There and Back Again: Return of the Bogan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XESF2D76Tug

Above is a link to the movie Best bits of Australia

So here it is the Australian review, the blockbuster, the knockout punch, the lamington slice of all blogs so sit back relax and enjoy as I swing through and cut Australia apart for all to see. Since Feb I have travelled around by car covered over 20,000 kilometres entertained 9 different passengers, hit every mainland state, seen terrains change from desert to rainforest to rolling green hills, killed two birds and seen countless kangaroos (mainly road kill) so now comes the time to give you an overview but reading through my past blogs I have been unjust on some parts of Australia so hopefully this Australia in a nutshell blog should give a less biased scrutiny and a more mature observation so here goes -

My view of this country was somewhat hazy before I got here but I had this fictitious perception of Australia believing that Kangaroos roam the street letting people know Timmy had fallen down an old mine shaft, Crocodile Dundee was in every bar with his friend Donk, Koalas drop from the trees and attack tourists, everyone is like Steve Irwin, they all carry big knives, they are all sport mad or surf and there is nothing but desert all around teaming with creatures that will kill, maim, or cause agonising pain within 15 seconds of encountering them. I couldn’t have been further from the truth, it was much worse!

Yes, Australians love their sport. Don’t come between a mullet and his footie, it could get ugly. Just to educate you in case you’re not Aussie, there are lots of types of sporting relief one can get when down under. If you wear your hair in a mullet, wear a singlet and have any sort of Australian oriented tattoo anywhere on your person and drink VB and/or Bundy (Rum) and coke, preferably at the same time, then footie* may well be the sport for you.

(This is turning into more coconut shell than nutshell but I will write on….)

*Whatever you do, don’t confuse footie with soccer, if you’re from the UK, and don’t call footie rugby, because Rugby Union is Rugby, not Rugby League. Then of course there’s Aussie Rules (AFL), which, some say was brought over by those drunken Irish convicts and is a strange combination of footie, rugby and soccer. Others believe it has its roots in Aboriginal football, whilst there are some who say it was simply derived from soccer. It is, as those who have seen a game, very similar to Gaelic football and also the Irish sport of hurling. So similar is it to Gaelic football that, a match is held every year between Australia and Ireland, known as International Rules Football. Post match drinking competitions are taken just as seriously as the game itself, with both sides of the world trying to beat the other. Aussie rules as I can work out basically stands for – no rules! Hit, punch, preferably whilst flying through the air, as hard as you can. This is all done on an oval pitch and has just as many officials on the pitch as players. The AFL stars are closely related to the UK soccer stars in the fact that they are both frequently in the tabloids more for antics that happen off the pitch than on, whether it be rape, drug over dosing or taking photos of models coming out the bathroom, certainly the best role models for the youth of Australia.

Next we come to cricket, which has been described by some all as one of the most boring spectator sports there is, sharing the paint drying category with lawn bowls, golf and curling. The only way to overcome this boredom is to add beer, copious amounts of beer. I reckon at least 1 case per woman and 2 ½ per man should almost be enough to get you through a day watching a test match or 20/20 game. For those of you not familiar with the game its pace is comparable to a sloth. So slow, the game’s commentators, in order to stop themselves from nodding off need to commentate both on-field and off-field occurrences, even if they are not really part of the game. They will count airplanes, point out the technique of copulating pigeons, the speed and agility of the streakers (there is a least one at every cricket game held in Australia). The modern day hero of Aussie cricket is Shane Warne, but unfortunately he decided to give up cricket because the time spent both playing and training started to infringe on his main love – texting. Not only this, his bowling technique started to be adversely affected when humungous calluses started to form on his texting thumbs, a choice had to be made, so he decided to continue speed texting and give up speed bowling. Let’s just hope he has enough money tucked away to cover his monthly phone bills or he will be on the streets in a few short years.

Then of course there’s surfing, where bronzed bodies stand on a long piece of material and float on water! If you can’t ever see yourself doing this, you could just lie in the water and hold onto a ‘boogie board’ and float around and generally piss off surfers or swimmers. If you are even too lazy to do this, you could try your hand at body boarding which was introduced to me by Geoff in India where one surfs a wave on his/her belly. I have noticed in order to be a bona fide Australian you have to have a healthy hatred for New Zealand and the English teams, once you have conquered that you will be more than welcome in the TAB (betting corner of the bar)

Not all Australians are like Steve Irwin some are even more feral but one thing does stand out; the fact that everyone seems to dress like him with khaki shorts gum boots and usually topless, this, it seems seems to be a geographical measure on the person personality, the closer to the centre the weirder the people become, maybe it is the heat in this area that affects their mind. When it comes to the centre of Australia there is one thing that makes it a stark difference to the 80% of the population that reside in the costal towns and this difference is the aboriginals. they populate the small towns that swell inland and it is these towns that get a bad reputation like Tennant Creek where stabbings and domestic violence happens on a daily basis. this race if you did not already know originally populated Australia over 60,000 years ago where historians believe they used boats to sail across from Indonesia thousands of years before the first ever recorded nautical use of boats, however this feat is hardly mentioned or acknowledged but it was the British invasion that is mentioned far more and this lead to the demise of the Aboriginal race with them being legally killed on on the spot. This awful treatment didn’t end and is still going on to this day with the most recent being the ‘stolen generation’ where Aboriginal children were taken from their biological families and put with white families to give them better quality of life and for this every year Australia apologies’ on 13th February.

I am aware this is turning into a history lesson but my point is that the Australians are all quite racist towards the ‘Abbos’ due to their extended benefits but it is easy to see why when you meet them as it seems they are either drunk, fighting, shouting or doing all three at once. We all know the jokes regarding the convicts and how they call us POMs (Prisoners of her Majesty) but Australians are immensely proud of their convict heritage and would rather be descended from convict stock than aristocracy. In America you have to be a Christian to claim the highest office, in Australia it helps if your descendants were guilty of “unlawfully acquiring a loaf of bread”.
Where else, but Australia, would you have a national Hero like Ned Kelly, a horse stealing cop killer who wore a metal bucket on his head? Australians have a fondness of the sheep stealing Jolly Swagman of “Waltzing Matilda” fame, and after the screening of crime drama ‘Underbelly’ Australia found a new hero in the chubby tracksuit wearing mass murderer Carl Williams. T-shirts were printed, facebook fan clubs created, and his bogan ex-wife even did a bikini shoot for FHM – classy! Don’t forget Chopper Reed, the ear-less, tattoo covered, killer, author, artist and subject of a successful Aussie movie that propelled Eric Bana to Hollywood super stardom. Chopper has probably sold more books in Australia than Stephen king.

The Australians do however have criteria for selecting their criminal heroes, not just any tooth-less thug will do, they must have only knocked off or victimised other crims and/or crooked cops. Basically their victims have to be considered fair game, deserving of a bullet! It also helps if you have charisma and are considered a bit of a geezer, a bloke you could have a beer with at the pub, who would crack a few yarns and make you laugh – like a Paul Hogan who just happens to carry a gun or a bloody big knife.


One thing I have to mention in any review of this country has to be the language, “IT’S ENGLISH” I hear you cry why mention it? No no Sheri this is murder of our language in the first degree and like an Agatha Christy novel I have to get all the facts into the room to work out who done it.
There’s nothing Australians like more than murdering the English language. This phenomenon is officially known, as I like to call it ‘being a lazy bastard’. Spare a thought for foreigners coming to the country who have spent weeks, no months in some cases topping up their English vocabulary (exclude the French from this quip) for this trip of a lifetime, only to find when they arrive that their tour guide Danno/Stevo or any name which ends in an ‘O’ speaks a language not found in any dialect known to man

“G’day cobbers,” he greets them. “It sure is a bute of a day, how about ths’arvo we throw some snags on the barbie and throw down a couple of tinnies from the bottlo. Make sure you chuck the rubbish in the bin for the garbo, or I’ll bash ya fair dinkum. Then who’s gonna pay the ambo bill?” Oathers? Flano, Dero, Freo, Servo are all examples that come off the top of my head, the only word I can think that English treat this way is Mayo. I am even to this day learning more and more words like today I learnt a ‘milk bar’ is a corner shop.

Above is the typical Aussie greeting, as any who have visited will verify. Foreign language students in Australia is big business and attracts those coming from Asia to see what the free spirited blond ones are all about and also their fair share of Brazilians, who come mainly because they can’t function anywhere else but on a beach. This whole industry is in grave danger of dying out unless language schools adopt new ‘Aussie Rules English’ courses. These institutions all teach ‘Natural English’ but fail to educate the fee paying masses what a snag (sausage) or sanga (sandwich) is. One obvious component for these new English courses would of course be the Aussie obsession with changing the ends of words to read ‘o’, regardless whether it makes the word shorter or longer. Consider the name David. We would probably shorten this to Dave – not the Aussies, Dave or David becomes Davo, which is exactly one syllable longer than and therefore twice as long as Dave.

The reason for such butchery and the bewildering execution of our language could, as I’ve mentioned, just come down to the Aussies being bone idle and can’t be bothered to even say ‘Hello,’ or ‘Bottle Shop’. This isn’t true, so maybe it’s down to the fact that during the summer months it’s just too bloody hot to speak properly. In the course of writing this I asked two such natives if this is in fact the case and was told ‘yeah’ (couldn’t even say ‘yes’) so as far as I’m concerned it’s official the hot weather is our proverbial butler in this who done it. This butchering is why I love the carefree straight talking Australians, they are very warm and welcoming to all nationalities often going out of their way to help (see blog when I broke down), but in fact when I look at it I met most of the Australians I know and love outside of Australia and didn’t really befriend many in their home country.

So Italy has the Pizza, Spain has Paella, England has fish and chips so what is Australia’s national dish? They are full of fat, gristle, lips & arseholes, jelly and gravy of varying viscosity, yes you got it, it’s the meat pie! Some pies have no structural integrity and will collapse as soon as they are bitten into, causing molten gravy to stream down your hands like lava, resulting in third degree burns and a brown stain on your freshly laundered white shirt. Although, there are perils involved in eating pies you must never use a spoon or a fork, not even a spork. Pies must be eaten by hand and all Aussies have developed techniques whereby using their fingers as scaffolding to keep the shifting and decaying structure intact. This structure remains highly unpredictable so no matter how much experience you have with eating pies or even if you hold a masters degree in structural engineering, you will at some point get scalded, but this a such a small price to pay for such a delicacy.

Without a doubt one of Australia’s greatest points is Beer, but not just any Beer will do, it has to be icy cold Beer! For Australians, Beer makes life go round, it’s the pinnacle of existence, man’s greatest invention, and any activity that doesn’t include it is considered work or at the very least a chore. Try mowing the lawn – it sucks – add Beer – bearable, paint the house – it sucks – add Beer – tolerable, watch ‘Two and a Half Men’ – it sucks – add Beer – it still sucks but Charlie Sheen’s bowling shirts start to look a little better!

Everything is better with Beer; for instance, a barbie (Barbeque or BBQ) is not complete without a Beer in one hand, tongs in the other while you constantly turn the snags (sausages) to ensure they’re sufficiently burnt to a crisp evenly on all sides. This ritual process is generally carried out on a home-made, spider riddled block construction, with a metal plate that’s so rusted it looks like a piece of WWII wreckage that has been retrieved from the bottom of the sea off Papa New Guinea, but don’t worry about any germs, it has been disinfected with the aforementioned Beer. The same scenario without the tongs, snags or a lit barbie would still be considered a barbie as long as there is Beer. You see, you can have a barbie without food but NOT without Beer!
VB (Victoria Bitter) is the most popular full strength Beer on the Aussie market. It’s the only full-strength brand that has penetrated beyond its home borders. You see, every state has their own Beer brand – NSW has ‘Tooheys’, QLD has ‘XXXX’ (Queenslanders can’t spell Beer because they are thick, so they changed the spelling to ‘XXXX’ –), South Australia has ‘West End’ and WA has ‘Swan’ and you wouldn’t be caught dead drinking anything but your home grown drop. It’s like a New South Welshman barracking for QLD in the Rugby League ‘State of Origin’ – high treason! VB is the only Beer that other states will drink! My British chums who have never visited the isle will be wondering about now why Fosters was not on this list ***NEWSFLASH*** the British media have conned you into believing that this is the beer the Aussies drink showing adverts with surfing, crocodiles and big shadows to keep their beer cold in reality I have not even seen Fosters on sale in any state let alone seen an Australian drink the stuff!

There are however exceptions to this rule I have noticed – both Boags and Cascade are brewed in Tasmania and Little Creatures from WA are enjoyed in all states also. This could be because these are considered boutique Beers and only consumed by people with office jobs and not real men. However, I believe the real reason is that the majority of Aussies don’t even consider Tasmania as being part of Australia I fore one believed it to be an entirely different country before I came, so it’s really more akin to chugging a Beer from Germany. And Tassie Beers even taste more German than Australian, the taste is so far removed Hobart may as well be Munich. For those of you who haven’t tried the average garden variety Aussie Beer, they really couldn’t be further apart – Aussie Beer tastes like bitter piss and German Beer tastes delicious. A common misconception is that Aussies prefer cold Beer due to stinking hot weather, not so; it’s really to hide its nasty taste – much in the same way curry was traditionally used in India to hide the taste of rancid meat (FACT)

In most countries Beer is generally seen as a working class tipple, but in Australia it is enjoyed by all, and is truly a classless beverage, sitting side by side on the bar with the most expensive wine, whisky and cognac. Garbos (garbage men) through to Politicians quench their thirst and loosen their inhibitions with the nectar drop. There is one man who was able achieve two of some of the greatest accomplishments for an Australian could dream of, a World Record as the fastest Beer drinker and to a lesser extent the Prime Ministership of Australia. Labor PM Bob Hawke, during his younger years at Oxford University on a Rhodes Scholarship, displayed true grit and determination along with a reptilian like ability to unhinge his jaw, and take on the challenge and heroically scull a yard glass (2.5 pints) in a staggering 11 seconds, thus ensuring his place in the Guinness Book of Records and a godlike presence amongst his fellow students. This feat undoubtedly helped his political career more than him being a Rhodes Scholar. In Hawke’s own words looking back at this remarkable achievement – “This feat was to endear me to some of my fellow Australians more than anything else I ever achieved”

Hopefully this feat will make it into the new Hawke drama for one it will make it more bearable than the usual tripe they have on Australian TV. This could now lead me into a segment on how crap Aussie TV is but on last count I have nearly 3000 words in this ‘nutshell’, actually I will leave you with one thing on this and you can make up your own mind what I am trying to say with this one TV show ‘The Farmer Needs A Wife’. I could go on about how the same actors are all in the same crap shows and how they go through the same youth acting academy also known as Neighbours or Home and Away then once they hit a season of Underbelly they have made it big, or I could tell you about how cheesy the adverts are here which are usually acted by the owners of the local store.

So with each state there is a different beer that the locals choose to skull in their droves but there are also many other variations in each state for instance the attitudes in each state are different lets start with Victorians. They seem to spend most of their time letting you know that Melbourne is much better than Sydney, they are more laid back and considerably cooler than any other states choosing to hang out rather in coffee houses than public houses, I think it may also be a size issue as Victoria is the smallest mainland state, in England we would call it ‘short mans syndrome’ where a man of small stature acts tough to make up for his lack of height. Victoria is the most densely populated state, and has a highly centralised population, with over 70% of Victorians living in Melbourne, the state capital and largest city. Approximately 30,000 Indigenous Australians are estimated to have lived in the area, before European settlement in Victoria began in the 1830s. The discovery of gold in 1851 at Ballarat and Warrandyte transformed it into a leading industrial and commercial centre.
New South Wales relies so much on Sydney and like Melbournites they also think that their fair city is best but the main difference here is that they are slightly richer and less cool and generally come across as slightly colder and less welcoming. NSW however have 2 of the 3 iconic Australian sights, being the Opera House and the Sydney Harbor Bridge.
Queensland according to every other state are crazy, mad and stupid and Queenslanders claim that other states embellish croc or cyclone stories to deter people from moving there but the only thing I can say about QL is that their beer sucks just like their weather, QL do however have the magnificient Great Barrier Reef which tops numerous lists.
Northern Territories the people are strange and generally stained red from all the dust they are also very very drunk most if not all of the time pretty much nothing happens in NT apart from the Peter Falconio murder which even 9 years later one of the first times I bought a state paper it had a 4 page article on the subject, the first paper however had a gripping front page claiming a horny roo had been stalking women. Darwin the state capital seems to be like the Indian burial ground demonic portal for all the bad animals with this city having the worst swimming waters in the world filled with crocs sharks and stingers.
Now comes to my favourite state WA where the people are very fond of their pretty state and do not take kind to warm words regarding the Eastcoast. This state is very isolated with Perth being closer to Singapor than Sydney and it only has one major that being Perth. .
South Australia I wouldn’t dare to describe the state as I only had a fleeting visit which was not at all pleasurable. One thing all states have in common, they all think their state and state capital is the best and they all slate other states and this dislike extends to the roads where if you have out of state plates then you get a rough ride, I am testimate to this after driving through every state with VIC plates.

The Australians are quite macho when it comes to their wildlife seeming not to care that practically every species of animal has enough poison or teeth to kill you in a manor of minutes they brush aside sharks, spiders and snakes but one animal I have noticed that they tend to take seriously is the dreaded stinger (jelly fish to you and me) but out of all the animals that I could have seen I only got to see Freshwater crocs and red back spiders I honestly do not think that snakes or salties in the sea exist.

My apologies for how long this has become it was intended to be small and sweet but it turned into a dissertation on the subject but there is one more question I have to ask myself:

Q.Would I come back to Australia?

A. How can you not come back to any country where they put beetroot in hamburgers and where the people are so warm and friendly? I ask you?


My top 5 things I have done:

1. Karijini National Park
2. Relaxing in Broome
3. Swimming with Whale Sharks
4. Frasier Island Tour
5. Great Barrier Reef 3 day scuba

Favourite States:

1. Western Australia
2. Victoria
3. Queensland
4. New South Wales
5. Northern Territory
6. South Australia

Favourite Cities

1. Broome
2. Perth
3. Sydney
4. Melbourne
5. Cairns


Worst things

1. Darwin
2. Whitsundays
3. Red centre not being red
4. Driving times
5. Cost
6. Im adding East coast backpackers to this list as well! It’s my list so I can do it!


Top pictures