We were going to leave on Wednesday.  JB's work contract had already finished, and I took the start of the week off to find some clothes and acclimatise to the later sleeping hours of tour.  Op shops and army disposals were turned upside-down, and millions of pairs of sunnies were tried on all over town.

 
 

At 10 o'clock on Wednesday morning, after much shit-packing, map-printing and idiot-checking, we chucked a u-bolt in front of Ol' Yella and headed North.  We got no further than 500m down Union Street before some moron driver started ruining our vibe.

We stopped in Taree because JB wanted to track down some hot waitress on the main drag.  She wasn't working that day, so we ended up getting some ABYSMAL sausage rolls from the "French Bakery."  When I go to a shop for a sausage roll, I'm not after new and exciting culinary experience.  They put way too much thought into these sausage rolls.  Chewy pastry, too much onion, undercooked.  Before we left Taree, Jore had to go to the lav.  He won quote-of-the-day with the phrase "Well, I'm gonna go shit all over me tits and piss on me dick."

So, north some more.  It was fucking hot and we stopped at Kempsey for a cold drinky.  Jore and I were starting to get a bit laughy with nothing to do but talk shit.  Plus JB had been sitting in the driver's seat through the peak of the day, so while we were stopped he aired out his arse by standing in the wind.

Back when our parents were in primary school, they learned the names of all the rivers down the east coast of Australia.  I don't even think geography is a subject anymore (and what are they learning nowadays anyway?  learning all about their "feelings" no doubt.  they should bring back conscription etc bla bla bla...).  So anyway, Ulmurra is another river town. 

 
 

We went down to the banks of the Ask-Your-Mum River to check out the storm that was closing in behind us, and we met a cool dog called Luke.  It was just hanging around in the gardo, right near the sign that says "It's an offence to have a dog unleashed in a public reserve."

It was already all dark and Blair-Witch by the time we got to Alstonville.  We were staying with Mel and Ivy on this orchard with a creek and friendly farm dogs.  After we woke up and got our bearings, they put on a hearty breakfast for us - complete with hearty coffee.  Coffee tastes better when you're sitting on the verandah overlooking an orchard, patting Fred the dog and hanging out with the Irelands.  Especially when you don't have to be anywhere until 7PM.

 
 

We had plenty of time to hang.  Plus it was super-hot again, so they took us to the waterhole for a swim.  Unfortunately, JB was the only one that brought any shorts.  He did like a lap and a half and then tried to climb up the rope, but had no strength left in his arms and his heart was racing.  NOW who's the only one that brought shorts!?

After a while, we all put our pants back on and headed up into Brisbane for the first gig.  Our set at The Alley Bar was pretty ordinary and the sound was crap, but we caught up with some mates and went back to the Rouillons' to crash.  Jordy thought it was a bit hot inside when we got back, but he found a way to get to sleep.

We actually got up WAY too early because some guy showed up to deliver fifty million tonnes of wood, but that gave us the rest of the day (after a hearty Rouillon breakfast) to go walking around Southbank and sweating all through our long pants.  It probably would've been a good idea to bring some shorts on this tour.  But then again, probably not.

Jore won another quote of the day, with "Man, as if Brisbane people aren't heaps hot!"  But as the sun started to move behind the Brisvegas skyline, we headed south to the Gold Coast to hang out with Matt and Kais (like anyone knows who all these people are).  They were both working late, so we had to crack open the case early.  But when they arrived home, we stayed up late into the humid night - drinking beer and laughing our arses off about how gay music is.

 
 

Kailah brewed up another breathtaking breakfast upon the morrow, then we stuck out another freaking hot day until the time came to load into the Chophouse.  We wolfed down some generic Asian food with The Greys and were feeling heaps more relaxed, so as a result we played a freakishly good set and had a few drinkies.  Our old pal Eric showed up, covered in chicks, and we went back to Slavo's feeling pretty good. By the way, The Greys are awesome.

On Sunday morning, we headed back up to Brisbane for the final QLD gig.  JB went to hang with Josh and Shahesha, I went to hang with Hayley at the GOMA, and Jore took the van in search of "the internet" so he could finish some work.  We met up at Ric's Bar to play an afternoon set with Breathing Autumn (featuring Justin and Tahlee Rouillon).

 
 

Trent took some sweet photos of us with his mad skills, and we buggered off back to NSW to crash with the Irelands again.

Despite losing an hour over the border, when we got to Mel's we had the earliest night of the trip so far.  However, we were woken at about 5AM by a rooster that had escaped his pen and was cruising around the back verandah making sure we all knew it was 5AM.  It DID afford me an early quote of the day, though, with "I'm gonna go punch that rooster in the beak."  Another fifty-odd country coffees and we headed down to spend a couple of nights at home in Newy.

So, we got our sleep on and our shit together before hitting the F3 for the southern leg.  Because of the traffic, it took us 3 hours to get to the Cat & Fiddle, which is bloody ridiculous.  We had an ad in the street press that week, as well as an article and a review of BIOS baby within the last fortnight, so we were a bit disappointed when only a few people showed up.  Some of our Sydney friends had come to support us, though, so we played pool and drank with them until midnight, when the Cat closed and we had to move on.  We ended up going from the Sando to the Townie to the Stag, having a couple more wines at each.

 
 

I got into a big, drunk discussion about ancient Sparta with some chick called Sacha.  It was an ethereal, visceral, almost crystalline experience.

We woke up at Heath's around the crack of noon, having seen neither hide nor tail of Heath himself.  Late was the hour, so we filled up on fuel and Subway on Parramatta Rd and headed down to Canberra.  We had to fuel up again before we even got to the ACT, which is pretty fuckin' gay.  The Pot Belly Bar holds a dear place in our hearts and we were filled with a warm glow when we arrived.  Shortly thereafter, we went to the restaurant across the road with Aaron, and were filled with some warm Chinese.

From The South played their usual golden set and, as usual, they sounded even better than last time.  There must've been about 200 people in there for the first half of their set.  We thought they were there for the gig, but when they all walked out in the middle of a song, we realised they were just on some O-week pub crawl.  There were a number people there that we'd met last time, and we felt pretty energised by FTS.  Anyway, we more or less killed it and felt good about ourselves.

The locals took us to a cool art gallery slash bar where they ordered things like "brandy, soda and lime."  That place was choice - we all mingled around, talking about politics as we boozed up and had a smoke.  Finally, we cruised back down the road to Aaron's, where we watched the recent Channel 7 Christmas Tape and drank all his nice port.  What a champ.

 
 

We got up VERY late and organised a big team fryup with Aaron and Jim before heading back up to Sydney for the Mandarin Club gig, which was supposed to be the big Saturday night shebang.  Despite the fact that it took about 70 million years to get there and find a park, it was without a doubt the best gig of the whole tour.  Josie came down from Newy, Hebs and Vanessa showed up out of the blue, Heathro and Kira came along and also have cool names.

Due to certain circumstances, we had been moved to the Mandarin Club from the Spanish Club a couple of days before.  To add to the challenge, we were now tacked onto the end of an all-metal bill, so connecting with the audience was starting to look sketchy.  We went and got a feed at Scruffy's, hung out with Hebs and Van for a while, then headed back to the venue to witness these metal bands kicking some serious arse.  We got on stage pretty late and basically just gave it whatever we had.  To our delight, the metal fans stuck around for us and some of the other band members even bought our CD.

 
 

We hooked up with various hot friends of ours and headed to the PBH, which looked like a shit place to hang until we found the stairs and laid claim to the upper floor.  Pool was played, beer was drunk, chats were had, chicks were hit on by Rose, and a greche time was had by all.

After that, we just chilled in Sydney for a few days.  We caught up with friends, ate some non-road food, took a guitar in for repairs, saw the Queen Mary II, visited JV in the studio and sat around thinking "let's just move to Sydney, for fuck's sake."

 
 

Soon the time came to nip back to Canberra and wrap things up at the Phoenix Bar.  We got into town just in time for an interview on 2XX, where they basically talked to us for about half an hour and played half of the EP.  We hooked up with Aaron again and went for Italian when a huge storm forced us inside.  Huge storms usually keep people away from gigs, but there were plenty of cool punters back at the Phoenix Bar.  We got started quick smart, just in case people decided to leave on account of the Wednesday night factor.  The set was pretty sweet, we got plenty of free booze, and we even got back up half an hour after we'd already finished for a two-song encore.

 
 

The rain had died down by the time we loaded out, and we cruised back to Aaron's place and watched Supergrass is 10.  The next day we went straight home, only stopping on the outskirts of Sydney to get some late lunch and check JB HiFi for a few things they don't have in Newcastle.

It was a weird mix of elation and depression.  Depression because the whole debacle was over and we'd have to go back to work and not see everyone for a while.  Elation because we just went on tour (which is pretty cool) and didn't lose money (in a way) and had a sweet time hanging out and being dickheads for three weeks, while meeting friends and playing gigs.