finally

Messy Dayz

Bored in the city of love, 8 hours from hell, another Ayres Rock, back to life in the Cote D'Azur, imortalised as rock gods, centurions.

Dateline: 11 am Tuesday morning, the sun sits bright and powerful in the riverian skye beating down relentlessly on the roof of the Messy Dayz Express creating an oven effect that would be unplesant in any situation. One of my kidneys sent a message down the tubes to the other asking for a final decision; shutdown or attempt to go on?

Apparently the left kidney is braver then the right and the judgment came back that we should try to keep going, so with shooting pains in my lower back I awoke. Another lost morning in the enigma that is this van trip. It all started on Thursday last, we had a big day touristing in Gaye Paris hitting some fairly impressive boxes - Notre Damme, Musee D'Orsey, and whatever that garden between the Lourve and Concorde is. When we were finally done with the touristing we retired to our favorite Parisian English pub the Freedom to watch the evenings rugby matches and 20twenty bashathon. After a heavy days touristing it seemed sensible to have a nice quiet evening in front of the box. 6 hours later found us argueing on the side of FDR boulevard waiting in an hour long lineup for a taxi to get us out to Saint Geniveve De Bois. We finally managed to get in a cab, but for some reason (that we never solved) the taxi man wouldn't take us all the way out. Despite our many cogent arguements (and some less so - my personal favorite was "you won't take us out there cause your a Zidane style terroist" - fun with people who don't speak our language...) we didn't manage to get the cab all the way, but got lucky on the final train of the evening.

Luckily we didn't have anything special on the next day, just the simple matter of Ireland vs France at the Stade De France. The city was awash with the Irish hours before the match, all very optimistic about the coming bash, the pubs were jumping and the atmosphere fantastic, being simple non biased onlookers meant we were in a strange position of being part of the party not having a huge buy in, the lads quickly went to a trashy tourist type store and got Ireland jersey's and the Kloss got le tri colour on his cheek and we were suddenly a much bigger part of it. I of course was wearing the Ireland tee I brought in Dublin in Janurary - that is how long I have been looking forward to last Fridays match.

Unfortunately the Irish, French, and Referee Chris White didn't realise that most of the people attending the match had travelled a long way and spent a lot of money to go to the match, it was horrible. Without doubt the most boring match I have ever watched (yes I know, Reds Sharks in 05 and Reds Brumbies in 07 were bad- but the Reddies were in those matches). Anyways, the match was a complete wash, the Leinster team I saw at DonneyBrook earlier in the year would have put 50 points on either side playing. Thankfully the sheer boredom that resulted from the match, and the fact that 80 000 people can not just get onto a train at the same time meant we were all in the mood to stand around boozing after the match.

We wearnt there for long but we all suddenly got in the mood for singing, so we had a lot of fun on the Train ride home- two crazy Frenchies leading the carriage in traditional French songs, then a lot of traditional Australian songs allowed the train ride to pass very quickly, the Irish were curiously silent; the Time Warp we danced on the approach to Genievive Le Boit drew cheers from all on our carriage.

Five hours later the alarms in the Dayz began to wail, it was time to start the massive drive from Paris to Montpellier for Sundays Australia vs Fiji match. The big problem with the Paris match on the Friday was always going to be that we had to drive the length of the country to get to the next game. With the monkeys who have been putting a huge drain on the Messy Dayz ticket we were concerned that a seven hundred kilometre drive would prove too much in one day. It was very, very cold and dark, yours truly did the heavy lifting of the hungover, morning first shift, which set us up perfectly to finish the drive inside of one day. With strict rules about lengths of our stops and minimum average speeds required for each stint we managed to break the back of the drive easily. The best example of our comitment to speed was the BT Kloss driver swap, 100 kilometres an hour on the A58 all of a sudden there was no one sitting in the
drivers seat of the MD Express, we lived and managed to get into Montpellier around 4 in the afternoon, a stellar performance by the tourists.

Our Montpellier experience started poorly, when we were there in July we struggled with navigation but had an all round nice time. This time around we got stuck in an 18 stop tram ride nightmare out to the Stadium, it was hot, damm hot, but that was good (at first) as it had been cold in Paris, by the end of the tram ride some nerves were frayed and some people were a little sweaty, but we were there and the crowd was in a jovial mood so we quickly got back into the spirit.

After the match we hurried into the line for the Tram as we wanted to get to see the Scotland Noveau

Sealand match, an hour later we managed to get on an actual tram and got to the main square of town in

time to see the second half of the match of the day. Standing in squares drinking is becoming a fairly

standard practice for our tourists. Old Wristy Duggan had struck gold again earlier in the day by meeting a

couple of Melbourne broads who were willing to party with Tour de Fearists so we left the main square

after the match and headed to the Ayers Rock. Australian pubs are clearly the best parties in the world,

so we were assured a great night out. Montpellier was apparently a destination of choice for a lot of

Australians as we ran into a rediculous number of friends from back home. It became a huge problem

when our Bon Soir's started being met by blank stares- so we switched to G'Days and the ladies came

running- a result. Anyways, a great night out ensured- Thooheys News 10 for 40 bucks in a bucket- good

times. Once more all went home alone, but it was so close, I'm sure were about to run into a rich vein of

form.

The change in temperature that had resulted from our trip south had a massive effect on the moods of all

involved, so we decided to buy while the time was right and head to coast, specifically Antibes to spend a

week recharging our batteries on our favorite strech Mediteranean coastline. We got into town and

immediatly jumped into Big Blue- it had been close to a month for yours truly so it was seriously refreshing to get back into the swim of things...

Afterwards we went for a walk around the port and checked into the campsite, by this time I was close to dropping, this was the fifth day of a rediculously foolish freak out that had achieved almost nothing, but then J called and said it was time to go out for a big night on the towns -my head dropped in disapointment, disapointment with myself- I knew there was no way possible I shouldbe going out, but there was also no way I would be saying no to a night out - I went out.

We started with a casual dinner, but two bottles of wine made us think a visit to the Absinthe Bar would

be a seriously good idea. The Antibes Absinthe bar has to be seen to be believed, it is a small cave pub below a bigger resturant upstairs. The walls and shelves are covered in antique Absinthe bottles, marketing posters and other assorted paraphanlia. We found out that this is because the bar is actually a museum, of course Absinthe is illigal in France so the only way they can get away with serving it is to call themselves a museum, and have 'tasting' instead of just out right serving drinks. They also have a bunch of crazy hats that you get too wear as you try the different drinks, Jase wore a boater, Kloss a bowler, Ness a thirties style fidora, Fuc a fetching top hat, and TGO went saftey first with an equstrian helmet.

Things descended quickly, we ran across our old friend Charlie on a street corner in the old part of town, we don't see Charlie often, so whenever he comes to town we feel obliged to shake the . When we got kicked out of the Extreme Bar at closing time we were desperate enough to continue the party that we walked all the way across town to the Golden Gate- the local gay bar, unfortunatly it was shut, we finally found an open bar and managed to continue the party for another couple of hours.

Dateline: Its 20 hours after I started writing, we have now been kicked out of the original campsite and are in one a kilometre down the road. We are currently stuck in the bus, its raining, we walked to macca's and the beer shop and got stuck in a rain storm, such was our low opinions of ourselves at the time we decided to walk home in the rain. So we are very, very wet, drinking warm beer, Timmy BT is sitting naked, why I don't know, but last night hurt a few of us, hurt us alot.

Last night we made a miscalculation and ended up partying till the wee hours once again, La Siesta was shut for some reason so we had to head into town to get dinner. How this resulted in us drinking till closing time and having a micro party back at the bus I do not know, but it seemed like a very, very good idea at the time.

Jump back to the story I was telling about monday night, after the last pub in town closed we got a cab back to the bus and made a little bit of noise as we woke the lads up to tell them of our adventures at the various pubs and clubs of town. At the time we thought nothing of it but a tip to the reader take note it will become important down the line.

The next day was extremely slow, we managed to get as far as the beach and that was about it, it was one of those amazing Cote days where the med sits perfectly still and the sun stays hot well into the evening. We made best use of the conditions we could spending a good five hour wack on the smoothly pebbled shores. The only incidents of note was the arrival of Paul Allen's Octopus out on the water, Ness getting stupidly sunburnt on her back (Neanderthal New South Welshmen...), and the complete and utter hard body that got her clothes off on the beach towel next to us, zoot allors.

Anyways, as Wristy and BT hadn't come out the night before they were keen to tie one on on tuesday night, so we naturally decided to head into town to offer them some support. For some reason they were drinking in an Australian bar, but I guess after three weeks on the road they are getting home sick. The most incredible game of pool in the history of the planet was played, but thats about all that happened for a long time last night. Kloss and I teamed up against the evil forces of the Duval College Pool Team and managed to shark them in such away that eventually they put up some cash, now anyone who knows anything knows that the Kapitan and I have been fleecing fools at pool tables for years. The Kloss started the blood bath with a good break, sinking two on his first go. We then carried our opponents for a few rounds, wanting them to at least think they were in the game, until the Kapitan gave me the signal and I promptly sunk four in a row, culminating in one of the top five pool shots of all time to sneak the black ball into the corner pocket and win the game. Seriously even the black ball itself was shocked that it ended up in the hole, I convinced it that it was going to the zoo but then at the last second shifted gears and it was all over. The shot to win the game created scenes of pure extacy in the Outback (the name of the pub) that have not been seen since the last rains came through. For that one perfect moment people began to believe again, I've often struggled with my status as a bringer of the truth and light but when I can deliver in such a manner I am happy to oblige.

Eventually they threw us out of the Outback, fairly handing out plastic cups so we could take our drinks with us so we headed back to the same after hours club as the night before and tied it on again. Good times. When we finally got back to the bus at around five Fuc decided it would be a good fun time if we had a round or two of Pastis (he is now a true believer) despite all our best intentions, lots of sushing, we apparently woke our neighbours up for the second night in a row (those who are paying attention will remember that this happened the night before - I did tell you to pay attention). Anyways, she wasn't very accepting of our offer of a drink when she came over to tell us to be quite so we all decided that the best result would be if she fucked off, which she did.

Thinking the incident was behind us we went to bed to recharge once more for another mediteranian day. This dream was shattered however at around nine this morning by the knocking on the door of the Messy Dayz Express by the camp manager. She's a slight little thing the manager, but she's also a very angry little thing (I never really understood why she was so angry, I mean really we didn't wake her up did we?) Anyways, she seemed to think it would the best for every one involved if we got the hell out of her camp site. I disagreed, after a heated debate (at one point the Gendames were summoned (you've never seen two bigger pussey's then Wristy and I when that happened) it was decided that we should leave the site and never return. Probably the best for all. The joke however was on them as BT managed to get a refund on his laundry tokens - I think both sides really came out ahead.

Thourghly impressed with our new status as legends of camping we drove around to a few near by sites and eventually manged to get the Dayz back into camping mode after about an hour. We decided that the best way to immortalize the day we got tossed from La Vielle Ferme was to have a party so we went to Macca's for breakfast beers and got a few cases. For some reason we thought Yatzee would be more fun if we were trying to do 100 shots in 100 minutes at the same time so the party soon got quite Messy, there was much nudity. By four in the afternoon we had drunk ourselves out of beer and life force, resulting in the massive crash that had been threatening for days. Its now nine pm and the bus is quite, we've all had naps, and dinner is long past - but no one is making any noises about the pub this evening, the only noises anyone is really making are snores. Hopefully we have learnt our lesson.

Tank Crossing

I'm a little concerned how many people are commenting on various photos that are circulating of me with my beard saying I look better then before, your all just forgetting how good I looked before- it was good, trust me.

We left London on Thursday feeling extra sick and sorry for ourselves, the crazy freakout that was our night out at the Walkie and Roadhouse left us needing alot of r and r. Unfortunatley travelling days are not great for this sort of behaviour, especially when driving a left hand drive truck on the opposite side of the road whilst dealing with the poor quality of Englands roads and drivers. It wasn't fun, but eventually we got to Cardiff, the site of this week's big Australia vs Wales dance.

Friday we finally had our rest day, BT and Wristy were still in London so the rest of us managed to spend some quality time relaxing in the bus, of course the fact we were in the UK so had to put up with terrible weather meant that the descision to sit in the bus was an easy one to make. Eventually we went into town ostensoubly to check out the sites, but within about 50 metres of walking down the dour main street we decided that we wearnt overly interested in Cardiff itself, so we went into the nearest pub we could find, happily enough it was a Walkabout so we didn't even have to mix with any Welsh people. Once you have gone into your first pub of the afternoon it is difficult to then get back out of the pub and do some touristing, so we didn't. Many hours later the England South Africa game had finished and our positive intentions of a quite relaxing weekend in Cardiff had been nixed.

Cardiff, on game day, the Welsh just lose their minds whenever their mighty Dragons are going to go around at Cardiff Arms Park, every pub within 2 kilometres of the ground, and their are heaps, were packed full to bursting. Seriously it was actually a little annoying how hard it was to get a beer, but as kick off ticked closer the atmosphere began to boil over onto the street, there were only 70 000 peeps going to the game, but their must have been at least 200 000 on the streets, it was crazy times, Kloss and I had to wait (as ever) for the Tunny's so managed to stand in the most inconvient place on St Mary's St to get in about 50 000 peoples way as they tried to get into the match.

Eventually everything worked out and we went into the stadium, we were surprised to find that the roof was closed, but this turned out to be a positive, as the atmosphere when the 50 000 odd Welsh monkeys who came along to the game began to sing was absolutly mind blowing. The game was a bit of an epic with all of us going crazy, when old Stu Dickinson decided that Sharpie should have an early shower the crazy Welsh collectively lost their minds. Thankfully the mighty Wallabies managed to hold on for that desperate final 10 minutes and we enjoyed a good win, but overall Rugby was the winner on the day...

The atmosphere on the street before the game was electrifying, afterwards it was (wait for it) surreal. We quickly managed to find some beers to have on the street and proceeded to have a middle of the street party for the next 3 or so hours, we didn't look conspicous however as we were just one small group in a sea of street partyers. Wristy and BT had managed to organise some broads to come up from London to party with us so we didn't have to make specticles of oursleves trying to meet locals. We did however manage to meet up with a rediculous number of people we new from home, seriously it was crazy, people we had no idea were even in Europe just walked right by us and joined in the party, good times (shout out to Hargy and Gordo Lewis). Eventually we had to move off the street so we headed into Huggy's Bears Groove Palace - a good night had by all.

The next day we had tickets to the big Canada Fiji bash so woke up early and headed into town, the idea of a second game for the weekend was that we could have a quite afternoon in the sun recharging our batteries before heading back to France. This was fine until during the game when old Kapitan Kloss ruined our best laid plans by buying beer. Three Thirty am found us huddled up in the bus playing black jack with two random birds we met at the camp site pub whilst watching the France game (how good was Chabal?).

Keeping the lads up to 3 in the morning turned out to be a mistake the next day, as we didn't get on the road to France till mid day. We then struck traffic (lousy Welsh monkeys closing the M4) so had to sit in a jam for 2 long hours, finally we got onto the open road and rushed off to Stonehenge, the lads were not impressed, but my ulterior motive of securing a Tank Crossing picture was successful. We finally manged to get on a boat at Dover around 10:30 and into a car park around 00:30 am. Hopefully this time we learnt our lesson, next time we have a travel day we will be in bed at a resonable hour... best laid plans.

week 1

So this is supposed to be a trip around France to watch rugby, but it has quickly devolved into a series of messy nights out on the town spreading international relations. While in Lyon we shook ourselves to the core, and now this disease has chased us across the chanel to London, were last night we got very heavily involved in a party that has left some very sick and sorry travellers today.

Lyon is one of the greatest party towns we have yet visited throughout the world. It is one of the biggest university towns in Europe, so had a massive supply of very young hard bodies for us to make friends with. On the first night in town we went to a big square and watched the France vs Argentina match, then went to the great Australian pub, the Ayers Rock, for one of the wildest nights ever. The next day we went to the game and then had a very large night in at the camp site. At one point we were within seconds of jumping in the car and driving to Monza for the grand prix, seriously it was three am, we could have gone straight across the alps and been there by 8 am... we were on hte point of jumping in Jason's hire car but cooler heads eventually prevailed so we stayed in Lyon.

The Sunday we decided to go for a quite day in town, we had a desperate need for internet, and somewhere to see the racing cars. Jason managed to talk a nice lady at a pub into putting the game on for us, but unfortunatly this meant we were at a pub, so we drank. Things progressed as you would expect, after the F1 (how was Hamilton's bonzai move on Kimi?) there was rugby, lots of rugby, we went back to the Ayers Rock. A group of 4 Aussies, in an Aussie bar in France can pretty much do whatever they please, I mean really do you think the surrender monkey's or the scot's, or the brits are really going to be able to do anything about it?

Fast forward about 7 hours and its now 2 am, we have became life long friends with at least four different groups of chicks (evidence Kloss' facebook) have danced on tables, mediated fights, run line out drills, and had copius amounts of shots purchased for us by our new British friends, boy did we think we were cool. The end of the night is a little hazy, there was some nudity, I suspect a little vomit, and there was some extreme sickness the next day (it took Wristy two full days to recover).

Anyways, we then trouped across the chanel to the UK to go to Cardiff for Saturdays epic between Wales and Aussie, and decided to stop in London for the night just to refresh our batteries a little. Unfortunatly, it turned out it was Cherie's birthday so there was no way we could have a refreshing stay in the big town, it calld for a party, and when you are partying in London there is no finer place then the Covent Garden Walkabout. The night once more started nice and quitely but suddenly there was an English Football international on and the place went a little crazy, as did we. When the pubs began to shut we realised that there was no way we could call off the party that early so we took a deep breath and went into the RoadHouse, a club on Covent Garden that could be the worst place on earth, that was until last night when we fell in love with the place.

So we've been on the go for over a week or so now, and as far as I can tell, there have been no muesums visited, no serious tourist attractions boxes ticked, but a lot of drinking, this weekend in Cardiff promises to be another right off, seriously every Aussie I know in London is on their way up for the weekend, if this continues for the entire trip then not all of us will make it home alive, and considering the way I feeling right this moment, that doesn't acctually seem like that bad a result.

Lazy Photo Blog

Life is currently a bit hectic, no time for writing, so here are some photos from the first week or so to give you an idea of what is happening over here at the RWC.

He's not called 'Wristy Duggan' for his handstand ability, but still this is a pretty good handstand.

Making friends at the bus stop on the way to Lyon. Kiwi's and Poms are stupid.

I don't really think this needs a caption, but how about "saucy"Just three good friends.

BA Tron or Chabal?

In the square at Lyon watching the opening game.

Teaching the lads how to drink on the street.

We made the paper, we are champions.

The lads, Pont De Lafyette, Rhone River, Lyon.
The group, Place de la Treveaux (or something like that) in Lyon, Ness and Wristy are looking the wrong way. Right to Left: BT, Wristy, FUC, Ness, Tunny, Jordie (on his shoulders), Cherie, BA, and Kloss.

Cat, the random Scottish hottie we met at the Ayers Rock in Lyon, all went home alone.

Lyon

So a quick update. Quick, not one of these long posts I have been writing lately, we shall try to keep this to one page... allready I have started verbosely.

Anyways, Lyon, somewhere in the middle right of France on the map, we left Paris on Thursday and Rhyso had his first experience driving the rig, naturlly we other RWC tourists huddled in the back of the bus in fear. We got into town ahead of the flood of Aussies who are here to support the wallaby tilt which meant we got a decent camp site.

Lyon is a very nice town, a lot like Geneva, with two rivers coursing threw the centre of town it makes for a picturesque setting. It also is blessed with a particullarly fantastic Australian pub called the Ayers Rock- il est tres bon. Anyways, Friday we did some touristing and then went to the big square in the centre of town where they were showing the big France game vs the mighty Puma's. Long story shorter I was vindicated in my complete writing off of the Frenchies. The atmosphere on the square was fairly special, Aussies and Frogs mixing as one, that is until the end when they realised most of us where cheering for los puma. The roar of the crowd every time Chabal got on the screen was incredible- that kid will be a superstar by the end of this cup. Afterwards we spent muchus time in the Ayers Rock, dawn found BA, BT and Duggan extending international relations with a couple of young local lady's.

A few hours later we were back in town for the big game, which is when we were approached by a local journalist we had met the day before. Take that Poundster.com, we made the Le Reporter, the Rhone Alps daily, and we got a photo- Messy Dayz Rulz. The game was a lot of fun, first the wallabies killed it, and second the atmosphere was spectacular- good times. Whenever the Lotus Blossom's did anything at all the crowd went mad.

There are a lot of ugly Australian's on this trip (6 of them living in the Messy Dayz Express) but overall this is coming together just as we planned it.

PS- the wallabies to win the world's cup.

Best Tourist Awards

So after a brief sujourn back to Paris, hitting the Lourve (pronounced looouuuurrrrvvvvveeeerrrreeeee) - there are no lines its all a myth) I have now been joined on the Messy Dayz Express by my travel companions for the next 6 weeks. In all things there are competitions, so naturally we are keeping a running score on who is the best traveller in the team. I thought it would be a nice time to give you a quick run down on the competitors, and a rap up of the first few days of competition.

BA Tron - A natural traveller having spent the past 5 weeks in a commune in Turkey he has returned to the world of travel refreshed and ready squeeze as much life as possible out of the journey. So far he has surprised many with his reverse psychology techniques of not wanting to see any tourist attractions and being more interested in the running tally of the 3, 10, 2 contest and who is sleeping in which bed. Thankfully the saving grace is the bushy beard he has managed to grow in a relatively short time. Naturally everyone shaved last Saturday, so the official world cup beard growing contest could begin, and he all ready has a handy lead, it could be that he is a particullarly manly man, or it could be that the rest of the lads just aren't that way (or it could be that he secretly didn't shave his tour de france beard...).

Kloss- Kloss arrived on the Champs Elysee (pronounced Chumps E Lee See Aaaahh) looking and feeling great. Of course when you have travelled half way around the world in Emeriates First Class you had better be looking good. He lost immediate points in the traveller competition. He lost further points when he pulled out his Emeriates Pyjama's at the first sign of any cold conditions. He has however spent the last six weeks brooding alone in his mansion, clutching at a snifter of brandy, and working on his French. So he claimed the lead in the trousiting competition when he managed to pull out the old "Un tas de vin blanc" (I can't capture how his pronunciation sounded in words (think chainsaws)) when we couldn't get the guy at the Planet Hollywood to understand that Ness wanted a glass of the house white. Of course the fact that he was the one who wanted to go to Planet Hollywood immediatly takes some shine off his (very) small victory.

Duggan- Danny Duggan was the first to join the Messy Dayz on Tuesday morning. He had strong creditentials as a gonzo traveller when the extent of our planning for a meeting place was him sending an email from Tullermarine saying "Mate I will be there around 6:30 in two days, won't have a phone so I will try and call you" the problem was he didn't have my phone number, and I didn't know what it was to tell him. Anyways, long story short I bit the bullet and just showed up to Charles De Gaulle (pronounced CDG- we're such cool hip travellers) illegally parked the bus and went inside. It was at this point that I remembered that I didn't actually know what he looked like, and my appearance has changed significantly in the last 8 months... I do however have a sixth sense for victorians so when I saw a vanilla white corpse wandering lost threw the terminal I immediatly knew it was him. Dan has been to places all over Australia so many expected him to go well on the continet but he has been loosing points for his annecdotes about the fear on his plane trip, and his wide eyedidness (is that a word) as we walked the streets of gaye Paris.

Timmy B.T.- Why his parents decided to call him B.T. I don't know but the star winger of the Armidale United first 15 has been an instant hit in old Francois. First he managed to live through the hell that was a five take off/landings hell from Sydney to Auckland to Haiwaii to Denver to Toronto to CDG, but off course he losses points for using the Rhys Liddle Travel Agency to book his flights. He gains points for his never ending stream of strange French terms he has managed to pick up. He briefly lead the entire competition when he told Jordy Tunny that he didn't speak English (in French) the poor kid immediatly ran back to his mummy. He fell from the top rank of travellers though when he failed to bring home the bacon as my touch football partner last night.

Rhys Mentieth Liddle - Many expected him to be the drain on the entire journey. And so far he has not disapointed at all. Rhys can be summed up by a quick story about his arrival in France. First he had managed to book the Sydney/Auckland/Haiwaii/Denver/Toronto/CDG flight from hell for his companions, then he had brought a completely impractical Samuri Sword in Haiwaii (why we don't know) and then he managed to get his travel companions very lost as we went to meet them in the centre of Paris. Yes he managed to come to a strange land with no phone capabilities, yes he didn't do any research as to how to get around central Paris with heaps of luggage, but he did managed to remember that the Champs Elysse was a famous landmark so he called us and told us to meet him there. So we went to the Chumps. Now most will remember that the famous avenue is about 3 kilometres long, 12 lanes wide,with foot paths about 4 lanes wide- it was not a well thought out meeting place. He called again after an hour or so of waiting (we hadn't got there yet we were running on Rhys time ourselves) and narrowed it down to the Arc De Triumphe end of the chumps, near the Rugby store- my nerves weren't calmed but Kloss seemed confident. So we get to the top end of the chumps (having easily met up with the Tunnies on the way) and there was no Rhys, we looked into the middle of the round about, at the massive Arc, and all assured ourselves that there was no way he could possibly be over there. We stood around for a little while longer, no Rhys, Fuck It we better check' Kloss decided so we went into the middle of Arc De Triumphe, no Rhys.

The Fear and Loathing was desending fast, all of it directed at a little Harry Potter looking mother fucker who has a long history of messing up these sorts of meet ups, oh I remember the time I played hookey from school and stood on the side of the road like an escaped criminal for two hours waiting, and waiting for my escape car... it never arrived, something about getting new tires or somethign was the excuse. Anyways, we finally forked over the money to go to the very top of the Arc, convincing ourselves all the way up that there is no way he could be that stupid (it would be a hell of a climb with luggage) and we got up there, no Rhys. Finally as we stood looking out over Paris at the incredible views on hand did we spot three begraggled looking Aussies, perched on a park bench on the far side of the round about. With some arm waving and shouting we managed to get them to meet us back around at the Chumps. When we finally met B.T. and Ness were showing all the signs of a hard week spent taking off and landing, but true to form old FUC was well rested, unconcerned about the last 3 hours and ready to defend his total lack of ability to follow through on a plan.He won't be winning any awards voted on by his touring companions, but the nice thing about Rhyso is I don't believe he cares.

Ness- Ness has been left till last because she is currently the out and out leader of the best traveler competition. Many thought the chances of the lone girl in the Messy Dayz were slim, but Miss Hollis the battler from the bush has wowed us all with the casualiness of her take over of the Messy Dayz. She arrived in Paris with two suit cases, a smaller case and a hand bag. She arrived at the bus carrying her bag, so quickly had she managed to get the lads under her thrall that they were carrying her bags for her. She then proceded to quickly rearrange the carefully thought out storage solutions that yours truely had engineered during August. And finally she hit the top of the best traveller competition when she confidently commendeared the Fort Bed for herself (after some cajoling Rhys managed to get in their with her...) She has shown herself to be a deft touch at cards (except when houses are being bet) and I suspect that Danny Duggan may be a little scared of her. The coupe de grace however came last night when long into a bottle of champaigne she announced that due to her extreme western service (she is so close to the NSW border she is not sure if she is payed by the NSW or South Aus governments) that she gets some sort of mega rebate back on her holidays. So to sum up, she has taken control of the back two thirds of the bus, has two votes at her disposal whenever we have to vote on something, has at least one of the tour members scared of her, and will in all likelihood get a fair chunk of her trip payed for by her employer... There are few flies on Ness.

ALPS

I slept in this morning which was good, The reason for the Turin-lyon Border crossing as opposed to the Genova-Antibes or even Mt Blanc border crossings was that I wanted to go to visit the Alpe Du Huez, so I decided that a good sleep in would be in order to get me threw my day.

After I finally got on the road it appeared to me as if Tom Tom was having a lend, it took me off the main road and decided to send me over a couple of mountains in order to get to Bourg De Ossains (the town at the bottom of the Alpe). The going was extremely tough, the Col de Galan, or something like that, which was an incredible time, starting at around 400 metres it ended at 1924 metres in the middle of the clouds, there is nothing quite as fun as driving a 4500 kilo whale along a one lane road up and over the top of a mountain.

The Alps are part of the reason why I love France as much as I do. The scenery (when the clouds burn off) is absolutly increible, we all know I am more a beach man then a mountains man, but the scenery as I came off the top of that mountain and down into Bourg De Ossains was as close too best in show as I have ever seen.

Finally though I got out of the scenic tours business, and down to the serious part of the day. Le Bourg de Ossains is as close to Mecca as can be imagined for a cycling fan. Within around 60 kilometres of the town are probably 5 or 6 outer category climbs, including the Iseran, Roseland, and Galibrier (from this years tour), but the most important climb is the closest, the short and sharp road out of town to the town of Huez, the climb known as Le Alpe De Huez. This is one of the most famous streches of road in cycling, involving no fewer then 20 hairpin turns, basically on top of each other twist their way for 13 kilometres out of the valley up to the peak at Huez, at around 1600 metres. To give you some sort of perspective the Columbeire and Plateau de Belle (which we saw on the Tour De Fear) would struggle to have 12 hairpins between them.

Anyways, I spent an hour or so walking around the small town, checking out the many good cycling stores and lamenting the lack of internet cafes. Then I drove up the mountain, the climb is incredible, 13 kilometres of pure hell. The run upto the first hairpin alone is worse then Mt Hawthorne, which we all know is a terrible climb in its self. The entire time was an incredible trip, every inch of the road offers up a cry of wonder at the pure brutality of the climb. Each hairpin is named for one of the great winners at the top of Alpe, so every other minute your reminded of another great time in the mountains history.

I climbed up and up, the bus shreaking in agony at the strain of hauling itself up the hill, more perspective it took the Messy Dayz Express 17 minutes to get to the top of the hill, in the time trial in 04 one L Armstrong climbed the thing on a bike in around 25. Anyways, I am a bigger cycling fan know then I was before, and if there was every a place that I got the 'I will return' feeling it was here. (Of course its not true Kay you fucking retard- of course he killed his rat brother in law, he caused Sonny's death- only a women would accept that lie on face... serioulsy though, is Brando the greatest actor that ever lived? now for On the Water Front- what a night).

To close, today I saw some of the greatest sections of cycling road in the world. The Iseran and Galibrier in particular, we missed these two mountains on the Tour de Fear, I don't want to point fingers, but we all know it was Dav Rossi's fault. Just as his fingers pointed the way to Geneva, so must the finger of blame be pointed at him. Anyways, Kloss Dogg, when we come back we will have to lock this area in for a more serious visit, and no jew bastards can be allowed to ruin it.

TEST

So the last two days were supposed to be nice relaxing, easy days, after the terror that was the run across Europe I felt I deserved it. Unfortunatly they were two of the most full on days we've seen since the Tour De Fear.

The closest major town to the Italian border was Venice, so that's were I headed too first. I camped just out side of town and then caught a bus into the town and get this people the streets were made of water!

At first I shook my head at the poor town planning and went looking for the flood markers to see if it compared to Bris Vegas 79, but no, this turned out to be how they wanted it. People looked stunned at me as I stiched half a hundred inflatible boats to the undercarraige of the Messy Dayz (Yes with a Z these days) but I had the last laugh when I was cruising for hookers on the Grand Canal!

Anyways, Venice was good, they did well with the whole, no cars thing. Although the entire town could do with a coat of paint. I took a ride on a ferry, which was slow and poorly run, I mean really, if the Venice town council can't organise a Ferry what hope is there for the world? I got off my Ferry at the Rialto bridge, which was clearly ripped off from that College in Oxford and then walked to St Marco Place, which was quite a good square, although the whole encouraging people to feed the pigions I felt was a bit much, thousands of the things, I decided to nix the actual church, the line was very long, and hey I've been to St Peter's, why would I go to St Marks? After this I just walked around town a little and visited the Academia, which is where I was expecting to see Da Vinci's Versuvian (No Idea) Man - you know the scetch of a bloke, anatomically perfect... Well it wasn't there, not sure if it was in one of the rooms they had closed off for renovation, or if Wikipedia was just lying, but I didn't see the thing either way, so that was a big bust.

After I was finsihed in Venice I got in the bus intending to drive half way to Verona, the next days target, but it was only 100 clicks down the road so I was in Verona before I knew it. The reason for Verona was to attend the Verona Opera Festival so I was there in heaps of time to see the nights show, Nubucco. The show was excellent, as was the scene:

The theatre was increbile, a roman ruin/non ruin. 50 rows of seats up, the top 20 or so are the cheap seats- the orignal stone action. Guys walking around selling brews, you can picture them doing it 2000 years ago. (Need to read my libretto before dark). Right before the performance they handed out small candles. Reading the blurb it turns out that 85 years ago when they started using the amputheatre for Opera there was no electricity available, so the punters would bring along candles along in order to read their programmes. So nowdays they do it to keep the tradition going, and to help their marketing, the image as they turned the house lights off to be replaced by 2000 candles was very (sic) unique!.

No poxy warning alarms at this theatre, a girl comes on stage with a gong and gives it a solid bash. We all clap, I'm not sure why but she does generate a fair tone.

The Maestro is one of these eccentric types, wild arm and head movements, jumping up and down to set a rhythm.

Simple sets but lots of really good lighting- which I like. Large chorus so some quite powerful sections. A real no fooling horse. Interval- the folks next to me are having a lend of their daughter "There was no horse on stage!", "Did you see a horse? Where?"- Priceless.

Looks like 3 intervals/4 acts- a long night.

The fashions aren't as well to do as in Puccini fest, this is more your every mans opera fest.. God, that girl in the white dress at Tosca, Torre Del Lago... I will sleep well tonight.

Act III- Chorus was epic- crowd went nuts, demanded a do over - and got it! Power to the people baby.

Anyways, overall it was an excellent day. I slept in Verona and then headed off towards Milan the next morning.

Milan was a single target town, Da Vinci's Last Supper, considering the trouble I have had with other pieces of ancient art (didn't see the real David or Virtivean man, also missed a couple of things at the Vatican), I wasn't overly optimistic about my chances of seeing it. Anyways, I caught a train into the centre of town, and then proceded to get horribly lost, no map, and lots of rain.

Eventually the rain ended and I walked around and around, eventually seeing an interesting looking church, on a whim I wandered over to check it out- which was lucky as this turned out to be where the Last Supper was, I went into the ticket office and was concerned to see a sign saying that the only way to get in was to pre book, the loathing began to descend, thankfully the girl on the ticket desk was susceptible to a full blown dose of the A smile and she releneted and gave me a cancellation ticket if I came back in an hour.

So I did, and I got to see the Painting, which was very impressive. Now, I don't want piss of the more religous minded of our readers, but the person next to Jeebers really looks like a girl, and their is a disembodied hand...

After the big ticket item for the day way done I kept going with the whole walking around town thing, and saw a nice park, an areana, an Arc de Triumph, and a cool old Castle. It was good, I then jumped aboard the bus to head for France, and finally be done with Italy. As I headed towards the autostrada a thought occured to me that place names like Cologno and Bolognia sounded a lot like the kind of area that Monza is in...

Which is when I then saw a sign for Monza- I then started to get really excited, I took the bait and and took the turn, the racing car track was not well signed, so I started to get a little lost, but it all worked out as I finally found the track. And the afternoon got really exciting when I all of a sudden heard the sweet note of a racing car engine producing 19 000 rpm of energy.

The Monza GP is in a weeks time, and traditionally the F1 teams Test their cars in the week before the race at the track, which is what they were doing yesterday- it was very exciting, two instances of F! racing cars inside of a week- A result. It was golden, Ferrari, Mclaren, BMW, Toyota, Red Bull, Torro Rosso and Spyker where all on hand, as was a surprisingly big crowd. good times.

After the surprising bonus of seeing the F1 test I finally got on the road towards France, I decided to stop for the night when I got to France, which turned out to harder then I thought, as just west of the Border a toll booth stoll my Amex card...

You can imagine the scene, I drove into the toll booth and went to put my card in the reader, the person in front of me was acting funny, and all of sudden my card would not come back to me. I thought I was going to get the Sonny Corleone treatment for a minute, but thankfully all I lost was my card.

Still thougth, as my bookkeeper will attest my financial situation is a little on the dire side (lousy no where in Greece accepting AMEX) so the loss of the AMEX credit hurt hard, I battled against the urge to begin throwing Molatov cocktails all over the place, dealt with the AMEX people and then fucked the hell out of Italy so I could finally relax again in the more civilised France.

The last part of the story involves a very, very long tunnel, 12.8 KM's in fact (and 35 Euro's worth of paege) Anyways, I finally re-entered my third favorite country and this trip got back on track.