Black Dog Ride

Trevor rides with a biker gang (OK, he has a motorbike) and today he and Owen are off to join 300 other bikers in a charity ride. They're going from Bateman's Bay as far as Braidwood, on the way to Canberra, and back. Entry is $25 per bike, plus $15 for a passenger, so they're going to raise a decent sum. There's merchandising as well, t-shirts, caps, mugs, that sort of thing too. I wanted a t-shirt but they'd all gone. The organisation http://www.blackdogride.com.au was formed a few years ago to raise awareness of depression, and has raised over $1.1m in that time. The picture shows Trevor and Owen on their return.

Now for something completely different. 

What you notice about other countries are the little differences. Here, for example, you sometimes get a bit more service than you really need. We're partly self catering, so we go to the supermarket for provisions. The two big chains are Coles, and Woolworths, but Bateman's Bay has a Coles so we go there. It's spacious, clean, well stocked, but what seems odd to a Brit is that the cashier does your bagging for you, while you stand there doing nothing. This takes twice as long, and if they were busy a queue would build up, but fortunately there aren't enough people for that. Also, in a coffee shop you order and pay at the counter, but you take a table number and the barista eventually brings your order over. It's a bit slow, but then life is more relaxed here.

The fauna are quite different here. There are parrots in trees, and every lamp post on the road into Bateman's Bay has a pelican sitting on it. These are big birds, with indiscriminate bowel habits, so don't stand below, that's all I'm saying.

The grassy bit between your house and the road is not the verge, it's the nature strip. My hire car is currently standing on Trevor's.

There is a free health service, but you have to pay for an ambulance. You can mitigate the cost through insurance, or you can get yourself to hospital under your own steam, but otherwise the cost can be substantial. Glenda's other grandson, who is in his 20s and lives in Canberra, recently needed to get to A&E after an incident in the street, and it cost $800 for the ambulance and paramedics.

This is a huge country with a relatively small population, so there is loads of space. The roads are broad, traffic is light, houses and gardens are spacious, parking is easy, queues are rare, and life generally more relaxed. The down side is that every journey is a long one: Trevor drives a school bus morning and afternoon in term time, covering 186km each day. This is the equivalent of Worthing to Southampton and back, every day.

More anon.