It's as well we got a nice, luxurious cabin here on Phillip Island, since we've both been ill the whole time we've been here. Anne and I both have bad colds and feel really grotty. Being able to cook in our cabin, and not having to use communal loo and showers is a godsend!
The weather's been a bit poo too, so we've spent a lot of time in the cabin with the heater on. We've watched TV, we've read books and newspapers, we've done crosswords, Anne read a Marian Keyes (chick-lit) book in about four hours, and I played a lot on Metroid Fusion on my Gameboy Advance!
This is what we travel for.
Not that we didn't get out at all. We went for walks when the rain held out, and popped to the chemist to get decongestants. We even borrowed a couple of bikes and went for a ride! Anne's second time on a bike in 14 years wasn't a disaster. She's quite slow and unsteady, but amazingly I was a patient teacher. If I was that good when she drove a car she may not mind getting behind the wheel. I have to say though, Anne's an intelligent girl (a doctor of genetics!) but when it comes to cycling she's a little retarded. I suppose she needs time to build up her confidence, but I had to leave wheelies, endos and riding-no-handed until next lesson.
Today, we checked out of our lovely cabin at 10am, and now we're hanging around the hostel's communal area, waiting for the bus home this evening. We're sniffing, blowing our noses and complaining. At least we have a few days in Melbourne now to recover.
We've done quite well illness-wise while travelling I suppose. We've only been ill a few times, and nothing more serious than a cold.
This is the NEWS
We've read a lot of newspapers while we've been here. This is good - we don't get the time to read them cover to cover at home. Some Aussie papers are quite poor though. The Sydney Morning Herald is good, and I look forward to getting back to New South Wales (next week) and getting that again.
Importantly, the SMH(!) has a good cryptic crossword. The level of difficulty was about right for us, and we even completed it a few times.
Once we left NSW in June we got The Australian, the national (Murdoch) paper. This was OK, but a bit bland at times. The weekend edition was good, and had The Editor, a digest of the world's press similar to the one they used to have in The Guardian on a Saturday. I was disappointed to find when I went home for a wedding in August that The Guardian no longer have that section. Why did they get rid of it??
When we got to Western Australia we tried The West Australian but we found that to be rubbish, and the letters page was full of bigoted ramblings, so we went back to The Australian.
The Australian has the cryptic crossword from The Times in the UK, and we started to get pretty good at that one!
We were happy, when we arrived in Adelaide, to be able to get Melbourne's The Age. Whilst not as good as The SMH it's not bad. The cryptic crossword can be a bit easy though.
As for the news, well Aussie news has been pretty similar to that everywhere else (an unpopular war, lying politicians, etc). Perhaps a little more openly racist though.