So, I get home today and there's a note on the screen door as follows:

G'day Darryl, Give me a call on [mobile No.] - I have something of yours - Wayne

Ok, so there's exactly zero Darryl's in our house and I don't have a lot of Wayne's on my Christmas card list. In the end I decide to give Wayne a ring and let him know that he's got the wrong house.

After I explain to Wayne that I'm not actually Daryl and that he's got the wrong place it transpires that he's left the note on the wrong house. He's found Darryl's wallet in the car park and the ID indicates Darryl lives at 13 Douglas St - the problem is that I live at 13 Sapphire St. People do this all the time because Sapphire cuts across Douglas.

Wayne seems nice enough so I agree to walk the note around to Darryl - at 13 Douglas St - and pass the message on. I knock on the door and after a while it's opened by a friendly fellow. 'Hi,' I say, 'I was wondering if I could talk to Darryl, please?'

'Who?', the fellow replies.

Ahhh.... 'My name is Chris,' I continue, cautiously. 'I live at 13 Douglas St. Someone called Wayne, who I don't know, left a message on my door instead of yours, by accident, for Darryl.'

'There's no Darryl here. My name's Jim, and I've lived here for years.'

There I was representing a Wayne I'd never met, trying to find out if a Jim I'd never met, knew a Darryl neither of us had ever met.

Does this sort of thing happen to other people too?

 I woke up last night at 3.30 because there was a light flickering. Turned out not to be inside. I thought it must have been a streetlight, but then realised that simply wasn't possible from where the light was coming from. So I got up and proceeded to watch what I think is the most amazing lightshow I've ever seen. There was huge stormheads to the south and out to sea and I can't tell you, can't even come close, how much lightning was filling the sky in the two directions. It genuinely looked mythological - like two gods were hurling lightning bolts at each other. Perhaps the most bizarre thing about this whole show was that there wasn't a rumble of thunder to be heard. Just the wail of the rising wind.

There I was standing on my balcony and I suddenly thought - I can get a better view than this. Well, one thing led to another and the next thing I know I'm walking down out street, phone camera in hand, barefoot and wearing a dressing gown. My journey to get a better vantage point led me to the golf course. That would be the first time I've ever stood on a fairway, barefoot, wearing a dressing gown that trying to blow right off my back (yes, not a pretty sight really) at 3.30 in the morning, wind howling and trying to film an incredible thunderstorm - all in a strange sort of silence that wasn't really silence with the wind blowing - but certainly a sensation that for a while you had stepped outside the ordinary world. The only company a fox that looked liked it couldn't sh!t itself silly anymore that it already had and a bat that basically achieved the same effect on me when it took off from a nearby bush.

The video turned out to not even come close to capturing anything of the grandeur - but the experience of trying to take it, well that was a whole different kettle of awesome.

So, yesterday I woke up with a splitting headache and a really sore neck, so I decided to take the day off work (which as you know is never really a day off work with deadline submissions etc, but still at least working from home). Around midday I decide that I need to get some treatment on my neck so I go down to the massage shop in the arcade and they give me a neck, shoulders treatment.

As you have to lie on your stomach you have to stick your head in a hole in the table - you probably know the drill. Anyway, they'd given my shoulders and neck such a work-over that I knew I'd have a big red ring around my face from the pressure from the table hole. And because it's dark in the rooms you can't even look in a mirror (even if there was one) to see how bad the "ring" looks.

I head out into the mall, feeling sure people will see the ring and being a bit self-conscious about that. Sure even it's pretty clear there much be a ring because people's gazes do seem to linger. Now, I can't get away quickly because I also have to get an e-tag thing sorted at the RTA. So, off I walk down the entire length of the mall, suffering people's glances and then proceed to sit around the RTA for at least 20 minutes people coming and going all around me. Finally I get served and as I'm standing at the counter my hand touches my collar - and it's weird - my button is missing.

No hang on - it's still there, but on the inside. Realisation dawns. In the dark of the massage shop I've put my shirt on inside out!!! And, it's the kind of shirt that is clearly on inside out. Then just to tell the world about it I've walked the length of a busy mall during school holidays and hung around the RTA for ages. No wonder people were staring. Now, if I'd been young enough I could have got away with it being some sort of cool statement, but at my age is just smacked of early onset dementia. I might as well have worn my undies on the outside.

Nor could I do anything about it then and there so I had to do the walk of shame again along the length of the mall before I could get to the toilets and turn it inside out.

The final stinger - as I was doing this walk of shame a young woman I walked passed looked straight at my face and then turned to her friend and said "Is my face red?" Yep, it turns out I was right all along - my face was bright red as well. My cunning plan to distract the world from this by wearing my shirt inside out had failed. In the end I was just a red-faced, can't-dress-myself old f@rt.

For the first time we were joined in the poetry radio slot by the poet themselves - and what a poet - Les Murray. This time I didn't read the poetry - after all it wasn't mine was it? I was more of a spectator, but happily so. Anyway, you know the drill - if you want to listen to Les Murray read Les Murray follow this link.

For the third poetry reading we went with W.H. Auden - a wonderful choice as his poetry is so powerful. Again - follow the link if you feeling like listening.

Following on from the John Dunne poetry reading Fiona Wyllie and I decided to something more light-hearted - which lead us to nonsense verse. If you're interested in listening to this - here's the link.

Following on from the first radio interview on Statewide Afternoons with Fiona Wyllie Fiona invited me to do a regular radio slot to discuss poets. For this first session we decided on John Dunne, who was a particular favourite of Fiona Wyllie.
If you're interested in hearing it follow this link.

It has been the day of days, for all sorts of reasons.

Lets get this straight. When you come to an area looking for something special that this area specialises in and you don't see it you begin to create all sorts of logical arguments as to how the holiday has been fantastic and the scenery awesome (which it has) but you can throw all that out the window when that something special does appear and you can admit to yourself that your holiday would have been the poorer without it.

So it was with us. On our morning boat trip, our last boat trip, we finally saw our first orangutan in the genuine wild. Perched on tree branch, looking more like tree than ape, we saw it. And then, wonder of wonders it turn out to be a mother with baby. Can't tell you how joyful we felt. Again no chance to break out into a dance as we were still on a boat, but it was brill. We also saw a monitor, a mangrove snake, a couple of impressive crocs and a real bunfight between a dominant male macaque and the whole female membership of his harem. The harem won hands down and drove him into the water. Women power with dirty great big teeth. All photographed by a boatload of tourists. Oh the shame of it all, and he did look remarkably embarrassed.

nd then we left Myne Resort, having changed our itinerary to take in another day in sandakan. It's worth mentioning that the service provided by the staff was probably the best we'd ever experienced.

We arrived in sandakan after a drive that once again reminded us that the most dangerous creature on any continent is the taxi driver, and the next most dangerous is other drivers. Do you close your eyes so you don't see what's happening, or keep them open so you're ready for it?

Our tour guide from myne, the garrulous Remy, met us and had arranged a couple of tours for us. They would provide us with the extremes of holiday travel.

First up he took us to the sandakan crocodile park. I cannot begin to tell you how horrible this was. It was to good holiday experiences as Julian Assange is to secrecy. It was so bad it transcended its own awfulness and became one of those memories you can bring out when everybody needs a good laugh. In fact, no great holiday is probably complete without one of these experiences. Let me provide you with a picture. Imagine a concrete frontage and tacky sign welcoming you. Then imagine one of those horrible old zoos with concrete cells for cages with sad looking animals in them. So not like how we'd ever want too see animals. And then there were the animals. Woo hoo - a goat. Look - pigeons - whoop-di-do. And the ostrich, god help me. He was the mangiest, baldest and oldest looking ostrich I've ever seen. And to cap it all off he only had one eye! Lordie lordie - a bald decrepit, one-eyed ostrich. We certainly hadn't thought we'd see one of those in Borneo!

Surely it couldn't get worse we thought, but we were so wrong. Having toured the blessedly limited number of animals we got to the amusement area, which was definitely a poor choice of name. It took horrid to a new level. There we could be photographed standing next to a stuffed crocodile with boxing gloves, or a crocodile towing a carriage, or even a crocodile driving a boat. Kate flatly refused but our guide was so enthusiastic that I found myself snapped with an array of sad, undignified stuffed crocodiles. To be honest, it wasn't hard to smile, the tricky part was not to laugh.

And then we came to the piece d' resistance - what the crocodile park was famous for - its death defying, terrifying crocodile show, featuring humans taking life-threatening risks with crocodiles!!! Or at least that's what it should have been but nobody told the crocodiles. They tried to confuse one small croc by dragging it through the water backwards so they could wear it on their head but the croc remained far too frisky so they gave that away. Then the reverse happened with the larger croc. They were going to get it out of the pool to lie on top of, but the croc wasn't having a bar of it. We watched three men unsuccessfully trying to convince it, before we gave up and left. The only real sense of tension had been the fact that since everything had cocked up there was a chance one of the people could actually have been eaten.

I should also mention that the crocodile farm not only offended on the visual front, they had taken the aural side to new levels as well. During our entire visit tinny 1970s soundtracks, including such classics as RaRaRasputin, blared out from even tinnier speakers. And when the crocodile wranglers came out they we accompanied by the soundtrack of Bridge Over the River Kwai, complete with gunshots. Considering the history of sandakan lord only knows what possessed them to think that was in good taste. Help me Rhonda.

Oh, and the place stunk too.

One final note on the croc farm. For some time we had been wondering if our chatty guide was in the habit of making things up. As we entered the farm he took us to see the dugong they had in a tank. Imagine our surprise when all we saw was a large fish. In fact it was the same species of fish we'd seen in the amazon last year, an arapaima. Are you sure this is a dugong we asked? Oh yes, it lives in the ocean and feeds on seagrass he assured us. We knew that the arapaima lived in fresh water and wouldn't know what to do with seagrass if it saw it. The dugong-fish episode didn't do our guide's cred any favours. We took a photo and confirmed it later with one we had on the iPad from our amazon trip. They were identical.

After the horror of the croc farm we did go and see the sandakan war memorial, which we would have wandered around in deep contemplation, if our guide, Remy, wasn't chatting to us every step of the way. We had hit Remy overload.

But I must also give Remy his dues. After all, the croc farm was a truly memorable experience and if it hadn't been for Remy we would never have come to sandakan and missed out on what was to follow.

Our new digs were great and right on the border of the sepilok nature reserve. This was to have its own remarkable rewards. As we returned from our excursions what should we see in the jungle behind our chalet other than two wild orangutans! They were incredibly close and happily ignoring us while they ate. We were no longer orangutan repellents.

In fact, things just got better and better. We were picked up for a night walk in the sepilok reserve where we might just see some orangs and giant flying squirrels. This was arranged by Remy and we were the only ones on it. Things started brilliantly when we saw two orangs immediately after we had entered the reserve, but then it went so quiet that the tour guides were reduced to pointing out pretty uninspiring insects, including one stick insect that was so small and insignificant that it was more of a twig insect.

And then, like with the orangs, our luck changed. First we saw a baby python and then, high up in trees we spotted a giant flying squirrel. Woo hoo. I'd have been satisfied then but one of our guides said he was looking for a slow loris (which is a form of sloth like creature, rather than an intellectually challenged individual with an unfortunate Christian name). Oh why did he have to say that? Now the obsession was back again, with hardly a seconds respite. We continued our spotting scoring a pit viper along the way before we reached the buildings at the front of the reserve. There were were treated to two more orangs who had climbed up onto a verandah and had fallen asleep, hugging each other. In one day we had become orangutan magnets!!

Then just before we were at our car one of the tour guides suddenly ran towards a tree. Low and behold, there was a slow loris, in all its glory, and if that wasn't enough, there were three more giant flying squirrels on nearby branches. As the guide said a the end of the walk we were very lucky people. We had seen everything.

One last observation and this comes as we are about to check out from our resort. This morning I had wandered around the gardens of the resort, which borders the jungle. In that short period of time I saw a monitor lizard swimming, long-tailed and pig-tailed macaques (who proved to be real trouble a the resort, damaging lights, ripping up trees and one even took a swipe a Kate), a red leaf monkey, a kingfisher, a helmeted hornbill and squirrels. Add to that the creatures we saw yesterday and you realise that nature holds all the cards when it comes to spotting animals. I mean you do have to be in the right general area, but after that you just have to always keep your eyes open and who knows what, when, or where you'll see things.

Does this mean we didn't need to go to the kinabatangan river and the myne resort? Absolutely not. We had a wonderful time there and, curiously, by seeing all these animals just recently it took the seeing of them at the resort out of the picture and we could just appreciate everything else we had done there.

For a place that hadn't even been on our bucket list four weeks ago, Borneo had given us all we could have hoped for and more besides. And it's kind of cool to know that you're an orangutan magnet.

The penultimate day at the Myne resort and we had plenty of events planned, largely because our night cruise had be moved to the next day. This meant a cruise in the morning, a cruise in the afternoon, a night cruise and a night walk! Nearly enough to keep even me satisfied.

The morning cruise yielded more birds, but frustratingly still no sign of a wild orangutan. We were beginning to wonder if, just as we were hornbill magnets, we may be orangutan repellents.

Now we had a few hours spare in the middle of the day, and that was just irresistible for me. Yesterday I'd been on a forest walk, which was great but you're only supposed to do them accompanied by two resort staff. Presumably to protect you from snakes, rogue elephants and pig-tailed macaques. Well that was never going to apply. Since I'd been on the walk I'd been planning how to sneak back there on my own and figured out a pretty sneaky route. The afternoon would be perfect for it.

I did my runner, clambered to the top of the hill, carrying my trusty macaque whacking stick and was rewarded not just with a view, but also a chance encounter with a gibbon. The ape looked as surprised as I did and after giving each other a good solid stare, he turned tail, or rather didn't, as apes are noticeable bereft on the tail front. Our first freaky-arsed gibbon! (Though I believe the correct, less colourful name is Bornean gibbon).

That afternoon we went on another cruise, again seeing plenty of wildlife but again we were orangutan repellents. I pitied the poor people who shared our boat, except for one obnoxious gent who got exactly what he deserved.

The night cruise though, would pay rewards of a different kind. This was our one and only evening trip and it was brilliant, cruising up and down the river, spotting creatures by torchlight. We didn't score an orangutan, though this was so par for the course that we hardly even noticed. BUT we did see a civet cat. A beautiful creature, clambering among the tree branches. I would have done my civet cat happy dance if I'd had one prepared (and if we weren't on a boat).

Actually we did have the night walk, which was cool, though all it really produced was a couple of leeches. One amusing aspect to the walk - it is resort protocol for one staff member to walk at the front and one at the back of the group. I was second last but the staff member at the rear decided he wanted to chat to the tour guide so he wandered up front and stayed there the whole time. Now I was at the rear and though I'm prone to take my time searching for wildlife I must confess that finding yourself standing in a dark jungle with the others well ahead of you is a remarkably good cure for dawdling.

An awesome day, including a gibbon and a civet, but only tomorrow left to see an orangutan in the wild!