Pat's Uninteresting Tours

Last updated

Pat's Uninteresting Tours was a series of themed route bus tours that offered an alternative to the usual sightseeing tours. Taking passengers on a four-hour comedy excursion to downmarket locations it operated in Sydney, Australia during the mid to late 1980s.

Contents

The premise was to conduct paying passengers on a bus and expose them to ordinary situations in incongruous contexts - actively avoiding normal tourist attractions and visiting uninteresting sites. These included wine tasting at a rubbish tip, "experiencing fresh air" at the sewage works and formal dinner at a road-side diner. Passengers were encouraged to dress in tourist garb for the day tours and tacky evening wear for night tours. [1] After TV New Zealand program That's Fairly Interesting recorded a segment, tours were conducted in Wellington, Christchurch, Palmerston North and later Auckland. [2] [3]

Beginnings

Patrick McGeown created the concept in 1978 whilst serving on board the Royal Australian Navy warship HMAS Perth. [4] After repeated trips to Hawaii, he began to lead alternative sightseeing events for other crewmates. Following the inaugural tour he then conducted tours in Darwin and Canberra before launching the concept as a business in Sydney on 17 March 1985. [5]

Destinations

Each tour was unique and the four hours of improvisation and creativity took passengers to an assortment of locations. [6] [7] Some Sydney locations were:

Related Research Articles

Sydney Symphony Orchestra

The Sydney Symphony Orchestra (SSO) is an Australian symphony orchestra that was initially formed in 1908. Since its opening in 1973, the Sydney Opera House has been its home concert hall. Simone Young will be the orchestra's next chief conductor when she takes up the position in 2022.

Pat Cash Australian tennis player

Patrick Hart Cash is a retired Australian professional tennis player. He reached a career-high ATP singles ranking of world No. 4 in May 1988 and a career-high ATP doubles ranking of world No. 6 in August 1988. After winning the men's singles championship at Wimbledon in 1987, he climbed into the stands to celebrate, starting a tradition which has been followed by many winners ever since.

Paul Hogan Australian actor and comedian

Paul Hogan, is an Australian actor, comedian, writer and television presenter. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for his performance as outback adventurer Michael "Crocodile" Dundee in Crocodile Dundee (1986), the first in the Crocodile Dundee film series. He married American actress Linda Kozlowski, after meeting her on the set of Crocodile Dundee.

Mental As Anything

Mental As Anything are an Australian new wave and pop rock band that formed in Sydney in 1976. Its most popular line-up was Martin Plaza on vocals and guitar; Reg Mombassa on lead guitar and vocals; his brother Peter "Yoga Dog" O'Doherty on bass guitar and vocals; Wayne de Lisle on drums; and Andrew "Greedy" Smith on vocals, keyboards and harmonica. Their original hit songs were generated by Mombassa, O'Doherty, Plaza and Smith, either individually or collectively; they also hit the Australian charts with covers of songs by Roy Orbison, Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry.

Bruce Rowland is a well-known Australian composer. He composed the soundtrack for the 1982 movie The Man from Snowy River, as well as the soundtrack for its 1988 sequel The Man from Snowy River II. Both films were based on Banjo Paterson's poem The Man from Snowy River. His other film scores include Now and Forever (1983), Phar Lap (1983), Bushfire Moon (1987), Cheetah (1989), Weekend with Kate (1990), Gross Misconduct (1993), Andre (1994), Lightning Jack (1994), Zeus and Roxanne (1997) and the TV movie Tidal Wave: No Escape (1997).

A Current Affair is an Australian current affairs program airing weeknights and Saturday nights on the Nine Network. The program is currently hosted by Tracy Grimshaw on weeknights, and Deborah Knight on Saturday nights.

The Alice (train)

The Alice was an Australian passenger train service that ran between Sydney and Alice Springs from November 1983 until 1988.

Ansett New Zealand New Zealand domestic airline operating 1987–2001

Ansett New Zealand was an airline serving the New Zealand domestic market between 1987 and 2000. It was a subsidiary of Ansett Transport Industries. In order to comply with regulatory requirements relating to the acquisition of Ansett Transit Industries by Air New Zealand, Ansett New Zealand was sold to News Corporation and later to Tasman Pacific Airlines of New Zealand in 2000, operating as a Qantas franchise under the Qantas New Zealand brand. It went into receivership and subsequently liquidation in 2001.

The following lists events that happened during 1909 in New Zealand.

NZR RM class (88 seater)

The NZR RM class 88-seaters were a class of railcar used in New Zealand. New Zealand Government Railways (NZR) classed them RM , the notation used for all railcars, numbering the 35 sets from RM100 to RM134. They were the most numerous railcars in NZR service, and were known unofficially as "Articulated", "Eighty Eights", "Twinsets", "Drewrys" or "Fiats". Their purchase and introduction saw the demise of steam-hauled provincial passenger trains and mixed trains.

The Railway Enthusiasts Society Incorporated is a New Zealand railway enthusiast society registered under the Incorporated Societies Act 1908 on 17 July 1958.

City Sightseeing International sightseeing tour bus operator

City Sightseeing is an open-top, sightseeing tour bus operator. It provides tour bus services in more than 130 cities around the world. As City Sightseeing has grown and expanded, the company now also provides boat tours, sightseeing train tours, and guided walking tours.

Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science

The Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science (ANZAAS) is an organisation that was founded in 1888 as the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science to promote science.

Iva Davies Australian electronic musician and rock singer

Ivor Arthur Davies, AM, known professionally as Iva Davies, is an Australian singer, songwriter, composer, multi-instrumentalist and record producer. He is known for his distinctive singing voice, which was influenced by contemporary glam rock singers.

Shane Cotton

Shane William Cotton is a New Zealand painter whose work explores biculturalism, colonialism, cultural identity, Maori spirituality, and life and death.

Nigel Westlake is an Australian composer, musician and conductor.

InterCity (New Zealand)

InterCity is a passenger transport and tourism company in New Zealand. Parent company Entrada Travel Group operates the country's only long distance bus network, and ferries and cruises in the Bay of Islands. Its brands are:

That's Fairly Interesting was a New Zealand TV series showcasing quirky people and events.

Tourism in Antarctica

Tourism in Antarctica started by the sea in the 1960s. Air overflights of Antarctica started in the 1970s with sightseeing flights by airliners from Australia and New Zealand, and were resumed in the 1990s. The (summer) tour season lasts from November to March. Most of the estimated 14,762 visitors to Antarctica from 1999–2000 were on sea cruises. During the 2009 to 2010 tourist season, over 37,000 people visited Antarctica.

The Australasian rugby league team represented Australia and New Zealand in rugby league sporadically between 1910 and 1922. Administered by the New South Wales Rugby League, appearances for the team were counted towards the Australian team's records and playing register but not the New Zealand team's. The team toured Great Britain twice, participating in two Ashes series, and also played Great Britain twice in Sydney.

References

  1. ↑ Mandy Nash, "Moving theatre tours the eyesores" The Eastern Herald 12 November 1987
  2. ↑ Evening Standard, Palmerston North 25 July 1988
  3. ↑ "Communicado: Pat's Uninteresting Tours", That's Fairly Interesting presented by Neil Roberts TVNZ July 1988
  4. ↑ Ken Davidson "Bored to Laughter" Australasian Post 22 July 1982
  5. ↑ David Conley "Tips are tops" Australasian Post 2 October 1986
  6. ↑ Malcolm Andrews "Tours host vows to bore 'em", The Daily Telegraph 4 March 1985
  7. ↑ David Conley "Oh, so bored - that's what you get when you go touring with Patrick" Gold Coast Bulletin 12 July 1986

Other media references:

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.