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Saturday, 17 December 2005 - Gold Coast Riots
Recently I've been banging on about how Aussies seem to love a good protest. Well apparently they love a good riot too! Last Sunday and Monday, North Cronulla Beach in Sydney's south played host to a massive racial riot organised by text messages against anybody and everybody of Middle Eastern appearance in retaliation for an assault a week earlier on two volunteer lifeguards by “youths of Lebanese decent”. It was the Honkies versus the Arabs, and things got really ugly. Car-load upon car-load of people actually made the trip up to Sydney from Melbourne just to join their brothers in the fight hehe. In the days that followed, rumours started to run rife of similar riots occurring on the Gold Coast this weekend after police intercepted similar text messages to those that fuelled the Sydney riots. As I haven't been to the Gold Coast in over four months, and as I always love to be where the action is I figured I'd take my bike and camera and go for a nosey ;) I later found out that kick-off for the Gold Coast riot was actually scheduled for tomorrow (Sunday), but I'm spending that at the cricket so I decided to go for a look anyway.

When I woke this morning it was sunny, clear, and nearing 30 degrees but the forecast was for big storms - not good rioting weather. I left the train at Beenleigh (half way to the Gold Coast) to buy a pie for lunch from a place 15 minutes south of the station that I'd heard sold pies that were just the best thing since sliced bread. They weren't - it was gross. Anyway, when I got back to Beenleigh an hour later it was bloody dark and the thunder was awesome (unless of course you were planning on spending the day cycling)!
While I was on the train it absolutely pissed down! Glad I wasn't out rioting in it ;)		After the 20-minute train ride the storm had passed and I headed for the coast. Incidentally, the odometer on my speedo clicked over to 3,000kms on the way - not bad for just under 11 months. Hooray for me :)
It seems everywhere you look there's a Macca's over here! Harbour Town in Biggera Waters is a massive outlet shopping centre where manufacturers offload their crappy factory seconds. As such, it's a great place to shop if you're a tight arse (like me), and if you need to find gifts for people who you are sure won't notice the difference.
When I got to the coast I headed to the very top of the Gold Coast since I'd never been up that far. Like much of the Gold Coast, it was full of big houses, big boats, and a lot of money.
If you're thinking of coming to Southport with the intention of dishing out some domestic and sexual violence, you will not be tolerated. I'm assuming just one or the other is fine though, but not both ;) Apparently rioting is acceptable too.		Looks like the Gold Coast City Council has been preparing for the riots.
After going as far north as I could, I turned back and headed for Surfers Paradise. As I got closer there were noticeably more paddy wagons on the road.
However, when I eventually made it to Surfers, it was just another day in paradise (pun intended). Hot chicks, sunburnt tourists and surfers, but nobody hurling rocks or petrol bombs at police or 'cracking skulls' as per the text messages. What a let down! Maybe it will all happen tomorrow after all.
On the way back to the train station I found this hahaha! There were some pretty impressive skid marks and a long line of debris up the road, but I've got no idea how somebody's managed to do this other than they've come out of the roundabout (50 metres back) too fast and just lost it. By the time I got home I'd done 70kms for the day spread over three hours of cycling in 30 degree heat, and I was buggered!

Sunday, 18 December 2005 - The Gabba

Spent a quiet Sunday afternoon at the cricket with Adam - just a little provincial game between Queensland and Western Australia. This is The Gabba stadium by the way - Brisbane's main cricket and Aussie Rules ground ('Gabba' is short for Woolloongabba - the suburb in which it is situated).

Monday, 19 December 2005 - Sydney Riots

Brilliant! The photos in the GTA collage on the left are actual photos from all the action in Sydney (more info here). Welcome to Australia! Incidentally, the scheduled racial-bash on the Gold Coast never eventuated.

Wednesday, 21 December 2005 (New Zealand) - Welcome home me!

YES! Finally, the 21st of December - home for a fortnight! :) This was the weather on the approach to New Zealand...		...and this was the sight as we passed over the West Coast haha (for those not familiar with New Zealand, the West Coast is not exactly renowned for great weather).
Somewhere over the Southern Alps mountain range...		...and somewhere over north Canterbury.
This is a little rural town around 20kms north of Christchurch called Woodend (although I didn't realise this was actually it at the time - I just thought I'd take a photo). I live around 5kms to the left of this shot.		AND I'M HOME! :)

Anybody who knows me well knows I love carnage like, for example, vehicle accidents. With that in mind, a question: have you ever wondered what the result would be if a freight train collided with a fully-laden truck at a level crossing? Probably not ;) Regardless, this is what I came across during the drive home from the airport...

This is Sturrocks Road, a semi-busy suburban street in Redwood (where I spent the bulk of my first 22 years). The top end of it was cordoned off by police, and about million flashing lights could be seen surrounding its railway crossing a few hundred metres down. Stop the car Mum! Out came the camera, and this is what I found: about ten cop cars, five fire engines, three ambulances, and a lot of curious bystanders!
		I also found: a typical 90-tonne locomotive with a pretty munched-up front, towing about 20 carriages, stopped dead in the middle of Christchurch's busy trunk line...
The trailer of an articulated truck, overturned, and with a snapped drawbar...		...also with a munched up front and dirt all over the show...
...A truck, also overturned, also munched up, the other end of that trailer's drawbar still stuck on its arse, and more dirt everywhere...		...and a Mazda with no roof, dirt all over it, and surrounded by fire crew and paramedics (note the brakes are locked on). Although it can't be seen clearly from this angle, the front of this car is buried under the overturned truck!

Oviously it's not hard to work out roughly what happened here but I like facts and details and I'm nosey, so I befriended a few people and got the full story: The Mazda's sole occupant (a 58-year-old lady) was stopped at the crossing signals with the train was approaching from her right. The truck was coming the other way, somehow failed to notice the four large flashing red lights, and as such just ploughed on through the crossing and right in front of the train. The train struck the truck's articulation point (where the truck and trailer are connected) and threw the truck right on top of the lady in the Mazda. I managed to find the train driver who was some 500 metres from the action (damn I'm good) standing at the level crossing of Tuckers Road (the next street parallel to Sturrocks), waving traffic through the crossing signals that were going non-stop because he parked his train about 50 metres away. I worked my smooth moves on him to get some more info (and photos - they didn't let just anyone walk down the track and photograph the train ;) He reckons he was doing around 65-70km/h when he hit. Upon contact, the truck wrapped around the front of the locomotive before finally breaking into two, and the locomotive rocked and swayed from side to side so severely that its sides actually made contact with the ballast surrounding the rails. In other words, it too was amazingly close to overturning but somehow didn't. Unreal! I asked if his life flashed before his eyes, and he replied that in his 30-something years of driving trains he's smacked two trucks (including this one), four cars, and two cyclists, so this is just another day in the life of a train driver hehe. I later found out on the news that the lady in the Mazda only suffered bruising and was discharged from hospital later that night!

Ahh shit my truck!		Ahh shit my trailer!
Ahh shit my dirt!		Ahh shit my train!
Ahh shit my signals!		Ahh shit I wanna go home...
...ahh shit, me too!		"Ahh fuck me that hurt!", said Thomas ;)

After all that action I finally made it home, and it's great to be back :)

Panoramas of my (real) home.
View from the front of the house at dusk.
My room :)
Elmo, my cockatiel (remembers me!).		Joey, my (simple-minded) greyhound (also remembered me, eventually).
Woodend Beach (remember the photo of Woodend I shot from the plane), not exactly the Gold Coast but hey. The Kaikoura mountain range is in the distance.
Panoramic sunset, shot from a field near my house. Pretty huh :)

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