DAY 17
Week 3
TERRANORA (New South Wales, AUS)
Tuesday November 21st, 2006
TODAYS MILEAGE – 41 miles or 66 kilometres
TRIP MILEAGE – 3268 miles or 5259 kilometres
What's all this work crap??? 
I'll tell you something for free, Philthy is a better man than me. Anyone who can get through getting 3 daughters aged 17, 15 and 12 up in the morning and off to school has either been (a) a very naughty boy when he was out & about prowling, (b) have the patience of Mother Theresa, (c) have a wonderful bride or (d) all of the above.
Fair dinkum, getting Sianne, Kasie and Tayla going is like trying to pick up mercury with a toothpick. Don't get me wrong, the girls are some of the best kids I've ever known, but squabbles over mascara, hair brushes, bras and breakfast make my head spin. WOMEN!!!! If they didn't have certain attributes you'd throw rocks at them.
Most of the morning was spent getting the Wilkins mob hooked up on a wireless network including internet access. Call me gun shy, but I wasn't about to bust out a drill and start running cable after my efforts in Townsville (Queensland) at Fluxy's and Sonia's two weeks ago.
Speaking of those efforts, I had to trot on down to the "Doc In A Box" as the hand was a bit sore, puffy and red. A quick jab in the arse with a needle, a bit of antiseptic goop and a couple of dressings and I was good to go. As I don't have an Australian Medicare card, the clinic had to charge me full tote odds on the visit, and based on my experiences with US medical facilities – I was a bit worried, to say the least, if I was about to become an fiscal amputee.
It cost my medical insurance company $876.00 USD ($1139.00 AUD) and me a $50.00 USD ($65.00 AUD) co–pay to get a splinter out from under a fingernail in Boise (Idaho, USA) last year. I'm thinking "here we go CHA CHING" as the receptionist kept punching in numbers into her computer. $37.00 AUD ($28.00 USD) was the sum total for the visit. I forked over $40.00 AUD ($31.00 USD) in cash, said keep the change and was off out of there like and politician after a free feed. Bloody marvelous I reckon.
Philthy and I had to do a bit of running around for his lawn care business "Sikata Gardens" before the kids got home from school. I grabbed up Kasie and Tayla as I decided that we'd make dinner for the family that evening. We (as in me) decided on chicken fajitas as it's real easy to make and it's something that the pair of them could get stuck into making. Everything was all good, until we had to cut up the chicken breast, when both of them literally started gagging at cutting up the chook. I think a couple of vegans may be in the making???
For the first time since I got over here, I had got the taste of a big cold beer. For a hard earned thirst there's a big cold beer. And the best cold beer is Vic. Victoria Bitter ... or so the VB ad goes. So, it was unanimously decided by me that I'd have to partake in one or a dozen just to make sure I wasn't dehydrating.
• TERRANORA (New South Wales, AUS)