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| The Big Banana |
Back to Muttonbird Island for some photo opportunities. Oz and Beth went sunbathing and Andy and I went to the Big Banana - about as exciting as the Manneken Pis and twice as far away in the heat. A long walk back to town and more fun and games with Andy's bus ticket. He was booked on a bus on 6th Feb not 6th Jan. We managed to re-arrange it for 3:30am. Now he has an almost direct bus to Melbourne (3 hours rest in Sydney) and then on to a flight home via Athens. That's arriving Athens at 3am and leaving at 12 noon! In his own words "I should have booked it earlier".
Time for Mexican and 10 pin bowling in the evening at an ancient Brunswick Alley. Andy won 2 games but I won the third with the night's best score of 163 but Andy and Beth were close behind with a couple more stonking scores. Had a drink in the local pub, chatted to a local called Danny and then escorted Andy to the bus stop. Left him about 12:30am. Wonder what time he got away?
2012
The Manneken Pis - a world famous but very underwhelming tourist attraction that we'd trudged through Brussels to find a few years earlier. File along with the Little Mermaid in Copenhagen.
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| The Manneken Pis |
This is not the end of the story as later when I returned to the UK I discovered that when Andy went to check-in at Melbourne airport he discovered that his flight was actually leaving from Sydney !!!!!! He somehow managed to talk his way on to a flight out of Melbourne to Athens. I think the Sydney to Athens flight went via Melbourne, which would make sense as Melbourne has a large Greek community. I also seem to recall that Andy was going to use his 9 hour stop-over to make a quick trip in to Athens but there was a National Strike that day and he couldn't get out the airport (Andy - correct me if I'm wrong).
Accounting for the 9 hour stop over in Athens and the whole bus trip his journey home probably took him about 80 hours. Epic. They don't call him Andy Brown for nothing.
Well remembered. A couple of other things that happened...
ReplyDeleteGot to Melbourne having travelled overnight twice in 2 days. At about 7am I bleary eyed went into a deli and ordered a bacon sandwich. Tried to squeeze some ketchup on it from a tub near the counter. Tub was blocked and it exploded from the rear covering the sandwich, the counter and me. Got covered in... chilli sauce. Went in my eyes. And it was only twenty minutes later I was being told by the nice Olympic Airlines lady 'Mr Brown, what are you doing in Melbourne, you should be in Sydney!'
And... landed in Athens, 6 hours to kill but bags checked through to London. I am in shorts and T-shirt. Athens has just had its coldest winter day for 50 years. Went for a walk and it was minus 4 deg C. The walk was short and high speed before retiring to the airport again.
Arrived home in Cambridge and realised I had lost my car keys so walked home with all my luggage a couple of miles. I was getting used to these things.
Oh and I went to the wrong airport on the way out to Aus. I was flying out of Gatwick and had a train booked direct. Alas the IRA planted a bomb at Kings Cross and all trains cancelled. I called Graham who was getting a lift to Heathrow, hitched a lift to Heathrow then got a shuttle bus to Gatwick, just making my flight.
And... landed in Melbourne and thought I would just get a train or something to Sydney. Landed 3 hours after one of Australia's main internal airlines had just gone bust (Ansett..?) meaning that there was a mad scramble for any other means to travel. Got what was described as the last seat to Sydney, a bench on an overnight train that had seen better days. Still, musn't grumble.
I think my next blog will be about the life and times of Andy Brown. This sounds like an episode of Mr Bean. Not that I've ever watched Mr Bean of course.
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