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World Trip 2005-06
We set off to Rockhampton looking for more adventure in our campervan and we found it sooner than anticipated. Just coming into Rockhampton we saw a car broken down at the side of the road. we felt a little reluctant to help but considered what it would be like if that happened to us. A couple of german guys had run out of petrol about 20km away from Rockhampton so we took one of them (we didn't catch his name) to the nearest petrol station. It turns out he was just a normal guy, not a serial killer or theif but we did check the tea towels after he left.
We got to Rockhampton in the evening and striaght away looked for a place we could have a steak. We read in the lonely planet that there are more than 2 million cattle in Rockhampton and it had proclaimed to be the 'beef capital of australia'. So we decided to treat ourselves. We found the perfect place, again with help from our lonely planet and parked up, chilled out, had a few drinks, an awesome steak and went to bed.
We awoke and decided not to waste any time and travel to Hervey Bay as soon as possible.
After finding a campsite which turned out to be cheap, have all the facilities we needed and have some unusual but memorable travel character(s). We settled and spent the night by the pool with a few drinks. they seemed so chilled out that they weren't even bothered we had our own drinks and weren't giving the bar any business.
The next day we decided we deserved a day to just relax by the pool after all the travelling. we got chatting to Richard the owner of the bar (an amazing person for project Oz - not such an amazing answer, i don't think we even got one in the end. So simple but Richard for some reason failed to understand the point). Richar immedietly started telling us his plans for the campsite, something we discovered he was capable of turning any conversation into. Which was cool, we admired his passion. If you look at the picture we couldn't decide whether he looked like gazza or some pop/rock star from the 80's. Maybe you can help us decide? His personality reminded me of the one and only 'cockney' Chris Gould. Who unfortuanatly only some people reading this would have had the pleasure of meeting.
We had a love-hate relationship with Richard who after discovering it was andy's birthday gave us free jug's of beer, unfortuanately andy wasn't keen on the beer so me and brides helped him out. he also offered us a free tour of the campsite (to share his plans) and happy hour all day for andy's birthday. Me and brides disappeared during the day to get andy some presents.
Nightime came and we decided to have a few quiet drinks round the pool. This turned into a bit of a messy one as we still were using our own drinks. Some mysterious person knocked over a plant and tried to but got caught keeping a teddy from the bar as a souvenier. Our relationship with Richard had taken a turn for the worse. Then the same mysterious person got bored of conversation and decided to hit the pond with alot of frogs for some late night swimming.
A great night and when we woke up Richard was our best friend again. this time telling us his plans for a sports day on sunday afternoon.
This was the morning of Andy Waltons's 22nd birthday, which judging by our heads in the morning and trail of destruction was already well celebrated, more was to come.
Andy woke up to presents such as a trip to fraser island the next day, a bottle of coke, Jack daniels whisky to mix with the coke and a football. It was a national holiday for australia aswell, appropriatly named "Australia Day". We decided to put off happy hour for a while and have a look in the town centre to see what happened on australia day. It was what we expected, alot of drinking and live music. We also saw alot of children's faces painted so everyone could enjoy Australia day. We thought it was a good idea but were too late and had to settle for some stickers sported by myself and andy on one of the pictures.
We also saw in a bar nearby a pie eating competition where the winner amazingly ate 6 pies in 5 minutes. (very allan thompson!!!). We opted for fish and chips as we weren't that hungry. A great start to andy's birthday.
We got back to the campsite and decided to give poor old Richard some business. We bought one jug of beer and then decided to use our own supply. He still didn't seem bothered so we carried on. We got offered the chance to join a doubles pool competition. After mine and andy's terrible record against brides we decided to team up and brides ended up with another resident at the campsite. We went into the competition reaslisticly so not very confident although alot of trash talk was being exchanged. The grand prize was two bottles of flavoured, crap champagne so alot was at stake. You could tell the nerves were gettin to all of us. In the first round came the grudge matchbetween andy and me vs brides and partner so the nerves increased as pride became a part of the grand prize. It turned out me and Andy had the game of our lives and brides stuggled to come to terms with where this talent had suddenly come from. He must have thought he'd just been hustled.
Full of confidence going into the final we faced two aussie guys who looked good going into the final, we wiped the floor with them and claimed our champagne after having another suprising game of our lives. Must have been fate giving us a push on Andy's birthday. Richard pursuaded us to open a bottle of lemon and lime flavoured champagne. the funny thing was this still wasn't a drink we had purchased from his bar. We decided to have a swim and go to bed earlier for our next day at Fraser island. Not before I took a teddy to keep from the souvenier. I didn't realise how Richard had reacted the previous night to the same crime. We then had a reputation as the teddy stealers.
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