a flying visit home for my Aunt’s 90th birthday and on my way back to the airport I swing past Springvale (a Melbourne suburb known for it’s Asian groceries) and pick up a couple of pieces of Lup Yook (cured pork that resembles a skinny brown cricket bat) for Woody’s traditional birthday feast. I shove it in the side of my backpack and forget about it. At airport security the ‘fertiliser guy’ (the bloke who wands you for nitro or explosives or such) happens to be a young Chinese Aussie. “Lup Yook!” he shouts in excitement to his … Continue reading Only in Melbourne!

The Characters You Meet6 Comments

Beachcombing

Itching for Hitching

This nomadic life can be so serendipitous. While wandering along a beach I meet a couple who were originally from the Mornington Peninsula and who now live on the north coast of NSW. They’re encouraging the littlies to find flotsam and we’re all picking about looking for interesting things from the last tide. It turns out that he is Bill Silverstein and he wrote a book called Down Under Magic about the early days of skin and SCUBA diving in Port Phillip Bay. Bill was in the diving search party for the body of Prime Minister Harold Holt (a keen … Continue reading Beachcombing

When Things Just Go Wrong1 Comment

When Things Go Wrong – Just Cook!

Itching for Hitching

We arrived at Nullarbor Roadhouse in the afternoon, it was 40 degrees or thereabouts, there was phone reception (at last) and our friend learnt that her house 2000kms behind us, had been robbed. We cooked while we formulated a plan. Up in tropical north Queensland our mate’s van door locked jamming wife Elle inside for three hours. We cooked and a curry was ready by the time that Elle was freed by the locksmith. And then this little doosie from Central Queensland in 2016: “Because of the big wet we decide to forgo our trip up to Finch Hatton in … Continue reading When Things Go Wrong – Just Cook!