WHAT started as a routine day became anything but that with drama on the ground and trauma in the skies.

At last we were escaping from our 22-day stint in Canberra when fate took a very nasty turn, with our ghost-like colleague turning an ever whiter shade of pale.

He, and for some reason no-one else, was presented with a bill for 1400 Aussie dollars (over £600) over and above the normal extras.

A charge was being made for the three days we left our rooms open while we were in Melbourne though that should have been covered by the travel agent.

All the pressures our colleague has been under, some from the office and some self induced, surfaced as he tore into the poor receptionist who, of course, knew nothing about it.

He blew several gaskets, more weight dropped off him before our very eyes as the receptionist had to cope with his fury.

It was a right scene before eventually order was restored and the whole business was settled amicably. The charge was dropped, though fears remain it may appear on a credit card bill at a later date.

Not long later we took to the air, relieved to be leaving Canberra and heading for Sydney, but fate dealt us all another hand in the form of a really turbulent flight.

The plane was one of those 40-seater turbo props, an inter-city link, which was buffeted all over the place in the high winds, amid many anxious faces. It was too turbulent, the sole stewardess informed us, for drinks to be served. All very worrying.

Then as we started a very bumpy descent, I tried to get a look to the left of Sydney Opera House and the Harbour Bridge, both world renowned, only to be confronted by two women being violently sick into a sick bag. What an introduction to Sydney!

* WALES are really trying to bowl 'em over when they meet the All Blacks in Sydney on Sunday.

Assistant coach Scott Johnson, an Australian himself, has already got high profile people Mal Meninga, the rugby league ace, plus decorated former solider General Peter Cosgrove to talk to the Welsh players.

Efforts to persuade US President George Bush to do the same in Canberra last week failed, so now Johnson is turning to cricket stars Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne to speak to the Welsh team before Sunday's big match.

* THE latest on Woodward Down Under? It's now reckoned he refuses to let photographers shoot from behind. All sorts of theories are being put forward like a bad spot or being stabbed in the back. No-one seems to know.