The $463 free camping trip to 90 Mile Beach

Unfortunately peaceful serenity was the last thing on Fran’s mind once the Hoonmobile began swinging through the free campsites. Perhaps it was the terrifying experience of stopping off in Traralgon for supplies – more fast food joints than brain cells and enough potential Biggest Loser winners to keep Channel Ten execs decked out in gold chains well into their retirement – that had her feeling all Wolf Creek. Or perhaps it was the fact that every campsite appeared to be populated entirely by Ute-driving men with mean-looking facial hair wearing lumberjack shirts, heavy boots and meaner glares.

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Bruce’s swine flu two-penneth part II

“Swine flu is a lot of smoke, little fire,” he reasons.

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Uber-hoppy beer and cinnamon-tinged ales @ Mountain Goat

Mountain Goat have installed Victoria’s first “Hopinator” – a cylindrical machine fastened to the bar that can be filled with anything from fresh hop flowers (as above where their organic IPA is being poured through a load of fragrant Galaxy hop flowers) to cinnamon sticks, coffee beans and fruit. Any of their beers can then be directed through Randy (short for Randall the Handle, apparently, after they stopped calling it the Hopinator out of deference to Holgate Brewery’s not-for-the-faint-hearted 7% Double IPA of the same name) for a last minute burst of extra flavour.

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Echuca: paddlesteamers, kookaburras and overpriced fudge

Perhaps it’s the result a lifetime of seaside resorts such as Margate (in Bruce’s case) and its former Bembom Brothers amusement park or Southend (in Fran’s) where, prior to the smoking ban, non-smokers could experience the effects of a 20-year, two packs-a-day habit merely by sitting down to play bingo for half an hour surrounded by monolithic grandmother-mother-and-baby teams in which the baby’s dummy must surely have been covered in nicorette patches. Or perhaps, as many Aussie friends will observe, it’s just the innate doubt of an English test batsman coming to the crease.

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Better then belching?

There’s always someone in every family who professes to being able to belch the alphabet (although do they ever really manage “W”?).
Fran’s best mate who, on first impressions, is a very well brought up young lady – practising lawyer, house in a little town on the Thames outside London, holiday home in the French Alps, [...]

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