20/06
07:00 Arrive Sydney Airport, no k panic buy sim K shows up finally with r+s
09:00 chez k Penshurst
12:30 k drives to Potts Point via scenic route to Victoria Court Hotel, heavens open
I have kidney problem get out go to pub get lost in Sydney somewhere without money passport or anything
1900 have pizza on McLeay the street behind Hotel
21/06
10:00 walk to St Marys Cathedral off Williams St
11:00 on monorail, via Pitt St to Circular Quay
12:00 waiting at Circular Quay, near The Rocks, K and s arrive 12:30 had lunch on the other side nearer Opera house, S wants ice cream, drizzle starts find 320 buses go back to Kings Cross
22/06
11:00 To Hyde Park off Williams St, lunch in Italian in the park then walk back
23/06
09:30 Australian Museum College St, lunch before taking bus back
19:00-22:00 Italian just across the road on Victoria St, chat with owner for a couple of hours have marguerites
24/06
10:00 Darling Harbour Harbourside, walked via stairs to cathedral saw art gallery, to Strand arcade, city centre monorail to Harbourside, had channa bhatura, walk back to Elizabeth St then bus back
17:00 Pizza on McLeay
25/06
10:00 waiting for k at Victoria Court
11:00 off to Bondi Beach via train to Bondi Juction then 380 bus, sunny small beach with surfers, cold water. Had falafals for lunch and ice tea, then bus back to Bondi Juction to mall , brought quince in Coles and took train back to Sydney
26/06
09:55 Train to Penshurst, got out wrong exit totally lost, then asked local and pointed in right direction
12:00 Driven to Cronulla by K, I navigated as k got lost
12:30 walked along beach then back and lunch at Alley Bay Café
16:00 back in Penshurst
18:30 train back to Kings Cross, brought some lamingtons and baklava
27/08
09:30 To Town Hall by train
10:00 found toe shoes for Mriga in Mountaining Shop
11:00-13:10 waiting for K+s+r had tea and coffee and yoghurt
13:10 Lunch at Indian at Harbourside
14:30 Australian Wildlife Darling Harbour
17:00 sit down at Aquarium, tea chatting
18:30 train back from Town hall, k naughty smiling and waving back for Pizza on Victoria St
28/06
10:00 pick up car from avis William st
11:00 on way to Wollongong
13:00 lunch brought from woollies in Nowra
16:00 get to Murramarang National Park resort, second row from beach chalet, 2 bedrooms dining area small kitchenette, had tea on deck, walk along beach with kangaroos, diner at Skippy café
29/06
09:30 Breakfast at skippy café with kookaburra
10:30 to Batesman Bay and Batehaven walked around the marina, then drove to Batehaven, walked on beach and saw dolphins, eat a huge load of chips and we fighting off nasty sea gulls
15:00 walk through the woods above the resort, saw mad surfer in the sea
19:00 dinner at Skippy café
30/06
10:00 nearly ran over two kangaroo who just appeared then went off to Murramarang point along the beach saw pods of dolphins on the way back
13:00 Lunch in Narooma, falafel wrap and nachos nice coastal scenery, onto Tilba Tilba, brought cheese and ice cream.
16:00 Merimbula very lost went to Police station they sent us to the other Best Western in Town, it’s the one down by the airport we finally discover.
19:00 dinner at Wheelers a fish restaurant
01/07
08:30 fill up with petrol on route to Victoria state then to Pambula Brought milk and yoghurt and found kangaroos there walked along the beach
11:00 Eden to Genoa
11:45 Lunch in Mallacoota walked round the wharf, with pelicans then lunch falafels and veggie burger and chips
12:45 to Orbost
14:30 Mriga drove found Metung first time
19:00 Pizza across the road with salad and white sparking wine
02/07
09:00 brought milk porridge and honey and yoghurt from store for breakfast
12:30 Port Albert , had lunch flake and flathead and chips, and saw one legged sea gull
15:00 on Phillip island, to koala sanctuary, saw koalas from boardwalk and it rained and rained
16:00 found Holmwood guesthouse in Cowes, had tea chatted with Eric the owner
16:30 off to Penguin Parade, still raining, went down to beach at 17:45, sat on wet benches, freezing winds, penguins were late, tiny floating in the surf, walked back up to the centre and caught them socializing before diving into their burrows
18:30 Tex mex meal in Cowes, still raining
03/07
09:30 to the Nobbies after breakfast, no seals at all very very windy rough seas
10:30 swan lake car park see wallaby
10:40 Giant Worm of Gippsland Australian Wildland, wombats emas dingos kangras parrots wallabys koalas Mriga tames kangaroo
12:30 Lunch Morrington barramundi and chips
13:00 Neapen Highway to Melbourne
15:30 arrive Radisson in Melbourne
17:30 Dinner at Melbourne Central mall, got lost on way back were going further away
04/07
09:30 QVM loads of fruit and veg brought cheese and walnuts and wasabi peas
11:30 both Pauls lower arms swelled up
18:34 on free tram around Melbourne at night
05/07
10:00 to Melbourne museum by tram massive queue went to Eureka Skydeck south of the Yarra 88 stories in 38 seconds, good views, Mriga wee’d in tallest toilets in Southern Hemisphere. Lunch in Italian outside on south bank, took tram back from Flinders station.
18:30 to Crown Casino with Ranjit and Hruna, then Italian meal on Southbank
06/07
10:00 getting lost in central Melbourne, couldn’t turn right or left went round a few times then down a street with a tram coming towards us and police car did a 3 point turn out of it, finally onto M1 and off to Geelong and Great Ocean Road, stopped for road maps in Torquay, stopped at Point Roadknight beach tres boring, then onto Split Point near Airley’s Inlet, saw light house and had cakes at the shop, then back via central Geelong rained on and off all day
19:00 dinner across Flagstaff Gardens Indian they didn’t really want to sell anything a biryani place
Numerous possums on the way back through the park
07/07
10:00 QVM buying biscuits and flowers found Davidson plums and blood limes
12:00 went to Harbourside then came back
15:45 to Templestowe by bus 301, to The Pines, found Ranjit and Hruna in carpark as mall closed, chatted had nice meal and we driven back into Melbourne
08/07
08:20 gave car back to avis
10:00 Dali Exhibition Liquid Desire, few good painting nice jewellery, also saw movie destino, got catalogue
12:00 lunch on Southbank, chips brushetta expensive
14:00 Lightening Ridge Flinders Lane opals, saw opals cut polished, black opals £8000 a carat, got bracelet and earrings. Mriga played with lizards and snakes
1900 dinner downstairs in Radisson
09/07
10:00 uploading photographs in Radisson
12:00 Brought Lunch at QVM cheese and bread
19:00 eat down stairs at Radisson
10/07
10:30 taxi to Melbourne airport
13:45 landed, by train to hotel in Sydney arrived 15:00
19:00 Indian meal on McLeay
11/07
10:30 QVB wandered around and had lunch
13:30 up Centrepoint Tower
19:00 Guzmen y Gomez Mexican in Kings Cross then brought some lamingtons
12/07
10:00 to Circular Quay, got to opera house then realise no spare camera film, went back to hotel and came back for lunch.
13:00 off whaling saw 4 humpbacks and a dolphin 3m swells the camera tried to break itself
18:00 Guzmen y Gomez again
13/07
10:22 off to Watson Bay, wandered around the Gap, Lunch at Doyle’s
16:00 Silly sulphur Cockatoos in trees in Victoria St, it thought it was a fruit bat
18:00 Mexican Tomatillo in Kings Cross. food was so mescal was good
14/07
10:00 walked to Elizabeth Bay, helped Bryon’s Mother post packages
13:00 down steps to Woolloomooloo wharf Indian food at Ari’s
18:00 brought custard apples and fruit had yoghurt
15/07
09:45 Art Gallery of NSW good Buddhist items and some native Australian paintings but not wonderful had some cakes and Devon scones ambled back via St Marys and 324 bus
18:30 Malabar further down Victoria St beyond William St Had Dosa rasam and lassi
16/07
10:00 To Aquarium via numerous banks trying to change money
11:50 Aquarium K+s+r show up 10 minutes early see sharks fishes dugongs really good
15:45 eat Indian at Harbourside k give me glass platypus
18:00 pizza kings cross
17/07
13:00 to Penshurst by train, then k drives to Hurstville, Coles I lose everyone s has beef to eat we have milk shakes, cook with k, go out with k to return dvd and buy some wine
21:00 back in Kings cross
18/07
08:00 no trains so get taxi to Penshurst arrive 08:05!
09:00 leave for Blue Mountains k driving
10:00 Wentworth Falls
Leura cascades
Echo point
13:00 lunch Katoomba
15:00 skydeck ride
19:30 dropped off in Beverly Hills take train back and then bus to Kings cross
20:30 Guzman y Gomez
19/07
10:00 The rocks, to the market, coffee festival millions of people, buy chilli wine, Italian lunch just near Sydney harbour bridge
16:30 k is coming over, comes to hotel, chat
19:30 dinner at Malabar Kings cross dosas
20/07
10:00 we check out K picks us up and we go back via Lilyfield after picking up r, to Penshurst
chat and then cook and eat
18:30 to Sydney airport k driving, s+r eat chicken
21:15 ek413 to Dubai 14 hour flight
21/07
05:30 land Dubai
07:45 take off for London
12:25 land in London its raining
Monday, 3 August 2009
Saturday, 18 April 2009
Jamaica
We went there on Honeymoon but it was just like coming home.
The nice people on the British Airways flight told us to reclaim our bagged as we left the plane in Miami, then changed their minds and said wait in the transit terminal. So we did, thinking this was strange, the flight was announced and then it said gate closing, we started saying what was happening, then someone from Air Jamaica appeared gave us all hand written boarding passes and said run this way, we ran straight onto the plane.
The flight was like a bus trip, a man was trying to put a large suitcase in the overhead storage tried every options rotating by 90 degrees each time and then a stewardess comes running up to him and grabs it gives him a look and runs off with it he just sat down.
There was an amazing purple orange sunset over Cuba.
Flew in from Miami to Norman Manley International, Kingston, Jamaica and all passengers who changed flights lost their bags it was Christmas Eve.
No bags fighting for a bit then chilled, we could not see the pictures of the bags they would not let use get within 30 feet of them, filled in a form and hoped. Then off to downtown Kingston, no windows but grills and off to sleep. Then Shelley's dad shows up and says they are going up country now. Might be coming back on Thursday! We are helpfully told and look rather lost at each other.
I will never travel with just only a Dundee cake in my hand luggage again!
We are left to fend for ourselves i try and calling my brothers godfather get the wrong
number and leave a message on an answer phone, latter we discover he does not have an answer phone, there must have been a very confused Jamaican listening to that call. We call Betty the only other person I knew in Kingston she says come over thank god.
Next morning wake UK time and there are bars between the floors, we want to go home. Cannot get anything to drink Betty gets up after a few hours and we have something to eat. Uncle Lennie arrives.
Call the airport they have the bags. We will go there says Uncle Lennie after one stop.
We have to go via a do, turns out to be in Chelsea Gardens, everyone dressed to
the nines, Editor of the Gleaner, Olympics Stars, and so on given a egg nog more than 100% rum do we want food there pork!, managed to hide the cup, and given another..... by 10am out of it.
Down to the airport, find bags Uncle Lennie goes missing…
Lunch, and i am given a glass of white rum, i drink it.... Christmas was Lunch was fun
No one said much Auntie Mavis was being her usual self.
I don’t remember after thing after that suppose I passed out at 3pm?
We stayed at 22 Gibson Drive over Christmas, trying to escape but everything is
closed. Do manage to hangout at the pool bar at the Sheraton and Devon House.
Eating amazing ice creams and drinking coffee well I did.
I felt safe out in Mona up by the University but didn’t want to go into Barbican which was just down the road. You could hear the M45 rounds at night. The comforting radio the next morning told us all about who was shot and died last night.
After much searching of the Yellow Pages we found someone who actually found someone who picked up the telephone, so we organised a trip to Port Antonio. We went river rafting on bamboo boats and got drowned, heavens opened. We had to buy clothes we were so wet.
On the way back i could feel a low level sound vibrating through my feet, even though I was in a minibus, it was a mobile sound system mixing desk on handle bars and speakers everywhere on a push bike. I was truly impressed.
We had seen this car in the middle of the garden and one day asked whose it was and was told it was Angela’s. We were allowed to borrow it, each time you put it into gear, it jumped out but it kept going so we drove off to the beaches at Hellshire and had salt fish and bammy and exchange money.
Waited till 3:02 and the heavens would open up. Trying in vain to drive the window screen wipers were even less than bald, easier to wipe the screen with a hand, but we stopped and gave up waiting for the downpour to end. Navigating with a 1972 map was impossible the area had been built up so we stopped at a petrol station and brought the most up to date map.
Taken via numerous stops at one point there is a traffic jam, Uncle Lennie speeds up and goes down the wrong side of the road straight into a police road block, he just gets out and shakes the hand of the inspector in charge and chats, latter he mentions my wife taught him in school and I am a Justice of the Peace. No need to worry then. We spot a train and he stops. Uncle Lennie said he better ask for directions but his stops were actually run refuelling stops for him, he never asked me if wanted any more after Christmas Day. We pick up some of his friends from a gambling den and this strange woman, in high heels and make up, she whinges on for ages wanting to drop us off in the middle of nowhere, but in the end we are dropped off in Spur Tree asking for Livvy Brown the Teacher, no one knows him as that, but some helpful local says that everyone has gone to church and will be back in a while, there are some Browns down the road, so we go there and find Auntie Winnie, she tells us that Uncle Livvy has been looking for us and why didn’t we send a telegram, because we didn’t know they still had telegrams, later Uncle Livvy comes home and says locals know him as Livvy Brown of the Rent Board; he works there in Mandeville.
We stay in Spur Tree for a while and then are dropped off at Williamsfield; the railway line ran from Kingston to Montego Bay, but the line was single track and the only passing place was at Williamsfield.
An interesting journey back to Kingston, the train would stop at halts and stations, people would get on sell things, we could not make out what it was, packet covered in plastic, they would cut it open and put yellow shape in it. When they got closer to ask we asked it was? a Jamaican bread roll (like a current bun) but more spicy and cheese was the yellow form we had seen being put into it. The train continued it journey into Kingston more stops and less and less people, then we arrived in Kingston station, no lights it was very scary, everyone as a group bunched together and moved on masse down to the Post Office square and agreed to whatever the taxi drivers said, usually it was $10 back they said $40 I said okay. Just did not want to be there.
We had finally found a rental car, and went there one afternoon and said we would pick it up tomorrow morning at 9am, but by midday they said they were still servicing it, and suggested we go for lunch come back at 2pm, we came back at 1:30pm we could see a red car with it wheels off, but 4pm it was ready, we were given it with the engine running I should have thought that was strange, it was an automatic I had never driven one, we drove off hoping to get the Spur Tree hoping to get there before it got dark, due to no lights on the roads outside the towns. I happened to look at the fuel gauge and it was almost empty so we filled it up ourselves no point going back and complaining probably take another day refuelling it. I couldn’t start it, helpfully the people at the garage told us how to start it and off we drove to Spur Tree arrive just before it got too dark. But not before cutting up a police jeep, I mention they have guns and the wife shows them two fingers must have thought local. You do not want to the local women mad!
The Browns were so nice. After dinner we watched a thunderstorm goes below us down the valley and the fireflies light up the darkness.
We travelled went of via Savannah la Mar and saw a sign mentioning cow penis soup, onward to Negril with 7 miles of white sand, reading the menu by the street light and the locals tried to by my wife. I was just offered women and ganja daily on the beach.
In Negril we want to make a phone called the only public phone was out of order, so we tried shops and finally ended up in a all in resort, for $20 local they allowed us to make a call, dialled the number and realised it was local not international, still charged us $20, local calls were free.
We went to the Post Office in Negril, there were three women behind the counter, chatting and not bothered by us waiting, I had been told what you have to do is go up to the counter and bang your fist down and say stamp, I was give a stamp and paid for it and the women returned to their conversation.
Arriving back in Spur Tree, the left wing mirror explodes and fires itself straight through the window screen and it shatters and falls in on us, i realise what is happening and think turn right as there is a 1000ft drop in front of us. The next day I wandered around Mandeville, trying to buy a window screen, in the end I brought one and replaced it, the guys in the garage would lift the bonnet and just say Shit, i just smiled.
From Spur Tree, we ventured over the Cockpit country to Brownstown and to Discovery Bay, at Brownstown there was this sign post point in 5 different directions all to Discovery Bay, we were confused and asked some local women who were standing there they said they were waiting for the bus to go there and we said we are going to meet some friends there and offered them a lift, being Sunday we thought it was only the right thing to do. They did take us directly to our friends (Muriel Lynch (Rackham) and daughter) and we drop them off and thanked them.
We stay in Shelley’s Friends Hotel in Runaway Bay, the bed is huge, lying on the bed lying stretched out we could not touch each other let alone the edge. It over looked the sea. We chat to some Canadians at the bar, turns out later they were about to rip off the hotel. We just think why some people are so mean! They do not give Mriga a full glass of rum and she spends the night diluting it with coke.
Go boating inside the Runaway Bay caves, very strange
Ocho Rios is where the big liners do Jamaica in an afternoon. And Dunns River Falls
as featured in Doctor No. The freezing water of the falls goes out into the sea, it is worth climbing up.
We liked living into any small town with a Welsh sounding name and taking a picture of the Post Office for my dad as he wanted them, we would speed in suddenly stop and speed off , sometimes we would get shouted out by locals thinking we were from the other political party, and election was due. Malcolm Manley about to come back into power when we were there, the pro American Edward Seaga was supposed to make a call for the election but said nothing and even stopped the chefs from cooking when we were in Negril.
The car was getting worse, but we managed the pass a Toyota Minibus as it hit a huge pot hole in the road, just by Firefly where Ian Fleming used to live. These buses would come out of nowhere at very high speed and music pouring out of the windows.
The next day I thought what that on the ground the brake fluid was leaking everywhere,
We got that filled up, the brakes had been getting squashy, checking the break fluid, they found that the transmission fluid was almost all gone too. Winding our way through the Cockpit Country we often had to use the brakes on hairpin bends, but we were finding the car was cutting out when you touched the brakes, we didn’t not feel safe at all.
We glided in to Spalding with no power as the engine had died and stopped at a garage topping up all brake fluids and transmission it was leaking like it was going out of style. I wanted something to drink so went into a shop, the woman behind the counter was having a screaming row with this man, I just stood there and waited, I learnt that he had been gambling last night and was trying to run off with out playing his debt, the woman in the shop wanted to be paid before he disappeared to American.
20 Minutes later he paid up and she apologised to me why? It turned out I was just polite did not say anything just waited my turn unlike the Americans I was told, I brought my drinks and returned my bottles later.
We were honestly getting a little bit worried about the car and thought it might be best to give it back, so we drove back to Kingston, but had to stay somewhere else as we could not find anyone at 22 Gibson drive.
The hotel was strange, all the walls were covered in dark wood, we had a meal, a egg cup full of boiled rice, a few carrots a boiled potatoes and tomato sauce. This was supposed to be the vegetation option!
We returned the car and thought no more about it. But thinking about it changed minds
And when back, to discover they had encashed the security deposit they never told us when we called up and told them about the window screen. We paid for the window screen and got it fitted we never asked them for money, they would not pay us back either. We had an interesting morning debating the fact of a so called road worthy car with them, in the end they refunded use some money (just one day hire and petrol) and we had to help the poor girl who was trying to refund us as she could not swipe the card correctly. They would not shift on the security deposit, so we ended saying we would stop it, they claimed we could not say that. I managed to freeze that on my card took me some 18 months to sort out no help from Visa who did manage to give me back 10% at one stage as they divided instead of multiplying.
I think the only place we found it easy to eat vegetarian food was at a shop run by Rastafarian Women, lovely spicy patties.
Everything in the shops was imported after Hurricane Gilbert almost destroyed the island, all the chickens were blown away and there were hardly a top to the palm trees that remained. The banana crop failed. It was a bad time for the island; you could not buy Blue Mountain coffee.
I loved the place, the locals would speak to my wife and i would have to explain what they were saying, once i said anything, people's attitude would change i was not American or Canadian. I was asked about my Guardian T-shirt was it the South Carolina Guardian? No the Manchester Guardian I replied, lost on Americans.
Went to Bob Marley's at 284 Old Hope Road, sitting in the kitchen with the people, being told Bob never smoked grass, i gestured to my wife its growing outside the door! Found a ticket stub to the first ever concert i went to in 1976 first ever Rastaman Vibration Tour in Bristol on the wall of an upstairs room.
At 5am Uncle Lennie would always return from a night with Mrs Williams his friend and undertook his daily task watering the lawn with a hose in one hand and a glass of pure white rum in the other, the mosquitoes loved there morning soaking and sampled the poor tourists continuously day and night.
We arrived early at the airport, checked in seconds, Air Jamaica had lost their computer system and said they would try their best to get some vegetarian meal, they did. So unlike British Airways; who failed with ten months notice!
We found doors open beyond the security checks you could have walked out with no problem. The customs guys thought we were carrying a block of ganja but it was a chopping board, had 7 bottles of rum so over the limit, on the flight to Miami via Montego Bay, the man next to me told me about Shelley’s dad one of Seaga’s men, we were wise to avoid him. At Montego Bay Airport we saw so many light planes still hanging from trees.
I got a hard wood walking stick in Jamaica, in Miami airport, the guards with guns stayed away from me why?
The nice people on the British Airways flight told us to reclaim our bagged as we left the plane in Miami, then changed their minds and said wait in the transit terminal. So we did, thinking this was strange, the flight was announced and then it said gate closing, we started saying what was happening, then someone from Air Jamaica appeared gave us all hand written boarding passes and said run this way, we ran straight onto the plane.
The flight was like a bus trip, a man was trying to put a large suitcase in the overhead storage tried every options rotating by 90 degrees each time and then a stewardess comes running up to him and grabs it gives him a look and runs off with it he just sat down.
There was an amazing purple orange sunset over Cuba.
Flew in from Miami to Norman Manley International, Kingston, Jamaica and all passengers who changed flights lost their bags it was Christmas Eve.
No bags fighting for a bit then chilled, we could not see the pictures of the bags they would not let use get within 30 feet of them, filled in a form and hoped. Then off to downtown Kingston, no windows but grills and off to sleep. Then Shelley's dad shows up and says they are going up country now. Might be coming back on Thursday! We are helpfully told and look rather lost at each other.
I will never travel with just only a Dundee cake in my hand luggage again!
We are left to fend for ourselves i try and calling my brothers godfather get the wrong
number and leave a message on an answer phone, latter we discover he does not have an answer phone, there must have been a very confused Jamaican listening to that call. We call Betty the only other person I knew in Kingston she says come over thank god.
Next morning wake UK time and there are bars between the floors, we want to go home. Cannot get anything to drink Betty gets up after a few hours and we have something to eat. Uncle Lennie arrives.
Call the airport they have the bags. We will go there says Uncle Lennie after one stop.
We have to go via a do, turns out to be in Chelsea Gardens, everyone dressed to
the nines, Editor of the Gleaner, Olympics Stars, and so on given a egg nog more than 100% rum do we want food there pork!, managed to hide the cup, and given another..... by 10am out of it.
Down to the airport, find bags Uncle Lennie goes missing…
Lunch, and i am given a glass of white rum, i drink it.... Christmas was Lunch was fun
No one said much Auntie Mavis was being her usual self.
I don’t remember after thing after that suppose I passed out at 3pm?
We stayed at 22 Gibson Drive over Christmas, trying to escape but everything is
closed. Do manage to hangout at the pool bar at the Sheraton and Devon House.
Eating amazing ice creams and drinking coffee well I did.
I felt safe out in Mona up by the University but didn’t want to go into Barbican which was just down the road. You could hear the M45 rounds at night. The comforting radio the next morning told us all about who was shot and died last night.
After much searching of the Yellow Pages we found someone who actually found someone who picked up the telephone, so we organised a trip to Port Antonio. We went river rafting on bamboo boats and got drowned, heavens opened. We had to buy clothes we were so wet.
On the way back i could feel a low level sound vibrating through my feet, even though I was in a minibus, it was a mobile sound system mixing desk on handle bars and speakers everywhere on a push bike. I was truly impressed.
We had seen this car in the middle of the garden and one day asked whose it was and was told it was Angela’s. We were allowed to borrow it, each time you put it into gear, it jumped out but it kept going so we drove off to the beaches at Hellshire and had salt fish and bammy and exchange money.
Waited till 3:02 and the heavens would open up. Trying in vain to drive the window screen wipers were even less than bald, easier to wipe the screen with a hand, but we stopped and gave up waiting for the downpour to end. Navigating with a 1972 map was impossible the area had been built up so we stopped at a petrol station and brought the most up to date map.
Taken via numerous stops at one point there is a traffic jam, Uncle Lennie speeds up and goes down the wrong side of the road straight into a police road block, he just gets out and shakes the hand of the inspector in charge and chats, latter he mentions my wife taught him in school and I am a Justice of the Peace. No need to worry then. We spot a train and he stops. Uncle Lennie said he better ask for directions but his stops were actually run refuelling stops for him, he never asked me if wanted any more after Christmas Day. We pick up some of his friends from a gambling den and this strange woman, in high heels and make up, she whinges on for ages wanting to drop us off in the middle of nowhere, but in the end we are dropped off in Spur Tree asking for Livvy Brown the Teacher, no one knows him as that, but some helpful local says that everyone has gone to church and will be back in a while, there are some Browns down the road, so we go there and find Auntie Winnie, she tells us that Uncle Livvy has been looking for us and why didn’t we send a telegram, because we didn’t know they still had telegrams, later Uncle Livvy comes home and says locals know him as Livvy Brown of the Rent Board; he works there in Mandeville.
We stay in Spur Tree for a while and then are dropped off at Williamsfield; the railway line ran from Kingston to Montego Bay, but the line was single track and the only passing place was at Williamsfield.
An interesting journey back to Kingston, the train would stop at halts and stations, people would get on sell things, we could not make out what it was, packet covered in plastic, they would cut it open and put yellow shape in it. When they got closer to ask we asked it was? a Jamaican bread roll (like a current bun) but more spicy and cheese was the yellow form we had seen being put into it. The train continued it journey into Kingston more stops and less and less people, then we arrived in Kingston station, no lights it was very scary, everyone as a group bunched together and moved on masse down to the Post Office square and agreed to whatever the taxi drivers said, usually it was $10 back they said $40 I said okay. Just did not want to be there.
We had finally found a rental car, and went there one afternoon and said we would pick it up tomorrow morning at 9am, but by midday they said they were still servicing it, and suggested we go for lunch come back at 2pm, we came back at 1:30pm we could see a red car with it wheels off, but 4pm it was ready, we were given it with the engine running I should have thought that was strange, it was an automatic I had never driven one, we drove off hoping to get the Spur Tree hoping to get there before it got dark, due to no lights on the roads outside the towns. I happened to look at the fuel gauge and it was almost empty so we filled it up ourselves no point going back and complaining probably take another day refuelling it. I couldn’t start it, helpfully the people at the garage told us how to start it and off we drove to Spur Tree arrive just before it got too dark. But not before cutting up a police jeep, I mention they have guns and the wife shows them two fingers must have thought local. You do not want to the local women mad!
The Browns were so nice. After dinner we watched a thunderstorm goes below us down the valley and the fireflies light up the darkness.
We travelled went of via Savannah la Mar and saw a sign mentioning cow penis soup, onward to Negril with 7 miles of white sand, reading the menu by the street light and the locals tried to by my wife. I was just offered women and ganja daily on the beach.
In Negril we want to make a phone called the only public phone was out of order, so we tried shops and finally ended up in a all in resort, for $20 local they allowed us to make a call, dialled the number and realised it was local not international, still charged us $20, local calls were free.
We went to the Post Office in Negril, there were three women behind the counter, chatting and not bothered by us waiting, I had been told what you have to do is go up to the counter and bang your fist down and say stamp, I was give a stamp and paid for it and the women returned to their conversation.
Arriving back in Spur Tree, the left wing mirror explodes and fires itself straight through the window screen and it shatters and falls in on us, i realise what is happening and think turn right as there is a 1000ft drop in front of us. The next day I wandered around Mandeville, trying to buy a window screen, in the end I brought one and replaced it, the guys in the garage would lift the bonnet and just say Shit, i just smiled.
From Spur Tree, we ventured over the Cockpit country to Brownstown and to Discovery Bay, at Brownstown there was this sign post point in 5 different directions all to Discovery Bay, we were confused and asked some local women who were standing there they said they were waiting for the bus to go there and we said we are going to meet some friends there and offered them a lift, being Sunday we thought it was only the right thing to do. They did take us directly to our friends (Muriel Lynch (Rackham) and daughter) and we drop them off and thanked them.
We stay in Shelley’s Friends Hotel in Runaway Bay, the bed is huge, lying on the bed lying stretched out we could not touch each other let alone the edge. It over looked the sea. We chat to some Canadians at the bar, turns out later they were about to rip off the hotel. We just think why some people are so mean! They do not give Mriga a full glass of rum and she spends the night diluting it with coke.
Go boating inside the Runaway Bay caves, very strange
Ocho Rios is where the big liners do Jamaica in an afternoon. And Dunns River Falls
as featured in Doctor No. The freezing water of the falls goes out into the sea, it is worth climbing up.
We liked living into any small town with a Welsh sounding name and taking a picture of the Post Office for my dad as he wanted them, we would speed in suddenly stop and speed off , sometimes we would get shouted out by locals thinking we were from the other political party, and election was due. Malcolm Manley about to come back into power when we were there, the pro American Edward Seaga was supposed to make a call for the election but said nothing and even stopped the chefs from cooking when we were in Negril.
The car was getting worse, but we managed the pass a Toyota Minibus as it hit a huge pot hole in the road, just by Firefly where Ian Fleming used to live. These buses would come out of nowhere at very high speed and music pouring out of the windows.
The next day I thought what that on the ground the brake fluid was leaking everywhere,
We got that filled up, the brakes had been getting squashy, checking the break fluid, they found that the transmission fluid was almost all gone too. Winding our way through the Cockpit Country we often had to use the brakes on hairpin bends, but we were finding the car was cutting out when you touched the brakes, we didn’t not feel safe at all.
We glided in to Spalding with no power as the engine had died and stopped at a garage topping up all brake fluids and transmission it was leaking like it was going out of style. I wanted something to drink so went into a shop, the woman behind the counter was having a screaming row with this man, I just stood there and waited, I learnt that he had been gambling last night and was trying to run off with out playing his debt, the woman in the shop wanted to be paid before he disappeared to American.
20 Minutes later he paid up and she apologised to me why? It turned out I was just polite did not say anything just waited my turn unlike the Americans I was told, I brought my drinks and returned my bottles later.
We were honestly getting a little bit worried about the car and thought it might be best to give it back, so we drove back to Kingston, but had to stay somewhere else as we could not find anyone at 22 Gibson drive.
The hotel was strange, all the walls were covered in dark wood, we had a meal, a egg cup full of boiled rice, a few carrots a boiled potatoes and tomato sauce. This was supposed to be the vegetation option!
We returned the car and thought no more about it. But thinking about it changed minds
And when back, to discover they had encashed the security deposit they never told us when we called up and told them about the window screen. We paid for the window screen and got it fitted we never asked them for money, they would not pay us back either. We had an interesting morning debating the fact of a so called road worthy car with them, in the end they refunded use some money (just one day hire and petrol) and we had to help the poor girl who was trying to refund us as she could not swipe the card correctly. They would not shift on the security deposit, so we ended saying we would stop it, they claimed we could not say that. I managed to freeze that on my card took me some 18 months to sort out no help from Visa who did manage to give me back 10% at one stage as they divided instead of multiplying.
I think the only place we found it easy to eat vegetarian food was at a shop run by Rastafarian Women, lovely spicy patties.
Everything in the shops was imported after Hurricane Gilbert almost destroyed the island, all the chickens were blown away and there were hardly a top to the palm trees that remained. The banana crop failed. It was a bad time for the island; you could not buy Blue Mountain coffee.
I loved the place, the locals would speak to my wife and i would have to explain what they were saying, once i said anything, people's attitude would change i was not American or Canadian. I was asked about my Guardian T-shirt was it the South Carolina Guardian? No the Manchester Guardian I replied, lost on Americans.
Went to Bob Marley's at 284 Old Hope Road, sitting in the kitchen with the people, being told Bob never smoked grass, i gestured to my wife its growing outside the door! Found a ticket stub to the first ever concert i went to in 1976 first ever Rastaman Vibration Tour in Bristol on the wall of an upstairs room.
At 5am Uncle Lennie would always return from a night with Mrs Williams his friend and undertook his daily task watering the lawn with a hose in one hand and a glass of pure white rum in the other, the mosquitoes loved there morning soaking and sampled the poor tourists continuously day and night.
We arrived early at the airport, checked in seconds, Air Jamaica had lost their computer system and said they would try their best to get some vegetarian meal, they did. So unlike British Airways; who failed with ten months notice!
We found doors open beyond the security checks you could have walked out with no problem. The customs guys thought we were carrying a block of ganja but it was a chopping board, had 7 bottles of rum so over the limit, on the flight to Miami via Montego Bay, the man next to me told me about Shelley’s dad one of Seaga’s men, we were wise to avoid him. At Montego Bay Airport we saw so many light planes still hanging from trees.
I got a hard wood walking stick in Jamaica, in Miami airport, the guards with guns stayed away from me why?
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