All good things

I'm home. It's different.

My clothes are clean. The suitcase has been emptied and put away.


If I'm hungry, I can walk to the fridge. If I need to go somewhere, I can hop in a car.

People are driving on the right side of the road.


I don't know if anyone else has noticed this, but if you listen carefully, you'll hear Australian accents everywhere in Melbourne.


Now that I'm back, I have lots to look forward to and an endless list of things to do.

The main priority is a second successive Collingwood premiership tomorrow.

I'm happy to see family again, I've enjoyed seeing friends, but I desperately miss travel already.

I'll miss learning new lessons – good and bad.

I'll miss the inspiration.

I'll miss having firsts.

I'll miss doing nothing but sit on a beach and read a book all day.

I’ll miss being day-drunk on a weekday and having no one judge me.

I'll miss being the only Australian in a room.

I'll miss being lost… Actually, scratch that, I'll get lost plenty at home.

I'll miss meeting new people.

I'll miss Holiday Dom.

A final week spent in Toronto encapsulated everything I loved about the trip.

Adventure, family, friends, sights and fun.

Canada is Australia with a picturesque landscape, fewer poisonous animals and funnier accents. It’s my new home away from home – my plan B if Melbourne ever has enough of me.

I think if the USA and Australia ever had a kid, the result would be Canada. If Canada then had an affair with France, the result would be Montreal.

I’m not sure what I ever did to deserve such amazing hospitality from my Canadian family and friends, but it must have been good.


My relatives, the Cicontes and Paolas, housed me, fed me, entertained me and even smuggled me past the US border to attend my first NHL hockey game. A big thank you to Tom Ciconte, his wife Liz and future sporting star Luke.


I won’t mention the fact that we got stuck at the border at Buffalo and were lucky to avoid a cavity search. I really won’t.

I was taken to cottage town Muskoka by friends Nadine Green and Andrew Brandt and shown a place that, alcohol poisoning and liver damage aside, sits somewhere between fantasy and reality.

The words “oh for sure”, “ya” and “aboat” will live on in my heart forever.

Cheers Canada, I’ll definitely be back.

The trek home held none of the excitement and promise as the one two months ago.

As if a 15-hour flight from Vancouver to Auckland isn't long enough, the woman next to me rubbed some salt in my wounds, coughing sneezing and complaining for 15 hours straight.

Some people just never got that whole 'human decency' lesson at school.

Here’s a thought, why in the world does the captain of a plane have to always say “This is your captain speaking.”?

Who else is it going to be?

Just once, I’d love to hear over the loudspeaker, “Hello, this is Timmy speaking… Hello?... Hello?... Mummy?... Where’s Mummy? Where are my toys? I want my juice! I think I went wee wee in my pants!”

The flight did have a bit of entertainment.

As we were landing in Auckland, a five-year-old boy woke up and felt the plane descending. The kid panicked and yelled at the top of his lungs, "The plane is going down!!! Dad, the plane is going down!!"


"No Shaun, we’re landing, everything is fine. We are landing on the ground."

"No, it's going down, I can feel it!! Are we going to die dad? We can visit Pop!"

This holiday delivered everything I could ask for and more.

Unfortunately, all good things do have to come to an end.

Hopefully there’s a few more to come.