Song Lyrics

Am I the only person who gets completely irked by poor grammar in music?

The latest one that has put a bee in my bonnet is the song from the Australian Idol winner, Wes.

The lyric goes something like:

"You can have what I got 'cos I don't got nothin' worth havin' if I ain't got you."

Every time I hear it the whole left side of my face screws up tight and I start making 'clicking' noises from the side of my mouth.

Never Been Stripped

I will start with a warning that this is a long one, it's the story of possibly the craziest night of my life (so far).

It was 2005, I lived in Canberra in a 2 bedroom unit in Braddon. It was a Saturday night and my mate Mick had come around to my place for a quiet beer or two.

For some reason I didn't want to stay in this night, I wanted to get out there and interact with people, Mick didn't feel the same way however, and the only way I could convince him to come with me (because there was no way I was going alone) was to agree that we would only go to Kingston to play some pool at the Kingo Pub. So we called a taxi and went to the Kingo, we played our pool and we drank some beer. After a couple of games I managed to convince Mick to come with me to a club nearby (walking distance) in Manuka called 'Minque'. I wanted to go there because I thought it was a place where attractive girls hung out.

So we walked to Minque and went in, however it was too loud and too crowded, so the only reason for us to be there was to look at girls (because there was no way we were going to talk to anyone with the music so loud). I don't know if you've ever seen two single guys wearing jeans and looking at girls in a busy nightclub, not dancing, not talking, just mentally undressing every girl they see, like a pair of vultures, but it stands out. It didn't really feel right so we decided to leave. Mick had just about had enough of the night, so we decided we'd go and catch a taxi.

The problem was, the only taxi rank in the area had a HUGE line. We decided it would be better if we just walked back towards Braddon (which is NOT close) and just waved at every taxi we saw, hopefully we'd catch one... We didn't catch one.

We found ourselves at the parliamentary circle before too long and really doubting our prospects of catching a cab, when all of a sudden a car pulled up on the side of the road (about 30m away from us) and a girl stuck her head out the passenger side window and asked us if we wanted a ride. We couldn't believe our luck, so we ran over, jumped in the back seats and off we went. We didn't really get a chance to see what the people in the car looked like because it was dark and we were a little drunk. We did manage to see however that the two people in the car were both girls, awesome.

The two girls in the car were going to Civic, which was much closer to where I lived, so it worked out well. It was some time ago now, so I don't remember the entire conversation, however one thing the girl in the passenger seat said really stuck with me; we were about half way across one of the bridges to the northern side of lake Burley Griffin when she said: "Well I'm actually guys, I'm a trannie and we're going to Cube (a gay bar in Civic) you should come along". They then started to rattle off reasons why this particular bar would be great for us to go to, the main argument I can remember was 'straight girls go there too'. The driver of the car said 'I'm straight and I'm going there'.

After the initial shock of that bombshell we managed to diplomatically sit on the fence with regard to the 'gay bar' thing, and I was beginning to think it wouldn't be such a bad idea, after all, the driver of the car was a girl, she was straight (which it seemed like she really emphasised when she told us) and we'd already done the 'ice breaking'. We hadn't seen her yet though, so I silently decided that I would reserve my decision until I saw what she looked like.

We arrived in Civic and got out of the car, it was then I saw their faces, and let me say, the trannie was the better looking one. We decided that we would NOT got to the gay bar, and we left as fast as our little legs would carry us. We then walked back to my house in Braddon.

Before you say: 'hang on a second' that's not a crazy night... just bear with me.

On the way home to Braddon, somehow we started talking about strip joints and I made mention of the fact that I had never been to one in my life. The conversation continued, and eventually got to 'fuck it, let's go tonight'. So after we got back to our place I decided I'd start looking up strip joints. Being reasonably familiar with Canberra, I knew that Fyshwick was the area with the sex shops, surely it'd be the suburb most likely to have a strip joint. So we found an ad in the yellow pages for a place in Fyshwick that had strip shows and we called a cab. I was in the loo when the taxi arrived, so I finished up and hurriedly grabbed the house keys and rushed out to the cab.

When we arrived in Fyshwick we weren't so sure we were in the right place, there were no lights and it was very quiet. We went to the front door of the place (which was closed) and pressed the doorbell.

Yes, I realise that alarm bells should have been going off at this point, but remember I had never seen a strip joint before, so I didn't know better.

We were buzzed into the building and found ourselves in a room with an overweight woman behind a counter in what could only be described as the reception room for the world's worst dentistry clinic. The overweight woman led us immediately down a hallway and into a room, sat us on a couch and told us to wait while she looked to see what girls were available. Five minutes later a trashy looking woman came in wearing lingerie, she introduced herself with a fake name (something like Honey or Butter, or Candy, let's go with Honey) and started asking us about our night, so we told her all about it so far, (although she was far less shocked by the trannie story than we expected). After about a minute of small talk she left the room.

No alarm bells yet, I don't know if it was because we were too innocent, too drunk, or what.

The overweight woman came back then and said that Honey was the only girl available, so did we want her or not.

Ding-a-ling-a-ling-a-ling-a-ling..... the alarm finally sounded, better late than never, we were sitting in a BROTHEL!!!

We managed to politely extract ourselves from the venue in record time. Still keen on finding a strip joint however we weren't going to give up yet, we looked at a couple of other places however were sure to ask before we walked through the door whether it was a strip joint, no luck unfortunately, all brothels.

Eventually, we resigned ourselves to the fact that there were no strip joints in Fyshwick, and started to think about getting home. We looked left, we looked right and soon realised that we were WELL beyond help, there was absolutely NO traffic in this area, NO taxis, No cars, there wasn't even a soul on the street. We knew that there was no chance a taxi would just happen to be driving past to pick us up. We called the taxi company and found out that we would have roughly a 90min wait before a taxi arrived. We were even further from home this time than we were earlier, but we decided it would be better to walk than to wait in dodgy Fyshwick for an hour and a half.

The walk however presented us with another dilemma; we needed to travel roughly West, however the road went south, then West, then North in three quarters of a square shape, probably an extra 5km of walking. Our other choice was to walk the fourth quarter of the square, however there were no roads that way, only a great big area of paddocks, some of which were used as a turf farm. Our choices therefore were to walk an extra 5km but stick to the road, so we'd have more chances of finding a taxi, or to walk across the paddocks, beyond help, but much less walking to do.

We chose to walk across the paddocks. About 10% of the paddock walk done we bumped into a waist high wire fence and had to climb it, shortly afterwards we bumped into another similar fence, and started planning to get over it when we were startled by movement on the other side. It took us a while to realise, but we were standing at the edge of a horse paddock, and a horse had come up to see what was going on. After trying to feed it (apparently after midnight is not a horse meal time) we climbed the fence. We tried to think of a way we could ride the horse across the paddock, but without a saddle it was just too difficult drunk. It followed us half way across.

After we jumped another fence we found ourselves walking through the turf farm part. There was no grass in the turf farm, only VERY loose dirt, which made walking difficult. We struggled through the turf farm for about 600m, all the way feeling sorry for the poor turf farmer who would wake up in the morning to find two sets of foot prints leading all the way across his field. Eventually we made it back to the road and continued on our way home. A little bit further on we were in the vicinity of RMC Duntroon (where I had spent a year previously) and the whole trip didn't seem so bad, people walk from the town to Duntroon all the time, admittedly they are usually drunk (as we were) and it is considered a long walk, and we'd already done quite a lot of walking, and it was getting late, but now at least it seemed manageable.

As it turned out, it didn't matter anyway, because another car pulled up at the side of the road and a guy poked his head out of the driver's side window and offered us a ride. We climbed into the back seats and he asked us where we were going, we told him Braddon and off he went. He asked us about our night and we explained we had been in Fyshwick, this got his attention, and he immediately started telling us that he had just come from the brothels in Fyshwick, and that he was a regular visitor to the area. We explained that we were just looking for a strip joint and he told us that we were barking up the wrong tree, if we wanted a strip joint we needed to go to Mitchell, the other side of Canberra.

The guy then tried to convince us to go with him to Mitchell to the strip joints, he said he'd drive us there, we could go in and have a look, and if we didn't like it he would drive us home. Neither Mick nor I felt like waking up in a bath full of ice with our kidneys missing, so we made up some excuse about having a huge night and just wanting to get home to bed. We got the guy to drop us off near, but not at, my apartment, there was no way I was going to let that guy see where I lived.

We walked the last few hundred meters to my door, only to find that the keys I had grabbed in my rush to get to the strip joint, were actually Mick's car keys, I'd locked the keys to the house inside. I started making plans about breaking a window and calling a repairer for the next day, or calling an all-night locksmith. I didn't know any numbers though, so I started to recite a jingle I heard on the radio, 'night and day locksmiths, night and day locksmiths, night and day have the key to end your misery' BUGGER, there was no number in the jingle.

Mick said he thought he had a spare set of keys to my house in his office at uni, and we did have Mick's car keys (by accident), so we jumped in the car and Mick drove us to uni. When we got there however we realised that his office was locked and the keys to open it were locked inside my house. I considered sleeping on the floor in Mick's uni room, but the keys to his room were also locked inside my house (he kept his car and house keys separate). I decided we should return to my place to try one last time to break in, and if I couldn't get in, I'd just break a window. We got back to the house and by some stroke of luck found a window that wasn't properly closed. I opened the window, climbed into the house and opened a door to let Mick in. I offered Mick my spare room, given that he really shouldn't be driving, but he figured he'd already done the damage and he would rather return to his own bed. So he went home.
All-in-all the night was really a quite a failure, we didn't get to see strippers, we got terrified by a trannie, moved around by a madam, propositioned by a prostitute and befriended by a potential serial killer. Even though we were at times uncomfortable, terrified, tired or all three at once, it was a very funny night, and one we will never forget.

Another of life's lessons

Sometimes we learn valuable life lessons we weren't expecting. For example, in early 2002 I learnt that sitting on the gutter on the side of the road in central Canberra after vomiting on the footpath a small distance away, almost passing out with your head on your knees and waving a $50 note over your head is NOT an effective way to hail a taxi.

That same night, I learnt telling a taxi driver you're not going to vomit in his cab because you've already vomited so much that there's nothing left in your stomach, doesn't really do much to ease his tension.

Okay, so let's rewind just a little bit.

It was a Saturday night in Canberra, I was in my second year of university studies and I needed to blow off some steam. Myself and some friends with whom I had lived in my first year at uni, had a tradition of going down to Kings Park, on the banks of Lake Burley Griffin, with as much cheap champagne (goon) as we could carry. We would then proceed to drink excessively, yell loudly, run wonkily, climb trees and crawl and roll through grass in a location where we weren't disturbing anyone; it was a great way to blow off steam.

This one night was the worst of them all, there was so much goon everywhere and everyone being particularly loud and boisterous. It was probably the biggest gathering we had ever mustered for a goon session (around 30-40 people). It got so out of control that one of my mates stripped down to his jocks and climbed into the lake, (I can't remember if it was for a dare, or because he thought it would be funny, or if he was just curious to see whether his legs would shrivel and die). Anyone familiar with Canberra will know that most people would rather swallow razor blades than swim in the lake.

After a few good hours of drinking excessively, we unanimously decided we were in such a good mood, that it was time to head to Civic and try our luck at Mooseheads (this was before it burnt down that same year). Unfortunately we didn't really stick together, everyone in their drunken state was convinced that THEY knew the best way to get from the park to the clubs and refused to follow anyone else's directions. I walked with two other guys, and for the life of me I can't remember where we went: I do remember passing some children's playground with little underground tunnels thinking it was the best thing EVER and spending about 20 minutes crawling around in it. I do remember passing an Army Reserve unit with an artillery gun out the front, and climbing all over it only to realise it had wet paint. I do remember running away from the unit's duty officer who had come out to see what all the commotion was and I do remember that at some point I lost my phone.

As for the rest of the night, I just have snapshots.

I can vaguely remember walking in to Mooseheads, (got knows how I got in). I can remember that I couldn't see any of my mates. I can remember that I wasn't there for long before I walked out again because I was feeling sick. I can remember that I made it around the corner and to a park bench before I started vomiting on the ground.

I have no idea how long I was sitting on that park bench, but I do remember that eventually I made the decision that I needed to get home, and that I wasn't going to do it sitting on a park bench. I stood up and moved to the corner of the road and sat on the gutter, I think my drunken mind thought that if I sat on a corner, I'd intercept traffic from two different directions. I tried to wave down taxis, but all I saw were headlights, I couldn't tell if they were taxis or cars. I decided that I wasn't going to get far by just waving at people, and it was hurting to hold my head up, so I took $50 from my wallet, held it in the air (with my elbow resting on one of my knees) and put my head down. I hoped like hell a taxi would just stop, I didn't care if the driver over-charged me and took the whole $50.

I waited there, like that, for a long time, before some guy walking past noticed me and came over to help. He asked me if I was okay and I think I managed to say something. Then, by some stroke of luck he managed to stop a taxi and put me in it.

The motion of the taxi made me feel worse, and I was going through the motions to throw up some more, but my stomach was empty, so I was just dry retching. The taxi driver, (rightly concerned) asked me if I was going to vomit in his car, I managed to say something like 'no mate, I've got nothing left.'

In hindsight I think I was lucky to make it home, I was so ill that I was unable to help myself. I didn't drink goon again for a long time and not long after that I started to get better at gauging my limits, I started to be able to feel when I'd had enough, (accurately enough that I would often stop drinking a beer half-way through because I knew that one more sip would make me sick). Never since have I been in such a helpless situation, and never again will I.

how not to get to Canungra...

It all started with the debate as to whether I should take the coastal or the inland road; the two basic options for travel to the Gold Coast from Sydney. My destination was Kokoda Barracks, a military base just outside of Canungra, which is approximately 40km inland from the Gold Coast. Each route had its own pros and cons: The inland road was less developed and windier, however it was largely empty and bereft of roadwork. The coastal road was wider and better road, however littered with traffic and grey nomads (retirees with caravans travelling 30km below the speed limit). After receiving a great deal of advice from various sources I opted for the inland road. I had my trusty GPS with me so I was confident I would be able to find my destination, in case that fell through I also had a print-out from Google Maps with directions.

I quite enjoyed the drive early on, I drive a Mazda RX-8 sports car, its 50:50 balance made it perfect for the winding roads and I was having a ball of a time. There was also some great scenery to take in through the Hunter Valley. This good run continued right through to Tenterfield and the NSW/QLD Border. It appeared that as soon as I crossed into the Northern Land however, things started to go wrong. When coming through Tenterfield I had about half a tank of fuel, I probably didn’t need to fill up, but something told me to, ‘just to be on the safe side’, it turned out to be probably the best decision I made that night because for the rest of the trip I didn’t pass a single service station and I certainly wouldn’t have made it all the way to Canungra on half a tank.

We will pick up the story as I depart Tenterfield.

Coming out of Tenterfield it is just coming up to Twilight, which is a dangerous time on these roads because it’s the time the kangaroos move from their day-time hangouts to their night haunts. As I drive out of Tenterfield a few cars waiting in a road-side car-park pull onto the road behind me, as if waiting. It occurs to me later that they were likely waiting for a ‘blocker’, a term I make up on the spot, meaning the car in front of a convoy that would be the first one to startle the kangaroos and hit any that decided to cross the road, I am the chosen chump.

Only five minutes into the trip I see my first and what later turned out to be my only kangaroo, I see it early enough that it isn’t a problem however. About 10 minutes into the trip the blocker theory goes out the door when one of the cars behind me decides to overtake. Well… why let a perfectly good theory go to waste? I decide that this fool and his BMW are going to be MY blockers, no hitting roos for me tonight. This does mean I have to drive at an average of 5km/h faster than I am comfortable with, but when I imagine the kind of damage a roo would do to the front of my beautiful car it seems like an easy decision.

As I begin to ascend into the Great Dividing Range I notice the ominous clouds up ahead, there is the occasional flash of lightning in the distance. Further up the mountains the road becomes wet and though it isn’t raining the car I’m using as a blocker is kicking up enough water mist that I have to use my wipers fairly regularly. I see the occasional tiny frog hop along the road, I take care to give him a wide berth so as not to hurt him. Occasionally a wisp of mist is seen lifting from the road.

Ahead I go, further into the hills and closer to the storm, it is now fully dark and I can see nothing other than what my headlights reveal (on low beam due to the blocker ahead). Eventually I stop climbing hills and descended into what must be some kind of high altitude valley; I come to this conclusion not because of any land features, but because the mist which is rising from the road clearly has nowhere to go, so it gathers in one thick cloud through which I am forced to drive.

As I drive through the mist, I realise I am now surrounded by the lightning, which is now flashing roughly every three seconds, I see fingers of lightning stretching right across the sky, and for a brief moment the mist around me appears to glow blue. The tiny frogs still hop over the road, but I am too caught up in the spectacle to pay them too much notice. Then, the strangest thing for the night; there is snow beside the road… snow… in mid September… in Queensland. I’m not talking about ‘it’s a bit cold and the grass is white’ snow, I’m talking about piles of snow lining the sides of the road. If it wasn’t so misty I would stop to make certain it was actually snow and not just huge piles of salt dropped by some unwitting truckie, as it is however, a stop on the side of the road would be a guaranteed rear-ender. It is obvious that there were some strong winds before my arrival in this part of the world, because leaves and twigs cover the road, so much so that in some places you can’t see the lines painted on it.

It occurs to me that it feels as though I am descending into some unknown level of hell, with the blue lightning, the creepy snow, the plague of tiny frogs and the mist. I half expect to clear the mist and see seven headed dragons filling the skies.

I do manage to clear the mist and alas no dragons, although in hindsight I’m not so sure I wasn’t in hell. About another ten minutes drive and I come to the turn my GPS is telling me to make, into ‘Woodenbong road’ (only bloody rednecks could invent such an absurd name). I abandon my blocker and turn down the road, however not 100m along it and I see a sign ‘ROAD CLOSED’. ‘Bugger’ I think to myself, ‘oh well, doesn’t matter, I still have plenty of time to get to Canungra’. I start navigating the menus and options on my GPS, telling it to ‘avoid the roadblock 100m to my front’. It starts calculating its alternatives and tells me I have to continue along the hell road for about another 4km and take an alternative crossing route.

‘Great,’ I think as I set out along the new alternative route. The turn off is sign-posted and the new road is bitumen, however that’s about the most anyone could say for it, the road is narrow (barely wide enough for one vehicle), the edges are grown over with grass and there are pot-holes everywhere, something my low riding car with stiff suspension does not like one bit. Oh well, my GPS is telling me I only have to go along this road for 10km and then I’ll be back on the right track. Unfortunately however, only about 3km down the road the bitumen comes to an end and I am now driving on dirt.

‘I came this far so I may as well keep going’.

I cross cattle grids and drive-ways to farm properties. The road is very dodgy, with gravel and deep wheel ruts I’m afraid will cause my car to bottom out and become snagged. I fight on, determined to make it through.

Another couple of hundred metres down the track and I have to slow down, as cattle have chosen this section of road for their night sleeping spot. They stare at me with dull, un-amused eyes, as if their entire existence is so dreary that they’ve completely forgotten how to be startled when they’re about to get hit by a big scary metal monster with glowing eyes who is shouting (well, honking) at them at the top of its voice.

About another two kilometres down this track I see a flat-tray twin-cab one-tonner with its hazard lights flashing and two guys in orange jumpers clearing dead-fall off the road. One of them notices me, gives me a look that appears to be a mixture of confusion and annoyance and comes back to talk to me… this isn’t looking good. As I wind down my window I see who can only be described as the poster-boy for red-neck weekly, a fifty something year old man with missing teeth, tanned skin and wrinkles deep enough to smuggle small marsupials interstate.

I’m not from the city originally, I’m from rural areas, however I don’t consider myself a retard when it comes to the ways of the country; despite this I certainly feel like one when I tell the red-neck that my GPS has brought me this way and I have been following it blindly. I tell him I’m going to Canungra and he informs me that this road is also out. The redneck tells me I have to go back and rattles off a list of four small town names, I forget the first one. I reach for my GPS to add the town names as waypoints, but when I look up to ask him what they were again I realise he is still talking and I am missing more vital information, something tells me this marsupial-smuggling red-neck doesn’t like to repeat himself. Even though I miss the names of the towns, I do manage to deduce that I need to go back about 40km to the other side of a bridge I had crossed earlier to find the alternate route.

I turn the car around and head back along the dirt road, I dodge the cattle yet again and eventually get back to the bitumen area, then the hell road joining it. I turn back the way I came and pass the original Woodenbong turn off that was – and still is – closed. The frogs are still hopping all over the road, but I make no effort to avoid them, if they get hit it’s their own stupid faults. I drive back through the misty hell gates and find myself back on the other side of the bridge, once there I stop and take a moment to plan my next route.

Although a person working on logic would have given up on their GPS at this point, I still have blind faith in it, so I tell it to avoid the route I have just driven back along, and it tells me I have to go backward another 5km and take yet another road that appears to travel roughly parallel to Woodenbong… great… it’ll probably take me to the same road I was supposed to go to in the first place. I travel back the 5km and take the turn off, which is a worn road, but still bitumen and two lanes. Things get much worse however in about 3km, when I go to take another turn and discover the road I’m turning into is yet again a dirt track.

I stop at the edge of the dirt track for some time, my GPS tells me it extends for 26km, I have two options.
1) Travel the dirt road and hope it is not blocked (which, given the previous track record is not promising), I would be travelling well off the grid, miles outside of any kind of phone reception. There’s the potential to crash or get bogged and if that occurs I would be beyond help, what’s more, if I travel 24 of the 26km and discover the road to be blocked, it would be a very demoralising trip back to where I have come from.
2) Continue along this bitumen road and try to find another option north. I check the GPS map and it appears as though the only option is a LONG way away however, and if I take it I will definitely be late to arrive at Canungra.

I decide to take the dirt road.

About 2km in the road turns to bitumen and I almost scream for joy, thankfully I don’t however because the bitumen only runs for about 100m before the road turns to gravel again.

About 5km down the road I have to stop for another herd of cattle who’ve decided that sleeping on the road is a good idea, I beep my horn to get them to move… they take their time.

6km into my trip and a small marsupial hops out onto the edge of the road. It’s too small to be a kangaroo, or even a wallaby, but it’s certainly from that family, I think it likely he has just escaped from the redneck’s face wrinkles. He stares back at me, his eyes glowing bright green from the reflected light of my headlights. It occurs to me that if I have indeed crossed into hell, this little guy is probably the devil’s pet imp, which would make the redneck the devil; perhaps I was luckier to get out of there alive than I first thought. The marsupial gives me a confused look and I’m convinced he has never seen a car before in his life, and the presence of one in his homeland has confused him somewhat.

About 7km down the road I come up to a low point crossing a re-entrant, there is water running over the road and it seems to have eroded a bit of the dirt track away, I drive through and hope like hell I don’t bottom out, luckily I don’t.

The frogs are all over this road too, they are taunting me. I make a conscious effort to hit one but miss, damned frog.

9km and my CD player is skipping from all the bumping, I turn it off. I’m driving faster than I should to try to get through this as quickly as possible; however a couple of times I nearly slide out as a sharp corner appears on the other side of the crest of a hill. I decide to use my GPS map to gauge all upcoming corners for their severity.

At 11km it occurs to me that the guy who inspired Wolf Creek probably lives out in this neck of the woods, I make a conscious decision not to stop FOR ANYTHING. For some reason my GPS recognises the area I’m passing through as Duck Creek; really original name, even though I’m on the edge of a hill and there’s not a creek in sight.

At 15km I come up to another piece of road crossing a re-entrant with water running over it, this time the water looks deep, and I consider getting out, stripping down to my jocks and wading in to make sure my car will make it, however I remember the decision I made at 11km and just risk it. I got lucky again.

At 18km my car’s Dynamic Stability Control warning light starts flashing at me as if to say ‘Mate, I can’t help you here, you’re fucked’.

At 20km the Dynamic Stability Control light is almost permanently on, I’m doing sideways sliding turns around corners at 20kph.

22km, I see two tiny frogs both on different sides of the road, I slow right down to try to hit one and then turn sharply across to the other side of the road to try to hit the other, I miss them both… how they taunt me.

23km, only 3 to go… 2… 1, if there’s going to be a block in the road it’s going to be here. Then… magically… a street sign, naming the bitumen road I have arrived at and the redneck towns in each direction. My GPS directs me left and left I go.

The road is still winding, and pot-holed, but its two lane and its bitumen so I’m happy. I pass through some redneck villages, one of which is called Woodenbong, which explains why the earlier road I encountered had that odd name, now someone just needs to explain the name of the town.

Further on I find a town with streetlights. My relief at finding civilisation fades quickly however when I see a sign saying that to get to ‘Upper Duck Creek’ I need to follow ‘Duck Creek Road’ up ‘Duck Hill’. These rednecks must have like ten words in their vocabulary; wood(en), bong, duck, creek, road and hill makes six, cool, I’m 60% of the way towards learning a new language.

Gradually the roads start to change their name from Track, to Street, to Road, to Highway and I stop worrying and start shifting my thoughts to the damage to my car, I battle to put those thoughts out of my mind until I reach my destination.

I travel some more winding roads up hills, I spend another short stint on a gravel road until EVENTUALLY I arrive in Canungra with 15min to spare. My GPS has taken me to Canungra town however. I had originally suspected I could just follow the signs to the military base, however there are no signs to be seen.

I drive around town a bit but don’t find the base. I stop and try to call someone who knows the area but I still don’t have phone reception, I go back to the town centre to get reception, but alas still none. I go to the town information board and look at a map, nothing there. I try to find an open service station but there isn’t one. I look at the map of the Canungra base to try to correlate it to the map on my GPS, but the road names are difficult to read and the way the GPS is programmed makes the whole thing difficult. Eventually I go back to the ‘drive around aimlessly’ plan and somehow by miracle I find a sign.

I arrive at the military base with two minutes to spare. I get changed out of the back of my car into something respectable for the mess and go to collect my keys from the bar not one minute before it closed.

I get to bed by 2330h after spending the rest of the evening preparing for the first day of the course.

Worst Ever Time to Lock Keys In Car

There I am, in Enmore, speaking to three fencing contractors who had unwittingly dug a mortar out of someones garden while trying to fix a fence, and three policemen who were the first on the scene. As the Army's representative in the field of Explosive Ordnance Disposal on this particular occasion, I was seen as the subject matter expert.

I shook everyones hand, I was lead to the mortar, I identified it, I assessed that it was safe to move and I took some photos of it. I returned to my vehicle to collect a cloth from the boot that I could drape over the mortar so the neighbours wouldn't see an army guy carrying a bomb around the street. I retrieved the cloth and closed the boot, and the very instant the boot closed I realised I had put the keys down inside it, and they were now locked in. The car itself was already locked, so I couldn't just push the 'boot release' button.

The three policemen and I fiddled around with coat-hangers and aerials, trying to pull door handles or press the 'open the boot' button for two hours before the NRMA guy came and opened the door in 20 seconds flat, it looked frustratingly easy with the right tools.

The lady who owned the house I had been called out to just happened to have a digital camera (oh yay)o= So keep an eye on YouTube, one day soon you might just see a video of three police-men and an Army guy trying to break into a car with blue and red lights on the top.