But who in these circumstances could not at least be touched from time to time by the ridiculous joy of existing?

I would really like to put the last few months of Brisbane into some sort of blog but I fear it is going to descend into comments like 'Don't be shy, show us your pie', ginger nips, the fork shortage, the naked carwash, Jesus...in Dirty Dancing?! and 'Who the *&!@ is Dennis?', oh, and I would have to tell you about the dude who ate a packet of noodles and SIXTEEN fish fingers for his dinner one night!!!! and there would news about some of the worst television we have ever seen including 'Who wants to be a Superhero?' (after watching that show, not me) and a race against forty midgets and elephant to see who could pull and airplane a certain distance the quickest?! (The elephant won by the way) and after all that no-one would want to read this blog again...so to save you from the boredom and us from all the explanation I shall move on quickly...

So Miss Nicole was the first to leave, to soften the blow Em and Saul moved back into the hostel and a couple more months past and James left and the next day it was our turn! Our last night 'party' consisted of Amy going to work, and me dressing up like a pink flamingo to go and see...that's right...P!nk! Thumbs up to all involved, Vicky for forgetting her I.D, Em and Vic for the ridiculous outifts, Vic for getting caught with her glo in the dark bangles and having them confiscated and Em for smuggling hers in...arriving back at the hostel we found all the guys completely drunk, what followed was a world cup pool tournament, goon shots, many-an-important conversation, P!nk reenactments...and finally the decision to go to bed! For some reason I decided to set the alarm for 9:56am when checkout was at 10am! Surely, four minutes is plenty of time to get up, pack everything we own and get out of the room, no Ayms? Turns out Saul knocked on the door at 9:54am and that was plenty of time...sleeping in the clothes from the night before really helped speed things up :)

So more sad g'byes in Brisbane...like leaving home once again, it never gets any easier but mine and Amy's large amount of luggage caused much amusement and saved us all the tears :) I have to say Amy even closing her bag was against all laws of nature let alone shutting it and managing to attach the little rucksack on the front as well. Luckily Saul and Trev were there to chauffeur the bags to the bus so it wasn't really until we got to the airport that the "oh no, are they going to be over the limit? are they going to charge us a million dollars because of it?"


This experience was topped off when I bent down to get something out of my hand luggage (also overweight I'd say), lost the balance with the rucksack still on my back and fell over...d'oh! Between tears, Amy managed to get a picture :) The final weigh-in turned out ok - we are now up to 20.6kg (compared to 18kg in Asia!) It's all necessary stuff we swear...need it all for New Zealand :) We make it to our gate and luckily get distracted from our sadsack states by this kid who enjoyed commentating on the world around him..."plane"..."plane"..."plane"..."plane", the funny bit was when the trucks went past..."truck"..."truck"..."truck"..."truck", unfortunately he hadn't quite gotten a handle on the TR part of the word and it came out a little differently if you get what I mean - I think his Dad was pleased when the planes went by again!


With our money-saving heads on we thought that since we were arriving at the airport at 1am then we would sleep there the night and go to the hostel in the morning - the actual sleeping part wasn't all that bad...like a bizarre movie when you open your eyes every hour or so and the scene has completely changed from the last time; men in suits, men snoring, families bedding down for the night...now here's where the plan failed, the shuttle bus only shows up when the big flights come in which would have meant staying at the airport for another four hours...no thanks! So we ended up spending the money we would have saved on the accomodation on a taxi - brilliant!


Finally we make it Darwin City and our beds :) Then Amy gets ill...Gem turns into a big ball of sweat and it's like we never left Asia! We have already been to the Deckchair cinema (it does what it says on the tin!) and got eaten by mossies (doesn't say that on the tin!) and we managed to get there early enough to sit through the Top End Tourism Committee meeting...seriously if this is an accurate insight into the folk of Darwin then it's a good job we are only staying for five days...the most interesting guy was the man who is involved with a film to do with Darwin and Nicole Kidman...but then again he had no personality so I'm not sure anyone was actually listening to his drone.


We found the 'place to be' on our first night - called The Vic and ended up taking part in the quiz. There was just the two of us on our team (FC Hammer)...we wont count the guy standing at the bar behind us who gave us all the answers :) Unfortunately it was one of those quizzes that involved participation and at one point or another me and Amy both ended up on the stage "playing games"...not really our style but the dancing afterwards was much fun until they played the birdie song..................then we had to leave!