Well another day dawns here in Townsville wth blue skies, temperatures predicted to reach 30 plus and the Aussies are still wacking that little red ball around the Gabba against the Poms. The peace and tranquility is only interrupted by the Aussie Airforce fighter planes playing silly monkeys above practising their aerobatics I presume - noisy buggers.

Anyway en route to do some shopping last night, we naturally called into the pub first and downed a couple (still reckon the Aussies serve their beer ice cold to kill the taste!) and mein host's missus Wendy decided to invest a few dollars on the Pokies. That's slot machines / one armed bandits to you and I! Rather than watch her I felt it would be rude not to join her and so I put a ten dollar note in the slot, the machine swallowed it and I quickly worked out which button to press to set the reels rolling.

Guess what? After a few spins, lights started flashing, bells started ringing and the upshot was that I walked out of the pub with 200 bucks for my 10 bucks investment. Naturally I spent a chunk of my winnings on a case of Bundy & coke!

Anyway on to what I'm primarily out here for - apart from the sun, booze, food etc - and that's speedway. I can assure you that no one is best pleased that there's been a big switch around in the dates / venues for the Aussie Champs rounds! Rather than start over in SA / Victoria, the series will now start in NSW! Can you imagine the outcry if this had happened in the UK? Ah well - just gotta rebook one flight so it hasn't affected me that much.

Soon be time for me to grab some lunch so better go shower / spruce myself up. Tonight former Oxford rider Keith Pilcher and wife Marg are coming around for a couple of drinks. Tomorrow, as I said on my first post, it's up to Pioneer Park in Ayr for my latest methanol fumes fix. Hope you lot in Blighty are not suffering too badly from the old withdrawal symptoms!