17th & 18th January
It started with a great deal from Virgin Blue a few months earlier. They were offering crazy airfares of $39 one way Melbourne to Sydney, so I grabbed a $78 return flight. Half what I paid last year :) Josh, Jason and myself shared a Taxi from Sydney airport to the Sands, where I got out, and the other two continued to their Hotel. Once they were settled in, they came back to the Sands to meet the others who have come from all around the country and even several from America.
Practically frell all happened on the Thursday, just chillin' out. I wandered down to the beach, took a few photos. The red stuffed toy seen in several photos is my TaScape mascot. "Red M&M"
On the Friday, most of the Scapers arrived, and my 2 roomies began their stay in my room as I was alone on Thursday night. Several of the group decided to see a movie, so I tagged along to the local Cinema and since there was so many in the group, we got a discount, and picked a movie. I saw Disney's "Brother Bear", others saw "Return of the King" & the Jack Nicholson movie "Somethings gotta give". The temperature has been a lot cooler this January, usually high 30's, it was actually only about 20, with light rain on the Friday. It cleared up by Saturday. The nights were either spent in the bar drinking with other Scapers or having loads of fun in the basement watching videos, from a projector onto a bed sheet since someone forgot to bring the right cables for the TV :)
Everyone cracked up with laughter at the blooper reel...... (I almost said tray table!) Thank goodness it wasn't so hot as last year.... as it was a bit uncomfortable being so hot and humid in the basement. Hope it's the same temps next January.
Saturday:
The annual Bus tour to the sites. Double decker, so tall in fact we had to make a detour on the way to the Auburn gardens due to a low bridge. This time it didn't take a 12 point turn to turn around. The first stop was actually Cronulla beach, where some of "Won't get fooled again" was shot. We could see the dunes and buildings used in the Infinite Possibilites episodes in the distance. I was feeling like dren when I got back on the bus, so I took a yellow pill, like Chiana in "Dream a little Dream". I remembered to take some this time. Felt much better by the time we arrived at the Auburn Gardens.
The lake at the Gardens seems greener, like an algae bloom happened, can't be good for the fish, if there were any there. Lost track of time, almost got left behind taking a stroll around the lake taking photos. Back on the bus the next stop was the home of Farscape, at Homebush studios. I apparently dozed off on the way there and got woken up by a shout of the others on the bus when they saw something through an open roller door, luck them! I got a photo of the pier behind the studio that's been used in several eps, then around the corner for a group photo under the directory sign, which was mostly whitewashed now, cept for a few remaining companies. Now off to Pizza Hut for lunch.
While waiting to get the booking sorted, a few people who didn't want Pizza went off to get something else then Deb, our great host, came down the stairs and told us that they wanted us to pay almost $3 per head extra, even after the booking and price was confirmed months ago!! So frell 'em!! We took our patronage elsewhere, they lost out on almost $800 worth of business. Over 60 of us moved a coupla doors down to MacDonalds, were Deb handed us money to get what ever we wanted and return the change to her. Almost a full house there :) We were delayed again leaving as we almost lost a few more Scapers, finally found them and went to the last place of the tour, the battlements at Middle head aka Arnesk, where the magnetic summers are a killer.
When at the lower battlements on the cliff one of the gates were open, allowing acess down the narrow stairs, to the passages underground, but without a torch, you couldn't see more than 2 feet from the foot of the steps. Some of the girls ventured through the darkness bravely, they must have been using some sort of illumination.
That night, had a lovely steak dinner in the lounge before going downstairs to watch more vids, filking, a sort of karoke singing :) Drinking Pepsi Max and munching on the American choccys given to me by the american girls sharing my room, and have a very drad time!! Getting to bed around 1ish each morning..... I heard the other girls got to bed much later, like 3 or even 4am.
Sunday morning, Dawn Patrol, to stake our claim to the BBQ site we used for the last 2 cycles. But when I got there at 5:30am, an elderly couple were already setting up their lot at our usual site, so we grabbed the only other large BBQ area, which was better, as it was closer to the toilets. The usual flapjak/piklets were made on the electric BBQs while people started to rock up.
It was a little windy this year, so people used tape to hold down the chip bowls.... More Scapers came along, setting up the (plastic, noiseless) wind chimes, graciously donated from a Scaper in Pennsylvania, to be given away with the heaps of other raffle prizes.
None of the cast turned up this year, but that's ok, its more of a meet, greet and party weekend. Someone summed up the weekend very appropriatly saying: The Scapers are the cake, the crew are the frosting and the cast are the sprinkles on top :)
In the afternoon the raffle was done.... Ticket prices were higher this year, and I only won 1 item, a Farscape comic. Heaps of other great prizes and the best and biggest was an actual working prop from the set of Talyn. A huge light fitting in the red/bronzed look. I don't know who called it the cockroach.... LOL. It was won by an Aussie.... One of our younger Scapers... lucky girl!
Some others won several prizes! They were very lucky. One girl won 2, or was it 3 tshirts. Other prizes include PK vid chip keyrings, very rare as they were only given to the crew. One of the highlights besides the light from Talyn was a Ken & Barbie set dressed in black leather to represent John & Aeryn.
When back at the Sands, there were fits of laughter when some dirty minds decided to do some 'muppet porn' and do naughty things with the John/Aeryn dolls, posing them. Use your imagination of what they could be. This is a G-rated website so those photos are not available, so don't ask.
On Monday we tried to get to Bill's Cafe for breakfast, but too much procrastination was going on and we eventually got there, but too late for the delicious brekky they offer. I really wanted to have their excellent hotcakes!! Instead we had lunch, and to be honest, it was terrible. To be blunt, it was dren. The green leaves in the pasta made it taste horrible. I'm not a cow, I don't eat grass. Anyway after that most of the group decided to walk down to Circular Quay but Jason, Josh and myself had to get back to the Sands otherwise we wouldn't have time to make it the airport using public transport. It was easy to get lost.
The remaining Scapers had a ball at the Hard Rock Cafe, singing, filking, headbanging (Bohemian Rhapsody style). Unfortunatly our return flight was that night. When I got to the airport I found that my flight was delayed 1/2 hour, so I just had to wait..... That's about it.... Counting down the days for 2005!!
VIVA LA TASCAPE!!!!