Driving in Queensland

At our latest informal curry club venture, we were reminiscing about our experiences driving around Queensland. Incidentally, don't bother with the new Indian restaurant on Hastings Street, Noosa. I don't know what part of the sub continent they think they're from, but someone should tell them that a madras is different from a korma. Distinctly pants.

When I finally got round to registering my NSW plated car in Queensland, I had to register myself too, as a 'new customer', as I hadn't owned a car in QLD before. The lady behind the counter was, like most aussies, friendly and chatty. She humoured me by letting me have a quick whinge about Jim, my automotive ebay purchase. So named after Jim Morrison because, within the first 2 weeks of owning him, all the bloody doors were f***ed. "Bit of a limon is he?" she asked sympathetically. Yep. Why, only this week I've forked out another $200 on lubricants, spanners and windscreen wipers.

Which accounts for why all the speeding tickets I have accrued have been in Bertha - Dave's enormous Fordamundo. A big 4 litre beast of a car known fondly by this nickname because that's what you do when you drive her into a parking space. This 1992 Ford Fairlane also goes like stink, surprisingly. But with her missing trim and forlorn looking bonnet ornament (which Dave would like everyone to believe is really a James Bond-esque gun sight), she is a little embarrassing to be seen in, particularly in the cold light of a speed camera photo.

If you are usually a speedy driver then things you need to be aware of in Queensland are that (a) Queensland police never let you off (they have a quota to fulfill) (b) they always lie in wait at obscure junctions, the side of the Bruce highway and school traffic zones. In fact my last ticket was issued in a school zone (40 km/h during school drop off and collection times), which is ironic considering I am in fact a school teacher. And I was racing an equally battered old Holden. Holden and Ford have an age old rivalry in oz - mainly because of the V8 Supercars racing here. The Holden triumphed briefly down the main road through Nambour, only to be caught first by the lurking copper with the speed gun. I was second.

The lady behind the Queensland Transport counter started to 'create' me as a new customer. She looked puzzled at her computer screen for a while before realising my criminal history. "Ah yes, Miss Leeson, we already have you on file". Oops.

Cane Toads

At this current moment there are about 30 corpses of varying squidgy sizes littered about our acre property. They are mostly flat with a large dent down the middle. This then is the apocalyptic scene that Dave has left behind in the wake of his scourge on cane toads with a large lump of wood this evening.

It is every Australian's duty (so I'm told) to go about murdering these ridiculous creatures as they are a known pest which threatens to wipe out several native Australian species. Which begs the question: What on earth are they doing here then?

It's all to do with sugar cane. It appears that way back in the 1930s, some dork, or possibly a group of dorks, decided that in order to rid Queensland's sugar cane of the cane beetle it would be great if they could introduce a species that would eat the beetles, thereby saving all the cane. Enter the cane toad.

Now, these animals aren't exactly lively. They are sluggish, lazy and totally stupid. They can be identified by the fact that they stumble into view at exactly the wrong moment and have a permanent puzzled frown on their face. Since they are not particularly afraid of humans, they will sit there as death hurtles toward them in the form of a rake handle, golf club or lawn mower - whichever happens to be attached to the human at the time. So it comes as no surprise to learn that once this new force was unleashed against the weapons of mass beetlage, it merely took one look up the sugar cane and decided it couldn't be bothered to climb up. There were tastier treats at ground level.

Even worse, the cane toad is poisonous and sometimes the size of a dinner plate. Any other animal that would normally try to eat it tends to drop dead. So, having no known (successful) predators and needing at least a couple of attempts to club it to death, it is practically indestructable. And breeding like each day is it's last. Which, in our garden, would be correct. Since being intruduced in Northern Queensland, these toads can now be found in New South Wales and the Northern Territory. It's estimated that there are over 200 million of these marching onward toward other states at a rate of 40km per year.

Dave assures me that he will be collecting all the bodies in a bin bag tomorrow morning before I have to clap my delicate lady's eyes on such a bloodbath. That's fine. Just as long as he doesn't try to put them in the kitchen bin like last time. Eeuuww!

And anyway, what IS the collective noun for dorks?

16.3.08 Body count update: This morning Dave went hunting for corpses to put in his bin bag. Out of potentially 30 victims, only 2 were found!!! We can only surmise that something bigger (and now sicker or deader) has come along and eaten the rest of them or they were only pretending to be brown bread - which is quite likely.

First trip back to Blighty: more weather

Blimey! UK public transport's no better then. And what a waste of chocolate biscuits. My love of PLAIN chocolate McVitie's digestives is documented in my blog banner and I have searched high and low for them in Queensland. So far I have located two somewhat unreliable sources but I'm always on the lookout for more.

So this was the scene that greeted me on my first trip back to the Motherland after a year of being in oz. More specifically, this was what the tide left behind in my home town of Blackpool, along with one lorry's entire cargo of choccie biccies. Shortly after this photo was taken, the local authorities realised an exclusion zone needed to be put up to stop scavengers being squashed by falling lorries - duh!

I went back to England hoping for some better weather than we'd had here in Queensland but, alas, the weather troll had other ideas. While I was in the Lake District we were subjected to regular mini power cuts due to the conditions and the fact that United Utilities are 'responsible' for the electricity. However, it was great to be back and it was nice to have some cold for a change rather than the relentless warm or hot I've put up with for the last year. ;-P

My first priority after I'd arrived (after the shopping of course) was to go eat a stonking good ruby. Unfortunately, curry such as we know it in the UK just doesn't exist in Queensland, (although I do hear tell of a mystical place near Redcliffe....). Believe me, I've looked and, in most instances, tried with very unsatisfactory results. To put it another way, one so called Indian meal we had at Chutney Mary's in Noosaville included microwaved poppadums, partially cooked kebabs and vindaloo that tasted like gravy. Being English though, we didn't complain and slunk out vowing never to go back. But this restaurant is packed out on weekends and we can't understand it. It merely serves to prove that aussies don't like spicy food and have never experienced the phenomena of English Indian food - if you see what I mean. Otherwise they wouldn't go near the place. Bleugh! Anyway, my mission was accomplished twice in the first week. First in the Lakes with my Mum, then in Northamptonshire with some lovely friends.

Back to the weather. Needless to say, while I was away in the damp depths of an English winter, the weather in Eumundi was glorious. The house started to dry out and Dave started winning the battle against the mould. Of course, 24 hours after I left Blighty the sun reappeared there. Right now, back down under, I'm looking out of the window at a monsoon. A weather report has just flashed up on my screen to say the Low will be passing over the Sunshine Coast late tonight and everyone has to secure outdoor items and not go out. We haven't even HAD the Low yet - AAARRGGHHHH!!!

I will be back here soon, assuming I make it.....

A year in Australia

Yes - that's me snorkelling, having a whale of a time. Which is pretty appropriate given that I appear to have put on about a stone in weight since I've been in oz.

Today is the anniversary of my arrival in oz and somebody asked me to sum up my experience so far. Erm... it's a bit hard but the photo speaks volumes.

I was asked if the experience had lived up to my expectations. In truth, I didn't have any. I just hoped that going off for an adventure would open up some opportunities and make life a bit happier.

Having Diver Dave as my personal escort helped of course! No jokes about his welcome package, please. But life in Brisbane, where we started off, was fairly easy to settle into. Pleasant, tropical city with some fabulous restaurants. Apart from having a slight weeping malfunction after my first programming class, my course turned out to be fairly straight forward. Although I do have my suspicions about how my 'boat race' managed to get on the university's 'star' board for achieving top marks in one class, after having been a distinctly average student on previous university courses.

The opportunity to move to beautiful Noosa was too good to turn down and, although it meant me commuting back to Bris 3 days a week, I thought it was worth it - and it was. Life in Noosa is great; it's easier to get to know people and most people are pretty friendly and laid back. It's just a shame about the death defying roundabouts!

In lots of ways Australia is a few years behind the UK in terms of services, bureaucracy, technology and some aspects of education, for example. But that's not always such a bad thing. On the flip side of that there is courteousness and helpfulness in shops and restaurants which in the UK was probably easier to find 50 years ago.

In discussing this with other poms, the general opinion was that day to day life here isn't so much different from the UK, apart from the weather. Culturally, it's bound to be similar with all the poms settling here week after week. One area of Perth is even known as Little Britain. Australia isn't necessarily any more beautiful than the Motherland but the weather makes all the difference and it also enables more outdoor activites. So rather than being cooped up next to a fire, trying to keep warm in the UK (although I know climate change is making it warmer), everyone down under is in the sea trying to keep cool. And in Queensland, the daytime temperature rarely dips below 20 degrees in the winter. But, having said that, I would enjoy a few changes in seasons since it is always either hot or DANG hot.

What have I missed about Blighty? The important people know who they are but here's a definitive list of other stuff:
Hellman's mayonnaise, a bloody good curry, history, bisto, British telly, frosty mornings, autumn, British telly, cheap broadband, British telly and, most of all, my beloved little car.

Early last year I remember trying to describe to my bezzie mate back in the UK the notion of popping down to the beach to do a spot of snorkelling: I used to be a primary school teacher in Northampton. A good weekend might involve going out with friends or going shopping. Most of the time I was working or watching TV. Now I can go swimming with turtles and leopard sharks in the Pacific Ocean - it's 20 mins away.
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So that, as they say round here, is bonza.

Driving in Australia

Hang on to your eskies, it's going to get rocky... in yer Holden ute.

In SE Queensland at least driving is generally less manic than in the UK but can be stressful for different reasons. You can use your UK licence for driving through Australia but if you settle here you will need to apply for the relevant state licence.

Traffic on motorways is usually less congested -unless some plonker in a ute has caused a pile up - but inevitably there can be rush hour jams in the CBD like all cities. While British motorists can be at worst arrogant, vengeful (!) and aggressive, and at best polite, Queensland drivers seem to drive as though they have never encountered other drivers on the road before. Use of mirrors is limited, there is no real recognition of the needs of other road users and don't even get me started on roundabouts!!

Beautiful Noosa appears to be the first region in oz to introduce the revolutionary (geddit?) concept of roundabouts. The only thing is, knowing how to use a roundabout correctly is not part of the driving test and consequently nobody knows how to use them properly unless they've bothered to look up the road rules. Every time I tentatively enter one of these roundabouts I feel I'm risking life and limb, and have seen many hair raising moments. My advice is to expect the worst and indicate as though your life depends on it because it just might!