Perth, the first three weeks

Seashells Resort apartments are just great, really got lucky with our pick. Magnificent views every morning out across the Indian Ocean to Rottnest Island and all the shipping on the horizon, bloody marvellous!. Late at night, say after about 11.30, you get a fair few cars/vans, turning up, find a secluded spot, for about 20 minutes, then start up and leave. This goes on for about 2 hours. Wonder if Stan Collymore knows about this place?
It must also be a hot bed, as Our Wend, spotted a completely naked women, on the 2nd floor balcony of the block next door, with her Tush fully on show, she is convinced they were using the apartment to make a porno film. She told me the day after!!!!!
We have managed for the first week and a half without a car, sheer bliss, much to the disgust of the rest of the family. Gotta say, the public transport works, although you listen to the locals and they think its a load of crap. The buses and trains are spotless, run exactly on time and they are all air conditioned and dirt cheap. We went to Hillary's Harbour the other Saturday, its about 20 mins away, and it was $7 dollars for a family ticket, return (circa 4 quid).
We have done Hillary's Boat Harbour a couple of times now (they pulled a two year old out of the water yesterday who had drowned. They have charged his Mom with murder), its a lively spot, shops, cafe's, restaurants and stuff for the kids. Jetty jumping, swimming, water park, climbing frames and the like. Really spot on place day or night, feels safe and you can let the kids do their own thing whilst you have some lunch and people watch. The one place we stumbled across one lunch time was where all the lovely people go, whilst the kids are at school and Hubby is working his ass off, there swigging Chablis and talking tits, bums, nails and X Factor. Some things don't change wherever you are in the world, eh boys?
On a recent visit into Perth, on the bus (I ain't been on a bus for the longest and I bloody loved it), to sort the Bank stuff out and have a quick look at The City we were driven by Eric from Handsworth would you believe. He's been here a couple of years, really enjoying the change, although he's not sure yet if he will stay.
Kids have had a few surf lessons now, under the guidance of Paul (Lofty as he is known, 5ft 6in if that, I don't know either) and Mike, they are really getting on well, doesn't seem to be a problem when your that young. I've watched some 20/30 year olds having a lesson, they just ain't supple enough to get on that board quick.The one woman must have been at least 15 stone, I swear she didn't get upright in the three hours that I watched her, those surf instructors have no conscience when they are relieving you of $30!! Its a young, slim persons sport for sure. Lofty says the kids are the best youngsters he has seen in a long time. Mind you he keeps telling fatty she is getting better every lesson!!!
I did have one of me senior moments, the morning of the third surf lesson. There was all the regulars, including fatty, but also a new chap. So, started having a bit of a chat, very fit looking bloke, so I says "you done this before then mate?" "yeah, once or twice" he said. "you'll be fine" I said, "Lofty and Mike really seem to know what they are doing". Whilst we were hanging around and all waiting to set off for the beach, it suddenly dawned on me, all the surfers having lessons had yellow or red, 'rashies' (swim vests) on, but Lofty and Mike were wearing white rashies with 'Instructor' on, as was the bloke I had just been talking to!! I did feel a tit!!
Now, I'm not supposed to tell you this, so I'm gonna keep it very short and to the point. Just after surf lesson one day, Little Pete, got slightly caught short, well, very caught short and did deposit a specimen stool in his wet suit. You won't tell him I told you will you?
Down on the beach there are all sorts, we met an old couple from Abergavvenny, there are kite surfers, 100's of them, I can't figure out how they don't all get tangled together. Wind surfers, canoes, kayakers, body boarders, surfers, swimmers, paddlers (thats me), more folk than I have ever seen in the sea, on every contraption you can possibly imagine. Not to mention the folks just lying around on the sand!!!!!
Went to sort the Schools out for the kids, still refused to hire a car, so I barted with a taxi driver, and agreed a fare for a morning's hire. Background noise from the rest of the crew, 'why can't we just hire a car?' won't bore you with the Schooly thing, but the driver brought us back along Ocean Drive/Sunset Drive, WOW. The properties made your bloody eyes pop out, just incredible. It would seem that the thing to do is buy your own plot, then engage a builder to design & build the home of your dreams. There are very few spec built houses here, the spec built stuff is mainly apartments.
You may have heard that we have had one or two difficulties finding more permanent accommodation.
The Estate Agents (Realty) over here are not fully conversant with the term 'service' in fact they probably can't even spell it.
We now know the protocol to be, that
a) You go online and decide upon the property you are interested in. All the pictures of the properties have furniture in them. The fact is they are ALL unfurnished. As we ain't got a stick of furniture here or on the way, slight problem.
b) You enquire on line about a viewing.
c) Three/ four days later, IF you are very lucky, you get a response which tells you that there will be a viewing at a particular time, generally a week ahead, which will last 15 minutes.
d) You turn up, along with up to 20 others and all walk around together. No fun at all I can tell you.
e) IF you like it, fill a form in, offering the rent and indicate the period of Lease you would like, minimum is 6 months and handover, with the form the first weeks rent as a fee.
f) Four / five days later IF you are lucky you get a decision.
g) You have to make your mind up on the spot.
h) If you say yes, then later no, you lose your fee.
Bloody nightmare.
Anyway, we have now got ourselves a place which we move into on the 1st December. Its in a place called The Vines. Its got two golf courses ( hang on, Our Wend likes it), squash & tennis courts, two pools and a gym. So glad thats all sorted. Trouble is, the schools we got the kids into is about half hour drive, so we need to start looking again, when we get back off our road trip.
We did get a bit of a result when we went to The Vines to view the property, in that we saw our first Kanagaroo's, they were right by the 18th green on the golf course. Well we were excited.
Our Wend came down with he flu in the second week, so off we went to the Doc's. She really was bad, coughing like a 60 a day. As we did not have an appointment, we had to wait. Not in the waiting room, outside!! She was coughing that bad they insisted she sat on the verandah outside, that was a first for all of us. After about an hour we finally got called in. The Doc, immediately put a face mask on, "can't be too careful" and proceeded to examine her chest. Whilst this was going on Peter and I were whispering to each other in the corner of the room which was met with a "QUIET PLEASE" from the quack. Another first.
Now, Aussie Sue and her funny friends, most of which must be related to folks from 'Tamworth & Atherstone'!
As we told you before, she runs/owns/manages/serves at the cabin by the beach. Its just a small cafe really, with a few seats out under a canopy. This woman has a heart of gold, she has tried harder than anyone to sort out our accommodation problem. She must have called at least five of her supposed Realty friends. Every morning she would ask, "has so and so called you yet?" "no" would always be my reply, "wankers" was hers.
How can she be best described visually, to give you a picture in your mind, mmmm let me think, a man in drag, yeah, she looked like BOTH Ugly Sisters!! There is an awful lot of interbreeding gone on in her family line. I think her Mom was from Uzbekistan and her Husbands family were from the Battersea Dogs Home.
Every day she insisted on wearing very low cut tops and leaning over the counter when she was taking your order, always put me off me breakfast to be honest. Her main attributes, well there are two really, she reckons she makes all her own cakes and stuff and she talks but never listens. "Morning Peeeter how are ya?" "I'm f...", "great day, what you doing today?", "probably go t... " "had a terrible night you know, la, di da, di, da" talk the hind legs off a donkey.
The application of her make up was not really up to scratch either, always made her look very scary to me. Very dark eyes, fishy type lips and a boxers nose.
One day, she brought her lad Nick to the cabin. Now, a finer 'Atherstone' boy I had not seen in a long time, definitely 5 bottles short of a six pack, nice lad, but my, seriously scary. He was 11 years old, 5ft 2/3" and about 10.5 stone!! We took him to Hillary's Harbour one day, boy he could eat. fair play though he was a good as gold.
Sue's mates, we met two, Ian (an ex Bank employee) and Blodwen a neurotic. Within 5 mins of meeting her she was telling me in graphic detail about the 21 year old mate of her son that she was, well, you know. she is 52!! She reckons he only wants her for one thing, I agreed with her 100%, she didn't see the funny side!! Blodwen had to leave, so I then got accosted by Ian. Very engaging conversation, very enlightening, not very complimentary about Blodwen, said she was a nutter.
Saw Sue the next day, told him what Ian had said, she said 'ahh you don't wanna believe anything Ian says, hes a nutty as a fruit cake" shades of One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest me thought!!
We are on the road now, touring south, so will bring you up to speed with that in the near future.
The Skerritts

                                    Room with a View

                                 First scary animal encounter

                                        True love, with Hillary's Harbour in the background

Night Night

Photo's and Videos

Here you go Guys and Gals, hope you can see them

                   This is post Niamhee's toilet problem, she is the woman who went in after the 'mess'!!!

                                                   Well known film director from the UK

                               The Skerritts in HK. The woman who took this photo was a bit fit

                                           Thats Niamh, dunno who the other bloke is!! Kick Ass

                                                           This has got him a treat.

                             Me after a heavy night, put a few pounds on aswell, Peter helping me up

                                                                       Ocean Park

                                                   Ladyboys? I'll ask Rosie he'll know!!

                                                AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAhhhhhh

                                            Its all them noodles and dumplings you know.

                                                  Icecreams and fudge cake in Niamhs case

                                                                  Shall we dance?

                      If you wanna put it on facebook, it was from the buffet at The Disneyland Hotel!!!

Niamh was scared stiff and she looked it.

                                                    Pretty Girl, isn't she gorgeous?

                             You can just make out the Dragon Roller coaster middle left.

                                                               Mine rollar coaster

Well you gotta join in aven't ya?

                                                                                Made it

Onwards to Perth

Final day in HK and there was still a lot to see.
Gave the buffet a miss in favour of a visit to a local, cafe, German as it happens, like an up market Greggs with seats, very nice it was too.
Energy stuff on board, we set off for The Space Centre. As you might suspect, all about space and the contribution the Chinese had made to mans visits to the outer reaches. Didn't take long to go around there!!
Only one highlight, if you can call it that, Peter got told off by a warden for sliding down the highly polished chrome balustrades, about 70 foot of it. He damn nearly floored her as he dismounted, at speed, at the bottom. Einsien's Laws of Relativity were lost on the warden, Peter offered to explain it in Newton's Laws of Motion and Gravity are they are much simplier to understand, she didn't look that impressed, so we beat a hasty retreat as I could see he was itching for another go, if only she'd turn her back. Little bugger, and he is.
Off now to Kowloon Park, there is some sort of Kung Fu demonstration or other at 2.30. Fabulous park, water features, fountains, ponds full of birds, ducks, terrapins and an avery full of pigeons!!!, (they don't get it these Chinese), a crowd of women singing and clapping, accompanied by a guitarist, no idea what that was all about, they looked pretty happy though. All lesbo's I guess.
Was feeling pretty relaxed, hadn't had to beat any of the kids or wife that morning, we'd had a cheapo breakfast so I thought I'd treat the family to an ice cream. When I suggested it they kept looking at me as if I'd gone soft. When I only bought one they new normal service had been resumed. Come on, it was a large one. There was a bit of an argument about which flavour we should have, but I said, "its my money and were 'avin' strawberry". End of.
We weren't having much luck in finding the Kung Fu demo, until in the distance we heard the sound of some drums, so we hot footed it in the general direction and found what we had been looking for. I have to say it was not what we were expecting. The first demonstration was done by Norman Wisdom!. I kid you not, this guy was no more that 4 ft tall and a t least 90. whilst it was all pretty impressive that he could do all that stuff at that age, it wasn't what we had come to see. I did fear for him at the end when he did the full splits, I thought my God he ain't gonna get up from there. We just had to be patient, he did manage it.
The rest of it was just a variation on Norman's theme, by very ordinary looking folk. There was young guy about 20, who did look the real deal, but there was not a sign of any form of combat, plenty of drum bashing and communal clapping, David Carradine must be turning in his grave.
Hunger was setting in so we decided to go get something to eat at a place called Bulldogs. We had passed it loads of times and it always looked pretty busy and they advertised that The Premier League was on there.
Well, it was as good as we thought it would be. Loads of stuff going on for Halloween, live music, plenty of people in there. There were some really cool Halloween gimmicks in there, the kids really like the spiders that were on the ceiling, when you clapped, or shouted, they fell to the floor and then, after a few seconds, they wound themselves back up on the elastic tether. Good job they were not real spiders, the amount of times my two clapped and shouted, they wouldn't of had any legs left, the amount of times they hit the floor.
The band came on, usual stuff, two lead singers, one male one female, singing all me favourites in a heavy Chinese accent. For God's sakes. Little Niamh and PJ positioned themselves, seated, about 2 ft from what was the stage, which was only about a foot above the regular floor and just stared up at them. I felt uncomfortable just watching them. Well bugger me, after a couple of numbers didn't the two of them get invited up and had pictures with the band. The band then left the room, the next thing I know, Little Niamh has got the 'mike' and doing all her 'moves' and Peter is heading for the drum kit. managed to get there just in time and avoid getting chucked out. Didn't stop Niamhee staying up there and just doing her moves though, to the delight of the rest of the folk in there.
As part of the Halloween festivities they had a face painter at the bar, both the kids had them done, then they pestered the living daylights for me to have it done, I gave in in the end. Pictures will be posted at a later date. Including the ones of Peter with, I suspect a couple of Lady Boys and Niamh shaking her booty.
Time to go, we are getting collected from the hotel at around 9pm. The cab driver who took us back must of had eight mobile phones stuck on his dashboard, another three or four in a well adjacent to the gear stick and another two on his lap. They all rang at least once during the 5/10 minute ride and he must have had a conversation with at least three of them all at the same time.
All pretty sad at  leaving HK, we had a great time. Very leisurely drive to the airport, nothing on the roads really, back passed the port which was all lit up, the huge bridges, all lit up too.
Arrived at airport, again hardly anyone about, huge place, straight to the check-in, the cheap seats awaited, weren't looking forward to that after the incoming flights in premium economy. Just across the way from us I spotted a rugby team, they were all dressed in Australian colours sports clobber, I didn't recognise any of them, but it turned out to be the 'Wallabies' in the flesh. Boy, there were some big lads amongst them. Niamhee tried to talk me into going and asking for autographs, but there was no way.
Flight was long and boring, didn't sleep, the rest of our gang snatched a few hours, but not much, its hard sleeping in a shoe box.
Then came the announcement, "we have commenced our descent into Perth and shall be landing on time at 7.14am local time" this is it!!
Perth airport is no way the most salubrious airport I have ever been to, its on a par with Faro, if you have ever been there. Went through passport control like a dose of salts, the customs guy on the desk was the friendliest customs guy I have ever met. You know, they are mostly aloof and no chat, this guy was brill, even got into where he lived, his family, he even had a dog called Niamh would you believe.
Into the baggage reclaim, where we did have to wait a bit, mainly because we sailed through customs.
Bags on trolleys, passed couple of guys checking we didn't have any restricted items in our luggage, then out into the Perth sunshine for the first time. Pretty emotional stuff really, got a guy to take our photo for posterity and took a photo of the sign above the airport, daft I know but, heh.
Into a cab and we are off. First impressions, very much like Florida, flat, all intersections at 90 degrees, hot. Spotted Belmont park (horse racing), The WACA (cricket), The City of Perth landscape is very small, I reckon there are only about 3 buildings that you could call 'skyscrapers' all offices for the Banking fraternity, theres a suprise.
We arrived at the apartment in Scarborough Beach, which wasn't ready, to be fair it was still only about 9am, so we went and had a coffee at a local cafe.
Back to the billet, our apartment is on the second floor, looking straight out to The Indian Ocean, kids were chomping at the bit to get in the sea. Off we went, clear blue skies, crashing waves,  v v hot, about 30, the beach itself was only about 100 yards from our front door, superb. They must have been in the sea for at least two hours, we watched from the beach, just kept thinking, this is it. Even though they had been in the sea so long we still had to force them out. Then, when we got back to the apartment they wanted to go in the pool, another hour later, they came out.
Its late afternoon/early evening now so we head of for what I suppose is Scarborough village centre. Not much there, ice cream shop, a bar, chippy x2, couple of restaurants. we decided on the Italian, food was good, Peter was absolutely knackered, not hungry and fell asleep with his head on the table.
All in bed by 9.30pm.
Tuesday 2nd November is Melbourne Cup day (horse racing) in Australia, similiar to Derby Day at home, but its alledged that the whole of Oz knocks off at 2 for the race and do not go back to work, most of the shops and supermarkets shut, so not much to do other than go to the beach.
Sitting on the balcony, 8.30am, watching the surfers go through their paces, walkers, joggers, cyclists, even a women jogging and pushing the pram, how keen is that? The path that runs outside our gaff, apparently goes all the way to Hillary's harbour, 9km, in one direction and Fremantle, 20km, in the other. When me bike arrives I'm gonna do 'em both.
Invested in a body board for the kids, we already have one but its on route. They spent all day on the beach and in the sea. Me and Our Wend went to a small cafe, cabin as they call it, close to the beach where me met and had our first encounter with the owner, Ozzie Sue, as we have nick named her, I'll tell you more about her and her 11 year old son Nick later! Its nice little place though, they just do coffee, ice creams and snacks. All sorts of folk turn up there, I'll tell you about them later aswell!
The Skerritts

Hong Kong Day 2, 3 and Departure

Ok its Friday 29th October and we are off to The Peak. This for the uninitiated is a place high in the hills above Hong Kong which is accessed via Asia's first ever cable funicular tram. Its been there for well over 100 years.
We didn't bother with the usual breakfast buffet in the Hotel, the kids didn't eat enough to warrant spending nearly 45 quid a head for the luxury. So to seriously punish them and Our Wend for all the scram they have left at previous buffets during the trip, lunch would be the first meal of the day!!
The best way to The Peak we were told was via The Star Ferry, which was a taxi ride away, no problem., taxis are in an abundance and very cheap, never more than about 2/3 quid wherever you go. We did find out later in the trip, when we were having a beer at the roof top swimming pool area, that we could of got a ferry from almost outside the Hotel, to exactly the same point on HK island that The Star Ferry terminates at. This was by watching loads of ferries snaking across up and down, from our roof top vantage. Anyway, no harm done, we duly arrive at the ferry terminal. Kids and Our Wend whingeing like, well you know what, that they were hungry and thirsty. 'It will be lunchtime before you know it I said', 'Its only 8.15 now' came the reply from Little Niamh. I'll kill that Mrs Timmins for teaching her how to tell the time!! After considerably more whingeing, I caved in and bought them a bag of crisps each, Our Wend wasn't that keen, but when she saw that they had octopus feces & blue ink flavour, that swung it for her.(bet you could win a prize with Walkers at home for that one. Might email Gary Lineker meself). Me, as I had been good and eating all my buffet food, I treated myself to a very sugary Latte and a muffin'. You should of seen the looks I got!!!!
Right, a hearty breakfast inside them/me and we got our tokens, 8HK$, for us all, and boarded, what can only be described as a death trap. It had to be the most unseaworthy vessel I have ever been on in my life and I've been on a few. Gotta say, really stroke of luck that the kids and Our Wend had such a light breakfast!!!
The views during the 10 minute crossing were worth the worry, there was so many different vessels, criss crossing in front and behind us, they obviously must know what they are doing.
We alighted, (eh, bin around boats in me time you know) and set off to find the next mode of transport. I did get a bit down wind of Our Wend on the way to the bus stop when she burped and I got a right whiff of them crisps, God she puts away some s**t in the name of healthy eating.
The courtesy bus was gonna be a while, so we headed for the taxi rank, no problem, one was waiting for us, priced him up at 10 dollars, lets get going my little China friend.
Only about a 10 minute cab ride and we were there. I'm pretty sure he could smell them bloody crisps as well, 'cus he kept shifting forward in his seat and glancing around at Our Wend in the back of the cab. As long as he didn't think it was me, I wasn't bothered. It was a bit rich though when you think of the crap he must have shoved down his bone shooter and digested in his lifetime.
I think the cost for The Peak was about 100 HK$, which included access to the restaurant at the highest point. Nothing to exciting or to report about the ascent, other than the normal interest in Niamh, its all very much like boarding transportation that takes you up the mountain when your ski-ing.
At the top there is a series of escalators, probably about 8 in total which take you up again to the most incredible viewing platform. Its ultra modern, again (bit boring for you) but the engineering to build something this vast in this location is quite staggering.
You do though have to run the gauntlet a bit, shopkeepers trying to flog all sorts of electronic gadgets, from remote control helicopters, to cars that can go up walls and along ceilings, flippin' nightmare.
Anyway, now we are out on the viewing platform, gave me the s***s if I'm honest, never really had any problem with heights until recently, but now, I get this urge to jump off, weird eh? Yeah, yeah, know what your thinking!!
Marvellous views right across HK island and beyond, literally dozens of the eagles flying above and below us, everybody swapping cameras and taking pictures for each other, more bloody pictures with Niamh. A couple from Queensland ask us to take their photo, we obliged, they then did the same for us. Turned out that they had been to the UK for a month, for the first time, touring around, thought it was great. Were very impressed at how clean London was.
Its 2pm and time for lunch. So I carry all my lot into Bubba Gump Shrimp Co restaurant, as they have no energy left to get there under their own steam. Bet they will eat everything now. This place is a themed eatery based on The Forrest Gump movie, lots of memorabilia decorate the walls, nothing particularly special other than the food which was far far better than we were all expecting. I would recommend it. And yep, all my troop woofed it down in total silence.
Pretty uneventful trip back to the billet, for a freshen up, kids went in the pool, me and Our Wend had a couple of 'over the yard arm' scoops. Change of clobber then off to see the night life.
We headed for some night time shopping or other. When we got there it was your real market, for hundreds and hundreds of yards, full of the most absolute and utter crap. I was getting bothered by chinkies harrassing me, Peter & Niamh nagging me to death for all sorts of rubbish, Our Wend wandering through stalls full of bags, clothes, belts, T shirts, purses, you name it. I DDS (Don't Do Shopping), here I was in a shoppers paradise and a DDS, HELL. I flipped, so much so I think I nearly hyperventilated, a guy approached me to ask me to come to his diner, he wouldn't take no for an answer, I flipped again. I think Our Wend got a bit worried at that point. So we decided to call that particular sight see, a night.
Now don't get me wrong, I have had the good fortune to visit some very interesting markets, particularly in Bangkok, we all went to this one on that basis. But what was on sale here you could get at any market in the UK.
The only interesting items were various live animals, not sure what most of them were, in various modes of capture, awaiting the general publics stomachs. Ones I did recognise were, various types of fish, crayfish, chickens and TOADS!! Yes, loads of 'em, held together by elastic bands and alive, squirming around in the bottom of a bucket.
Feeding time again, decided on Angus Steak House, great food,  v v busy, chinkies drinking in this place, very unusual.
Saturday 30th October
Kids have finally had it with the sight seeing, they want fun fun fun.
Dad wants to go to see the final Bedisloe Cup game (there were four in total, the All Blacks have won the previous three) which is between The Wallabies and The All Blacks ( for all you ladies out there that's a rugby match between the Australians and The New Zealanders) at The Hong Kong stadium. So, there's a place called Ocean Park, which is a fun park for all age groups of children which is also marine themed for our underwater fishy friends. Which, just happens to be a stones throw (in HK terms) from the said stadium. So lets go.
Courtesy bus, Star Ferry, taxi and we are there. Talked Our Wend out of the crisps this morning, but did go through the 'we ain't having a buffet this morning either' I 've never had this much power in my household!!!!!!
Its great news when we get there as its really not very busy, so there are no queues for anything. First up, acrobats, very good they are too. The main park and rides, were a vertical tram ride away, at the top of a very large hill/mountain. Very pleasant ride in a funicular tram that they were trying to make you believe you were travelling underwater in a submarine, even had a bride and groom in our carriage and two stills photographers and one video camera man. We exit this, ride I suppose, then they spot it, a sign which said, The Dragon (roller coaster). That's it, there off, but so is Mom and Dad. So we all line up, no problem, but there is a bit of a wait!! S**t, I wanted to get straight on. Now I'm regretting getting in the line, Our Wend is too and there is no way back as there are chrome tubular rails both sides of me, keeping us all in line and I can just about fit between them. There is a smell, it can't be the crisps this time. Eh up, its our go, Peter & Niamh are beside themselves with excitement, I'm just glad we missed breakfast!! Well, I've been on one or two roller coasters over the years and I mean one or two. Never been  fan of up & down or round & round, but this. I was suddenly very aware, not only were we going to be climbing up in the air, very steeply, veering left to right, arse over tit and plummeting down, we were also perched and I mean perched on top of and on the edge of, a bloody mountain. It was really frightening, so much so, I put my head down and closed my eyes, otherwise I would definitely have thrown up. All I could here for the entire ride was Peter saying, 'Dad look, Dad look, Dad look', Our Wend screaming like a banshee, and Niamh laughing her head off.  The best way to describe where this ride was built is, if you have not been ski-ing you might not relate to this but, it would be like building the biggest roller coaster you have ever seen, where they have built the Top Mountain Star restaurant in Hochgurgl. Go online and check it out, I kid you not.
Anyway, we got off ok and left the kids to another, God knows how many goes, whilst we set off for brekkie. Spicy noodle soup, with meat and chicken dumplings for me, when in Rome I say, only took about 10 minutes for that to take effect!!! Don't know what Our Wend had, it hadn't arrived when I did me Hussain Bolt impression and it was gone by the time I got back!
Kids had reappeared about 45 mins later, wanting to try the other rides now, Abyss Turbo Drop (plummets downwards from a great height), The Eagle (high level fast spinner),  but not before I had looked around the aquarium (God bless spell check). Very impressive.
So off we trot to the Raging River (log flume), yep and we had a go as well, much more to my liking, Our Wend got slightly wet, well, soaked actually, Peter convinced her the dryest place was at the back, fell for it HL&S. Her hair, got the worst of it, which 20 minutes later when it was dry, looked like an explosion in a mattress factory. She kept asking what we were laughing at, we hadn't the heart to tell her.
Kids than did The Eagle (low level spinner) and then spotted The Mine Train (another roller coaster). Well, I thought The Dragon was precariously balanced. No way was I going on that. Kids, at least 20 times. We have got some photo's, when I figure out how to attach them we will send across, as we tried to get a pikkie, but it doesn't do it justice. You could have a look on the website http://www.oceanpark.com.hk/
Well it was time to get moving for the stadium, kick off was 5pm. Had a bit of a wait for a cab, but it paled into insignificance, when we had to tackle the traffic. It was so bad that we had to give up and just went back to the hotel, bugger. If your interested The Wallabies won 26-24.
Yeah, you've guessed it, back to the billet, kids have a swim we have a drink. Kids don't wanna swim really, but we force them!!!!!
After much debate we decide to Salman Rushdie (stay in) tonight and enjoy the wonderful buffet. I had developed a taste for the noodles in some sort of soup with dumplings and spices, bloody marvellous. We had been seated next to a young Chinese couple, probably no more than 20/21.He and the girlfriend arrived back from the buffet and proceeded to take the customary pikkies of the food. We couldn't resist asking, and if my memory serves me right it was actually this guy who told us about putting photographed meals on Facebook  As you can imagine, little point in eaves dropping, but they did, at one point disappear to the 'meet and greet' lady at the front desk to have some photties taken. When they came back she had a bouquet (love ya spell check), well, it was but the flowers were all fakey, plasticy things with flashing lights!! You know them things the kids pester you to buy at fun fairs that have multicolour flashing lights, it was a flashy (excuse the pun) one of them.
Our Wend couldn't resist it, 'congratulations, whats the occassion?'
It was the guy that replied 'vkjgk hlfkvh, hgb,jdh hcd,h.dbdb cbjb  sjvsb jvjhvsb, bsv hb hbvvb  erhhg wjvgkgfhbvhbh bvhbvvjhg cwh jghjbv  jcvjrgrhgjgrjg.'
If anyone out there can translate, we'd love to know what they said!!!!!!!!!!
The Skerritts
Next time, last day in HK and arrival in Perth.

M&M Rap (alias Peter's Rap)

I was walking down a Hong Kong street when this guy came up to me,
"Wanna buy a Lolex, ya buy one get one free!" me said "no ta mate I 'ready got tree, I running tight 4 time, me picking up a business suit and then off for me tea,

"Okay then, I'll lower me price, I'll even chuck another in, wouldn't that be nice?!" I said " no ta mate I said I got TREE I don't need another. they ain't for me!"

"Okay then, me go even further, I'll even chuck a dolly in for your Dad's little daughter..."

"LISTEN HERE MATE ME DON'T WANT YA STUFF! BACK AWAY NOW OR IT GONNA GET ROUGH!"

"Ahhh!" said de me man as he ran down de street, "ya don't wanna be rude 2 me, aye callin' the p leece!"

"Go ahead man call em' if you like and tell 'em you harrased me night after night!"

Cool,

M&M,

(der ain't no other.)

Hong Kong

28th October 2010
Up nice and early down for brekkie, pikkies with the Disney characters, room full of orientals and just us, more staring, pointing, pictures of what your eating, more bloody pictures with Niamh, even The Disney characters were getting in on the act!!
Thought I would try the most disgusting looking thing I could find to eat. It resembled a dogs knackers sack, fully boiled with the knackers still inside, had three of them, with soy sauce. Tasted.......................................yummy.
Went and got checked out and set off for HK, we had had a ball at Disney.
Initially the roads were v v quiet, hardly any traffic whatsoever. As HK came into view, so did the magnificent bridges and the most incredible site of the ports area. Wow bloody wow.  We were all just completely blown away by the vastness of it all. Have never seen so many enormous ships and shipping containers in one place in my whole life. I have been to the Hams Hall rail-freight terminal and thought there were a lot of containers there, but this must have been at least 200 times bigger. How do they ever find the container they want? How long must some of them have been there? Absolutely incredible, the size of the cranes, ships, harbour, breathtaking stuff.
Onwards to The City, traffic starting to get a bit sticky now, (witnessed one accident when a large truck tried to get clever and took out a small car), but moving, looks like they are upgrading the main rail line into the City, as you might imagine, they ain't pulling any punches with scale or the amount of dosh they are throwing at it.Incredible feat of engineering just getting it from the suburbs into the City centre, minimum disruption really considering.
Some points of interest along the way, The Intercontinental, 2 of them, The Penninsular Hotel, very British looking traditional construction, with its 6 Rolls Royce's outside for the sole use of the guests and a most fabulous fountain at roadside (keep going thats not our hotel!!) National Space Museum, oh yeah McDonalds and KFC (bloody loads of 'em) and hundreds and hundreds of taxi's, ALL powered by propane gas would you believe. Dozens and dozens of skyscraper apartment blocks that were as high as you can get. Most were very new, some had seen better days and all had the washing, drying on frames outside the windows, it didn't matter how high up you lived, thats where you hung your washing out to dry.
We arrive at our Hotel, The Harbour Grand Kowloon, pretty snazzie I have to say, luggage is whisked away, we go to the counter and check in, room 1236. Up to the room, very nice very spacious, only one bed! Not even all us skinnies could fit in this bed and play "there was 4 in the bed and the little one said etc" Off trots Wend in Carol Marlow fashion "I'll sort this out'. And she did, we were transferred to a new room 1336,with two double beds, result. Fantastic view looking straight up the harbour.
As has been the norm with all the other hotels we have been in to date the kids want to check out the pool. Its on the roof of the hotel, 23 storeys up!! Surrounded by glass balustrading, with one side of the pool below the water line made of glass!! 360 deg view of HK, pretty cool when you've got a beer in your mit, pretty cool when you don't have a beer in your mit.
Very, very busy sea & sky lanes, plenty of ships, boats (some I would go a far as to say only the size of a one person dinghy, Petunia. Showing your age if you remember that) ferries, yachts, 3no cruisers anchored in the bay which were floating casino's, helicopters, planes large and small and swimmers, yes swimmers, lunatics I would say. It would be like swimming in the widest part of the Thames on a busy day, believe me.
Time to go and do a bit of sight seeing, back to the room first for a quick freshen up, change of clobber and we are off.
Climb aboard the hotel courtesy bus and head for the city centre, we disembark along side The Penninsular Hotel, which has got to be the, if not one, of the best hotels in the world, (I'm sure Sue and John will know), the Rolls Royce's outside, for guests sole use must be worth upwards of 2 million pounds, still ain't going in there. We set off up the main street, shop after shop, all sorts, new, old, market type, even shops in alley ways which have make shift coverings above to protect the merchandise from the elements.
Then it starts,
"wanna suit Mister, we make very good suit, you come look at my shop, make very quick suit for you"
I reply courteously "No thanks I'm ok mate" and try to walk on smiling.
"go on mate, not take a minute I will" I cut him short, courteously,
" No thankyou very much", he tails off.
Next,
"massage Mister, very good, in here, very cheap, you likey", I reply, courteously,
"no thankyou not today" and walk on smiling pleasantly, even though I have the hand of a 9 year old on one side and the hand of an 11 year old on the other side. How the hell or who the hell was gonna look after the godfers if I actually did fancy a massage?!!!!
Approached silenty and a guy whispers, "you want good Lolex, very good very cheap, copy watch n e make?" I reply, courteously,
"no thankyou not today" and walk on smiling"
Twenty yards further on
"wanna suit Mister, we make very good suit, you come look at my shop, make very quick suit for you" I reply courteously
"no thankyou not today" and walk on smiling. "go on mate, not take a minute I will". " I cut him short, courteously,
" No thankyou very much", he tails off.
Next,
"massage Mister, very good, in here, very cheap, you likey", I reply, courteously,
"no thankyou not today" and walk on smiling pleasantly.
Approached silenty and a guy whispers, "you want good lolex, very good very cheap, copy watch n e make?" I reply, courteously, "no thankyou not today" and walk on smiling" Twenty yards further on, are you getting the picture?
Well, we decided to have a bit of sport, Peter was delegated to fend off the massagers and Niamh was delegated to take care of the  suit and Lolex sellers, no, not the suth sayers. Peter would shout" yeah yeah, me, me, how much?" The sellers, all women would immediately withdraw and bugger off. Niamh would say "nah, nah thanks luv, not today" and wave them away with a hand in the air. The sellers, all men, they too would bugger off. Unfortunately, Niamh was otherwise distracted when one poor guy approached and got to me, he got the full brunt of my discourteous nature, in bucket fulls, its the heat you know it don't agree with me. If I said that some of the words started with an F, some of the words an O, one or two with a B and only one with a C, can I leave you to fill in the other letters. Our Wend, just ask me to "Chill " Chill? more F's, O's, B's, left out the C, kids were in ear shot, chill?
We had had just about enough of all that by now, so we set off in the direction of the Avenue of the Stars. On the way little Niamh decided she needed a number two! We duly found a WC close to the Avenue, Our Wend and little Niamh set off for "the John". They reappeared soon after with a tale. Apparently, Niamh went in to trap number 3, Our Wend is waiting to use the same trap, as Niamh appeared from the trap, she enlightened Our Wend on how it was in its consistency, sloppie, pan was completely "flock of starlinged". Wend then has a number 1, but without the benefit of gents genetalia, could not rid the starlings from the said pan, neither did a normal flush do the trick. Whereupon, the toilet was not left in Our Wend's normal state of affairs and an oriental, (that was daft 'cus there ain't any other sort in HK) followed Wend's exit, red faced exit!!. Anyway, 5 mins later, we are at the start of the Avenue of the Stars, when the oriental lady that had followd Niamh and Our wend into trap 3 appeared, made a bee line for Niamh, to, you've guessed it, have her photo taken with her, then her pal wanted one two. Well I thought Our Wend & Niamh were gonna give it the old one two again!!
The Avenue of the Stars is basically a Chinamans version of the Hollywood Walk of Fame, full of plaques/handprints of famous Chinese folk. These are the ones I can remember. There was an alledgedly famous politician, Hu Flung Dhoung, former breast stroke champion Wim Faz Tist, Nobel Peace Prize winner, Wun Nuvver Gong, Asia Golf Ace, It It Lung Weh, Oscar Award Winner, Stat Tu, Porn Starlet, Lyk Lung Kok, Porn Starlets Assistant, Mee Too, Ex Prime minister Ly Ly Lot, dwarf actor, Ty Nee Gy, Kung Foo Ace's Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan, (never heard of them).
At the end of the walk there was a bar, yippee, beerio time. Guess what?, They got Guinness, yeah, yeah, yeah. Miserable looking bird comes over, soz but she was, "Is the Guinness any good?  "Yeah", "sure?", "Yeah", "ok I'll have one". Well, it arrived, best way of describing it....................., well there ain't one. It was either crude oil scooped up from the recent Gulf tragedy, and I pretty well knew it couldn't have been that as we are too far away, so it could only have been, the dregs from the bottom of the deisel tank of her car!! In any event, it did not even warrant a try. I asked in my inimitable way, "if this is good what does shite look like?" no reaction, told you she was a miserable c*w. Ended up, without any fuss with boring lager.
Anyway, after much merriment and swapping inumerable jokes with TMC (The Miserable C*w), we set off for The Intercontinental Hotel, no less,to view the 8pm light show that occurs every evening in HK on the recommendation of Mr & Mrs Gaunt. Got to get there at circa 7.30 for the best seat in the house, as recommended ditto.
The staff were very obliging and dragged a couple of extra seats for us near the window. Ordered a beer, glass of white wine, one orange and one strawberry something or other non achoholic cocktail, and got comfy. The light show started exactly at 8, pretty amazing, stuff. Generally consisted of about 10/12 buildings across the harbour, on HK island, having mega lighting systems attached to them, lasers etc, went on for about 15 mins. Place was packed. Decided it was a nice place to sit and people watch, so another glass of wine, Niamh did not like her orange something or other, but once I put a double vodka in it I thought it tasted spot on, Peter had water.About 45 mins later and 960HK$ poorer we headed back to the billett.
Hungry now, so we hit the hotel restaurant buffet. Another fantastic spread, everything you could wish for. Clientele much the same as Disney once again everybody drinking water. Asked the waiter for the wine list he said, "we have one white and one red", even I can pick a bottle of wine from that selection so I immediately took over, "that'll be a red then!!"
Finished our scramm, kids went off exploring, we retired to a first floor seating area to finish off the bottle of red, good choice of wine I was thinking to myself!!!.
Had a nice 30mins watching a load of chinkies coming and going from a weddin' whilst we reflected on what a great place HK is, truly a fantastic place and we had another couple of days to see even more.
The Skerritts

Getting There & Hong Kong

24th October 2010
Well, we finally set off from Tamworth at about 2.15pm, with Colo at the wheel of our charabang. Made good time and arrived at The Crowne Plaza about 5 (if you are ever flying from Heathrow, can recommend this place, 1st class and very cheap, thanks Sue). Said some emotional good byes to Colin (cheers matey) and checked in, blimey the place is busy.
Kids wanted to go to the pool so took them down for a quick swim and then got back to the room dressed and headed for the restaurant.
Wendie had arranged to meet Sabrina for a couple of drinks and to say goodbye, she duly arrived and there was some blubbing, as expected, but generally had some laughs about 'the good old days'. We got a text from the Marlows, who had landed at Heathrow from their hols in the Oman. By the time we got back to them they were already on the M40. If we had been a bit quicker, we would have caught them nearer our hotel and had ANOTHER farewell drink. Would have liked to know what Oman was like though.
Anyway, just saying final goodbyes to Sabrina, when bugger me didn't Ainne & Alex appeared, I'm gonna be p****d at this rate, but it was great to see them, the kids were over the moon as well. Wendie couldn't see them because of the tears in her eyes as she hadn't recovered from blubbing over Sabrina!
Then the time came for Ainne & Alex to go, well I thought we would have to get the mop and bucket out there was that much water,as you can imagine it was long and a hard goodbye.
25th/26th October 2010
Up bright and breezy, hearty breakfast, luggage collected from the room checked out and waiting for a taxi to go to terminal 3. Just about to get in the cab, yours truly had left his coat in the room. This was despite a concerted effort to be extra careful about our belongings whilst we are travelling and NOT to forget anything. Fell at the first fence!! Anyway, all loaded and we are off, 5 min transfer 20 quid!!! If I come back I'm gonna be a cabbie from Crowne Plaza to terminal 3, 240 pound an hour!!
Checked in ahead of time, nah see, but 19kg over the limit, if we want to take it with us 680 quid extra, yeah well I am travelling with 'our Wend'. I gave it some thought for about a millionth of a second and said, have you got a large plastic bag!!!!!. Take the bags off the scales, over to an area where there is a weighing machine and commence our twentyfifth decluttering exercise. In the same area there is a couple of Somalians with a little kid doing the same thing (wonder if his wife is called Wendie aswell?). You should of seen the crap they were sifting through!!! He was obviously taking his re-cycling from his trip here back with him.
Well, managed to get 20kg ditched, mainly my stuff!!! Checked in, off to the security area. All stripped to our jockies (only joking), almost through without a hitch, when they found in Pete's hand luggage his Action Man and three of his Action Man rifles. I thought they were not going to let AM through as he had no passport or boarding card, but that was ok, the problem was the 2.5 inch rifles!! The security officer set off to see here superiors to check if they could be allowed through (you think I'm joking). She duly returned to tell us we could NOT take them on board. We accepted it but AM was beside himself, he felt extremely vunerable to an attack now and requested we put him right at the bottom of Pete's hand luggage to avoid detection from enemy forces!!!! I thought he was over reacting as he still had his hand grenades and the knife!!!!!!!!!!!!
So we boarded the plane, Premium economy no less, Wendie & the kids complained like mad but I went back to see them in economy and I didn't think it was that bad really!! How ungrateful can you get. Food and service was superb, never travelled in such style, we are not The Allans or The Marlows you know. I reckon we were only 20mins into the flight when Peter struck. Glass full of something knocked off his tray and smashed on the floor, good boy its normally me that does that. Rest of the flight was great, 11.5 hours went pretty quick really. Perfect landing every thing tickity boo, when as we start to leave the plane, poor little Niamh, chucks up all over the place, 3 times, (poor little Niamh!!!!!!!!). No problem Dad cleaned it up, oh yes I did, and we duly got off.
Pretty uneventful through customs other than they were all oriental looking, unusal experience for me anyway I'm more used to Pakkies and Muslims checking my documents!!!!!!
The transfer was amazing, I reckon we hardly saw another car for about 15 miles on a major three/four lane motorway, it was surreal.
Arrived at Disney Hotel, as you can imagine, awesome, but nobody there, it really was so quiet, got the stuff dumped in the room straight back down, got our passes and set off for the Disney Park, 10mins away.
Disney was just like the hotel, hardly anyone there, which was great. So safe, kids just ran around getting on all the rides, they must have gone on Space Mountain (a roller coaster in the pitch black darkness) at least twenty times.
We were all getting very tired now, none of us had slept for 27 hours, so we headed back to the Hotel. Spotted the most fanatstic eagle flying above the car park (yes Colo I like me birds!!). It turns out that there are hundreds of them in HK, we saw them everywhere, they never got boring to see. Kids still wanted a swim (may aswell there is nobody in the pool) so we sat by the pool for a couple of hours, then had some scram in the cafe area as the main restaurant was fully booked, although there appeared to be no one in the hotel. We found out later that lots of locals, not residents use the restaurant, hence its generally fully booked, as it was for Wednesday aswell.
Had a good nights kip, got down to breakfast, what a spread, couldn't think of anything I wanted to eat that was not there. Went along with the locals and had some Dim Sum for me breaky, had photo's taken with all the Disney characters, bloody marvellous. Very odd feeling being in a massive room with folk that all pretty much look the same, I think we were the only westerners there, also surreal (it's me new word) that the orientals only have one kid each, the only ones we saw with two had twins!! They also take photographs of anything, I mean anything, the favourite photo is of what  is on the plate just before they eat it. Col, Sarah, Carol, Bob remember that guy on the top of the mountain taking a picture of his sausage? Apparently they then put the photos on Facebook to recommend restaurants to their pals, how strange. We in the western world do similiar with girls and big boys toys!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Off to The Park, again no traffic and hardly anyone there, again really odd feeling that we looked so different to everyone else,( folk just kept looking and pointing). Niamh absolutely fascinated them, they wanted there pictures taken with her everywhere we went, perhaps they were putting her picture on Facebook as something nice to eat!!
We were all well rested and the Disney experience definitely was much better because of it. We rode the train, the kids did Space Mountain another 20 times, Wendie ventured on today, brave girl.
The highlight for me at the Disney Park was the parade, it was fab, got it all on video for posterity, real feel good experience.
Back to the Hotel and into the swimming pool (nobody else in it), the pool slide was brill, more like a water park, kids even talked me into having a go, they then couldn't get me off it. Met some folk from Queensland, over to watch the rugby, Wallabies v All Blacks, the one chap worked for Cougar, he was there entertaining, said that we were going to go and I had a chain of sports shops back in the UK, didn't get us any tickets, won't be stocking Cougar in MY shops. Tight git.
Dressed for dinner, which we had to go to the Disney sister hotel Hollywood for as ours was fully booked, only a couple of minutes away, no problem.
There we are again, the only black ducks in a sea of white!! Noticed something else at this place, they don't drink! There must have been 400 orientals in this place eating and not one of them had anything but water in front of them, spooky, so I drank water aswell, it ain't gonna catch on with me. More pictures with Niamh, more looking, pointing, really odd. Fab place though, food was magnificent.
Back to our Hotel, nice bottle of Cabernet Sauvingyon (red wine), sod that water lark, then off to kip, ready for the transfer to HK the next day.
Watch this space for our HK experience, including, the transfer, the hotel, toilet problem for Niamh, The Peak, market, shopping, Pete's rap, live animals, suits, watches, Ocean Park, the Band, spiders and more bloody pictures with Niamh.
The Skerritts