November 2, 2003

We’re finally back at Mission Beach after 9 days, which means that we’re heading back down south to Sydney after driving North for the first month – so far we’ve driven 2,000 miles in the month. It also means that we’re finally able to pickup our video of the BBC Holiday programme. (Oh, and it also means that we’ve got a chance of spotting the endangered Cassowary bird shown on the sign, but as there are so few left, we’re only likely to see them on signs). Anyway, back to the video. Since it was broadcast in England we’ve had a few emails from friends, making oblique references to my white legs and Sarah’s sandwich making technique. And we don’t know what you’re all talking about! Amanda at the BBC had arranged to Fedex us a tape as soon as the programme was broadcast, so that we could see ourselves on telly, but we had to leave the Treehouse before it arrived. We knew we were coming back, so we just had to wait.


And waiting turned out to be the game of the day. When we arrived at the hostel, they knew they’d seen a Fedex package, but they couldn’t find it. They thought it might have been sent back. They thought it might be for somebody else. Eventually they decided that Dennis the manager would know about it. And he’d gone out for 2 or 3 hours. So we sat and waited. Then we had lunch and waited. Then we went for a swim and waited. And finally, three hours later Dennis appeared, with the package in his hand – with the neat little BBC VHS tape inside.

But the Treehouse doesn’t have a TV, and the video player in the staff quarters was broken. But Dennis offered to let us watch it at his house in town – but first he had a bit of business to sort out. So we waited. And waited. And waited. Four hours later, as the sun started to set, Dennis appeared and we started to go. And then, after 6 hours of waiting, one of the staff said “I’ve got a video in my caravan”, across the car park. So instead of having to traipse across town, we all walked across the car park and sat down outside his caravan (it was very kind of him to let us watch it outside his caravan, but I wonder why he didn’t mention it four hours ago!). Anyway, all of this waiting had served to rack up the excitement for us. Sarah had initially decided that she couldn’t watch it just yet, and would perhaps wait a week or so, but in the end the waiting of the afternoon was long enough, so we all sat down together, on a patch of sand, under a shade awning, surrounded by rainforest plants. Quite a setting!

So now we’ve seen what you’ve all been emailing us about. And now I know never to wear a Victorian bathing suit again. And that you look fatter on TV (please, please tell me that it’s the effect of the lens). Oh, and you still hate seeing and hearing yourself on the screen. But we did look and sound like ourselves, and we didn’t think we were made to look like raving loonies. So now we can stop worrying about how silly we might look, and whether they’d include this bit and that bit which we didn’t like........until next time.