Hornes Down Under

Tony Horne

Description

Let's turn the clock back to June 2008, when we undertook the biggest adventure of our lives and without a clue what we were doing. We are Tony (36), Natalie (34), Molly (8) and Sam (5), and if you are a burnt-out family, bitten by the credit crunch, bogged-down by nanny-state legislation, collapsing under the burden that your life is flying by, with your kids growing up fast, together with the aching realisation that your career has positively stalled, whilst knowing that you only have the duration of the British school holidays to play with, then this is the book for you. If you like wildlife, campervans, Australia, barbeques, arguments with airlines, theme parks, Steve Irwin, and families that just limp from one cock-up to another, then it's all here too. In short, one mad family drives a campervan across AustraliaDisaster ensues. Let's be clear though, this is not a guide book. No way! We had one of those on our lap every day and we just looked at each other and shouted fraud! No-that's not what we are about. This is my travel story of a family trying to re-introduce themselves to each other after many stressful years, following a route following a route along the coast of Australia from Darwin to Adelaide. Oh, and by the way, my wife is writing the same account but from her point of view. What could possibly go wrong?

Sujets

• Travel writing
• Australia

Informations

• Publié par: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 05 octobre 2009
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781848769526
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Hornes Down Under
P ART O NE
Hornes Down Under
Tony Horne
Copyright 2009 Tony Horne
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.
Matador 5 Weir Road Kibworth Beauchamp Leicester LE8 0LQ, UK Tel: [phone] Email: [e-mail] Web: www.troubador.co.uk/matador
ISBN 9781848762008
A Cataloguing-in-Publication (CIP) catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Matador is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd
To Poppy Greta
Acknowledgements
God - this is where you leave someone out and they get upset.
Hearty thanks go to so many people, but mostly Wolf Blass, Jacob s Creek and Stanley Wine, all of whom accompanied me on this journey at various points. Stanley, for the nights penning away in the van; Wolf and Jacob for keeping me company over Christmas 08 when I was writing it all up again. Truly, I love the three of you equally!
To Harty - you re always there, whether it s dawn in Sydney and dusk in Corbridge. To Stonesy - I love you, you fat bastard. To Dogs - what am I going to do without you? You have been the best. To Chris Ryan - for all the advice, you retain legendary status!
To Chris and Jack - well, you re everything, and thanks for all the help from finding Troubador to re-reading for the fifty-eighth time. The mistakes are yours.
And to the Troubador guys - thanks for making it easy, and Claire Barber on PR....well you will find out how great you were whether or not you get a mention here in the next book! Final gratitude goes to Big John - King of the net.
Lastly, of course, enormous amounts of Scouse love to all the Hughes family and to Nat, Molly and Sam. This was simply the best thing that we ever did.
P.S. I haven t told Nat she is on the front cover yet and she is going to go nuts.
L et s turn the clock back to Tuesday 24th June 2008, when we undertook the biggest adventure of our life and without a clue what we were doing.
We are Tony (36), Natalie (34), Molly (8) and Sam (5), and if you are a burnt-out family, bitten by the credit crunch, bogged-down by nanny-state legislation, collapsing under the realisation that your life is flying by, with your kids growing up fast, together with the aching realisation that your career has positively stalled, whilst knowing that you only have the duration of the British school holidays to play with, then this is definitely the book for you.
If that s not you, hey read it anyway, because if you like wildlife, campervans, Australia, barbeques, arguments with airlines, theme parks, Steve Irwin, Kylie and Jason (of course!) and families who just limp from one cock-up to another, then it s all here too. In short, one mad family drive a campervan across Australia Disaster ensues.
Let s be clear though, this is not a guide book. No way! We had one of those on our laps every day and we just looked at each other and shouted fraud .
After all, who is na ve enough to think that any editor has checked every detail in all those books, especially in a country such as Australia where the natives haven t even discovered all the land? Yet still we all buy them en masse as though we can t travel without them, when the reality is that you probably merely flick through a handful of pictures, barely noticing the text while the airport bookshop takes advantage of your pre-flight nerves and pickpockets you to the tune of 20 and some more.
No, that s not what we are about. This is a travel story of a family trying to re-introduce themselves to each other after many stressful years, following a route down the side of Australia dictated principally by campsites in the esteemed Big 4 group.
Being self-employed in the media, principally in broadcasting and in writing, my accountant says that this book is also the only way we could fund the trip. As a business expense.
There I ve come clean. Now you know.
Day One
Unbelievably, I actually do my radio show on the morning that we fly. You see, that s self-employed syndrome. Work to the last.
My mind wasn t on the job of course, and my abiding memory of this morning is listening to a colleague slagging me off in another studio, something that was I able to pick up in my studio as his microphone was still on.
This is exactly why we had to take this trip. For the moment, I am done talking nonsense on the radio for five hours at a time and I am done working with the poisonous, talentless and insincere.
From here on in, we would leave the media and all its petty ways behind as we crave the lost values of time, family and space. We are on our way and we have a plane to catch.
Manchester airport is tough. Nat s parents, brilliant as always, are there. My folks hardly even know that we re off.
I knew it was eating John and Lynne, and I knew they would cope in their usual ways. John, marshalling the troops, triple-checking everything as if auditioning for security; Lynney wanting it over as quickly as possible because she didn t have that revert to bloke mechanism within. I knew that I would set her off if she didn t set me off.
We ve all been there. Just like the scene at the start of Love Actually , but more sincere.
I need to mention this because anybody heading down under has this moment. You dread it for days, and it rips your heart out at the time, particularly when you do that looking over the shoulder thing as you head through the x-rays and they head for the parking.
I can still see them I can still see them that s it they ve gone.
And then you re ok again, and you know that you will be when you ring them as the 1825 lands at Terminal Five. It s just a moment in time. It kills you but it passes.
Something stupid shakes you out of it every time, whether it is an unpleasant airport worker whose jobsworthy nature collides with your emotion, or the laughable fact that my boss Trevor is trying to tell me about focus groups for my radio show even as late as I board, having promised that he would ring me back five hours before.
I like Trevor a lot, but I knew this would happen. I m off the radio for two months, so he might as well have not bothered with the focus group in the first place. Radio people don t always think things through.
Plus, I m officially on holiday, and that means that I have other things on my mind. I am duty-bound to spend 50 on stuff that I absolutely do not need before boarding. Lucky John Peel. I know you re dead, but I have chosen to buy you.
The fact that the air steward on the flight to London is called Floriano also helps to lighten the mood!
Terminal five is a shambles, and I quote the businessman in front, like it s a surprise that this flight lands here at 7.40 every night, when there is no stand for us to park on, accentuated by our comic performer on the pilot s microphone ordering us to exit from the front, then the rear, then the front.
It s a comedy called Carry On Up The Airport except that we are in serious danger of missing our flight, particularly as all the transfer routes to T4 are blocked off, and eventually finding ourselves on the Heathrow Express line, we learn that our next train is fourteen minutes away. This is the busiest airport in the world where trains should run one a minute, but no, you will wait a quarter of an hour.
On the platform, paranoid at missing the flight, we talk to anyone. Nerves and adrenalin kick in. Our first victim is Steve, back home for his best mate s wedding. He is on the flight to Singapore too, but then direct on into Sydney where he lives now. He tells us straight. He will never move back to the UK. He works in telecoms and walks past the Opera House every day and thinks nothing of it. Well sold, mate.
We exit the Heathrow Express and find our flight is on last call. I am sure that I speak for so many people travelling through Heathrow - this is the most difficult airport in the world. We arrive at our gate sweaty, and we still have a dozen or so hours to fly through the night. Thanks so much British Airways. Thanks.
On board, you always look at other kids misbehaving. I delight in the rough Australian bitch in front of us hitting her son Daniel and his brother while their lazy English Dad ignores them all in his sleep.
I m emotional all the way. I always am these days. I am thinking that this is a make or break trip for us, and I tell Nat so. She hasn t seen it this way. If it makes us, it will reverse all the problems of the last five years. If it breaks us, I will just come to a level of acceptance of what our life is - functional parents sharing a house.
Day Two
I remember nothing of the flight except that I didn t sleep. I always used to be able to, but post-kids, it is impossible. Molly slept diagonally across me the whole way. Somebody needs to tell airlines that the arm between the seats needs to disappear into a hole, rather than almost disappearing, so that it doesn t elbow you all the way, whilst your eight year old is snoring on your bollocks.
We land in Singapore. It is simple, clean, calm and unflustered, so the opposite to Heathrow that I am delighted to be here. Borrowing my father s gene, I have already decided that we will underground it to Orchard Road where we are staying, and Nat is already tutting that we can t get all this luggage and two kids there by public transport.
I am doing that vulnerable thing of pushing the trolley towards the exit, with no obvious plan, when suddenly this strange man befriends me. I resist at all costs, deliberately