After a couple of refreshing beers, some looked-better-than-they tasted noodles and chicken, and a tour around the shops to secure that replacement for my lost cap, the time continued to drag. Last time I was at Changi Airport I was a smoker, and kept popping outside for a swift puff, knowing it would be my last for a good 14 hours or so. After the incident in Amsterdam when I coughed up blood, those smoking days had passed. Now I went out into the open air to wonder if my memory recall of it being the same as walking into a sauna fully clothed was the correct one.

It was. In among the outdoor shrubbery, steaming from the recent rain, it was that same old feeling as the pores opened up and the sweat dripped out. Must be fun to have to put up with that, but then again, maybe I’d lose a few pounds if I stayed there. One day, I might just find out.

Then it was time to go, to pick up the flight to Adelaide. As I recalled when we went to Brisbane four years before, the gate is well out to the side of the airport terminal, so involved a decent hike to get to. As we waited in line to have our bags scanned and tickets and passports checked, our first brief encounter with a cricket celebrity ensued.

Four years ago, on our flight out to Brisbane it was John Edrich and Paul Allott. On the flight out to South Africa in 2004/5 it had been Jack Simmons. This time, the unmistakeable loping figure of Angus Fraser breezed through the business class line and waited his turn. At the time he was the cricket correspondent for the Independent, and they’d obviously not needed him at the Gabba. Being the respectful kind, we did not bother the surly looking so and so, and made our way to the seats in the lounge by the gate.

One thing was evident. This was not as packed as our flight to Brisbane four years before, as had been indicated at Heathrow. In fact, when our seat row was called, we looked faintly ridiculous as Danno, Sir Peter and I crammed into our row and everyone else spread out. Like the overgrown schoolboy, I nabbed the window seat and awaited the flight departure.

It always happens to me on a flight. I’m a lump, that I know, so the sheer fact of flying is never going to be comfortable for me (and when Ryanair think about charging me more for my suffering, they can do one), but what I really do need is an ignorant tosser in front who is just going to sling his seat back at the first opportunity. Yes, I know it is an overnight flight, and yes, I know the bloke had every right to do so, but I don’t do it until the person behind has, because if the chap behind me hasn’t done it, then he’s knackered. It might be being English, but that’s me.

Add to that, you know a meal is going to be served an hour in, so can’t you wait? This chap had a vegetarian meal (wrong ‘un) and as soon as he finished, and before I had, wallop! The seat had gone back.

Seven hours of this joy. Thankfully we spread out a bit too, but not before I continued tutting about rudeness. I know some others who would have got up and lamped the bloke, but not me. I’m a moaner, not a fighter!

The flight took a while, as all overnighters seem to do, and I didn’t really get much sleep. I remember watching the end of Crash (I’d seen the first hour on the flight home from Barbados, but another inconsiderate passenger made watching the end impossible) – note this is the Oscar winner, not the Cronenburg version – and I thought it was a very good film. There’s your film review.

As dawn broke over the Australian outback, we knew our time was coming closer. The aircraft descended and we got a full look as we flew over the north of the city of Adelaide, where I got to see the Adelaide Oval and recognise some of the features from four years previous. It was a pretty odd feeling, I have to say, as the first thing we were going to do when we got to Adelaide, was to leave it.

Of course, before we landed, we had to fill out the superbly worded Quarantine Card. This caused me great stress first time around, as I kept asking the Aussie sitting next to me if I should cross the first box as I had a preventer called Becotide for my asthma, which is a steroid.

Here’s the question…

Are you bringing into Australia…

1              Goods that may be prohibited or subject to restrictions, such as medicines, steroids, firearms, weapons of any kind or illicit drugs?

It is a belter. I had medicines on me – so much so that last time I visited the quarantine officer wondered if I was dying. I stressed and fussed so much that I worked myself up into a right old state. This time I did as last – I crossed the box and underlined the word steroid. I wasn’t nearly as fussed this time around.

The plane landed at Adelaide International, which certainly had had a facelift from the last time I saw it. We disembarked, and made our way towards the passport control. While in the queue and officious looking border control lackey was questioning those who looked suspicious as to what they were doing in Australia. We must have looked honest. He questioned the bloke sitting in front of me, and it was like a meeting of like minded pig-headedness. I hope they stuck him back on the next flight.

Once I got to the passport desk, the officer asked why I’d ticked the box. I replied “I have a steroid for my asthma, and have a copy of the prescription here” and the card was scrawled with a big X and I was told to show this to the quarantine officer before we had the old “welcome to Australia”. All that after the same old nonsense about return tickets, where were we staying, when were we going home, and why we were here. Do you think I could emigrate without you knowing with your poxy baggage restrictions?

Once the suitcase had come through, suitably bashed up, and my travelling partners had their’s, I headed to the quarantine officer fully expecting another bag search. She was a surly looking woman, and when I handed the card with a big X, she asked “what do you have?”. I presented my prescription with Becotide on it, she took one look, and said “pass straight through”. No bag search, nothing. Hip Hip Hooray. I was already one up on 2002.

Once through the final customs clearance and into the main arrivals hall, we needed to find our car hire firm. Sir Peter had booked it online in advance, and it was now a matter of finding the office, securing the car, and we’d be away.

The rental pick up would be, funnily enough, in the car park. We picked up our estate car (can’t recall the make or manufacturer, but it was a sizeable beast, and it was silver) from a surly Aussie rental dealer, and decided just to have the one driver. The difference in price which was paid up front for some minimal insurance policy was paid for by one of our number, and I’m not saying who for reasons you’ll find out later, and we were set to go. As the suspicious cynical person you probably know me to be, we checked the car for bumps, scrapes and dents so that they could not charge us for something already on the car. Once all was cleared, and once the directions were given for us to get out of town, we were on the road.

A quick text home to tell Dmitri Jr we’d landed, a quick text to Adelaide Exile to let him know we’d arrived in the land of his domicile, and then Dmitri Old settled into the passenger seat for the job of his calling – map reading. You’d never have guessed that, would you?

We headed out of the airport, got onto Cross Road, followed that all the way down until it got to the A1, and the main Adelaide to Melbourne motorway. While giving the directions from the map we had had daubed, I also set about finding the cricket commentary on the radio. The hope that had been cast by the media of stormy weather (and I found this out from watching the live coverage my brother had taped, where Aspergers Botham was positively salivating over the possibility of a thunderstorm) had not, funnily enough, materialised, and England were starting on 293 for 5 with an outside hope of a draw, and to do so, KP needed to get a real biggie. As we drove along the main road towards the motorway, the Aussie version of Test Match Special reported the fateful news from the fourth ball of the day. KP had lazily flicked a ball from Brett Lee straight to Damien Martyn at short midwicket and England were six down and with their only hope of salvation gone. Welcome to Australia. The Jinx had arrived.

As we headed out of Adelaide, onto the increasingly sparsely populated A1, and passing such lovely place names as Mount Lofty, Mount Barker, St Ives and Hahndorf, the driving became easier and more boring. The test match wasn’t exactly giving us cause to get too excited, as seven overs after the KP dismissal, Geraint Jones played on to Glenn McGrath and a few overs later Ashley Giles edged to Warne off Clark departing like a “simpering lover who can’t accept he’d been dumped” according to cricinfo.

The road was becoming more bare, and the towns fewer and further between. The first major settlement (and name on the road signs) was Murray Bridge, and for some reason, and I recall not why, we turned off the Princes Highway and drove through and around it, seeing nothing. I got a picture of the River Murray. It will be appended. It is brilliant. Unutterably dull nonsense.

See....I told you it was dull....

We got back onto the A1 and took it to the place called Tailem Bend, where we got off the main road, and decided to head down the B1. The thinking behind this was if we got unexpectedly tired – well, if Sir Peter did, as he was driving – we’d find one of the towns en route, book a B&B or hotel and crash the rest of the day. This road took us along the coast passing towns such as Kingston SE, Robe and Millicent before we got to Mount Gambier, which would be our expected stopping point.

As we pulled off the main highway, the cricket wasn’t going according to plan, and when we stopped off at a roadside shop to top up the petrol and get some provisions for the journey, England lost Hoggard, and soon after we departed the garage, Harmison provided the final wicket and a mighty win for the Australians. England didn’t even make it to lunch. I did. I was munching on a large bag of crisps. No bloody change there then…

Meanwhile the drive was becoming a bit more interesting. The roads were empty, long and straight. The scenery becoming more dry as mighty salt pans stretched as far as the eye could see. The sheer brilliance of the light dazzling off the ghostly white salt pierced even the toughest of sunglasses. The heat, the sheer dryness of the landscape was awe inspiring. The photos I have do not do it justice. Once past Meningie, where we stopped, the road hugs the coast, but I don’t really recall seeing the sea.

On the road - lots of salt....

More Salt

Then, 150 miles or so from Murray River, we entered the town of Kingston SE. The SE stands for South East to differentiate it from another town in South Australia with the same name. Simple, but effective. It was named after George Strickland Kingston, and definitely not after the suburb in South West London. Then they might have called it Kingston SW, and that would have confused even more people. The other Kingston has differentiated itself from this Kingston by calling itself Kingston-on-Murray, the stuck up, pretentious, hyphenated nouveau riche that they are. 297 kilometres from Adelaide (around 185 miles) it would have been a mere dot on the map, but for “Larry”.

Larry The Big Lobster!

What the hell was this creature? Why make a statue / sculpture / eye sore (delete as applicable) like this to besmirch your town? According to Wikipedia, it is a “tourist attraction” (given it is 297 km from the nearest major city, I wouldn’t really go out of my way to see it) and stands 17 metres tall, made of steel and fibre glass. It is regarded as one of the best of Australia’s Big Things.

More Larry!

I’ll pause now to comment on one of the reasons I quite like Aussies, and I don’t mean it as patronisingly as it may sound. If, say, Southend had commissioned this eye sore and placed it on the seafront, you can bet your life the local council would have hired expensive consultants to come up with a suitable title for it, and a series of other such monuments, which “merged together the concept of the town’s dependence on tourism and fishing, and which matches symbiotically human and animal in the vivacity of life”. It would have been called The Essex Crustacean or something as part of the UK’s Living Concept Statues or some other piffle.

In Australia, they call them “Big Things”. I don’t care if they paid millions to the firm involved to dream up the title. Big Things. So easy, a five year old could have dreamed it up. “What’s that over there, little Bruce?” “Why, mum, it’s a fair dinkum Big Thing…”

Do you want to know more about the Big Things? I suggest looking them up on the internet. Here is the link. It started with a Big Banana…..

We stopped to take the usual tourist photos, but the town detained us no further as Sir Peter wanted to make headway for Mount Gambier. 158 kilometres further down the Prince’s Highway, we entered the outskirts of Mount Gambier, the largest town in Southern South Australia, and set about looking for somewhere to eat, fill up the car, and sleep.

The town itself had its usual fast food outlets, and Sir Peter doesn’t do McDonalds, because they are evil. I think we ate in the equally nutritiously deficient KFC, on Penola Road, walked up and down East Commercial Street, didn’t really like what we saw (and to all Mount Gambier residents who one day might stumble on this, I mean no offence) and decided to head on further east and find a seaside town nearer the Great Ocean Road – the whole reason we were doing this mad drive while jet-lagged.

We headed east along the Prince’s Highway and crossed into Victoria. The road continued as we headed towards Portland. By this time I was in the back of the car and had given up the ghost. My eyes were too tired to cope and I fell asleep. I do remember the outskirts of Portland, and then my eyes went. When I came round, there had been some car doors open and closed, a few discussions, and then Sir Peter awoke me.

“Where are we?”

“Port Fairy. I’ve just had a word with the owner, and she has a triple room for the night” (I can’t recall the price).

“How does it look?”

“It looks OK to me, shall we book it?”

“Absolutely, you’ve driven far enough today as it is. If its clean we’ll take it.”

I can’t recall the name of the place we stayed in; it might have been the Comfort Inn, but I just don’t know. Whatever, it was a triple room, it was comfortable and we could crash for the night there. It was around 6 pm and we needed to get some dinner down us to prolong the need for sleep, and to get us on to some sort of normal time setting. I’d had an hour doze, so I was up on the other two!

In the next instalment – some snaps of Port Fairy, a chance encounter, and the Ocean Road. I know this is a cricket blog, but it is mine, so there…….

Before I go, a couple of Port Fairy Pics…

If the owners, or any Port Fairy people know this hotel, let me know…

Is This The Comfort Inn?

Danno and Sir Peter On The Bridge...