Jesus on Wheels

Jesus has been to Australia with my friend Helen. He writes:

Yo! Steve my man - just got over the jetlag coming back from Sydney. The old woman who took me shoved me in her suitcase to come back. I mean, a man of my position being shoved into a suitcase.

Admittedly she did cover me in bubble wrap, as she said that she was terrified that I would arrive damaged and wouldn't be able to make my next trips to Zambia at the end of the month and then Berlin in October.

As soon as she arrived in Sydney she did tell her friends Karen and James, who are committed Christians, about me as she didn’t want to offend them. They thought the idea of taking pictures of me in front of local landmarks was hilarious and were all for it whenever possible. There is even one of me watching over James as he barbecued our first meal. Naturally I didn’t want to overshadow James so I made myself small for the picture. Their daughter Keziah (nice name by the way) was very taken with me as well and had her picture taken with her mum in front of the opera house holding me. I can get it sent on to you if you like, but it’s not quite what you want for your blog I think.

We started off our visit on an open top bus tour of the city and when I saw the opera house for the first time I couldn’t resist breaking all the rules and jumping up out of my seat. We were going under the harbour bridge at the time and you can just see part of the bridge in the right of the picture. Each time Karen and Keziah saw a new sight they said 'Take a picture with Jesus'. This caused a few funny looks and after a while the old woman insisted I be referred to as JOW.

The following day the old woman took me to Bondi beach. There were a few sniggers and giggles when she took me out of her bag and took photos of me; she – and I – just ignored them. After staying at Bondi for a while we took a walk along the coastal path, passing a pop-art memorial to those people from Bondi who perished in the Bali bombing. It was a lovely thing to see and very in keeping with the area. The next beach we reached, Tamara beach, is a very small cove and very pretty. This is obviously a favourite walk as lots of people were doing the same thing and along the way we passed all sorts of information for visitors. We followed on to Bronte beach, which was about 3k from Bondi. Originally the old woman was going to walk on to Coogee beach but she decided she’d had enough by the time she got to Bronte beach and we caught the bus back to Sydney.

As we had time before the next bus the old woman decided to have a drink at the nearest café. Can you believe I was taken to the Bogey Hole café? The old woman seemed to think that bogey hole means something different in Australia, but she didn’t go into details. I can tell you, when I found out the name of the café I wheeled myself straight out of there! The waitress saw me and said 'What a funny little man'. The old woman just smiled as she didn’t want to get thrown out of the place, having tasted the pear and brown butter tart which was delicious.

We also went to a suburb of Sydney called Manly which, although touristy, was very nice. I had my picture taken in front of the Manly Surf Pavilion where the lifesavers are stationed. The old woman liked Manly so much she went back again before the end of the holiday, but did she take me? I think you know the answer!

Well, that’s my report from Down Under.

This is JOW signing off.