Hello people! I’m back by popular demand… I hope you’ve all enjoyed a fantastic Christmas and are planning for an amazing up coming year. I’m here to recount our epic Australian leg for any of you that might have missed the many hilarious and highly entertaining blog posts from the crew.
It’s been over a month now since I’ve returned from duty, but it feels more like a lifetime ago since I first stepped on to Australian soil. Stepping off the plane, the heat and humidity hitting me like a slap in the face, I instantly forgot the 23 hours spent in transit.
Perth turned out to be more than just a starting point for our Australian leg, it almost became the end of the whole trip. The quarantine officials were rather unimpressed with the clean up job done on Martha before she boarded the ship and were threatening 3 weeks in jail (quarantine jail that is). Steve quickly got his persuasive hat on and got chatting to the guys at Luckens. Low and behold quicker than you can say “Bonza mate” we were pushed to the front of the queue, free of charge of course, and were due out of quarantine in 3 days. The first of many amazingly generous offers of help and assistance we got from the people of Australia.
This is unfortunately (not sure if that’s the right word…) the last blog from me as I am due to fly out of Brisbane this Sunday. The long journey through Australia is almost at an end, and sadly I have to return to reality.
Plan for the day, head up to Byron Bay from Port Macquarie. We had another long days drive ahead of us so everybody enjoyed a bit of time out of the truck. Active start for the whole crew, Amy and Louise went for a scenic walk into town, Paul and Steve were jogging around parts of the Port Macquarie Iron Man track and I went for a cycle and swim along the beach. We decided on taking the inland road to see the Big Banana instead of the coastal, so this gave me plenty of time to reminisce over the events of the last month. So here are my top worst and best moments of the trip.
Low Point: Not winning the raffle at the fundraiser organised by Voyage Express.
Most people don’t realise how much of a battering a car receives whilst driving across rough terrain. Even fewer realise how much worst it is for an old fire truck thats not quite designed for the the job. The team has put in place a strict daily routine which is designed to spot any small issues which could latter turn into major problems. This works great for most of the time but inevitably cracks will be missed…
High Point: Coming down from a 40m hydraulic ladder.
Low Point: Being 40m up in a hydraulic ladder.
After the last few days of sleeping with bugs, staying in a dodgy motel where the windows where boarded up with steel shutters and generally having a miserable (sorry I mean awesome) time, it was a real pleasure to wake up in the luxury of the Fire Station Inn. I’m sure you’ve seen the videos already so I won’t bore you with the details again. Also, for a change, I’m going to stick to the script this time and try to stay away from the nonsense…
High Point: A cheeky beer in the Uluru Fire Station
Low Point: Ants in my pants
Quote of the day: “Paul, do you know where our window is?”
We woke up in the middle of nowhere. You might think this a bit of an exaggeration but we were roughly 500km from the nearest bit of civilisation. Civilisation in this case was the Docker River community with a population in the low teens. We had just spent the night camping on a dried up river bed. It was us, Martha and what seemed like a billion busy little biting ants. Todays plan: head into the Uluru Nation park and explore the big rock.
Attending the Spirit of Fire awards last Friday proved to be one of the most humbling experiences of my life. Hosted in the Bobby Moore Room at Wembley stadium, it was attended by an assortment of amazing people coming together to celebrate and recognise bravery within the fire services community.
