Day 8: Gold Coast
With that section of the trip out of the way, the big game plan was to take a break in Southport over the Easter-Anzac Day long weekend and head off on stage two of the road trip once things had quietened down on Wednesday morning.
Taking a break, however, didn't necessarily mean an extended spell of inactivity, at least, not at first.
Given a need to eat and the knowledge that we'd be eating out for most of the next week and a half it was going to be necessary to lay in supplies, and when it came to grocery shopping, while the supermarkets might be handy the holiday scenario meant we were going to have a limited window of opportunity, and it was better to get the groceries out of the way first and proceed from there.
Lurking in the background was the possibility of an in to Bluesfest at Byron, not that I was holding my breath as far as Saturday was concerned, given the fact that any goodies forthcoming on the Little Feat Front would have to be organised in the midst of flying from Sydney to wherever (Gold Coast or Ballina) and getting ready for a 2:30 gig.
There wouldn't, I suspected, be much of anything coming through, but I kept the mobile handy, just in case, remembering that there was also the possibility of a call from The Accountant, a school friend I hadn't seen for forty-something years, and possibly Foxy, should something have torpedoed his boating plans for the weekend.
With the groceries got, Madam's script called for a visit to Harbour Town to buy Hughesy a new pair of joggers, give her a chance to go looking for a replacement for That Jacket Sitting At Home, and a few other odds and ends.
Given uncertainty about what has happened to old acquaintances over forty years, I'd figured out a scenario involving a bus to the rendezvous on Chevron Island, and another on the return journey, leaving around three so we could prepare for an evening with Ex-House Sitter and Footy Bloke, which was going to be a fluid affair, so I wasn't in the market for a big afternoon.
Just before lunchtime on Easter Saturday probably isn't the best time to be heading towards Harbour Town, and the Gold Coast Highway and Brisbane Road probably isn't the best route to get there.
The act that a substantial subset of every man and his dog had already made the journey meant, once we'd turned off Brisbane Road and made our way into the car park, it was a good twenty minutes before we found a park, and when we did we were looking at a compass and a cut lunch when it came to getting to the actual shopping precinct.
Buying the joggers was a fairly straightforward exercise, but the whole scenario meant that the 1:06 Number Five bus to Chevron Island was a decidedly dodgy proposition, and though we didn't spend long investigating other matters (lengthy queues waiting to enter or make purchases at a number of establishments tends to consign matters to the too hard basket) it was well after one when we headed back towards the car, with Madam offering to come and collect me from the rendezvous when I was ready to go.
Personally, I liked the bus scenario, since it gave me an excuse to escape at a given point in time, but since that was now impossible....
Once I'd arrived and Reunion Mode had been entered, the announcement that I was drinking Cascade Light didn't go down well with the locals, but the scoffing was diverted by mentioning that I had a subsequent appointment with a Geelong Supporter, and it was likely to involve a lengthy sledge match, so I needed to keep my wits about me.
The excuse seemed to satisfy the masses, but walking in on an established circle in what seemed a tight-knit little community can be a tricky exercise, particularly when people take themselves away for smoke breaks, get claimed by various passers-by and get diverted by other matters.
And you get diverted yourself.
When I went to check the time a while later I found it was much later than I'd thought, and that there'd been three unanswered calls from The Boss, a matter that needed urgent attention, since we were due at the next appointment in about half an hour.
The best option out of there, as it turned out was the bus an hour after the one I'd pencilled in, and a hasty departure was followed by a trip along Ferry Road back to downtown Southport, a hasty conclusion of preparations and a trip back along Ferry Road towards Varsity Lakes, where Ex-House Sitter and Footy Bloke turned out to have done very well for themselves in the Home Unit Stakes.
I'm not the greatest follower of the various football codes around the country, but I can claim to be reasonably au fait with the intricacies of the two Rugby codes, and I can follow Soccer when I have to, though the back and forth passing bit tends to lose me. AFL, on the other hand, remains very much a closed book as far as Hughesy's concerned, though I can see how it could get you in if you gave it the chance.
Ex-House Sitter, it seems, has definitely given it a chance, and while she mightn't be quite as died in the wool as Footy Bloke she's not far off full blown fanaticism, as evidenced by the reaction when the Gold Coast Suns came home with a wet sail to down Port Adelaide.
Well, it was a classy come from behind win, even Hughesy could see that, but the reaction of two local fans barracking for their second team (Geelong loyalties overruling everything else) made for an interesting spectacle.
Actually, looking at it in the cold light of reality, I can ascribe my reluctance to pay much attention to the AFL to the aforementioned fact that it seems like something that could very easily get you in, and my oft-quoted statement that Hughesy doesn't need another obsession.
By nine, however, I was starting to fade, and since we were staying the night I toddled off quietly, leaving the others to chinwag to their hearts' content.