Melbourne

My previous Diary was about our stopover at Singapore en route to visit our son and his wife. They live near Melbourne, Australia where our son is a vet.

When we arrived at Melbourne we were looking through some farming magazines of our son's. I noticed an advert about an agricultural show 'near Melbourne'. We phoned the show secretary for more information. She told us that it wasn't far from Melbourne, just about 100 miles (such distances mean nothing to the 'Ausies' as it such a large country - in fact, we have a map of Australia, and interposed on Europe it stretches from the east coast of Ireland to the south border of Scotland, over to Moscow, then down as far south as Egypt!).

The friendly secretary insisted that we really should go as it was their centenary show, and we would be treated "like royalty". So off we all went, our son and his wife and my wife Margaret and myself. I had asked our son if he could borrow a quad motorbike for me, which he did.

We booked into a motel for the night and then had a most enjoyable day at the agricultural show. The Australians that we met were so 'laid back' and friendly. Our time at the show was most enjoyable, me hurtling about on the quad bike.

When it was time to leave the show, I passed a police sergeant sitting on his BMW motorbike. The police guy called after me "Hey! Come back, cobber!". I reversed my quad back to him, wondering if I was going to be told off for using an unlicensed quad! But all he said to me was, "I could do with one of them on my small farm!". I replied, "I'll do you a straight swap for your lovely motorbike!". He said, "I would Taffy, but it isn't mine, it belongs to the police department". I then said, "I know that the police have a way of detecting folk, but why did you call me 'Taffy', as I had only said a few words to you??". (Taffy is another word for 'a Welsh person'). He replied, "As soon as you started talking I knew that you were a Taffy because my brother is in the Police in Cardiff, Wales"!

He then kindly asked me if I wanted help loading my quad onto our trailer. I asked him as everyone is so friendly, why did he have a revolver in its holder? He told me that his gun was basically to deter drug smugglers!