Goodbye Sydney, Hello Another Weird-Accented Country

We’re moving on! Goodbye Sydney Australia, hello Wellington New Zealand. Another day, another new country.

There are a lot of moves in this trip and each one requires repacking. It’s getting a bit tedious but that’s just part of the jetsetter territory.

I worked hard at getting flight times that wouldn’t force us to rush around, particularly early morning ones. For the most part, it’s been a success, too.

Get your own fries!

Every hotel room in the world should have at minimum a kettle, tea, and coffee fixins available. It just keeps things civilized.

Our last night in Sydney was… interesting. We headed back to the room after the Sydney Eye on a Stick Dangle Experience, had a celebratory ‘nice to be alive’ cocktail, and looked up a place to eat on the internets.

It seemed like a pub was a good choice and I found one only a block away that had some good write-ups named P J Lucky O'Daydrunk's Fiddler's Green Lounge Pub. You could just tell it would be authentic.


So, off we went. We found the place no problem and went in. The main bar room was mayhem. It was loud, people screaming, various kinds of crazy going on. Because footie match on the TV. I spotted a staircase leading (wait for it) down. We checked it out and found a nice quiet room with tables and a walk-up bar. It was barely occupied.

We figured out after a while that it was kind of self serve - but we weren’t sure about the food. Fortunately, I spotted a server Sheila and he said yes he would take our order.

Tired, we sat and waited patiently. Mrs. Flusher had ordered the revered Irish Stew, and I the Fish’n. Then we waited some more, patiently. Then we waited impatiently.

Half an hour went by. The serving Sheila had made himself scarce and when he did show up, I flagged him down.

He explained that he couldn’t get the order in on the machine and they were working on it.

Another twenty minutes went by and by now we were starving. He came back and explained that even though he’d got the order in, it hadn’t printed in the kitchen. He was so sorry. He’d take it in personally.

I was ready to blast him one when he said just the right thing, something any pub-goer yearns to hear.

“Can I offer you a drink on the house for your wait?”

Hell yes, you can. And two pints of dark foamed Guinness goodness were on their way to us.

The food finally did arrive and the Stew was amazing and the Fish’n were shite. The fish just tasted lousy.

P J Lucky O'Daydrunk's Fidder's Green Lounge Pub's Irish Stew and Souvenir Lucky Potay-ta.

Fuck you, Lucky O'Daydrunk, these are just fish sticks!

Best part of the meal was the beer, by far. Shoulda had the stew.

We got out of there and didn’t leave a tip. Because you don’t, in Australia.

It's the custom not to, because everyone is paid a decent wage. I think they said minimum wage is $17 an hour.

I thought I liked it so far, but I’ve now realized there’s no way to send a meaningful message when your server forgets to make sure your food gets ordered.

A block away was Woolworths, so we checked that out and bought supplies for the morning. I saw all kinds of interesting things, including (ulp) Kangaroo Jerky.

Wait, what? People, you have kangaroos on careful display at the Zoo, with an app that explains about them, and Kangaroo keepers and so on, but you turn around and 10 miles away sell their paws fashioned into Bird Flipping Kangy Paw Paperwaits, and turn strips of their hoppy flesh into Jerky?

Thick cuts of Kangaroo with loads of flavour will certainly convert me.

It’s like going and seeing a pet tiger at the zoo, buying a tiger t-shirt, donating to support the tiger breeding program, and then buying some delish tiger jerky from the gift shop on the way out. Except Kangaroos.

We put our goods on ice in the room and crashed. It was another amazing day Down Under and we’d thoroughly enjoyed all of it except waiting for an hour because of the twat waiter Sheila.