Day 2 - 27th June

It was 8.00 am Hong Kong time (1.00am UK time) when we disembarked from the plane. My luggage was being transferred directly to Melbourne so I did not need to waste any time collecting it. All that I had to do was go through customs and wait for my connecting flight to leave.

As I queued with everyone else, I looked up and did a double take at a man standing in the line of people in front of me.

It was Rolf Harris! I could not believe that he was on the same flight as me to Australia!

I approached him and said hello and asked if he would mind if I could have my picture taken with him once we were through customs?

'Aye, nae bother, Jimmy!', he replied in a terrible Scottish accent!

I met him upstairs and shook his hand. I told him that I had bought my Brother a Stylophone for his birthday a few months previously and Rolf laughed his head off.

We chatted for 5 minutes then I cut to the chase and asked a passer by to take a couple of pictures. One with my camera and one with my phone and then thanked him. He was a complete gentleman and a star.



After leaving the poor guy in peace I proceeded to send the picture to just about everyone I knew even though it was the middle of the night back home. Thomas was the only one who replied with 'fuck me, it's the Rolfaroo! Did you ask him to show you his third leg?'

I moved on and boarded my next flight hoping that Kylie would be on this one. Alas, it was not to be.The 4,500 mile, 10 hour flight to Melbourne was uneventful and I managed to get a good few hours sleep.

It was about 8.30 pm when I arrived in Melbourne, an hour behind schedule, so I knew that by the time I collected my luggage and made my way through immigration, there was not going to be enough time to get to the footie. However, I was just so excited to be there that I was not too bothered.

My underlying fear of the past 28 hours that my luggage would not make it to Melbourne with me proved to be unfounded as my case appeared on the luggage carousel. I grabbed it and made my way out to find Thomas and Kath.

They were waiting for me and Kath ran up to give me a big hug and started to cry. Thomas gave me a manly handshake, but I stole a hug from him too.




As we made our way to the exit, Kath spotted Rolf and made a beeline for him. He used his terrible Scots accent again and was a complete star, posing for pictures with us. I think that Kath was more pleased to see him than me!

We found 'Gertie', Thomas and Kath's wee car then drove back to Elwood where their appartment is and cracked open a VB. I had only ever tasted Victoria Bitter in Walkabout in Glasgow and it tasted awful. However, it must lose something in the journey over as it tasted lovely over here!

We chatted and caught up with recent events and then Thomas and Kath's friends arrived straight from the Hawthorn game that we had supposed to be at. We decided o head to their local bar, The Lounge.

Several beers later and we were back at the apartment. I was flagging by now and with an early start the next day, we all headed to bed.

Sleep came quickly.