Day 3

I collected my phone – for those who care a Nokia E51 and my car a black Ford Territory and was pleasantly surprised – it been a Ford – they make some nice cars, but well have the reputation of being big American gas guzzlers but Aus make their own cars and don’t suffer the reputation of their American counterparts and this one is very well finished - I had had my heart set on a Toyota Kluger, but must admit, am happy as can be with this one. Automatic – a must in this insane Sydney traffic! And 4.0l V6, a Bok van Blerk cd playing, arm out the window – who’s cool now! J

Carmen and I sadly parted with T and S at my offices feeling like fledglings abandoned by their foster parents and the security and home cooking of Avalon and headed out GPS engaged to begin the next part of our wonderful adventure. Then we went to do some grocery shopping.

What is up with these Aussies? Seriously, they will look you dead in the eye when I point to a popular range of shops and are puzzled when you stare in disbelief at the names of these places. A discount shop – like the cheap crazy stores in SA are called Willy Wonkers – I swear I am not making this up… I mean? Anyway we go to Coles (like Pick ‘n Pay) and take one of their blasted trolleys that are impossible to control – all four wheels move so you kind of wrestle them down the aisles. Loaded up about a quarter trolley we head to the cashier. Their were about 3 cashiers working as it was quiet and about 4 other customers paying. So we headed to the one that had no one in the queue – a miserable old women who glares at Carmen and points upwards to a small sign above the till: 12 items or less. Now we are one of those obedient couples who never try and ‘cheat’ by taking a trolley to a basket checkout, but the sign was really small so we missed it. Anyway, we backed off and she turns around and bellows out to the empty shop: ‘Next customer please!’ I turned to Carmen and then to my trolley and then looked at the cashier. There were no other customers in the store. I silently wished her painful bunions and we queued at the next till. Our car was parked 2 streets away so we asked the cashier (a nice one) if we could possibly take the trolley down the road and offload into our car and bring it back. She helpfully said ‘no problem’ so we headed out into main street Sydney pushing a full shopping trolley down the pavement. Carmen turned to me about 5 metres into this and said: ‘You know Rodney, I don’t see anybody else doing this. People are looking at us’ And she was right. They were. Everybody battled with their bags, but nobody else had hijacked a trolley. There was a good reason for this. Outside the smooth pavement of the shop, it was fine. The errant trolley was controllable – with difficulty – but it was achievable. Then you cross the road and hit the paving of the car park road and all hell breaks loose. The trolley bucked and kicked like a rodeo pony. Eventually, we took one end each: Carmen pulled it viciously from the front while I shoved and kicked it along mercilessly from the back swearing like troopers and wishing all manner of plagues on the manufacturers of the trolley and the miserable cashier for good measure.

But by the time we got back to the flat and had eaten our supper, and we were finally able to link up to the internet again with 3G - $200 later and a world of frustration, our mood had markedly improved. I must say, you guys in SA are in for a bit of trouble when the new law for prepaid comes into effect over there, where you have to register your details when you buy a prepaid cellphone. We had to give passport numbers and addresses etc. Remember FICA at the banks? Similar process.

Anyway – here are some pics of the temporary holiday flat we are in for the next 9 days before we move into the long termer. Or on the net: http://stayz.com.au/31504

Will try and post again soon.

Cheers.