Deadly treadly

I’ve been amusing myself with the lingo at http://www.abc.net.au/wordmap/default.htm, which was sent to me by my friend Lucie, who I’m hoping to stay with in Canberra, if she hasn’t been transferred to Alice Springs by then that is. A deadly treadly is a fast bicycle. Other expressions that tickled my fancy are :

Nana nap - sleep in the afternoon
Nicky na nas - underwear
Pack of poo tickets - a mess
Burqini - a modestly cut swimming costume - cross between bikini and burqa
Maggot bag & blood - pie & tomato sauce
Boiled bum nuts - eggs
Wobbly boot - drunk, eg “he’s got the wobbly boot on”

Burqini would be a beaut in Scrabble as it’s a seven letter word with a q-less u.

So, I’m going to be posting on here every day now, even though I‘ve hardly told a soul about this blog yet. I received 20 odd replies to nearly 40 accommodation requests. I even woke in the middle of the night and had to check to see how many had got back to me. If this level of excitement keeps up I’ll need to start having nana naps. These repliers didn’t disappoint either, liberally sprinkling their messages with g’days, mates and general Ozzie bonhomie. Some in northern Queensland talked of dirt tracks, monsoons and how they couldn’t plan that far ahead, adding to my vision of rural Australian being a land apart, where civilization, time and progress have had little impact on the wilderness. I shouldn’t have preconceptions though and don’t want to annoy anybody with prejudiced generalizations before I’ve even arrived.

Lucie also told me about how the states used to have separate governments right up until they were federated in 1901. The railways had been around for some time in each state, but nobody had thought that it might be helpful to build them all the same gauge. Queensland was poor and built 3' 6" lines, New South Wales & South Australia were a little bit richer so theirs were 4’8”, whereas Western Australia & Victoria had lots of gold, so were able to construct 5’3” tracks.