Bairnsdale Road Trip: 2004

Well it was a very enjoyable weekend.

Pete ended up making an appearance on Saturday at about 11am, and stayed until early Sunday morning. You tell those microscopic virii who is boss Pete! Nah seriously, it was great that you could come along.

In summary, here's what we got up to over the weekend:

• Stayed in a motel in Bairnsdale run by Harold Bishop from Neighbours. Well no, it wasn't Harold Bishop. It didn't even look like him. But he had similar personality traits to Mr Bishop, and taught us well in the ways of luggage stowage within a motel room.
  
• Went to a pub for dinner on Friday night where we enjoyed steaks and chicken parmigarmas, almost getting into fisticuffs with the people who's table we had inadvertantly "stolen" (okay...slight exaggeration/poetic license used here).
• Enjoyed various gourmet breakfast treats including vegemite on toast, pancakes with maple syrup and icecream, omelettes, eggs & bacon & sausages, raisin toast, muffins and coffees/hot chocolates of various kinds.
• Several of us purchased $10 CDs from Bairnsdale including REM "Automatic for the people", Bob Dylan "Blonde on blonde" and Joni Mitchell "Blue".
  
• Learnt the true meaning of the words acronym, irony and tetchy.
  
• Visited an Aboriginal cave (can't remember the exact name...but Duffman should know) about 40 minutes from Bairnsdale - it was truly a beautiful place that will hopefully inspire Brett in his future writing endeavours.
• Brushed up on our TV sitcom theme song knowledge and studied a lot of interesting pictorial and written literature. I'm pretty sure that the theme song to O.C. will be pretty familiar to most of us by next year's road trip.
• Played mini golf in Bairnsdale. Well done to the champion Duffman (aka Wally Raffles) who beat Brettles by the skin of his teeth. Condolences to Andy and Jerome who let the side down. Jerome also gave his best "Angry Dad" impersonation during the game.
• Watched Belle & Sebastian host Rage on Saturday night.
• Stopped by at the Yarragon market on the way home, where Andy bought a garden plaque for his mother (awww...how sweet).
• Several members of the posse made fools of themself during the roadtrip. But what's new? Some notable incidents include the designated driver almost getting his car bogged when stopping outside Gumbaya Park on the way to Bairnsdale, and a certain young man (who I won't mention by name) walkering (ahem...I mean walking) into a McDonalds sign on Sunday morning.
  
• Consumed a lot of Coopers Sparking Ale and a little bit of Wild Turkey Bourbon.
• Consumed a lot of food which is going to seriously affect how we look in speedos this summer. Ewwwwww there's an image I don't want.
• Talked a lot crap (what's new?)

Now we look forward to Duffman's powerpoint presentation (and presentation of it at the soon to be annual slide night).

I'll end with a quote from one of my favourite pieces of 20th century literature:

Now, the world don't move to the beat of just one drum,
What might be right for you, may not be right for some.
A man is born, he's a man of means.
Then along come two, they got nothing but their jeans.

But they got, Diff'rent Strokes.
It takes, Diff'rent Strokes.
It takes, Diff'rent Strokes to move the world.

Everybody's got a special kind of story
Everybody finds a way to shine,
It don't matter that you got not alot
So what,
They'll have theirs, and you'll have yours, and I'll have mine.
And together we'll be fine....

Because it takes, Diff'rent Strokes to move the world.
Yes it does.
It takes, Diff'rent Strokes to move the world.

Hmmm....I think there's something in that for all of us.
Whatchya talkin' about Willis?