After a sensational, funny and emotional “last supper” at Frango Frangos in Lorne last night, the Baggers are awakening to a new dawn in Lorne, at the Grand Pacific Apartments.
Overlooking the Pier, the Grand Pacific has hosted the boys well, although most of the boys are so worn out that they could be called the Male Shaggers for no other reason than they are completely and utterly Shagged after an amazing 10 days on the road and 2 days of prep in Perth.
The after party last night, which had the potential to be like the Brownlow the night that Fev stuck his tongue in Juddy’s ear, ended more like a night of canasta at the Applewood nursing home as the 34 riders and crew were ferried back to the GPA by none other than the coach Parko, who handled the red ute with more skill than he does the postie on the Great Ocean Road. The fact that when asked to bring your best bottle of red, Parko grabbed a bottle of Cottees Raspberry cordial at the Peterborough IGA on ther way through yesterday after realising his Faux Pas in not having supplied the required drop prior to departure in lorne instead thinking that his red gloves would have been sufficient.
The Blogger has, at this point in time made the most significant error of the trip, as he was transferring the video footage of the Great Ocean Road taken from behind half the field individually, from the ripping Ion Air Pro (thanks again Tomo) he has mistakenly deleted 8Gb of footage and due to the accumulated 50 or so Gig of Files Footage and Fotos (sic) his Mac Book Air has gone into meltdown as has his Imation 500 Gb portable hard drive. First stop Monday is a visit to the Genius Bar at the Apple store (free plug must be worth something) Westfield Doncaster to get the dudes in blue shirts to show him how to clear excess data better. They may even be able to salvage the files that are presently more lost that the Red Ute has gotten on more occasions than anybody cares to remember. What started out as a 4500 klm journey is ended more like 5000 klm.
Notwithstanding all of that, the night saw acknowledgement of superb efforts of the support crew and our ring in Chris Toohey, who had the East Gambier Footy Club in stitches with his closing remarks on Thursday night.
Baggers were getting things signed including Frank “Mostachio” Kruize who looked like a VCE student on muck up day getting his “Dress Shirt” signed by all and sundry. At one stage Frankie was about to rip his shirt off and pass it around, but the boys had to remind him about how close he was to the water. One of them even mentioned Green Peace, The Sea Shepherd and Japanese Whalers who were smoking the peace pipe in the corner of Frango Frangos and that there was no assurance that the Whalers could not be tempted to get out the harpoon by mistake and drag him off the beach and into the processing plant on board their vessel. (sorry Frankie)
Then of course there was the auction of the Bespoke quilt so beautifully made by Garry “Gazza” Johnson’s niece, which raised more than $700 when going under “The Rat’s” hammer. The bidding started at $100 and quickly rose in $100 increments to about $600 and then the competitive spirits came to play as Frankie Dettori and Big Shagga competed hard and fair until the Shagga finally knocked out Frankie as the realisation hit Frankie that he was punching above his considerable weight against one of this country’s serious corporate pugilists.
Chris Toohey gratefully donated the use of one of his heritage listed properties (that may be a stretch but can’t really remember) and that raised $800 as our youngest Bagger, SOD played the knockout punch at $800. A wise young man having had the benefit of learning all the stupid mistakes from a group of blokes whose average age is more than double his tender years.
The final curtain was drawn as the boys watched the Bombers prevail on the TV in the corner as we had to listen to repeated calls that the game would end in a draw and then had to be concerned about hearing that Bagger skite about how “he predicted it”, just like Mike Williamson did in the 1977 drawn Grand Final. We must give Mike Williamson his due as he made that call so often that at some point in time it had to come true.
Back to GPA and most blokes off to bed.
We’ll have to wait and see how many make it to a 6:30 muster at the edge of the Big Truck to load bags into the truck before loading breakfast into bellies.
Then it is off to the car park, mount the trusty steeds and get to the “G” for the presentation of a massive cheque. You will have to be there to find out how much we have raised, but suffice to say that it has been a sensational effort by all and sundry.
