trouble and defeat in newcastle

so i (tim) had this great idea to watch the england portugal match in newcastle as it was a big town, which would hopefuly have some big screens to watch the match on, and some fellow poms to either celebrate or commisserate with.

after driving all day we arrived late on saturday night and the match started at 2am. unfortunately for us the only campsite was a ferry ride away from town and the last ferry was at 2am, no good. so we headed into town to get a cheap bed for the night. again we were unlucky as the state finals for netball and football were being held that weekend and every bed (well, every one we could afford) in town was taken up.

so we decided that we would find somewhere that was playing the match and then sleep in the car for the night. the logistics of that were going to be difficult but it would be a free nights kip, so we thought. after driving around for ages we found (what i thought) was a nice safe, busy carpark and parked the wagon under a street light, and that would be our home for the night.

we headed into town and wasted the night finding a cheap meal in a dodgey pub and we discovered that only one place in town was showing the match but this was a nightclub. not a good start. we got to the club and the match was being played on a small screen with no volume while we were surrounded by very drunk local kids.

we sacked that off and decided to try our luck at one of the backpacker hostels on the other side of town. we were in luck, and half an hour before kick off we blagged our way into a common room, on the promise that we would bring some beer. we had some in the car which wasn't parked far away, so we legged down there to then get back for kick off.

as we approached the car we firstly noticed that the once busy carpark was now empty apart from our car/home. secondly we noticed that the back wheels were missing!!! some cheeky little buggers had stolen our back wheels! all urgency regarding the match vanished and we stood there half drunk, scratching our heads saying "eerrrrrrrr". we then realsied that one of the windows had been smashed in and after a frantic couple of minutes we realised that thankfully nothing had been stolen. finally we saw all the skid marks all over the carpark which was obviously where the local kids came to get up to mischeif in their overly powerful cars.

as luck would have it a police car came by and we flagged them down. the cops pulled up, rolled down the window and said "don't worry, we got the mungrels" we both had a little giggle and they explained that they'd seen our car sat on the back axle andf later seen a kid with exactly the smae set of wheels on the back of his car. the cops put 2 and 2 together and impouded the car. happy days. unfortunately the cops could'nt decide what to do with the kids car if they took the wheels off, and the chief of highway patrol wasn't back till the morning so we had to sit it out. the best bit of this was that while the cops were taking our statement one of them explained that this was actually a curfew area, and that normally, after 11pm all cars get a ticket. but in this case we were being let off!

the cops left us there, dazed and confused and then we remembered about the football. because the window was smashed we didn't want to leave the car so british inguineity came to the fore. we had a little 12V back and white TV, and we had some beers. the only problem was that we might run the cars battery down, but that was the least of our worries. so we sat there, in the very early morning, in an empty carpark, with no back wheels and sipped beers whilst we watched england get defeated after their best performance of the world cup on penalties! typical! during that very strange 3 houres we had all sorts of weirdos coming and to visit us. after the fifth person said "where's your wheels mate" it got a bit anoying. so after we lost, we brushed as much of the broken glass as we could out of the back, shoved everything into the front seats and got down for a nights sleep, at an angle.

we waoke up to a full carpark again as everyone was coming donw to the beach dor their sunday. i spent 3 frustrating hours in the police station while alex was getting alot of very concerned people asking if she was ok and of course "where's you wheels mate". it turned out that the carpark we had chosen was actually where the locals cam to pose and polish there large beautifully kept cars. so we had to sit there and wait for the police chief to turn up with the wheels and for the window to get fixed, with very shiny cars either side of us and lots of laughter. we attracted alot of attention, but did receive alot of kind offers.

by 4pm our wheels arrived and the cops helped us put them back on. all in all we were very lucky to get them back. not so lucky to have to pay the $450 fee for getting the window fixed on a sunday, but nevermind.

that night we parked on a very busy, well lit street and stayed in a comfy bed in a hostel. very nice.