Twelve Apostles, Convertibles, and Horrible Australia Drivers

This past weekend I went for what will likely be my last "fun" event before I leave Australia. There is a famous scenic highway here named the Great Ocean Road, which runs along the southern coastline for roughly 250 miles. The coast itself is sandstone, and consequently very much a victim of wind and wave erosion. However, this does lead to some impressive sights.

Primarily, the road hugs the coast, and is consequently very twisty and curvy. It's a whole lotta fun to drive, especially when it's nearly deserted and one is behind the wheel of a convertible sports car. I was initially disappointed at the outset of the weekend, because I had hoped to rent a BMW Z4 convertible, and also have a friend join me for the trip. Sadly, the BMW was not available, and the friend had a last minute issue arise, so I found alone, behind the wheel of a Holden Astra, a local car manufacturer, owned by GM. It was pretty spirited, and I was really pushing it on the road.

I left Melbourne around 9am Saturday morning, and drove to the start of the Great Ocean Road, which is about 60 miles away, then drove down the Road until I reached the formation known as The Twelve Apostles. This is a group of free standing rock towers, sepearated from the rest of the coast by erosion. Sadly, only 9 now remain of the original twelve, and soon they will all be gone, but it is an impressive sight. Nearby is a set of steps carved into the cliff face, which lets one clamber down to the beach itself, next to these mighty sentinels. Being a child of my mother, I had to stick my fingers in the water. The waves were some of the largest I've seen, probably pushing 25ft curlers, on a relatively calm day.

Sadly, the day was a bit tarnished because the night before i left, my friend Rowdy, a native of Western Australia, was hit on his motorcycle, and wrecked his ankle. He's currently in the hospital in good spirits, but has already had two rounds of surgery on his ankle, and is scheduled for more to come. The driver that hit him was drunk, turned without looking or signalling, and ran over Rowdy, who was in the adjacent lane at the time. Fortunately, Rowdy is a sturdy fellow. So many of my nights now feature visits to a local hospital, to keep his spirits up. It's hard for a guy who is naturally very active to suddenly be laid up in bed. We're waiting to see how he handles not being able to walk for 12 weeks.

Hawaii - Sorted

I finally arranged where I am going to stay in Maui. I had been having a struggle finding something that I could rent for such a long period of time, without committing to an even longer lease, that was somewhat affordable. Thanks to a lot of digging, input from my friend Joe who has lived there, and my travel agent who dug around all over the place, I have my accomodations and transportation sorted.

I'll be staying at the Outrigger Aina Nalu

It's a pretty suite deal, and I have a rental car included in my overall package, for the duration of my time there. The deal on the rental was cheaper than anything I could find for sale, so that has also worked out well. And it saves me having to arrange transportation to and from the airport. All is well.

Now all I have to do is finish off my stuff here, and get the heck out of Dodge.

Serenity

Due to the increasing length of daylight over here, I'm once again waking up pretty early. I don't take very long to get ready for work, so I'm usually out the door about 30 minutes after I get out of bed. Lately, that means I've been leaving for work around 6:15am.

It's a really nice time to be out and moving. Almost no people are out, and the few that are mobile are either walking their dogs, or jogging. The ocean is often very still, and the air is clear. This morning, the water was almost glass, a rarity for the ocean. I could see miles out into it as I was biking along the shore. It's very peaceful, and a decided contrast to the noisy construction site I'm heading to.

That is all.

I mean, really, who does this?

So Saturday was the Grand Final for the Australian Football League (AFL). Imagine the Superbowl. It has been hyped for weeks, in every form of media, and I was looking forward to watching it. Now usually, when a game is played locally, they delay the broadcast of it for about 30 minutes, or roughly one quarter, so that it encourages people to either go to the stadium, a pub, or get the game on pay-per-view. However, when I switched on the tv, I saw the game playing on the station that plays all the games at real time, so I figured since it was the last game of the season, and the stadium was sold out, they were playing it live.

They weren't. Now here's where it gets eerie.

Apparently last year in the grand final, the exact same two teams played. It was a closely contested match for the entire game, with the same side down at half time as this year. This year was a closely contested match for the entire game. But for reasons that I will never understand, during the exact time that the 2006 Grand Final was happening, they were rebroadcasting the 2005 Grand Final on television. The game always happens in the same stadium, and the at the same time of year, so everything looked right on the television. Right teams, right stadium, right lighting conditions, right advertisements, right everything.

To make matters more confusing, at half time they really did go live to the stadium and interview players from the 2006 Grand Final about the game so far. Then went to the studio, where the hosts discussed the game. But when it was time to resume play, they returned to the rebroadcast of 2005.

What ultimately messed everything up was that the team that won in 2005 was the team that lost in 2006. So after watching what I thought was the Grand Final, and still having the score and highlights fresh in my head, I went out for coffee Sunday morning and the front page of every paper was telling me I was delusional and crazy, for the team I had just watched win had in fact lost.

So I repeat my question: Who does that? With two games so nearly identical, who thinks it's a good idea to rebroadcast one at the exact time the other is taking place, when it's a game of this significance? Morons, that's who. Shouldn't have expected anything better from the Fox network.