What's that, Skip?

The sun sets over a familar icon

Flaming June is here and we are on the final leg of our journey together. As I write I am waiting for the 'For Sale' sign to be erected outside my house. The man came yesterday to calculate the energy certificate. A hundred quid a pop and he was only here 15 minutes! I'm definitely adding 'Energy Certificate Bloke' to my list of possible career opportunities. Doing 2 or 3 of those a week would do me nicely.

Just over three weeks until my final challenge - the Humber Bridge Half Marathon. I went on my longest training run to date last Sunday - 10 miles, which I managed in 90 minutes. In fact, that's the furthest I have run in my life. Even when I was a very fit 20 year old I never ventured that far. So, fingers crossed, I'm on target to complete the run in under 2 hours. The weather will be the critical factor.

I'm also running over the bridge this weekend as it is the annual Humber Bridge 10k race. I ran it last year and it was very pleasant. This year it is more of a training run for the big event, although I am aiming to run it in much less that the 56 minutes I took 12 months ago.

So, as promised, let's complete the antipodean travels before I sign off this blog for good.

Cue Jack Bauer voice-over -'Previously on Middle Aged Gapper...'

Our journey to date has taken us from Sydney, home of some very big bats, westwards to Adelaide. After an unsuccessful attempt to swim with dolphins we took the Ghan train north to Alice Springs and are about to venture to our final goal in Australia - Uluru. The story continues...

For the backpacker there are two ways to travel from Alice Springs to Ayer’s Rock Resort, a distance of roughly 300 miles. The first is to take a 6 hour bus ride through the desert. The alternative is a 45 minute plane journey. Both cost about the same, but the bus journey does stop at a camel farm.

Back in Blighty I had opted for the flight. Once I was in the outback I began to regret this decision as I felt I was cheating on the backpack experience. A comment by Emily, the girl on the Ghan, made me wonder if I have might have made the right decision after all.

‘I took the bus out to Uluru. We must have passed about five hundred dead kangaroos on the way.’

‘Five hundred!’ I said, incredulously, sure that I had misheard.

‘At least. They’re all along the road. It’s the people in the big 4 wheel drives with the bull bars on the front. They knock the ‘roos down without even stopping.’

I was brought up in the era of Skippy the Bush Kangaroo. How many people would still be trapped down the old mineshaft to this day were it not for Skip’s warnings, conveyed in a weird clicking sound to Sonny Hammond, the young son of the National Park Ranger? To witness mile after mile of dead Skippys was something I was happy to avoid.

Also, the bus left Alice at 7.00 am, whilst the plane did not leave until 2 pm, thus affording me the opportunity for a rare lie-in. My German roommate, Rudolf, however, had other ideas.

At precisely 6.05 am of the day of my departure for Uluru I was shaken awake very violently.

‘What the f...’

‘Excuse me,’ said the agitated Rudolf. ‘I thought I heard an alarm. Are you going on a tour?’

‘No,’ I said sleepily.

‘Ok. Das is gut.’ Rudolf replied and climbed back into his bunk to resume his slumber.

Fully awake, I pondered on what had just happened. I was certain that I had not set any alarms and only Rudolf and I were in the room.

The bane of men’s dormitories is the snoring. There’s always at least one snorer, usually more. For this reason I wear good earplugs whenever I have to share a room. Had I been snoring? Had Rudolf awoken me under the guise of alerting me to a mystery alarm in order to get a decent lie-in himself? Clever old Rudolf.

My German roommate may have dropped off into a deep slumber but I couldn’t. I got up and lazed around the hostel until it was time for the shuttle bus to the airport.

The flight was pleasant and afforded my first glimpse of the distinctive red rock that was the goal of my Australian trek. And not a dead ‘roo in sight.

As the plane made its final approach and I gazed out at the barren landscape below I noticed something odd. We were climbing.

The captain’s voice came over the intercom:

‘Sorry about that everyone. There’s a very strong wind blowing, making it dangerous to land. Hopefully, it will ease off and we can make it down. It might take a few attempts though.’

The next few minutes tested the sickness tablets I had taken to their limits and despite an outside air temperature of 37 degrees centigrade I managed to break into a cold sweat. Our skilful captain managed to touch down on the second pass and I wrenched my clawed hands from the arm rests.

As I stepped uncertainly onto the runway the heat punched me in the face. The surrounding landscape reminded me of the images I had seen of the surface of Mars. Except Mars isn’t plagued by thousands of sodding flies.