The Oom Jam
Friday 23rd of January, 2009
The beer I'm drinking as I write (Barefoot Radler) has the following trivia question under the cap;
How many national parks are there in Australia?
It was 12:30am on Friday morning when I started packing. I was drunk and sore, but wired from playing touch football early that evening. In the end I was too lazy to put much effort in, and I just threw everything I though I might need into my backpack. History will show that I probably could have taken half as many clothes and 2 thirds less books. I was fairly paranoid about missing my flight, and had booked a taxi for 5:50am so I ended up setting the alarm on my phone to go off twice; once at 5:00am and once at 5:30am.
As it happened it didn't really matter, as I woke up sure I'd slept in at 2:30am and then again at 4:30am. The second time I decided another 30 minutes sleep would be a waste of time and just got up. By the time I made it into the kitchen there was a glow across the estuary as the sun thought about getting up and the water was still and glassy. I ate a couple of tomatoes from the plants I have growing in the sun room and lugged my gear to the awaiting taxi. I was still too tired to notice how sore and hungover I was.
It wasn't until I sat down in the airport with my exorbitantly priced vegetarian sandwich and 5 fruit juice that I realised my legs would barely bend and that throwing up was a real possibility. Things weren't helped when I spotted two girls who I knew also catching the same plane as me. The first - Maddie - is a friend of my housemate, and the stupidest person I have ever met, although she's still a nice girl and friendly. I recall her once talking to us about animal cruelty and how much she hated it, and telling us that's why she's a vegetarian. Of course that doesn't sound stupid - lots of very intelligent people are vegetarians because they don't like cruelty to animals. She then informed us that she still ate a little bit of meat, but only beef and chicken. I laughed at the time, because I thought she was joking and I'm sorry to say that I laughed a lot harder when I realised she wasn't.
The other girl I've never been introduced to, or said anything meaningful to, but she's a friend of my brothers and has confused me for him on a number of occasions. It turned out she was flying for work or to attend some kind of political event. She is evil. Evil like Shelob in Lord of the Rings evil. She's a very active member of the Liberal Party - the conservative political party in Australia and she works for Eric Abetz, who is evil like Sauron, although luckily not nearly as powerful.
Stupidity or wickedness; I could do without both. Instead I avoid them and read my book (The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe). It was a struggle to stay awake and almost as soon as I got on my plane I must have fallen asleep because I don't remember anything until arrival in Sydney. I had about an hour wait before my next flight so I read a little more and smashed some caffeine, in the form of one of the "Vitamin Water" drinks. It's hilarious that because of the current law suit against coke, people tell you when you're drinking that stuff that it's bad for you. However if you drink a coke nobody is concerned about your health.
The flight from Sydney to Canberra was fun, as we flew through a storm with a lot of turbulence. A mate from Hobart was on the same flight and in fact sitting on the same row as me, so that was cool. He was basically doing the same thing as me - heading down the NSW coast with some mates to a little coastal town for beers and fishing.
It was hot outside in Canberra. Really hot. I was still dressed for 5am Hobart, Tasmania temperatures so almost as soon as I was in the car with Copey I demanded we stop somewhere so I could change my clothes. Luckily I had drunkenly washed clothes the night before and they were still wet so changing into a wet t-shirt and shorts felt so much better. We stopped at (C)KFC (The Horror, The Horror) for breakfast and then headed down to Narooma. There were some fires burning around the area and a few warning signs about but in the end the journey was uneventful.
We arrived at about 2pm and dropped our stuff off at Nathan's parents place. Nathan's dad was away fighting fires but his mum was home. She is one of those super nice parents who won't let you ever lift a finger to help with anything and will do everything for you until you start feeling guilty and demand to be allowed to clear the dishes or whatever. Because I was first to arrive I got a bed, which was sweet.
Ollie and Leon arrived shortly after that. They had done a massive road trip up the coast from Melbourne over three days, which I was very jealous about. Australia's south coast is such a beautiful place with tall Eucalyptus forests meeting spectacular gold and blue beaches. There's very little urban development between Melbourne and Sydney either (at least compared with Sydney to Brisbane, and all of Queensland) so it's the kind of place I can imagine myself living one day.
Ian and Kayleigh had said they were arriving at about 10-11am, but we should have been a little sceptical of that one
. In the end Ian took a wrong turn somewhere and ended up arriving at just past 5pm. Daniel and Caroline were more punctual and we went swimming and then headed off to the pub for beers and dinner. I had the fish of the day, which was perch with vegetables and very very average, but some oysters kilpatrick for an entree, which was pretty good. Everybody else enjoyed their meals though. There was cricket on TV but the Hilf had been dropped for the game for that joke Hauritz, so I didn't watch much. Where did we go after that? I don't remember what happened at all, but we must have ended up back at Nathan's where Andrew Grant, Max B and Benoite arrived and we were really ready to party. I recall pizza at some stage.
We played poker I think, which was fun although I've been completely over poker for about 2 years. In fact I have a large group of friends who I never spend time with anymore because they always play poker. That and they're political careerists who represent everything I see wrong in our political system
Saturday 24th of January, 2009
Nathan's mum made bacon and eggs for breakfast, which was sahweeeeet. It was another ridiculously hot day and I decided the best plan was to kick first thing and then spend the rest of day swimming or drinking (or both at once). This ended up being a poor decision but it wasn't too bad.
We tried kicking at a wharf where we played last time but it was hot and windy. I actually played fairly well but the other people seemed very lethargic and I became a little frustrated with watching them look at the footbag sitting on the ground so stopped playing and we decided to move somewhere with a bit of shade and hopefully less wind.
We headed off to the skate park instead, which was much better. We had a good circle going with Andrew, Max and a floating player of Daniel or Nathan I think. We were all a bit rusty but some good things went down. Andrew hit some good runs and it was great to play with him, since we've both been on modified for a pretty long time. I don't really remember any specifics. I think I hit superfly>blurriest into a run, but that may have been the next day. Old combo for me, but it was nice to hit it well and first attempt.
Later we headed to the beach. I got an amazing hot dog from the hot dog place and then went swimming. The water was amazing. Max played a round of golf, Andrew and Daniel went surfing and everybody else just disappeared so it ended up just being Cope, Benoite and I. I read for a while and then found that nobody had phone reception except me. We didn't have a car so we started walking back to Nathan's but bumped into Andrew and Daniel who had a great time surfing although Andrew got dumped and broke the cord for the board as well. It turned out Ian, Kayleigh, Caroline, Leon and Ollie were all fishing nearby so we hung out with them and I demonstrated that I'm the worst fisher-person in the world. Caroline caught 4 fish and Ian 3 though, although they were all too small to keep. Still it was a lot better than our effort last year of 0.
After fishing we headed off to the local bowls club to enjoy some tasty beers and some bowling. We broke up into two groups and Benoite and I took on Andrew and Nathan. We started very well, at one stage winning 11 - 1, although they staged a very capable comeback and brought the score back to 14 - 12, and probably would have won if we had have played much longer but everybody was starting to get hungry so we ended up only playing one more round and Benoite and I ended up taking 3 off it to win 17 - 12. This was definitely one of the highlights of the trip though. Beer and very relaxed sport. It was good stuff.
We ate at the club. I had lamb cutlets and they were pretty good. A lot better than my meal the night before. Andrew had some steak and then nachos, neither of which were very impressive. Copey had a salt and pepper squid, which was apparently very salty. I don't remember much more about the meal. After that we headed back to Nathan's for some drinks and then went out to the pub. The pub was cranking and a lot of fun. They don't do shots so we had to have Jaeger on ice, and then pick out the ice, and the glasses were too big to take them like shots (I have a good picture of this). Nathan and I played a game of pool against some locals and lost although it was very close. I had a shot on the black and missed. Did we get home? I don't remember but I woke up in the my bed so we must have somehow. Apparently Andrew and Nathan played poker all night and Andrew won but Nathan couldn't remember that happening at all so perhaps not the hardest victory
.
Sunday 25th of January, 2009
After the day before, we decided the best thing to do was to go fishing and to the beach and then play footbag in the evening. Nathan's mum made pancakes for breakfast, which was typically awesome. We decided fishing was the go and headed to the fishing store to get a "nipper" pump. Nippers are little crustaceans that burrow in tidal sandflats and are apparently good for fishing. The pump was expensive but worth it as Nathan, Andrew and I spent a good hour having a lot of fun catching nippers. It took us a while to figure it out, but Andrew got into a really good rhythm and ended up catching about 30 or so. I caught one, and so did Nathan. Nathan actually caught one with his first attempt, so I ate it live. Everybody were a bit shocked but it didn't taste too bad and I'm still alive now
.
There was a place nearby selling fresh oysters for $7.50 a dozen opened so I ate 22 (a couple of people tried them but nobody else were fans like me). They were amazing. I could have easily eaten 100. We fished for a while and caught a few things but again nothing big and then went to the beach for a swim, which was typically awesome, although there was a women's sanitary pad next to us. Nathan thought it was unused and I was happy to take his word for it rather than investigate myself.
We had some more hot dogs, which were amazing although Andrew, Max and Ben didn't like them, so maybe it's an Australian thing
. Then we went to the Plaza for a kick. I played a lot better on this day than the previous one. I ended up kicking with Max and Andrew again. I was still a long way from my best but it's nice to notice improvement after 2 days of serious playing. I hit sumo>your mum first attempt, which is winding the clock back about 3 or 4 years. Also just a few really nice long runs. Andrew struggled a little because of his hot dog but still played well, as did Max. Ian and Kayleigh had to go home.
We got a case of beer and headed back to Nathan's where his mum was making us all dinner. I chose the beer and got Matilda Bay Redback - which is one of my favourite Aussie beers - originally brewed in WA but now in Melbourne I think. It's a wheat malt beer and it turned out that basically nobody else liked it except Leon and I. We had a lot of other beer anyway so it was ok. We had more oysters as an appetizer and then a fantastic bbq with lamb and beef, as well as some nice salads. The lamb was especially good. I actually can't remember at all what happened after that, except we said goodbye to Max and Benoite, who were leaving early in the morning.
Monday 26th of January, 2009
I was woken up at 8:30 in the morning by Nathan's mum yelling "white power" and knocking on my door. It took me a while to figure out she was actually yelling "half an hour." I jumped up, showered and met the others for breakfast of cereal and a croissant. The reason for the early wake up was because Nathan's dad works in Parks and Wildlife and we were hoping to take a trip out to Montague Island. Last year we didn't manage to because the weather was too rough and this year it had looked very unlikely because of all the fires. The night before Nathan's Dad had said we had about a 5% chance. Things came together and we boarded the boat at about 9:15am. It was Andrew, Caroline, Ollie, Leon, Nathan and myself. The boat trip out was great and we had a very cool Parks and Wildlife guide, who talked a lot about the environmental management on the island - which is what I'm studying. We climbed the lighthouse and the view was amazing. There was a seal colony on the island and also penguins although the only penguin we saw was dead. Definitely another highlight, especially given how hard it was to get there.
It was Australia Day so after the island trip we got some meat and beer (and I got another dozen oysters as well) and headed to Nathan's for a bbq. Andrew got to see his first Kangaroo, and it tasted delicious
. We also had lamb, sausages and prawns. All of which were good. Like a bogan I spent the day draped in my new Australian flag. I do plan on having a large collection of flags, even though I'm so anti-nationalism. I chose the beer again and went with Barefoot Radler - which is lemon and lime infused, which is something I'm not a fan of, but is a very tasty beer anyway. I hadn't tried it before.
After lunch we headed back to the beach for more swimming and also ended up playing 4 square with a soccer ball. Leon and Ollie had headed home straight after the boat trip so it was just the 5 of us left. 4 square was heaps of fun, another highlight for sure. Our skills were fairly good I guess and it was fairly competitive. Nathan was definitely the player to beat. After that we went swimming again and then Caroline left to go to work. We headed to Australia Rock and took some photos looking patriotic and then went back home. I think I slept, and then Andrew and Daniel left and shortly afterwards Nathan and I packed up and also headed back to Canberra, which is where I am now - writing this
.
So it was an awesome event, as it was last year as well and we'll definitely be having another next year, although there is some talk of having it in Rockhampton instead. If somebody were to come to Australia for one footbag event, I'd recommend this one
. Great weather, beaches, beer, footbag, food, friends. It's hard to imagine something better, and it came at such a good time in my life as well.
The answer to the trivia question is 547. We visited 1, but like the rest of the trip it was amazing.
.