(diaryland) January 07, 2002 - 3:23 p.m.

This is what happened on my holiday to South Australia.

Day 1. Though quite drizzly, thousands of well-wishers turned up on the main street of Melbourne to say farewell. People we�d never met were fucking crying, man. We said, �Hey. Don�t worry. We�re only going for five days.� We left at 7:15AM.

At 10:30, on the outskirts of Ballarat, the car started some crazy clanking. Roland got out and looked at the wheels. There was a massive bolt stuck in one of them. We panicked, but a nice man at a tyre shop patched it up for sixteen bucks.

I drove approx. 800km in twelve hours that day. I hurt.

We arrived in Hahndorf, a nice village with buildings and stuff. We ate at a bistro where they let us shovel food into our tummies for kids� meal price. I think they recognised us from the newspapers.

Day 2. We bought dried fruit and lollies at Hahndorf. Then we went to Adelaide. The welcome was enormous. There was confetti, brass bands, the works. The people of Adelaide were so enthusiastic. I think we must have signed over a thousand photographs within two hours.

Then we found a place to stay on the main street. It was a backpacker hostel. It had only been open for three weeks, so everything was clean.

Then we went to the art gallery. They closed it off so we could wander around on our own. There were many paintings from colonial times. Roland liked a big dancing sunflower. That was his favourite artwork. We walked around for hours and hours, until the gallery closed at five. We hadn�t finished looking.

That night, there was a scary argument outside our dorm room. A guy kept shouting, �What the FUCK did I do to you?� A girl kept crying and shouting, �Give me back my stuff!� Then a lot of people ran out onto the balcony and tried to calm things down. I didn�t sleep much, as I was scared stiff.

Day 3. We went to the Barossa Valley. Wine is made in great quantities there. This was when Roland sneezed on my car window. It was the worst part of the holiday. Then we went to a dam where you could talk in a normal voice to someone on the other side of this huge wall and they could hear you very well. Roland and I giggled at each other over a distance of a hundred and fifty metres.

Then we went to a place called Gawler and looked at all the churches of different denominations and stuff. We got sunburnt. Then we had dinner at Pizza Hut.

Day 4. We packed up our stuff into the car early. Then Roland and I insulted each other. Then we loitered around the art gallery and took photographs. Then we went into the gallery and looked at the rest of it. The most surprising thing was that I saw a painting there that I had a copy of in my room. I gasped.

Then we drove to Mount Gambier. Mount Gambier is an extinct volcano. There are a bunch of remarkably blue lakes there, and we checked them out.

We set up our tent, and slept.

I was awakened about one-thirty AM by a hooning car. It kept driving past and squealing around corners. For some reason, I decided something really bad was going to happen. I kept thinking about this for three hours. It didn�t help that at one point, someone far away went, �Wooooooooooooh!� I kept thinking that there was just a thin material layer and a zip between me and any evil lurking around outside.

Nothing bad happened. I went to sleep, eventually.

Day 5. I drove back to Melbourne. It was humid. The afternoon city was in feverish gridlock awaiting our return. We returned. Then Diane made us dinner. She still hasn�t taken the Christmas decorations down.