Spiders, picnics and stingrays

“Don’t forget to shake your shoes before you put them on!” Mum shouted after Kenny. “The spiders..!”
Those were Mum’s last words to her youngest, as he stepped through the entrance to the Security Gate of Glasgow Airport, beginning his journey to Australia yesterday afternoon. With a smile over his shoulder, he waved goodbye and then was gone.
Ka, Mum, Dad and myself had accompanied Kenny to the airport yesterday to see him off. After checking in and obtaining some English money for the journey, as Dubai airport, Kenny’s mid journey stop off, apparently does not accept Scottish notes, we sat in the bar to have an early afternoon beer, toasting to a successful journey, trip, holiday and whatever other delights await Kenny on his adventure. With no significant ties to speak of and some redundancy money to spend, Kenny had decided to see a bit of the world, taking some time out of Scotland to explore the Aussie continent, the world’s thirteenth largest economy, seeing the wondrous sights of Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide, perhaps visiting the mainland’s the surrounding islands in the Indian and Pacific oceans, maybe popping by Australian’s various neighbours including New Zealand or Papua New Guinea and maybe even dropping by Ramsay Street to meet Doctor Karl.
Perth is his first stop where he will meet distant relatives and cousins of my Gran Reid, Donald and Pamela, off the plane. After that, the pages are blank. The adventure starts there and it’s all down to Kenny.
Scary, exciting, nerve-wracking but brilliant. If Kenny was any of the first three he certainly never let on, being his usual laid back self, as we walked up from the bar to wave him away. The experience would most probably be nerve-wracking at first, especially travelling such a distance alone, although I’ve heard it said that travelling on your lonesome can sometimes be far a more rewarding journey. Some say that you meet and encounter a whole different variety of people, and situations, when travelling alone. Look at Michael Palin and the great times he’s had travelling the world – probably not a great example, mind you, as he did have a whole film crew and a bunch of photographers following him about. I suppose he shouldn’t really count.
I know, to some extent, about travelling around on your lonesome, having moved to, and lived, in Birmingham, a loner, for three and a half years, diving around the country from my central point in the Midlands, just for a wee jaunt in the Clio, including occasional trips down to London, but Brum land, the Midlands and the big smoke is not quite the same as heading out to the Commonwealth of Australia.
“Enjoy yourself” were my last words to Kenny. “That’s the main thing”. At dinner, the night before, I tried to talk him into starting a blog about the whole trip but unfortunately he was not up for it. I’m sure he’ll be far too busy for any of that kind of ‘writing about your experiences’ nonsense. Though it would have been a good idea for keeping us up to date with his goings on and whereabouts.
What am I talking about? He’ll be fine! He’ll have a ball!
As long as he wraps his luggage around him when he falls asleep on a train… doesn’t get mugged, run over, go swimming with any stingrays, avoids sharks, gangland wars in the criminal underworld, avoids bikers on dilapidated highways, stays away from Wolf Creek, doesn’t catch a bus called Priscilla, doesn’t eat picnics around cliffs, doesn’t get stung on the neck by a bee and watches out for snakes whilst on the toilet pan.
Around the early nineties my Gran Reid went over to Australia to visit her cousins with her sister, my Great Aunt Mina. Apparently one of them was almost caught out one night by a snake in the bathroom.
Over here in Scotland, we don’t usually have to worry about that kind of thing. Our bathrooms are generally reptile free. Though there probably is a criminal underworld… not to mention muggers, hit and runners, an abundance of hills and cliffs that you could probably end up mysteriously going missing on as you settle down for a nice picnic though I’m not sure about buses called Priscilla… the number 66 on a Saturday night is bad enough.
Spiders. Now that’s another story. Over here they’re sometimes big, but not poisonous. Funnel-Web Spiders are the biggies to look out for over there. Rapid death within an hour, apparently.
As long as Kenny remembers his Mum’s last minute advise, he’ll be fine.