Around the World in 80 weeks

You're a potential pilot, an air cadet, your family and friends call you Tot,
You're awfully odd, though secretly sane, but still we like you a lot.

Your life's mapped out - travel the world for fun, without a care.
From Newcastle to Saskatoon by HappyClappyAir.

From Saskatoon to Ottawa, Detroit for an hour or three,
Prince George, Quebec, Ontario, a day in Moosonee.

To get to the waterfalls down in Niagara, we hired a Greyhound bus,
and off we pottered around the country, just Tommy, Brendan and us.

Alaska next, the great unknown, by gosh and golly, 'twas lonesome,
We stayed in an igloo when the blizzard began and the wind was all of a moansome

Then we hired a trike and we pedalled along the Grand Canyon for miles and miles,
on reaching Vancouver we talked to Fox Mulder and Scully from the X-Files.

Then just for the sake of wasting more fuel and enjoying ourselves in a plane,
we flew back to Dublin and kidnapped U2 then to Britain where we picked up Jane.

The band sounded good at the top of the Rockies, sheltering under a hedge,
when Disneyland beckoned, so we left them there, Larry, Adam, Bono and Edge.

Onwards into Mexico, not quite there yet for we had to go via LA,
We hopped in a taxi, said "Follow that car!" and reached Cape Canaveral next day.

There we payed out a million and bought us two seats in a rocket, quite soon we were hurled
into orbit, and so, in complete honesty we can say that we've been round the world.

We walked on the Moon, and we photo'd the Earth, and we gazed at all of the stars,
It was very tempting to fly to Saturn, but we settled the limit on Mars.

We landed the rocket in the Panama Canal, did Ecuador then onto Lima,
A look at Bolivia and Paraquay, and ended up in Argentina.

Venezuala and then we went into Brazil, Columbia and then Peru,
In Amazonia we did São Paulo twice cos we found on the map there were two.
There were two.

Carribean Islands, Barbados and Haiti, there seems to be so very many,
so we hijacked a hovercraft and zoomed up the coast and then we couldn't find any.

except for a small one, short way from the coast, 'twas called Trinidad and Tobago,
It wasn't that big so we pottered around, then flew along to Santiago.

After the Falklands we got on a ship, set sail in an Ark just like Noahs,
A week spent on Starbuck, near the Equator, a few days in Western Samoa.

Then back we went to the Galapagos Islands, the place of the massive huuuugeee tortoises,
and Helen and I jumped into the sea and swam with the dolphins and porpoises.

We were having such fun in the watery waves til along came a big killer whale,
so we built us a raft and to Easter Island we went with the help of a sail.

And now 'twas December it seemed, so Tot said "Let us go to the Chrissymas Isle".
It was very nice there, the food was delumptious, we decided to stay there a while.

I think perhaps we got a little bit tipsy, cos we set off at a leisurely lurch,
and devoid of a map or a magnetic compass, we grounded the ship at Christchurch!

Onwards to Wellington over the fields on a cool dudey motorbike thing,
caught up with U2 who'd escaped from the Rockies and who then proceeded to sing.

Now Bono looks just like the Newcastle coach, and Adam just is cousin Afe,
and neither were pleased with their journey from Dublin so we left as it weren't looking safe.

Australia was next sport, the weather was good, incredibly fun it was too,
The bush was quite pretty, the gum trees as well and we managed to see kangaroo.

We visited Sydney, Canberra too, and climbed up the famous Ayers Rock,
the boidies were chirping, the sky was all blue, 'twas a beeyu-iful view from the top.

Up Indonesia, the South China Sea, Hong Kong and we looked at Pyongyang,
Japan and Honshu, but nothing to do, so we crossed the sea to Sinsiang.

Quite a few days spent in Outer Mongolia, then a day or two sitting in Nagpur,
Then back in the plane for a sightseeing tour, of India, especially Kharagpur.

Korea was boring, the food was all bleughy so we got in a boat from the jetty,
and strangely enough found ourselves in Tibet, face to face with a yeti.

Heading back west on our journey to Russia Tot piloted over Nepal,
she was getting so good at not crashing the plane that I gave the cadets a quick call.

In (chicken) Kiev it was pouring with rain but we happened to bump into Nadia,
on a trip down the river, so that was quite nice, though the weather got badder and baddier.

So Russia was snowy, and Moscow was cold, and Gorki was seriously bad,
So we fled from the country and pegged it down south,to check out Algeria and Chad.

We saw tiggers, gorillas and grizzely bears while wandering round in the Congo,
then we drove to Katanga, and headed for Cape Town where we all lived it up on Umbongo.

We saw lions in Kenya and birds over Egypt, we went on a trip down the Nile,
where a mishap occured, a rather unlucky encounter with three crocodiles.

We crawled to the desert to look at the Sahara, while there Helen breathed a deep "Wowie!"
We looked at Sri Lanka, Johannesburg too, where we bumped into Andrew Bowey.

And where the Dominican Republic is I'll admit that I haven't a clue,
but we went there also, 'twas next on the list after visiting in Timbuctu.

Then we dug a deep tunnel and preceeded to womble to the end, in the region of Atlantis,
but when we came up, the tunnel had moved, to Madagascar............?

A nice Mauritanian said he'd give us a lift back to Europe - we should have been wary,
as the poor little blokie, his fishing boat sank, and we ended up in the Canaries.

Tenerife quite admittedly was rather nice, we enjoyed it, not once did we moan,
and it filled us with energy, we felt quite equipped to go on and sight see around Rome.

Hannibal the Cannibal rode over the Alps, with a hellova strain on his knees
'cos his elephant was seven sizes too big - he should have come over on skis.

Europe got monotonous so we pootled along to look around Afghanistan,
then we sidled along to the island of Fiji where Tot had a sehr cunning plan.

It involved a few people, a live polar bear, all gathered around the North Pole,
an eskimo boy with an angling rod, three haddock, two plaice and a sole.....
But you don't want to know what happened after that.

Venice was better, with lots of canals, though Tot fell in a few with a "Yarrrrgh!"
But when she'd dried out and we'd gone to the bank, there were no problems going to Prague.

We spent the next Christmas in Lapland with Santa Claus, just for a lark,
But for the New Year we flew on our way to Mount Fuji National Park.

We'd been round the world, we'd be getting quite tired after all these adventures we'd had
you would think, but no no, we were ready for more, so we went to Sweden (we're mad).

Denmark was excellent, Greece was good too, though the people we met all had lithpth,
Norway wath interethting, the food wath jutht perfect - ribena and prawn-cocktail crithpth.

In Scandinavia, skiing in Voss, swimming in all the fjiords,
we nipped over to Iceland, glaciers and stuff, it didn't take long to get bored....

So we packed up our stuff and we hopped in the plane, and took off from Hvollisvolleb,
We finally landed at Newcastle Airport; This is your life, Helen Webb.

Penny Grant
November 1996 with the help of some friends. (!)

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