Danny's World Trip 2009

If you get the chance go and see Faulty Towers - the dining experience. Currently showing at the Charing Cross Hotel. It really is a magical two hours plus of laughter and entertainment, especially for those who love Fawlty Tower and it includes a three course meal.

Danny Beer recommends you go see, but don't mention the war, I did once, but I think I got away with it!

Got my invite to Beervana in Wellington NZ this morning, all hail the ale! Wondering what I was up to three years ago?

Blimey O'Reilly

Flight BA878 9:30am from London Heathrow Terminal 5 to St Petersburg - Pulkovo 2 Terminal.

Three years ago today! Time to bring WLR out of the cupboard?

Happy travelling!

Danny Beer, intrepid explorer and beer hunter

Here's a game you may enjoy playing?

Buy a tinnie six pack of your favourite beer, maybe VB or even something more exotic like Fiji ,and invite a few friends around. Before they arrive take one can and shake it up real bad. When they arrive get one of them to stay in the room alone and mix up the cans. Then the fun begins. You can re-enact that famous scene from the Michael Cimino film where Christopher Walken's character plays Russian Roulette as each person attempts to open the can without incident.

Have fun, but be careful, alchohol comsumption can damage your health, especially your eyes!

Heard on the news today that the cathedral in Christchurch has been condemned. This is it pre and post Danny Beer -Nothing to do with me!

Crikey

Danny Beer is numero uno on Google, how good is that?

Ta Ta

Click the picture above or the link below and select preview to view a copy of the diary book of my trip

"Around the World in Eighty Beers" by Danny Beer

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/invited/1643944/934da1c783c43f0c1525a62542ed0950

Kindle and Ipad copies to follow when I have finished them!

Happy Reading

Ta Ta

One year to the day that I landed back in the UK after discovering eighty beers around the world. Who could believe that? Thanks again to the people I met and who helped me.

Where next? Watch this space,

Ta Ta

Danny Beer

Wow

Ten thousand pages of my blog "Around the World in 80 beers" have now been viewed since I started writing the diary of my world trip back in Ma 2009, amazing or what!

Ta Ta and thanks for reading

Danny Beer

Happy New Beer

Ta Ta
Danny Beer

Around the World in 80 beers!

Here it is the final 9 beers of the 8o consumed by Danny Beer on his trip around the World.

Beer #9 to beer numero uno, numero um,nummer een, номер один, beer #1...

Fiji
Beer #9 Fiji Draught
Beer #8 South Pacific Export
Beer #7 Fiji Gold

Samoa
Beer #6 Vailama Lager Beer

Hawaii
Beer #5 Longboard Island Lager
Beer #4 Red Stripe Jamaican Lager

San Francisco
Beer #3 Anchor Summer Beer
Beer #2 Sierra Nevada Pale Ale

and beer #1 and the 80th beer around the World....

Tusker Beer, Kenya's finest consumed in Tommy's Joynt, San Francisco

Ta ta

Danny Beer

Around the World in 80 Beers!

New Zealand

Beer numbers 24 to 10

Beer #24 TUI Brewed since 1889
Beer #23 Stein Lager Pure
Beer #22 Monteiths Lively Pilsener
Beer #21 Summit Lager
Beer #20 Dux Lager
Beer #19 Propeller Lager
Beer #18 Mangatainoka Draft
Beer #17 Canterbury Wards Beer
Beer #16 Harringtons - The Rogue Hop
Beer #15 Toot and Whistle Natural Ale
Beer #14 Macs Gold Draught
Neer #13 Molly's Ale
Beer #12 Green Man Lager Organic
Beer #11 Weka Native Lager
Beer #10 Lion Red Beer

Danny Beer doesn't usually do requests but just for Jetlag here is the bottle with the red top in a brown paper bag:

Ta ta

Danny Beer

Around the World in 80 Beers!

Australia

Beer numbers 49 to 25

Beer #49 Tooheys New 5%
Beer #48 Pure Blonde
Beer #47 Castlemaine XXXX Gold
Beer #46 Hahn Super Dry
Beer #45 Crown Lager
Beer #44 VB - Victoria Bitter
Beer #43 James Boag's Premium
Beer #42 Cascade Premium Light
Beer #41 Stone & Wood - Handcrafted
Beer #40 Carbine Stout - Since 1924
Beer #39 Blue Tongue Premium
Beer #38 Good Bastards
Beer #37 Barons Lager
Beer #36 Beez Neez
Beer #35 Resch's Beer
Beer #34 Melbourne Bitter
Beer #32 Kilkenny Draft
Beer #31 Gage Roads Premium Lager
Beer #30 Lemom Myrtle Witbier Draught
Beer #29 Little Creatures Bright Ale
Beer #28 Bohemian Pilsener Hand Crafted
Beer #27 Bondi Blonde Low Carb
Beer #26 Schwartz Brewery Dark Bier
Beer #25 Skinny Blonde

Ta ta

Danny Beer

I wasn't going to write much more but after getting home last night and watching a TV programme on BBC1 called "Around the World in 80 Days" I felt that I had to put pen to paper or rather finger to keyboard.

I was flicking through the TV channels and recognised a carriage from the Trans Siberian Railway and thought to myself "that all looks a bit familiar"! The programme is a part of the BBC's Children in Need campaign and features(!) two people called Julia Bradbury and Matt Baker (ever heard of them?) who are apparently Countryfile hosts and possible ex Blue Peter presenters (it all becomes clear now).

The Sky Plus info informs me that "celebreties re enact Jules Verne's literary odyssey for Children in Need. Can Matt and Julia travel 3700 miles overland to China in just 14 days?"

What do you reckon the outcome will be then?

They are apparently taking the third leg of the journey overland to China via Lake Baikal in Siberia, and Mongolia, a journey very similar to part of my world trip, but in my case without the taxis, translators and PA support afforded to our brave and intrepid travellers.

It brought back some fond memories. The Russia and Siberian train stations and Trans Siberian train carriages were very familiar although I doubt that Matt and Julia had to sleep with one eye open and their version of WLR chained up to a non movable part of the carriage! They seem to have had similar delays and encountered the same bureaucracy as me crossing the border from Russia to Mongolia. They did not however show any of the numerous temperature checks you have to undertake before being allowed to cross the border, but maybe this was politically sensitive or perhaps BBC presenters are exempted?

At one point they missed their train connection but luckily they were in a hired vehicle so they could use that to race on and catch up with the train at a later station on route (easy peasy eh!) and certainly Danny Beer was never invited up to the train drivers seat and allowed to press the horn button. I think if I had attempted to speak with the train driver I may have been shot or at least placed in handcuffs and been escorted from the train by the militia.

In Siberia they travelled across Lake Baikal but missed out a visit to Olkhom Island which is one of the most beautiful places on Earth (in my opinion) and instead opted to film a little slot of them bathing in the cold waters of the Lake, what a waste.

Similar to me, Matt and Julia went on a horse riding expedition (yep siree they say Choo instead of giddy up in Mongolia pardner!) but I notice that they didn't seem to get the derisory comments and laughs that Danny Beer had to put up with following his horse riding expedition, but perhaps that's because they were doing it for charidee?

Matt and Julia, like me, tasted Mongolian tea (yuk disgusting), and we both spent a night in Gers in the middle of the Mongolian wilderness (but obviously not together) and there was no mention on the programme of the lack of toilet and washing facilities and the need to use the hole that has been dug as a replacement for the toilet.

But the most ridiculous part of the programme for me was the scenario that the two people they were going to hand over the baton to had problems getting a Chinese visa so they had to meet at the Chenggis Statue instead. Getting the Mongolian and Chinese visa's was a pretty simple process, especially when compared to the Russian visa. You just make an online appointment and pop up to London with your valid passport, two passport photos and the seventy five pound fee and pop back a week later to collect the passport with the visa now stuck inside one of your passport pages so quite how the massive resources of the BBC could not manage this is beyond me, or maybe the television shot is much better if the handover takes place on top of the Chenggis statue (you cynic Danny Beer!).

It was good to watch the programme as it did bring back lots of good memories but I notice that Matt and Julia made no attempt whatsoever to discover any new beers on their journey! Not even for charity.

Ta ta

Danny Beer

Around the World in 80 beers.......in order of discovery!

Japan
Beer #62 Heartland Beer
Beer #61 Asahi Beer

China (Shanghai)
Beer #60 Reeb Light
Beer #59 Yanjing Beer

Macau
Beer #58 Haizhu Beer

Hong Kong
Beer #57 Kingway Shenzhen Brewery Co
Beer #56 Blue Ice Beer - Ice Filtered

Malaysia
Beer #55 Anchor Strong Beer
Beer # 54 Jaz Beer

Singapore
Beer #53 Chang Beer = Product of Thailand

Indonesia
Beer #52 Bintang Pilsener

Singapore
Beer #51 Haywards 5000 India's Premier Beer
Beer #50 Knock Out India's 7.2% Beer!

Ta ta

Danny Beer

Around the World in 80 beers!

China

Beer 65 Tsingtao Draft
Beer 64 Suntory
Beer 63 Snow Beer

Ta ta

Danny Beer

Around the World in 80 beers!

Mongolia

Beer 68 - Boptno - Since 1927
Beer 67 - Aatah JoBb Beer
Beer 66 - Chinggis Beer

China tomorrow

Ta ta

Danny Beer

Around the World in 80 Beers!

The countdown continues.....

Russia - Trans Siberian Railway and Siberia:

Beer 75 - Xkhboe
Beer 74 - T Cebetnoe
Beer 73 - Oxata Kpenko 8%
Beer 72 - Cmaplain Meribhuck Cbetnade
Beer 71 - Kanhckoe Cbetnade
Beer 70 - The beer with no name
Beer 69 - Cngnpckar Kopoha (Siberian Star)

Ta ta to Russian Beers....

Ta ta again
Danny Beer

Around the World in Eighty Beers!

The countdown begins!

Russia - St Petersburg and Moscow:

Beer 80 - Baitjhika
Beer 79 - Belle Vue Kriek
Beer 78 - Kozel Zal 1874
Beer 77 - Krusovich Beer
Beer 76 - Heckboe

Ta ta
Danny Beer

Take me home country roads (again)!

Hotdogs for breakfast and a few beers in DJ Reynolds, where we end up chatting to Gary who is in New Yawk for business. His trade is a clothes designer and he has designed clothes for a number of companies including GAP and Pringle. Gary very kindly buys us a round of drinks and when we have finished chatting we head back to the Wellington to retrieve our bags. Pam and Norman are flying Virgin out of Newark and I am flying BA out of JFK and I am due to arrive back to Heathrow about two hours earlier than them.

A pretty uneventful flight home and although WLR was over 23 kilos this was not questioned by the check in staff. It's a seven hour overnight flight and the time difference is five hours so by the time I land back in London my body does not really know what time of the day or day of the week it is. The flight arrives half an hour early which is bl**dy typical as I have to wait for Pam and Norman's plane to arrive at Terminal 3 Heathrow.

A Picadilly Line, District Line and finally Jubilee Line to North Greenwich mark (nearly) the end of my travels and the final stage is thanks to my brother Steve who picks me up at North Greenwich and drops me home.

It is a bit strange when I walk in the front door for the first time in months but I will be able to once again sleep in my own bed, won't have to lock up my stuff (or maybe I will?) and I once again have the opportunity to get on Pam's nerves live and direct and in person rather than from a mobile phone or internet connection.

I will have been on the road now for 138 days, I will have been through 38 cities in 14 countries, travelled 32,000 miles and tasted over eighty new beers from around the world..........

And now I am back home and my journey is over. I will be doing a couple more blog posts to detail the beers and thank some of the people that I have met and have helped me on my travels.

Below are details of my trip with the mileage to show that I have travelled 32,000 miles around the World.

Finally, if you have enjoyed reading my blog thanks and my name is Danny Beer and if you haven't enjoyed it then my name is Michael Palin and why are you still here?

Ta ta and yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeehaaaaaaaaaaaaa for nearly the last time!!!!!

Danny Beer

My Journey:

Eating burnt toast and drinking black black coffee!

Hot dogs again for breakfast today and to complement the hotdogs we get a latte from Tim Horton’s. This involves a trip down to the store on Fifth Avenue to get a mega large bucket of milky coffee for me and smaller buckets for Pam and Norman. Pam and I also went to the supermarket to get some orange juice and when we were there we were asked by the lady on the checkout whether we were from Texas? I must have acquired (or maybe it was Pam?) some sort of southern drawl as I was not dressed like Woody in Toy Story. We informed the nice lady on the checkout that we were from Lundahn, Engerland not Hooston Texaaaas.

After the two hotdog breakfast it’s a day of “shopping til we am dropping” when we visit the worlds largest department store, Macy’s, as they say everything is bigger in the “youessofa”. After Macy’s we go in search of some underwear for a friend which you can only get in New Yawk, and after being defeated in 21st Century Store we try the SoHo district, or South of Hooston District if you come from around these parts. We did find a store selling the brand but not the pants that were required so at that point we gave up the search for underwear. We then we went for a walk through Little Italy, which proved disappointing not only for the lack of Tony Soprano’s, but also for the lack of decent affordable food and rather stroppy waiters, and then Greenwich Village before heading back to the Wellington.

Before Pam and Norman arrived in New Yawk I managed to get tickets for “Amateur Night at the Apollo” and the last show of the season and also the grand final. The Apollo is right in the centre of Harlem and when we arrived there were large queues of people waiting to get in. The show began at 7:30pm and started with a warm up pro singer. This was followed by some audience participation where people from the audience are dragged, or in the case of the Japanese girls run, up on stage and then have to perform a dance routine after which the audience applaud the loudest for their favourite dancer who wins a T shirt.

After this there are two “stars of tomorrow” on stage a young girl dancer and a saxophonist and then the real competition begins. The rules are that each act takes the stage and if the audience like them fine, but if not they start to boo and if the booing gets loud enough a guy comes on the stage dressed up as different people, including a policeman and a sheriff, and herds them off the stage before they finish their act. The first few acts are fine but then a dancing couple takes the stage and last about two minutes before they get booed off stage. The MC and compere is a professional comedian and is very funny although he does have the American dress sense and takes the stage in the second half as a very loud red outfit. He does do a very funny routine of different races performing including, Jamaicans, Africans and Japanese.

After the interval a fake Stevie Wonder does a song and then the rest of the acts take the stage. In the end it is won by a white lady from Brooklyn who has a very good voice and sings a love song that I can’t remember the name of. After the show we go back to D J Reynolds for a drink and then the Happy Hour at the deli for our $4 pints of domestic lager.

Ta ta to New Yawk. Tomorrow I am leaving on a jet plane and don’t know when I’ll be back again!
Danny

Hotdogs for breakfast! What a **** Liberty.

It’s a big Ta Ta to Nic and Chris as they head back to Mooseland this morning having checked out of their hotel, which means it is also a big Ta Ta to free internet access. We are still trying to find a decent breakfast here in the Big Banana and we have settled on a diet of two hotdogs with red sauce, mustard and onions. We get these at the hotdog stall just up from the Wellington and they are only $1 at this stall, whereas at most other stalls they seem to be $2, so they are a bargain, and you know how I like my bargains!

Our plan today is to take the ferry out to Liberty Island and Ellis Island. The ferry is $12 for both islands and you have to go through airport type security before you board the ferry. All wallets, jackets, watches, metal objects and shoes have to be removed for scanning and in the end you think it will be easier just to strip naked and walk through the security scanner! There is a particularly obnoxious American woman in front of us that was refusing to remove her watch and I know what I would have told her to do with it if I were the security personnel.

We eventually get to board the ferry and take the fifteen minute trip to “La Liberté Éclairant le Monde" and we decide to stay on and head straight to Ellis Island as the best views of the statue are from the ferry.

The immigration station at Ellis Island opened on January 1 1892. Five years later the wooden structure burned down, along with many immigration records. On 17 December 1900 a new fireproof building welcomed 2,251 new arrivals.

Ferries and barges brought “steerage” passengers out to Ellis Island from Steamships (the First and Second Class passengers were quickly processed on board the ship.) Doctors watched as immigrants entered the building and climbed the stairs; a limp, laboured breathing, or other suspected troubles warranted further medical examination. In the Registry Room inspectors questioned each individual. Included among the 29 questions were name, home town, occupation, destination and amount of money they were carrying. Those allowed to stay in the “youessofa” continued downstairs, exchanged money, bought provisions and perhaps rail tickets. A third stayed in New Yawk. Only one to two percent were denied entry but this is still quite a large figure as between 1901 and 1910 six million immigrants were processed at Ellis Island.

On the Island they have the American Family Immigration History Center and here, and online you can search the ship passenger records for arrival in the Port of New Yawk and Ellis Island from 1892 – 1924. There are over 3.5 million manifest pages available so I took the opportunity to search for any of my ancestors that may have preceded my epic journey in search of Eighty Beers from around the World and guess what, on Nov 9, 1912, Daniel Beer arrived on the Pannonia which sailed from Hungary’s port of Fiume. Now I bet you are thinking to yourself “Danny Beer is making this up! There is no way that Danny Beer’s long lost cousin could have pre-empted his epic journey around the World looking for 80 beers"!

Well I kid you not and if you don’t believe me here is a copy of the manifest entry:

and if you think that I have faked the manifest go to www.ellisisland.org and search for Daniel Beer.

Now Hungary to New Yawk in the “Youessofa” is not exactly a trip around the World, so Daniel did not quite manage to emulate his distant cousin Danny but it's still a long journey to undertake, especially knowing that all that is waiting at the other end is Budwater and Muller Light. A massive "big up" and “nuff respect” to my long lost cousin for undertaking the epic journey which was such a long time before my own:

96 years, 10 months and 27 days ago or;

849,480 hours ago or;

50, 968, 800 minutes ago or;

3,058,128,000 seconds ago.

I wonder how many beers Daniel managed to discove before he arrived in New Yawk!

In the evening we went to visit Pam’s aunt who lives in Da Bronx, and we had a very nice meal and Auntie got upset with Pam for eating most of her homemade hot pepper sauce! We also met Auntie’s daughter Jenifer who is now Principal Skinner at PS46 School Edgar Allen Poe. Back to the Wellington and our last full day in New Yawk tomorrow,

Ta Ta and take a minute to remember those that have gone before us

Danny

Who has got the upper hand?

After using the free internet at Nic's hotel today was then devoted to a day of more sightseeing and shopping around the Big Banana. We went to FAO Schwarz the famous toy store with the floor piano as featured in the film Big with Tom Hanks (I think Hamleys is much better).

We went to Tifanny’s not for breakfast though. Norman wanted to get some stuff to take back home as gifts and we went to the Disney store and posed with Mickey and Minnie before heading off to Grand Central Station, which only seems to have local trains running from it. As it was a lovely sunny day so we also had a walk around Central Park.

The Chuckle Brothers:

In the evening Nic and Chris have a “pizza nite in” so we went for some food in an Irish pub called DJ Reynolds and then ended up at the Happy Hour at the deli where pints are $4 and cocktails $5 until 2:00am. They also have the largest bottles of Heineken I have ever seen!

The “guess beer #80” competition was my most successful one to date with over three entries, but unfortnately none of them were correct! My clue was that I have mentioned the name of this beer very early on at the start of my trip but had not consumed it until I got to San Francisco. The other clue I gave to Jetlag was that he more than anyone should guess the name of the beer!

Day #1 St Petersburg - 26 May 2009

I left Heathrow on a BA flight and arrived safely at Pulkova 2 Airport. In the true spirit of Around the World in 80 beers I packed my Fosters flip flops and wore my Tusker Export (Kenyan Beer) T Shirt.
Yep, In Tommy’s Joynt, Van Ness at Geary Street, San Francisco, Youessofa, I found beer #80 on my trip around the World – Tusker Beer, brewed and bottled by East African Breweries Ltd, P O Box 30161 00100 Nairobi, Kenya.

A very fitting beer to make beer number 80 on my list as it brings back so many memories of my previous trip to Kenya!

I can sleep easy tonight knowing that I hanve achieved my goal and commiserations to those that entered the competition but were unsuccessful!

Ta ta

Breakfast at Tiffany’s

We decided to look for somewhere to get a decent breakfast before Nic and Chris arrive later today. Finding a decent breakfast in New Yawk is not the easiest of tasks and I think we failed miserably today.

Norman went for a walk earlier and he was give a coupon for Planet Hollywood which gave us a free coffee, tea or orange with a breakfast, so we thought we would try this out. Breakfast at Planet Hollywood finished at 10:45am and we arrived at 10:40am but they still said we could get a breakfast so we were shown to our table, and then left there for about twenty minutes whilst the staff either stood around chatting to each other or were clearing the tables ready for lunch. So we waited, and waited and waited (which is more than the staff were doing) and in the end asked someone to serve us. They went away and we waited a bit more and then someone finally turned up. We ordered two “Full English” breakfasts plus one "Planet" Breakfast.

The food eventually turned up and most of the contents on our plates were cold. We had nothing like milk or cream for our coffee or sugar/sweetener and ended up borrowing some from another table. There were no serviettes and we asked someone else to bring us some and they eventually arrived.

At this point the waitress came across and asked us if everything was OK and I bet you can guess what the answer was, a big no, nyet, nej, non, nein, nada, oxi, or bu, depending on what your native language is. The waitress looked at us blankly for a minute and walked off. We scratched our heads and thought “so much for the excellent customer service in the “youessofa’, "New Yawk" and particularly "Planet Hollwood”.

About ten minutes later a guy appears at our table and says that he is the manager and what did we want to see him about? We mentioned that we didn’t actually ask to see him but while he was here we took the opportunity to point out the discrepancies in the service and the meal. He listened to our complaints and then asked US to TELL HIM what he could do for us. Norman suggested that maybe HE should be telling US what he could do for us, but said that maybe if he knocked the cheaper of the three breakfasts from the bill that would help. He went away and came back a few minutes later and had knocked one of the breakfasts from the bill and had also taken 40% off the rest of the cost so we were a lot happier about the situation. Norman then suggested that some discount vouchers may help us to make a decision to return so he went away and came back with some vouchers so we decided that rather than writing to Bruce and Sylvester and never visiting the place again we would give Planet Hollywood a second chance later in the day.

My niece Nicola and her hubby Chris drove down from Toronto and arrived in the afternoon. When they arrived they were “booked out” of the Wellington and moved to a four star hotel across the road. This was very useful for me as their new hotel had free wi-fi and internet access unlike the Wellington, and you know I like my freeness!

In the afternoon we went on a little guided walk around some of the sights I had seen previously on my trekking expeditions with Dave and Bob and these included Battery Park, Wall Street, NYSE, the Bronze Bull and Seaport and the Brooklyn Bridge. We had some lunch at the Heartland Brewery which was very nice and probably the best food we had during our time in New Yawk, and I would have been claiming new beer at the Heartland if I had not already reached the 80. We walked around for the rest of the afternoon and took in Bloomingdales and in the evening returned to Planet Hollywood to claim our discounts.

The food was OK in the evening and better than the breakfast but the waitress was a bit OTT with the “my name is Shirley and I am happy to be your host. I would like to recommend this and that etc.” crap. They had a DJ playing stuff in the restaurant and we were trying to get him to play some requests, especially Motown but he said he had already played lots of Motown so could not play much. When the bill came the discount was cancelled out by the added service charge but at least the meat on Normans ribs fell off the bones!

That’s it for Sunday.

Ta ta

Danny

I think I may need to sleep on it!

Pam and Norman arrive at just after noon today so I head out to JFK to "meet and greet" them. Their flight arrives at around noon so I have a coffee, check my emails and head out on the subway to JFK.

The New Yawk Hostel is the largest hostel in the World if their telephone “on hold” message” is to be believed. They have around 900 beds in the hostel which makes it a big, big, big, place with very busy facilties, so you can imagine how luxurious a place it is to stay in and how busy the facilities are!

At the hostel they are renovating the bathrooms (which don’t have any baths, so a better description would be washrooms - but that is how they describe toilets here) so the men’s washroom/bathroom is closed on my floor and the men have to use the ladies on the same floor, and the ladies have to use the men’s washroom/bathroom on the next floor up (got that?).

Now the thing with this hostel game is that you have to be prepared for the type of late night situation where you may have a “call of nature” in the middle of the night as it were. At home this is not a difficult scenario and usually involves an easy hop in and out of bed, a short trip along the landing in your undies (or thongs if you are Australian), a quick scratch and then quickly back to be snugly wrapped up in the duvet cuddling your hot water bottle.

In the hostel environment this is a very different situation and usually involves detailed planning to ensure that you not only have suitable clothing for a midnight "washroom trip" but also the ability to climb down from the top bunk in the pitch black and find the dormitory door which is locked. You will also need a uniform that includes suitable jim jams, a pair of flippety flops at the ready by the bed as the floor in the hostel can be a real experience if you want to go "barefooting"!

Most important item of all though is your swipe card to get you back into the dorm after your midnight sojourn down the hall to the ladies washroom/bathroom as without this you could be left in an embarrassing predicament, very embarassing indeed! Don't forget you also have to make sure that all your bags and valuables are suitably secured with padlocks or similar, as for a period of time you will not be in the same space as they are.

As you can imagine this type of action takes “military like” strategic planning, and this is even before you can contemplate having a snooze or going to sleep at night. Forget about the military expertise of Churchill, General Patton or Monty in the Desert, this is the super intelligence high level stuff, where the World's biggest brains (everything is big here in the "youessofa") and biggest computers are deployed to ensure a satisfactory conclusion to a difficult situation.

This generally means that you spend most of the night worried about whether a trip to the bathroom will be necessary, and the worry makes the thought of a trip to the bathroom even more necessary, and the thought of this worry about whether to make a visit to the washrooms seems even more important, even if the bladder at that point has not quite made its mind up and the brain is saying “sleeeeeeeeeeeep”!

To sum it up, the thought of worrying about worrying about the need to take a trip “Downtown” to the washrooms, with your hand carefully enclosed around your wallet with the room swipe key in it, just to ensure that if you do need to take a trip Downtown you will be suitably prepared, makes the need to go to the washroom situation even worse, and there is no way a good nights sleep in La La land (not the one where Andy lives) is ever going to happen!

Pam and Norman arrive after their flight is delayed by around two to three hours and when we catch the Airtrain the rain has started. As it is a weekend the express subways are not running but we manage to exit the subway at the station that is directly outside the Wellington Hotel. We check in and then we head back to the hostel to retrieve WLR from the $5 locker.

In the evening we have a meal in a restaurant that was expensive and not very good but we were a bit knackered and settled for it. We had a set menu where the food seemed to be served "lukewarm to cold" and my seafood dish was like Captain Birdseye had decided that it may be better served straight from the freezer,cold, ice cold,rather than edible.

Back to the hotel for some sleep and for once I don’t have to worry about how far the washroom is from my bunk, where my swipe card is, who is in the room and how I climb down from the top bunk in the dark!

Ta ta from La La land (not the one in California!)

Danny Beer

Danny Beer is still alive and hoping to post an update to the blog soon.

Some very close entries to the competion and Jetlag was the closest but not quite correct!

Ta ta from JFK

and I wish Pam would not keep singing a medley of:

"Tie a Yellow Ribbon round the old Oak Tree"

and

"Take me home country roads".

There's only so much country music a boy can take!

Maybe I can get a cheap flight from JFK to ??????????????

Ta ta for nearly the last time and Vera is cooking a broth for Saturday!

Ta ta again from the Big Banana

Danny

I woke up this morning!

I tried to do some washing today and I am not sure that is was an overwhelming success. Also my left boot is worn out at the heel and the repair I did on my jeans has not totally worked and holes have appeared again!

During the day I did a bit of research to check out some of the things that Pam and Norman have said they might want to do. I check their route to Newark International Airport and then hop around New Yawk, using my seven day pass, to check out the Ellis Island trip and some shopping haunts, including Macy’s.

In the evening they are advertising a “blues” night for $8 if you are staying at the hostel. It is at a place called “The Underground". Now I have not been to any “blues” for a long time, and I think the last one may have been the West Indian variety rather than the “I woke up this morning” type of blues they play in the youessofa.

The Underground Bar is, as you would imagine, downstairs in a basement, and we get there for around 9:00pm. There is a main bar room area, a pool room and behind that a room where the band have set up. The room is quite a small space (not as small as the comedy club on Ellis in San Francisco though!), with capacity for around twenty people, including the band.

It’s a dark place, with tables laid out in a “U” shape around the stage and the lighting is mostly candlelight which gives it the atmosphere of a “Jazz Club…. Great!.....”. The band consists of a drummer, organist, bass guitar and lead/slide guitar and there are a couple of guest musicians, one who plays the flute and the other the harmonica, and they guest on some tracks.

The music is not bad, the band play pretty tightly and the first set is traditional blues with slow rhythms and lots of lead guitar play. I can’t say I actually know many of the tunes but it is a good first set.

Before the second set the other five backpackers that left the hostel with me for the show have all left and at one point there are more members of the band on the stage (4) than the people sitting in the audience (3 including me).

In the second set they also play some rhythm and blues which is bit faster and I think I recognize one tune as a Canned Heat number, maybe called “Down the Line?”

After being there around three hours I decide to call it a day/night as I have to check out in the morning and meet Pam and Norman at JFK.

So that’s the update for today, sorry it is not very interesting but I am definitely looking forward to NOT sleeping in a hostel bed tomorrow night!

I woke up this morning, ta ta ta ta ta,

Got out of my bed, ta ta ta ta ta

My baby done left me, ta ta ta ta ta,

The only colour is red!

And still no one has guessed beer #80!

Ta ta
Danny

“You want potatoes?”

I am trying to catch up a bit after the two days of tours that left me absolutely knackered.

Putting the last two days tours behind me I am today booked on the tour of Harlem, and this also costs $10 but it has 3 hours on the list so I am thinking do this in the morning and chill for the rest of the day.

Before the tour I decide to get breakfast in one of the “Old Skool” American (probably Mexican!) diners around the corner from the hostel. I get there about 8:30am as the Harlem tour doesn’t leave until 10:00 and I have a craving for scrambled eggs on toast, yum yum!

I get a seat in one of the booths and the very nice waitress comes and asks me if I would like a menu, and I reply no thank you I know what I would like for brekky. I say I would like two scrambled eggs on toast with bacon, and the conversation goes something like this:

Waitress: “What would you like?”

Me: “I would like two scrambled eggs on toast with bacon, a glass of orange juice and a coffee please”

Waitress: “You want potatoes with that?”

Me: “No gracias, just two scrambled eggs on toast with bacon, a glass of orange and a coffee please”

Waitress: “You want a glass of iced water to go with that?”

Me: “Yes please that would be nice”

Waitress: “OK, so you want two scrambled eggs on toast with bacon and potatoes, a glass of orange juice, a coffee and a glass of iced water”

Me: “No potatoes thank you, just two scrambled eggs on toast with bacon, a glass of orange juice, a coffee and a glass of iced water, thank you”

Waitress “You sure you don’t want potatoes, everyone else has them?”

Me: “Yes I am sure thanks, just two scrambled eggs on toast, a glass of orange juice, a coffee and a glass of iced water”

Waitress: "Postive now?"

Me:"Yes gracias!"

Waitress: (who looks at me and thinks what is this guy on, no potatoes for his breakfast that is the best bit!)

"OK!"

Waitress to Chef: “Dos huevos revueltos sobre pan tostado, tocino, un vaso de jugo de naranja, café y un vaso de agua helada. Este idiota no parece querer papas!

Adios Adios and ta ta,

Danny

Back in the USSR

I went on another tour (yes I know!) this time of Harlem but I knew that the tour would only last three hours and I wanted to see Harlem as I plan to try and get tickets for Amateur Night at the Apollo.

The tour is OK and we get to see a few of the famous churches and buildings in Harlem but I am not sure I would spend $10 on it if I had the chance again. I do manage though to get the tickets and the show is the last in the series where previous winners are pitted against each other so hopefully it should be a good show.

In the afternoon I decide to visit Coney Island to see if I can find the fairground amusement that they used in “Big”. I quite fancy being like Tom Hanks and becoming a child again, although some would say that I still act like a child at times anyway!

It’s a train journey of about an hour and when I arrive it’s a bit bleak, windy and grey and all the amusements are closed up for the winter but I take a nice long walk along the boardwalk and take in the Atlantic air. After about half an hour I head inland to find the subway station but instead find “Russia by the Beach” at Brighton Beach.

Yep in England Brighton is known for one thing and here in New Yawk it appears that Brighton Beach is the home of the Russian community. Everywhere you look there are Russian signs on the shops, and they are selling the food and stuff that I saw in Moscow and Siberia when I started my trip a few months ago. It’s incredible and very interesting if a little strange. I go into a few shops to look around and they first talk to me in Russian, and luckily I managed to become quite fluent when I travelled through the country so I could converse quite easily with my “dad da da’s” and my “niet, niet, niets!”

I spend a couple of hours here looking around, quite fascinated as I had no idea there was such a large Russian community in New Yawk, or that it was condensed into one place.

The subway in Brighton Beach runs above the road, like you see in some of the American films, where they have car chases under the subway and I seem to have quite a few movie connections here in America. There is Ghostbusters, that I wrote about earlier in the week, in Harlem there is a place called “Coogans Bluff” which was the name of a great Clint Eastwood movie. There were the two Alcatraz movies, the Dirty Harry movies and the “Gangs of New Yawk”. I am sure there are more and I will have a think about this and maybe update later.

That’s it for today so its Ta Ta from the Big Banana

Danny

(Did you notice that I posted in the wrong order- doh!)

I’m walking after midnight!

When I signed up for Dave’s City Tour I also signed up for Bob's Great Tour, as I figured that I can get most of the touring out of the way ready for later in the week. Bob's Tour is apparently very popular, usually overbooked, he has been running them now for years now, and it costs $10. There are 21 names on the “ball ball” list (did I mention that I managed to buy this tune in San Francisco?) when I add my name.

I get up and I am still knackered from the previous day’s tour and can’t make my mind up whether or not to go on this tour which is scheduled to start at 11:00am. When I get to the hostel lobby there are only five of us waiting so I am thinking that hopefully it may get cancelled but in the end Gerry decides to go ahead with just the five of us. Oh well, I think to myself, it can’t be as long as Dave’s Tour was yesterday, little did I know!

Twelve bloody hours of walking around the Big Banana, yep you heard me right, twelve bloody hours and back around midnight!

We start by getting the subway across to Brooklyn and there we purchase some rations ahead of the route march into Poland. These are quickly consumed and then its

“Attention, quick march, I don’t care what people say, (I don’t care what people say), I don’t want to walk anymore today!”

as we head across the Brooklyn Bridge towards Manhattan Island and around by Mayor Mike’s place. It's then down through Wall Street and the Stock Exchange before heading back across to Ground Zero and St Pauls Chapel. Then down to Battery Park where we catch the Staten Island Ferry, a free ferry trip, and you get some nice views of the “Statue de la Liberte", which is officially titled "La Liberté Éclairant le Monde", mange tout!

Straight back on the returning ferry and through Battery Park, past the Globe Memorial which is the actual globe that sat between the Twin Towers and somehow was not totally destroyed. Back along the Hudson and into Tribeca followed by Soho, which is another abbreviation “South of Houston”. We carry on marching through Chinatown, Greenwich Village and Little Italy, when we are allowed to stop and water our horses.

To say that this tour is a bit like a boot camp is a bit of an understatement and we lose one of our members who has had enough and heads back to the hostel to meet his friend.

At about 7:30pm we are stopping at a place to eat before moving on and this is where I think Bob gets a bit of the hump with me. You see the meal he has organised is in a place that he obviously frequents a lot, and brings many fellow backpackers to, and it is an Indian Restaurant. Now I just can’t eat Indian Food as I am not good with anything hot, spicy or creamy so when we are seated I ask the waiter what they have that is plain and not spicy, hot or creamy on the menu. He tells me that the Korma is not hot, spicy or creamy and I say yeah right! I ask about the vegetarian dishes and these are all curry dishes as well. I say OK don’t worry I will just have a soup then and he gets a little arsy. “How about the Tandori Chicken then, that is not hot, spicy or creamy” yeh right! "But you English love your currry and pints of lager!"

The head waiter is getting even more “arsy” because I am sitting in a seat and all I want is a soup. He goes out and gets a little bowl of the Korma for me to try, which I do and I can’t eat it. He then says that the soup was spicy and I say yes I agree it was which is why I have consumed so many litres of iced water. I then order a bottle of “Taj Mahal” beer, which I would have added to the eighty if I had not already reached that total, and suddenly he is happy because he is getting six dollars from me for the beer.

We leave the Indian Restaurant and walk up through to Union Square and Madison Square Gardens and then get the subway to Times Square/42nd Street. This is just like I imagined it to be. Like Piccadilly Circus but on a much larger scale and with neon lights in every direction and it’s great! We spend a while here and even go in the Marriott hotel and take the speed lifts which travel up half the height of the Empire State Building in seconds.

Back into Times Square and that’s it. The bugler plays and we are all dismissed for the night!

Attention! Present arms! Dismissed! Ta Ta!

Danny

Will it never end and who you gonna call if it does?

While I was waiting to check in at the hostel I noticed that they were running a City Tour of New York, “Dave’s City Tour” and it started an 9:00am and best of all it was free and as you know I like my freeness me!

So I get up extra early after my previous days traveling ready for a nice ninety minute or maybe if I am lucky two hour tour around this great city of New Yawk.

Eight bloody hours later we get back to the hostel having worn out the boots that have lasted me all this way around the World so far! I have done some walking on this trip to date but "Blimey O’Reilly" eight hours!

A couple of hints here if you are planning to visit the Big Banana at any time, first tip get a seven day MTA metro card for twenty seven dollars from the station at your first opportunity. This is likely to be when you disembark the Air Train so pay the $5 dollars for that trip and purchase the card. It gives you unlimited travel across the MTA network of subway trains and buses and it is a great way of getting around for very little money. The cost of a single trip on the subway is $2.25 so it doesn’t take long for “payback time” and the subway system works 24 hours a day so it is a bargain and we all like bargains don’t we!

Second tip or tip #2, try and get a copy of “the map” which is the MTA subway and railroads map, and is free of charge, and I think available in most subway stations. The tip is not the map in itself but the fact that the map indicates what stations and trains are “Express” and what stations/trains are “Local”. This is very important as it is usually much quicker to travel around if you take a local train one or two stops and then change for the express train. Unfortunately I did not do this when traveling from the airport yesterday as otherwise I think I may have taken at least half an hour from the travel time.

Lastly a good tip if you are traveling around the NY Subway system and you are a little uncomfortable about your safety. Now I have to say that to date I have not had any problems with personal safety issues here (tempting fate!!) but the middle carriage of the subway train is where the conductor is always located so if you are at all concerned head for that carriage and look for their head hanging out of the window and you will be in the safest place for your journey.

As I was saying earlier, eight bloody hours, Jeez Loiuse and Blimey O”Reilly!

We caught the Subway to Battery Park which is the most southerly part of Manhattan Island, one of the number of islands that makes up New York City. Up through Battery Park towards the Financial District and Wall Street, The Bull, and the New Yawk Stock Exchange. We then head across to the Seaport area with its magnificent views of the Brooklyn Bridge before passing the now derelict Fish Market and criss-crossing our way up.

We spend a while at St Paul’s Chapel and Ground Zero. I am not going to make much comment about this as a bit like Hiroshima I found it very moving and quite sad. The Fire Station that first reacted is right next to the site where the Twin Towers were and it is very moving to see the tributes to the fire fighters who lost their lives that day, two of whom were father and son, the father being one of the elite of the fire fighters in the FDNY.

There are also lots of the tributes and messages of goodwill inside St Paul’s Chapel. The most striking thing for me though is the sign outside the fire station that asks people NOT to buy any of the rubbish stuff being pedaled in the streets by hawkers exploiting 9-11, and I have to admit I whole heartedly agree and cannot see why people would even consider buying any of this rubbish from the street pedallers!

Sorry, sermon over, but these parasites really make me sick!

We then head off though the “Streets of San ooops! New Yawk” along the banks of the Hudson River before heading up through the Tribeca area. The Tribeca area is so called as the good citizens of New Yawk like to abbreviate everything so Tribeca means the “Triangle below Canal Street”, yeh I know! This area was very run down but now it is a very up and coming area and Robert “you talking to me” De Niro has a restaurant here and guess what we all trek inside for a look around, it must really p**s them off having groups of scruffy backpackers trekking through their restaurant, but they are very polite and welcoming.

We have lunch not at De Niro's place (!)The Tribeca Grill, but at a traditional Italian Pizza place where you can buy a large slice of pizza for $2.50 (we are poor travelers on a tight budget!) and then its some more walking, followed by even more walking and after that more walking.

After a while you are not really interested in looking at any more of the Big Banana and all you want to do is put your feet into a nice bowl of warm salty water. There is an Asian couple with us, I think tourists from China, and the man who I think is the only one of the two who can speak English asks the tour guide “how are your feet?”

We manage to lose the lady from Chile who is constantly talking on her mobile phone and I wish we had also managed to lose the "know it all geezer" from England who seems to already have visited everywhere and has his own commentary on it, so I wonder why on earth he has come on this trip. He reminds me very much of Comic Book Guy in Auckland and is about the same size and just as irritating.

One thing we do see, and it is for me one of the highlights of the tour, follows as our leader, David, asks us if we recognize the Fire Station called "Fire and Ladder" across the road as we walk along near Chinatown. Now this is a working fire station and it takes a minute or two for the penny to drop and guess what, “who you gonna call, Ghostbusters!” Yep the HQ of Ghostbusters is a working fire station and I have a foto foto to prove it, magic! (notice the Ghostbusters logo painted on the pavememnt to the right).

We then head off to the “High Line” park. This is a raised rail line that used to serve the meat factories in the area. The factories all closed and the “high line”, so called because it is raised above the street level became derelict. The were lots of calls to pull it down but what actually happened is that they have turned the track into a raised parkway where you can walk along and look at New Yawk below. It is a great use of the otherwise derelict area and as you walk along you can see below the “Hogs and Heifefers Bar” in the Meat Packing District of New York. This is a bar similar to the one in the film “Coyote Ugly”, where the bar ladies (and men) dance on the bar and throw drink on the punters, not one for Danny Beer, especially with my budget!

After that I begin to lose the use of my legs and the will to live! When we get back to the hostel at around 5:30pm all I want to do is sleep.........sleep........sleep.....nite nite

Ta Ta and “Danny Beer aint afraid of no ghost!”

Danny

Start spreading the news

I am sitting in San Francisco International Airport listening to country music on my laptop and typing up the blog post for today, as I have time to kill and not a lot to write about!

The “youessofa” what a great country. Land of the free and home of the brave! No free internet at the airport, you would think that the civil authorities would be more advanced, like those of Hong Kong, KL, or Singapore, where they offer free wifi at the airport, but that is not the case and even the MacD”s and Starbuck$ don’t seem to do it.

I am once again contemplating life while I wait to board the American Airlines Boeing something or the other, and one thing that I have been musing about is the airlines I have flown with to date on my BA-Quantas ticket around the World.

When I booked my “Around the World” air ticket, (or to be more truthful when Mari booked it for me!) it was with BA/Quantas. Now so far on this trip, with thousands of miles under my belt, I have only flown with BA once, my first flight out of London to St Petersburg! Even worse I have not flown with Quantas at all, across all those countries and continents, and looking at the remainder of my flight schedule I am never going to fly with them at all!

To date I have flown with the following airlines:

London to St Petersburg – British Airways
Hong Kong to Kuala Lumpur – Malaysia Airlines
Singapore to Cairns – Jetstar
Sydney to Christchurch – Jetstar
Auckland to Fiji – Air Pacific
Fiji to Honolulu – Air Pacific
Honolulu to San Francisco – American Airlines
San Francisco to New Yawk – American Airlines

My last flight is with BA - New Yawk to London – British Airways to use its proper name. Maybe I can write and complain? "Excuse me but it says here on my ticket Quantas, you know the airline from Australia with the kangaroo on the wing!".

Ah, that explains it, I didn't see a kangaroo in my time in Aussie Land and the same goes for the airline that they run. No wonder they only drink out of lady sized beer glasses! As they say in Germany:

"C'est la vie!”

My flight leaves at around 11:50am but it is later taking off than scheduled, due to the “volume of air traffic”according to Captain America. The flight takes five and a half hours and as the clocks go forward by three hours, due to the West Coast/East Coast time difference, it is around 9:30pm when we finally land in JFK.

By the time WLR is bobbing around the carousel looking for its owner, it is around 10:30pm and I now have to find my way across town to the HI hostel at Amsterdam. I have the directions sent by the hostel, emailed before I left by the hostel, and the first part of the instructions are to take the Airtrain from JFK to Jamaica Station (Irie!).

I then have to take the MTA on the “E” line towards Manhattan and disembark at 42nd Street - Times Square. There seem to be about thirty stations (at least) to stop at before I get to what I think is my right stop but when I get there I can find no connection to the "1" line, although the directions specifically tell me that it is the line I need to take.

It’s around 11:45pm now and I am wandering around 42nd street station with WLR and looking like a “muppet” when luckily I find a “manned” (well “ladied” to be politically correct, - Sorry no need to bother about that I am not in San Francisco anymore!) 24 hour booth. I ask the lady manning the booth how do I get to the "1" Line and she says that I need to get the "7" line for one stop and then change to the "1" line uptown towards the Bronx. From there I should get to 103rd which is my destination station for the hostel.

I exit the New Yawk Transit System Station at 103rd just before midnight and my directions now tell me to head up 103rd Street towards Amsterdam. 103rd runs in both directions from the station exit, so I wonder how I am supposed to know which way is “up” or is that the "only way baby, just you and me?"

I thought it was difficult in Moscow and Tokyo to understand the transit system but this is worse, and I did not even count the stations.

When I exit 103rd Station there is a guy "manning" a fruit stall and I ask him where Amsterdam is (the street not the country) and he points me in the right direction. Now I am not sure how far this is going to be so I take out the backpack straps from WLR, load it on my back, and walk approximately one hundred yards when I see the hostel just across the street at the next junction, DOH!@!@@!!!@@

I get checked in at the hostel and finally get to bed around 1:30am, absolutely knackered but pleased that the area the hostel is in does not seem quite as hostile as the one in San Francisco(so far - well at least I have not heard MF yet).

Finally, I must say that the hostel in San Francisco was like staying at The Marriott compared to the staying at the YMCA here in New Yawk! It may not be quite as much fun either!

Ta ta from a very tired Danny Beer

Danny

PS: Don’t mention the football!

PPS: Only one entry at guessing Beer #80. Nice to keep up the tradition of one entry per competition!

Sitting on the dock of “The Bay” watching the tide roll away, Sitting on the dock of “The Bay” for the last time today!

Tomorrow I am flying off to the Big Banana so it’s my last full day here. I spend the day relaxing as I have done all the tourist stuff that I wanted to around San Francisco. I am also packing WLR that has not had to move for eleven days so I am sure the lazing around will mean that it has put on further weight during its stay here!

Now here’s a poser for you! I have found beer #80 and consumed it and I have mentioned its name on one of my very first blog posts. I think this is a very fitting beer to be beer #80 on the “ball ball” list, very fitting indeed. Now I have not drunk this beer on my World trip to date, so it is no good referring back to the list of beers consumed that I did on an earlier blog, when I did a progress update, but I have mentioned it previously. As I can only show up to 99 posts it is no good scrolling back either as its name is no longer visible.

Now when I have run competitions before they have been an overwhelming success. Both times they attracted exactly one entry so I am not holding out great hopes for this one!

I am not going to tell you the name yet so if you want to guess then I will award another fictitious prize for the first correct answer drawn out of the fictitious hat. Remember the judge’s decision is final.

A bit of a clue for you though, this beer brings back fond memories for me, so as I said earlier it makes it a great beer to become the 80th beer on the old “ball ball”:

Beer number eighty
Cerveza numero ochenta
Biirra numero ottanta
Das bier achtzig
Ol antal attio
Восемьдесят количество восемьдесят
Biiru nanba-yasoji?
Bir angka delapan

Entries on a postcard please......

I have tickets to a show tonight in the theater at Pier 39 down at Fisherman’s Wharf. I bought the tickets (yeh you guessed it) in the Half Price Ticket Booth in Union Square on Tuesday and I am looking forward to it as I love my Motown and my Steven Seagal!

I decide to walk down to Fisherman’s Wharf which takes about 45 minutes and as I have unreserved seating I get near the head of the queue to make sure I get a good seat. The show is called:

“Motown Madness the musical, uptown downtown Motown madness, a tribute to Motown and it’s musical stars” - a spectacular Motown and classic soul musical straying from a typical musical review, Motown Madness takes you on a power-packed narrated journey from the early days of Motown to the legendary classic soul sounds of today".

Now despite the fact that one of The Supremes is white (probably Diana) and there are only three “Four Tops” I think this is up there with the best of the Motown shows I have seen and much better than some of the Motown/Soul acts you see at Warner. There is not much of a story but that doesn’t matter. There are three guys and three ladies as well as a supporting four piece band and they cover Motown from a lot of different periods not just the early stuff. They all have great voices and the bank is really tight. They do early Four Tops, Elgins, Martha, Temps and then later stuff with a great cover of Sexual Healing by Marvin Gaye, some Michael Jackson stuff and they even cover an Angie Stone number on the basis that it could have been written for The Supremes!

The show lasts about 75 minutes with no interval and they also do some audience participation stuff which actually works well and is not too cheesy. When the show is finished the singers move to the bar area and perform some acapello stuff while the musicians move their stuff across and then it’s "after the show its an after party, and after the party it's in the hotel lobby" for another 90 minutes or so and again they do some great covers of tunes and it’s a dancing party. They even pay homage to Danny Beer and his new love of “good ole country music” by playing a country tune (well not actually country but the nearest thing I guess, Sweet Home Alabama).

A great last evening in San Francisco and if you do go, a bit like the trip to Alcatraz, I would really recommend this, even if you are not a great Motown fan because it is so much fun!

So its ta ta from San Francisco, a big thanks again to Andy for traveling up to meet me. I won’t miss the “Streets of San Francisco” although I got immune to it all in the end so maybe it’s not as scary once you get accustomed to it.

Don’t forget answers on a postcard if you think you know the identity of Beer #80!

Ta ta again

Danny

Who was Lefty O’Doul?

I am sitting in Lefty O’Doul’s and I am watching the AFL (Aussie Rules) Grand Final between Geelong and Saint Kilda. If you can think back to Sydney when I went to see the “Swannies” play the egg chasing game but in a much more macho way than the Americans, without motorcycle helmets, shoulder pads and tights, "Swannies" were beaten on the night by the much better team the Geelong Cats. The “Cats” went on to win through the knockout stages and are now in the final against the underdogs St Kilda and it’s live in Lefty’s.

As I sit here watching the “Cats” chase an egg around the circular pitch I contemplate to myself " I wonder who Lefty actually was? Luckily in the booth where I am sitting they have a little potted history on the wall alongside all the foto foto's of Lefty, and here it is:

Francis “Lefty” O’Doul was born in San Francisco and he is considered one of the New York Giants most colourful and popular personalities.

He played in the Pacific Coast League as well as the Major League, where in 1929 he had a .398 batting average. It was the highest average of any National League outfielder in the 20th century.

Lefty was a highly respected coach and manager for the San Francisco Seals baseball team. He was a friend and team mate to the great players such as Joe DiMaggio, Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb to name a few. Lefty was the man who brought two countries together after World War II, as he was credited for bringing America’s favourite past time to Japan.

(So if you are Japanese and hate baseball and what it has done to your culture then you can blame Lefty).

In 1958 Lefty had an inspiration to open a restaurant bar in San Francisco where friends and family could come to eat and meet with sports stars creating a unique environment where everyone was family. Over the years Lefty O’Doul’s restaurant has seen the likes of baseball and Hollywood’s greatest entertainers and now has had the pleasure of welcoming Danny Beer to their world famous establishment.

Lefty I salute you and your legacy, and thanks for all your efforts in helping me achieve my goal of "Eighty Beers" from around the world!

Shame you only serve mainstream lagers like Budwater and Muller Light. I would also do away with the crappy piano player stuff as it gets a bit grating the seventh or eighth time you have heard it, but thanks anywayz for making an enjoyable place for Danny Beer to have a drink and BTW why exactly do they call you “Lefty’?

One final question to pose on today’s blog post and maybe Lefty can help me out here with the answer from above?

“Why is it called the “World Series” when it’s only competed for by baseball teams from the “Youessofa” with the exception of one from Mooseland (Toronto)? Why oh why oh why – I think that spells "yo yo"

Oh and incase you were wondering the score was Geelong Cats 80 – St Kilda 68.

It’s an “inside the park home run” and ta ta from Lefty and Danny “Yankee Killer” Beer

Danny

Welcome to the Hotel California

On the walk down to Union Square I always pass the Hotel California, which is situated on Geary. It’s a bit irritating as because as soon as you see the sign you start to hum the track, even if you are like me and don’t particularly like The Eagles. That means that at least four times a day, for the last ten days I have had that song in my head. The alternative would be to head straight down Ellis rather than up to Geary but I think I prefer humming The Eagles to listening to crack heads shouting m** f*** as I walk along the road.

Now I am sure this was not actually the Hotel California that The Eagles wrote and sung about but it is interesting that they have been able to keep the name of the hotel so I am guessing that it was called Hotel California way before the Eagles released their track.

While I was out today I went past the Great American Music Hall. It looked like a very interesting music venue that must go back a few years and at the box office they were advertising a show for this evening so I asked if there were any tickets available. There were some available so I thought why not give it a go and bought a ticket to see Jerry Jeff Walker, having no idea who he was or what type of music he plays.

An afternoon exploring the rest of the sights of San Francisco (Is that what the Otis Redding song "Dock of the Bay was about?) and I think I have now done all that San Francisco has to offer. I have given up hope of getting down to the Grand Canyon. I have been checking out air tickets but they are very expensive and the flights are multi stop so it will take ages so I will have to save this experience for another time. I think I have seen everything there is to see in terms of tourist places and I was lucky to have seen the Golden Gate Bridge when I did as it has been shrouded in fog for the rest of this week.

My plan is to check the queue outside the Great American Music Hall and much to my surprise there is already a big queue at 6:00pm so I get on the end of it as the deal is first come first served. We get let in at 7:00pm and get a stamp on our right hands, just like at the school disco, to prove we have bought a ticket. Inside the venue is very interesting. The website has the strapline “Great music since 1907” and it must have seen a lot of different music performed on its stage.

It is San Francisco's oldest and grandest nightclub with ornate balconies, soaring marble columns and elaborate ceiling frescoes. The remarkable interior design came from an unlikely duo: a French architect who designed the building in 1907, and Chris Buckley, a political mover and shaker who wanted to erect a grand structure after the devastating 1906 earthquake. The result was Blanco's, characterized as one of the most popular entertainment spots during San Francisco's notorious Barbary Coast Era. The restaurant/bordello offered fine food, gambling and fast women right up until the dark days of the Great Depression in 1933. I wonder if the "fast women" still frequent the place and are the talking about Flo Jo (Florence Griffth Joyner?).

In 1948 it reopened as a jazz club until the 1950s when the premises were taken over by members of the Moose Lodge. I didn’t even know that Michala had a lodge, never mind one so far away as the west coast of the “youessofa”.

The building went into decline that hit rock bottom when the building was condemned by city building inspectors. A last-minute reprieve saved it from demolition, and the tarnished interior was spruced up a bit when a short-lived French restaurant named Charles (after the proprietor, Robert Charles) took over the building. But it was not until 1972, when the Great American Music Hall opened, that happy music lovers filled the hall once more.

The past three decades at the Great American Music Hall have been full of music, with artists ranging from Duke Ellington, Sarah Vaughan and Count Basie to Van Morrison, the Grateful Dead and Bobby McFerrin.

Once inside I find a good seat and wait for the show to start. Looking around the audience I think I have worked out what type of music Jazzy Jeff is going to play. I am the only black person in the audience (OK so I know that I am not black but in protest I listen to some Studio One on my MP3) and there are plenty of good old country boys and girls with Stetsons on their heads, pointy shoes and more denim than the Levi’s Superstore in San Francisco. The support act is the son of the main act and he does a set of about 40 minutes and this includes a song where the audience have to howl and bark like dogs on the chorus.

Jerry Jeff takes the stage at 8:00pm to lots of yeehaws and shouts of appreciation and he is doing a solo show with just a stool and a guitar, and the audience loves him, and shouts out requests for all his popular songs. Now I did mention the other day that I am getting rather fond of the old country music and today I feel just like Woody in Toy Story and Toy Story 2, tapping my feet along to the tunes and “havin a rootin and tootin good time”.

Doing a bit of research Jerry Jeff was born in New Yawk and JJ is not his real name but one that he adopted in 1966 (a good year for football). His most famous song is Mr Bojangles, which he wrote as well as recorded, and this has been covered by artists that include Neil Diamond, Nina Simone, Bob Dylan, Sammy Davis Jnr and for me the best one of all by John Holt on 1000 Volts of Holt.

All and all an interesting evening and I reckon well worth the time and effort to see the show and I did enjoy the music as well. Oh dear, next thing will be actually liking The Eagles! Hand me a gun please.

As I saddle up and ride into the distance down Ellis Street heading towards the saloon it’s a big adios amigo’s and Ta ta from Danny “Country Boy” Beer

PS: Charlton 2 - Exeter 1 Yeehah!
Danny

A strange day today!

At breakfast this morning an Asian guy, well a Ch*n*s* bloke actually but I am not allowed to call him that, tried to insist that the orange I had just poured myself and sat down with was his. “That my orange?” “no it’s my orange”, “that my orange!” “no it’s my orange I have just poured it!” I told him twice that it was not his orange juice and that he should look elsewhere at which point he tried to grab the drink from the table in front of me. I find this really strange; as orange juice here is a part of the free breakfast you get in the hostel! In the end I told him politely to f*** off and he went away to look for his orange juice in another place and on another table. Only in America!

Today I have also been down to MacDonald’s to get myself a large coke cup from a Happy Meal. I now hold this straight out in front of me when walking around the streets here in San Francisco. I am using this as a kind of pre-emptive strike against those nice gentlemen that poke a Mac D cup in my face each time I walk down the road, or cross at a junction, and ask for change. It was so bad today that as I was walking along down by Fisherman’s Wharf I spotted some guy up ahead quickly drinking the coke and then chucking away the ice from the cup just before I passed him just so he can poke the cup in my face and ask for money.

I managed to watch the replay of the second half of the Man U v Man C game on Setanta in an Irish Pub. An entertaining game and I noticed that they seemed to play “Ferguson” time again with stoppage time of over six minutes, just enough time to allow Owen to score in the 96th minute! I also saw on the internet today that Jerome Thomas (he used to play for Arsenal you know!) managed to get sent off in the West Brom versus Arsenal Milk Cup game. When interviewed and asked about the incident Wenger was quoted as saying “My eyes aren’t great and my ears are worse”, not quite as good as “I did not see it!”

I went once again to the Half Price ticket booth on Union and bought a ticket for the stand up comedy showcase at “Our Little Comedy Club”, a very fitting name for this place on Ellis. Having purchased the ticket I got a bit worried about the show as looking at the web address of the club www.globalwomenintact.org I thought I might be in for ninety minutes of anti-male jokes from rather butch ladies dressed in Doc Martins and turned up Levi’s.

Getting there at just before 8pm I can see why they call it “Our Little Comedy Club”. It is about the size of my dining room at home, with a microphone and around eighteen chairs spread around the room. When I enter a guy asks me if I am a comedian and I answer no and join the other five members of the audience. It ends up that there is an audience of six including me and eight comedians waiting to do their ten minutes. It is uncensored and the comedians in such a small and cosy environment are not worried about what they say or any political correctness which is very unusual for San Francisco. There was a gay comedian that the black comedians took the “mick” out of, a Chinese (oops sorry Asian) guy that took the “mick” out of the bald white comedian and a Jewish Indian comedian who did not take the “mick” out of any of the other comedians but who had some good jokes.

The headline was a big and rather fat black guy (that’s how he described himself) who did about twenty minutes and who ripped the “mick” out of everybody.

The show was really good and easily worth the half price ticket of ten dollars. It is strange being in such a small venue and sitting about three feet from the comedians but it was a very entertaining evening and the admission cost does goes to charity with the comedians performing for nothing.

The evenings are starting to get really cold and the fog descends to make it very grey and miserable but either I have got used to the area now or it is just much quieter and a bit too cold for all the smack heads.

Still no new beers to report!

Ta ta

Danny

Jailhouse Rock

The first day of “Fall” – whatever happened to Autumn and whats winter called here?

An early start today as I am booked on the “early bird” ferry to Alcatraz. I booked the ticket on the internet and to board the ferry you must have some photographic ID, so I take the passport along.

The fare, including entrance to the island is just over sixteen and a half English pounds and I am a bit skeptical about how good it will be, but I am very pleasantly surprised! It only takes about 12 minutes to cross to the island and as we get nearer we see that it is shrouded in fog. When you disembark you get a ten minute briefing and then off you go. I had a great day at Alcatraz. The prison is very interesting and you get issued with a set of earphones and an audio device that gives you a commentary as you walk around the place. The commentary is carried out by ex inmates and guards, with lots of sound effects and history and there are lots of information boards and props and stuff and it is fascinating to walk around and learn the history of the place. It is now a Golden Gate National park run by the government so you don’t get ripped off like you would expect.

Alcatraz was as a prison almost from the very beginning. In 1859, During the Civil War era soldiers convicted of desertion, theft, assault, rape and murder; citizens accused of treason; and the crew of a confederate ship were imprisoned on Alcatraz. During the Great Depression of the 1930’s, the newly created Bureau of Prisons became interested in the island as a place for a high-profile, maximum-security facility. Alcatraz reopened in 1934 as a federal penitentiary. Of the 1,545 men who "did time" on Alcatraz, only a handful were notorious including Alfonse “Scarface” Capone, “Doc” Baker, Alvin “Creepy” Karpis, George “Machine Gun” Kelly, Floyd Hamilton and Robert Stroud the “Birdman of Alcatraz”.

“If you break the rules you go to prison, if you break the prison rules you go to Alcatraz”.

They have a number of walks and talks given by Park Rangers (the rangers not going to like this Yogi!) and I catch two of them. The first walk is excellent and lasts about an hour. It is all about the attempted prison breaks from Alcatraz and the ranger is great at delivering the stories and making you laugh. There were 14 attempted federal prison-era escapes, the best known occurred in June 1962, when Frank Morris and brothers John and Clarence Anglin slipped into the water. They used raincoats as flotation devices and were presumably bound for San Francisco. Although their bodies were never found, they are assumed to have been drowned. A film was made of their story, “Escape from Alctraz”, and it starred Clint Eastwood, and you get to see the actual cells that they hacked the ventilation grills from, a replica of the dummy heads they used to pretend they were still asleep, and the shaft that they used to reach the roof as part of the escape. In the film Clint makes it to Angel Island and is washed up on the shore. Angel Island was a military base and an island like Alcatraz so why Clint would have headed there rather than San Francisco is beyond me but I guess that’s artistic license.

Some of the other escape stories are equally as interesting. One guy spent eight years stealing from the laundry. He stole all the bits of an army sergeant’s uniform and hid these in a blanket in the bushes near the laundry. He took his opportunity and boarded the boat that brought the laundry across on its way back to Angel Island via San Francisco. A body count on land highlighted the missing prisoner and on the army boat they found that they had an extra sergeant and he was shipped back to Alcatraz and given a further three years. Later in his life he was asked if he was a hero with the inmates for escaping the island but he said no, the rest of his stay in Alcatraz was hell! Why was that? Well both the inmates and the warders teased him all the time by calling him “sarge, how’s it going sarge? Time to get up sarge etc”

Rule #5 - "You are entitled to food, clothing, shelter, amd medical attention. Anything else you get is a privelege." Rules and Regulations 1934.

There are four cellblocks in the prison. "A" block was not used to house prisoners during the federal penetentiary years. Blocks "B" and "C" were considered "general population" blocks. "Unruly inmates were "segregated" in Block "D" (42 cells) in isolation and you get to go inside these cells as well as the normal ones. Looking at the spaces and facilities you got in prison on Alcatraz and comparing that with some of the places I have stayed in I think that "Scarface" and "Machine Gun" may have had it better than me and they got fed as well!

The second ranger talk is about Hollywoood and Alcatraz and there are quite a few myths that are exposed and here are a couple of them that are not true. The first one is about a gas chamber on Alcatraz. It had no "death row" or any other facility for executions on the island.

The second is about Robert Stroud "The Birdman of Alctatraz". Stroud did keep canaries when he was incarcerated at Leavenworth Penetentiary but never had birds and was not allowed to keep pets at Alcatraz. Unlike the depiction in the Burt Lancaster film he was a phsycopathic killer who was transferred to Alcatraz after he stabbed and killed a prison guard for reprimanding him and losing his visitor priveleges, so another Hollywood myth is exposed.

Yep I would really recommend a trip to Alcatraz and its well worth the money. You need most of the day there to make it worthwhile, make sure you go on the ranger talks and most importantly make sure you book the cruise that docks on the island as there are quite a few that only sail around Alcatraz without docking.

I am sure that I have this 45rpm single!

Late afternoon and I walk back and cross Union Square and check out the “half price” ticket booth and they are offering cheap tickets to see
Brief Encounter at the big theatre on Geary, the ACT so I get a ticket for the 7:00pm show and it is only nine pounds including booking fee. The show is a musical based on the Noel Coward – David Lean film of the same name. It is on tour direct from a season in London and the cast is also from Britain. It is a good production, lasting two hours including a fifteen minute interval and although I am quite high up in the first row of the second balcony I really enjoyed it.

A quick last beer in Lefty’s and back to my luxury room in the City Hostel, San Francisco.

Still no new beers to report though!

Ta ta from cell block #9

Danny

Danny Beer, You have the right to an attorney.

It’s a very politically correct place is San Francisco. You have to be very careful about how you describe people and cannot be seen to refer to their sexual preferences, ethnicity, religion or race when referring to them or describing them, either verbally or in writing!

So I think I may be in trouble over my blog post on Wednesday 16th September 2009, day #115!

I have been summoned to appear before the U.S. Commission for Civil Rights, the body that monitors this type of misdemeanor in the “youessofa”. They have cited Danny Beer under section 297, subsection A, paragraph 3, and the misdemeanor is that “Danny Beer used the word “W*lr*s” to describe a member of the “Odobenidea” group of mammals, which is in breach of their civil rights”, in this the home of civil rights.

In future I can only refer to the “w***r*s” as a “Native American mammalian” or an active member of the “mammalian” group. I can also refer to “Odebenus Rosmarus” as one of the “Odobenidea Group, but only if I have checked the appropriate website to make sure that they have given their permission to be referred to in this manner. Furthermore I cannot make any reference to the gender of the “native American mammalian or Odebenus Rosmarus” or refer to “it’s” sexual orientation!

But the worst thing is that I have now found out that the “W*lr*s” that was sharing my dorm the other day was not even an “Odebenus Rosmarus” or member of the ethnic group “Odobenidea” but was infact “Zalophus Californiaus” or a sea l**n!

If you ask me the U.S. Commission’s time would be better spent investigating the cramped living conditions and exploitation of the “Zalophus Californiaus” rather than citing Danny Beer!

I had to move rooms today as someone managed to bring the sink in the bathroom off the wall (not me I hasten to add) so the maintenance man was in the room trying to fix it when I got back. But the good news is that I have managed to get a new room and a bottom bunk. It’s a bit like the TV programme “Porridge” where a bottom bunk is a sought after luxury and I have the bunk until I check out as well, heaven!

This room also has some daylight coming in through the window, rather than the view in the other room of a brick wall, so it’s worked out a treat (I do know a really corny Arthur Smith joke about “working out a treat" but I don’t want to retell it as I am already in enough trouble with the commission!). To quote Basil Fawlty “what exactly do you expect to see out of a San Francisco hostel dormitory window then, the Golden Gate Bridge?”

I got up late today and had a late brekky (which is free here) and I listened to Danny Baker’s Friday show on Radio London. Later in the afternoon I decided to go out and explore some of the places Andy Spurs mentioned yesterday when we were hiking around the Bay.

After about 45 minutes walk from the hostel I hit the intersection of Lombard Street and Columbus and decide to scale the heights. Lombard Street is right up high and the streets to reach the top have a very sharp incline, very reminiscent of the walk to the hostel in Auckland, but a much longer drag. Located in the Russian Hill district it is known as “the crookedest street in the world” because of its eight sharp turns on a 40 degree slope. The turns in the road were built in the 1920’s to allow traffic to descend the steep incline. I am only glad that I don’t have to carry WLR up Lombard Street, as I don’t think I would be able make the top with it on my back! The view of the Bay Area from the top though is great and it makes the trek well worthwhile.

I walk down the other side to Fisherman’s Wharf and the best way to describe Fisherman’s Wharf is rather “tacky and seasidey”. I hunt in vain for a “kiss me quick hat” but no luck there, so I walk to Pier 39, and this is where “Zalophus Californiaus” to be poltically correct, or the “s*a l**ns live when they stay in San Francisco. It’s really funny watching them in action vying for the best slot and shouting loudly at each other, but I must admit that it smells a bit like Grimsby.

After a while watching the acivities of my fellow citizens I walk back down the main drag and there is a guy dressed up as a bush or privet hedge, What he does is squat down at the edge of the pavement and when people walk by he jumps up and shout “gotya” and holds out a Madonalds soda cup. He “gets” quite a few people who are embarrassed and shocked, into making a contribution, but he doesn’t “get” me and if I were him I would check my “employers insurance cover” as I reckon pretty soon he is going leap out/up and shout “gotya” and swiftly follow this with a call to 911 and some mouth to mouth resuscitation.

In the evening I pop out to look for something for tea and I come across a genuine “English” Fish and Chip shop. How do I know it is genuine? Well not only does it say that on the sign outside but inside it has a proper “old skool” fish and chipper or range. You know the sort of thing that takes up all of the room behind the counter and has lift up bits where you fry the fish and separately the chips, with big steel baskets that they use to drop the fish and chips into the frying oil. There is a manufacturers badge that indicates that it was made in Cardiff in Welsh Wales in the 1950’s and the fryer is in very good condition considering its age.

They fry the chips twice, which is the traditional way and they put salt and proper vinegar on the fish and chips before wrapping them up in newspaper. The only thing missing are the jars of pickled onions and gherkins.

Yum Yum, the nicest tea I have had since being in the “youessofa”!

Ta ta and see you in the Supreme Court of California, Court #3, the Court of Judge Pickles.

I may have to write to Governor Schwarenneger to plead my innocence/ ignorance. I am sure he will understand!

Ta ta again

Danny

Welcome Home

I spoke to Pam on the phone today and she has told me that she is getting the house ready for my return. The bunk beds have apparently been ordered from Ikea, with the top bunk reserved for me. Lockers have also been installed but I have to bring my own padlock so luckily I should still have one from my travels. A sign has been installed in the kitchen stating that there will be a fine incurred if I don’t clean and dry my plates and utensils after use and a coin slot has been added to the washing machine.

When I get back I will be able to add the finishing touches to the "Changing Rooms" makeover by leaving a big pile of dirty clothes all over floor and forgetting to make the bed when I get up.

In the morning I met up again with Andy and after he had checked out of the Marriott we took a walk down to Fisherman’s Wharf. By the time we had reached there it was about time to turn back but it was a good walk that lasted well over an hour. Andy pointed out some good places for me to visit including Lombard Street and Pier 39 and I plan to visit those tomorrow. Back to Union Square and a quick pint or two of Stella in Lefty’s before Andy has to set off and get the BART out to the airport. Once again thanks Andy!

In the evening I went to a(nother) comedy show just around the corner from Union Square. I got the ticket from the half price ticket booth in Union and took a chance on it. The show started at 8:30pm and it was in a small theatre called the SF Playhouse. The show was called 1 Funny Night and featured “refreshingly offbeat comedy with impressions, sound effects, salad jokes, pranks, videos and more”. The comedians were Colin Mahan, Mike Spiegelman, Les Milton and Harmon Leon. It was hosted by Tony Sparks and I really enjoyed the show.

The show is set up to allow the acts to do different comedy to plain stand up and there was an impressionist, two comic magicians a guy doing salad jokes which were funny and a very intense comedian that reminded me of Jeremy Hardy and who did some really good sketches using sound effects including a skit about a phone in doctor, a Life on Earth parody and a children’s story teller. If you are ever in San Francisco on a Sunday night I would recommend this show but remember to bring your own drinks as there is no bar.

I must admit that I have a confession to make. I have only been in the proper bit of the “youessofa”, not the later 50th state, for less than a week and I have started to enjoy listening to country music. If I hear Dolly or Jim or Dwight I feel my feet start to tap and I even start to hum or sing along if I know the words. Oh dear, how embarrassing! I hope I don’t end up wearing a cowboy outfit with no backside in and start singing YMCA.

I finished the night off with a last beer in Lefty’s, which seems to be a favourite haunt for me now and if I am lucky the pianist will play some good old country tunes before the evening ends!

Ta ta and not long now and one beer still to go! Tune in tomorrow to see if Danny Beer reaches his 80 beer target before New Yawk.

Yeehah and ta ta

Danny

The lunatics taking over the asylum

My friend Andy is flying up from La La Land later today and we are going to go out on a little pub crawl, talk football and down a few glasses of Belgium’s finest, Stella Artois. It’s doubly great of Andy to make such an effort as he does not like flying, does not like it at all! Andy is getting into town around 5:30PM and I am meeting him in the Sky Lounge bar on the 39th floor of the Marriott in central San Francisco.

After a late breakfast I decide to brave the elements as it were and head downtown to find out exactly where the Marriott is located. I think it takes less than three minutes before I hear someone shouting out “you M*** F ** M** F** rather loudly. I hope that they were not referring to me but I do not wait around to find out.

Now today I make a bit of a schoolboy error (yes another one), as I leave the hostel without the address of the Marriott hotel but I seem to remember that the Marriott was on 2nd street so I head down to Second Street and walk along it for about ten minutes and spot a Marriott hotel. Job done I reckon so I then head further south down to San Francisco Pier and the Oakland Bay Bridge.

The idea of the Oakland Bay Bridge was proposed by Joshua Abraham Norton who “decreed” that there should be a bridge connecting Oakland and San Franciso. Norton was an interesting character who was born in London but spent a lot time in South Africa before arriving in San Francisco.

In 1859 he proclaimed himself “His Imperial Majesty Emperor Norton I, Emperor of these United States and Protector of Mexico”, and to be quite truthful he was a sandwich short of a picnic and although the lights were on there was no one actually at home for most of the time. The citizens of San Francisco considered him insane, or at least eccentric, but actually took to his idea of building the bridge and the idea was eventually turned to reality.

Building did not begin until 1933 and it was opened to traffic on November 12 1936, earlier than the Golden Gate Bridge. The bridge consists of two major suspension bridge crossings across an island in the bay, and has an interesting design as it is a “double decker”, with one set of lanes for one direction suspended above the other set of lanes. Originally car traffic used the top tier and trucks and trains the bottom but after the collapse of the Key System the lower deck was converted to carry cars. The bridge has featured in films that include The Graduate, The Towering Inferno and The Dead Pool and I think it is a very impressive construction so jolly well done Emperor Norton.

It’s time to head back to meet Andy but when I get to the hotel and ask them if they have a bar on the 39th floor the reply from the receptionist is “no,no,no”! Luckily they know which hotel I need to get to which is on 4th and about ten minutes away. On the way I pass the many beggars all around San Francisco and one of them has been really creative! He has acquired himself a milk crate, and a soda cup from Mac Donalds, and is pretending to be a statue. I must give him eight out of ten for his creative idea but only one out of ten for his execution as he has not quite got the standing completely still bit quite worked out. He is swaying more that the Golden Gate during an earthqauke and is really annoying the more accomplished statues around him.

I get to the Marriott and find Andy waiting at the bar and we have a couple in the Skylounge then head out and find an Irish Pub where they have a foto foto of Matty Holland on the wall.

Off again we end up in an Asian run bar where they seem to be completely ignoring the “no smoking” rule and not only are most of the customers smoking cigarettes, but also the two barmaids behind the bar. We finally end up back in Left’s and try a pitcher of Anchor Steam and then a pitcher of Anchor Summer as the Piano Man gives it his all, and at one point even does a cover of a Cold Play tune, Chris Martin would have loved it I am sure. We also consume one of Lefty’s famous beef sandwiches and then call it a night.

That’s my Saturday and one again thanks Andy it was a great evening and good to talk about football where they play with a round ball and don’t wear motorcycle helmets.

Ta ta

Danny

Bridge over troubled water

The day started off badly as although the walrus had vacated its bed the guy in the bunk below had set his mobile phone to alarm at 5:30 AM and it repeatedly played loud hippity hop music every five minutes as he hit the snooze button, beware the snooze button! After the fifth hippity hop alarm I had to shout to him to turn the ** phone off, after which I got an apology but not much more sleep.

This morning I went to see the Golden Gate Bridge, one of the iconic things about San Francisco. Now the first thing to point out is that it is not Golden and has no gates, but as Nicky pointed out on Facebook, at least it has a bridge which is more than you can say for Stamford Bridge!

It was the longest bridge span in the world when it was completed in 1937 and has become an internationally recognized symbol of both San Francisco and California. Construction started in 1933 and the project cost more than $35 million to complete and eleven men were killed during the construction of the bridge. Those that fell from the bridge and survived became members of the unofficial “Halfway to Hell” club and I am very lucky today as normally the bridge is shrouded with fog but it is a beautiful sunny day with clear blue skies and I get some good foto foto’s.

The bridge is actually painted with red with oxide paint and I think it’s probably like the Humber Bridge in that it is continually being repainted. The Golden Gate Bridge is the most popular place in the “youessofa” to commit suicide. The deck is approximately 245 feet above the water and after a fall of about 4 seconds, jumpers hit the water at around 85 miles an hour, which is often fatal, but if not the water will get them.

They reckon that a lot of the time they only find out that someone has jumped is when they find their car overstaying its welcome in the car park so it may be better to get the “38 muni” bus if you are thinking about it. Suicides are said to average one every two weeks and if you ask me they could do more to stop the jumpers like put a bit of a fence up. It seems remarkably easy to hop over the low barriers and jump, but maybe that’s San Francisco, its tolerance and civil rights movement for you. They do have a sign though!

As we walk across the bridge you can spot dolphins down in the water swimming and coming up for air, the traffic noise is very high, and the wind is very strong. In the distance although too far away for a decent “foto foto” is Alcatraz and I am going to see if I can get over to it later in the week.

Later in the day I find a Turkish restaurant where I have an early tea as I have plans for later. They have a large flat screen TV showing a Turkish channel and it seems to be showing “Deal or no Deal”. Noel Edmunds looks very different than he does on Channel 4 and the top prize is only 500,000 Turkish Lire, which is not quite the same as they offer in England! But they do have a phone for the invisible bloke to ring up on.

The food was nice but the best bit was that I found another new beer! Now they were selling bottles of Efes, the famous Turkish lager, and I did consume a bottle of this but I am not claiming it! Why not I bet you are thinking, Danny Beer claimed a Jamaican beer in Hawaii so why not a Turkish one in San Francisco? Well I think that would be too easy as I can buy Efes in the kebab shop in Greenwich near to Boogaloo Soul.

Beer #2 is Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, brewed and bottled by Sierra Nevada Brewing Co, Chico, C.A. completely natural ale. There are no additives, only the finest malted barley, whole hops, brewers yeast and crystal clear water. The fine layer of yeast in each bottle is a result of the traditional bottle conditioning process that produces carbonation naturally - Finest Ingredients, finest quality”.

Bought and drunk in the Alaturca Restaurant, 869 Geary Street, SF CA 94109.

This means that there is only one beer to go! Big up Danny Beer! They said it couldn’t be done but perseverance, commitment; motivation and the avoidance of "Brothers" on the street corners of San Francisco have put the finishing line within striking distance.

Later in the evening I have booked a ticket to The Purple Onion to see if the sense of humour of the Americans is any better than the Kiwi’s (Gish excepted) or the Australians. It has quite a pedigree of people that have performed at the club that includes Lenny Bruce, Woody Allen, Phyllis Diller (who made her debut here), the Smothers Brothers and Robin Williams. To get to the club I have to go through Chinatown into the Italian District and that is weird and you feel there should be some form of border control and passport checking to get across and the Italian District is full of restaurants with tables out on the pavement and Italian beer for sale.

The show is average with five comedians including a transsexual (well this is San Francisco) and top of the bill is a black comedian called Reggie Steele, which I was sure was a character that Eddie Murphy played, but maybe not? Reggie is OK and does some funny stuff but the Americans sense of humour seems to correlate exactly with their love of decent beer so tonight I feel like I have been watching Budwater top the bill supported by Miller Lite and Coors, oh well!

Take it to the Bridge as James Brown (RIP)would say.

Take it to the Bridge but don’t jump, it’s not worth it, even if Charlton were robbed of three points by the referee yesterday, and don;t forget it’s very cold in that water!

Ta ta

Danny

The Streets of San Francisco

I have been letting things go a bit lately, not paying as much attention to things as I used to, you get the picture? No I am not talking about my personal hygiene or long hair or lack of shaving, but the quest for new beers! I bet you were thinking Danny Beer has lost the plot, only one new beer in the last week or so and that was a Jamaican Beer. Well I am back on track and guess what Beer #3 has been added to the list. Beer #3 – Anchor Summer beer, brewed by the Anchor Steam Brewing Co and Made in San Francisco. A pint cost $5 in Lefty O’Douls Piano Bar and Diner in Geary Street just across the road from Union Square.

San Francisco has some rough areas and some very nice ones, and the contrast is quite stark. On most street corners there are beggars and there are lots of people sleeping on the streets. As you walk around there are groups of the brothas and sisters calling each other “M effin M effers” and shouting abuse across the road at each other.

The area around the hostel is in one of the “rougher” areas and it can be quite intimidating walking up from Union Square, which is right in the centre of San Francisco and only five minutes walk away. I have however adopted a few strategies to deal with this. The first is wear the baseball cap low over the eyes and when anyone says anything just give them the skunk eye and walk straight past them.

The second strategy is more one of avoidance. I have found that if I walk up three blocks to Geary, past the strip joints and dodgy bars I can walk down Geary which is a major road and this avoids the more iffy areas I would pass through if I were to just turn right rather than go straight for three blocks and then turn right. Geary still has a few less than salubrious parts but on the whole is safer, especially if I am walking back late in the night.

Looking round the hostel most of my fellow travelers seem to have opted for very small and light netbook computers. You have probably seen these and they are very light and measure about nine inches by six approximately. I opted for a much larger Toshiba Portege which is bigger and much heavier which brings me to strategy number 3. With my Toshiba in my bag I have a great defensive mechanism if I do get any problems as if I swing the bag around with the laptop in it and catch someone in the face they are going to notice it much more than if I were to tap them with a personal organizer.

Strategy number four is that I have programmed Karl Malden and Michael Douglas’ direct phone lines into my moby just incase I need some quick assistance. I have put Karl's number on speed dial but not Mr Douglas' as I think Mr Douglas may be a bit tied up with Cathy ZJ.

San Francisco is just like it looks in the movies. If you have seen the “Bullitt” movie with Steve McQueen and the car chase the streets are really like that and very hilly with small flat sections.

There are many trams and trolley buses and you buy a ticket for $2 which allows you to travel for a set period of time. They have a very eclectic mixture of trams here with some really old ones that were iought from around the youessofa and also some imported from Italy. They still have all their original signs and livery.If the tram is full inside you can just hang onto the outside and stand on the step. Noe very Health and Safety if you ask me!

Here if San Francisco they also have the biggest Chinatown outside of China and I had a quick look around but when you have seen one Chinatown you have seen them all, no matter how big they are.

Todays blog post was produced and brought to you by Quinn Martin Productions

Ta ta

Danny

Aloha Kakahiaka for the last time as I am leaving the 50th State in the youessofa to head to the Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco. A five hour flight and three hour time difference means that my body has no idea of the time of day when I am writing this.

My flight is with American Airlines and you have to pay for food and alcoholic beverages on the plane so I opt for soft drinks only and watch a very crappy British made movie. At least it passed the time I guess!

I retrieve WLR from the carousel and head to the shuttle bus stand. It’s after 8:30pm so this is the best option to get me safely to the hostel. I get in the relevant door to door but I am the only person heading into San Francisco so the driver is reluctant to take me but in the end he drops me at another shuttle bus where the driver is just leaving with one empty seat, which I fill.

It’s about 25 to 30 minutes to the hostel and when I arrive I am greeted in reception by a very nice young man who must have spent ages this morning doing his face and applying the eye shadow and mascara, and lovely he looks to! He checks me in and I go to the room which is great as it has lockers so I can secure my stuff, and then I head out to try and find somewhere for a late drink but I must admit I need to be as vigilant on the streets here as I was in Moscow! I wonder what Los Angeles is like if it is worse than this? Maybe its the area where the hostel is located but I need to adopt my most agressive body language and keep my baseball hat peak low over my eyes as I walk along!

One thing I had not experienced on my world trip until tonight was the sound of a sleeping walrus. I have often wondered what a walrus would sound like when it is was having a snooze, well tonight I found out, and it is not a pleasant noise, not a pleasant noise at all.

The sounds emanating from the bottom bunk on the other side of the room can only be coming from Odobenus Rosmarus, to use its latin name. This noise continued all night and the only living species left of the Odobenidae family managed to keep me awake for most of the night. This is a pain because I usually don't get much sleep because I need to look after my money and stuff, but as they have lockers here that is not a problem.

As I write this I am feeling absolutely knackered and a bit ratty so just a short post today and then I am off to try and get some sleep.

More about San Francisco tomorrow

Mahalo Mahalo or Ta Ta in English

Danny

Hi
to let you know that I can't seem to access my emails using the webmail option whilst here in San Francisco. I think it is their firewall blocking the page on the site. I have configured outlook to download emails but I cant send any for the same reason. So if you email me I should be able to see what you are writing but cant reply by email. I can access my facebook so that is another option.

Ta ta and apologies

Danny

Jelly funny

It’s my last day in Hula Land today. Tomorrow I am off to San Francisco so I must remember to get some flowers for my hair today man, groovy!

My plan is to take it easy and spend a couple of hours on the beach and have a swim in the bit of the largest ocean in the World that laps up in Waikiki. On with the factor 40 and off to the beach, rubber ring at the ready round my waist and buoyancy aids on my arms.

When I get to the beach I am a little disappointed. By the life guard station there is a sign warning you not to go in the water as there are reported jellyfish in the area. Great, I have carried my rubber ring all that way for nothing!

I later read in the local newspaper, the Honolulu Advertiser the following story:

“Hundreds of jellyfish hit Waikiki. City life guards yesterday treated 61 people at Waikiki Beach for box jellyfish stings during the jellyfish influx. Lifeguards found 363 box jellyfish on Waikiki Beach yesterday”.

It seems that they have followed me all the way from the Sunshine Coast of Australia. I only hope that they didn’t bring their friends the sharks or seawater crocs with them.

Unable to do anything in the water off comes the red “Kishishev Charlton” top and I sunbathe for a couple of hours, top up the tan as they say. I continue to slap on more Boots factor 40 and take in the rays listening to my MP3 (if only I could afford an “I pod” – not).

I have a very low attention span so after about two hours I have had enough of this and the sand does get everywhere. I go back to the hostel to do a bit of packing. When I take my Kish top off to pack it in WLR I look in the mirror and I may as well just have used the Boots Factor 40 to write the number 7 on my back with the words “Kishishev”, as I look the same with and without the red Charlton top.

I found a sports bar called Legends to go to tonight. They have a happy hour until 8:00pm with pints of Budwater for $2.75. The bar has over ten flat screen TV’s dotted around, but the good news is that they can all show different things. They have lots of satellite receivers and they have “Sky Plussed” the Champions League Sokker games from earlier and are showing these at 8:00PM. So I get to see some proper footy (well Chelsea so maybe not), but it’s much better than watching the motorcycle helmet game.

That’s it apart from to say RIP Patrick Swayze and Keith Floyd who have followed in the footsteps of the King of Pop. An interesting dance routine in heaven with those three if they all made it upstairs!

Ta ta from Waikiki, Hawaii, Honolulu, Youessofa.

Danny

You want to go where everyone knows your name!

“Hey bartender, you think you could get a whisky in the glass of that pint of weak beer you just served me?

You reckon you can, well why don’t you top it up with more weak beer then?”

Since I have been here in the youessofa I have been looking out for a decent bar to have a beer in. You know the sort of place, just like on the TV programme Cheers, with Sam and Woody/Coach behind the bar ready to serve as you take a stool and have a chat to Norm and Frasier and if you are not so lucky Cliffy.

I have tried a couple of places. I tried an Irish Bar early on when I got here but I ended up paying quite a bit for a beer and there was no atmosphere. You see here in the “youessofa” they advertise one price but then you have to add the taxes, which is a real pain as you end up with a pocket full of loose change. Then you have to add the minimum cover charge and further more you then have to factor in the tip. So a trip for a quick pint can become a complex and expensive operation!

Today I decided to walk down from Waikiki to the centre of the city which about seventy five minutes to walk. I want to check out a bit more of the place today so that I can take it easy on my last day tomorrow and chill. It’s very hot and sunny and by the time I get near the town I am very thirsty and decide to pop into the pier complex down by the harbour in search of a beer.

I spot a bar with people drinking cold lager so think I will give it a go and blow the expense! I sit down on a stool at the bar and realise that I am in a place called “Hooters” and the reason it is called “Hooters” becomes pretty self evident as soon as I have sat down! The waitresses (there are no waiters) are rather large chested and wearing very short hot pants. Now there is nothing too seedy really about Hooters, although sometimes you don’t know where to look, but they seen to benefit from the fact that all of the armed forces work around the harbour area. I must admit that it would have not been my first choice in retrospect but a beer is a beer.

I have a very large glass of Budweiser, “the beer of kings”apparently. I guess that would be true if kings like really weak and tasteless beer! The drink was not as expensive as I thought either, and I was very thirsty!

“Hooters” is not the place that I am referring to though with my strapline at the start of the blog post. A couple of nights ago I found a bar called The Red Lion, a good English name for a pub,located down in a basement near the front. They advertised a happy hour with domestic beers for $3 for a pint every day up until 8:00PM and I thought there would be a catch but no, $3 for a pint of domestic beer (Budweiser, Bud Light, Coors, Coors Light, Miller Lite – not really what you could call beers) is what I paid.

They have lots of flat screens showing sport (well not what I would call sport but mostly men wearing motorcycle helmets chasing an egg shaped ball around) and I make sure to give the bartender lady a tip as the service is just right.

The Red Lion does remind me of the set of Cheers. As I said it’s located in a basement, there are stools at the square bar to one side and there are also tables where you can sit and order food from Carla or have a chat with Lileth. They also have special promo’s most nights and tonight (Monday) it’s “Broke Ass Monday", no not Broke Back Mountain Night but Broke Ass Monday, and pints are 75 cents and pitchers are $3 after 8:00PM so I am going to give it a try see.

The one thing I am not going to find in The Red Lion though is a new beer to claim. There is no way that Budweiser, Coors or Miller or any beer with the words “lite” in the title is ending up on any list of mine! Today though I did find a new beer for the list. A pint bottle of Red Stripe Jamaican Lager located in an ABC store earlier today on my way back from town. This was not the Red Stripe that you get in the UK, brewed under license by Wells Brewery in Bedfordshire, but the genuine stuff – nuff respect and worth a place on anyone’s ball ball!

Beer #4 – Imported Red Stripe Jamaican Lager – “for over 75 years Red Stripe has embodied the spirit, rhythm and pulse of Jamaica and its people. Brewed and bottled by Desnoes and Gedder Ltd, Kingston, Jamaica”

…………and it actually has some alcoholic content!

When I got back to the dorm guess what was showing on the TV? Yep you guessed it Cheers and as I was watching TV this rather dodgy bloke in the other room asked me if I wanted to buy some weed. Now just because a man drinks Red Stripe Lager...........

Seen?

Ta ta

Danny

Let’s go surfing now, everybody’s surfing now, come on do some surfing with me?

I have been contemplating this since I arrived here in Hawaii, do I hire a surfboard?

Everybody seems to have one. They walk around with them, under their arm, over their shoulder or on their head. It’s a bit like the latest “must have” fashion accessory, maybe an I Phone, a pair of undies with a logo stitched where no one can see it, or some designer sunglasses.

So it seems that it is essential when in Hawaii to walk around carrying a very large and heavy fibre glass pointed scaffold board with a bit of string attached to it if you want to look cool and be a part of the scene. I prefer the “if you want to get ** show us your wrist” scenario myself.

Now I realise that the Pacific Ocean is a very large place, a very large ocean indeed measuring about 41.1 million square miles! It is the largest ocean in the world! Larger than the Artic Ocean, Atlantic Ocean, Indian Ocean and even the Southern Ocean, and the Hawaii Islands are smack bang right in the middle of it.

But the bit of the 41.1 million square miles that hits the beach here in Waikiki, on the quite narrow sandy bit, does not seem to be that over crowded with cool dudes and dudettes, in the water grabbing a wave and shooting the curl before they wipe out.

If you were to compare say, the “per capita” amount of people walking around the streets of Hawaii, carrying a large fibre glass scaffold board about their person, with the amount of people actually in the largest ocean in the world waiting to catch a wave, then I think you will find that there would be a much larger deficit than the even the budget deficit when Gordon Brown was the Chancellor of the Exchequer!

History lesson time, pay attention at the back! The Kingdom of Hawaii existed between 1810 and 1893 but then the ruling monarchy was overthrown by the resident American businessmen (where have we heard that kind of story before?). After that it was an independent republic, between 1894 and1898, until it was annexed (!) by the “youessofa” as a territory (how does that work then?).

Hawaii became the 50th state on the “Stars and Stripes” in 1959, and the greatest historical significance for them was when they became the target of a surprise attack on Pearl Harbour by Imperial Japan on December 7 1941, 18 years before Hawaii were actually let in with a Green Card as it were. The attack on Pearl Harbour brought the Americans into World War 2 in December 1941, a bit late on, but better late than never as they say!

The attack was meant to be a preventative action to keep the US Pacific Fleet from influencing the war Japan was planning to wage against Great Britain, the Netherlands and the United States in South East Asia. 2402 people were killed in the attacks and 1282 wounded and the attack had the effect of changing public opinion in the youessofa from one of an isolationist position (sitting on the fence and watching) to one of direct participation in the war.

Hawaii is now mostly a tourist destination. It seems to be extremely popular with the Japanese now as it is with the Americans, I guess because of its location. It has always been a popular place for the Japanese and at its height; in 1920, they constituted 43% on the population of Hawaii. They now number only about 16.7% according to the 2000 US census, but you can see when you walk around how popular a destination it still is for them and quite a few places have signs saying that they speak Japanese and take Yen. Please note that there will be questions in class tomorrow, so please make sure you read chapters 18 through to 24.

You’ve been watching the History Channel,

Ta ta

Danny

Book em Danno!

Well you wouldn’t expect me to be in Hawaii and not take the opportunity to use this classic Jack Lord” line! Cheers Billy! I do think that “Book em Danno Beero” sounds better though!

The Waikiki Beachside Hostel is just about two minutes from Waikiki Beach (yes I know, but remember the marketing speak!) and twenty five minutes from the airport as the crow or seagull flies.

As we travel on the shuttle bus from the airport to the hostel we seem to pass the street where the hostel is located a number of times, and drop off all the other passengers at places like the Marriot, Hilton and the Westin resorts before we end up at my destination. Now obviously I did not know that at the time as I did not know where the hostel was located,but it soon became apparent when I explored the resort later.

Now if it was a taxi taking me on this scenic and elongated route I could understand it. The opportunity to earn an extra dollar from the stupid English bloke with the oversize backpack as it were! But I have paid a fixed fare of $15 return, to and from the airport, so I am at a loss as to why we seemed to have passed the street where the hostel is located a number of times before I eventually got dropped off, as the last person on the shuttle bus?

I must admit that I am getting a bit fed up with this hostel lark, especially after the luxury of Club Fiji! I am in an eight bed dorm consisting of four bunk beds, and I am on the top bunk again, which is OK. However some of my dorm sharers do not seem to have learnt any of the basic skills that you would have been taught as a child, probably at infant school. You know the type of lesson I mean! Not the advanced algebra, long division or technical drawing type lesson, but the lesson where you were taught the basics, like how to make a bed as an example. There must have been a large proportion of the class of “C1” playing truant when the “bed making” lesson was taking place.

The lesson with Miss Dickson after PE, where you were taught the basic skills of folding clothes and placing them in a pile, rather than taking them off and discarding them exactly where you are standing also seems to have had a lot of silence when the register was being called at the beginning:

“Jones? Jones? Lord? Lord? Danno? Danno? Presley? Presley? Beer yes miss I am here!” You get the picture!

But worst of all, the lesson where the teacher taught you that the place to discard empty food wrappers and drink bottles, cans, and other debris is not the floor where you are standing but the handily placed “trash” bin (see I am making an effort to learn the language) must have had the emptiest classroom of all!

Now I bet you are saying that all Danny Beer has become since he departed on this trip is a “Whinging Pom!” Well you may be right!

I must admit that I am not as impressed with Hawaii as I was with, say, Bondi Beach in Kangaroo Land, even though it was the middle of winter when I visited Bondi. Even the man made beaches in Tokyo and Brisbane did it better for me.

I can’t quite pin down the reason for my disappointment? There is a lot of hype about Waikiki Beach and Hawaii, but Waikiki Beach is quite small and narrow and busy and without the waves it would be rubbish. Waikiki Beach seems to consist mainly of citizens of the “youessofa” on the beach sunbathing and the scene is very reminiscent of watching a school,gam or pod of beached whales looking around as they wonder how they managed to end up on a sandy beach rather than stay in the nice and wet Pacific Ocean.

I think some of it may be my prejudice towards our American cousins and for that I must apologise up front! But what sort of country is it where they show “wall to wall” egg chasing on the TV sports channel (but where the ball doesn’t even bounce), where they have an ad break to highlight the programme credits, and where they sell water that is stronger than the beer?

Please all stand for the “Stars and Stripes”

Ta ta

Danny

The Longest Day or the Long Good Friday?

Well what a day it’s been! It’s only 19:15 here in “Hula Hula” land, Danny Beer is in the “youessofa” for the first time ever, and I am still experiencing the longest Friday of my life, ever, and I mean ever! Worse even than when I worked for the City of Westminster.

The day starts off with a relaxing day as I say goodbye to Henry at Club Fiji and we shake hands. Club Fiji has arranged a lift for me to the airport on the staff bus and Cookie has just finished his shift so he travels part of the journey with me. We shake hands and say goodbye and I have to say that Cookie is a real “top dollar” guy. He works seven shifts a week and six days of those days are on the late shift, where he starts at 5PM and works through until at least midnight and sometimes way beyond. He is everything you would want from a barman, funny, always remembers your name, smiles and laughs a lot, teases me with the Kava and since the first day has always charged me “Happy Hour” prices. As he says every hour is happy hour here at Club Fiji. Thanks to Cookie, Henry, Fye, Barry (a lady) and the rest of the staff at Club Fiji for making it so nice. I have had a ball!

I get to the airport at around six in the evening and finally get checked in as they seem to have a problem finding my e Ticket on the system. Worse still they stick a “heavy” label on WLR! How do you think that it going to make it feel after all the work to lose weight in Australia!

If you have been keeping up to date you will see that sometimes I have gone the extra mile in the pursuit of the new beer! An escapade to Indonesia is one that springs to mind, and I don’t think that anyone could question Danny Beer’s commitment to the cause. But today I think I have surpassed even the best and most diligent of efforts on the trip to date, thanks to the help of Mari.

Mari was the lady that arranged the “Around the World” flights for me before I set off and I have to say “nuff respect” must go to Mary for appreciating the importance of the pursuit of new beers. When Mary booked the flight from Nadi in Fiji to Honolulu in the “youessofa” I was not sure of the routing but knew the approximate flight times etc. and I knew the flight was with Quantas, a partner of British Airways. But Mari managed to get me on the inaugural Air Pacific flight from Samoa to “Hula Hula” Land in the “youessofa” and that means that the opportunity arose for a new first; Two new beers, on the longest day ever in the world, in two different countries, thousands of miles apart.

The first stage of the flight took about ninety minutes. We landed in Samoa and were greeted by fire trucks spraying the plane with water, Samoan dancers on the landing area, music and the Minister for Tourism in Samoa boring us with speeches. But the best of all, the current Miss Samoa, who placed a garland around everyone’s neck as they disembarked the plane to go to the transit lounge.

In the transit/departure lounge we get a few speeches, some music, lots of free food freshly prepared for this momentous occasion and best of all the opportunity for a new beer from a different country!

I check out the transit lounge bar and although I don’t have any Samoan currency I work out that I can use EFTPOS, so I purchase a bottle of beer #6:

Beer #6 - Vailama Lager Beer, brewed by Samoa Breweries Ltd, Apa, Samoa and charged to my Visa card.

Thank you Mari for your commitment to the cause!

A foto foto with the current Miss Samoa and its “123 back on the plane” for the remaining five and a half hour flight across the pacific to Honolulu in the “youessofa”. We are delayed before we land and have to circle the airport as there is a “fly past” to commemorate 9/11 so we land about 8AM on the morning of the same day that has already gone by once and that is really weird!

I collect WLR, finally get through immigration and then get the shuttle to the hostel. I check in at around 10AM and start to feel a bit strange but persevere as it still only mid morning. I go for a walk to check out a bit of Hawaii and Waikiki Beach and while I am doing this find the second new beer in one very long day.

Beer #5 – Longboard Island Lager brewed on the Islands by the Koha Brewing Company, Hawaii and served draft in Kelly O’Neills, Waikiki Beach, Honolulu, Hawaii.

As I write its only 8:00PM at night, I have no idea what time it is in England and I think I need some sleep!

So Aloha and Ta Ta and nite nite, thanks to Club Fiji as you were awesome and I even managed to escape Fiji despite my criticism of Frank. Maybe that’s why they had trouble finding my flight at the check in?

I have a feeling that I am not going to like the citizens of the “youessofa” quite as much, if at all, but time will tell I guess.

Ta ta again

Danny

Bula - One month to go!

Well one month today and my World Trip will be over. The time is really going quickly now and the flight into St Petersburg at the start on the trip seems a long way off.

I have really enjoyed my six nights here in Club Fiji and it has really recharged and reinvigorated me for the final furlong as it were. I am working on Fiji Time today and doing nothing much at all and that is reflected in this blog post. All I have done all day is have a nice swim in the pool, a nice lunch and a relaxing evening consuming Fiji’s finest brewski. Club Fiji has a two piece band playing between 6PM and 10PM and I listen to them and the evening flies by. I am not sure that they should have covered the Eric Clapton number but they make reasonable attempts at “Dance the nigh away” by The Maverick’s and Hot Hot Hot by Arrow.

There is one rather irritating guy currently staying here who comes from Christchurch, New Zealand (smally!). He proposed to his girlfriend on the first night here, which was fine and congratulations and all that but he has for the next three nights got more and more irritating by the minute! He reminds me very much of Lee a guy that Pam used to work with and he is a real attention seeker, just like a precocious child. He seems to think that he must continually be the centre of everyone’s attention and he achieves this by talking very loudly to everyone who will listen and some, like me, that don’t. I reckon someone should dose him up on the Kava and maybe that will shut him up for a while.

I thought I was the only one that was irritated by him and to a lesser extent his fiancé, but another couple end up coming down to the other end of the bar where I am sitting and tell me how irritating they also find him! There is a Kava party tonight but I manage to avoid having to drink any of the stuff despite Cookies teasing about it being my last chance before I leave.

A short post today as I don’t have much to say. Tomorrow, in the words of Cher, “If I could turn back time” is exactly what will happen as I cross the date line. I board my Quantas flight at 21:30 in the evening in Fiji and arrive in Honolulu Hawaii at 6:00AM the morning of the same day, how cool is that eh? Doctor Who has nothing on Danny Beer!

Ta ta

Danny

Boots, Boots, the Government Boots, the Government Boots!

One thing that you won’t read about in the tourist information about Fiji is the current political climate. When Fiji gained its independence from Britain a political structure of tribal chiefs, which had been the way of government here before the British arrived, was legislated for and these tribal chiefs then voted for the leader of the country.

Now I have been wondering what the “curse of Danny Beer” might be for the lovely islands of Fiji and guess what, on 1 September 2009 Fiji became only the second nation ever to be expelled from the Commonwealth of Nations. This is because of the refusal of Frank to hold elections by 2010 as he states that they need more time.

The democratic principles that were left in place when the British ceded power to Fiji have been overturned by a military coup. This took place on December 5 2006 when Commodore Josalia Voreque (Frank) Bainmarana staged a military take over. The country is currently being run by Frank, a bit like Spain was under General Frank(O) in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Brings a whole new meaning to the adverts "Talk to Frank".

Talking with some native Fijians about this situation they say that it is bad now because ordinary people have to be very careful about what they say in public and also sometimes in private. They said it used to be that they would have a Kava session and chat about many things including politics, but now they are frightened because they will be taken away and locked up in prison without trial if they are heard saying something that is derogatory and anti the military dictatorship. The ex-leader of the country, who was ousted in the military coup is also being held under house arrest awaiting trial.

A quote from yesterdays Fiji Sun newspaper attributed to the Institute of Journalists based in Sydney, Australia :

“Tourists who go there (to Fiji) blithely unaware of the reality of the quite severe repression being inflicted on the people of Fiji are supporting a dictatorship with their tourist dollars”.

The curse continues and this may go someway to explaining why Club Fiji is not even half full at the moment with people maybe frightened to travel here? I would say however that without the tourist dollars the workers in the tourist industry like Cookie will struggle, as they already get poor wages, and without the tourism they will probably be out of work. A Catch 22 situation all round really and a shame for such a lovely place and nice people!

The weather has been blinding again today and I have made the decision to rest in the hotel for the last two days and not really do much at all. I do however have a new beer to claim:

Beer #7 – Fiji Gold available on tap, and in a bottle or can at Club Fiji, Nadi, Fiji Islands.

“Full flavoured, full strength, less calories, fess filling”.

Brewed in Fiji by the Fosters Group Pacific Ltd - 4.6% alcohol content.

Six beers to go and my target will be achieved!

Ever trying to educate readers of my blog I have a few Fijian words for readers to learn. You will find these extremely useful if you are contemplating a visit to the beautiful Islands of Fiji and these will aid communication with the Fijians when you are here:

English, Fijian, Pronounced,

Hello, Bula, Mbullah,
Good morning, Yadra, yarn drah,
Good bye, Moce, Mothey,
Thank you, Vinaka, vee naka,
Excuse me, Tulou, too low,
Yes, Io, ee oh,
Nom Sega, Senga,
No Worriesm Sega Melega, Senga Malenga,
Ta Ta, Ta Ta, Ta Ta,

Finally two words of warning for you if you are coming to Fiji. Be vigilant!

No I am not talking about anything to do with the military coup or the dictatorship ruling the country but these are just as important. Try and avoid the souvenir shops, most of the people I have spoken to at Club Fiji have ended up paying an awful lot of money for “genuine Fijian” souvenirs that they had no intention of buying when they went into the shops. The sales technique is pretty hot and you have to stand back and admire the way they sell to you (but not Danny Beer I hasten to add). It rivals the Russian “left luggage” technique, the Tianamen Square Chairman Mao scam and the best efforts of the Shanghai Market traders.

Be vigilant or you will spend a lot of your holibobs dollars on things you don’t want or need, and they will even ship these back home for you of you don’t want to carry them. Remember, “Senga - Vee – Naka” means no thank you in Fijian!

And lastly, beware of strange ladies who strike up conversations in bars. Make sure if and when you do converse that you say “pardon?” if you don’t understand what they are saying and ask them to repeat the sentence until you do understand it!
Ta ta and moce moce (mothey mothey)

Danny

I thought she said “at the hospital”!

Another bright sunny day with blue skies so it looks like my first full day here on Sunday was just a one off. I get up early as I plan to get the bus to Lautoka and then possibly to Rakiraki. I get the shuttle mini bus from the hotel and the driver tells me that it is too late to go to Rakiraki as I should have set off at seven AM if I were going there so I settle for a look around Lautoka.

The bus takes an hour from where the mini bus driver drops me at the bus stop and it costs two dollars forty cents for the ride, which is about eighty pence. The best thing about traveling on the bus is that it is open along the side and has no glass windows so the breeze really blows through the bus and keeps you cool on the journey.

Backed by the magnificent Mount Evans, Lautoka is the second largest city in Fiji after Suva and is known as the “Sugar City”, as this is where all the cane is shipped for crushing after cutting.

It’s worth an hour and a half of your time but probably not much more, although it does have a stadium, large harbour and a fire station. Before I head back to Nadi I pop into “the beer shop” to check if there are any beers that I have not yet seen.

I don’t think there will be more than two or three beers here in Fiji as the bars, beer shops and Club Fiji sell a lot of bottles of Heineken, Corona, Asahi and Aussie imported beers like VB and Fosters. Well it turns out to be well worth the hour’s journey on the bus and the two dollars forty.

There I find it, in the beer shop in Loutaka, Beer #8 – South Pacific Export – 4.9% proof. Brewed and canned with pride in Papua New Guinea by South Pacific Beer - Gold medal winner for distinguished taste and #8 on my list!

Back on the bus towards Nadi and I get off at the nearest bus stop to Club Fiji, which is ten minutes from Nadi Town centre. I walk back for about thirty five minutes to the resorts and the road is surrounded by sugar cane fields and looks like a set from “The Field of Dreams”, build the pitch and he will come.

Arriving at Club Fiji at about three in the afternoon, I do a bit of sun bathing and book reading by the pool until the sun sets at around six. It gets dark really quickly here, at 5:50 it is light and by 6 “pitch” black. I shower and get changed and head to the bar for happy hour #2 and I am greeted by Cookie with the words “Danny, Danny, Danny. Danny Kava coming” and then he laugh’s.

There has been a change of guests at the hotel so although there are about the same number in total there seems to be quite a few male couples here today and most of these are seated at the bar. It is nice to sit at the open bar and watch the world go by. There are two bars in the resort but the main one is in the restaurant complex and is called The Lumalagi Bar, the Bar in Heaven.

Later in the evening there is only one spare seat available at the bar and that is a stool next to me, and a Fijian lady sits there. After a while she introduces herself and starts chatting to me. Now although the main language spoken here in Fiji is English they also speak Hindi and Fijian, and when they talk quite fast I sometimes have some difficulty understanding all of what they are saying. The lady explains that she likes to come here to Club Fiji for a drink in the evenings and buys herself a jug of rum and coke in the Happy Hour. She explains that she had to get a taxi over here as her brother was supposed to give her a lift but he was busy watching DVD’s. At one point the duty manager also comes and asks her how she is keeping and welcomes her back to the hotel bar again.

We chat about different things including my trip and stuff and she asks me what job I do and I reply I work(ed) in IT as an IT manager before I started my quest for “Eighty beers from around the World”.

To be polite I ask her what work she does and I am sure that her reply was “I work at the hospital” but as I mentioned earlier the accent is quite strong and difficult to understand. I continue the conversation and she tells me that she mostly works nights. The more the conversation goes on the more I am not sure that we are talking about the same thing or even on the same wavelength. She gives me some really odd looks when I ask some more questions about her work (at the hospital).

It is when she tells me that she likes English men because they pay better that I realise that we have maybe been talking a bit at cross purposes and she did not actually “work at the hospital” at all, or if she did it would be on a purely voluntary basis as it were. The penny well and truly drops but I continue chatting without being rude whilst at the same time dropping into the conversation that I am just a poor traveler with a very small daily budget and more to the point happily married.

She does not get upset but quite soon afterwards finishes her drink and asks the hotel to call a taxi and disappears without saying ta ta, probably heading to the Ed’s bar that she was talking about earlier when she told me it was just fifteen minutes away in a taxi.

So its ta ta today from a very misunderstood Danny Beer. I must try and listen harder in future and not just nod when I don’t understand what someone is saying!

Ta ta again
Danny

Sanga Malanga

Scattered across 518,000 square kilometers of Pacific Ocean lie the 333 Islands of Fiji. The Lapita people were the first to inhabit the volcanic islands that form Fiji in around 3000BC. From the 1800’s European and Chinese traders visited Fiji for its hardwoods, marine life and more recently gold and in 1789 Captain William Bligh sailed through the Fiji Islands after the infamous “Mutiny on the Bounty”.

The British ruled Fiji from 1874 (us again!) bringing indentured Indian labour to work in the growing sugar industry between 1879 and 1916. In 1970 Fiji became a fully independent nation with constitutional arrangements, to try and ensure that traditional Fijian interests were preserved.

The weather is really nice to day and there is no sign of any rain in the skies. I decide to check out Nadi Town (pronounced Nan Di for some reason). It’s a fairly large town with a lot of tourist shops and at the back a big fruit and vegetable market. I get drawn in to one of the traditional Fijian shops where they make all the souvenirs on site and I get told a lot about the history of Fiji. They are very proud of their country but still hold a soft spot for the Queen, who used to visit once a year when they were a part of the commonwealth, but does not bother now! I am sure her husband Prince Philip would have nice things to say about the Fijian’s.

The people of Fiji were, until fairly recently in their history, practicing cannibals and I get to see some replicas of the hardwood clubs that were used to beat the dinner to death and then prize out the brain from the skull, I did get a little worried but was assured that they, like the Congo Man, never eat white meat yet, so I should be OK!

Part of my history lesson involves me participating in the Kava ceremony. I am the Chief in this ceremony and they mix up the Kava for me to drink (yeh great, more of the stuff) and explain the Kava rituals in the villages in honour of the Chief. One clap, Kava straight down the mouth and the taste has not got any better. Then three more claps.

It is very similar to the Caribbean here in Fiji. They operate on Fiji time (soon come) and threaten to give you a ticket if you walk around too fast. I get told off for saying thank you rather than Vinaka and I finally manage to politely get away from the Kava Ceremony, look at the souvenirs they are selling and make my escape back to the hotel. In the afternoon I laze at the beach and read my book and chill out in the sun.

Back to the bar in the evening and, guess what, Cookie has mixed up some more Kava, deep joy! He says that this is especially for me and both Cookie and Henry take real joy from the expression on my face when I have to down the stuff.

Later in the evening (suitably chilled from all the Kava) I go to phone home (ET) and standing right in the middle of the phone booth in the lobby of Club Fiji, staring at me, is a very large frog daring me to enter its new home. Thinking quickly I threaten to call the French people over and he gets the message and soon runs off.

That’s it from a sunny day, a lovely Fiji evening, too many bowls of Kava and no new beers.

Ta ta and Sanga Malanga (no worries)

Danny

When they said Kava I thought they meant Cava!

The rain started mid morning and stopped at just before midnight. At some points it was torrential and at other times just pouring but I don’t mind because I wanted to chill out and rest, and the rain is making sure that I do that!

I spend quite a lot of the day at the bar chatting with the other guests and with both Henry and Cookie the two barmen. Henry works the early shift and Cookie the late one. The day passes really quickly despite the rain and it’s “Aussie Barbecue Night” tonight, which would take place on the beach, but has now been moved inside due to the inclement weather. The way it works is that you order the meat or fish that you want, tell them how you want it cooked, and then help yourself to baked potatoes, salads etc. You also get a pudding, jelly and ice cream with fruit, yum yum!

The resort here is really quiet. I reckon that there are a maximum of twenty people, which is a shame, as it is really a nice place. This makes it nicer though as everyone ends up chatting or having a laugh at the bar. I am thinking to myself that I had better not get used to this standard of luxury!

Cookie, who is doing the late bar shift is really good fun and I make sure I give both him and Henry a tip early on so they both are now looking after me, with Cookie saying when I get a drink that every hour is happy hour!

It gets quite late and the rain finally stops falling but the beers are still flowing. I have been chatting at the bar to a nice guy called Bevan who is from Christchurch, NZ but now lives in the windy city of Wellington. There are also a couple from Australia, an Irish guy from Dublin with the broadest accent I have heard in a long time and a few guests including some French people that we all agree to dislike.

Late in the evening Cookie decides to get the test tubes out. The six test tubes are in a wooden stand and he fills these with some sort of alcoholic shot and we all have to down them in one go, oh dear I can feel a headache coming!

As if this was not enough someone has bought some Kava and Cookie is mixing this up with water in a large bowl. Kava is what the native Fijian’s drink and it is the root of a vegetable that is ground up in a mortar and pestle and then mixed up in water for you to drink. The native Fijians do not drink much alcohol and the chief of the village does not allow villagers to drink in the village so Kava is the traditional drink, and it has the effect of calming you down. Now I am thinking that I can maybe get away without having to try Kava, but unfortunately not.

The way that it has to be drunk is that you clap once, drink the whole bowl of Kava straight down and you and everyone else clap three times. Its part of the ceremonies that are performed in the villages here and if you visit a village in Fiji you bring Kava as a present for the Chief of the village.

Kava tastes absolutely horrible, disgusting, leaves a funny taste in your mouth and worse still it has the effect of numbing up your tongue like when you visit the dentist!

Well no one can say that Danny Beer is not up for the challenge and in the end I have to drink two bowls of Kava before the stuff thankfully runs out. I need to quickly wash it down with beer # 9 – Fiji Draught on tap at Club Fiji Resort, Nada to try and get rid of the taste. Plenty of glasses of Fiji Draught are consumed as it’s been raining all day, the Kava taste needs cleansing away and “every hour is happy hour at Club Fiji” according to Cookie.

So its Moce Moce (pronounced Mothey Mothey) in Fijian or Ta Ta in Danny Beer speak.

Danny

The Muppet Show

Two great examples of “complete muppetry” today to report!

I check out of the hostel at 10:00 and kill an hour before I head down to the bus stop to catch the Airport Express Bus service. I booked the ticket through the travel desk in the hostel and guess what as a backpacker I qualify for a 10% discount on the $20 fare, I really am getting the most out of my YHA membership. The bus stop is just twenty yards down the hill and just as I arrive a bus turns up and on I get.

I put WLR in the baggage rack at the front on the bus as does another lady. So the first example of “muppetry. Blocking our way from the luggage racks to the seats are two ladies who sit either side of the bus in the seats next to the corridor and both of them have their cases next to each other blocking the aisle to the seats at the back. They both have cases that would make even WLR look like the latest supermodel (even though he has gained four kilos according to the scales at check in) and they have built a barrier in the bus that would put the Great Wall (k) of China to shame. I look at the other lady who boarded the bus with me, we both shrug and try and indicate to the two Asian ladies that we can’t get through but just get greeted with blank looks and averted eyes.

We decide to wait until the bus stops at the next stop and exit the front door and re-board on the back door but while we are standing there the driver says “why don’t you guys take a seat?” We say to him that our path is blocked by the Great Wall (K) so he tries to calls back to the two ladies to suggest that they need to clear the route to the back of the bus so people can access the seats. He gets greeted with the same bland look and averted eyes that we got so he repeats the request in a louder, firmer voice, but still with no luck. Finally he says in a very loud voice “please can you clear the route to the back of the bus” and one of the ladies, who are not traveling together, gets up with her case and takes a seat further down the bus so we can now sit down.

The journey to the airport on the bus is easy and takes about twenty minutes. Once again the customer service is great here as the driver explains all about the terminals and where we need to go and then wishes us a safe and happy trip.

I check in and for the first time on my trip manage to leave a country with none of their currency whatsoever. I had enough NZ $ left to buy a Lion Red in the bar and a bottle of water from Burger King. Yep zero Kiwi dollars when I board the plane, what precision planning eh!

The plane is a very large Boeing plane a 747-400 (I think) and it’s great because you get your own choice of movies with a remote and screen in the seat. The airline is Air Pacific which is the national airline of Fiji and you also get a free meal and free drinks. I have can of Fiji Bitter but can’t claim this yet as I can’t take a foto foto and that is a part of the rules! They play hula type music in the background which gets you in the spirit of things and all the lady cabin crew have a white flower in their hair.

When they bring around the tea and coffee the second half of the Muppet show begins. The guy in the seat next to me, who has already been struggling with the remote control, is asked by the stewardess if he would like tea or coffee? He replies coffee but makes no absolutely no attempt to pick his cup up or take the free carton of water out of the cup so that coffee can be poured into it. The stewardess waits patiently and in the end has to ask him if he would mind picking up his cup and taking out the current contents so that she can pour the coffee into it!

Three hours and we land in Fiji and it’s just starting to turn dark but it is lovely and warm and I am completely overdressed for the weather as I have on a Merino wool top, fleece and my trekking jacket.

The mini bus transfer is waiting for me at the airport and I get to Club Fiji at about 6:30pm and I think I may have found paradise in comparison with the places I have stayed in recently.

Club Fiji Resort “your Island Resort on the mainland” is a traditional style resort that features 28 beach “bures” all with en-suite bathrooms and their own verandahs. Tropical gardens surround the Bures, villa restaurant and swimming pool creating a picturesque setting on an old beach-front sugar cane lease.

Free windsurfing, kyaks (I can practice before I get to Hawaii Bill!), pedal craft, laser yachts snorkeling, fishing trips, wide screen Sky entertainment and entertainment some nights, my own bure and all for about the cost I was paying for a shared dorm in Sydney, thank you Expedia!

For the first time since Beijing I can unpack WLR, hang up my jeans and store my other clothes in the wardrobe and chest of drawers. Six nights of not having to sleep with my money belt on and my wallet under my pillow, not having to go down the hall to the bathroom and not having to step over piles of clothes on the floor. This place is just what I needed! There is a lovely pool, three happy hours a day, a restaurant and I am going to totally chill without the cold weather!

The staff are also really friendly and they say to you “welcome home” when they meet you and shake your hand. I have already got to know “Cookie” who runs the main bar “Lomalagi” which opens from 10:00am till midnight and sells Fiji beer on draft and in bottles and cans as well as cocktails including “Cookies Skirt Lifter” It’s just like being on proper holibobs!

So Bula and a big ta ta from Danny Beer in Club Paradise, Fiji. Bula means hello or welcome but it is the only word I know in the language so far so it will have to do!

PS;another three points for Charlton I really am in heaven!

Danny

Forty essential things for a trip around the World that they didn't tell me to pack!

I didn’t do much at all today as it has been very cold. The wind is a bit biting and you get days like this when you just want to do nothing much at all but chill, which seems to be the correct adjective under the circumstances. It’s been so cold today that even the beer hunting has been put on ice as it were and the penguin that was sharing my dorm room has decided that enough is enough and gone back home to the South Pole. Maybe I have caught the swine or avian? Or maybe I just want to get to somewhere warmer, sunnier and more private, bring on Fiji and a room to myself for six nights!

The problem is that the hostel here in Auckland is not really suitable for a chill out day, even when the chill is going through to your bones. The TV doesn’t work, there is no heating and the dorm room is full of rucksacks and has piles of clothes all over the floor.

Oops, I am starting to sound like a “Whinging Pom” again!

As there is not much to write about today I thought that I list the 40 essential things that they did not tell me to pack when I read the “Around the World” books before I left.

Below are the 40 most important items that I have accumulated on my travels to date, and are in my opinion essential if you are thinking about undertaking a similar journey to me.

The list is not in any particular order of importance and some of these items were not purchased, but were acquired or donated!

1. A Celtic replica football strip with the Carling logo (including shorts) purchased in a Shanghai market after much bartering.

2. A snow shaker of St Basil.s Cathedral in Red Square Moscow that lights up and plays music when the battery hasn’t run out – a gift from the #1 Ekatirinbourg World Champion Fire Fighters Volley Ball Team.

3. An MP5 player bought in Kuala Lumpur

4. A picture of a Mongolian Warrior- a gift from my guide Boggi in Mongolia

5. A Bayern Munich football top that keeps losing its letters everytime I wash it. Currently “T Mobile” on the front looks like “T ol c” – Bought in a street market in Hong Kong for 20 HK$ (two English Pounds).

6. A genuine (!) TAG men’s watch bought on my day trip to Indonesia

7. A complete box set of all of the Family Guy series bartered for in an indoor market in Shanghai

8. A miniature Canterbury Rugby Union football. A present from my trip to watch Canterbury chasing eggs.

9. A pair of men’s sunglasses found walking along the street at Airlie Beach.

10. A China National Team replica football strip including shorts. Bartered for at the same time as the Celtic strip in Shanghai - I buy two you give me cheaper.

11. A DVD of Gran Torino featuring Clint Eastwood purchased for 50 pence in China

12. A refurbished Toshiba Portege laptop computer - bought in Akihabara Electronic City Tokyo, Japan

13. A pair of Malaysian brand Kronos trainers (blue) bought on the Island of No Beer – Langkawi.

14. A woolen maroon “Beeny” hat from Indonesia bought for 30 pence and needed in Auckland today.

15. Xillsoft DVD ripping software for converting un-protected DVD’s bought in China.

16. An Australian “Aussie” beer T shirt bought in Woolworths in Cairns.

17. A Chairman Mao memorial necklace from his mausoleum in Tianamen Square bought after looking at his mummified corpse.

18. A pair of Levi 501’s (faded) bought in an “Op Shop” in Auckland.

19. A Northern Soul 45 vinyl record – We’ve got a way out love, recorded by The Originals in 1967 on the Soul Label (Motown subsidiary) and produced by Holland, Dozier, Holland

20. A complimentary beer glass from Beervana, Wellington.

21. A Woolworth’s re-usable bag (green) bought for fifty pence in Cairns Autralia.

22. A DVD of the new Terminator 4 movie bought for 50 pence in China.

23. Ten days supply of soap, shower gel and shampoo nicked from Pam and Jetlag’s hotel room in Sydney.

24. A Trojan label CD “Work your Soul” Jamaica 60’s and Northern 1966-1974 - bought in a trade in record shop in Wellington.

25. A Nigeria National Football Team shirt (green) bought in recycle shop in Christchurch.

26. A new case for my Nokia moby 5310 bought in the street market in Hong Kong.

27. A CD of UB40 Love Songs bought in a different trade in record shop on Cuba Street in Wellington and heavily discounted down.

28. A kiddies face flannel with teddy bears on a blue background, bought in the People’s Store in Ulan Bator, Mongolia.

29. A near full bottle of Lynx shower gel for men left in my room in Wellington.

30. A Lonely Planet guide to Australia given to me by a fellow traveler on Magnetic Island, Australia.

31. A red “Swannies” baseball cap which was part of the ticket, transport, and beer package for the Aussie Rules game in Sydney.

32. A Chinese PAYGO SIM card that I eventually got to work with help from my American friend.

33. A pair of Jandals with kangaroos on them. Bought brand new in a charity shop in Hervey Bay for the equivalent of three English Pounds.

34. A Malaysian DIGI PAYGO SIM card that worked first time in Malaysia but quickly ran out in Singapore

35. A black New Zealand Cycling top bought in the recycle shop in Christchurch.

36. A ladies wash bag (Pink) bought in a two dollar (pound shop) in Brisbane to replace the bag that split.

37. A genuine Mickey Mouse watch bought in Japan on the day trip to Hiroshima.

38. A fold up umbrella that was left in my room in the Blue Mountain Hostel Shanghai.

39. An Italy (Italia) black shirt bartered for in a street market in Hong Kong.

40. A towel the size of a hankie purchased for use in the Japanese Hot Spring Baths in Tokyo.

© 2009 Danny Beer

The contents of this list are for home use only and should not be reproduced, copied, photographed or videoed in any format. The list should not be shown in any public arena including on buses, trains or other forms of transport, in hospitals, oil rigs or any other public gathering. Copyright theft is serious crime. If you know of any copyright infringement please report this immediately to the Copyright Police (I would avoid reporting it to the Russian Police as they will want a probably want a cut).

Reading the list of 40 essential items I feel like Captain Cook must have felt when he returned home from his great voyage of discovery with all the artifacts, specimens, plant cuttings and objects of interest. When I get home I must give the British Museum a call! Forget about the Terracotta Army or Cleopatra exhibitions, this collection will really ignite the imagination and bring the punters in. The O2 might even be interested!

Ta ta from a cold and miserable Danny Beer.

Danny

Beware of imposters!

I try to have a lay in this morning but end up waiting outside the library for opening time. As mentioned yesterday the library has free internet access so I reckon you may as well take advantage.

After checking the email and stuff I head back up the hill as I may as well take the opportunity to do some washing and ironing as it may be my last chance I get for a while. I also make an attempt to mend my “Ramones” jeans but I am not sure how successful it turns out to be, oh well I am sure I will find out when I meet up with Pam in New Yawk! I also found a place that could unlock my Nokia for a reasonable price which is great as I can now you all my moby’s with any of my SIM cards.

It’s been interesting during my time here in Kiwi Land. It’s a country of two islands which are three and a half hours apart by ferry. They have a train service (or rather don’t have a train service) that is complete crap. The Southern Islanders don’t seem to be that keen on the Northern Islanders. The Northern Islanders from Wellington (we are the capital ha ha!) don’t seem to be that keen on the Super City Aucklanders (yeh but we’ve got the Skytower).

The Super City Aucklanders feel that THEY should be the capital city and that the further south you go the more the bumpkin factor kicks in and nobody seems to like anyone from Hamilton that much at all. It is a beautiful country though, if a little hilly, and one thing you don’t really need here is a gym membership as you will keep very fit just walking around. You can ski, surf, sail and party all you want as most bars seem to stay open really late so I can see the attraction for backpackers and the customer service, like in Australia is excellent.

For lunch I go to Danny Doolans as I feel we Danny’s have to stick together! It is down at the harbour by the quayside and they serve a daily roast, and today its roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, yummy. As they say you can take the Englishman out of England but you can’t take the English to a pub as they will drink it dry. I check the menu at Danny's and guess waht you can also order, and I quote, Danny’s Bollocks Nachos. I think I will stick with the roast beef and Yorkshire pud for today.

Doolans is a typical foreign Irish Pub that has won the James Joyce award for being a good Irish pub abroad. It is like most of the Irish bars that I have seen on my travels, and this includes St Petersburg, Moscow, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and Australia. But there is one differnce, it has its own confessional box located inside the pub.

Now this is a great USP and is very handy as it means that you could drink too much and get drunk, go to confessional and with just a few prayers get absolved and leave Danny Doolans with a free conscience and be confident in the knowledge that you have not ruined your chances of going in the right direction when you pop you clogs!

A part of the traveling experience is learning things that you did not know before you left and one thing I have learnt today is how to spell my name in Gaelic. I can’t do the characters properly but Danny Doolans looks roughly like Donal O Dubhlain in Gaelic.

This led me to think I wonder how Danny Beer is spelt in Gaelic so I Googled it - say hello to………………………………….. Donal O Beoir!

While I am using Google.co.uk I also do a search on Danny Beer and guess what I make #19 on the list and I am featured on page 2, not sure who all those other Danny Beers are though!

The other thing I have learnt today is that “flip flops” are called “jangles” in Kiwi Land, although personally I don’t know what is wrong with the name flip flop. “Jangles” is not as bad as what they call “flip flops” in Australia, where they refer to them as “thongs”.

You can imagine how the sign to “please make sure you remove all thongs before boarding the vessel” could be misinterpreted and maybe cause embarrassment all round!

In the evening I go back to the Classic Comedy Club expecting to find the massive queues that I encountered on Wednesday but when I arrived there were very few people there at all and Thursday night, which is “pro-comedian night” is a lot less popular than the $10 Wednesday night, despite not having to pay much more in door tax to get in.

I get a beer and wait for the doors to open and this bloke walks in and he is wearing a long backless black dress, long blonde wig and high heeled stilettos. I did a double take when he walked in incase just in case I was mistaken and thought to myself “crikey he must have some of those Daniel Doolan nachos, or maybe not!

The comedy starts off average but the last comedian and top of the bill is a Maori comedian called Gish and he is very funny (and very rude) and well worth the seven pound fifty door tax. He asks whether we want the clean show or the dirty one and you can guess wich got the most votes.

So it’s ta ta from Donal O Beoir until next time

Donal

Oops wrong month!

Computer says no!

The first of three full days in Auckland and I am still knackered from yesterday's travels. I get up late and dress according to the Wellington weather. After coffee I head out to explore a bit of the "Super City of Auckland". I walk back down the rather steep hill towards the Sky Tower and the harbour. After walking for about ten minutes I realise that I am completely overdressed for the Auckland weather. It's nice and sunny with just a light breeze, rather than the gale force winds and driving rain that I have come to love about Wellington.

I decide to walk to the rest of the way to the harbour anyway as I am nearly there and have a quick look around and then head back to the hostel to put some lighter clothes on. The harbour is a very pleasant place with a massive racing yacht that competed in the America's Cup standing on the quayside and with many restaurants and bars dotted around. It's a nice place to enjoy the weather, chill out and take in the sea air.

After a while I head back up the steep incline to the YHA. I did not realise yesterday quite how steep the hills are in Auckland. There are hills on three sides of the CBD (what they call the Central Business District) and these form a kind if valley (not as good as the real Valley obviously) down to the harbour front so whenever you walk in one direction its downhill and the opposite in the other direction. And these hills are steep, very very, steep and I am talking about massive gradient steep!

I don't know how I made it to the hostel last night, especially with WLR on my back and no sherpas or huskies to help me. I must have been very very focused and then very very knackered! Theincline is so steep that I reckon if Sir Edmund Hillary were still alive and decided to mount an expedition he would have turned back half way up to the hostel and given it up as a lost cause.

When I get back to the hostel my legs ache but I decide to go back for more after lunch. Before I head back downhill I walk around the area at the top of the hill near the hostel. This area seems to be much seedier than the CBD and it has a mixture of bars, restaurants, takeaways of alltypes, tattoo places, clothes shops, sex shops and student type backpacking places, a very eclectic mix indeed.

While I am there I try to take a foto foto from the top that I hope will show how high the hills are up to the hostel, but the camera angles don't really do it justice.

One thing I have noticed in my time in New Zealand is the zebra crossings. I first spotted these in Christchurch and have seen examples of them everywhere I have been in New Zealand since then. They look very similar to the ones in England, in fact almost identical, with black and white lines painted in the road and with similar painted on poles either side of the road. But one major difference is, and I think this is fundamental and shows how tight the Kiwi's are, that instead of having an orange upside down lit up goldfish bowl on the top of the poles they have cut out a cardboard circle, stuck orange fluorescent paper on to it, and put this on top if the pole. It's a bit like something you would do as a project in primary school but I bet they say they are saving the planet!

Later in the day I head back downhill, past the town hall towards the SkyCentre complex and the Sky Tower. The Sky Tower is the tallest free standing structure in the Southern Hemisphere and stands at 328m (1076 foot) tall - take that Wellington! It dominates the sky line like the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur or the big tall building in Toronto.

On the walk down I spot a public library and as ever in search of freeness go to check out the internet access. I enquire and the helpful assistant tells me that it's free and I like my freeness. It seems that in New Zealand the capital city of Wellington is the only city that does not seem to offer free internet access in its libraries. I have used free internet access in libraries in Cristchurch, Auckland and even Picton, which is a very small place indeed and not even like a city at all, so it seems a little strange to me that the capital does not make this available in its libraries. I may have to write to my MP and complain!

When I get to the library I look around for a spot at the desks with some electricity to sit down and access the internet but most of the spots are taken. I then spot an empty place that I quickly grab but then quite quickly realise why this spot is empty!

Sitting next to me is Comic Book Guy from the Simpson's.

I get my computer out and turn it on and he looks at it and immediately comments

"old computer eh!"

I try and ignore this comment and wish I had put my headphones on from the beginning but he continues trying to talk to me.

"That's the problem with old computers. I have nearly four bars on my lap top!"

Well lucky old you I think, still trying to ignore him.

"If I were you I would bypass their main login page. If you go to:

https://svblfnb/;feqm;fjkgvp/nbm/aloadofbullshit/flm/blnonpifjnvlme/fam,bm.org.nz

you will get much quicker access, they will not limit your downloads, and you can bypass the library login system"

I am reliably informed.

"I have been here all week and managed to find a few holes in their network system"

Comic Book Guy tells me.

At this point I am ready to tell him to stick his four bars and downloads in one of the holes readily available but not necessarily one of the holes he says he has found in the library network system!

He then starts to go on about MAC addresses and IP addresses and secure domains and https slash colon colon full stop and lots of other computer geeky, nerdy irritating crap, which he thinks I don't understand.

Now I am not a complete novice on the subject of Information Technology. I know my way around a keyboard and my RAM from my ROM as it were and I know that he is talking absolute b*** so I just keep trying to ignore him, hope that he will shut up, and continue to log onto the library wireless network in the usual way.

He then starts talking out loud to himself, which is very irritating, but I ignore it and eventually he announces that he must go off and get lunch (hurrah) but will be back soon (boo).

Now I reckon that the last thing Comic Book Guy needs is more calorific intake. A glass of water may tip the scales in the wrong direction if you ask me. But at least he is gone and his seat is quickly filled by someone quiet.

Well some good news on the beer front to report. I reckon I am now in the final furlong, the home straight, the last ten yards, the play off final, the lap when they ring the bell as it were, and have almost hit a home run on the "find a new beer front".

DANNY BEER HITS A HOME RUN FOR THE YANKEES - BEER #10

I have discovered Beer #10 in Queen Street just by the zebra crossing. This means that I am now in single figures for the rest of my trip! Nine beers to go and I will have achieved my goal OF 80 beers on my trip around the world.

Beer #10 Lion Red Beer - on tap in the QF Tavern, Queen Street, Auckland, New Zealand.

Charlton top of the league and beer #10 how good can it get!

I now feel that I can fly off to Fiji on Saturday with a clean conscience and a good chance of achieving my 80 beer goal, however I will not become complacent, as I know that in the "youessofa" they are not really beer drinkers, and there is no way that I am going to claim Budweiser, so I may struggle at bit when I get there.

In the evening I head off to a comedy bar to see if Auckland comedians can tell a better joke than those in Wellington. Based on my Wellington experience I expect to be one of only roughly twenty five people watching the show but when I get there it is sold out but I am advised that if I hang around they may be able to sneak me in.

Luckily I get snucked in to the show which is only $10 (four English) entry for ten comedians doing new material, for seven minutes each. It's not a bad show and much funnier than the Wellington shows, but a couple of the comedians still stray into racist and homophobic material, so I guess that is more maybe more acceptable to do this here than it is in England.

Finally remember yesterday I told you that I had worn a hole in my jeans? Well I think it's fashionable and so do The Ramones!

That's it for today so ta ta, and please don't let the computer nerdy geek return to haunt me tomorrow as my politeness has it's limits!

Danny

The long and winding road.

Who’d a thought it? One hundred days of intrepid traveling and more “globe trotting” than the basketball team from Harlem that never seem to get beaten! Maybe I should rename myself Danny "Lemon Drop" Beer and use "Sweet Georgia Brown" as a theme tune. Write the theme tune, sing the theme tune!

And what a co-incidence, 100 days and its the 1st September, how weird is that?

Had a lovely nights sleep last night as I had the room completely to myself, such luxury! No snoring, early morning calls to “F** WAKE UP” or vomiting noises coming from the toilet! Pure bliss!

I leave the Wellington YHA (ta ta) at 8:10AM and head to the train station where the bus leaves from (Yeh I know, the coach leaves from platform 9!). When I get to the station an announcement comes over the station Tannoy system:

“The next train service to leave for Auckland via Hamilton will be leaving on Friday 4th September 2009. As today is Tuesday if your journey is of the urgent nature I would start to think about making alternative arrangements”. As I said yesterday such a modern, forward thinking, go getting country is Kiwi Land! So it’s all aboard the half-empty “double decker” coach for the journey up to Auckland.

There seems to be a lot of animosity between the cities of Wellington and Auckland. Wellington is more compact and is based around the harbour. It is also where the government of this glorious country operates from. In 1865 the capital of Kiwi Land was moved from Auckland to Wellington by William Hobson and I don’t think that Auckland have ever really got over this!

Both Wellington and Auckland do seem to agree on one thing. They both seem to regard Christchurch as their poor “country cousins”, that they hope never turn up for a surprise visit, I wonder why?

The population of Auckland is around 1.31m and unlike Wellington it consists of a city centre and lots of suburbs. These are linked to the city by major trunk roads and motorways, a bit like Brisbane. Auckland is currently vying to call itself a “super city” to try and get “one up” on its big rival Wellington. A super city without a midweek train service to the Capital, I should Co Co!

The coach is quite comfortable but there is no entertainment on board and the journey up to Auckland takes 11 hours. I board at 9:00 and with stops we are due to arrive in Auckland at just before 8:00PM. The distance between them is 647km but this journey involves traveling up through the National Park and across the mountains with very narrow and winding roads. These roads are a bit like those you see in an edition of Top Gear where Clarkson drives a ridiculously expensive super car too fast around tight “U” turns while there is someone racing him down hill on a snowboard.

There is some really great scenery on the journey so it’s a pity that the rain and bad weather seems to be following me up the North Island. There are snow capped mountains on the left and massive gorges on the right, so although it is a long and tiring journey I get to see a lot more of the country than I would if I had travelled on an aeroplane.

We leave Wellington and pass through Paraparamu, Levin and have a brief stop at Bulls, then onto Turangi. Then it’s across the National Park up into the mountains and alongside the shores of Lake Taupo, which is the largest lake in the country. We finally head through Taupo itself and up to Hamilton. On the journey between Hamilton and Auckland I spot a sign for Bombay, which is interesting as they don’t seem to have renamed it Mumbai.

There is one amusing incident on the coach journey. We make a stop at the coach station which I think was in Turanga. We have 15 minutes stop while passengers who are finishing their journey remove their luggage and those boarding to start their journey get their luggage stowed on board. Our double decker coach pulls up in one bay and a single decker coach pulls up in the bay next to us. This coach is heading off to Tauranga up on the North east coast.

We leave a half an hour earlier than the single decker bus and travel for about an hour when the driver informs us that has to take a break, so we stop for 40 minutes. Back on board the DOUBLE decker and the driver announces the rest of the journey.

A lady leaps up in panic and rushes down to the driver to inform him that she is on the wrong coach and rather than traveling on the double decker coach to Auckland she should be on the single decker coach to Tauranga.

The strangest thing of all about this is that just before she boarded the double decker coach to Auckland she herself stowed her luggage in the hold of the single decker coach to Turanga.

The driver stops and gets on the radio and manages to sort out a ride for her on a coach heading back the other way. He also contacts the driver of the single decker coach to Turanga to ask him to sort out the ladies luggage when he gets to Tauranga.

We arrive roughly on time at the bus station and I retrieve WLR and head off to try and find the hostel. According to the instructions it is just “a 800 metre” walk from the bus station to the hostel. Having worked in the leisure industry I know that sometimes the truth can get a bit embellished when writing advertising copy. You know the sort of thing, just two minutes from the beach; a stones throw away from the centre, just five minutes from the main attractions, that sort of thing.

Eight hundred metres my A****!!!!!!!!!!.......... It’s miles and to make it worse Auckland is really steep and hilly and when I find the street where the hostel is located I then have to climb up the steepest incline I have ever climbed to reach the hostel (and I have climbed up the Great Wall(k) of China which is steep!). And WLR does not seem to have been sticking to the Weightwatchers programme! Still I got there and I am there for the next four nights before I leave the Kiwi’s to try and sort out their train network.

Oh and I have some bad news to tell you as well. When I got to the hostel and sat down the right knee of my jeans gave way and I now have a four inch hole right across my right knee. Do I keep this as a fashion statement?

No new beers today as I have been stuck on the coach all day, so it’s ta ta from me, and ta ta from my exposed right knee.

Danny

"Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants to see us happy”-

Benjamin Franklin – American Statesman

The rain has been so bad that I was thinking about heading back to the zoo this morning to start pairing up the animals. However early afternoon it started to brighten up so although it is still cold and windy it is now sunny so I decide to make the most of my last day in Wellington.

I catch them Dominion Post Ferry from Queen’s Wharf to Days Bay in Eastbourne. The trip takes around 30 minutes on the high speed catamaran and it takes you from Wellington on one side of the bay to Eastbourne on the other.

On the way the ferry stops off at the Island in the middle of the bay that used to be called Leper’s Island and at one time had a prison located on it, a bit like Alcatraz or Devils Island. It is now a nature sanctuary so when you land on the island they search your bags for any hidden mice or rats. Worse than the immigration in Australia!

To say that Eastbourne (Kiwi Land) is similar to the Eastbourne on the south coast of England is an understatement. If they were twins they would be identical Siamese twins, the likeness is that great. I am sure there must be a roadblock on the way to Eastbourne (Kiwi Land) if you travel by road that refuses you entry unless you are of a certain age, probably like the old Berlin Wall. Luckily I took the catamaran here so I managed to evade Checkpoint Seventy.

It is very quiet in Eastbourne (Kiwi Land) and there is little or nothing to do, so I am glad that there is a ferry back to Wellington at 4:15pm. The 90 minutes was nice and It is quite peaceful here. You can see the attraction for some as it is surrounded by very high tree lined hills and the sea laps on to the stony shore right in front of the wooden cottages. Great for a ninety minute visit but “get me outa here!” There is also one pub but that doesn’t open until 4:00pm and I’m not waiting around that long.

WLR is now repacked full of nice clean clothes ahead of the long journey tomorrow. The coach leaves the station at 9:00am so I need to be at the bus stop by 8:15a. I don’t arrive in Auckland until 7:50pm and I am definitely not looking forward to the journey.

Tonight I head to the open mike comedy session at The Fringe Bar. It’s only ten dollars (four quid) to get in. The show is OK with six comedians (not sure that description is correct under the Trades Descriptions Act) but they are not really that funny. Maybe I have been spoiled by the Chuckle Club, Chuckle Club this is the Chuckle Club, have a banana!

That’s it for the 31st August 2009 apart from Beer #11 – I am doing nearly as well as Charlton the best team in the World and will soon be into single figures! 4-0 away to Tranmere and the best start to the season ever!

Beer #11 – Weka Native Lager – Premium Alcoholic Beverage

The Weka, a small flightless bird native to New Zealand (they are all flightless in New Zealand) has long been admired for its curiosity and feisty, bold personality/ They were traditionally prized by Maoris as a source of food, perfume, oil and feathers for clothing. Tales of the Kiwi Bush hen stealing shiny items and bags of sugar have become a part of New Zealand folklore.

The Moa Brewing Company was established in 2003 by Josh Scott with a focus on brewing boutique beers. Weka Native Lager is a blend of premium malts and Nelson hops, fermented with traditional bottom fermenting yeast. This beer shows an array of smooth velvety characters on the palate but also has a refreshing floral nose. A great beer for all occasions!

Ta ta to Wellington, I need to go off and start building my Ark as I am in Kiwi land until Saturday,

Danny

Jesus and the burglar

What a terrible day today. Gale force winds, driving rain, cold, miserable, it’s been doing it all day, is forecast again tomorrow and guess what? It’s the first day of spring today!

The weather is so miserable and I also did not sleep that well last night. At around 3:00am all I could hear was a bunch of people that had been on the lash all evening slamming doors, shouting and swearing loudly, including at one point a very loud invitation for everyone in the hostel “to f…..ing wake up”. Whoever it was that was inviting me to rise and shine at 3:00AM need not have bothered as the noise they were making meant that I was wide awake already! It’s not my fault that Canterbury stuffed them at egg chasing! We didn’t get those sort of problem at our (well Pam and Jetlags) hotel in Sydney, a much nicer class of people there than these lot I reckon.

Mostly all I end up doing today is some washing and Ironing, the adventures of a global trekker or what! Later I decide to take a trip to the pictures as it hopefully won't be raining in there. I go to see “The Inglorious Bastards”, a Tarantino film starring Brad Pitt (this is not Kiwi rhyming slang!). It was a good film to watch if a little gory in parts and was supposedly about the plot to assassinate Hitler and the Third Reich. It was a good use of nearly three hours of time in a rain packed, wind lashed Wellington!

Tomorrow is my last day here before I head up to Auckland. I have to catch a coach as the trains to Auckland only run on Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, how bad is that eh, the two major cities in New Zealand and no midweek trains between the capital and the soon to be called super city! It's a modern, forward thinking go ahead country New Zealand.

One thing I have been craving for a number of weeks (since I hit China really) is a good old fashioned Sunday roast dinner, so that’s what I had today, lovely Jubbly!

I think the blog post today will achieve a record number of hits as Danny Beer talking about the bad weather, what he had for dinner and his washing and ironing is bound to tantalize readers and bring them back for more!

Here’s a couple of signs that I saw while I was in Australia:

This one was taken in Cairns and I think the way it works is that males enter by one door and are told to go to the ground floor and females have a different entrance and have a sign pointing them to the sixth floor. Damn ingenious those Ozzies!

The second foto foto was of a sign found in Bondi by the beach. What a forward thinking council here, probably similar to the lot that held the first meeting in Christchurch all those years ago!

Finally to thank you for persevering thus far, here is a joke to reward your efforts. I hope that this in some way compensates you for the time that you have spent reading today’s blog, that is if you are still reading:

A burglar breaks into a house and shines his flashlight around looking for valuables. He had just picked up a CD player when a strange, disembodied voice echoed from the dark saying “Jesus is watching you”.

He nearly jumped out of his skin, clicked off his flashlight and froze!

When he heard nothing more he continued to search for valuables. Just as he had pulled the stereo out ready to place in his swag bag he heard the voice again saying “Jesus is watching you”.

Freaked out, he shined the torch around frantically. Finally, in the corner of the room the light beam from his torch came to rest on a parrot.

“Did you say that?” he hissed at the parrot. “Yep” the parrot confessed. It then squawked “I’m just trying to warn you that Jesus is watching you”.

The burglar relaxed, “Warn me huh! Who in the world are you?”

“Moses”, replied the parrot.

“Moses?” the burglar laughed. “What kind of people would name a bird Moses?”

“The kind of people that would also name a Rottweiler Jesus”

That’s about it for today really. It’s amazing the effect rain and gale force winds can have but at least the earthquakes have now stopped. So no new beers and a boring blog post about the weather. It must be getting near to the time that I due to return to England and maybe I am just getting in some "complaining about the weather" practice ahead of this!

Bloody Whinging Pom!

Ta ta from a rain swept, cold and miserable and whinging Danny Beer

Danny

Did the earth move for you baby?

Another windy day but much brighter today and very sunny and guess what happened last night?

To quote from the broadsheet newspaper - The Dominion Post:

“An earthquake hit Wellington at 2:10am yesterday, centred 20 kilometres south of the city. The magnitude 5.2 tremor rocked Wellington and was followed by a smaller 4.3 quake at 3:25am”.

Danny Beer rocks the Kiwi's!

I have no firm plans for the day but tonight I am going to the film archives for The Reel Brazil series and then the after party at The Southern Cross. I end up heading out to the New Zealand Parliament buildings as they do tours of the place and there is a bit if history attached to it.

The tour is very good, you just turn up and go through security and then they show you a DVD for ten minutes and a guide takes you on a tour of the buildings which lasts about an hour. It starts in the basement where they show you the way that they have earthquake proofed the buildings. This was necessary as Wellington sits on a fault line. The earthquake proofing was achieved by digging into the foundations and inserting these “special round coil thingy’s” to use the correct engineering term. They inserted these all around the foundations of the building and then cut the foundations away from the building itself, so that the two are separated by the round coil thingy’s. When there is an earthquake the building and the foundations can move in separate directions without damaging the buildings. Fascinating stuff and then we get to tour the library and enter the actual Chamber of Representatives where the debates happen and the law is passed.

We learn about the history of the parliament and the abolition of the Upper House (like our House of Lords) and the role of the Governor General. Now the Governor General is not the latest dancehall MC to come out of Kingston, Jamaica, but is in fact the representative of the Queen and the Governor role involves opening and dissolving parliament. For many years this role was carried out by someone from England, but now it is filled by a New Zealander (but not I believe a Maori).

When the tour is over I go in search of the oldest pub in New Zealand, The Thistle, which was built in 1840 (before they were having council meetings in Christchurch and parliaments in Wellington) and it looks the same as it did in the foto foto’s on the wall showing it back in the late 1800’s. Seems like a good principle to me, establish a pub before bothering about all that political stuff. A quick pint and then off to the Museum of Wellington, which is situated on the dockside and is housed in the Bond Store. This is a listed Category 1 building, and was home to the Wellington Harbour Board as well as the having the Bond. One thing I did notice is that the history on display at the museum rather conveniently seemed to start in the early 1900’s, ignoring anything that may have happened just before then and involved possible settlers and land disputes.

At about 5:00pm I head off to the Film Archive for the screening of The Reel Brazil. There are three short movies the first of which is ‘We love soccer” which is about the fans that fanatically follow a football team in Brazil and its very entertaining.

The second short is called :Mauro Shampoo) and is about the worst soccer team in Brazil who made the Guiness Book of Records for their poor performance, but it also focuses on Mauro Shampoo, one of the players in the team. He is a hairdresser and looks like Maradona. He is a character and answers the phone “Mauro Shampoo (his name), footballer, hairdresser and macho”. Mauro is an ex-soccer player from the city of Recife, in Brazil. Having made only one goal in his entire career, he became famous as a symbol of Ibis Sport Club that entered the Guiness Book of Records as "The Worst Soccer Team in the World.” The Guiness people obviously never watched Charlton play under Pardew. After the screening the producer/director then answers questions about the film and Mauro himself, and both these films are very entertaining.

The third film is a short film about Jorjao, who is a famous drum leader in the carnival samba bands and it charts the build up for the Rio carnival. The forth film is also very good and is called “We love samba” It is about a group of Canadians from Toronto that form a samba band. It focuses on the different backgrounds of the people who make up the band and their influences. If you do get the chance to see any of these I would recommend them.

Culture over for today I quickly head off to J J Murphy’s as my (!) egg chasing team Canterbury are playing here in Wellington tonight in a cup final against Wellington and I want to catch the end of the game. With fifteen minutes to go Canterbury are cruising it with a score of 36-0. They take their foot off the pedal slightly but end up easy winners 14-36 and take the trophy back to Christchurch! Go Canterbury!

After that I head off to the Brazilian “after party” at the Southern Cross, to get my complimentary “cairpirnha” a Brazilian cocktail, and to listen to some live samba music.

One thing I have noticed while I have been in New Zealand, and this is very noticeable tonight, is the New Zealander’s ability to dance, or rather the lack of it! The Samba band are playing some nice up tempo stuff and the dance floor looks like someone has just thrown a wasps nest with very angry wasps right into the middle of it!

I don’t like the complimentary “cairpirinha” yuk, so decide to head back to the hostel. The wind is really blowing now and it is absolutely bloody freezing cold and after midnight. On my way back I decide to have a last drink in the “Welsh Dragon Bar” which according to the sign is the only Welsh bar in the Southern Hemisphere!

The Welsh Dragon Bar does what it says on the tin and is full of “yakky da” people making the sheep population of New Zealand very nervous indeed.

Beer #12 – A bottle of Green man Lager – Organic brewery Dunedin:

The Man
The mythical figure of the Green Man is as old as time itself…..
He has existed in folklore over 2000 years across dozens of countries and cultures. He is often depicted draped in leaves and it is said that he represents the essence of nature’s best.

The Beer
We only use natures finest (they all seem to say this!) malt and hops from around the World to bring you fresh, authentic beer styles, drafted with pride in Dunedin. 100% certified organic ingredients, filtered not pastuerised, no Isinglass, this fish product is used many beers but not in Green Man beers. Suitable for vegetarians and vegans (here you go Jay, if only they did one without alcohol as well). You have my personal guarantee on quality – The Green Man

So it’s ta ta from (in the words of Elvis) an “all shook up” Danny

Danny

A windy day in Welllington!

Well it’s better than a rainy night in Georgia. Today is another very windy day in the capital of New Zealand. I was chatting with someone and they told me that most days are windy days in Wellington. They said that there are usually only two non-windy days a year in the capital. Well at one point today I thought I was in a scene from The Omen. The wind was blowing up a gale, things that should be staying in one place were flying down the street and the sky filled with black clouds that really flew across the dark skyline. Just another windy day in Wellington!

When VIP’s visit a country they normally put on something special in honour of their visit. The Queen for instance gets a twenty one gun salute, Obama a military fly past and the Pope gets his own special vehicle, the Pope Mobile.

Now I am not sure who has leaked details of my visit to the land of Kiwi’s? Maybe some keen council official happened to accidentally find my blog, or maybe a secret phone call from the Foreign Office, but the authorities in Wellington gone the extra yard for Danny Beer OBE (for his services to beer- knighthood imminent) and really rolled out the red carpet.

Today at 12 noon I am to attend the Wellington Town Hall for Beervana!

Beervana is New Zealand’s premier beer event. It is celebrating the craft of brewing and it will showcase some of Australasia’s finest beers. 200 beers under one roof – meet the brewers and try the beers you have never savoured.

It turned out to be a little disappointing in the end. I stayed for about 75 minutes and then got very bored. There were not that many beers on show and they were charging four or five bucks for a small glass, no way to treat a visiting dignitary. It seemed to be full of that type of “know it all” beer drinker. Worse still, some of them take a mouthful of beer and then spit it out again, how bad is that! Not really my sort of thing really, but my thanks are extended to the City of Wellington for all their efforts. I will get my private secretary to send a letter of thanks on my behalf.

Quite encouraging, I had already found most of the beers in the room and I am not going to claim any that I did sample as that would not be fair. One of the exhibitors was Batjika, the Russian beer that I had found at the beginning of my journey in St Petersburg over three months ago. A nice touch that from the City Council, they must have researched well!

I did further my education and enjoyed a lecture put on for me about “beer glasses”. I now know how to hold a beer glass (as if I needed telling), what sort of beer glass is right for what sort of beer, why some have thick glass and are chunky and others are tall and thin and I also know how to correctly pour a beer into a glass from a bottle, and why you should always hold a beer at the bottom of the glass. The lecturer cited the Stella glass as an great example of a very well designed glass and I would have to agree.

I was contemplating further improving my knowledge of all things beer by enrolling on a course at the Massey University. They had an exhibition stand set up for me and their course on beer making looks very worthwhile, but I don’t have enough time left in Kiwi Land to attend it. How good is that a PHD maybe in all things beer!

In the evening I head off to The Fringe Bar, ‘Wellington’s new home for comedy’. The show starts at 8:00pm and they are trying out a new format tonight, an improv game show. This is very different than the improv show in Christchurch. It features two teams of three comedians competing against each other. There is a compere/mc/judge and they have a guy who sings interludes and jingles. It’s a mixture of “Have I got news for you” and that improv comedy show they used to have on Channel 4, and it’s not a bad show. There are some funny bits, but I think they have a very different sense of humour here in New Zealand. At one point a sketch got very racist, which I think was supposed to be satirical, but you could not say that sort of thing in a comedy club in England and it wasn’t that funny either.

Here endeth the sermon for today!

I head back to the hostel and I am watching the TV and start chatting to a guy called Gavin. He has flown down for Beervana, which he is attending tomorrow, and we have a good chat about beers and stuff. I said that I was disappointed with the civic reception but hoped that he would enjoy it more than I did. He lives in Auckland which is where I am headed next and he gave me some tips about the place and the beers.

No new beers to claim today

So it’s ta ta from the Right Honourable, soon to be, Sir Danny Beer OBE

Danny

Kopeke ano kohikohi!

Danny Beer has today donned his reporter hat and is setting out on a day of historic research and investigative digging to undercover the real story of the plight that befell the Maori people when the British turned up and held the first council meeting in 1854.

As background the Maori people believe that human beings were made from Mother Earth so they have strong if unknown connections to my current favourite religion, Shamanism, and in Maori “whenua” mean both land and sea.

Where better to undertake this research than at Te Papa (Our Place) which is the name of the national museum in Wellington. Notebook, pencil and tape recorder in hand your intrepid reporter sets out to find the real truth behind the story and report only facts not fiction.

In the early 19th century the Maori people were very worried about the intentions of the French and they way they were eyeing up their land so they wrote to the King of England who responded by sending out James Busby. The Maori people were grateful and came to trust Busby but the French did not do much anyway..

In 1839 a British company firmed up plans to buy land in New Zealand and to send settlers there, which is quite clever for a company that doesn't own any land the country has owners don't waht to sell! There had been some British presence in the country (mainly Busby) but there was no British sovereignty as the country was ruled by the varying tribes of Maori people that had been there since 1200 ad. The British were keen to colonise the place because it had great wood and other resources but as you can imagine the Maori’s were not so keen on the plans to send settlers to their land.

William Hobson was sent out with the ultimatum to sort out the problem, JFDI was the terminology used I believe. He drew up a treaty written in English which is quite helpful if you only speak Maori. When he arrived he contacted James Busby and asked him to call a meeting of all the Maori Tribes and as the tribes trusted Busby they showed up for the meeting despite the fact that the British had sent in a heavy fleet or armed ships into the harbour as a show of force against them.

The treaty was called “The Treaty of Waitangi” (1840) and here’s the catch, there are two versions. One is in English and the other was hastily translated into Maori for the tribes to read, and there are pretty strong fundamental differences in the wording about who will own what and who will tell who what to do if the treaty is signed, its all in the wording as they say.

These are some of the recorded quotes from the meeting of the Maori Tribes and William Hobson:

“Let the Governor return to his own country. We are not white or foreign. This country is ours. We are the governors. We are the chiefs of this our fathers land”

– Rewa of the Ngai Takane from Korororeka.

“We are free. We will not have a governor. Go back, return, walk away”

– Hakiri Oringai Takane.

The Maoris people even sent someone out to Australia to speak to the Aborigine chiefs about their experience of the British and under Queen Victoria. So as you can see the Maori tribe leaders were not keen, not keen at all. They were about as keen, as Roy was to play for the Republic of Ireland in the World Cup under the management of Mick McCarthy!

There were a lot of disagreements between the tribal leaders but quite a few of them seem to have a rather convenient change of mind and suddenly signed the treaty, which was a surprise to both Hobson and Busby. The version in English said that they gave up all rights to the land but the translated version said that the British would help establish a governance and administration.

This eventually caused lots of unrest, trouble and fighting between the new settlers, keen to hold a council meeting and the Maori people who could not understand why people were building on their land. The fighting was a little one sided as the Maori warriors only had spears so it was difficult for them to compete with the rifles and gun power of the settlers.

In 1840 the Ngati Whatha of Orakei tribe was the major land owners in the Auckland area of New Zealand. A little over 100 years later they are virtually land less.

Assignment over I explore the rest of the museum and it’s all free apart from one virtual reality ride. Now I feel that I have really made it in the backpacking world as the lady in the ticket office asks me, without prompting, whether I am a backpacker and gives me the concessionary rate!

Exhausted by all this investigative reporting I spend the afternoon wandering around the harbour area and along the quayside. In the windswept environment there like an oasis just like in a desert. Right on the front of the dockside is Macs Brewery, located in an ex customs building, so although I claimed Mac’s Gold yesterday I have go to investigate the source of the amber liquid consumed yesterday. The brewery is small compared to the XXXX brewery but it’s worth a look around and is a good opportunity to sample the stuff at source.

Later in the afternoon I find the Wellington Cable car. This has been in Wellington for around 100 years and runs from the CBD (Central Business District) to the Botanic Gardens. It’s one of the major tourist attractions and is only $5 return. At the top you get a magnificent view of the city and harbour - Te Whanganui-a-Tara (The Great Harbour of Tara).

In the evening I go and see a show at the Circa Theatre. It’s called “All the World’s a Stage – A ROUND-THE-BARD TRIP IN NINETY MINUTES, with Ray Henwood, directed by Peter Hambleton. I think I prefer Around the World in 80 Beers but the show is OK and I have not made up the title. You can check their website if you don’t believe me www.circa.co.nz .
.
Hold the front page:

Beer #13 and the best name to date – Paddy Sweeny’s Good Bastards Lager.

To quote the bottle label:

All Natural, the Worlds most humorous beer. “More laughs per session on this beer than any other beer on the planet.

WARNING – If you’re caught drinking this and you’re not a GOOD BASTARD you could be had up for fraud”.

Brewed by Good Bastards Brewery, West Coast, NZ. Check their website at www.goodbastards.com.

Another busy day tomorrow but I bet you are wondering what Kopeke ano kohikohi means!

Well I used Google to translate this cockney phrase into Maori. It’s not a perfect translation for a start it was hard to find a Maori word for the fish) but I bet my translation is better than the translation of The Treaty of Waitianga – 1840 that was done by the British without the involvement of any of the Maori’s..

It means “tucked up like a kipper”.

This is Danny Beer, News at Ten, saying ta ta from Wellington, New Zealand.

Danny

I’m going to the zoo, zoo, zoo, how about you, you, you?

The lady who traveled from the Interislander Ferry found me at breakfast this morning. She really reminds me of an elderly school teacher like the slightly silly one in the original St Trinians. She apologized for dashing off when we had reached reception at the hostel and thanked me for helping her to find the place, which was very nice of her. No problem Maaaam!

I don’t like Zoo’s as I am not happy with keeping animals confined but I do like a bargain and as its only $5 entry every Wednesday in August because it’s “Winter Wednesdays” I decide to visit the Wellington Zoo.

The Wellington is New Zealand’s first zoo and has quite a variety of animals locked up so we humans can wander around and stare at them. Mind you looking at the standard of living they have with nice accommodation and three square meals a day I think that maybe they have it better than I do. Some of the places I have stayed in have looked much worse that the accommodation the chimpanzees enjoy and there is not a wooden hut in sight.

There are lions, tigers, giraffes, emus, dingos, monkeys, chimpanzees, baboons and a solitary bear, which must make is a lonely bear. The monkeys and chimps are in different prisons. I can never quite work out the difference between a monkey and a chimpanzee?

While we are on the subject of chimpanzees, there is about ten or twelve of them with a mixture of male and female chimps. They have a nice place and an estate agent would have a field day describing it:

“A rare opportunity to purchase a modern, spacious property in this much sought after area. Set on its own large plot in this exclusive development, it features all services and utilities including its own twenty four hour surveillance and security system. With ample room to extend and no planning permission requirement, the vendor has reluctantly put this unique property up for sale as they wish to return to their country of birth. Please contact the sole agents Ripoff and Screwu to view the property, appointments necessary”.

Still on the subject of the chimps there are lots of helpful posters all around the place describing the names and personalities of the chimps and what the zoo people do to make the chimps “holibobs” in Wellington Zoo as enjoyable for them as possible. One of the posters is particularly interesting and informs anyone who bothers to read it that they need to control the chimps mating habits and they do this not by putting stuff in the males daily cup of tea, oh no, the female chimps use the same birth control pill’s that human females take. The question to ask is “do the female chimps remember to take them?"
Maybe that explains the aggressive nature of a couple of the male chimps?

It’s not raining here like yesterday. It’s bright and sunny but the wind is fierce and cuts straight through you. Three layers and a coat for me and I am now a little envious of the fur coat being worn by the bear.

Ninety minutes at the zoo is enough for me and my opinion has not really changed about zoos. Having seen some of these animals in the wild I am not sure that you can justify keeping lions, giraffes and bears confined like this. Mind you I did get to see some kangaroos which is more than I managed in over three weeks in Australia.

Back to the hostel and my “Karma is now really Krap” and my “Feng Shui is…………………………………………. (not too good either)”.

I find that I am no longer the sole occupant of room 505. There are now bags, shoes, clothes, maps and empty beer bottles all around the room. I knew the peace and serenity wouldn’t last.

Early evening I go on safari in pursuit of that rare animal “the happy hour”. I manage to spot a few and end up at the Wellington Sports Bar which has a happy hour between five and seven pm. $4 dollars a pint (which is about one pound sixty three pence) and another new beer found.

Beer #14 Macs Gold Lager get in you beauty! Less than two quid a pint and it’s a local brewery as well!

I decide to have an early night and go back to the hostel to watch some TV. Some of my fellow backpackers have borrowed a DVD (In Bruges - a great film), turned up the surround sound and bought a large carton of beers so I don’t end up getting to bed that early.

It was a good night in the end and the carton of beer was duly consumed so thanks to my fellow backpackers. I must remember to buy the DVD of “In Bruges” when I get back, if only for the scene when he beats the living crap out of the American who berates his girlfriend for smoking in the smoking (yes not the non-smoking) area, and as he beats him says the line “and that’s for John Lennon”.

So another new beer, it seems to be getting too easy at the moment and to think I was getting really worried when traveling through China.

I do however still seem to be leaving a trail of disasters and catastrophes in the wake of my trip. This time it’s serious and it's Malaysia and I will quote directly from The Dominion Post, Wellington, New Zealand’s daily broadsheet newspaper:

“Malaysian authorities were unprepared for the international fall out when a woman was sentenced by a Sharia court to caning for drinking beer.

The case of Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno, a former model and nurse, drew the attention of international media and rights groups. Shukarno’s controversy started unnoticed in December 2007 when Islamic morality police caught her drinking beer at a beach resort in Pahang state.”

Morality police whatever next? Caned for drinking beer, oh dear! ........................She should have gone to the Langasuka Beach Resort on Langkawi Island!

Ta ta from a very worried Danny Beer

Danny

You can choose your friends but you can’t choose your family

There is a saying that “you can choose your friends but you can’t choose your family”. The other thing you can’t choose is who sits next to you on a train journey when the seats have been pre-allocated.

I can tell you that the one pair of people you don’t want sitting next to you on a five and a half hour train journey is two middle class English ex-pats who have emigrated to Christchurch New Zealand and who continually moan about all the foreigners coming into THEIR country. Where did I put my MP3 player? I hope the batteries can last that long.

On my trip I have traveled on the longest train journey in the World through Russia, Siberia, Mongolia and China. I have also traveled on the fastest and most punctual trains in the World in Japan, OK OK OK. I reckon I have traveled through the most dangerous train associated place in the World when I walked through Shanghai Railway Station and in New Zealand I have traveled on some of the most scenic railway journeys in the World.

Yesterday the Trans Alpine trip into the mountains had some stunning views and a lot of history surrounding the trip, and today I travel on the Trans Coastal Train up the Eastern coast of the Southern Island of Kiwi Land from Christchurch to Picton, which is a journey equally as scenic as the alpine route but with different scenery.

I am up at 5:30am and the train leaves Christchurch Station at 7:00am. The route takes the train out through the suburbs of Christchurch and then it hits the coast line. It runs along the coast for a good part of the journey and you have the sea on one side and the snow capped mountains on the other. The sun starts to rise and this makes the scenery even more dramatic. The train has a viewing carriage which is an open carriage where you can take foto foto’s without having window glass in the way, which is great, but you can’t stay there too long as you get very cold. As you speed along the shoreline, if you look closely you can see lots of seals lazing on the rocks just off the beach with the sea lashing in, and it looks like they are waving to you.

Once the sun has risen the journey gets sunny but the further north we head up the coast the worse the weather gets and by the time we reach Picton it is absolutely p***** down, windy, cold and just like the worst November day in England.

The train arrives at 12:30pm and the Inter-islander ferry is due to depart at 2:30 so I have a couple of hours to kill in Picton which is a harbour near the peak of the South Island, and there is not much there apart from the ferry terminal and some shops and cafes. Imagine Folkestone Harbour, with a much smaller harbour and you get the idea. I decide t go exploring, despite the weather, and walk about fifteen minutes up to the centre of Picton, where I stumble on a library. I pop in and enquire about internet access. Guess what “the Library Authorities in New Zealand are committed to providing free internet access” and Danny Beer is committed to taking best advantage of this free internet access!

On the way back to the ferry I spot a bar called the “Whistle and Toot” which gets its name as it is just by the railway station and up the road from the ferry terminal. I pop in and peruse their range of beers on offer and they do their own beer on one of the pumps so:

Beer # 15 – Toot and Whistle Natural Ale in draft – a pint in the Toot and Whistle Bar and Café, Railway Approach, Picton consumed while waiting for the ferry.

I get down to the ferry terminal and check myself in, and when the tannoy system announces “all aboard” I get near the front of the queue. Using all the traveling skills I have acquired in the last three months as soon as I get on board I swiftly head straight to the bar area and choose a table and seat with an electric socket close by, as electricity is just like water in Australia, a very scarce resource to us backpackers. I sit down, plug into the electric and get comfortable for the three and a half hour ferry crossing. After I have made myself comfortable I am sitting there whiling away the time when a lady sits on the table and chairs behind me and then says to me “excuse me but I am planning to plug my lap top into that socket:” My response was “why do you think I sat here in the first place”!

The crossing is very choppy, the boat is rockin (and a reelin) and the rain is getting worse. As we pull into Wellington Harbour I am thinking “oh bugger”! I have to collect WLR and then work out where to get the shuttle bus to the railway station as the terminal is a way out of the centre. I board the shuttle bus which used to be free but now costs two dollars and an English lady follows me on to the shuttle. She reminds me of an elderly schoolteacher and has a rucksack on her back. She sits in the seat in front and starts talking to the lady next to her. The conversation is about how much and how to get to the YHA and I say that is where I am heading and I researched this morning so you can tag along with me if you want. You will need a dollar for the trolley bus.

Arriving at the rail station which is also the bus station I head in the direction of bus stop A where you board bus #1 or bus #2 It is still p**** down and it’s also now very windy as well but luckily my research has paid off dividends. We board the bus which is a trolley bus #2, and I ask the lady driver how much for the last stop in Courtney (although I know it should be $2) and could she let me know when we get there. Unfortunately she either had not taken the advice of her doctor to make sure that she takes her happy pill every day, or was fed up with being a trolley bus driver and was contemplating a career move. Either way I sussed out she was not going to let me know when to get off the bus. As an ex- boy scout though I was prepared for this and I was tracking the street signs as we went along. I spotted the street that we needed to alight on but my instructions were to get off the last stop along the street and how the hell are you supposed to work out if it is the last stop unless you have gone past it already and turned into another street? Luckily a lady on the bus told me that there was one more stop to go before the end of Courtney where I should alight and the hostel was just around the corner.

I check in and it’s in a great location in the middle of town just up from the harbour and it is nice and clean. I paid a little extra for a room with only four beds when I made the booking, rather than a room with six beds and this has paid off dividends. It was well worth the additional 50 pence I paid as the room is fairly spacious and has just two bunk beds but even better has a shower, sink and toilet in the room rather than down the corridor. Better still all the beds are unoccupied so I get to choose which one. A tip here for any wood be backpackers is to always stake claim to the best available bed as soon as you arrive by loading your gear on to it and making the bed! Even better it works out that I end up being the only one in the room tonight, so I don’t have to keep my money belt so close to me as normal and I have the best nights sleep I have had in ages.

As the rain is not stopping and I am knackered I watch some TV in the TV lounge with comfy sofa’s and large projector and have an early night.

So one new beer found, a journey of nearly 200 miles across land and sea that takes 12 hours and a knackered but happy Danny Beer.

Before I go I just want to say that I am missing Australia already…………………………..

I bet you are wondering what it is that I am missing about it so much? Well the reason for this nostalgia is that when I was in Australia where playing England in the Ashes, second innings, and they were full if it!

“No worries there mate, lets wait for the wingeing poms to speak up again!”

Well in the words of David Bowie, “Ashes to Ashes. Funk to Funky!

Ta ta

Danny

Climb every mountain

Up early as I have to catch the Trans Alpine Train to Arthur’s Pass and please remember as explained yesterday Arthur’s Pass is not Kiwi rhyming slang! The Alpine Pass Trains only run across the Alps once a day so I need to make sure I am at the station in time.

Train number 0803 leaves Christchurch station at 8:00am to undertake one of the greatest railway journeys in the world. It crosses the Canterbury Plains and climbs through alpine foothills and the Waimakikiri Gorge through Arthur’s Pass National Park. Eventually it climbs to reach the 737 metre high Arhur’s Pass, surrounded by snow capped mountain peaks.

The line was built when gold was discovered on the West Coast of the Southern Island of Kiwi Land and the first train ran on the tracks in 1866, which was just 16 years after the first council meeting in Christchurch when we voted to change the name to Christchurch. The train crosses the Waimakikiri River, an ice-fed river that is about 150km long and starts up in the Alps before it flows all the way down to the sea at Kaiapori, just north of Christchurch.

Arthur’s Pass National Park covers over 94,500 hectares of rugged wilderness rising to Mount Rollerton at 2,270 metres. The train journey takes two and a half hours and when we reach the top it is bloody freezing and miserable.

Unperturbed by the weather and with a few hours to kill until I get the train back to Christchurch, Danny Beer set’s off exploring. There are quite a lot of walks you can do through the national park but I am a little wary of undertaking them as when I visit the Tourist Information centre they have a sign advertising “locator beacons for hire”!

I ask the ranger lady for some walks that are not too far away or too complicated and ones that I won’t need a tracker to find my way back to the station from as my internal Sat Nav system can only cope with cities. Since leaving the train I have not seen many other people up here, as most stayed on the train, so any calls for help will probably go unheeded and my moby’s will definitely not work.

I walk the one hour path to the Devils Punchbowl which is reached after lots of trekking through forests and up and down steep climbs. At the end I reach a really beautiful waterfall fuelled by the melting snow at the peak and tumbling down the mountains. Some foto foto’s and back down the trail to do the Brides Veil walk another, longer walk in the other direction. Eventually I manage to get back to Arthur’s Pass village without getting too lost.

The alpine forests up here are home to lots of species of birds. One of them is the Kea which is a large green parrot bird with a red breast and a pointy beak. This bird is famous for its love of rubber and is the only parrot type bird that can survive at this altitude.

Now this does not mean that it loves Gloria Gaynor, Donna Summer and Judy Garland records. Neither does it mean that it likes wearing a studded lead around it’s neck and a funny balaclava type facemask that it can’t see or speak through. What the Kea likes to do is peck at rubber rather viscously. In fact it has two rubber based hobbies. The first hobby is to try and destroy the rubber bit on the car that holds the windscreen into the metal bit so that if any cars are left unattended watch out if you drive off. The second hobby is to then move onto the windscreen wipers on the same car, so I reckon that Halfords have been training them up.

The other bird that is prevalent in the Alpine area of the Southern Island of New Zealand is the Kiwi bird which the New Zealanders often like to refer to themselves as.

Now I am not sure what this says about our colonial cousins? As birds go the Kiwi Bird is not the brightest or most talented bird in the flock. It may get through the auditions and make Big Brother but it will surely be voted out after the first week. In fact you could say that it is particularly useless at doing the birdy type things that birds are supposed to do. One thing that is important to a bird when it is going through high school is to learn the ability to spread its wings and fly. I can recall many a David Attenborough documentary where birds are thrown out of the nest by mum so that they can learn the art of flying.

So the Kiwi can’t fly! Before 1850 this was not a problem. New Zealand was inhabited by the Maori People who did not dislike or eat birds and Nandos had not opened a branch south of the Equator yet. There was only one indigenous animal on the islands of New Zealand and that was a rather small bat about the size of a thumbnail, and that would not scare a mouse never mind a Kiwi that can’t fly but can kick real hard. As a consequence of this lack of hostile predators the Kiwi bird got very lazy over time and decided that eating was much more fun than flying. Flying was for the other breeds. Those looser (L) birds that think treading the earth is uncool. Us Kiwi’s don’t need to fly, we’ll leave that to other birds like the Kea’s.

Flying is mainly used by birds to escape attackers, and the only thing that attacked Kiwi’s was other Kiwi’s. It was also getting increasingly harder to take off on a full stomach, so over time they lost the ability to use their wings for anything other than answering their mobile phone.

Along came the God fearing, peace loving, Christians from England and guess what they bring with them on their ships from the old country? Well they bring cats for a start and cats and Kiwi’s are not the best of friends after a brief introduction. Cats like chasing, killing and eating birds and it must have been the equivalent of an "all you can eat buffet" for the cat when it reached New Zealand, big, fat, lazy birds that can’t fly away. Rabbits also came to New Zealand via Australia and pretty soon rabbits became a problem for the God fearing, peace loving, Christians from England.

Now there is a saying “breed like rabbits:” and that’s exactly what happened in Kiwi Land. An urgent council meeting had to be called under the emergency rule number 309 and this was convened at Christchurch City Hall. This time the meeting actually had an agenda item -

“Welcome to today’s meeting. Item number one and the only item on the agenda:

Item one: How to stop the rabbits eating all the crops that we have been growing on the land which we recently obtained ownership of?

Suggestions from the floor please and remember to speak up at the back”.

From the floor:

“I remember what we did in England when we had a problem with vermin like rabbits. We used stoats and ferrets and similar vicious animals to kill the rabbits that soon taught them a lesson. I suggest to the chair that we import some stoats and ferrets and similar from England to sort out Bugs Bunny and co”.

Chairman:

“Good Idea, all those in favour say “I”, motion approved, action minuted. Lets go down the pub”.

This was a great solution, as now they now not only did they have a rabbit problem, but also a stoat, weasel and ferret problem. Now the problem with them is that unlike most animals they don’t kill for food they kill for fun. The poor Kiwi, fat, lazy and unable to fly was just about coping with trying to fight off the cats and look what turned up, and not only did they get attacked, but their nests also became a target and the eggs got destroyed.

Today there are lots of efforts being made to help the Kiwi survive but it still suffers from other hazards like speeding traffic and lorry’s crossing through the Alps using Arthur’s, as well as the predators, so I am not sure that I would want to be referred to as a Kiwi if I were from New Zealand.

Back into the village at Arthur’s Pass and I have an hour to kill before Train 0804 arrives so I pop into “The Wobbly Kea – Café and Bar” in search of refreshment and guess what, beer #18.

Beer #18 is Mangatainoka Dark a West Indian Pale Ale, draft and served in a pint glass.

Back to Christchurch at around 6:30pm and back to the hostel by 7:00 and Monday night in Christchurch is even worse than Sunday night. The place is dead as a Do Do or possibly a Kiwi unless it gets its act together. It seems that all the energy is expended on Friday and Saturday nights and come Sunday the residents of Christchurch are the equivalent of the Kiwi, deciding that flight is not a good thing and interferes with their eating.

Unperturbed I go out to find something for tea but most of the places are either not open at all on Mondays or shut before seven. I end up purchasing a box of the Colonels finest, although I think he may have been having a bit of an off-day today.

As I walk back home I pop into a bar for a last beer and, guess what, another brace today as I find beer #17 – Canterbury Wards, on draught in a pint glass.

“Brewed since 1854 (only four years after the first council meeting - maybe that explains the bright idea to introduce stoats and ferrets) by New Zealand Breweries Ltd, 368 Khyber Pass Road (yes I am not making this up) Auckland”.

A really early start tomorrow as I am off to the North Island and the capital Wellington. I need to be outside the door at 6:10am ready for the shuttle bus to take me to the station for free, I like my freeness me!

So ta ta to the Kiwi bird and Arthur’s Pass

Danny

Well there is a techinical problem but I don't hold out much hope of getting it fixed!

Thanks for letting me know that there is a problem with you getting email notifications when I have updated the blog. I have checked all the settings and they are fine so I think it is a problem with the www.blog.co.uk people and their mail server. As I am not paying to use the blog service I am not sure what I can do buy I will update most days so please perservere. In the meantime I will try and contact their support desk (some hope)

Ta ta and thank's for reading

Danny

Lord of the Ring (pull)'s

Part two in the adaptation of the trilogy of J R R Tolkein's "Lord of the Ring Pull" books sees Dandolf, Aragon, Legolas and Gimpy split from Frodo and Sam. With Pippin and Meriador captured by the "Dorks" the quest for the magical ring pull continues..........................

Today, Sunday 23 August in the year thee thousand and ninety nine, Dandalf on his faithful white steed, reaches Edora, the Rohan capital, to be met by Eowyn. A badly acted Eowyn and her spineless father are readying their horses for departure to escape from the advancing Dorks, and leave for the relative safety of Helms Deep.

Helms Deep not only has a large range of beers and lagers on sale but also stocks a large wine list. White wine is available by the glass (for the ladies) and basket meals are served fresh from the kitchen until 9:00PM. Please remember to note your table number and place your order at the till.

When I arrived at the hostel and booked my onward travel I asked Richard the YHA man what tours he would recommend for Sunday and Monday. He explained a few different options and I picked two of them so today I catch a Toyota Land Cruiser Four Wheel drive and head off to Edora, the Rohan Capital.

I board the Toyota at 9:00 in the morning and at this point I am a little disappointed, and so is Terry our guide for the day and driver. Terry says that they usually get at least one rather weird looking LOTRP fan who comes dressed as a character from the film, maybe an Elf, Ork or if they have particularly big feet, a Hobbit. Terry announces that we all appear to be normal people on the tour today and I think about asking for my money back.

A coffee break at 10:30 and the skies up in the mountains where we are heading are darkening and rain is looking to be increasingly imminent. It's interesting (to me anyway!) that you seem to get two different kinds of weather here in Christchurch. In the city itself it can be a glorious sunny day with blue skies, yet two to three hours drive away you are up in the mountains and it is cold, grey, windy and raining or snowing. As Hayden said to me at the Egg Chasing yesterday Christchurch is one of the few places on earth where you can snowboard in the mountains in the morning and surf on the beach in the afternoon.

I have booked the excursion with Hassle Free Tours and they are the only company with a license to cross the private land to the location where they built the set for Edora in the second of the LOTRP films, The Twin Towers.

You need a four wheel drive vehicle to reach the location as we have to cross through rough terrain and about four rivers to get to the remote and beautiful Mt Potts High Country station, home of Mt Sunday and Edora. The four wheel drive is essential unless you are Dandalf, in which case a clever white horse does the trick.

Now I have to say that I am not a fan of the books or even the films, which may surprise you a bit if you are still reading the blog, but the tour was on the list of "must do" things in Christchurch so although it's a bit expensive I think it's worth a go.

Terry our host is very knowledgeable about both New Zealand and the LOTRP trilogy of films and he gives a good commentary all the way out to the site. We get told about the cost of making the films, the actors and in particular the difficulties in creating the replica of Edora.

We arrive and park up and then we have to walk up a steep hill to reach the peak of Mt Sunday, where Edora was built. When we get to the top we get a full briefing from Terry, despite the cold and lashing rain, and this includes viewing some illegal foto foto's taken during the set building and filming by one of the builders (allegedly).

Terry asks for volunteers to carry the weaponry up to the top, as they have exact replicas of Aragon's Sword, King Theodore's Sword, Gimli's Axe and the Flag of Rohan, they seem to have left Dandalf's Staff back at the depot but not to worry.

I am one of the chosen ones and get to carry Aragon's large sword which is a fully working polished steel replica of the one in the film and is about four to five feet tall and very heavy, but not as heavy as Gimli's Axe. I should have volunteered to carry the Flag of Rohan which is probably made in China and weighs nothing. We climb to the top and the view is stunning, even on a grey and miserable day like today.

The set of Edora took 8 months to build and they had a lot of problems with getting permission to film there from the authorities. They were told that they could not move a marker on the top of the peak so had to build on top of it and they had to build roads out to the area as none existed. They had to dismantle all of the set when finished and restore the site to exactly how it looked before. This included digging up weeds, labeling them, GPS marking them and storing them in a massive greenhouse until filming finished. In the end they did eight days of filming on the set that took 12 months to project plan and 8 months to build.

The story as to how they found the site goes as follows: They were location hunting across Kiwi land (they made all three films at the same time) and they were trying to keep as close to the original descriptions in the Tolkein books as was possible. They did not think they would find somewhere that would look like Edora the Capital of Rohan as described in the books. This was set up high in the plains and surrounded by snow capped mountains so they decided that it would have to be built in a studio.

Then as the location scouts were flying back in their helicopter to Christchurch from the West Coast of Kiwi Land and across the Mt Potts mountain range, they hit bad weather and brought the helicopter in really low to miss the clouds. That is when they saw the peak of Mt Sunday surrounded by the snow capped mountains of the Mt Potts range and thought this is the ideal location.

The view at the top is really stunning and even if you are not a fan of the Ring Pull films like me its still a great experience and I have lots of foto foto's. This includes one where I replicate the scene of Miranda Otto, who plays Eowyn, looking out across the plains to see the advancing Dork army.

After about 90 minutes we head back to get some lunch and I sit next to an elderly couple and their friend who are holidaying and we start to chat and they ask if I am on my holibobs. I explain that at the moment life is one long holibobs for me (without the four star luxury) and tell them about my travels to date. They are really interested and the chap keeps apologising for asking me questions but he says has seen the TV programme with Ewan McGregor in and he wants to know all about the places I have visited to date as some are the same.

Where we have lunch there is lots of LOTRP memorabilia and information and, guess what, this includes bottles of beer. Now unfortunately these bottles are not for sale so I can't claim them but I have some foto foto's and according to the label on the bottles the beer was brewed and bottled specially for the crew and cast of the Lord of the Ring Pulls.

I get back to the YHA at around 6:30pm and have a quiet night as tomorrow I have a really early start as I need to get an early train to Arthur's Pass, which is not by the way Kiwi rhyming slang. I am getting picked up by the shuttle at 7:00am so it's ta ta and nite nite but what about the quest?

Dandalf was not successful today in the quest for new ring pulls but had a really awesome day anyway and watch out mate that's a nasty Hobbit you've got there, if you're not careful you'll go blind!

Ta ta again

Danny

I wish everyday could be like today!

A brill day, top dollar!

Buddha, Jehovah and the Church of England must all be on my side ……………… despite what I have been saying about them.

After a late night at Sullivan’s last night with The Black Velvet Band I had a lay in until 8:00AM and then cooked breakfast which I had bought in “Pak and Save” yesterday. Pak and Save is a massive hypermarket where the goods are stacked high on storage racks. You have to bring your own bags and pack the shopping yourself and I bought a box of Pam’s (yes really) Sugar Puff imitations, a bottle of skimmed milk and a box of Nescafe Latte’s.

I must be really boring you talking about what I had for breakfast!

Having finished breakfast and done the washing up, as all good backpackers do, I head off to the library as they have free Wi-Fi internet access there, and you know I love my freeness me! I check the emails and bank balance and then it’s off to find the Art’s Centre area as they have a Saturday market and more importantly a pub that brews its own beer on the premises.

There are quite a few stalls selling arts and crafts and a few street entertainers which are fun to watch, including a man in a kilt who sits on broken glass and juggles machetes. I am not sure I would want to sit on a pile of broken glass with only a skirt on.

Then I manage to find the brewery which is called “Dux de Dulux” and their lager is a brand called Dux Lager and it’s a “touch down” or whatever they call that thing in egg chasing when they place the ball over the lin before they try and kick it through the tall pointy sticks with the bar across.

Beer #20 – Dux Lager and sampled on draft and later in a bottle –

“The lager of choice – naturally”

“Clearing the trail dust from your throat our award winning Dux Lager slates the meanest thirst. Crisp, fresh and vibrant, this original Dux beer, on which our tradition of brewing was founded, is easy drinking and great with food – we call it our “Sauv Blanc of Beers” – Make it Dux everyday”.

I finish the lady size glass (18ml) of draft Dux and watch some more of the street entertainment, and it’s a good use of the early afternoon, but if you read the blog yesterday you will remember that there is some live “egg chasing viewing” to do later this afternoon.

So I get to The Holy Grail, the Imax of sports bars at around 3:30PM as the ticket says that the bus leaves at 3:50PM and I have a free pre-match pint of TUI to consume. I hand over my beer token to the barman and suspect that something is wrong.

A guy comes up to me and introduces himself as Hayden. He offers me his apologies. Apparently they had a meeting last night and had to make the decision to cancel the footy coach as I was the only one that had taken up the deal for the Beer, Bus and Footy.

Not to worry says or to be more grammatically correct and use the local language “no worries”.

So here’s what happened next…………………………………………………..

“Because we have had to cancel the coach I can take you to the game if you want. My car is parked just around the back and I am going to the game anyway.

He further tells me "The Holy Grail” (remember the IMAX of sports bars) is one of the corporate sponsors of the Canterbury Rugby Union “Egg Chasing” Team. They have a corporate box at the AMI Stadium, so as we have cancelled the bus, if it's Ok with you we can both watch the game from their corporate box rather than the open seating behind the goal?".

Is that OK with you? OK with me, I should Co Co! How good is that!

We get to the stadium about 45 minutes before kick off and get the lift up to level three and corporate box #5. There is a lady waiting to serve us whatever drinks we require before and during the game and there is some pre kick-off food to tuck into with some nice meat and vegetables cooked on skewers.

The stadium is pretty impressive and is being rebuilt ahead of the Rugby World Cup in 2010, so on one side is a massive completed stand, which is where our corporate box is located, and there is a smaller stand behind one goal, an open stand behind the other goal, and the opposite stand is under construction. The game is being shown live on Kiwi Sky TV and it is a local derby and grudge match.

The competition is the Air New Zealand Cup 2009 and last year my team (!) Canterbury won the cup and they are looking to retain it. The build up to the game is great with lots of entertainment, food eaten and beers consumed. The game kicks off and Canterbury start off well but as the game continues Tasman fight there way back and at half time the scores are very close.

The atmosphere is really good. Canterbury has a mariachi band all wearing orange sombreros and they stand on the terracing behind the goal. They have an array of musical instruments including trumpets, a bassoon, drum and trombones and they pipe up every time Canterbury make a good play or score a try, with tunes like Billie Jean and Sweet Caroline.

In the crowd there are also two blokes (Kiwi word) dressed up as chickens. They are Tasman supporters and they continually shout abuse at anyone who is supporting Canterbury and it’s very funny to watch. At half time we are served smoked salmon, oysters, king prawns and other seafood, on a big platter, to snack on and I wash this down with more free beer.

The game gets even tighter in the second half but we (!) turn out eventual winners 25 – 21 and I have to say that I really enjoyed the egg chasing experience and this was not down to the fact that I had unlimited access to beer and food but the play was good and it was a very competitive game and I nearly understood the scoring system. They take their rugby union seriously here in the land of the Kiwi and the experience was as good as the “Swannies” AFL game in Sydney, and free beer as well!

Hayden drops me back to the Holy Grail where they are preparing for the big game tonight, the All Blacks v the Wallabies, competing in the Bedisloe Cup. This is a grudge match as there is intense rivalry between the Kiwi’s and Aussies and the bar is getting busy. I thank Hayden for a great day and he says to come back later and watch the All Blacks game and not to forget that I have a coupon for a free pint of TUI as part of my Footy, Bus and Beer deal.

I was not going to bother as I had been consuming free food and drink at the expense of The Holy Grail but as Hayden has mentioned it……….

I go back to freshen up and change and chill for a while at the hostel watching Sky. I then pop back to the Holy Grail (which Hayden told me has the biggest screen in Australasia) and the place is really starting to buzz ahead of kick off. I get my free pint if TUI and the bar guy that served me asks me how the Canterbury game was.

The Kiwi v Wallaby game turns out to be a very tightly fought game and goes right to the wire but the Kiwi’s manage to hang on and win 16-15. Go Kiwi’s.

I have a ticket to the late “Improv” comedy show at The Court Theatre where I watched The Great Gatsby. The show starts at 10:00PM and is a comedy show called “Scared Scriptless” featuring The Court Jesters and it’s the longest-running comedy show in Christchurch. It’s in one of the smaller theatres in the complex and is in a small studio holding about 50-60 people. The players, or jesters, have to make us the audience, laugh to win a banana. If they fail to make us laugh sufficiently they have to undertake a forfeit, and the judges are the audience who call out either “banana” or “forfeit” at the end of the skectch. It’s very entertaining and last about 90 minutes and I am glad I got the ticket on my first day in Christchurch.

When it’s finished I pop back to Sullivan’s Irish Bar as The Black Velvet Band are on again. They are on top form tonight as it’s one of the band members birthday. I wish they had a venue like this in London because it is a “great craic”!

And guess what……

Beer #19 Propeller Lager 5% proof, proudly brewed by the Wigram Brewing Company, 1/34 Sonter Road, Wigram, Christchurch, NZ.

“Naturally brewed, crisp and refreshing Propeller Lager is crafted in the traditional way using a unique blend of New Zealand hops and premium malts. With no added sugars Propeller Lager is guaranteed to put a spin in your day. www.wigrambrewing.co.nz”.

Back to the hostel and bed as I have to catch a coach at 9:00AM in the morning. I have booked myself on a trip which I will talk about on tomorrow’s post.

Oh and by the way guess what?

Notices have started appearing everywhere warning about an outbreak of swine flu and what to do if you feel a little unwell. If you get the sniffs contact the authorities for free medical help and advice.

Nothing to do with me mate!

Ta Ta to the egg chasers, come on you Canterbury, Charlton are top of the league. How happy can one man get!
Danny

PS: 90 Days – Three months!

Little Britain (or Little Ireland?)

The British arrived in Christchurch 158 years ago and when they turned up I think they decided to replicate one of their favourite cities in England as it remains steeped in colonial heritage. It’s also another country on my trip to date where the British have colonised.

Christchurch is the large city on the South Island and is known as the Garden City for reasons that become obvious as you walk around. The city was named by the Canterbury Association which settled the surrounding province of Canterbury, and the name of Christchurch was agreed at the first meeting of the association on 27 March 1848. You can imagine how that meeting may have gone:

“I have called this, the first meeting of the Canterbury Association, as I feel that meetings are a great thing to have. Unfortunately we have no agenda so we need to find something to have a meeting about, so any suggestions from the floor?

Yes. You at the back, please state your name and your suggestion. Speak up please Mr John Robert Godley as the people down the front can’t hear you.

OK so you don’t like the Maori name Otautahi and feel that since we have managed to butcher and imprison nearly all of the local Maori’s (allegedly)and now own all the land you feel we should adopt a more Christian name, suited to god fearing and peace loving Church of England goers like ourselves.

What’s that? You propose Christchurch as the new name, a good Christian name. All those in favour say I. Motion approved, name changed, meeting closed at 21:00. Time to go to the pub”.

The coldest month in Christchurch is July when the average temperature is one degree. It’s now August and it is slightly warmer but I am layered up with a fleece on top and when the wind blows my jacket is an essential item. Today I am sorting out the rest of my time in New Zealand up until the 5th September 2009 when I fly out to Fiji. This takes a couple of hours as I have to arrange the train up to Picton, the ferry from the South to the North Island, the coach from Wellington to Auckland as the train is not running, and my accommodation at Wellington and Auckland. Having sorted this out I spend the afternoon exploring Christchurch some more.

In the evening I head to Sullivan’s Irish Pub where, not only do they have the largest beer glass in the world (foto foto to prove it) but they have two bands on and some diddly diddly Riverdancing. Both the bands are good and the second one in particular. They are called The Black Velvet Band and specialise in mostly Irish music with The Pogues, trad stuff and some R&B. They seem to have quite a following for as soon as they start to play there are loads of people on the dance floor singing the words to their songs and dancing Irish jigs.

While here I think I may as well collect another beer for the list so beer # 21 take your rightful place on the list of 80.

Beer #21 – Summit Lager a pint on draft and I am nearly at the 20 beer mark, into the home straight and entering the final furlong. I noticed yesterday that Usain Bolt beat his own world record in Germany so lets hope that I can do the same!

So here endeth the sermon for today

A big ta ta, begorrah and bejasus from the Emerald Isle that seems to have relocated to the South Island of Kiwi Land.

Danny

Ta Ta Tasmania

So it’s a farewell to Australia from me. Pam and Jet Lag today and it was disappointing not to spot a kangaroo. At least the Australians didn’t have to call in Condoleezza Rice or deploy the United Nations Peace Keeping Force although Pam’s flight does not leave until 21:00 so there is still time.

I forgot to tell you about the meal we had last night in “Our Hotel” (well Jet Lag and Pam’s to use the correct terminology). They had an offer of two courses and a bottomless glass of beer, wine or soft drink. The bottomless part only lasts as long as you are eating so you need to eat very slowly to get the best advantage! The wonders of modern science!

Up early to catch the 6:00AM train out to the airport as my flight leaves at 9:10AM. I land at around 1:30 PM and think that I have a long flight ahead but the clocks change by another two hours so the flight is just over 3 hours.

We hit the coast line of New Zealand and cross the mountains and there is a lot of snow on top off them, which should be a bit of a warning to me. I clear immigration fairly easily although the immigration man does chat for a while about my trip to date and I couldn’t quite work out if he was genuinely interested or using subtle investigative techniques! Luckily I managed to conceal my "Cenosillica phobia” during the probing. Outside the airport and it is just a little bit on the chilly side, and I have two layers and my coat on. I get the shuttle and arrive at the hostel at about 3:00PM. I check in, dump WLR in the room, and go off exploring Christchurch.

When they say that Christchurch is the most English of places in New Zealand they are not wrong. I could be in a town or provincial city in England and it is a very different city to Sydney.

In the centre of Christchurch is the cathedral and Cathedral square, and just across the road from my hostel is the Town Hall. The trams circle through the city and the River Avon runs through the middle, so I could be in Bristol, England, although the people from Bristol are more difficult to understand than the Kiwi's.

I follow the tramlines and end up at the main theatre and, as I have been starved of culture for a few weeks, decide to see what is showing. Enquiring at the box office the show that is running only has a few days until it finishes and the tickets have been sold out for weeks but the ticket office lady says that I could come back at around 17:50 and see if there are any returns as they quite often get them.

Walking back to the hostel I pass the Holy Grail and they have a poster outside saying Footy, Beer and a Bus $25 so I go in to enquire. The footy in question is of the egg chasing variety and it is the game between Canterbury and Tasman at the AMI Stadium on Saturday kick off 4:30PM. Now I am not that partial at all to the egg chasing game but always keen to broaden my horizons I book a ticket, so for a tenner in English pounds I get a beer in the Holy Grail before the game, a bus to and from the game and a beer after the game as well as a match ticket. It sounds good to me so that is early Saturday evening sorted.

The Holy Grail is one of the biggest sporting pubs I think I have ever seen. I think it may have been a cinema or theatre at one time and I can only say that this is the IMAX equivalent of sports bars with a massive (and I mean massive) screen at one end, bars down the side and a replica of stadium seated terraces where you can climb to your seat and enjoy a beer while watching the egg chasing. Much better than watching Hairy Porter or whatever his name was.

When in Rome, as the saying goes, so I decide to have a beer, and it’s none of your lady sized glasses in the Holy Grail, no sirreeeeeeeeeeeee, pint glasses is the only thing we serve pints in round these parts! So my first beer in New Zealand and beer #24 a pint of TUI, brewed since 1889 and consumed in the Holy Grail, the true home of sporting pubs.

Heeding the advice of the ticket office lady I head back to the theatre to see if I can finally soak up a bit of culture that is not beer or sport. No returns yet but “why don’t you hang around, maybe have a beer and wait a bit longer as there is still twenty minutes till curtain up”, and that is exactly what I do. Beer #23 Steinlager sold in bottles in The Court Live Theatre, Christchurch, New Zealand, bookings essential. While I am enjoying my beer a lady wanders across and asks if I am the guy looking for a ticket as the ticket office lady has pointed her in my direction. She explains that they are a group of ladies and one of the group has had to drop out so they have a spare which I can have at face value.

So another new beer and some culture! I have a ticket to see the world premier of The Great Gatsby, written by F Scott Fitzgerald, adapted by Ken Duncum and directed by Ross Gumbley. It’s not bad but I was a little disappointed that Robert Redford could not make it tonight so Gatsby was being played by another actor, It’s a story about the excesses of New York in the 1920’s and the mysterious Mr Jay Gatsby. It lasts around two hours with half an hour interval and during the interval I decide to do some more beer hunting. I purchase a bottle of Monteith’s Lively Pilsener Beer, West Coast since 1863, original crafted. Monteith’s pilsener is a Bohemian style lager in the heritage of the extremely hopped beers brewed in Eastern Europe. Its’ clear, crisp taste is delivered by a rich hop bitterness balanced by smooth manly characteristics, topped off with an explosive hop tang and dry finish. Made in New Zealand by Monteith’s Brewing Company.

So another three new beers in a day, another hatrick and beer #23. Lucky there is no prohinition like in Gatsby's time!

The show finishes around 9:15 and the cast get a few long rounds of applause for their performance and after much bowing from them and clapping from me I head back to the hostel tired from the long day.

So ta ta toTasmania, Sydney, Darwin, Brisbane, Cairns, Crocodiles, Koalas and invisible kangaroos and hello to Kiwi Land.

Danny

I think I am suffering from Cenosillica Phobia!

Before I start here is a foto foto of the map of the "youessofa" that Nick the Greek very kindly drew for me the other day.

I bet Captain James Cook was glad he didn't have to use the map on his voyage of discovery and circumnavigation of the world. Maybe the map is what caused the Mutiny on the Bounty?

My last full day in Sydney and it's time to pack up a 3 kilos lighter WLR as I have managed to hoist some of my weight on to Pam and Jet Lag who are taking stuff back for me. After packing a lazy day as we all have a lot of traveling to do. Jet Lag Jay heads off to the museum and it's the last day to search for new beers in Australia so that's what Pam and I focus on (we know our priorities!).

Now my friend Selwyn was told by someone who is apparently much more informed on the matter of Oz beers than me, Danny Beer, that I would be lucky to get more than six or seven beers in Australia! Well I have consulted my list (yes I do keep one) and when I arrived in Cairns I was at beer 50! Yesterday I hit beer #28 and my calculator tells me that 28 from 50 equals 22 beers! And still some hours to go and beers to find.

So it's off to the Paddington District in the afternoon and for the first time on the trip Super Clive has scored a hat trick just like in the play off finals at Wembley in 1998.

Beer # 27 - Bondi Blonde - "Low Carb" bottled lager

Beer # 26 - An interesting one this! At the Macquarie Hotel, Goulbourne Street, Sydney, they have an on-site microbrewery called Schwartz Brewery where they brew a range of beers so beer number 26 on my list is Dark Bier from the Schartz Brewery drunk from a lady size glass.

Beer #25 - The most interesting of all today (and maybe on the whole trip?)and found in the Courthouse Hotel and Bar, Paddington, Sydney.

What makes this beer stick out from the crowd I hear you ask!

Well the beer is called Skinny Blonde and the label features a blonde lady with a red bathing costume and the following words:

"Skinny Blonde, 5.2% proof.

I'm a natural blonde
No preservatives or additives
No Liposuction
No Botox
No Breast Augmentation

Skinny Blonde has NOT been proven to make you funnier, more charming or a better dancer!

But best of all, the bottle is chilled. But as you drink the beer and the bottle gets warmer the Blonde Lady's swimming costume disappears.

How good is that!

Don't believe me eh? Well here is the proof:

Top on!

Top off!

So as you can see since arriving in Sydney I have been on a real cultural trip and have fully embraced Australia's two finest cultures, beer and sport.

Tomorrow I am off to New Zealand where I think they take their culture more seriously? It was after all the place that they made the Lord of the Rings Films and were they not cultural?

I am just hoping that I don't get a problem at immigration if I declare my medical condition "Cenosillica Phobia"! I am sure they will ask me what this condition is and whether I am taking medication or treatment for this phobia and how I will cope if I get a bad outbreak whilst in New Zealand.

I guess the less medically informed may not know what Cenosillica Phobia is?.................................

Well just in case you didn't know it is the fear of an empty glass.

Ta ta from the Cenosillica phobia therapy centre,

Danny

It’s a disaster!

Another sunny day in Sydney and the weather is much nicer than I was told to expect. Up to “our” hotel for a shower and then it’s off to Scruffy Murphy’s for an Irish Breakfast. Later we head out to The Rocks, which is on the list of things to do in Sydney. The Rocks is the area underneath the Harbour Bridge. It has undergone a lot of refurbishment and is now the home of expensive shops, bars and restaurants, and to be frank it is a little disappointing and would not be on my list of places to visit in Sydney. Some good news however as on the way back another beer is spotted in Pub Metro, up by Circular Quay.

This is beer #29 and is called Little Creatures Bright Ale and is on draft and the lovely bar lady spots me taking a foto foto of the beer pump and asks me if I would like a foto foto of me behind the pump. Is the pope a Catholic and do bears **** in the woods! Does Danny like Beer? She also says that there are some bottled beers in the fridge that are not easily available in Sydney so get in beer #28 as well!

Beer #28 is Bohemian Pilsener – Matilda Bay’s classic “all malt” pilsener is hand crafted with premium pale malt and hops. Golden clear and bright, it’s hop driven and full flavoured! Be the Bohemian! – Matilda Bay Brewing Company, Dandemong, New South Wales!

The bar lady also tells us that James Squire has a microbrewery on the quayside so we set off in search of that. And it’s only a ten minute walk away. We pop in to sample the wares and I try a lady size glass of James Squires Sundown Lager, limited release.

Crisp, refreshing, subtle, fresh, grassy aroma, distinctive happiness.

Pam is wearing her new “Swannies” baseball cap and as we go to leave a chap says “nice hat”. He is with one of the “Swannies” players Jared Crouch and Pam gets a foto foto with the “Swannies” star.

If you check the Swannies website you can see that Jared has made the decision to retire from AFL and The Swannies after meeting Pam in James Squires!

As I said earlier The Rocks is a disappointment, but not as disappointing as the Harry Potter movie showing at the Imax! We booked two seats for the 5pm showing with selected 3D scenes and this was not only one of the most boring films I have ever seen but also was crap because the 3D lasted about 8 minutes!

Now you may be wondering about the title of the blog post today? Well this is referring to what Jet Lag and Pam think is the turmoil and trouble that I, Danny Beer have been leaving in my wake on the world trip! They seem to think that I am a walking catastrophe and that the countries that I have visited are left in turmoil post Danny Beer! Move over the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse!

Here is some of the evidence that they are citing in the case for the prosecution:

Riots in China
Plague in China
Typhoons in Hong Kong and China
Earthquake in Indonesia
Political unrest in Russia
Earthquake in Japan
Suicide bomb in Indonesia
Suicide bomb attempt in Australia
Plane crash in New Guinea killing Australians
Swine flu outbreak in Australia

I bet the Kiwi’s can’t wait for me to arrive on Thursday!

So another day of quality time with the missus and another two new beers, what more can I say?

Ta ta from Disaster Danny Beer

Danny

Very Manly. get you sweety

Today we decide to get the ferry over to Manly Beach. The beach is not quite as famous as Bondi and the surf is not quite as large but it is a nice place and tries to distance itself a bit from Sydney. The ferry trip takes around 35 minutes and costs around six and a half English Pounds return. It's nice at the sea front with a long sandy beach and there are quite a few surfers practicing their skills as the surf is "well and truly" up today. We have lunch at an open air restaurant and we are all on "Sid the Seagull and his flock of friends" watch!".

On the way back to Sydney the wind really gets up and sea becomes very choppy, which makes it very entertaining, looking at the people who have decided to sit on the outside of the boat at the front. Most of them are seated there for about two minutes maximum!

In the evening we head off down Oxford Street to Paddington (told you they copy everything). We are going to the Fringe Bar at the Unicorn Hotel as Monday nights is comedy night and for a fiver we get to watch two comedians and a warm up compere. The main act has cancelled but his replacement is still very funny and the comedians are called Harvey Green who tops the bill and Simon Kennedy.

On the way back to "our" hotel (squatters rights) Pam and Jetlag seem to be taking the new beer discovery expedition even more seriously than I am and they trawl all the pubs from Paddington to "our" hotel. Now there is one thing that you are not short of in Sydney and that is a pub, and they are open all hours, including some that are 24 x 7! We pop into one bar and Daisy the lady behind the bar is very helpful in pointing us in the right direction for new beers.

In each of the pub's we visit Pam and/or Jetlag tell them about my quest and they are all very helpful and interested and none of the bar people seem to think that taking foto foto's of beer pumps is in the least bit weird!

Danny Two Beer's today and one them is a bit different. The first beer and beer number 31 on the ball ball list is Gage Roads Premium Lager. This is brewed in Perth Western Australia. The only place I have seen this in Sydney on draft is in the Metropolitan Hotel Bar. So its a foto foto and a pint, not a lady size glass of Gage's for me!

The second beer is stumbled apon in the Courthouse Hotel in the Paddington District on the way back from the comedy show. It is beer #30 and is called Lemon Myrtle Witbier on draft.

The barman says that this is a very distinctive tasting beer that is very hard to find on draft, so extra brownie points for discovering this one and the taste is at first a little weird but then very nice and very lemony!

So I have hit the 30 marker but I can't get too complacent as after New Zealand I think it will be hard to discover new beer as we know how much the youessofa citizens like their beer don't we!

But "keep the faith" as they say in the world of Northern Soul!

Ta ta

Danny

Wait a minute I hear you saying, what about the pub quiz!...........................

I bet you have been waiting on tenterhooks for the answer to yesterday's pub quiz!!

Well the quiz was an overwhelming success with a total entry of just one! And, unluckily, Rita was very close with guessing the correct answer but for the slip of the finger on the keyboard. The film was unfortunately not "The Deer Hunter", so there were infact no correct answers and the star prize is held over until the next pub quiz!

The name of the film was:

THE BEER HUNTER

but a ficticous consolation prize will be in the e post to Rita for being the one and only entry!

Your starter for 10!

In keeping with the beer theme I have decided in todays blog to run a pub quiz. Entrance is free and there are non-existant prizes on offer! Answers on an electric postcard and the judges decision is final.

Question #1

Movie trivia - name the film!

This is a classic film, directed by Michael Cimino and starring Robert De Niro, Meryl Street and Christopher Walken, it tells the tale of the Vietnam war veterans returning home and trying to handle the post war trauma. It won a number of academy awards including best picture, best director and best actor in a leading role. There is a memorable scene where Walken who plays Nikanor "Nick" Chevotarevich enacts a scene in Saigon where he plays Russian Roulette.

The judges decision will be final! Keep watching for the answer tomorrow!

I woke up this morning to find that one of my fellow travellers and room mates has decided that I may get hungry during the middle of the night so they have very kindly left some food out for me. It took a while to work out what it was, but further investigation revealed that the package that is sitting in the middle of the dorm floor is a kebab, probably purchased from the kebab shop next door. Further inspecion reveals that the kebab will probably be cold by now as it seems to have been there most of the night.

But as they say, it's the thought that counts!

A quiet day today in Sydney. We end up in a bar at 12:20 in the morning watching the Man U v Birmingham game after seeing the highlights of the Chelsea game, talk about lucky!

The bar is called The Southern Hotel and on Fridays and Sundays they have cocktails for six dollars (three English Pounds)so Pam decides to try three different cocktails, one of which is a Mojito. We meet Pam at the bar and she seems to have found a new friend called Nick who tells us that he is orginally from Greece. Now we think he may have been overindulging just a little in the six dollar cocktails but he ends up being very helpful and draws me a map of America.

Now I am hoping that when I do hit the shores of the US of A it has not changed quite so dramatically as it seems to have done when portrayed using the cartographer skills of Nick the Greek. If it has I will have no idea of how to get from San Francisco to New Yawk.

Always trying to better myself I have once again been trying to learn the native language. I think that Australian is probably a little more difficult language to learn than Cantonese, Mandorin, Russia or Mongolian but here are few words that I have picked up along the way:

Banana bender - Queensland Resident
Budger - Lazy person who refuses to work
Bonzer - Great, ripper
Chook - Chicken
Dead horse - Tomato sauce
Drongo - Stupid person
Ridgy didge - Original, genuine
Ripper - Good
Tinny - Tinny of beer

Lastly for today a brace of beers to report as I have been working extra hard on the beer hunting front.

Beer #33 - James Squire Golden Ale - on draft at the Castle Hotel Sydney and at the James Squire Microbrewery in Cockle Bay.

Beer #32 - This is a bit of a strange one as it is brewed in Australia by Guinness to the original Irish recipe. First brewed in 1710 at St Francis Abbey. A pint of Kilkenny Draft at Scruffy Murphy's 24 x 7 Irish bar. I am claiming it anyway as the finishing line will soon be in the distance and I need all the beers I can get!

Ta ta from two beers Danny

Australia rules OK!

This is not a statement but a very different way of playing footie!

I decide it's time to introduce my two Pommie guests to some real Aussie culture so I book three tickets for this evenings AFL game at the ANZ Stadium in Olympic Park.

We are off to see the Sydney Swans play the Geelong Cats in a game of Aussie rules so we board the express train out to Olympic Park Station, which takes around 25 minutes

Kick off is at 7:10PM and the games consists of four quarters of 30 minutes. The Swannies as they are known to us locals, play in the 80,000 plus capacity ANZ Stadium where the Olympic Games athletics were held in 2000 and when we arrive Bjorn Again are imitating Abba on the pitch, Mamma Mia!

We don our red Swannies baseball caps, find our seats behind the goal, and try and work out what the heck is going on. The Swannies need a victory to have any realistic chance of reaching the finals, which makes this a "must win" game. They are aiming for a top eight finish as only the top eight teams in the league contest the finals but won't achieve this unless they beat Geelong tonight.

There are twenty three players in each team and the players wear macho shirts with no sleeves and tight shorts. They play with a rugby shaped ball, there are four goal posts without a crossbar, at either end of the round pitch, and there are seven ref's and lino's scattered around the pitch. Two of the refs stand behind the goals and periodically start waving flags. At the end of the first quarter we have roughly worked out how the game is played and the ways of scoring, and it starts to get to be a very exciting game.

If you kick the ball and your team mate catches it without it touching the ground you get a free go at moving the ball up the pitch by kicking it unimpeded. If you do the same in the scoring zone you earn your team a point and also get to try and drop kick the ball through the centre posts from the place you caught the ball. If successful you then get another six points to add to your point's total and this is called a kick. To try and get the ball back from your opponents you can jump, push and generally maul your opponents, unless they have managed a free catch. When the ball goes out of play the ref stands with his back to the pitch and throws the ball backwards over his shoulders for the two teams to fight over it.

The Swannies are down in the first and second quarter but in the third they make a bit of a comeback and take the lead. A bad clearance across the face of their own goal gives Geelong the lead again but the Swannies keep fighting to the end.

The score ends up as follows:

Geelong Cats 13.14 (92)
Sydney Swans 13.9 (87)

So for the second time in a fortnight the brave Swannies pushed a premiership favourite all the way, only to fall short by less than a kick! I hope to ahve more success on the beer chasing front!

So along with 40,261 other Swannies and Cats supporters I watched for the first time in my life a live game of Aussie Rules (AFL) footie and I have got to say that it was very exciting too! I also consumed a beer while I was watching the game but unfortunately this was not a new beer to add to the list.

So, like the Swannies, Danny Beer has fallen short at the last hurdle.

Unlike the Swannies I still hope to make the finals!

Ta ta from the Swannies, Aussie Rules,

Danny

All hands on deck, dive, dive, dive!

First off apologies if the blogs are getting a little dull but the missus is in town so the blog seems to be taking second place at the moment. Normal service will be resumed in New Zealand!

We purchased our super voucher tickets for the monorail and these allow us to go round the monorail track as many times as we want up until 10:00PM tonight. Now the circuit only takes about seven and a half minutes to complete, which would mean that we could go around it over fifty times if we wanted to, but that would be a bit pointless so we head for the Maritime Museum.

We alight at the museum stop and purchase the "full monty" tickets. These get us entrance to the museum, submarine, destroyer and the replica ship of the Endeavour, which was the ship that Cook captained when he discovered Tahiti.

The submarine is great fun. It is called HMAS Onslow and is an Oberon class submarine. It served in the Royal Australian Navy from 1969 to 1999 and was one of six Oberon class submarines that formed the Australian Submarine Squadron. The British- designed Oberon's were considered to be the most advanced types of conventional submarine, combining high speed and great underwater endurance with anti-surface vessel and anti-submarine attacking capabilities

Named after the Western Australian town, Onslow could go to sea for several months and stay underwater for more than six weeks at a time, periodically using the snort system to draw air in while running at periscope depth. When submerged, the submarine ran on electric motors. The diesel generators were used when the submarine was on the surface, and to recharge the two large batteries which each contained 224 cells. Up periscope, I pretend to be Sean Connery in The Hunt for Red October.

Beep................Beep.............Beep..............Beep

Next up is HMAS Vampire. This is a Daring Class destroyer and served in the Royal Australian Navy from 1959 to 1986, contributing to Australian's defense during the Cold War years. Vampire was one of the three Darings built in Australia and was decommissioned in 1986. We get a guided tour and lots of information about the ship and it's a good use of a couple of hours.

Third up is the replica of HMB Endeavour. This is a magnificent replica of Captain Cook's famous vessel of discovery. It is built to be just as if the crew had walked off it sometime during their epic 1768-1771 circumnavigation and voyage of discovery.

We get a guided tour of the Endeavour but for me the most interesting fact is that the crew used to get a daily ration of a gallon of beer. They certainly knew how to treat their employees well in those days!

Finally we end up in the museum buildings, where amongst the exhibits is the world's fastest boat "The Spirit of Australia". This boat reached a speed of 317.60 mph and still holds the record today as the fastest boat in the world.

But the most interesting exhibits for me are the hat that is made out of XXXX cans and even more impressive, the boat made out of beer cans, both of which were entries in the annual Darwen Beer Can regatta.

So a truly nautical day today and to top it off, a new beer is detected on the sonar radar.

Beer # 34 - Melbourne Bitter, 4.6% alcohol in a 750ml bottle, please take your place at the Captains Table!

Ta ta from Captain Pugwash and Roger the Cabin Boy,

Danny

Hartlepool 0 - Charlton 2, come on you adddicks!

I want to marry a lighthouse keeper?................

well I would if I there was any of the wedding money left!

I decide to take best advantage Pam and Jet Lag's four star hotel and facilities, squatters rights and all that. I use their bathroom to take a lovely shower and the eco warrior Danny Swampy spent way too long in the shower. This must have depleted the contents of the main reservoir feeding the Sydney area somewhat but it was nice not to have to shower in communal facilities with a trickle of water and just enough space to wash a pencil!

At around 10:00AM we head off out and catch the Hop On – Hop Off open top double decker bus. This has 30 stops including Sydney Harbour Bridge, Opera House, Circular Quay, The Rocks, Darling Harbour, Kings Cross (which just like London is the Red Light District) and Woolloomooloo. I love the name Woolloomooloo, which is one name I don’t thnk they have copied from us. Just imagine the station announcement on the Jubilee Line, “Mind the gap, mind the gap, this train is the Jubilee Line service stopping at all stations to Woolloomooloo”. It is probably the only word in the world with eight “o’s” and was once a slum full of drunks, sailors and drunk sailors! Not much changed there then!

The Harbour Bridge is quite an engineering feat and looks as impressive close up as it does from a distance. We did enquire about the Bridge Climbing tours but these proved too expensive with prices starting from around 160 English Pounds per person and that would blow my budget for a full five days. The bridge is a massive metal construction that links the CBD (Central Business District) with the North Sydney Business District and it is nicknamed “old coat hanger” by the Sydneysiders. The bridge was completed in 1932 at a cost of $20 million and it took the city 60 years to pay off the debt incurred for the cost of the build. Just like the Humber Bridge it needs to be continually re-painted, and Paul Hogan of Crocodile Dan D fame once worked as a painter on the bridge.

We hop off the bus to have a look around the Sydney Opera House. Unlike the Harbour Bridge it looks more impressive on postcards, photos and from a distance than it looks when you are up close. It was designed by Danish Architect Jorn Utzon and is probably Australia’s most recognisable sight. The roof is 67m high and features 27,230 tonnes of Swedish tiles or 1,056,000 tiles if you are anally retentive and like to count tiles! As Jet Lag comments as we walk around the outside of the Opera House, you can see where Ikea got all their inspiration from.

We hopped back on the bus and went back round to circuit to the Power House Museum. We were going to go in but they wanted $10 admission so we gave it a miss and walked up to the National Maritime Museum. This has many features including Aboriginal canoes and a section on surf culture, and outside there are boats, ships and a submarine moored on the quay. We plan to visit the museum tomorrow and spend more time there but Jay and I decide to climb the wooden lighthouse that is sited there today. This was originally sited in Townsville further up the Eastern Coast and is also where I boarded the ferry to Magnetic Island. The lighthouse was dismantled, relocated and re-built on the harbour as one of the exhibits of the musuem. We climb to the top using the narrow stairwell and when you reach the peak you get a great perspective of Sydney and the Harbour area, and, best of all, it is free to visit. As I said earlier I like my freeness me!

Today we have seen a lot of the sights of Sydney and tomorrow we plan to take the monorail which loops through the city, to get a different perspective of it. Dinner at Scruffy Murphys and some dancing in Scubar round off the evening!

No new beers to report today so I am stuck on beer #36.

Ta Ta from Jet Lag, Pam and Swampy, This is Sydney signing out for today.

Danny

Please don’t feed the birds!

We start the day exploring the Sydney Harbour area on foot. The harbour stretches 20km inland from the mouth of the Parramatta River and is also known as Port Jackson. It’s turned into a beautiful sunny day with a blue sky and bright sunshine. We walk across the redeveloped harbour area that reminds me a lot of what they did with the Docklands in East London.

Sydney Harbour used to be a thriving port for handling freight and the bay in which it sits was originally called Cockle Bay but it’s now called Darling Harbour.The Sydney region is the ancestral home of the Eora people who possessed an initimate understanding of environmental sustainability, spoke three distinct languages and maintained sophisticated sacred and artistic cultures. In 1788 Captain Arthur Phillip established Australia’s first European settlement, and the Eora were soon stripped of legal rights to their land, systematically incarcerated, killed or driven away by force. Basically it seems that Team GB managed to screw up yet another civilisation!

In early times Sydney had near starvation and rum fuelled problems (rum was at one time the currency used) and these continued until the 1850’s gold rush when the population of Sydney also doubled.

“There’s gold in them there hills!”.

In the 20th century, post World War Two immigrants from the UK, Ireland and the Meditteranean again changed the population of Sydney and with them came prosperity and in 2000 Sydney hosted the Olympic Games, the Ozzies had finally made it.

As we were walking around the harbour area we passed an open air restaurant and something quite amusing happens!

A lady has purchased her lunch, walks out and places the tray with the food on one of the tables in the outside dining area. She decides to pop back into the self service area, maybe to get the salt and pepper or a knife and fork, who knows?

Now as soon as she leaves her lunch unattended it takes just one second for Sid and his flock of fellow seagulls, that had been eyeing up her lunch as soon as she purchased it and walked away from the till, to swoop down onto the table and fight over her food. It’s just like a scene from the Hitchcock “Birds” film. Exasperated she quickly runs back to the table and shoo’s the seagulls away, but it is too late and her lunch has flown! I think she tries a little taste of the scraps left on the plate (not something I would do) but then gives up. I wish I had a video camera, "You've been framed" or what!

We get the Hop On – Hop Off tour to the world famous Bondi Beach. It’s about 35 minutes away from Sydney Central and Its a bit windy on the open deck so although it’s sunny with a blue sky it’s not the weather for T shirt and shorts. It’s still winter here in Australia and in Sydney there is none of the sub-tropical weather that you get further up the Eastern Coast in Brisbane and Cairns and you need to be wearing some warmer clothes this time of year!

That does not however deter the surfers of Bondi. There is a glorious sandy beach that stretches across the bay and the sea has large breakers rolling in from the Atlantic. Both the sea and sand are littered with cool dudes in wetsuits carrying surfboards, just like in the movies!

Surfing was introduced to Bondi by a guy from Hawaii in the early 50’s who was over for something completely different but built his own board and gave the locals a display of his surfing skills and it caught on, so much so that the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh attended Bondi in 1953 and were on the prom to watch the World Surfing Finals. A bronze sign notes the exact spot but I bet it was a bit of diplomatic PR as I can’t see Queenie and Dukie being big surf groupies.

1-2-3 back on the bus into Sydney and an evening of beer spotting!

Guess what ……………………….surfs up…………………wipe out!

Beer number #35 Resch’s Draught – a real drink!

On draft in the Sir John Young Hotel and with a picture of a surfer on the pump as well!

Ta Ta from Jet Lag, Pam, Surfer Danny, Queenie, Dukie and Bondi Beach

Danny

Loose talk costs lives!

A “take it easy day” today as Pam and Jet Lag Jay are trying to adjust to the 22 hour flight from London Heathrow via the Lady Boys favourite place, Bangkok.

We have a lazy morning and I show them around the centre of Sydney and some places nearby. There are a number of districts in Sydney with a fairly large Chinatown, famous for its Paddy Markets. Chinatown is situated between my hostel and Pam/Jet Lag’s Luxury Four Star hotel, with modern facilities and luxury furnishings.

Just over the road from their Luxury Four Star hotel is the Spanish Quarter, which is where we end up for happy hour and later in the evening we end up in an Irish Bar called Scruffy Murphy’s where they have live music and cheap food and drinks most days of the week.

So a pretty quiet day showing Pam and Jet Lag Jay around and so far the United Nation’s Peace Keeping Force have been able to stay in the Middle East and have not needed to be redeployed by the Sydney Authorities……….

But it is early days yet!

At this point I would like to put a stop to the false rumours that seem to have been doing the rounds. These are believed to have been started by Jet Lag and there is absolutely no truth whatsoever in them. My legal counsel will be pursuing the source of the libelous and slanderous false accusations through the highest courts available!

Please remember that “loose talk cost’s lives” and if you do hear this vicious rumour please contact Beer & Ale my legal counsel and report the source of the slander and treat it with the scorn that it deserves!

Tomorrow I’m off to show Pam and Jet Lag Jay the sights of Sydney, with a Hop On – Hop Off booked on an open top double decker bus!

And finally the Beez Neez:

Beer # 80 – Beez Neez Hand Crafted Honey Wheat Beer on Draft, a lady size glass of draft in the lounge bar of the Albion Place Hotel, Sydney, Australia.

In the words of McFadden and Whitehead – “Ain’t no stopping us now!”

Ta ta from the Beez Neez
Danny

Wondering what the false rumour is?

“The libelous, slanderous and false accusation that I, Danny Beer, have used the Wedding money to fund my quest around the World for eighty beers is completely inaccurate. I have consulted my legal advisors on the possibility of suing Jet Lag for libel, slander and defamation of character, and yes I know it can’t be both libel and slander but that won’t stop me!”

It's Payback Time!

As I Arrived in Sydney on the Greyhound we had a great view of the Sydney Opera House as we crossed the Harbour Bridge. It’s now rush hour heading into Sydney as it’s around 9:00 in the morning. The journey was not as bad as I thought it would be and I found the Sydney Central YHA really easily, as it is around 20 metres from where the Greyhound dropped me off. I can’t check in until noon so I store WLR in the locker storage and go for a walk to get some breakfast.

Travelling down the East Coast of Australia is just like a tour of Britain. We leave Brisbane passing the signs to the Tractor Boys favourite town Ipswich and then we pass signs to Everton Park with the Greyhound Bus Driver (or Coach Captain to use his official title) taking particular care to keep an eye on the six hub caps on the Greyhound. We travel further down the East Coast and we pass through the towns of Newcastle and Gateshead. Haway the lads! Championship footy for you, that’ll teach you to employ Dowie!

We pass by signs to Swansea and Cardiff (yakky da) and the best thing is we don’t have to pay to get in our out of the Ozzie Welsh Wales! When I was in Hervey Bay and Airlie Beach there were lots of posters and agencie advertising Wales watching tours, I didn't think they meant that sort of Wales!

We stop at Surfers Paradise, just like the one we have in England, and just before we hit Sydney there are signs pointing in the direction of the shell suit capital of Australia, Liverpool, come on you Reds (not those ones).

Pam and Jay are arriving in Sydney on the 20:00 Thai Airlines flight from Bangkok so I head out to the airport but just before I get on the train I pop into Scubar, which is the name of the bar in the basement of the hostel and guess what, Beer #37 – Barons Beer, Scubar, YHA Sydney Central, Sydney, I just can’t stop scoring now! Move over Fernando Torres, Super Clive is in town!

So, clean shaven, with freshly pressed jeans, clean top and a sign just in case Pam does not recognise me I wait for the late arrival of TG991 at Exit C Sydney International Airport arrival lounge.

It’s “best behaviour” time as the missus is due in town and ready to upset Australia as only she can. Heaven help the Ozzies! Ten days of Pam will however be a nice piece of revenge for the Second Test defeat in the Ashes! I must remember to check the address for the British Consulate!

Ta ta from a very nervous Danny Beer,

Danny

In the jungle, the mighty jungle....................................

Day 77 on my trip and I have a 17 hour Greyhound trip from Brisbane to Sydney so that I can meet up with Pam and Jay when they arrive tomorrow. I pack WLR (I’ve got to admit it’s getting heavier!) and check out of the hostel at 10:00AM. I then have 6 hours to kill before I board the 16:00 Greyhound and spend the next 17 hours on the bus.

After checking out I pop down to the Queensland State Library where you can get free internet access (I told you I like freeness!), and I check my emails and update the blog . A last walk along the (man made – council sponsored) beach and around the rain forest park area and then I stroll back to pick up WLR at the hostel and head to the Brisbane Transfer Terminal.

But before I go I explore the Caxton area of Brisbane in more detail, in search of that ever elusive animal the “new beer”!

It can be a dangerous sport, hunting new beers, and is not for the faint hearted, but the rewards can outweigh the effort if you are as committed to the cause as Danny Beer.

I walk along the main street in Caxton, eyes scanning the horizon from left to right, binoculars at the ready, and then I spot it, hiding in the background, in the Mirasoul Bar, Caxton, Brisbane, Australia!

If you look really closely you can just spot it hiding amongst the other beers on the pump, keeping its head down and trying it’s best to blend in with the herd.

Using all its animal instincts it is trying to use the pump and the bar as cover and even tries to use the dirty glasses to its best advantage. It is just hoping that the camouflage it is using will be enough to ensure its survival.

The hunter though is persistent in his pursuit of a new beer and stalks the prey to a successful conclusion:

Beer # 38, Fat Yak, a pale ale on draft and a very nice taste too! It was a little expensive hunting it down. The Mirasoul is not the cheapest location in Brisbane to set up camp and stalk a new beer, but it’s worth it for the buzz of the hunt and the chase alone. A battle of nerves between the hunter and the prey, Danny Beer and the Fat Yak lager, only one winner there!

There are 24 hours in a day (and night) and I am spending the next 17 of those on a Greyhound Bus. Not a great prospect but who said the life of a backpacker was going to be easy, not me!

So it’s ta ta from Danny Beer- World traveler, Crocodile Wrestler, Dingo Fighter and Fat Yak hunter extraordinaire!

Bi Bi to Brisbane!

Danny

Nobody sticks Danny in the corner!

My last full day in Brisbane so I decide to do a bit if washing and ironing (a very domesticated as well as eco friendly Danny these days). And then I head out in the afternoon to catch some more of the sights of Brisbane and take some more foto foto's.

And I have big plans for this evening!

Dancing in the Street Brisbane's Biggest Street Party!

"Join us for this year's biggest street party where you can dance the night away and learn more than 10 different styles of dance including Salsa, Bollywoood, Hip Hop, Jazz, Disco and Dirty Dancing". That's what the posters and brochures are saying. There are seven different stages set up for Dancing in the Steet,with instructions and displays of dances including Greek Kapsali's, Salsa, Zouk Lamabada, Taitian Hula, Belly Dancing, African Roots, Line Dancing, Swing and Dirty Dancing."

So much choice, what to choose? A little cha cha cha............ to go with the ta ta maybe?

A Mambo number 50?

Maybe I should practice my Tatian Hula in preparation for Hawaii or some belly moves!

A night of strictly come dancing?

Decisions, decisions! What's a man to do?

A decisive Danny Beer makes his mind up!

Off I go to the Suncorp Stadium where Brisbane Roar FC are playing their fierce rivals Gold Coast United in the first game of the new A League season.

I am going to "Be there when a football (sokker) rivalry ignites" according to the posters and kick off is at 7:30PM., bring it on!

Brisbane is the capital of Queensland and there is intense rivalry between Queensland and New South Wales (capital Sydney), in fact the people of NSW and Queensland do not seem to like each other very much at all. There is the rugby union rivalry, the AFL rivalry, the rugby league rivalry where they annually contest "The State of Origin", and the A League Sokker rivalry, which I think might be a newer but none the less as intense rivalry.

But I think (as it should be on a beer related blog) the biggest rivalry of all is that between the Castlemaine and Carlton Breweries.

The Sokker team, the "Roar" as they like to be known locally, play in an orange strip and all around the stadium the pubs and bars are festooned with orange balloons, ribbons and flags. Nearly everyone is sporting a "Roar" top, with the exception of me as I decide to wear my Kish top which is red, newly laundered this morning and nice and clean.

I head to The Caxton Pub, the home supporters pub of choice and it is full to the brim with Roarers and the atmosphere is buzzing. Now I go to the game fully with the intention of supporting the Roar (or I guess Roaring rather than supporting?). I do this because I am staying in Brisbane and feel that this is the right thing to do and would support Gold Coast United if I were in Sydney. But just before kick off the announcer reads out the team sheets, and guess what, Danny Tiatto is playing for the Roar.

Now if there was one player I absolutely detested when Charlton played Man City (we're a big club you know!) it was Tiatto. As nasty a piece of work as you could hope to find on a football pitch (allegedly). So I switch my allegiance to the "Coast" (not sure if they like being called the Coast or not but if it's the Roar then it must be the Coast).

Now it has to be said that the Roar are pretty dreadful. Alongside Tiatto they have a number of ex Rangers players, well past their "sell by" as it were, and their game is a long punt of the ball up to a big centre forward, who could not control a football if his life depended on it. I think that the style of play adopted by the Coast is in homage to their union and league football brothers?

The Coast play much better football and pass the ball around and they are two nil up and coasting it when, with minutes to go, "The Roar" finally roar or at least whimper and get a late consolation goal.

One of the stranger things watching this game is being able to buy a beer and then sit in your seat and watch the game whilst consuming the beer. I must say I did not actually enjoy the pint that much (well actually it was a plastic lady size glass). It was getting cold and the alcohol seemed to fuel the home supporters into concentrating on shouting abuse at the Coast supporters rather than actually watching the game. I forgot to mention that there is no segregation of supporters either, so although I was sitting in the home end In was with a number of others supporting the Coast who showed their alliegance much more than I did!

I head back to the hostel and call it a night, as tomorrow is a long day with a lot of traveling! But at least I can say that on my quest for 80 beers I have been among the 20,000 plus "Roarers" and "Coasters" to have seen a professional sokker game tonight. Watching a pro game of sokker is something I have been trying to do since I landed in Russia a while ago and I only just missed out on watching a J League game in Japan. So it may not be the rip roaring, goal scoring, super duper Addicks but at least it was a game of sokker.

So the Roar are a big bunch of "L's" but Danny Beer goes from strength to strength on the beer front as Beer #39 hits the back of the net. Come on you "beers"!

So Beer #39 - Blue Tongue Premium Light, native to the Hunter Region.

"As with our reptilian name sake the surprise is in the mouth. And it?s the same wit Blue Tongue Premium Light. This amber coloured light beer is deliciously complex and rich in premium malt flavour. Crafted from a combination of the best Australian, German and Czech noble hops it has a crisp balanced bitterness and just a hint of caramel".

Brewed and bottled in the Hunter Region by Blue Tongue Brewery, 42 Stenhouse Drive, Cameron Park, NSW 2285. www.bluetongue.com.au. and to think I was holding a Blue Tongue Lizard in my very own hands no more that a few days ago on Magnetic Island! It must be a sign from Buddha or Jehova and please if you are the person sending me scripts from the Kuran then please desist as Shamansimn is my chosen faith!

So it's a "ta, ta, ta, and a cha, cha, cha," from Danny Beer

Danny

You can learn a lot in a day!

The population of Brisbane is approximately 1.8m and they all benefit from the fact that Brisbane is tropical, so even in winter (which is now), it is hot during the day and you get a lot of sunshine and today is one of those days where it is hot and sunny with blue skies. But they also take their learning seriously here.

It’s been a busy day of learning and knowledge gathering for Danny Beer and I have visited many cultural places including the Museum of Brisbane and the Queensland State Library. I have walked around the GOMI (gallery of modern art) and seen lots of modern art including a massive sculpture of a lady in bed. I have seen the Brisbane City Hall and travelled to the top of same in the lift, courtesy of the council. I like my freeness me!

I have also seen the Parliament House (which is now a casino), the Shrine of Remembrance, Anzac Square, St Stephens Cathedral, the South Bank complex and the Brisbane Eye. Yep I have seen a lot of places today. As it says at the top of the blog post you can learn a lot in a day!

However the learning I am talking about is not the learning about Brisbane City Hall and its Clock Tower. Although did you know that it was opened on 8 April 1930 and it took over ten years to complete at a cost of English pounds 980,000 and became known as the “Million Pound Town Hall”? And that it rises 92 metres above the ground with an observation level at 76 metres. And also that Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones performed in its main auditorium when he was 21 years old (crikey that must have been a long long time ago).

It’s also not the knowledge I have gained about the other memorable places I have seen when I have been exploring Brisbane and it's cultural heritage and history.

Now no one can accuse Danny Beer of not taking the pursuit of 80 beers from around the World seriously and today I decide to go straight to the “horses mouth” as it were. At 12 noon I have booked myself on the Castlemaine Perkins Brewery Tour and it’s a bit strange as there are no ladies on the tour, only men, which I find a little surprising. Obviously the "quest for knowledge gene" is much bigger in the hunter gatherer.

Now this is billed as the greatest brewery tour on earth and I have to say that it is pretty impressive. It costs just over a tenner and last’s for nearly two hours and they have invested quite a lot of the revenue received from selling beer to make the tour fun and enjoyable and I would recommend this to anyone who visits Brisbane. They have some special theatres with lots of interactivity and life size models of important people in the history of the company. You sit on a stage in the middle and it revolves round slowly and stops at various bits of interaction. They also show their marketing and unique TV advertising campaigns, which I had forgotten about, but were really very funny. I particularly liked the one about the Oz guy loading crates of XXXX on to a flat back truck and then adding the two bottles of sherry for the ladies, which made the axle collapse. “Think you have overdone it with the sherry there mate” and the ad about the Flying Doctor and the last can of XXXX in the fridge.

I increased my knowledge about all about the raw materials needed to brew a pint of beer. I learned about the brewing technology, canning and bottling machinery, labeling and packaging and quality control. Now quality control in a beer factory is something that I think would make a great career move for me and would be a job that I could excel in, especially with my new found knowledge of everything beer.

I find it the tour very interesting (I bet you are saying what a surprise) and we get taken around the factory and get shown the production process and we have a tour guide who is very informative and knows a lot about beer, probably not as much as me in the drinking context, but much more in the production context.

So what can I also tell you that I have learned today? I have found out all about the barley, hops, sugar, malt and water involved in the brewing process. I know that beer is the world’s oldest fermented alcoholic drink and predates wine and spirits. I know that it was invented by accident in Babylonia in approximately 4000 BC, so the Rasta’s have once again got it right! I know that the monks used to brew beer in the 18th century and would drink around nine litres of the stuff a day, purely for quality control purposes I am told. (That probably explains the silence of the brothers in the YHA in Airlie Bay. They obviously didn’t know what the time of day was and were unable to string a sentence together, hence the silence) and I also know that the XXXX’s in the brand name came about because the monks would mark the barrels of beer with X’s to indicate it’s strength, the more X’s the stronger the beer.

I know a quite a bit now about the Castlemaine Perkins Brewing Company. Castlemaine was the name of a place in Australia and the brewery was set up by a solicitor who had come to Queensland to try his hand at gold mining and not been successful. You may remember in an early post I wondered about Perkins in the Castlemaine Perkins context? Well I can tell you that the Perkins Brewery was a big competitor to Castlemaine and was run by the Perkins brothers (not the holy kind of brothers thank God). They were Irish and there was a lot of rivalry between the two companies until The Perkins Brewery hit on hard times and was taken over by Castlemaine.

My learning was increased further with a lecture about the Fourex Man, a cartoon character created by the brand and still used today in their advertising and on their signage. There is a massive Fourex Man on the outside of the factory.

I also paid particular attention during the lecture about the investment Castlemaine make into Queensland sport and how proud they are to be a “Queensland” company and where the XXXX logo has been seen at great sporting triumph including the “State of Origin” matches which are big annual rugby matches between Queensland and NSW.

I could now tell you in great detail about the brewing processes and I have built further on my knowledge of worts that Mick kindly helped me with earlier on the trip in Japan.

I found out that the phrases “mind you P’s and Q’s” and “Getting off scot free” are beer related. The P’s and Q’s are pints and quarts and the landlord used to shout “mind your P’s and Q’s to tell them to collect the customer’s tabs. A “scot” was the tax imposed on beer in the cities in England. Outside of cities the beer was not taxed, a bit like a duty free zone at an airport, hence the phrase.

I wanted to specialise in Australian beer ready for any possible appearance on Mastermind so I did some extra curricular work on Australian Beer and now know that you can get beer in three types of bottle in Australia, the smallest being the Throwaway, followed by the Stubbie and lastly the Long Neck.

And the last thing I was educated with today I think is an excuse and I hope I don’t get asked this question in my “specialist subject” section as I will have to tell Magnus what I really think rather than what I have been taught! In Queensland you can get a beer in a pot or a schooner. Now I was told by teacher that the pot is the preferred size in Queensland and is even smaller than a schooner and the reason this is the preferred size is because it gets so hot here in Queensland that if beer was served in any bigger size that a Pot the beer would get warm to quickly. This sounds like an Ozzie excuse to me, amateur beer drinkers or what, and this further confirms my suspicions about our commonwealth cousins! They make out that they are big beer drinkers but are in fact big “L’s” on the drinking front and drink their beer out of lady size glasses, which also makes it even more suprising that only males attend the lectures today.

And finally Beer #40 and the half way mark. At the end of the tour we are allowed to sample four beers and drink these from lady size pots and this is included in the price of the tour! I try a “pot” of XXXX Gold from a wooden barrel, two other beers and beer number 40. I had a glass of “Carbine Stout – since 1924” as one of the four free beers. Now in my books stout can be counted as a beer even though it’s a different colour than normal beer and I think it qualifies much more than the Magners Cider being claimed at Paddywhacks in Cairns so on the list it goes, another one down and I am really “rockin and rollin” or is it “rockin and a reelin? (I got a feelin, feelin it’s rockin and a reelin).

It’s pizza for five dollars at the hostel tonight so I am going to give that a try and see what else the evening brings. Signing off and I hope that you are both impressed with my newfound knowledge, my pursuit of the next new beer, and the learning what I have did today!

So it’s ta ta from Al Murray the Pub Landlord, all hail the ale!

Danny

And a late newsflash - Charlton Atheletic 3 - Wycombe Wanderers 2 - get in you beauty!

It’s Brill in Brisbane! and come on you rip roaring, goalscoring,superduper Addicks!

It’s not all crocodile wrestling, shark hunting, reef diving and dingo fighting when you are backpacking in the outback. You have some down time days when you are either traveling or washing clothes. Today is one of the traveling days and I take the five hour journey on the Greyhound Bus from Hervey Bay to Brisbane City Centre. The Greyhound Coach left on time at 9:25AM with me and WLR safely aboard, and it’s a pretty uneventful trip. One half hour stop and we arrive at the Brisbane Transit Centre at around 14:25 and it’s about a ten to fifteen minute walk for me and WKR to the Brisbane City Centre YHA. Now this YHA must be one of the four or five star hostels and it reminds me of a Travelodge. It has a swimming pool on the roof as well as an outside seating area and you are five floors up and have great panoramic view of Brisbane. Large screen (very) TV with satellite channel, games room and an internet café. It’s a ten minute stroll down the road to the main central area and City Hall and a really nice hostel and in a really nice location.

I am sharing my room with a couple of young guys from Scandanavia and they are OK and we say hello and good morning and one of them has a surf board and we have a chat about that. They are OK guys so I warn them never to consider taking any religious vows or get any nasty habits!

Now, as I said the hostel is great but there is one thing that I definitely do not like about it. It’s to do with the lift. Every time I take it I get taunted with a voice saying “going down, going down”. Now as if that was not bad enough when I take the lift down to the laundry floor the taunts get even worse. “Going down to Level Two, going down to Level Two”.

Now first off how does the lift know that I am a Charton Athletic supporter? I know I have worn my Kish top a couple of times so maybe that gave the game away but I don’t spot and CCTV in the lift? Worst of all though is the fact that a lift is predicting that Charlton will get relegated this season. Now I reckon that a Shindlers Lift probably does know more about football than most so called “football pundits” but there is no need for it to rub it in every time I travel in it. I have even tried to find the stairs to avoid the taunts but they seem to be non-existent. Freaky or what, just like in one of those Stephen King movies!

I am a bit knackered after the traveling so I have a shower (this time the water is fine) and go out for a bit of a walk round to check out the city. I like Brisbane within a few minutes and it is good to be back in a city again as I have missed the big city atmosphere. There are lots of things to explore and I think Brisbane is just about big enough to be able to do it on foot.

Finally I must “big up” the Greyhound Bus drivers. They do an excellent job and are very customer and backpacker friendly. They do a lot of driving on roads that are not always that great but are always helpful and cheery, nuff respect! Ron. Bruce, Bruce and Bruce I salute you!

I am now ticking off the beers big time and:

Beer # 41 – Stone & Wood – Handcrafted Pale Lager. Brewed by the Stone & Wood Brewing Company pty. 4 Boruna Place, Byron Bay, NSW 2841 – take your place on the Shindler’s.

I could say Bi Bi from Brisbane but that would not annoy so,

It’s ta ta from the capital of Queensland and come on you ADDICKS!

Danny

Dingo, dingo hop!

I couldn’t quite work out Hervey Bay but now I understand it. It’s all about Fraser Island, and you reach Fraser Island by catching a ferry from Hervey Bay. One without the other would not exist.

I head off to Fraser Island, which takes its name from James and Eliza Fraser. James was the captain of the Stirling Castle and Eliza his more fortunate wife. They were shipwrecked off the Coast of Fraser Island in 1836. He died there but she survived with help from the Aboriginal people who lived on Fraser. Unfortunately they were later forced off the island as the new immigrants to Australia suddenly realised the value of the timber and other resources on the island and decided it was for them. Well that’s gratitude for you!

The local aboriginal people call Fraser Island “K Gari” which is very fitting as it roughly translates into paradise. It is a gigantic World Heritage listed sand bar measuring 120km by 15km and has been created by 800,000 years of longshore drift. The sea around the island is not a place to swim in, as enticing as it looks as it has a strong undercurrent and is full of man-eating sharks.

I set off at 8:00AM and catch the 8:30 catamaran across to the island. I don’t think I have been on a catamaran yet on my trip so another first, and the crossing takes 50 minutes in the fast sea vessel. The reason it takes so long is that to get to the island the boat has to make a massive U turn to avoid the sandbanks that were obviously what did for the Fraser’s and Stirling Castle.

Fraser Island is the largest sand island in the world. It is totally made up of sand. Everywhere you look is sand and sand quickly fills up your shoes. Interestingly though trees, shrubs and plants seem to have adapted to the sand and grow on it so there are plenty of wooded areas and many different species of birds to look out for if that is your inclination. There are even some wild animals that roam on the island.

There are only two ways to move around the island once you arrive. The first is in a high wheelbase 4X4 vehicle like a Toyota Land Cruiser, and the second is on foot. No other forms of transport will work as there are no roads and only sand and sand dunes (known locally as sand blows), and sand paths and sand drifts.

The Kingfisher one catamaran docks at the jetty after the crossing and as we disembark we are met by two men in white suits, one who is French and the other vertically challenged. They welcome us to Fraser Island.

Having left my high wheelbase 4 X 4 vehicle back in the UK I decide to take the other form of transport and set off on the trail towards Mackenzie Lake on foot. According to the signs the walk will take about 2-3 hours and this is largely because you are walking on sand which is pretty hard work and the terrain is also very hilly. The dunes tower up to 224m in height. As already mentioned there are no roads or pavements on Fraser Island which is why the 4X4 is the preferred method of transport.

I set off on my hike and walk for about 50 minutes following the green signs indicating the route I need to take, when I come across a sign saying “Road Closed”! Now firstly there are no roads on Fraser which makes the sign a little inaccurate, but I get the idea the sand footpath is closed and the thing that worries me most is why the sand track (sorry road) is closed?

Then I spot the sign “Be Dingo Safe” and I realise why they have closed the path.

The sign gives some very good advice as follows:

1. Do not encourage, approach or excite Dingoes
2. If approached, face the Dingo and calmly back away
3. If attacked, defend yourself vigorously

In these days of Health and Safety rules and regulations I can understand the need for imparting good and timely advice. Maybe it’s a clause in the Fraser Island Council insurance policy that they have to make visitors aware of possible hazards, a bit like the “mind the gap” announcements on the Tube I guess.

Now I certainly would not encourage, approach or even excite a pack of tame poodles, never mind a pack of wild dingo dogs that look a lot like alsatians to me.

I might even back away calmly if approached by them, although my guess is that I would get the hell out of there faster than Mr. Usain Bolt on a Red Bull kick.

But I can assure you that if Danny Beer is being attacked by a pack of wild Australian dingo dogs then he will not need to be told to follow the sound advice relayed to him as rule number three on the being Dingo Safe sign. That I believe will come naturally. But thank you Fraser Island Council for the sound advice anyway.

As I can’t walk any further in that direction I head back towards Kingfisher Bay and retrace the 50 minute walk and then head past the bay and walk towards the ruins of the Mackenzie Commando Camp and Mackenzie Jetty. The walk is around 60 minutes through bush and it is a nice hike with a few trees across the track to navigate around and plenty of sand to see. There is not much left of the commando training camp when you get there but it played a big part in training commandos from a number of countries to undertake covert action during WW2 so it’s worth a visit.

You can see a few remains of the place and bits of steel and concrete and bits of the jetty are still there in the sea as well. After looking around for a while I then walk down the steep path to the beach. It is a nice walk as the tide has just started to turn and is going out which means I can walk back along the beach to Kingfisher Bay. It really is a beautiful island and would be the sort of place that Robinson Crusoe would have ended up on. It’s great to be the only footprints in the sand as you walk along the beach and there are hundreds of tiny crabs that happily walk along until they spot you and then furiously dig deep into the sand. The foto foto’s will again do it much more justice than my words can.

A great day on the island and I am told that it’s one of the must do things so I have ticked another must do off of the list. I catch the fast catamaran back to Hervey Bay and pack WLR ready for the trip down to Brisbane tomorrow. I have a quiet night in the bar at the Colonial YHA which is a very nice place to stay and they do their best to make you feel welcome. One of the nicest things I have seen in any hostel to date is that they encourage you, if you have cooked your own meal, to eat it in their bar and bistro area, which is a nice touch and handy for my cooked breakfast tomorrow before I leave for Brisbane..

Ta ta to Fraser Island, the dingo’s and Hervey Bay and hello Brisbane tomorrow!

Wait a minute I nearly forgot. Come in number 42 your time is up!

Beer #42 - Cascade Premium Light draft lager, on tap in a bar and restaurant just by the pier in Hervey Bay. Get in you beauty!

Nearly past the half way mark now!

Danny

Our future is in their hands!

Yesterday when we are waiting to board the 18:10 Greyhound in Airlie bound for Hervey Bay I found it interesting how stupid some of these young backpackers really are. A good example: we are waiting at the bus stop sitting on benches less than two feet away from the kerb and the Greyhound bus pulls up with the luggage compartments directly in front of us, in the line of sight as it were. What is the first thing that most of them do? They load up their rucksacks onto their back, feeding both their arms through the straps and doing up the all the buckles. They take one step forward, right foot in front of left and spend the next five minutes disengaging the same buckles and straps to remove the same rucksack from their back, so they can place it into the luggage compartment that started off no less than two feet away from them in the first instance. Now if it was just one or two of them then Danny Beer could excuse it! But it is most of quite a large group of our finest, waiting for the Greyhound to Hervey Bay that performs this act of stupidity.

If that is not bad enough once they have stowed their rucksacks safely away in the luggage compartment of the bus they decide to stand directly in front of the same compartment, in a large group, to have a little chit chat about the days fun. It does not cross any of their minds that there are a large group of fellow passengers behind them who are waiting patiently to load their bags into the luggage compartment conveniently using a handle or strap on their luggage to lift it up a just a few inches from the ground while they transfer it to the bus compartment, if only they could find a way through!

We arrived at the bus terminal in Hervey Bay at 6:50AM and luckily there was a mini bus waiting to pick me up and transport me to the Colonial Village YHA where I am staying for the next two nights. The Colonial Village is a nice hostel with a big swimming pool area, a large bar and restaurant and tennis and basketball courts for the more athletic backpacker. At the hostel they also give you free cereal and coffee for breakfast, which really makes the transportation of a half full box of Rice Bubbles seem worthwhile now!

I can't check in until 12 noon so I hang around and check out the internet and relax. Once checked in all I want to do is have a shower and freshen up after the overnight traveling.

I go to the communal shower area and run the tap to get the water warm. Before I step into the shower enclosure an eco friendly new wave Danny Beer turns off the taps while he lathers up with shower gel. I twist the taps in the "on" direction ready to rinse the soap suds off my head and body and all I get is three drips from the shower head, not even a steady trickle of water.

What to do? Unable to fathom out what is wrong I frantically start twisting the taps back and forward and then the water dries up completely, not even a drip. I quickly hop into the next shower cubicle and after frantic tap turning no water there either. In desperation I try the sink so that I can at least wash the soap from my eyes, still no water! I look like a yetti in a poodle parlour.

In the end I try and clear as much of the soap suds from my body with my hands, dry myself off with my travel towel and rub my sore eyes. I head back to the dorm to get changed into my shorts and t shirt and then it's off to reception where I plan to hire a bike for the rest of the day. As I am hiring the bike I mention to the lady on reception about the lack of water in the men's showers and she cheerily informs me that they are doing some maintenance work today and have turned off the water supply.

Why does it always seem to happen to me?

Hervey Bay is set on a 10km stretch of golden sand and is lovely but it is the antithesis of Airlie Beach. The population seems to be ageing and wealthy and it is full of retirement homes, bungalows, yachts and fake tans. It reminds me very much of Bournemouth mixed with the set of Desperate Housewives. I am not sure where the Lonely Planet got their info from on Hervey Bay but I have seen little evidence of hordes of backpackers and the Irish theme pubs and party crowd. I think they are all still in Airlie Beach.

My afternoon on the bike is great fun. The bike is not up to the standard of Dan & Dan's. It has small wheels and a front brake on the handlebar. To break the rear wheel you peddle backwards and this really confuses me and I nearly fly across the handlebars a few times. But the bike is a great way of checking out the area. I head up to the big Woolies we passed in the mini bus on the way in and they have a deli counter which sorts out lunch and dinner for me today.

Tomorrow I am taking a trip on a catamaran to Fraser Island. I think this will be the first time I have travelled on a catamaran on this trip and I am looking forward to it. A bit tired after the day and the travel so it?s just one jug of happiest hour beer (they call it happiest hour because every hour at the YHA is a happy one).

So it's ta ta from a stingy eyed and half blind Danny Beer until tomorrow.

Danny

Silence is Golden

Now that Mike my friend from New York has left I am sharing my dorm with a group of monks. Four of the six beds are occupied with the brothers, and they don’t seem to know each other. I occupy the fifth bed and the other bed is empty. Now they are obviously very committed monks, and extremely devoted to their faith, because they seem to have taken a vow of silence!

I realise the commitment they have made to their faith early after their arrival when I make the mistake of trying to strike up a conversation with two different brothers a couple of times during the day. It seems to cause them great offence that I have broken their code of silence and dared to utter a word, and my indiscretion is looked on with the disdain that it deserves. How very dare you tempt us you devil!

I feel really guilty about trying to entice the brothers out of their solemn vow and I must seek forgiveness for my indiscretion from somewhere, but I am not sure whether to ask Buddha or Jehova or as a newly converted Shamist consult with Mother Earth!

I have a twelve hour coach journey tonight as I leave for Hervey Bay on the 18:10 Greyhound. The bus is due to arrive at 6:50AM the next morning and it will be a long night so I decide to take it easy for the day. I check out of my room at 10:00AM, and a silent wave of the hand indicates “goodbye” to the brothers who are busy praying (I think). I carefully place WLR in the storage room until later and cook up a storm of a breakfast that includes Kellogs Rice Bubbles with semi skimmed milk. Now these Rice Bubbles are exactly the same as the Kellog’s Rice Crispies we get back in England and even the box design is the same, blue with a picture of Snap, Crackle and Pop on one side. I wonder why they have changed the name from Crispies to Bubbles, maybe the word crispies is something offensive in Australia? I also wonder whether Snap, Crackle and Pop are called something different in Australia, maybe Bruce, Bruce and Bruce?

There are three things that have disappointed me about Australia so far. The first is that I have been here over a week now and have yet to see a kangaroo! I was under the impression that there were hordes of them roaming wild and hoping to audition as the next Skippy. I have been told that they are a nuisance in Austalia which is probably why the Australians like to eat them. In
\ the words of R Kelly, Bounce Bounce Bounce!

The second disappointment is unfortunately self-inflicted. I have been dying to use the phrase “fair dinkum cobber” but every time someone says to me “howareya?” or “how’s it goin buddy?” I reply in a very English manner “good thanks and how about yourself?” A schoolboy error that keeps happening.

The third and biggest disappointment is that the Australians have this reputation as big drinkers of beer. If you ask me though this is just a stereotype and not true. Over here they don’t serve beer in pint glasses, but in much smaller glasses called schooners, amateur beer drinkers or what? Earls Court will never look the same in my eyes. There are some bars (mainly Irish theme pubs) here that cater for the Brit’s or Pom’s if you prefer, and they will sell you a beer in a pint glass but these bars are in the minority and it’s usually a schooner.

I was thinking last night while sitting in the world famous Beaches Bar (at least that’s what the sign said) that if one of the Woolwich Reject’s of Arsenal were in Beaches drinking a beer with me tonight they would be a “Gooner with a Schooner” which does have a certain ring to it.

I take a leisurely walk around the harbour at Airlie Beach and this takes around 25 minutes from one end to the other. Once again the council has been using taxpayer’s money to the benefit of the taxpayer (hope you are reading this Bexley BC). They have erected a long wooden boardwalk for you to wander along. It goes from the lagoon, where you can take a very pleasant swim in the free council lagoon, to the marina and is a lovely stroll with some striking views. There are also numerous barby’s along they way where you can cook up a storm also courtesy of the council.

On the way back to the hostel I bump into the lady from Manchester who took the tour of the koala park at the same time as me back on Magnetic Island. She also kindly took the foto foto’s of me and the snake, croc, cockatoo and other assorted animals and reptiles. She is heading down to Hervey in two days time so we may meet up again and she is also due in Sydney on the 10th to meet a friend.

In the Airlie YHA hostel there is a guest notice board that has numerous adverts and notices and these include an advert – “crew required for a yacht heading north. No experience necessary and no cost to you, contact….” and I am very tempted, but I need to be in Sydney in a week’s time to meet up with Pam and Jay so I will have to give it a miss this time

And finally in the blog post Superclive has scored again! Number 10 and my hero!

Beer #43 – James Boag’s Premium Lager - Tasmania’s finest since 1881

“Tasmania, isolated, wild, pure, since 1881. This land has been our brewer’s inspiration to perfect their craft. The result is James Boag’s Premium, a perfect balance of brewing passion and the finest natural ingredients, delivering a world renowned smooth and subtle lager – Tasmania’s finest, www.boags.co.au”.

That’s it from Airlie Beach. Airlie is a real backpackers resort and is geared up to cater for backpackers in a big way. It’s not been my favourite place so far on my world trip, as it is a bit of a cross between a teenage rave party and Blackpool/Margate combined, but the hostel is nice and it was a pleasant two plus days and the weather was good.

So ta ta from Airlie and the Whitsunday Islands! Bring on the Greyhound trip to Hervey Bay! Can’t say I am looking forward to 12+ hours on the Greyhound.

Danny

Toe dipping!

There are some dangerous places to swim in ths World. The Hepaptitis Sea is one place that springs quickly to mind but nowhere must be a more dangerous place to "tip your toe in the water" than the coast of Australia!

You take a leisurely walk along the seafront with the blue sky and the surf rolling in on the white sand, scattered intermittently with palm trees and you say to yourself, I think I will take a little paddle in the ever so inviting sea and surf. So it's a roll up of the trouser legs and off with the socks and shoes and you are just about to dip the big toe in the water when the brain sends a message to the big toe. "Why is there no one else rolling up their trousers and contemplating a toe dip?"

Then you notice the sign!

Stingers. Beware of Jelly Fish!. The big toe is parked firmly back on dry land while you read the rest of the sign. Beware the Irukandji and the Box Jellyfish also known as sea wasps and stingers. If someone has been stung call an ambulance immediately. Prepare for mouth to mouth resuscitation and try and attract the attention of the nearest coastguard! If you are not sure what has stung you (Coastguard to Danny Beer - what exactly did the offender look like. Can you give me a full description?)then treat the incident as though you have been stung by the Irukandji as their sting can be fatal and needs immediate treatment!

But it's not just the Irukandji and the Box that you have to be wary of.

The seawater crocodile is a territorial crocodile (unlike its freshwater cousin) and will do its utmost to protect the territory that it regards as it's own. If you enter it's territory you will be regarded as an intruder.

The jaws of the freshwater crocodile can move from side to side so it can swim in the water and move its jaws sideways to catch fish so it is not territorial and you can happily swim alongside it (or so I am told, but I am not going to find out). I have to draw the line somewhere. Not so its seawater cousin. The seawater croc can only move its jaw up and down. This means it cannot swim along and suck in fish unlike its more talented cousin. It can only keep it's jaw straight in front so the only way it can get food is by surprising the rather foolish person with the bare feet and trousers rolled up to the knee. Within a a few seconds a large part of the leg with the trouser around the knee will no longer be attached to the rest of the body, and will be unable to receieve any more signals from the brain!

Now did I also mention about the sharks? and to think I went snorkelling on the reef just a couple of days ago!

So it's a big ta ta from David Attenborough and life underwater

Danny

PS:Think I had better check out the travel insurance for smallprint regarding swimming restrictions!

Airlie to bed, Airlie to rise

Such is the life of a backpacker that I am once again moving on to my next destination. I catch the 8:55AM bus after enjoying another of my home cooked breakfasts and I reach the ferry terminal in time to catch the 9:30AM ferry and then the 10:45AM Greyhound Bus from Townsville to Airlie Beach. It’s a longish journey and I watch a couple of DVD’s that they are showing on the Greyhound.

I watch Braveheart starring and produced by Mel Gibson. It’s sad isn’t it!

No not the film, although most of his family are butchered and he gets hung, drawn and quartered at the end. No it’s sad that Mel Gibson thinks he sounds even the least bit Scottish everytime he opens his mouth to speak in the film!

I arrive in Airlie Beach at around 3:10 PM, rescue WLR from the storage space underneath the coach and set off looking for the hostel, but with no idea where it is located.

Now normally on a day to day basis the last person you want to bump into is a Jehova’s Witness. Very nice people that they are they tend to want to engage you for a bit if a chat when you usually have better things to do. But, as I am walking towards the high street, a very nice lady says hello and asks me where I am from. I say from England and traveling and she gives me a nice little pamphlet that explains that if you need help in this life then Jehovah is the answer.

Well I needed help and just like Buddha earlier in my trip Jehovah helped me out. The lady told me exactly where the hostel was located, which was around 300m away and one block away to the left. That’s another religion to tick off the list, nearly more religions than beers on this trip although my favorite is Shamanism but I owe Jehovah and Buddha!

I am studying the map of Australia, for the next part of my journey through the land of vegemite sandwiches, and spot a place on my map called “Wagga Wagga”. Unfortunately it is not on my chosen route!

Now, I know that Magnetic Island was named by Captain James Cook (and so should you if you have been keeping up with the assignments). So I reckon that “Wagga Wagga” was named by one of his crew, the Jamaican Rasta with the speech impediment!

The Airlie Hostel is great and when I check in I am in a room of three bunks but only one bed is occupied so far. This is occupied buy a very friendly guy from New York who is traveling in the opposite direction at the moment. We have a chat and up sharing a jug of beer and enjoying a meal in Bearches, a backpajers bar. He even manages to blag a free jug of beer, respect!

Today I can claim beer #44. This was a jug of VB – Victoria Bitter. VB re the official sponsors of the Australian Cricket Team who I think were getting a bit if a bashing last time I watched the TV.

Getting close to the halfway mark and getting close to half way around the world.

Not much else to report today as Australia is such a big country traveling through it can take up much of your day.

Before I say ta ta I just want to say that I seem to be getting a bit if stick from certain quarters for the foto foto of me on the horse in Mongolia.

Now it may look to you from the foto foto that the horse is not very big, but I can assure you (Nancy) that it was at least 90 hands. I think that the camera lens has caused a freak optical illusion that made the horse appear much smaller than it is and me much bigger in the foto!

Ta ta from the equestrian king of Mongolia. A lazy day tomorrow on Airlie Beach!

Danny

Crocodile Dan D

Well today I have kissed a cockatoo,

Stroked a snake,

Cradled a crocodile,

Balanced a Blue Nose lizard in my hands
and………………………

Licked an ant!

I could also have (K) cuddled a Koala but that would have cost me 17 bucks and I am working to a strict budget!

I have had another great day and apologies if you are getting fed up with me saying that phrase! After preparing and consuming my breakfast I decide to take the wildlife tour on offer at Bungalow’s, which I am guessing is going to be crap! Not so, Natalie our ranger guide shows us some interesting Australian creatures and we get to hold and touch most of them. So Danny Beer has held a crocodile in his arms today (it was small and had its mouth taped), he has also had a snake around his neck, has kissed a Cockatoo (I have the foto foto to prove this) and held a blue tongued lizard in his hands.

And finally he has licked an ant. They have ants here that build big nests in leaves and they are called Green Ants. I am told that you can cook them up to make a nice hot and calorific drink but you can also grab one between your fingers and lick it’s **rse and if you do this you get a kinda sherbet dip taste on your tongue that is very refreshing. If ever I am stuck for a sweet in Australia I know what to do!

The weather is brilliant, with blue skies and sunshine so I spend a couple of hours on the beach and then go on a wild Koala hunt. There is a walk you can take through the woods and on to the fortress via Radical Beach (get on Radical). Off I go wearing my Fosters flip flops that I have carried from England. I manage to spot two Koala’s in different places and get some foto foto’s of wild Koala’s. My Fosters flip flops are rubbish and as one Ozzie said when the left one came loose again, "you've had a blow out mate!"

They will not be traveling any further down the Sunshine Coast with me!

So it’s ta ta to the fosters flip flops and ta ta to Magnetic Island. A beautiful place and well worth a visit if you are in the area.

Danny

A very worried Danny Beer!

I am getting very worried. Why is Danny Beer worried? Is it a problem with the journey down the Sunshine Coast? Could it be a lack of available accommodation in Brisbane or Arlie Beach or Harvey Bay? Maybe it’s the overweight problem and WLR is too heavy for the Greyhound to carry? Or is it the long Greyhound journey from Brisbane to Sydney?

No the big thing that is worrying me is that I keep saying “no worries!” Whenever I have a conversation with anyone, no worries! It’s a worry!

Up early with WLR packed and ready I take the fifteen minute walk down to the terminal to catch the Greyhound Bus from Cairns to Townsville. This is a trip of about seven hours and when I reach Townsville on the Greyhound I have to take a twenty minute ferry ride on the Sun Ferries service to Magnetic Island. When we dock I have to take a local bus to the place I am staying, Bungalow Bay Koala Village. This was voted Australia’s best hostel at the Australian Tourist Awards in 2007.

I am curious to find out why the island is called Magnetic Island and on the beach is a sign explaining that the name was given my Captain James Cook on the 6th June 1770 when he discovered the island. Magnetic Island averages 320 sunny days per year, has a tropical climate, and the population of the island is approximately 2000 residents. More that half of the island is a national park and the home of many wild Koala bears. It was fortified during WW2 when the Japanese were trying to invade and there is a walk you can take up to the WW2 fortress and if you are lucky on the way you can spot a koala! (This is getting just like the Discovery Channel!).

On the way from the ferry terminal I am the last of two people on the bus, the passenger being another backpacker. Just before we get to my stop the other guy approached the driver and asks if he has missed his stop yet? Hey mate I think your stop was miles back came the drivers reply! He decides to disembark the bus at the same place as me and next minute is enquiring about a bed at the Bungalow, although he already has a reservation that night at a different hostel. That will cost him as he will have to pay for both, amateur!

A quiet day really with all the traveling and backpacking thing! I am staying in another wooden building but this is much better than the garden shed in Singapore! I am in a mixed dorm (for the first time) of four sets of bunk beds, with a shower and toilet at one end of the dorm.

The people that stay in these places are so untidy. They leave everything in a mess with their version of WLR open on the floor and with clothes all around it, and carrier bags everywhere! This would be Pam’s worst nightmare! I am staying in dormitory 4 (I feel a bit like I am in a Harry Potter movie) and when I get to the room my bed is not clear as it should be as the previous occupant of my bed has left all the bed stuff and on further investigation a black bra on my bed! Why does it always happen to me?

Having mastered the art of ruining clothes in a washing machine I decide to further embrace the backpacker culture and try the self catering thing that they all seem to do. At all the YHA hostels I have been staying in they have big communal kitchens. You can purchase the raw ingredients at the local store and make yourself a meal to remember in the true spirit of a RTW traveler. So that is exactly what I do. Four minutes walk to the supermarket and I purchase all the ingredients to cook up a storm of a breakfast tomorrow.

I am sure that the small box of Kellogs cornflakes, to be covered in semi skimmed milk is the best start to a day you can have!

Five minutes walk down the road is the seaside and Horseshoe Bay. It’s around 6:30PM and I get a fish and chip supper from the takeaway chippy (that sells a beach supper) and sit on the beach, watching the sun set and eating my fish and chips.

There is a pub right on the front, called the Marlin and that is where I end the night. No new beers to report so I go to bed early as the travel and the biking has taken its toll for today!

So it’s a big ta ta from Bungalow Bay (do they go round the outside?)

Danny

Beware the Gimpy Gimpy!

Well I thought I was a reasonable mountain bike rider. I go regularly to Club La Santa in Lanzarote and I feel that I can hold my own in the “off roading mountain bike stakes!” But guess what? I am absolutely rubbish and that is rubbish with a capital rub.

“Dan’s Mountain Biking Tours”

‘’Moderate to extreme, you’ll get sweaty, you’ll get dirty, you may even get wet, but I bet you’ll get hooked!”

Hooked is not the first word that sprung to my mind!

Dan and Dan (one good one crap – guess which) set off in the van at 9:00AM and are heading in the direction of the rain forest to try a bit of off road mountain biking. We park up, assemble and mount our bikes, I sign the disclaimer, don my rather fetching helmet (red of course) and off we go.

A nice easy start, the Dan, who was born in Cairns and is hooked on mountain biking (Level 1 coach –28th in World MTB cross country) and the other Dan set off. A couple of things to bear in mind on the trip through the jungle, the good Dan mentions to the other Dan as we set off is:

Number #1: watch out for the Gimpy Gimpy plant,

Number #2: Definitely watch out for the Gimpy Gimpy plant!

The Gimpy Gimpy is a plant that grows in the rain forest and grows to quite a large size and spreads its branches widely. It has leaves on the branches that resemble a Dock plant’s leaves, and it spreads out quite a lot. The name Gimpy Gimpy is the name the Aborigine people have given it.

Now in England dock leaves are very human friendly!

You remember the plant that helps you out when stinging nettles have got your ass big time! Well the Gimpy Gimpy may look like a Dock plant, but it is definitely not your friend. Dan tells Dan about the number of hospital cases there have been where hikers have thought that the Gimpy leaf is the ideal shape and size to substitute for toilet paper when you are out hiking and caught short. The leaves have these little tentacle type “spikey” things that hook into your skin in a big way. Hundreds of them and if they get into your skin then you are in big big trouble. They inject some bad stuff into you and it remains there for a very very long time and you need to take a trip to the hospital very quickly where they probably will administer some sort of pain killers and then use wax to extract the bits from your skin. Too large and it’s ta ta for good! Dan then also mentions about the spiders and how big they get!

The rainforest in Cairns has been the site of the MTB World Championships in the past and there have been DVD’s made of some of the races there and I am heading on the same tracks with Gimpy Gimpy and spiders on my mind!

I can’t initially work out why I struggle a bit with controlling the bike and then I realise that it’s the trees and the rain forest! Lanzarote does not have trees, or roots of trees, or fallen branches from trees, or spider’s webs on trees, or rain that falls on trees and makes the tracks difficult to follow, or vines that grow on trees that could be fatal, or leaves that fall from the trees and make the track really slippery! It should be called no leaves Lanzarote!

But the biggest thing however is that Lanzarote definitely does not have any Gimpy Gimpy plants and the spiders don’t get that big!

I have a great half day tour with Dan and I struggle on some bits but I do my best, don’t fall off and have another great experience to add to the list. It keeps getting better and better but my legs are aching and I am knackered by the time I get back to the hostel.

In the afternoon I have to say that I am just a little tired but it’s my last day and night in Cairns and I love the place!

Now Bexley Borough Council where I live don’t really do that much for me. They empty my dustbins although I am not even at home to put anything into them, they also ……….not sure what else they do for me but I am sure it is worth the taxes I am paying.

Cairns Regional Council have made the promenade/esplanade along the seafront at Cairns a wonderful place to spend the day. At one end there is a big complex of open air swimming pools, all free to use! The promenade is wooden decked out for a long walk down by the sea and on the way there are landscaped gardens, kiddies playgrounds, excerise equipment, skateboarding parks, volley ball pitches with sand and the best thing of all, Barbie stations that are free to use. There are loads of these and they are decked out in stainless steel with sinks and grills and they are cleaned every day. All you do is rock up and Barbie your roo meat.

What a good use of tax payers money. I must write to my councilor when I get back.

That’s it from Cairns as tomorrow I catch the 9:00AM Greyhound but before I go:

Beer #45:

Crown Lager – Australia’s finest since 1919

Brewed with Australia’s finest malt and hops and true to traditional premium brewing heritage. Crown has represented the best of Australian beer since it was exported exclusively for our diplomats in 1919. As brewers we (Crown) are proud to maintain the integrity and standards of Crown.

5 cents refund on the bottle at collection points in Southern Australia (I am in Northern Australia) 4.9% alcohol by content and in a 700 ml bottle which I think is called a tunnie?

It’s a big Gimpy Gimpy ta ta from Cairns, and hi to Townsville and Magnetic Island. Bye Cairns I really liked you!

Danny

“It’s rough on the reef!”

That’s what I am told when I arrive at Reef Marina Cairns to catch Silverswift for my trip to the Great Barrier Reef. So far I have seen some awesome sights and had some great experiences on my world trip and the Great Barrier Reef is up there with the best of them! Red Square Moscow, The Great Wall of China, Hong Kong Harbour, St Pete’s, Lake Baikal it’s a difficult one to call in a top ten and I have not mentioned some of the other highlights!

The morning starts off bright but by the time we are halfway out to the Flynn Reef one of the three we are visiting as part of the day, the skies cloud right over and it is grey, no sunshine and there are intermittent showers. Who said Australia was a sunshine country?

The trip I have booked is an all day “Dive and Snorkel” (you can’t do both) trip and we are anchoring up at Flynn Reef, Miln Reef and Pellowe Reef on the Great Barrier Reef, and I have been warned before we set sail that the sea condition is rough and the wind is 25 knots and I should take some sea sicky pills!

On the trip we get five hours in total to explore the three reefs, with 90 minutes, 120 minutes and 90 minutes at each of the three reefs. I decide to pay the optional extra 5$ for the wetsuit hire as I am feeling cold before I even hit the water, and me don’t like the cold! The sea is rough out to the first anchorage and the SilverSwift jumps around a lot and you hold on to your hats a lot but I am OK and don’t need a paper bag with all the instructions printed on it and I must congratulate the crew on continually checking that we were all OK.

I have not done much snorkeling in my time, but it’s a brief instruction on what to do in the water, how to wear the mask and snorkel and what the signs are for OK, NEED HELP and DROWNING and I am off the back of the cruiser and into the ocean, and it is really awesome!

Its like being in a 3D film with the Buddy Holly glasses from the Shanghai Science Museum with coral and colourful fish swimming around you as if you are not there. It’s good because we get a briefing at each site of what to look out in the water and where to find the best places to swim. II can see why my brother Steve likes scuba diving cos this is brilliant. There are fish of all sizes and shapes swimming around me. There is coral in different shapes and deep and shallow water. At the three anchor sites I get to see Nemo (yes like the Disney film) Parrot Fish and many more schools of congregating pelagic fish (see I was paying attention during the briefing sessions!).

The Great Barrier Reef is over 1250 miles long and has 400 different types of coral and over 1500 species of different fish, and you swim amongst them. The coral has both living and still coral and is a wealth of different colours with sea weed growing and fish feeding on it. Awesome, no foto foto’s as my camera is not up to underwater so you will have to take my word for it, but it’s one of those moments for me on this trip.

The crew (who are brilliant) pull up the anchor and we set off for the second reef and it is p****ng down and I am shivering and cold and would rather not go back in the water but who cares, once in you are fine and you just have to warm up and dry off again when you get out.

The crew have to do passenger counts before we leave each anchorage (muster call to those in the know), so they announce on the Tannoy system that everyone should please stay where they are and not move until they are told to do so, and guess what, everytime they do this a muppet gets up and starts to go somewhere before he is told to please stay in the same place until the Tannoy announces everyone can move. “You can tell a person once etc!”

We all head up again to the Sun Deck (yes some hopes of seeing that) for our briefing and while we are getting our briefing turtles are coming up for air. We are briefed that we can swim around them, and they do not bite, as long as we don’t touch them, and it’s magic.

Off for the third anchorage, cold and shivering but very happy and at this anchorage we get a snorkel tour with one of the crew leading us around the reef. We surface for info at important times and the briefings as to what is going on below the water are really helpful. Our leader spots a giant clam and dives deep to tickle it to show us how it closes up. He also brings up some form of “sea thing” (I wasn’t paying attention to the name at this point) and we get to touch it before he puts it back. We also see a school of Parrot Fish, and the fish that lives with the anemone (mixed marriage – not listening again). We get another half an hour when the snorkel tour is over and I swim right by the “something Maori” fish that was mentioned in the briefing and follow it around for a while and it just gives me the eye!

So today I have seen and swam with Nemo, Turtles, Giant Clam’s, barracuda, Parrot Fish and loads of other sea creatures that I would know the name of if my attention span was better!

We head back to Cairns which is a 75 minute trip and it’s grey and raining and suddenly the captain slows the Silverswift right down and announces on the tannoy that there is a whale in the distance, at the front of the cruiser on the right (starboard – getting good at seafaring) side. We get a five second look at the whale before it disappears. As the captain announces on the Tannoy the whale doesn’t want to play today and it disappears! With my new found knowledge of the ocean I know that It is at this time that the whales migrate to mate (goodday) so the whale obviously had more important things on its mind than playing with us on the Silverswift! So it’s a big thank you to the crew or the Silverswift for making my trip so enjoyable!

We get back into port at 16:20 and it’s still raining and I am wearing completely the wrong clothes and footwear (Fosters flip flops) but I head back to the hostel a very happy man. I have a shower and head out to Woolworths to do some shopping. Yes they still have them here but they are much better than they were in England as they sell food and drink as well as pick and mix, DVD’s and things that people don’t want. I get a shower and head out for my dinner at an Irish theme pub called “PJ O’Brien’s”, which has a great deal where you can select a main meal from a range of about six dishes and get a free pint of beer, wine or soft drink, all for 10 bucks (a fiver). It works really well as you go to a food counter and pay, you get a beer voucher, and also a pager that blinks red and goes mad when your food is ready for collection. Better than Wetherspooons me thinks!

It’s Pole Idol later at “PJ Obrien’s”,but I am knackered so have a couple of pints of VB (not claimed this one yet) and head back for an earlyish night as I have another busy day tomorrow.

I am however on a bit of a roll in Cairns.

Beer #47 – XXXX Gold brewed by Castlemaine Perkins Brewery and made only with natural ingredients.

Now I bet you are saying that Castlemaine XXXX was on sale in the UK for quite a while and is “too easy” to claim. I disagree, I don’t believe you can still get it in the UK (would you want to as it would be brewed under licence?) and as Fosters Lager is the dominant UK Australian brand lager (and something I have not come across yet in Australia), and this XXXX beer tastes nice, and it’s 600ML and cold, and I have had a great day I am claiming beer it, and I have just used too many “and’s” in that sentence!!!

Once again beer #47 Castlemaine XXXX (why is Perkins called XXXX?) and I would like to add that I have NOT been back to Paddywhacks Bar, with their 100+ beers on sale, as that would be too easy, wouldn’t it!

So it’s ta ta from the Great Barrier Reef from Nemo and me.

Danny

“Have you got a criminal record?”

I managed to get the flight after collecting my left luggage at Singapore Airport. No bribes necessary, four dollars twenty cents and the only comment was “your bag is very heavy”!

I am flying Jetstar for this part of my trip and they are not an airline that I have much knowledge of. There is a bit of confusion with gate changes but I manage to board and am safely on my way. I think Jetstar is a bit of a budget airline as the seats are close together but I am sitting in seat 10C and that means that I qualify for a prepaid meal and a soft drink. I have not researched this part of the journey but end up in Darwen as the flight is not direct and has a “stop over”. We all disembark at Darwen with a few “no worries” and spend a couple of hours in the transit lounge before being welcomed back on board. Four hours later we land in Cairns at 8:10AM. I collect WLR and queue for immigration and customs and they employ quite a few sniffer dogs in Cairns, but mostly looking for foodstuffs as you are not allowed to bring any food or drink into Australia, not even the airline food. Two dogs, one a drug sniffer and the other a food sniffer check WLR.

At immigration I get asked where I have come from and whether I have a criminal record. I didn’t think you needed one anymore!

(An old joke but still a good one nonetheless!)

The weather is really good and the sun is shining and its hot (unlike Sydney I am told) as I make my way to the YHA hostel. It’s 10 dollars (five pounds) to take the shuttle and they drop you off at the door. The hostel is great. It has a laundry (very important), large communal kitchens and a swimming pool and laundry as well. get checked in around 1:30 and then hit the travel desk to sort out my journey down Eastern Australia.

Before I left England I booked a YHA/Greyhound mini Oz traveler pass. This allows me to travel in one direction (only), down Eastern Australia with a hop on/ hop off Greyhound pass for wherever I want to stop off between Cairns and Sydney and includes vouchers for fifteen night’s accommodation at YHA hostels on the way. A bargain and I can book the accommodation and bus trips from the Cairns hostel, so that is what I do.

So now I am sorted for the next part of the beer quest. I am booked as follows: three nights in Cairns and then on Thursday I catch the 9:00AM Greyhound bus to Townsville and then the ferry hop to Magnetic Island where I spend two nights. Then it’s onward to Airley Beach, stopping again for two nights having caught the
10:45 Greyhound. This is followed with a trip down to Brisbane where I stay for three nights and then an overnight Greyhound Bus to Sydney to meet Pam and Jay.

That’s the future trip but I am now in Cairns and it seems to be the Backpackers capital in Australia. I have also booked a couple of trips out and tomorrow tomorrow I am booked for a trip to see the Barrier Reef and tonight I explore Cairns.

After this I go exploring and stumble across Paddywacks Bar that has “Goodtimes, Beer and Steak”, and the thing is that here they boast that they sell over 100 beers from around the world. I am not making this up and they even have a thing where you can sign up and tick off the beers and if you make 100 then you end up on a “Hall of Fame” wall. I may as well give up now, defeated but proud or alternatively just stay in Cairns and go through the list. Further inspection of the beer menu reveals that they do indeed have “plenty plenty” beers to vend. The lady serving (a nice lady from Sweden) tells me that the bar manager is from Belgium which probably explains the 100+ beers.

Further inspection does reveal that there are some ringers on their list. There British beers section seems to include about six different ciders, including Magners and in my book that is not a beer. When I get to a less expensive internet connection than here I will post a foto foto just to prove that I am not making this up. There is a BBQ at the hostel so I sign up. 5$ for steak, sausage, Onions, pasta and salad – a bargain but you have to get in quick cos the greedy b****trds will go through the self service salad an pasta before you get a look in.

In the mean time I need to claim two new beers which is a first for me on this trip, a brace of new beers in one day.

Beer # 49 – Tooheys New Draft 5% proof
Beer #48 – Boags Draft

So ta ta from two beers and goodday mate no worries from Cairns.

Danny

Watch out for your hubcaps………………………

My flight to Australia leaves at 20:40 tonight and I have to check out of my garden shed at 10:30AM so it’s off to the airport to use the left luggage and back into central Singapore to kill the rest of the day. Everywhere you look there are Singaporeans wearing Carlsberg Liverpool tops and it seems that Liverpool are the talk of the town and the favourite team of the moment. They are in Singapore to play the national team and everone is getting excited even if the accused has not traveled. I get the SMRT with enough credit left for a return journey on my EZ link card and decide to explore Little India, which is a destination in Singapore I have yet to visit!

Little India is a very good description of the area. There are restaurants selling food from North India, South India, Pakistan and Nepal, loads of food and spice shops and stalls, and there is a large district selling electronic goods and jewelry.

There is also an Indian hawkers market where most of the food is sold by Indian people and most of the alcohol is sold by Chinese. I manage to get two new beers in a day, both of them an Indian beer, which I feel I can claim because I am in Little India!

Beer #51 – Haywards 5000 – India’s Premier Beer! Haywards 5000 is an authentic premium Indian lager that hails as India’s most popular and preferred beer. The bold character and lingering flavour of this classic Indian beer derives from a careful blend of select hops and malts in a brewing process that exemplifies timeless Indian traditions. Exclusively brewed and bottled in India, the crown jewel of Indian beers.

Beer #50 – Knock Out – Nothing on the label much apart from the alcohol strength which is 7.4% - which is why it is called knock out (my words)!

I end up sharing a table in the market with four Indian ladies, out to do some shopping, and they kindly ask me to share some of their food. I end up watching a cricket match in a very different location to that of the Singapore Cricket Club, surrounded by tall blocks of flats and with much less grass. No one asked me for a membership card though, and the game was as competitive and featured a larger crowd and umpires dressed in yellow. Interestingly if you bought a drink of any type it was dispensed in a clear plastic bag, like you used to get goldfish in at the fun fair, only you also got a straw with the bag.

That’s it from Asia, just need to get my left luggage (ha ha)

So it’s ta ta from Asia and good day Bruce,

No worries!!!!

(apart from the left luggage!)

Danny

Above and beyond the call of duty?

They should give out some sort of medal for this type of commitment to the cause! It’s something you don’t really see very often anymore. A mention in the New Years Honours list, maybe Danny Beer MBE , OBE or similar would be a good reward for this type of commitment to the cause and even a Knighthood would probably not be too much for the contribution made to discovering and tasting new beers from around the World.

You may have noticed that it has become increasingly difficult to add a new beer to the list recently so I decide that drastic measures are needed and opt for the new country option in order to add another to the list of 80.

I board the 10:20 ferry to Batam in Indonesia with the single purpose in mind of adding a new beer to the list. The ferry trip takes about 70 minutes and then I have to purchase a visa for entry into Indonesia and get quizzed by immigration as to why I am visiting their country, do I have a friend there? No I explain I am desperate and in search of new beers (actually I say it is a once in a lifetime opportunity to visit their beautiful country). Was it worth the fare, port fee and the 10US$ visa cost?

Beer #52 Bintang Pilsener – Indonesia’s Bintang is brewed with the finest malt, hops and pure water to produce the international gold medal winning pilsener – brewed in Jakarta Indonesia.

While I am in Batam I also get a haircut and am a bit disappointed to have to pay one pound twenty seven pence, when a haircut including a wash only cost me one pound in Shanghai. Mind you it cost me three pounds in Beijing.

Today I also made my best schoolboy error to date. I decide to book the 15:10 ferry back from Indonesia to Singapore and burn all my Indonesia money (all ten pounds worth of it) and head back to the ferry terminal with no local currency in my pocket and in just time for the check in and boarding procedures at 14:40. Now, although the ferry journey only takes 70 minutes we seem to have moved to Indonesian time which is an hour backwards to Singapore time so I spend the next 90 minutes bored with no money waiting for the ferry at the international terminal. My passport is now collecting more stamps than a compulsive philately addict at a stamp fair.

Back at Harbour Front I have tea at Barcelos, which is Nandos under a different name. Weird or maybe Nando’s is a dodgy word in Singaporean and is frowned on and not used in pub. What I do know is that cant’ buy a Portugese beer in Barcelos or any beer infact but you can have a refill as much as you like soft drink. In the evening there is a free concert at Sentosa Beach, one of a serious of Jazz by the Beach Saturday shows and they have an American lady with a band who sings some nice tunes until she ruins my karaoke classic tune! They also have a Malaysian band called The Funksters who sing some soul stuff quite well including Angie Stone’s I wish I didn’t miss you anymore and a couple of Michael Jackson songs. They seem to be a bit infatuated with him here, maybe it’s the mask?.

That’s it for day #62 and I reckon that is two months of travel now and I am nearly halfway round the World?

To finish with I have also added a new word to my vocabulary, Kampung which is what I believe you call a garden shed in Singapore as I am stating in a Kampung Hut!

So ta ta from Indonesia and my last night in the garden shed before Australia.

Danny

Cricket lovely cricket!

Decided to make the most of my EZ link SMRT card and see the sights of Singapore but first I decide to go to Changi Airport to check out the journey for my departure and more importantly the left luggage situation as my check out from the garden shed is at 10:30AM and my flight out of Asia is not until 8:20PM.

The trip to the airport is easy and takes about 45 minutes and when I enquire about left luggage at the airport it is a very reasonable $4.20 to leave your bag for 24 hours. Now I can remember saying that the Left Luggage is great value and reasonable previously on my quest for 80 beers but the Singaporeans have none of the guile or expertise of the Russians when it comes to the sophisticated art of left luggage fee management!

I also use the opportunity whilst at the airport to check my emails. This is not like the Wifi at Hong Kong Airport where the access is open and you just connect to it, In Singapore you have to hand over your passport, a copy s taken and you are issued with a login ID and code that lasts for 6 hours. They seem to have inherited the bureaucracy of the British in Singapore but I also think that this is due in some part to their fear of a terrorist attack. The metro’s show continuous messages about what to do if a bomber attacks the train and I think they are really freaked out about it all and with the recent bombing in Jakarta you can see why.

The East West Line of the SMRT that takes you to and from the airport is a bit weird and I bet it gets loads of people with a schoolboy error. When you board the train at Changi Airport and look at the map of the line in the train it looks like you just stay on the train until the centre of Singapore reaching stations like China Town, Little India or Harbour Front. Not so but I think you will find that only seasoned travelers like Michael Palin and myself would know this! The train stops at Expo and then terminates at the next stop and then goes back to the airport but it is not obvious that you have to alight on the right hand side and mind the gap. If you remain on the train you will go back in the same direction you came from and head back to the airport. I reckon that loads of people get caught out like this and sit on the train waiting for the East West Line to go east only to end up going west again and ending up where they started from!

Well I am on my way back to central Singapore and as I am alighting the train to cross the platform and get the train to central Singapore there are a group of six Singaporeans, with lots of suitcases who are about to make this mistake and just sit on the train. I try and tell them that they need to transfer and even indicate a T for terminate but they look at me blankly and think I am a bit mad! In the end I find a station attendant and he asks me where I want to go to. I explain it is not me that has the problem and tell him that there are fellow countrymen in difficulty with the complexities of travel on the East West Line. He boards the train and explains it to them the error of their ways and they duly alight, minding the gap and wait for the train into Central Singapore. He thanks me for my “community sprit and we all travel off happily.

Back into Central Singapore and I walk around the Finance District with its skyscrapers and find the famous Raffles Hotel. This is a majestic building dating back to when the British ruled the World and is an impressive white building and has a concierge platform outside that is manned by an Indian gentleman dressed in white with a turban and sword that brings back memories of the colonial days.

In the bar in the Raffles Hotel you are supposed to shell and eat Percy Dalton’s peanuts and then throw the shells on the floor. Now on my trip I am struggling to come to terms with three English pounds for a pint so I don’t dare risk the Raffles Bar and the peanut shelling as my budget won’t stretch that far and I doubt they will let me in as I won’t arrive in a limo and am wearing my Gola trainers with holes in.

I then walk down past the Raffles landing site and the memorial to the civilians killed by the Japanese in World War 2 and head down by the Victoria Theatre and Concert Hall and the river bank. Now guess what I stumble on in the middle of Central Singapore? Surrounded by old colonial buildings with skyscrapers in the background is a large well kept cricket pitch with a cricket match taking place on a Friday afternoon at around 5:00PM. The match is between the Hong Kong national under 17’s and a Singapore Cricket Club Under17 team with all the players in proper whites and with umpires, nets, and a large scoreboard and people applauding. Singapore Cricket Club sums up the Englishness of Singapore. The cricket clubhouse buildings stand at one end of the pitch with practice nets and a bowls lawn and a croquet pitch, and everywhere there are signs stating that it is a Members Only Club and that trespassers will be prosecuted. That is two places I dare not venture on my beer quest, the Raffles Hotel and the Singapore Cricket Club, I know my place in this world!

I end up in the late afternoon at the river edge and there are some large outside stages along the river and on one is a group of four guys and one girl doing a sound check for a concert later in the evening. The girl has an excellent voice so I decide to make this my destination later in the evening and listen to the music for an hour or so. She sings a cover version of Sweet Child of Mine which is really good and it turns out to be a great evening’s free entertainment!

That’s another day over and no new beers, time is running out!

Ta ta from the straights of Johor

Danny