Meeting up w/Fodorites in Oz - attn Mucky, Pat, Margo!
 

Hullo All!

I'm headed to Oz the end of the month and would love to meet up with you if our schedules permit!

As this is my own personal vacation, with my husband, Sam, unlike when I'm travelling for business, I actually have some "free" time! (what a concept). :)

That said, it's never really TRULY a completely holiday -- I will be working as well (doing hotel site inspections as well as checking out some tours)while there, but at least I have some leeway.

My general schedule is:

October 27 - arrive in Sydney for 4 days.

October 31 - fly to Cairns - then I'm in the Cairns / Port Douglas / Palm Cove area until November 15th, doing various things - if you're interested in getting together, please email me and I can give you a more complete schedule (no sense boring people on the board)!

Regards,

Melodie

LOL, Melodie! Mark and I will be in Sydney until 26 October, and then we move over to Manly for a few days at the beach. We fly to the GBR on 1 November. I think we could be enticed back to Sydney to meet with some Fodorites down under. Do you still have my email address?

We leave tomorrow: SFO to LAX, then nonstop to Melbourne.

Can't believe that we live probably less than ten miles apart and may meet on the other side of the planet!

Melodie, I think Mucky lives in Wales (well, someone has to).

Personally, I'm still trying to come to terms with these repeated rebuffs to the national capital. I mean, really - Cairns is so yesterday. My counsellor agrees.

melodie, please agree to meet up with margo, only if she brings her mysterious harley riding aunt

AndrewDavid

Neil said, "Cairns is so yesterday." I WISH.
Yes I'm getting old but I remember when there where large figtrees lining all the streets in the town. Most shops in town were single storey with a flat or house above that had a verhanda which overlooked the street. These were lined with wrought iron balistrading painted white or dark green. One scandalous incomer had their's hot pink but then that was the late 60's. When apart from a few Poincianas most of the plants in the streets were native and it looked different from all the other tropical and subtropical cities around the world.
Now don't start me on Port Douglas where we used to camp in the Casuarinas where now the millionares lounge in their marble mansions!
TreeRoo

Love to come but as Neil says I am stuck in Autumnal Wales, however I am contemplating nipping to Greece or somewhere in the next few weeks. (One of the advantages of living in Wales.. ;-) )
So I sadly can't get there, good luck and please remind Margo she still owes me that drink from about 4 years ago and not to forget. I will be back..lol


Have fun

Muck

TreeRoo, I remember Cairns from 1965, and you're right - it was a different world up there and could have served as a set for a Somerset Maugham story. I arrived with a bunch of ne'er-do-well mates, found an abandoned house surrounded by coconut palms just across from Double Island. We camped there for a few weeks and drank gallons of cheap red from an Italian wine shop in town until our offensive behaviour was brought to the attention of the local constabulary by a public-spirited citizen. The gendarmes came out and, because one of our number owned a guitar, demanded to know if we were "beatniks". The jig was up and we pleaded guilty.

There was a pub on the Esplanade - the Great Northern? - known as the Barbary Coast, and one of the lads ended up in plaster after visiting it. This came about because he (a) didn't sing along with the local indigenous customers and was branded an unfriendly white bastard, (b) tried to rectify his mistake by singing along, was therefore branded a patronising white bastard and, quite rightly, beaten up. We lit out for Darwin in an old Bedford van, but that's another story.

AD

Funnily - my aunt will be cat-sitting at my place when Melodie's here - but I'll be in Mudgee for most of the time :(
Mind you - I'll be consuming red wine and other things, and/or playing tennis. I may not be too fit when I get back either!

and where is Mudgee, eh

A/D

Wasn't Mudgee Bishop in Neighbours?

;-)

Muck

Wasn't 'Naighbours' a TV show made (like Fosters beer) for the export market?

Have never watched "Neighbours", Muck, but last time I was in UK many locals, on finding I was Australian, were begging to hear info on episodes they thought I may have seen in advance.

Mudgee is, amongst other things, a wine growing area, north west of Sydney. This will make Margo very happy and she may find it difficult to find her way back to the big smoke. It's close to a town named Gulgong, featured on the original Australian $10 note.

Pat's correct - Mudgee is a wine growing area - cuppla hours NW of Sydney. We're talking about setting some sort of tasting record (or something!) But there is apparently a tennis court - so we may do something else (what, I wonder?)

Funny thing about Neighbours - the first time I went to Ireland, which is approaching 20 years ago, I booked a B&B in Drumcondra, Dublin. In those days, B&B's were family homes with a spare room (not like now in Ireland). The lady of the house ushered me in to the living room, where I could sit with her family as they watched Neighbours. I hadn't seen it then, and still haven't! They just could not comprehend this. Everywhere I went, people anted to talk about Neighbours.

Good heavens, margo, 260 km from Sydney to Mudgee in 2 hours? You daredevil, you.

I remember reading an article about how the residents of the Melbourne street depicted in "Neighbours" are visited by busloads of tourists daily, and the British tourists are amazed that hardly any Australians make the pilgrimage. I think the residents have some deal with the producers that compensates them for the nuisance, but that wasn't enough for one who had to put the garden hose on a couple he found going at it like little Pommy rabbits on his front lawn - must be some sort of weird variation on the Mile High Club.

Well guys I can tell you that Neighbours has been on our screens usually twice a day for about the last 20 years or so. Its the only link many brits have to your wonderful country and although we think the proogramme is cr@p it shows us a life where the sun always shines, despite the worst situations there is always a happy storyline.
It shows us a country where a whole town can get by with just one Dr, one pub, there is a hotel that no one stays in and the method for changing the set is to have an arson attack. Its a place where everyone either teaches or studies in the local school, all attend the same nightclub at the same time and the same 3 people run all the businesses.

One church marries and buries everyone and all the good looking stars go on to make hit singles.

I for my sins were one of the tourists who turned up at 'Ramsey st' in our hire car (thanks to directions from Marg and pressure from the kids).

We were inquisitive,and just popped in for a few photo's. It was a good laugh for us.
The damn program is still on today and we look and we say we have been there.
:-)

lol

Sad I know, but when the british alternative is the suicidal Eastenders (guaranteed to increase prescriptions for anti depression pills by a third everyday) Neighbours is almost pleasant.

By the way we really don't watch Neighbours anymore, far too busy these days but occasionally I catch a few seconds and am surprised to see it has hardly changed in 20 years.

Bit like me really...lol

;-)


Muck

Oh, I can only enjoy this thread from a US perspective...

You know, where we take Brit shows, change them around and then claim them as our own. (and then wonder why they don't do as well as the Over the Pond cousins).

I much prefer getting the REAL version and enjoying them, and have been for years. A perfect example right now is the very successful "Hustle", which is one of my favorite shows.

I'm sure it will only be a matter of tiem before we rip that off too, with limited success.

Melodie

Neil

I just know Mudgee is up there somewhere! I'm hoping I don't have to drive, but.....

I offered to drive a certain gentleman of my acquaintance. When he asked what I was gojng to drive him in, I replied my trusty Toyota Corolla, and he announced that he wasn't going anywhere in that piece of crap! Now, I ask you, is that nice? And now he's not going! :(

margo, as the owner of a 9-year-old Camry rest assured I'm suitably outraged on your behalf. Funny how these old Toyota "pieces of crap" just keep going, year after year after year, isn't it?

We rented a Ford Taurus, a Camry-sized 3-litre V6, in the US and drove it for over 5000 miles. It did the job, particularly on a nice flat, straight interstate, but although it had only a few thousand miles on the clock my old Camry (220,000 km and counting) outperforms it in almost all respects -crisper, unobtrusive gear changes, more responsive engine, more precise steering, better handling, etc., etc. In fact the Taurus felt considerably slacker than its Australian cousin, the Falcon, which itself is pretty old technology compared with Japanese makes. No wonder Americans (and Australians) are voting with their chequebooks - Toyota's US sales jumped by 25% in the last year, making it America's biggest car maker.

PS, the consensus seems to be about 3.5 hours for Sydney-Mudgee, but who's counting?

i'd say closer to 4 for sydney mudgee, but depends on when you travel. I have a friend who's a native mudgeeite and she was recalling an easter weekend story where they left sydney on the thursday afternoon ... 6 hours later they arrived in mudgee! let that be a lesson. I believe it's not unlike the traffic jam up the clyde to/from batemans bay for the australia day weekend.... did that one WAY too many times.

Mucky - is Home and Away as popular in UK as Neighbours? It was/maybe still is filmed around where I used to live in Sydney's north and I'd often see Pom tourists visiting their locations. Then the US "Baywatch" tried to use the area for a series, the residents of Avalon Beach absolutely revolted so that was quashed. Not before they let the Baywatch people pay to have the local surfclub building re-painted and tarted up.

Muck, we can get Eastenders and Coronation St on UKTV (pay TV) - 3 times a day!I just checked.

Yes that home and away stuff is on here, I am not sure how often but I don't think it has quite the same popularity as Neighbours although I stand corrected if I get shot down in flames on that one..lol

It's a shame that Eastenders and coronation street are sent to you lot too, isn't Britain depressed enough without spoiling the mental health of the rest of the civilised world?

These damn progeammes have gone from about 3 nights a week at the start to every night and now every day about 3 times with an omnibus on the weekend that lasts about 4 days. UK TV is full of this type of cr@p. Subsequently I turn it off.

Muck

I am shocked Mucky that you actually have confessed to watching Neighbours at some time in your life. You forgot to add that no one ever is over 21 either, perhaps its the ultimate teenage show. I do not know of any Aussie that does watch it actually.
Anyway I am on here to tell ya'll that I have just met with Betsy and her husband who were nice enough to visit me here in the depths of Tasmania and what a lovely couple they are. Betsy said that she was going to be meeting up with Melodie too in Sydney which she is looking forward to - particularly as they live close to each other in their homeland. The world is a small place after all.

Nothing beats the "USA" cable network, which we found to be playing literally nothing but "Law and Order" repeats day in and day out. Admittedly I'm a bit of a sucker for "Law and Order", and often it beat surfing through 100 or more channels in search of something to watch. The villains are very predictable, consisting mostly of (a) defense counsel (always); (b) wealthy residents of the East Sixties and their spoilt private-school offspring. The plots can be a bit labrynthine though.

There may be some closet "Neighbours" watchers out there, but nobody I know is owning up to it - it would be a bit like hearing your accountant confess to a penchant for cross-dressing. Mucky - I admire the fact that you've outed yourself, mate.

Hey Melodie, how's this for a thread hijack?

Thanks Neil (I think??)lol

Oh Liz, when we were in Oz we saw it then and it was about 3 months ahead of the UK (apparently.lol)

I reckon there are far more Aussie closet neighbours watchers than UK one's.
I reckon we should have a poll.

Muck

Makes sense to me, Muck. It sounds like it's socially less acceptable here than in the UK, so it would follow that Australian fans would be more likely to live in the closet.

Neil,

if I knew how to change the title of the original post to "Meeting Up With Neighbours", I'd do it!! :)

Melodie

Hi Melodie, I sure wish you and Sam a beautiful time in Australia. Having some free time..that will be nice I know. Enjoy!!

Thanks LoveItaly!

I was a bit taken aback that someone was actually talking to ME on my own thread since Neil hijacked it! :)

Yes, I actually do have a few pockets of free time planned - exciting! It will also be fun because Sam pretty much has NO idea what we're doing (fairly typical on any trip we take - since I'm the travel agent he tends to just leave everything to me and goes along for the ride, so to speak).

One of our free time things is staying on Dunk Island, which I'm looking forward to, and I'm also doing a site inspection of Bedarra one morning with the General Manager (see, still working)!

Melodie

Melodie, Nancy (unlike me) is a nice, sensitive person, and you can rely on her to tune in to nuances (e.g., this is actually your thread). I tend to overlook these fine points.

I reckon Sam will do his job pretty damn well - i.e. the quiet, thoughtful observer of bizarre native customs.

And Melodie, you'll just have to be a bit more forceful if you don't want losers like me hijacking your threads. I know you're a bit of a shrinking violet, but you'll just have to try to overcome that.

PS, after our waltz around Monterey I bought Steinbeck's "Cannery Row" at City Lights. I'm sorry I didn't re-read it before the visit. I'd have been looking out for the vacant lot between the Bear Flag Restaurant (the whorehouse) and Lee Chong's - the one where Mr & Mrs Sam Molley lived in their pipe - and the location of the Palace Flophouse and Grill where Mac, Hazel and the boys lived.

Not that I'm trying to engineer another hijack, mind.

Neil,

I shall direct Sam to your post, just in case he has any questions about what his function is on this trip, and yes, I'll try to overcome my natural shyness and be more forceful in the future (Sam will be THRILLED to learn that!)

It is too bad that you bought "Cannery Row" after the fact; I guess you'll just have to come again and I'll give you the more in depth tour, possibly combining that with the Steinbeck Museum, as by then you can re-read everything.

However, if you search back in your memory banks.....visualize the street --you're walking out of the Aquarium, crossing the street and there's a very very bright yellow building.....that was Lee Chong's!

Regards,

Melodie
<aka Certified Cannery Row Specialist

Neil and Melodie, LOL ;;) Me nice Neil? Not often accused of being that especially by a few family members!

Melodie you made me chuckle as except for one year marketing for an airline and about 9 months working in a travel agency I have never been involved in the travel business. However that didn't stop my dear husband for "allowing" me to make all of the travel plans. Sometimes I think he didn't even know where we were flying to or on which airline even when we got to the airport lol. So I sure understand!

Melodie, I thought the yellow buiding was the "Bear Flag Restaurant" (i.e. the whorehouse) and the brown timber one alongside was Lee Chong's - ah well, just have to go back and relabel the photos.

Another example of doing thngs arse-about - stopped off briefly in Bodega Bay and THEN watched "The Birds" on the flight home. Must plan better.

Neil re; Hitchcock movies. I don't know if you realized when you drove to Monterey you passed by San Juan Bautista where part of "Vertigo" was filmed . The sequence driving through the beautiful tunnel of eucalyptus from San Francisco was actually a blooper as the tunnel is south of San Juan Bautista not north as it would have to be in the movie coming from San Francisco

A/D

I didn't know we shared a Law and Order addiction. Its like rereading Jane Austen I 'm sure I've seen some of the episodes 10 times and still enjoy them

Andrew, to my shame I don't remember San Juan Bautista at all (must have been too busy back-seat driving as we fanged down US101 with Melodie at the wheel). To make matters worse it's been so long since I saw "Vertigo" that I don't recall that scene. I should revisit that flick.

(In the meantime I'm putting in a big plug for "A Prairie Home Companion", another clever and engaging Robert Altman picture. See it!!)

As for "The Birds", I'd forgotten that it starred Rod Taylor, from an earlier generation of Hollywood Australians.

Anyway, looks like our guilty little "Law and Order" secret is out.

A past conservative opposition was making so many hang-'em-and-flog-'em noises that journalists started speculating about the chances of their popular new candidate, Ms Laura Norder.

Neil and Andrew, I don't see either of your post regarding Law and Order but that is my secret addiction..also the offshoots of Law and Order. Interesting!

Nancy, they exert a kind of horrible fascination, don't they? They're very formulaic shows, but that's probably part of the attraction. The scripts are very tight, with fast pacing, and the acting almost always of a high standard.

The only thing I find a bit distasteful is the way defence attorneys are always portrayed as the scum of the earth - despite the many innocent people in real life who've been jailed or executed because of the bungling (or worse) of police and prosecutors. A bit of balance would be nice, but I guess would detract from the attractiveness of the main characters.

Part of the formula is that the cops or DAs often have to make some elementary mistake leading to evidence being ruled inadmissible, or some such - so elementary I'm thinking "Oh, come ON, you bozos - after all these years you guys must know you can't do that - I mean, even I do!" OK, I know that's the convention, because the remaining excitement has to come from watching them dig themselves out of their hole by the end of the episode.

By now many Australians must know more about the American system of justice than their own - it might come as a shock if they attended a real trial. They'd find the lawyers not roaming around the courtroom or physically approaching witnesses, for a start, and seldom engaging in amateur dramatics of the Hollywood variety. But of course this low-key, polite and matter-of-fact approach doesn't make for great TV.

Hello Neil, I have been out of town for a few days (party time!) and so just saw your post.

Another thing (and I so agree with your comments) is that at least in California our PD does not spend the time on one crime for hours on end as the PD do on Law & Order and the other offshoots of Law & Order. There is not the man power (or should that be man and woman power to be PC) due to budget problems. Although I have to say our local PD is above average.

Neil, I was rather surprised about 4 years ago to read an article (in the SF Chronical I believe) that Law & Order was one of the top favorite programs for women. I thought I was one of the few. Consequently after reading the article I asked several women, friends and family members, and consequently discovered that almost all of them "loved" Law & Order. Who knew? LOL. Take care, will send an email tomorrow!

Nancy, I'm sure no police force has the resources to assign a team of top detectives to work full time on a single crime, unless it's a really big deal. But hey, it's drama.

The best police drama I've ever seen was an ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) series called "Phoenix", made in 1992. I've never seen anythng to match it in terms of realism and sustained suspense - each of the two 13-part series dealt with a single case inspired by real events. The police, and their thoroughly nasty quarry, were depicted with such gritty authenticity that you could be forgiven for feeling that you were watching actual events unfold. Unfortunately it never received the exposure outside Australia that it deserved.

Info: www.imdb.com/title/tt0103511/

I'll participate in the hijack of this thread.

We always laugh that not only can you find an episode of Law and Order (or one of the spinoffs) on tv at any given time, you can also almost always find an episode of Friends showing on at least one channel.

Try it sometime, it is a fun US hotel room game to locate the channel!

Toucan2, we found the only problem with channel-surfing in the US is that by the time you've reached the last channel you've been bombarded with 50 ads for assorted medical treatments and you're a twitching, gibbering hypochondriac. (I've never watched "Friends" though.)