Adelaide and WA Fever Tour 2014
Part 4 - WA Road Trip Pre-game (continued)and the game...:
We managed about 250 kms and got to the banks of the Murchison River
we we pulled into a 24/7 rest area and parked Gunter for the night. This is where we realised he was "The Bug Slayer":
Next morning we had a wee drama. Gunter's battery had gone from full to drained in about 20 minutes of having the key in the ignition but not engaged. Something was not right. We called for road side assistance and a guy was despatched from Northampton. 45 minutes later he showed up, gave us a jump start, diagnosed that there was no fault code and that the battery was holding its charge. Odd.
So we said thanks mate - nothing else you can help us with. He set off and as we set off a warning light came on... so we tried honking but Gunter's horn was not working, so we were in hot pursuit down the highway. 15 minutes later on a dwonhill stretch, with Gunter's throttle WIDE OPEN and cupboard doors rattling, we caught the mechanice and he pulled over. A further check showed no error flags in the on board computer, and when we turned the key back on the light was gone. Go figure.
From there we drove to Jurien Bay, but not before we left Australia!
In 1970 the Hutt River Principlalty seceeded from Australia after the WA government passed a law setting wheat quotas that materially disadvantaged "Prince Leonard".
Here I am with Prince Leonard himself:
And here I am in front of the national flagstaff
We spent about an hour discussing the history of the Principality with Prince Graham (Leonard's son) and Leonard himself. It's safe to say we came away convinced Leonard was gregarious, charismatic and very very clever - he has letters from the Australian government confirming his status as a non-citezen and therefore tax exempt in Australia, as well as a signed painting from Prince Charles of the UK... he is however completely nuts! He's convinced all muslims want to cut all non-muslim's throats, as they are required to do by the literal words of the koran... he's studied it.
An interesting visit.
When we arrived in Jurien Bay we checked into the camping ground and went out for a crayfish feast and a bottle of wine for dinner.
Next morning we headed south, stopped at the Lobster Shack for lunch. Then it was onto Perth, where one of the Perth Fever, Brendan Wright, had offered us a spot to park Gunter the Bug Slayer in his driveway.
Cue drama number 2. After 2 days of solid driving, and stopping and restarting Gunter successfully since the battery incident at Murchison River, we found that after no more than 120 minutes of the key in the ignition but not turned on the battery was completely flat. A second road side assist call saw Andy the Englishman mechanic show up. His diagnosis was the battery was stuffed, so he performed a batteryectomy while we shared a beer with Brendan, who was ready for action!
With Gunter's battery problems resolved we set off in Brendan's girlfriend Terry's car... half way to his mate Graham's p[lace I realised I had left not only my wallet, but our match tickets in Gunter. Ooops.
Brendan had one spare ticket, and while we were at Graham's preloading "Westie-style" (Jack Daniels and cokes) I tried to get the intertubes to allow me to reprint our tickets. That failed... so we headed off to The Game Sports Bar to meet everyone else.
a really good number of Nix fans were there (around 25) and there were free bar snacks (chicken tenders, fried, lamb koftas, prawns) and morale was high.
We then walked to the ground singing songs and having a genarally good time, when all of a sudden Brendan was squaring off in a full on fight with an Aborginal guy who had been with his friends eating dinner in a park. I don;t know what was said, but potatoes were thrown and then punches were thrown. It was all a bit surreal. I stayed behind and made peace with the locals while everyone else walked on;
When I caught up we were nearly at the ground. One of the locals thought it would be a good idea to wear one of Glory's FFA strips (Yellow and Black) to the Nix game and he was mocked with a good rendition of "Are you Phoenix in disguise?" MUCH to his mates amusement.
We then queued up to buy me (D'oh!) a new ticket. While queuing we got talking to abunch of Brazillian guys... Brazillians are EVERYWHERE in WA by the way. And then we walked in front of the shed - cue some banter, and then down to the away bay.
It was really good to meet Niki (front centre) and to cacth up with Antony (left) and to meet JBM (right).
JBB was there too...
Later I met Roy Krishna's sister and niece:
When Roy scored the penalty there were some very happy Fijian faces let me tell you!
The half time entertainement really was - STRANGE as F@#%!
Firstly, this sex offender showed up and used a power tool to fire toilate paper at children...
and when I thought I'd seen all of the strange mascot children interaction I was going see this happened:
One young boy was so frightened he turned crying to his mum!
At full time I got the Brockie complete set:
and then Chris Egan, Perth Glory travelling legend came and said hello and he and Wain took us to the Brisbane Hotel. Back in the day this was the spiritual home of the Shed, and is where many of the Glory chants were written and sung for the first time. However, today it's "gone a bit wanky/wannabe" and Chris said he hadn't been there for years. Nevertheless, we were busy having a great time with Glory and Nix fans alike.
Until things exploded.
A guy in a wanky/wannabe loud shirt was either trying to chat up, or possibly piss off a coupel of ladies. They were unimpressed and were trying to tell him to piss off. They even told him to "Piss off mate". Then the guys they were with came over and there was some pushing and shouting.
I grabbed the loud shirted guy and put my arm around his shoulder and said "Hey mate, they don't want to talk to you. Come and have a beer with us."
He half turned to our table when the second of the two ladies turned and came back for another serve.
She said "You're just a wanker! You called me fat!"
He replied "Well you are fat.."
and BOOM.
I felt a guy fly past me from behind. He tackled the guy in the kidneys and the guy nearly snapped as he was ripped out of my arms and into the air. As he was airborn someone threw a glass and it hit him in the forehead. In the next 6 seconds, glasses flew, beer rained down all over the place, loud shirt guy hit the floor with a thud, punches and kicks flew, much shouting was heard.
The two girls and theior guys disappeared very quickly. Loud short's mates came in as the cavalry but he was down for the count with blood all over the floor.
I was sitting there shocked at how quickly a near riot had exploded.
Security shut things down, ambulances and police arrived, and Andreas and I figured it was a good time to head home.
Friday night out in Perth, eh? Madness.
