The List

There's a public 'people' list and a private people list. Out of consideration for the people concerned let's just say that the people on the private people list include:

1. family
2. friends from school
3. friends made since school
4. former colleagues; to the extent that they mean something but aren't already at (3)
5. former neighbours; to the extent that they mean something but aren't already at (3)

I've got an interesting and nearly corresponding list of people I need to do my best to keep contact with after I leave here to return home.

Places to go

First of all and at least initially in some semblance of order in that I've started flinging these up in some approximation of road trip order ... other randomly recalled places to be appended. Suggestions?

• Kilmore
• Glenrowan
• Wangaratta
• Beechworth
• Myrtleford
• Bright
• Omeo
• Bairnsdale
• Paynesville
• Raymond Island
• Metung
• Merricks
• Phillip Island
• Blairgowrie
• Port Fairy
• Loch Ard Gorge
• Warnambool
• Wagga Wagga
• Orange
• Cairns - Green Island
• Townsville
• Cooktown
• Weipa
• Three mile creek
• Big River (not saying which one)
• White Cliffs
• Lake Menindee
• Swan Hill
• Ballarat
• Bendigo
• Castlemaine
• Maryborough

and places I haven't been but really should

• Broken Hill
• Wagga Wagga (great name, and there was this guy I knew once ....)
• Uluru (Ayres Rock)/The Olgas/Alice Springs
• Perth
• Darwin
• Hobart (probably been there, lived in Tassie when I was very young)
• Brisbane
• Adelaide (but only if I really must and because there are some rellies there)
• The Barossa
• Sydney (just kidding, I spent a week there once. And I suppose B should see that bridge and that opera house)
• The Grampians

and loads of other places...

Things to do

• connect with the people on the people list
• go to the places on the places list
• see the sights on that list
• eat and drink what's on the food and drink list
• visit dad, both grandfathers and my paternal grandmother
• ride a tram, any tram, but including a 45 a 72 and anything travelling down Collins Street
• ride Puffing Billy (up to and including sticking my head out and getting my face covered in soot
• Healsville Wildlife Sanctuary
• wait for someone, anyone I care for beneath the clocks in Flinders Street Station
• snog someone (preferably male, single, extremely good looking, wealthy, amusing, intelligent and not too much younger than me) in the Botanical Gardens
• shopping in the shops around the Junction
• spending a Saturday afternoon in and out of the shops in Prahran (or wherever today is what Prahran was then)
• get a book out of the stacks at the library I once haunted
• park my car in
• Sophia's for pizza
• the Hungarian restaurant
• call in at St John's
• take a look at the school (both campuses)
• drive beneath the speed limit down Mont Albert Road (hell, there's a first time for everything)
• take a look at the street where I grew up
• take a look at the streets where my parents grew up and where my grandparents lived during my lifetime
• use my MCC membership
• see a decent game of football (see immediately above - though for preference a game the Demons win)
• attend the opening day's play in a Boxing Day test match (preferably one ending with a victory over England in a series that ends with us reclaiming the Ashes)
• visit memorials to great great aunt and grandfather

Sights to see

Um, did I mention already? Suggestions?

• Mount Buffalo
• the Ovens Valley
• the Blairgowrie backbeach
• Loch Ard Gorge
• the however many are still sanding Apostles
• the bit that remains of London Bridge
• the penguin parade at Phillip Island
• the first view of the cane fields heading north through Queensland
• the sun coming up over Golbourn from the Melbourne/Sydney train
• sunset over Lake Menindee
• Uluru (Ayres Rock)
• a paddle steamer in action
• 'historic' Ballarat
• the house outside Myrtleford
• the house in Myrtleford
• the coathanger
• the seashells

Food and Drink

Things I will be demanding the moment I step off the plane, in no particular order; though some of the obvious ones are inevitably at or near the top:

• Fish and Chips (& potato cakes)
• Life Savers
• Milo (to drink and to sprinkle on my Blue Ribbon ice-cream
• Malted Milk Powder (the perfect accompaniment to my BR ice-cream sprinkled all over with Milo
• Fruit Tingles
• Blue Ribbon ice-cream
• VB (I'm Victorian, and it is great)
• A four'n'twenty (at the G, with a tub of hot chips - and by god they will be chips)
• Bundaberg Rum (because its home 'grown')
• Violet Crumble (much better than the alternative)
• Life Savers (in case I haven't mentioned them already
• Kool Mints (and Kool Fruits too - my Torana had a recess in the central panel that was made for a tin of Kool Mints)
• Coopers (funnily enough will always evoke th Sachsenhausen in Frankfurt for me)
• Minties (leaving home without them was my big mistake)
• Barbequed barramundi (adapted 44 gallon drum optional)
• Strasbourg sausage (perhaps only once) in a sandwich of over-processed white bread with tomato and beetroot. Sadly memorable.
• Tee-Vee snacks
• Chocolate Teddy Bear biscuits
• Chocolate Ripple biscuits
• Pavlova (obviously)
• Chocolate Ripple cake
• Barbeque shapes
• Fantails
• Life savers
• Caramello Bear
• A Choc Wedge or three
• A Drumstick
• Eskimo Pies
• a Crocodile kebab
• are those Heart shaped icecreams still around? I'll have one for Dad.

and also some things I'm quite looking forward to continuing not to eat or drink:

• chicco rolls (never have, just the thought, do they still exist?)
• Fosters (ugh)
• dim sims (not dim sum, we're colonials) - let's not go there
• XXXX (I'm Victorian)
• Great Western 'Champagne' - I'm old enough to drink legally now and besides I've (been) drunk (on) good Dom Perignon
• witchety grubs (once is enough)
• damper (ditto)