The Lost Blog

I had already prepared a blog for today but Claire wouldn’t let me publish it so it remains in draft form to be released at a future date or maybe not at all. I start with a nice map that Geoff sent me so we could tick off all the wild life that we encounter on our travels; I used to love those “I spy” books as a kid but never did see the Colorado beetle..

We are just hanging around waiting to move on now and the weather is still overcast and cold. Only one more day now and we will be on our way to Brisbane for our intermission between house swaps. Our flight is tomorrow at 7pm arriving at 8pm and our hotel reception closes at 8.30pm which we are unlikely to make so have been left complicated instructions as to how to retrieve our key to get into the hotel and room. I just booked a cheap room for the night as we will only sleep there and leave early in the morning to pick up our hire car. The hire car was remarkably cheap at $36 a day or less than £20 in real money. It will be a lot easier than catching the bus and also cheaper I expect and will give us chance to stop here and there for more photos of the beach. I know how much you all like the endless beach photos I keep publishing. I haven’t taken any photos recently as we haven’t been anywhere so I will put a few on of our travels so far. Claire wants to go shopping today and has been researching the largest shopping precinct around here since 7am this morning. It’s amazing how an already bad day just got worse.

At least I have finally finished my third book and have just started the last one before starting on next years OU course. I have read the new Dan Brown book called “The Lost Symbol” where this blog title came from then a book that I have wanted to read since the 1970’s called Jupiter’s travels by Ted Simon. It is his story of four years travelling around the world on a motor bike. When he first got bake to England in the early 1970’s I watched him being interviewed on one of those local news programs that follow the actual news. The interviewer asked the usual stupid unanswerable questions like, “Why did you do it?” to which Ted answered wisely with another question, “Do you know anyone else that can remember every day of their lives for the last four years?” Wow, what a sentence, and one that I would remember and be impressed about for the rest of my life. Is it possible to remember every day of your life for four years? That is living, I want to be able to do that; trouble is I can’t even remember last night so I have a long way to go. I have twice been able to remember every day for 3 months so I am sure that it is possible as long as you continue that lifestyle which must involve travelling, I am sure.

My third book was Bill Bryson’s “Down Under” which made me roar with laughter in a couple of places, especially the bit where he describes how he sleeps. I will have to get another of his books sometime; maybe when we are in the States I could read his American one if I could remember what it is called. The book I have just started is “Holy Cow” by Sarah MacDonald, an Australian girl’s account of her travels through India. Rashmi, my accountant recommended this to me shortly before I left and I managed to buy it from ebay just in time to take with me. Unfortunately the Australian power adaptor arrived shortly after we departed. When it came Claire said that she had already read it as Janet had given it to her when we travelled around India three years ago. I’m only a couple of chapters in but I may well have already read it myself; it seems rather familiar. Well, you can’t remember everything you did everyday; I’m sure even Ted would agree.