The One That Got Away

But To Venture

2009-05-04T13:31:00.001-07:00

After arriving in Hong Kong, I quickly realised that I must be one of the tallest people in the world: not one of the locals could beat me, not even with headgear. There seemed to be a low ethnic mix. I counted very few white people, virtually no none oriental Asians and the only Africans were the looky-looky men in Kowloon. When I did see a western face I felt compelled to give a little nod and smile, a sad attempt to latch onto anything that might give me a feeling of familiarity. However, I was happy to note that many of the women of Hong Kong could make a claim to count themselves among the best looking in the world.
Amid the swarms of people, I happened upon an upsetting scene where a street beggar lay morbidly in the middle of the street. His selling point was to put on display his left leg that seemed to be covered in a combination of gangrene and leprosy topped off with a gaping wound. He was the only beggar that I encountered – I considered that maybe I was wrong and he was actually some sort of street performer, though I doubted he would have stood up to do a little dance had I given him some money.
I was taking my first ventures around the city, delirious from the jetlag and the excitement of being in a strange place. I’d dumped my bags at the guesthouse where I was staying in Mong-Kok and headed straight out into the crowds, walking toward the waterfront to the south.
The busy streets with huge signs in Cantonese running along them endlessly were familiar from pictures and television images of Hong Kong but it was still disorientating being there. Scaffolding made from bamboo climbed the sides of buildings and the smells of cooking were unavoidable and not always pleasant.
It amazed me to see the local people’s reluctance to cross any road without the green man flashing even when the road was so obviously clear. Patience must be built into the psyche when living in one of the most densely populated places on Earth. I quickly ran into a bit of a language barrier, a problem I hadn’t fully anticipated with Hong Kong being a former British colony. I caught the eye of a cute young looking girl who smiled at me. Being male and heterosexual, I smiled back. This seemed to be enough to invite her to walk in a direction that crossed my path. We were in Kowloon near to the infamous Chungking Mansions and I was well aware of the place’s reputation. The large building resembles any other downtrodden high rise from the outside and the surrounding area is safe enough with just the irritation of those looky-looky men trying to sell tourists fake watches. But to venture inside Chungking Mansions would be to run the gauntlet of drug dealers and prostitutes that lurk in the shadows, eager to accost those unfortunates staying in one of the buildings budget guesthouses.
"Pasha!" the girl said as she drew up closer to me. I guessed she was saying either ‘passion’ – though she looked too cute to be a prostitute - or ‘hash’ - though she looked too cute to be a drug dealer. She must have seen my western face coming over the tops of the heads of the crowd and thought it was worth a try venturing out onto the street to intercept me. "Er what?" I replied, slowing my stride. "Pasha!" she repeated, a little more loudly. "Sorry, I don't understand you," I said. She tried once more, even more loudly. “PASHA!!” I couldn’t offer her an oral response, instead giving her a lost, baffled look. She quickly came to the conclusion that she was wasting her time and walked off with a huff.
I continued my march, crossing the main road that separated Kowloon from the main tourist centre. It hosts a science and space museum, the Avenue of Stars - the Hong Kong equivalent to the Los Angeles Walk of Fame - and the view over to Hong Kong Island with what must be one of the world’s most recognisable and pleasing skylines. The late evening air was clear, leaving me to gawk at the lights of the huge distant buildings in awe. After several minutes I began to head back, I hadn’t really slept on the flight and it was a long walk back to the guesthouse. Maybe I’d find out the meaning of ‘Pasha’ on the way.
I was staying in the Budget Hostel on the 15th floor in one of the many nondescript towering buildings that have entrances that were very hard to find. I’d made the selection simply for the fact it was run by one Jackie Chan. It had been disappointing to be greeted by a very young, slight man who I reckoned even I could have beaten up in a fight. But the main thing was that I had managed to find somewhere cheap that wasn’t in Chungking Mansions. I even had my own room, Jackie upgrading me to a double, from the single I’d booked over the internet as he juggled with the fluctuating demand. Though, how more then one person could manage to live in the cramped room without tearing each other’s eyes out was beyond me. The proverbial cat would have had to stay outside; there wouldn’t even be the consideration of an attempt at a swinging inside the room. An adjoining bathroom consisted of a toilet cubicle with a showerhead attachment that ran into the plumbing along lines that were worryingly close to those of the toilet. When a shower was to be had, the little room would simply be flooded. There really would be nowhere for that cat to hide. There were no windows in the whole of the place and so lights were needed during all hours of the day.
I went to bed, exhaustion over-riding my excitement, sleeping for what felt like for far too long as I was eager not to waste the new day. I jumped out of bed and switched on the light in a state of wakefulness, my stomach more then ready for breakfast. I checked my travel clock. 03:23, it read. Could I have really slept that late into the afternoon? I knew I had set the clock to local time and so I began getting myself together for what was left of the day, cursing my laziness. But something in my subconscious nagged at me, I looked at the travel clock once more. It was set to display in 24hour mode, it was actually the early hours and I’d been asleep for just four hours. I settled back into a broken, fitful sleep.
After breakfasting on some delights from a bakery I found around the corner from the guesthouse in the morning, I decided to visit the tourist information centre to help with my orientation. I was met by a stern looking fellow as I arrived at the first floor of the building where it was situated.
"Ping-pong ga ga ladida la," he said (or something similar). "Erm...sorry, do you speak English?" I asked. He repeated himself, a little louder. "Oh right," I said, pretending to understand. I figured out that you collect a ticket and wait to be called like when buying something from Argos. "Do-do, nick nack paddy wak" (or something like that) said the woman when it was my turn. "Sorry, do you speak English?" I asked. She repeated herself a little louder. I looked at her blankly. Was she taking the piss? She passed me on to one of her colleagues who spoke some English, though didn't seem to be particularly interested in the finer details of the sentences I was saying to him.
I’d scheduled three weeks in Hong Kong with a vague plan of going into China during this time. “I want to go to the mainland. I know I need a visa, but do you know of any organised excursions or tours that will take me there?” I asked.
“You want visa? Fill in this form.”
“No wait, I want to know if you can help organise a trip into China.”
“You need to fill in form for visa.”
“Yes, I know I need a visa. But listen, before I apply, I want to know about trips into China.”
He hesitated a moment. “You want visa or not?” I didn't seem to be getting anywhere and so took my leave.
Later, I took the MTR, the city’s underground train system, for the first time. I was pleasantly surprised with the ease of use, the trains, running frequently and fast had announcements of stops in both Chinese and English. I headed over to Hong Kong Island with the idea of taking the tram up to Victoria Peak, the highest point on the island.
It didn't take long but I encountered the first rude place name on what was only my first full day in Hong Kong. ‘Wanko’ stood proudly near to where I exited the subway amongst the other retail outlets. Maybe the name is an indication of the type of people who buy their clothes from there.
There was a mile or so to walk to get to the tram station, away from the shopping area across some greener spaces. As I made my way further from the financial centre the terrain gradually became steeper as I ventured closer to the peak. Set into the walls along some of the pathways were signs telling me the registration numbers of the slopes. I wasn’t sure what was the most odd; the need to register a slope or the apparent pride of the signs. Though I didn’t manage to work out how much of an incline was needed for the need for registration or whether the requirement was just limited to pathways.
As I walked I came across signs for the Hong Kong botanical gardens and zoo and decided to take a quick look. The day was still young and more importantly, it was free to walk around the grounds. It was a charming area, the gardens providing a welcome respite from the crowds and traffic. I hadn’t been to a zoo in years, the attraction for me missing since childhood. But it was a fun couple of hours, one of the highlights being a small rodent like animal covered in spikes. On the information plaque, a forgettable Latin name identified the creature, but it looked like a hedgehog to me. ‘This small creature comes out at night and eats worms and ants giving it it's nickname of 'little ant-eater', ‘ read the description. Or a hedgehog. There was a reptile house, though reptile bedsit would have been a far more appropriate name. It contained one python and a small feature containing a group of half a dozen or so terrapins. And, well… that was it. I made sure I got around to see the leopard, where a solitary animal lay sleepily on the ground in it’s cage, a Japanese man waving his arms and calling out in an attempt to get some movement from it.
As I left the gardens and zoo, I remembered the promises I'd made to take pictures of Bendyman, a small, blue office stress reliever doll with bendable limbs and a stupid grin on its face. As I was manoeuvring him into position on the gate at the perimeter of the gardens, out popped a security guard from the nearby guardhouse. "I'm just taking a picture of my Bendyman," I tried to explain. He looked at me disapprovingly. I guess something was lost in the translation. I finally made it to the tram station, the journey up to Victoria Peak on what was reported to be the steepest railway line in the world. The views at the top were terrific, overlooking the skyline and harbour from the opposite direction from what I had seen on the previous evening. The area was heavily crowded with tourists and the tacky attractions took away from the area for me. The smog meant that the visibility was limited. I decided to get away from the chaos and head all the way to the actual summit, up roads that passed exclusive looking housing to a pathway to the top, slope registration number 11SW-A/C694 for the record.
When I got there, all I was rewarded with after a hard walk, was a small empty field and a reservoir. I went back to the tourist hell to look out over the city as the sun set.
The next day I went to the Sik Sik Yuen Wong Tai Sin Temple, a Taoist temple dedicated to a god of healing. It felt a little strange being there as if I was intruding - the locals seemed to be taking it all very seriously. They would grab a handful of bamboo sticks and, sometimes after lighting them, sometimes not, shake them toward one of the alters. Each stick had a number and when one drops it was to be taken to a fortune-teller for interpretation. Others were using the fire sticks to heat up clam shaped blocks of wood that they would then drop to the ground. A yes or no question is asked by the dropper with the answer revealed depending on how the blocks land.
It was fascinating to see the delight or distress in the faces of those doing it. It seemed a shame to me that there were Japanese tourists in the background taking pictures of each other. One particular Japanese girl loved it when one Taoist girl dropped all her sticks by mistake. She dashed over with her camera for a few shots. Then she saw me and pointed her camera in my direction and snapped away. I guess she was near the end of her film and wanted to use it up. Within the temple grounds were small booths of fortune-tellers. I thought I'd give one a go. It was not like I thought it would be. No dark lair and ‘cross my palm with silver’ as I sat at something that resembled a stall in a trade craft fair. Sat across from me, the fortune-teller was fairly young, no more than early forties, and dressed appropriately enough so that she could easily walk out of the temple and merge into the crowd, no gypsy glad-rags there. Her English wasn't the best and I found upon checking later that my year of birth got lost in translation - she said my birth year made me a monkey but after a google search I found I should have been a horse. She must misheard ’78 for ’68. Surely I didn’t look that old? It's just as well that she got most of her stuff from reading the face and palms.
She started off positively. She said in the next year or two my life would have a big change for the better. I would meet ‘a good girlfriend,’ with the chances of me having met anyone in the last two years virtually zero. Maybe she could tell that by the way I walked. She went on to say we would get married and have a couple of children, though we should do this before I get to the age of 42, otherwise they will be born in the wrong year for us to have a good relationship. The second child would be exceptionally bright, maybe even a genius.
I would also have great career success in the next couple of years, and would make a lot of money and should be encouraged to start my own business in something like carpentry. She obviously hadn’t seen the hideous mess that was my GCSE art and design project.
But then things went a little sour, she warned that when I am 49 or 50, ‘bad people’ will come and threaten my wealth. After this period when I am 51-57 my business life will grow day by day, but I need to be careful at 58 with my health and should start to exercise more. At 73 I will start to have liver problems but should still have a long life, at least up to 78, maybe even up to 88 if I looked after my liver. I guess I should have pointed out that I was jet-lagged and not hungover at that point.
I asked her about travelling. She drew a x and y axis with the UK in the centre and labelled the axis north, south, east and west. She went around the graph ticking each quadrant until she came to the one that represented the south. Here she placed a cross.
“The south is no good for you, especially Australia and New Zealand.” Shit.
“What about if I only visit, is that OK?” I asked hopefully.
"You can travel there. But you mustn't stay. It’s a bad place to do business for you. Hong Kong: good, Europe: good, America: good, Australia: no!" She also commented that I had a great dragon finger as she fondled my middle digit and also complemented me on my strong jaw line which all meant good things. Maybe she had accepted that I wasn’t bad looking for such an old man and she had decided that she fancied me.
Drawing the reading to a close, she tried to sell me a dragon pendant for luck. Now I'm as cynical as the next man, but throughout my visit, I truly got the impression that the people at the temple believed in what they were doing. There was no commercialisation at all and no hard sell. I'm not saying I believed all the stuff the fortune-teller told me and all the goings on at the temple, but it would be nice to be financially successful, have a genius child, find true love and live a long life. I bought the pendant.

The Hong Kong authorities can be rather strict. All around were signs such as ‘No Eating or drinking - $2000 fine’, or ‘No Spitting - $1000 fine.’ I did wonder what would happen should you eat something you didn't like and spat it out. Would that mean a fine of $3000? My favourite though was on a bridge crossing Argyle street in Mong-Kok near the market - and I'm not making this up – ‘No Farting’. It is joined by the picture of an arse with wind blowing out of it in one of those red circles and cross similar to a no smoking sign. But why was farting not allowed? Was the bridge that unstable? Was it how SARS is spread?
On the way back to the Budget Hostel, I saw the gangrene/leper man. He actually was a street performer, lying on the pavement applying his very realistic looking make-up to his leg. I still didn't understand his act.
Getting back to my room, I attacked the treats that I’d picked up. I snacked on a box of something called colon, bought entirely for the amusing name. There was a chocolate variety but I went for the cream. What I assumed was the nutritional information revealed that there was 57% of something in them and I wasn’t sure if I should have attempted to cook them first. I did have a packet of something called ‘Potato Chips’ to fall back on though.I wasn’t feeling tired, still living off of the hyperactive high that the jet-lag had given me that I was sure I’d be paying for later on. I continued to wake up in the middle of the night with the hunger that had deserted me during the day, but I had no motivation to be able to get up and do anything about it. Those first couple of nights consisted of lying in a fit-full state of slumber dreaming of fresh bakery goods.

Fast Pace

2009-05-04T13:30:00.003-07:00

‘I Feel Good’ read the sign in front of me. I was sitting in Victoria Park, a haven of tranquillity away from the busy streets adjacent to a children’s playground. I'd come to the end of the time of my original booking in the Budget Hostel and Jackie had a full house, so I had made my way to Causeway Bay and the Wang Fat Hostel on Honk Kong Island. The journey was a struggle with my backpack – I had committed the common backpacker mistake of having brought far too much stuff. In retrospect, it did seem silly to have two towels and three varieties of footwear and more T-shirts then underwear. It was far too much weight to be carrying especially with the humidity. A quiet day was needed, resting in the park and considering what could be dumped.
The Wang Fat Hostel was run by a guy called Sam with the assistance of some helper girls. On first instance, he appeared to be somewhat of an unconventional fellow.
“How much you pay?” he asked me as I was booking in for my initial few nights. It was nice of him to give me the option but I was slightly taken aback by being given the choice. I quoted the price of $150HK per night that appeared in my travel guide and he seemed quite pleased with that. He beckoned one of his poor little helper girls who struggled with my backpack down the stairs to the room. She seemed eager enough to carry it despite my protests that I should do it. I’d asked to be put into a dormitory to save a few dollars, but with few hostels around and demand growing by the day it was a single room with a shared bathroom or else a trip to Chungking Mansions. The helper girl who by now I realised knew almost no English showed me around the threadbare converted apartment, largely by pointing at the important features. It didn’t take long.
Later on I bumped into my bathroom mate, who was of oriental origin, and I attempted to strike up a conversation with her. "Are you on your own?" I asked after we exchanged hellos. She thought for a moment and then held up two fingers in a peace gesture. She must mean that she was in a room with a companion in the room next door to mine. "Do you speak much English" I tried. She looked at me blankly. I tried again - a little more loudly, but got no response. Then a thought occurred to me. "Pasha?" I said as timidly as I could muster with a stupid grin. A look of alarm came over her face. After a moment of us staring at each other, she said "No, no!" and waved her hands in dismissal. I took my leave before she could call the police to have my hands chopped off. On the next day I was moved into a three bed dormitory room. The helper girl took me up another two stories to the apartment made up of three such dormitories with a shared bathroom. There was kitchen area that was devoid of any thing useful for food preparation or storage and a fold out camp bed I was later to learn was the sleeping quarters of one of Sam’s other helper girls.
My dormitory mates turned out to be Travis, a tall slender young man from Brisbane who couldn't work door locks, me finding him struggling and cursing at the thing as I arrived, and an American named Ricky who was to be a bigger sleeper then even I was. Of average height and dark complexion, his thick jet-black hair curled behind his ears at a stage of growth that suggested a significant time spent on the road.
We made our introductions and arranged to meet later for drinks. I hoped I would bump into the two charming Scottish girls that I’d got talking to on the previous night after they took an interest in the dragon pendant I was wearing on my wrist and invite them to come along. They were at the age where they would talk endlessly about getting drunk, but I found them to be good fun. Life did indeed feel good.
After the relaxing day in the park I decided it was time I began to experience some of the local cuisine. The noodle soup I bought at the small café in the park didn’t really seem to count as it tasted like any cheap Chinese food found in the UK dumped into a bowl of water. I walked around the Causeway Bay area in the evening, looking for something suitable. Along one street I passed windows with puppies in small glass tanks on display. I really hoped it was a pet shop sitting in amongst the restaurants. There were stalls with people selling treats such as silkworm and snake skin. I wasn’t feeling that adventurous.
I eventually came across a restaurant that looked respectable enough to get a good meal from and yet had a menu with prices that didn’t cause a sharp intake of breath through gritted teeth. I ventured in and played it safe, ordering pork with egg fried rice. I was pleased with the tea that was made with coconut milk, which was delicious. But then the food arrived.
Within one bowl was the pork, chunky strips of the meat marinated in a dark reddish sauce. I had no problem with that. In another bowl sat a portion of rice, of generous proportions. I didn’t have a problem with that. But sitting on top of the rice was the egg, the feature that made the boiled rice into the egg fried rice that I’d ordered. I did have a problem with that.
The egg was a green colour with faint white colouring showing through like the effect that marble has. I cut into it revealing the centre, the yolk, long since hardened into a sickly powdery dark orange colour that looked like it could have been dug out of someone’s ear. The smell wasn’t as pungent as I thought it would it be, but it was still pretty nauseous inducing. I remembered reading my guidebook, a passage in the food section coming to mind. It mentioned that one of the delicacies was the 1000-year-old egg, a normal everyday egg that’s been buried in the ground, pickled for in fact just 100 years. I guess after that amount of time you’d give up waiting and be more then ready for supper. The Hong Kong version of Ready Steady Cook must be rubbish with those sorts of preparation times. One can only guess at how and why this delicacy was discovered.
I didn’t want to appear rude or ignorant. The pork looked good and went down nicely with the perfectly fluffy rice. But I do like some flavour with my rice. And how many times would I get the chance to try something as unusual? I cut off a corner of the yolk of the egg, making sure to add a good helping of the rice and shovelled it into my mouth. It tasted of, well, egg fried rice, just without the grease and a much stronger sense of egg. How disappointing it must have been for the chefs to wait 100 years when 3 minutes and a second egg could have had the same effect. It wasn’t too bad at all, though I only picked at the remains, the egg’s appearance making me reluctant to eat more of it the more I looked at it.

* * *

Roughly half an hours train ride from Kowloon is Lo Wu and the border with main land China. Over the border is Shenzhan, a Special Economic Zone which - as far as I could tell when I visited a few days later - was basically there to fleece money out of people coming from Hong Kong by fair means or foul. I eventually got a visa for China by going direct to the visa office and at first it seemed a shame I only had the bottle for a day trip, as being British, the cost of a visa was much higher then for other nationalities for some reason. Bizarrely, only Brazilians pay more as far as I could see. Maybe they fart more or something. After my experience at the tourist information office and a subsequent failure to uncover any other means, I was left with little option but to turn up at the border and see what was there. Within a few moments of crossing, the few white faces that I had shared the train with had disappeared. After walking barely a couple of hundred metres, I was approached by a scruffy looking woman who was offering god knows what, the bombardment of syllables that she was delivering being utterly meaningless to me. She produced a slip of paper and wrote down $200. I managed to haggle her down to $150 and then to $100 though for what I had no idea. It still didn’t sound like a good enough deal though, so I continued walking. I supposed that appearing so obviously as a tourist, being hassled was to be expected, but just a few moments later a man came up to me and offered to shine my shoes for $1 in very passable English. I was wearing suede boots. After I said no, his mate ran up and threw something that worryingly resembled bird shit over my left boot while the first bloke crouched down and grabbed hold of my laces, saying “I clean that for you, one dollar!” I had to physically push him to the ground to get rid of him. They clearly hadn’t got around to learning the word ‘no’. I hastened away from the streets that were in proximity of the border, the thinking being that this would be the hotbed of these hard sellers. I followed the crowds and arrived at what was the retail area and began to feel more at ease as I browsed around the exclusive looking retail outlets selling incredibly cheap goods.
I found a public square with people dressed casually enjoying the sunshine alongside workers dressed in suites having their lunch. It looked like a good spot for people watching, so I found a bench and dug out the ham and cheese sandwich that I had bought in Hong Kong on the way. Fears of the spread of disease obviously wasn’t an issue, the locals happily spitting away all over the pavement like it was the national sport. It was enough to put me off my last triangle of sandwich. Many of the people just did their own thing, but I was also intensely aware of the many pairs of eyes staring at me. There was also the occasional bit of finger pointing and the sharing of whispered jokes as I felt every bit the outsider. It was intimidating though I didn’t fear for my safety at that point. I continued wandering around, trying to decide if I could actually fit anything more into my backpack let alone carry it, when I acquired my very own stalker. I'd inadvertently walked into a super market. Walking around the basement floor, there didn't seem to be an obvious way back out. I walked around the floor three times but still couldn't find an escalator back up to street level. On the floor were green arrows with Chinese writing, one of which I followed to a door. It looked like a staff door but with all the green arrows pointing to it and my growing sense of desperation I gave it a little shove believing it would be the exit that would lead me to freedom.
The alarm that went off didn't attract as much attention as I thought it would, only a few faces glanced up to look at the dick head Brit. I quickly closed the door, the alarm stopping straight away. I started to move sheepishly away. However, I'd done enough to gain the attention of what appeared to be a respectable man in his white shirt, black trousers and shiny shoes. He was a good few inches shorter then me and looked like he was in his early twenties. I assumed he worked at the supermarket as he weaved his way around the fruit stands toward me. He began gobbing off in his native tongue and it sounded friendly enough. He seemed to want me to follow him - he must have seen my predicament and was going to lead me out of the store. I followed him.
We moved through the crowds, around parts of the store that I hadn't even noticed were there before. I attempted some small talk about how hard it was to find your way out of the place while he just grinned away at me. Suddenly the upward escalator presented itself. He rode with me to the exit of the store and the street. I exited but he continued to follow. I said my thanks and turned to walk off. At that point I concluded that he mustn't have been a worker at the store after all as he walked off in the opposite direction.
I continued my explorations, stopping to browse in the odd shop when I noticed the white shirt of my new best friend whilst in a sports store. I was standing over what seemed to be a bargain bin and looked up to see him standing on the opposite side. I wasn’t 100% sure if it was him until he gave me one of those grins and then distracted himself with a stand of replica football shirts. I wasn't convinced he was a Man Utd supporter. I left the store and went straight into the adjacent one, heading straight to the back of the place that was selling more casual wear. I watched the entrance and sure enough in he came looking around, clearly at the people and not the knitwear.
This was getting spooky - what did he want from me? I had to get rid of him. I waited for him to move up into one of the aisles and then I was off. Straight back out and across the street and into a mall entrance taking a few turns to give him more options should he have seen me heading into the mall. I found a side exit and took it, heading across the street again. I looked around and I saw the white shirt amongst the crowd moving at the fast pace that I had taken up. I turned down one street and then again at the next so as to be coming back on myself on a parallel course. Another mall. I went in and then straight back out of the next exit, turning down the next street I came to. Surely that was enough to have lost him? I looked around. He was coming around the corner, smiling as he saw me. He was loving it; the grin that a few minutes before had seemed so innocent was now taking on a sinister look. I carried on down the street that was leading away from the main hub and back toward the border with Hong Kong, it was time for plan B.
The crowds eventually thinned but I kept to the main roads in case Mr Smiley was fancying his chances at taking my Hong Kong dollars and left over sandwich. I took a few deep breaths and then whirled around to confront him with my best snarling nasty face.
"What do you want?! Why the fuck are you following me?!" I shouted. He didn't break his step and continued grinning as I bawled at him. He calmly carried on walking down the street as if I'd just said hello, barely nodding his head in response to my tirade. I stood there and watched him disappear - he didn't even look back. I’d had enough of Shenzhan by that point and continued to head for the border.
Near the border, I ran the gauntlet of the border peddlers again. A little girl of no more than six years old ran up to me shouting "Hello! Hello!" grabbing hold of my hand.
Cute.
That was until she started to try and slide my signet ring off of my finger. She made no attempt to hide her disappointment when I realised what she was trying to do and pulled away. She stood there, swinging her arms with a frustrated grunt, looking over to the woman who I assumed was her guardian. I made straight for the train station, checking I had all my things as I made the crossing back to Hong Kong where I could feel at ease once again.

Gaining An Insight

2009-05-04T13:30:00.001-07:00

With my jaunt into Southern China falling flat, I had the options of bringing my next flight forward or else taking the massive train journey from Hong Kong up to Shanghai or Beijing, changing my plans to fly onward from one of those. Both of these scenarios would mean unplanned expenditure from the carefully planned budget at such an early stage. The alternative was to wait out the time in Hong Kong until the scheduled flight to Australia as planned. I could ration the stuff I wanted to do by day and with Ricky planning on staying on too, I had a drinking buddy to hit the bars with by night.
Ricky was very well travelled, having covered every continent and some very interesting countries that were too many to count. At the same age as myself, he put me to shame with the places he’d covered. He freely admitted the shortcomings of the U.S., for instance the ignorance of most American people on issues outside of their own country and the damage George W Bush was doing. He worked in a travel agency and had some great examples of stupid things said by his fellow countrymen.
"Did you know the Dutch are from Denmark?"
"Holland is the biggest state in the Netherlands,"
"What part of England is Scotland in?"
And, “I’m going to Shenzhan,”
My personal favourite though was, "When is the millennium?" Tom was another American whom Ricky had previously met at the hostel, enjoying life in Hong Kong, he’d moved from the hostel to an apartment. He took us and a newly arrived young lad – Lorenzo, a fellow Brit from London - to a bar he knew, saying “It’s awesome” as “There's loads of girls, and it's really multicultural." He added, “Today’s Philippine day, there’ll be loads of them out celebrating.” We really didn’t know what Philippine day was, but I excepted it as by that time I figured out that Tom was the type of person whereby pushing such things would probably lead to more confusion.
When we got there, the bar was a dark, dank seedy looking place in a cellar. The place was full of fat sweaty middle-aged white men hooking up with oriental working girls. Poor old Tom innocently hadn't recognised the nature of the place.
“Didn’t I tell you this place was great!” he exclaimed as the other three of us exchanged bemused looks. One of the girls took a shine to me and she came over wrapping her arms around me without taking the trouble of making an introduction. "Erm, guys, I've got something stuck to me," I said, hoping to get some assistance. They all looked away, apart from Tom who was already deep into conversation with another of the girls.
"Where are you from?" asked the bundle clinging to my side.
"I’m from the UK," I answered. She didn't look particularly interested as she held on. I asked her name and where she was from. "I’m called Trixie," she answered. Yeah right. “I’m from the “Philippines.”
“OK. Well, happy Philippine day!” I said. She didn’t look too pleased at my good wishes, I guessed that she probably didn’t know what I was talking about and that Tom had been full of crap. "I have a problem, I don't have a drink," she said looking up at me.
"Oh dear," I said, "Well good luck with that," I replied. She realised she was losing me and so she unravelled herself and, standing in front of me, began treating me to a little dance. I showed more interest in my beer. The girl Tom had been talking to had by now found out the nature of his innocence and given up with him. He came over to watch Trixie’s dance.
“Hi! I’m Tom!“ he beamed to her, extending his hand for a handshake. She looked totally taken aback. Tom got his handshake but didn’t get the hug I was given, his exuberance enough to scare her away a few moments later.
Despite the cost of beer and the occasional Trixie, I was enjoying the Hong Kong nightlife, there were no barriers, with tourists, ex-pats and local guys dressed up in suits drinking their beer and dancing alongside each other in the main nightlife districts. I was having such a good time that I decided I’d be staying on in Hong Kong and went to see Sam to extend my stay at The Wang Fat.
“How much you pay?” he asked me once again. I was ready for him this time and offered the lower price of $100HK a night. He wasn’t happy about that.
“I meet you half way $125” he said. That was good enough for me. He sent me away with a wink adding, “Special deal, don’t tell no-one else.”
I immediately went and asked Ricky what rate he was paying. He just gave me a smile and said, “So you’ve learnt about Uncle Sam’s ways huh?
“Uncle Sam?”
“Yeah. He charges what he feels like depending on how much he likes you.”
“Well, I’ve got him down to $125, is that good?”
“Not bad considering how long you’ve been here,” I’d already found out that poor Lorenzo was still paying $150.
“So you get on well with him?”
“The trick is to book on the Internet. It’s at the cheaper rate so he has to charge you at that price. I don’t think even that will work for much longer though, I saw his computer screen the other day with pages of unopened emails. ‘See these’ he said, ‘I ignore’.”
The hostel did have a lot of character, I was beginning to like Uncle Sam, despite seemingly to be making things up as he went along and my guess that he may well have been in the pocket of the triads. Many of the travellers passing through complained about the hostel, the small rooms and at Sam's way of doing business, but there really isn’t many budget options in Hong Kong. It was safe, the rooms had air conditioning and it was easy to meet people with a small but cosy common room. What more do you need?
Travis had moved on with his travels taking him onward to Europe, though he didn’t really seem too prepared.
“It doesn’t get too cold in London this time of year does it?” he asked me.
“It’s not too bad, maybe averaging about 15 degrees centigrade,”
He looked at me as if I’d slapped him across the face.
“Isn’t it spring time there? It doesn’t get that cold in Brisbane during the winter!” A few days later I received an email from him. It simply read, ‘It’s fucking cold.’
Travis was replaced by a succession of people who Ricky and I labelled as ‘day-trippers’, most of whom were on a stop over and just having a look around the city for a day or two. So we were happy when Mick, a short stocky charismatic Irishman arrived. He walked through the door carrying just one small bag.
“This is pretty good for me,” he said in his cheeky Irish accent, “I left home with a toothbrush and a change of clothes. I knew I’d be headed to Thailand and I knew how cheap everything would be out there so I thought I’d just buy everything I need when I got there. I had a bit of trouble getting through customs though. For some reason, they found it suspicious when an Irishman takes a one way flight without luggage…”
He went on to tell us about his first day in Hong Kong. “Have you guys used a public toilet here?”
“Yeah, why?” I replied.
“Well, I was bursting for the toilet after eating too many Thai curries. I managed to find a public toilet and went into one of the cubicles. All they had, was this hole in the ground. How the hell do you use those when you need a crap? I didn’t want to put my bag on the floor as it looked pretty rank, so I’m there, squatting over this hole, holding onto my bag with one hand and holding onto my jeans so they don’t fall on the floor with the other hand. Then I think, ‘how do I wipe my arse?’ I almost fell over several times and my legs were aching like a bastard in the end. These Chinese people must have strong legs.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell him that, had he checked the other stalls, he would have found a normal toilet for dealing with a number two.
We were lucky enough to have a television set in our dormitory, which made for an interesting insight into the culture. There was one main English speaking channel but even then, many of the programs were still in Chinese. A large proportion of the English programming was aimed at children with very little information of what was going on at home. It was the run up to a general election in the UK but I couldn’t find any coverage and there was much more coverage of the Spanish, Dutch and Italian football leagues then the English Premiership. I was seeing very little evidence of the former British rule, as if the Hong Kong people were rejecting any traces of British influence on their culture. The language barriers I was still generally experiencing continued to surprise me.
The succession of celebratory days in the UK drove me mad, but at least we don't have the 'Secretary's Day' as I saw advertised in Hong Kong. Presumably, it would never take off in Britain as the bosses would send their secretaries out to buy the cards that the bosses would give back to them. There is a pride in the former colony, television adverts reminding the people to be courteous and helpful should they encounter overseas visitors. I could only imagine how such a thing would go down at home.
There are shops and malls everywhere primarily aiming at young women, with endless advertisements for clothing and cosmetics. It seemed odd to see adverts for face whitening masks and to think that on the other side of the world, people were using cosmetics to make their skin darker. In Hong Kong, commercialisation is king and is as much of a religion as in the west.

* * *

I'd like to think that I was pretty fit. In my time I've ran two half marathons and had always tried to involve myself in lots of sports. So I figured that the hike to the Po Lin monastery should have been do-able for me. However I found out the hard way that it should only be attempted by those that are both super-fit and brave. In my case it was ignorance that led me into taking it on, scoffing at the idea of taking the bus.
The map in my travel guide showed a single trail heading to the 500 metre plateau. I arrived at the Lo Hun monastery, the last civilisation before Po Lin, already hot and sweaty after a half an hour walk from the train station in the 30 degree plus temperatures with the humidity approaching 90%. The Lo Hun consisted of a few gardens and a friendly monk whom I was pleased was able to serve me a Coke. On the way I had stopped off at the Thung Chung fort, basically a big brick wall with a few cannons on them. The basketball court in the middle didn't help to give it much of a sense of authenticity. I held out higher hopes for Po Lin as it was the site of the famous giant Tian Tan Buddha and my reason for making the trip out to Lantau Island. I hit a problem early on into the trail. A crossroads. Should I go left or right? A 50-50 chance of guessing correctly. I chose the left one as it seemed to be heading for the higher ground, but why wasn't this trail marked on the map in the guidebook? Nevertheless, I was making good progress considering the toughness of the terrain that climbed steeply into the hills.
Then I came to a second crossroads. Again, I took the one that seemed to be heading upward. It continued upward. And upward. And upward. I kept going all the way into the clouds. I reached the top of the mountain with my water low and my moral seeping away and there was still no sign of the giant Buddha. The trail seemed to have hit its peak, the pathway heading back downward. I guessed that I couldn't have been far off from Lantau peak, at 934 metres above sea level, Hong Kong's second highest point. I decided to press on rather then turn back. The mist became so bad that I could see no more then ten metres. I became concerned that I hadn't seen anybody else hiking for nearly an hour. With no other option, all I could do was continue on, my feet aching, legs sore and everything else drenched in sweat.
I eventually emerged from the vegetation and onto a road. There was a visitor map to the side of the trail and signs warning of the dangers of Dengue Fever and Malaria. It looked like I had walked the Lantau Trail and had indeed passed along the northern face of Lantau peak, having covered just about the entire length of the island passing Po Lin by about 200 metres. I saw that I was on registered slope 13NE-B/C63, at least then I knew I was back in civilisation though angry, frustrated and very tired.
I walked along the road and came to a bus stop and was delighted that the timetable showed one that went to the monastery. I’d never scoff at bus travel again. With luck I’d get to the Buddha with enough time for a look around before last light.
The grounds of the monastery had a couple of temples with a few people shaking fire sticks at them like at the Yuen Wong temple. Having seen that stuff before I decided to head straight for the Buddha hoping that the journey to get there was worth it.
To get up to the platform upon which it sits takes a climb of 250 steps. However, the Buddha had a massive design flaw, they seemed to have built the thing on the inside of a cloud so that, upon arrival, looking up at it on it's 7.6 metre high platform, all that was visible was an eerie silhouette.
I had read that it was the biggest seated, bronze, outdoor Buddha statue in the world and so I was expecting to be impressed. However, I was left with the feeling that somewhere else, tourists were looking at an equally big, indoor, standing, non-bronze statue of a Buddha with much less disappointment then I. I was glad of the little cafe nearby, it sold bottles of San Miguel for $10HK which helped me feel a little less intimidated when I got onto a bus crammed full of Philippine workers for the journey back to the train station.

* * *

I was to discover that every Sunday was unofficially termed as a Philippine Day. Victoria Park would be over run by people from the country but it was not in celebration of some national holiday as I had first assumed. It is the day that the Philippine hired help get their solitary day off. They are literally thrown out of their lodgings for the day when they do not have to wait on their employers, and so they cram the parks and bars to occupy themselves for the day. Some of the women do supplement their modest incomes by turning to prostitution, hence my run in with Trixie the previous week. No wonder she didn't seem to like it when I wished her a happy Philippine day.
In an attempt to escape the crowds I headed out on a ferry to Lamma Island with Lorenzo tagging along. I admired his guts, travelling on his own at the tender age of 19, gaining an insight into the world before he would take up his university studies. On first impressions he came across as a confident young man, but after getting to know him I found the usual insecurities of youth. He was incapable of making a decision without consulting Ricky or me and his hyperactivity was an irritation to deal with. His heart was in the right place though and we had a good day on the Island. We walked along it’s beaches before finding a hidden gem of a bar, the ex-pat owner playing chill-out music as we sipped cool beer, sitting almost horizontally in the big comfy couches in the art-deco surroundings. I couldn’t drag Lorenzo away, happy as he was for me to leave him on the Island as I headed back.
I had been noticing a horrible smell over the last couple of days. Then I realised that it was probably me. I really needed to do some washing.

Changing The Meaning

2009-05-04T13:29:00.001-07:00

The first thing that hit me as I was getting off of the ferry was the intense heat. I clocked it at 35 degrees on my little thermometer come compass. Together with the high humidity in the region, it made moving about difficult.
A special administration zone, Macau was returned to the Chinese after it had been a Portuguese colony. The small island is famed for it’s casinos and the opportunity this gives the gambling mad people of Hong Kong who otherwise have little outlet for one of their favourite past times.
My first stop was the Macau tower, at 338 metres, the tenth tallest freestanding structure in the world. It doesn't do anything apart from offer fantastic views if the smog isn’t too bad, or for the crazy people of the world that have plenty of money, there are extreme sports. I made do with a trip up to the observation platform as I didn’t really fall into either of the categories. Extreme options included climbing up the mast or zip flying all the way down to the bottom.
As I walked around the island, I observed that as with Hong Kong, it was hard to get a feel of the past rule. The only Portuguese vibe I picked up was the styling of some of the architecture, the odd restaurant and seeing the hundreds of scooters flying about the streets. Finding somewhere to eat was tricky as I'm not a big seafood fan and alternatives on the island were in short supply. And I still couldn’t speak any Chinese.
I walked around what seemed to be the main hub and found a little Indian cafe. I had been missing the chance of having a good curry and so entered the cosy looking establishment.
The food was good for a mere $30HK even though I heard the ping of a microwave just prior to it being served. I was the daredevil, risking the chicken with all the headlines about SARS in the region. But what made it was the friendly owner, a small Indian woman in advancing years, I made her day when I told her how good I thought the food was.
“It’s my own recipe,” she beamed with pride. She was a regular Delia Smith. While I ate, she sat at a nearby table with a young looking woman. She was giving Delia a lesson in Russian.
“I’m fascinated by languages,” Delia said to me later, her lesson completed and the Russian girl leaving to go to her next client.
“So you’re just learning Russian for the fun of it?” I asked.
“Oh yes. I’m learning Cantonese as well, though that’s more as a necessity. It’s much more difficult though.”
“So I hear. What makes it so hard?”
“I think it’s that the same word can be said with several different pitches, each completely changing the meaning. And then there’s all the hundreds of characters in the alphabet. That’s what I’m working on at the moment. Let me show you an example.” She fetched a piece of paper and carefully wrote out a symbol. “Each symbol represents a sound. This one represents ‘woman’.” She then drew a second symbol next to the first. “This one has another sound, but put it together with the first and the pair represent ‘horse’.” My mind boggled at the deeper meanings that lay behind the linkage to the two words.
“Well, you’re obviously a good student with languages, you’re English is very good.” I said.
“Oh no, not really, I only speak English, Spanish, some Russian now, some Cantonese and of course my home language. What languages do you speak?”
I felt embarrassed to admit my ignorance. “Just English, “ I said bowing my head.
“Oh... well I find England is interesting because of all the regional accents.”
“Yeah, thar’s the one from Berminghum, it soonds just liyke thuis,” I added, giving her my best impersonation of the black country accent.
“Are you serious? People don’t really sound like that do they?”
“Oh I’m afraid they do.”
She considered it for a moment and then stood up, “Would you like the bill now?” she asked bluntly. I think she thought I was taking the piss.
Although nowhere near as bad Shenzhan, I found the Chinese of Macau pretty disgusting with the constant spitting everywhere together with all the delightful sound effects. Taking a rest from the strength sapping humidity, I sat on a bench in a small park with an ice cream. Opposite me sat two old geezers. One began snorting away like a particularly unattractive pig. When he had suitably cleared that orifice, he worked his throat, hacking and gagging away like there was a marble caught in his gullet. He then unashamedly spat the produce in a high arc in front of him which landed with a splat on the ground a few feet away between us. I stared straight into his eyes, giving him my best look of contempt. He just smiled back, as if he was proud of his work. His mate just sat there, not bothered at all.
The day was getting older and so I decided to take a walk along the waterfront toward the ferry jetty. I encountered an old man of what appeared to be Portuguese origin with sun damaged wrinkled skin and clothes that suggested a leaning toward the alternative. As I walked past him he called out, giving me a big friendly ‘Hello!’ while he waved at me maniacally as I passed. I returned the greeting and continued on my way.
I ventured up a walkway that jutted out over the water to take in the view of the tower only to notice my new hippy friend standing at the bottom. He was looking unsure as to whether to follow me up, in the manner of a predator who had already eaten but who has just spotted some easy prey. Up he came.
"Hello!" he said again waving at me from barely three feet away. I returned the gesture.
"Baa-baa lollipop Macau Benfica," he said (or something like that) as he pointed to the ground. I guessed he was asking me if I was staying in Macau.
"Oh Yes," I replied to keep things simple. I assumed he might have trouble with the word ‘no’. We then shared several gestures and smiles about how good the view was.
"Ting-tang drivel-drivel Luis Figo blah," he then said (or something similar) making a fist with one hand and inserting his first finger in one end with his other hand. He then pointed at what was either my pockets or my crotch and laughed suggestively.
I was guessing that a) he was asking for money, b) he was a pimp or c) he was a fortune-teller and had followed me to have a good laugh about the fact that the last two years were bad ones for me to have had a girlfriend.
I shook my head, turning down his offer, whatever it was. He repeated himself, a little more loudly but I just kept shaking my head to his suggestions with my hands spread out in front of me to show I wasn’t a threat. Some more people arrived to look at the view. Now that there were witnesses should he of been thinking about throwing me into the sea, he quietened down. After it was clear that the group that arrived would be hanging around a while and that I was going nowhere, the hippy took his leave, giving me another big wave and a thumbs up.
I got back to the ferry and we pulled away with the lights of the tower and the casinos fading into the distance. I made a mental note that I really should do some washing on the following day.

* * *

"You are very lucky," said the huge Indian man. He was smartly dressed in a suit with black tie and came complete with a turban. "Some great fortune is going to happen to you in the next month."
I was sitting on the Kowloon side of the harbour early in the morning and had already waved away two beggars and was now having the attentions of another fortune-teller. I was dubious about his skills, he looked more like he should have been working in airline security. After I told him I had already had my fortune told and had got a lucky charm I think that I worried him that there was another teller on his patch.
"Who was she? What did she look like? When was this?" he asked. I didn't have the grace to tell him that it was on the other side of Hong Kong as I shooed him away.
I was without much of a plan for my last few days in Hong Kong. Ricky and Mick had left and, I had to admit, I needed time out from Lorenzo’s hyperactivity. My new dormitory buddies was made up of a quiet German who spent his time going to museums and having early nights and an American guy who seemed to sleep all of the time. The jet lag must be harder to get over when travelling from America. Or else maybe young American men are just lazy.
Hong Kong boasts the longest escalator in the world, built to get workers home to the Midlevels from the central financial district. This sounded like a good way to waste away a couple of hours and so I made a visit. I was disappointed to find a series of little escalators. And not only is the supposedly longest escalator in the world in sections, but the bloody thing ran in only one direction. It was a long walk back down especially as the rain started to pour down for my trek back.
One day I headed to the bank of China building, for no other reason then to take in the view of the city from the public floor. I spotted a park so decided to waste the afternoon mooching around it. Hong Kong Park turned out to be a great place. It was entirely artificial which gave it the feeling of being from a Tim Burton movie set. As well as all the lakes, waterfalls and greenery, there was a conservatory housing Hong Kong native plants though upon entering, amongst the rules is one that clearly stated, 'no balloons'. Did balloons constitute a dangerous weapon?
Within the park was the most crap museum in the world. The Tea Museum. It was so bad, it was brilliant, though the five minutes I spent there was more then enough. There were nine galleries or so, some devoted to different parts of the teapot; the lid, the handle and my favourite - the spout. Sadly there wasn't much detail on cups and saucers. The highlight for me though was the ceramic texture gallery, within which were ‘interactive’ samples that could be touched. One such example was a teapot made to look like corrugated cardboard. With the exhibit, there was a section of corrugated cardboard, just in case the visitor didn't understand. It was in a glass case like some kind of archaeological treasure. Now that Harrison Ford's getting on a bit could we soon be seeing the movie Indiana Jones and the Section of Corrugated Cardboard?
I thought that this summarised Hong Kong up quite well. I arrived expecting glamour, style and sophistication but so much was actually quite tatty. Yes, there was the latest technological gadgets in the shops, but they all seemed to be finished poorly in cheap looking plastic casing. I went to Hong Kong expected the artistry of a Bruce Lee movie but found - while still entertaining - the tackiness of a Jackie Chan flick. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed my time there. Hong Kong has an excellent transport system considering that if the UK had such a high population density, the system would more then likely have collapsed long ago. The people were always polite with the service excellent, and wherever I went, I always felt perfectly safe. But I can't help worry a little for the place; the smog is choking the city and the lack of noticeable acknowledgement of former British rule caused me concern on what the future holds under the Chinese administration.
But I would soon be going to Sydney and I reflected on how lucky I felt to have the opportunity be to travelling there. I didn't need a fortune-teller to tell me that.

Barbecue and Booze

2009-05-04T13:28:00.002-07:00

Despite the sights of Sydney harbour being so well known, seeing the Opera House and Harbour Bridge for the first time still inspired a sense of awe. I suppose it's like meeting someone famous, you know them so well and yet still get star-struck when seeing them in the flesh. The only famous people that I’d met had been Jimmy Saville and Chris Akabussi, the comparison with the Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge, with respect, didn’t do justice to the city’s most famous landmarks. Seeing them at night was even better, the return ferry trip from Manly on the northern side of the harbour the best way, with the lights around the Opera House giving it a surreal ghostly appearance.
It took me until the third evening after arrival in Sydney before I was to purchase me first main meal. I wasn’t starving myself to save money though, after arriving in the late evening I made a quick dash to have a first look around the harbour, returning to the hostel in time for the barbecue and booze night that was put on. I got acquainted with Luke from Leeds, another pre-university young man with the build of a Rugby back which was no coincidence. I also met a guy from Hull amongst the host of British backpackers that seemed to have descended upon Sydney. Looking at him, his recently acquired degree in sports science was very much in evidence, and it was with regret that I couldn’t remember his name as the two of us headed out to a bar on the following evening. I just hoped that I would find it out before I embarrassed myself.
He’d heard of a place that did cheap steaks and a pub quiz. We arrived at The Pyrmont Hotel in the Darling Harbour area of town. As we ordered our food and drink, the bar tender flipped a coin. The meal was free with a correct call. The steak and mashed potato tasted all the better having not had to pay for it.
We won a prize in the quiz, the guy running it being very charitable by giving us a little goody bag for coming last. Though with two of us and one T-shirt, there was an argument about who should have it.
“You can have it,” I said
“No, it’s yours.”
Our reluctance for ownership was down to the wording on the front that read 'My boyfriend stayed up until 5am drinking to get me this shirt’. We also got some temporary tattoos which, having had a few beers I later wished had had a bit more emphasis on the temporary. In our defence at the poor showing in the quiz, points were awarded for comedy answers and we may have been concentrating too much on that element. Some example questions were:
What US TV program won record ratings and looks at the lives of the dysfunctional in America?
Answer: Jerry Springer.
Our answer - the US presidential election.
Which recording artist recorded the album 'pieces of you'?
Answer - Jewel.
Our answer - Bin Laden.
We didn’t make ourselves popular with the Americans on the table next to ours with that one, but one of the girls was happy to receive our T-shirt as a peace offering and we invited them to play pool to show we weren't complete idiots.
Brooke, sporting the T-shirt with Hayley and Stephen took us on in an international pool competition which I can proudly announce was won by the UK 3 - 0. After that we decided to mix the teams up.
"You choose who you want on your team," I said to Brooke, " Me or ...er... him."
"You've forgotten my name haven't you," said the guy who's name I'd forgotten.
" Er, no, no " I said, suddenly realising how big he really was, "It's Mark." He didn't look pleased. "Only joking, Matt," I offered. "No it’s Chris...no wait Andy!"
I'd got it but it was too late. Andy didn't look pleased. To make it up to him I suggested he teamed up with Brooke – she did look good in that T-shirt. Hayley had left and so I was left with Steve, who I found out was gay. This wasn't how I had envisaged my first night out in Sydney. Andy forgave me for forgetting his name in the end, leaving as he did with Brooke’s phone number. I didn’t try and get Steve’s.
After a couple of pints at an Irish bar a couple of evenings later, Andy and I decided to attempt to supplement our income of nothing, with a visit to the Star Casino. We agreed that we would each put $20 into a kitty for investment at the roulette table. Whatever was won would be split into half, one half for winnings and one half for further investment. It was my first time betting in a casino proper and there’s definitely something to the theory of beginner’s luck. Time and time again, our spread bets came up and as we got more adventurous we lucked out picking single numbers more then a couple of times. We ended up walking away from the table with $100 each. Not a huge sum, but I was finding out that the lifestyle on a backpacker budget was somewhere between that of a student and the homeless. I was more then happy to call it a night, but Andy turned to the black jack table taking away another $100 while I was left to rue my relative cautionary ways.
Unfortunately, we couldn’t help ourselves and ended back at the casino on the next evening, our confidence high after the previous night’s successes. Luke overheard the bragging that we did to his face and insisted that we attempted a repeat performance. That night, The Pyrmont held an 'odds or evens' evening, a correct call of odd or even when the bar staff ran a random number generator would get the order for free. Any money we saved was taken to the casino.
I should have stayed in the bar. I lost every single bet I placed on the roulette table, black jack and the big wheel as I went from one table to the other desperate for a lucky break. I’d gone through my allocated cash within half an hour of walking through the door. The casino had just about got everything back that I took away on the previous night. Andy didn’t do much better then to brake even but with that beginners luck halo shining brightly around his head it was Luke who starred, somehow walking away with a cool $1000 from the black jack table fully admitting that he didn’t really know what he had been doing. His trip up the east coast of Australia was paid for. As we left, Luke was carrying a handful of leftover chips together with his one for $1000. He dumped the smaller denominations on a single number as we passed a roulette table. It came in.

Next day, I took a bus out to Coogee beach to take the coastal walk to Bondi. The stretch of coastline was fabulous, with the discovery of hidden gems like Gordon’s Bay and Bronte Beach and passing through a massive humbling cemetery that suddenly appeared out of nowhere. From word of mouth, I was not expecting too much from Bondi beach. I arrived and found what appeared to be, well... a very nice beach. By this time clouds had gathered and as I got down to the beach proper, the heavens opened up. It’s hard to judge a place with such a huge reputation associated with good times in the sun when it’s the start of the winter and when hiding from the rain under a shelter. But even so, it’s hard to see why Bondi is so well known, it’s not even the nicest beach in Sydney - Manly and Coogee looked like much nicer places to hang out. When the rain cleared I took a walk around the suburb of Bondi. On such a gloomy day, the place reminded me of a seaside town in England; I could have been passing through Portsmouth.
I was still getting used to the Australian informality. In the tourist brochures I read language such as 'codger', 'bloke' and 'no crap.' I just loved seeing the anti-littering slogans; 'don't be a tosser!’ My first days in Sydney seemed to consist of sleeping off the beers drunk the night before and doing administration tasks such as picking up my visa, applying for a tax file number and applying for a Medicare card. They certainly seemed to like their bureaucracy in Australia. As aesthetically pleasing as the main hubs of Sydney were, the people seemed to be a rush. It felt like London with an opera house. I thought that it was a little sad that there were so many British backpackers that had arrived in the city and chosen to stay on and work there for the majority of their stay. Luke had done just that, leaving himself just six weeks to attempt to see something else of the country before his visa was due to expire. Spending the evenings in the bars seemed to be something I could have been doing at home. This didn’t feel like the real Australia, I needed to get out of Sydney.
I left the city to spend some time in the Blue Mountains, around 100km and about two hours to the west of Sydney by train. The place was magnificently peaceful and I could have spent hours just sitting at Echo Point. It was whilst there that I realised I had been away for a month and I was in a mood of reflection. My belt size had already decreased by one notch and it seemed my stomach had shrunk to the size of a walnut whilst my bladder had increased to the size of a grapefruit. But I was learning all sorts of useless new things such as that Hong Kong had the highest rate of orange consumption in the world. I was becoming more at ease being in Australia with the seemingly endless array of strange and lethal creatures. On one of my first evenings walking around the Glebe area of Sydney I had caught sight of what first appeared to me to be some kind of large deadly insect. I shuffled over toward it, only to discover that it was the discarded end of a sausage. I was discovering that I didn’t need to be so paranoid, although there was always a reminder to be on guard. The large crows, that seemed to be all around Sydney appeared as if they were planning a co-ordinated attack at any moment. They looked like relics from Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds, their size and strange call, which sounded like the screech of an Ewok being flushed down a toilet made their cousins in the UK look like cute budgerigars in comparison.
At the edge of the small town of Katoomba, Echo Point overlooks a huge valley full of the Eucalyptus trees that are common to the area. The name of the Blue Mountains is derived from the blue hue given to the air when sunlight shines through the oils given off by the Eucalyptus trees. The ‘mountains’ bit is harder to explain, the landscape is actually a series of canyons and valleys separated by several high plateaus. Echo Point is the starting point for many great hikes, one of which includes The Giant Stairway, 800 gruelling steps to the valley floor. Alternatively there is the vertical railway line which boasted at being the steepest line in the world. In a position that was closer to standing rather than sitting when boarding the cart, I thought it had a better shout at the title then the one in Hong Kong. If the idea of something as trivial as a sneeze being enough to cause enough forward momentum to lead to the toppling out of the cart is too troubling, a cable gondola was also present as an alternative for getting to and from the valley floor. At the edge of the valley stands the three sisters, large chunks of rock left over from erosion on a thin ledge that imposingly tower 900 metres over the valley floor from their lofty position. Originally there were seven distinct formations, the others having long since toppled down.
The sisters have special spiritual significance to the Aboriginal tribes of the area and I gained my first insight into some of their culture reading their story. The tale involves three little Aboriginal sisters Meenhi, Wimlah and Gunnedoo and their witch doctor father called Tyawan. In the Blue Mountains, one creature was feared by all, the Bunyip.
Nearby to the hole that was the home of the creature, Tyawan had left his daughters on the cliff. Here, a big centipede appeared, frightening one of the sisters who threw a stone at it. The stone crashed into the valley. The rock behind the sisters split open and Bunyip emerged in a rage. The sisters were trapped on a thin ledge and Tyawan, seeing what was happening used his magic bone to turn the sisters into stone to keep them safe. The Bunyip chased Tyawan so he changed himself into a Lyre Bird, losing his magic bone in the process. After the Bunyip had gone, Tyawan returned and searched and searched for his bone while the three sisters stand patiently, waiting on the ledge to be turned back into Aboriginal girls by their father.
I was staying at the Flying Fox Hostel. Though it seemed to attract a younger crowd, the whole place had a great homely atmosphere with a cosy log fire in the lounge area and in the corner I spotted, joy-of-joys, an acoustic guitar. The hostel was run by a charming couple, Ross and Wendy, who really did make their guests feel at home.
I was sharing the dormitory with a tall young Finnish guy called Micko. An avid climber, he would spend everyday pursuing his passion. Coincidentally, his next stop was Hong Kong and it brought a smile to my lips when reflecting on my time there as I spent an evening giving him advice about the city.
There was also a British hippy chick called Lucy who was working at the hostel for a few hours a day in exchange for her accommodation and meals. She took great pleasure in taking the piss out of the state my hair, leaving me no ammunition as she bounced around the place with her perfect golden curls. She was a bit of tree hugger but I certainly wouldn't have minded being the tree. Halfway through our introductory conversation, she cut me off mid-sentence squealing with delight and running to the door. She’d spotted a small dog out of the window and had run out to give it some fuss. I figured that I'd either be driven bonkers or be eating tofu by the end of the week.

As Twilight Fell

2009-05-04T13:28:00.001-07:00

"You know you've had a good climb when you take your pants off and throw them against the wall and they stick," so said an Aussie climber as we walked passed carrying our kit. We were on our way to a first crack at a grade 10 and he must have known we were beginners as we followed Brendan, our instructor to the site of our first climb.
I'd signed up for a day of abseiling and rock climbing after some of Micko’s enthusiasm had rubbed off on me. We spent the first couple of hours covering the basics of abseiling on the basis of the old adage, ‘what goes up must come down,’ - it’s somewhat of a required skill when climbing. We practised on gradually increasing cliff faces until we had built up the confidence to descend down one of 25 metres. It was great fun.
The Australian system classes climbs from grades 1 to 30 where 1 is classed as the easiest and 30 the hardest technically possible. Brendan started us off with a 10, which seemed quite a bold leap for a novice like me. On the drive out from Katoomba whilst making small talk, I’d told Brendan that I was a computer programmer in my former life. With this in mind he should have guessed I was too nerdy to take on anything too challenging.
The group included a short, slight British guy called Andrew. He had ginger hair that would have got him picked on by bullies if he’d gone to a school anything like mine, but judging by his well-spoken accent, that wasn’t likely. He’d arrived in the dormitory at the Flying Fox the previous evening, coming to the Blue Mountains specifically for the climbing course. Arriving late from Sydney was Frederick, a thick set German who was the strong silent type. They both admitted to experience on indoor climbing walls as I wondered what I had got myself into, the only things I had climbed in my life were stairs.
The other two guys took their turns on the 25 metre high grade 10 whilst Brendan and I hung on to their safety ropes. They both made it to the top, though with a bit of a struggle. It was now my turn. I started off determined not to show myself up too much and began quite well but I was only covering the easy bit. Further up, just past halfway to the summit was an overhang that had me worried as soon as I’d seen it. Clinging underneath and already feeling tired it seemed impossible to get over. Brendan had instructed us that the secret to good climbing was to use the legs as much as the arms, but you can only do that when there's something to put your feet on. I reached over the jutting rock and grabbed a couple of handfuls of rock and began to haul myself over with my feet scurrying through the empty air below desperately feeling for something to lever off of. Brendan was yelling from below to get a foothold but there was just nowhere useful I could see that I could reach to put them on. I flung my legs forward in a vain attempt to get a meaningful contact with the wall but only managed to scrape my shins painfully along the rock face.
Exhausted, I pulled myself up and over with all the strength in my arms and just managed to clear the overhang. With weary arms and bleeding legs I scurried up the rest of the way to the top. It was a relief when Brendan declared that it was time for lunch after my abseil back down.
I tried to hide my shaking arms as I took bites from my ham and cheese sandwiches that felt as heavy as if they’d been made out of solid lead. I couldn’t get enough water – it tasted like liquid gold. Goodness knows how I was going to get through the rest of the afternoon, my poor technique at that overhang had left my arms with little energy and Brendan had declared that we were going on to tackle a grade 12 next.
When we got there it actually looked easier then the grade 10. There were no overhangs to worry about and so I became a bit more optimistic. I began my climb quite well with my confidence building and some of the pain in my biceps from the build up of lactic acid was beginning to fade. However, halfway up I seemed to run out of handholds. I looked all around, shuffling along the ledge I was precariously balanced on, trying to figure out what to do. Putting too much faith in the grip of my climbing shoes I reached up to the only handhold I could get to and tried my foot scurrying method again.
Suddenly the cliff face was falling away from me. There was no life flashing before my eyes moment, just the thought that I hoped the yelp I emitted didn't sound too pathetic. Brendan took the strain in my safety rope and held me dangling in the air. I swung back to the cliff face and abseiled back to ground level with his laughter echoing across the canyon. It felt good to get back to ground and it took a few moments for the adrenaline rush to subside. I watched the other two guys make their attempts, cursing myself as they made it to the top.
We moved on to a cliff face with two routes, one a grade 13 and the other a 12, but my confidence and stamina were rapidly depleting. Again on both attempts at the 12 I was left dangling, dependent on Brendan’s sure hands and very much to his amusement.
“I’ve never seen anybody fall off as spectacularly as you!” he teased. At least the others were now beginning to struggle. Only Frederick managed the grade 12 after several attempts. I was left exhausted and covered in cuts. It felt like I had taken a shower and cleaned myself using a cheese grater rather then soap. Muscles I didn’t know I had ached for days afterward. That days’ climbing has to have been one of the hardest things I'd ever done and I include programming complex computer applications, learning advanced quantum mechanics and trying to remember to leave the toilet seat down in the comparison.

* * *

You know you're getting old when it takes two days to get over a hangover. On my last night in the Blue Mountains a short, tough looking Australian with cropped hair called Michael arrived at the hostel. At first, he was reluctant to talk about what he did for a living, but after a few beers I found out he was a professional boxer and had just won a fight the night before. He was very generous with his prize money, paying for drinks and entry into a small nightclub for the group of half a dozen or so of us that went out from the hostel. He was a fighter at lightweight, but keeping up with his heavyweight drinking proved to be impossible, it was clear that he was on a major wind down after the fight. I found him to be extremely likeable and I had great admiration for the dedication he showed when he talked about his profession. The only thing was that so did Lucy, and I have to admit to a pang of jealousy as he became her tree. It was time to call it a night after Michael refused to take me on in a drunken arm wrestle. I left him and Lucy to it, managing to make it back to the hostel just in time to catch the live transmission of the FA Cup final from the UK. I didn’t remember much of the match, my stomach punishing me for leaving it empty but for beer by sending me to the toilet repeatedly.
It was a great week in the Blue Mountains though; I very much enjoyed the bush walks through the various canyons and past the waterfalls of the area. It was humbling to come across some original Aboriginal artwork on a cliff face on one walk that must have been hundreds, if not thousands of years old. There were pictures of tribesman hunting alongside images of various animals. There was also the text from a primitive hand that read 'Mark woz ere' and another that said ' Matt 4 Katie'. I just wish I knew what it all meant.
Apart from the small touristy bit at the edge of town at Echo Point and the walking tracks the place is practically unspoilt. I was happy to hear it when Brendan had told us that the authorities have banned any further development in the area. I returned to Sydney feeling suitably relaxed. I had decided that the next leg of my journey would be northward along the east coast. The city was a shock to the system after the calm of the mountains. I took a last walk around town, the hustle and bustle a complete opposite to life in the Blue Mountains. I passed a store that had a pre-recorded voice bellowing into the street in the style of a hyperactive Ronseal commercial.
"Super savings! Nothing over $10! See how much you can save! We’ve got cheap T-shirts, cheap sunglasses, great savings on jeans, everything you need! Just come on in and have a look!" It bellowed in an infinite loop in an aggressive Aussie accent. I felt so sorry for the people that worked there.
I thought I'd take a look around King's Cross, the city’s red light district as twilight fell. Strangely, it was all men that approached me. Passing one establishment called Porkies, a short stocky man ran up to me.
"We've got a menu - come on in and have a drink," he said aggressively, grabbing hold of my arm.
"Er… no thanks mate, I'm not looking for anything," I replied.
"We've got a brothel if you want a fuck," he snarled.
Never. And I was thinking Porky's sold bacon.
"Not really, I'm fine thanks," I said and he stomped off. Now I'm no marketing genius, but surely they should have used a cute looking woman rather then a psychopathic knucklehead to drum up business.
The next day I headed up to the town of Newcastle, a freshly purchased bus pass giving me access along the east coast of Australia on The Greyhound bus network. What appeared as a small sleepy town was actually the second largest town in New South Wales and was also famous for being the world's largest coal exporter, one and a half million tons of the stuff passing through every week. There were some nice beaches and coastal walks to explore and some nature reserves, but my main reason for going was the accessibility to Hunter Valley, the wine-producing region. I booked myself into the YHA and signed up for the next available tour.

* * *
Friday 27th May 2005 10:22am. The seven of us in the tour group arrived at the first winery called Coopers, a small set up producing just 3000 bottles a year. On the menu were six wines available for our group to try. For completeness we tried them all. The Shiraz was disappointing considering it's one of the chief wines that the region was famous for and also one of my favourite blends. The other star, the Semillon was quite nice which is high praise indeed as I'm not a big white wine fan. The Rose was pretty disgusting though and smelt like someone from a previous tour might have thrown up in it.10:41 Next stop was Tatlers, a slightly larger operation with a charismatic host that reminded me of Brutus from Popeye. Most of the dozen or so wines we tried were good, though the Shiraz was a let down again. There was a nice Chardonnay; again I don't usually go for them. There was also a desert wine that tasted of toffee. I was already beginning to feel tipsy by this stage.11:06 On the way to the chocolate shop we saw a police car that had pulled someone over. Disgraceful I thought, being drunk at this time of day. The amount of free samples at the shop was disappointing as I had the munchies, but the Chocolate Rocks were interesting. They were made up of chocolate and covered with a sort of sugar coating like a posh M & M but they left a strange aftertaste as if there were traces of real rocks in them. I needed more wine to wash the taste away.11:19 The next winery we arrived at was called Sobels. There was a massive St. Bernard dog and the biggest spider I've ever seen in it’s web over the porch. It looked like we had walked into somebody’s front room when we got inside. The Semillon tasted like cold tea and the Shiraz was crap again. Why could nobody here get it right? The Merlot was excellent though. I wondered if the dog gave rides. Heck, the spider could have taken a small child. Many of the wines were beginning to taste the same, but we were then treated to some port. I think I may have been given paint by mistake, but I still drank it. Some of the others in the group were asking intelligent questions, but the best I could come up with was "What's the alcohol content in this". It was 18.5 % by the way.12:05 Just before lunch we go to the Golden Grape winery. After some ordinary stuff we get to the speciality liquors. There was a butterscotch one that tasted fantastic and one that was like Baileys with coconut in which I also very much enjoyed. We finish with one that had chilli's fermenting in the bottle which our entertaining hostess made us all down in one together. It was an acquired taste and very hot. I now felt sick.12:35 Lunch. I was the only one to have brought my own sandwiches and the burgers at The Golden Grape looked fantastic. I wasn’t too jealous as everything tasted of chilli anyway. It would have been so easy to fall asleep in the sun.2:10 Drayton's. Shiraz: shit. There was more white port that should only have been used to clean toilets, although the Tawny Port was nice, but I'm the only one in the group that thought so. There were other red and whites but my mind was fogging. The host was the latest in a long line to tell us that wine colour is determined by the grape's skin and that all wine would otherwise be white.3:05 We go to the cheese shop. I wished they sold kebabs. Though not a big cheese fan I try some cheddar. It tasted of plastic, though I couldn't rule out that I was eating plastic.3:25 McGuigan's. There were red and white wines but I didn't care, I just wanted them given to me. I loved everybody but tried to start a fight with a pillar that was looking at me funny. I realised I was drunk when I thought it was a shame that they weren’t playing Come on Eileen.

* * *

After having the dorm to myself for a couple of nights, I was joined by an older Australian guy. He seemed friendly enough during the couple of brief chats that we’d had. Up until this point I'd been quite lucky not to have been stuck with many snorers but with this guy, I was genuinely worried whether the foundations of the hostel would hold. ‘A snore like a shire horse’ would hardly adequately describe the noise that he generated. As I lay in my bunk across the room from him, I tried to think of something to throw at him to jar him out of it. But I was limited in options by what came to hand:
1) My sandals - may hurt too much and result in a fight.
2) My full water bottle - may cause injury or death.
3) My trousers - may lead to him getting the wrong idea.
To cap it off, the fucker got up at 6.30am, waking me in the process as he moved about with the subtlety of a wounded wildebeest.
I went to the Blackbutt Nature Reserve just outside of Newcastle for the day. I saw plenty of proper Aussie wildlife - kangaroos, emus, wombats and all sorts of birds such as parrots, kookaburras and galahs, but the stars of the show were the occupants of the koala house. A couple of them were actually awake and it was fascinating to watch them clamber about. I hung around for the talk which the guy struggled nervously through, apologising for 'stuffing it up', but at the end he announced we could make our way downstairs to pet their oldest koala Suzie and ask questions in small groups. As I made my way down I tried to think up something to ask - 'How old is she?' and 'How long do they live?' was the best I could come up with. I was let in to see Suzie behind another guy and two girls. As we approached Suzie and her handler one of the girls dived straight in.
"How old is she?" she asked. Damn.
"She’s eight," replied the handler girl, an attractive brunette who was feeding the koala bear from a bottle. After the two girls had their pet I got ready to ask my question.
"How long do they live?" But I realised the words were not mine. The other guy had got in there first. Damn, damn.
"About 15 years in captivity," said the handler girl. The guy moved on and it was now my turn with Suzie. My mind raced for a question as I smiled like an imbecile at the handler girl and ruffled at Suzie’s fur. The only thing I could think of was, ‘What’s the alcohol content in that?’ referring to the milky liquid that Suzie was consuming.
“Well, um… thank you, “ I muttered and followed the others out of the pen thankful that the idea had at least stayed in my head.

Take The Safer Option

2009-05-04T13:27:00.002-07:00

My next stop was Forster, a delightful little town, situated in the Great Lakes region of New South Wales. It was an unspoilt oasis with miles of empty beaches that I was more then happy to wile away a couple of days on, even though the Australia winter was well under way. I arrived in town in the early evening and found the Dolphin Lodge YHA easily enough, the small hostel virtually empty due to the time of year. I shared a dormitory with one other man, a young American of slight stature called Steve. He was travelling with a guitar, using the quieter moments of his travels to learn to play the instrument and he exchanged a meal of spaghetti for a lesson from me on how to play bar chords. One of the friendly guys that helped to run the Dolphin Lodge tempted me with a swimming with dolphins cruise as he ran through the things to do in town. One of those must do things in life, I headed out early in the morning to the cruise centre, a large wooden shack on the waterfront, only to find little sign of life. The man running the adjacent whale watching cruises came over as I hung around waiting for someone from the Dolphin cruises operation to turn up.
“Looking to do a Dolphin cruise are you?” he asked.
“Yes, do you know when they open? I was told that I needed to come early?”
“Well, I haven’t seen the bloke that runs it for about three weeks now. Word is that he’s had some trouble in court after one of his customers was injured.”
“Really? Is it not safe?”
“Well, it’s a bit of a joke really. He takes you out on the boat and you get into the water and you hold onto a rope attached to the boat. He then drags you along. You’d actually have to be really lucky to see a Dolphin. Would you be interested in a whale watch instead?”
“Um, no thanks, I’m not really interested in that. Thanks for your help,” I said, doing the very British thing of giving thanks where none was really needed.
“No worries mate,” he said as I went to spend the day exploring the lakefront with a great sense of disappointment.

I was starting to see the real Australia with many of the locals happy to converse with me. Later in the evening, I went to a bar come restaurant and a guy and his friend heard my English accent at a nearby table. He introduced himself as Steve-o, (I assumed that he was doing the Aussie thing of adding an 'o' to the end of everything and that he wasn't giving me the initial of his surname). He told me proudly about the best places to visit along the east coast and his love of surfing. Whilst sitting at the beachfront I had got talking to an older guy who came along to enjoy some sunshine. In such a sports crazed country, he delighted in telling me all about Brian Clough after I said I'd come from Nottingham. After several minutes of him telling me stuff I already knew, I decided that I would go back to telling people that I was from my hometown of Milton Keynes rather then the last place I lived. Just a short time after his departure a woman and her daughter came along. With two Australian women it was little wonder that I struggled to get a word in. They did give me an interesting perspective on the Aborigine people. They told me that most Australians are ashamed of the past atrocities to the indigenous people and compared their treatment to that of the native Americans and the persecution of the Jews. In an attempt to make some kind of amends, the Australian welfare state could be counted among the best in the world but this in turn causes more racial tension as Aborigine people are seen to get generous handouts at the expense of the tax payer. They told me of a visit they made to Alice Springs where they saw the treatment of Aborigine children, the parents seeming to neglect their young and doing nothing for those that were sick. Adult Aborigine would loiter on the streets, more often drunken then not. Even though it was so obviously wrong they told me how they could see some kind of justification for the separation of children from their parents which took place in the past.
I guess that things are never as black and white as the history books say. Theses women were very friendly, inviting me to their house for tea and yet I couldn’t help but feel that the attitude they had to the Aborigine people was one of superiority and that their thoughts toward them were skewed because of a difference in culture and skin colour.
Later still, having declined their offer, I stayed on at the beachfront to watch the sun set in the couple of hours before my next bus. As I lazed, I noticed a small hourglass shaped spider with disproportional large pincers moving slowly along the thigh of my right leg. Hour glassed or funnel? Could it really have been a funnel web spider? I tried to remember the advice I had read; 1) don't panic. 2) erm... don't get bitten. I stood and held out the material of my trouser leg, shaking the fabric. The spider fell but managed to spin some webbing and dangled. It looked a bit pissed off now as it made its way back to my leg. There was nothing else for it, I took aim and flicked at it as hard as I could with my middle finger, it’s small form disappearing in one direction as I did likewise in the other.
I moved on to the town of Port Maquarie and was now confident turning up in places with nowhere to stay. Australia really was an easy place to travel, especially along the backpacker friendly east coast. Usually there were hostel representatives at the coach terminals ready to whisk you away before you’ve even had the chance to stretch your legs and even when this wasn’t the case, a pick-up was only a phone call away. The coach arrived at about eight o’clock in the evening and whilst looking over the hostel boards, I was joined by an English couple, Hannah and Peter. It was fairly obvious that Hannah was the more dominant in their relationship having jumped straight onto the pay phone and rang several hostels to get the best rate and arrange a lift. Peter seemed an entirely more laid back character and after getting talking to the two of them I decided to tag along, in no small part because of the amusing name of the hostel that Hannah had decided on – The Ozzie Pozzie Backpackers.
When we got out of the van on arrival at the hostel, Hannah and our driver both let out girlie screams as they both saw the massive spider on the side of the van. It really was big, dwarfing even the monster that I’d seen in the Hunter Valley. It may have left dents in the bodywork as it scampered across the bodywork of the van at break-neck speed. Peter and I both took an extra step backward, us both probably thinking the same thing - I’m not touching it! We decided it was for the best if we went to check in and return for our bags later. Ian the British guy who was on reception went off to take care of incey-wincey, and I felt a little guilty that I didn’t advise him to take a shovel with him with which to hit it. He came back alive and well to everybody’s relief. Ian told us that the spider was a Huntsman, as big and scary as it looked they could give a painful nip but were actually harmless to humans despite their menacing appearance.
After Ian had shown around the hostel, Hannah and Peter disappeared to find the supermarket whilst I made myself at home. I was sorting out my kit when something in my peripheral vision pricked at my subconscious. I glanced around the room with my healthy paranoia firing on all cylinders. And then I saw it. Yet another monster spider, up in the corner of the dormitory, big and hairy, though more lanky then the Huntsman we’d seen earlier. There was nobody else around. I could go for help but decided my machismo with Ian was already tarnished. I’d take it on myself.
It stood high on the wall with a confidence in its pose that told the world it was king in these parts, lounging around up there, maybe digesting a horse that it could have eaten. I wanted to get it down to a more manageable level and away from the bunk beds it had taken residence over. Looking around, my eyes fell upon the maps of the town that Ian had given to each of us. I screwed mine up and threw it at the spider. Why? I don’t know. Maybe I was trying to gauge its reflexes. Maybe I was hoping that this merest action would be enough to scare it away. What it did achieve however, was for me to get its full attention as it spun around. It gave me a look such as the hero in a Hollywood action film might give to the bad guy after he delivers a pitiful punch. I waited just a moment to see if the spider would deliver a one-liner. I grabbed Hannah’s and Peter’s maps and climbing up onto the bunk beds, deciding it was time to be bold and tackle it head on.
I used the flimsy photocopies of the maps in an elaborate pincer movement, hoping that I could get the spider onto one of the sheets of paper so that I could carry it to the door. Hopefully the paper would be able to take the weight. Stretching and bending at angles that my body had never been required to do in my old office job, I managed to start pushing the spider around. Rather then scurry away like the British house spiders I was used to dealing with, this one stood its ground, occasionally flinching only slightly as I poked at it with the maps. I admired its tenacity. I finally managed to manoeuvre it onto one of the sheets. I slowly began my descent from the upper bunk bed, holding the map out at arm’s length.
But then it dropped. Maybe it was taking some kind of suicide leap rather then face what I had in store for it. Or maybe it was just bored and decided to go off and terrorise somebody else but I’d now lost control of it. Luckily it landed on the floor rather then the bunk. It then made its fatal mistake. It began running for the door rather then take the safer option of running under the bed and out of reach.
I jumped down from the bed rolling up one the maps into a makeshift club. I brought the weapon down hard onto the spider. It stopped in its tracks spinning around. Now it was really mad. I hit it again. And again. And again, raining down repeated blows until I needed to catch my breath with my face, breaking out into a sweat. The spider was no longer moving. I scooped up the body with the now dishevelled maps, carried it out into the courtyard and flicked into the garden.
When Hannah and Peter returned, I couldn’t help but tell the tale of my struggle against the eight-legged beast.
“There was another spider in our dorm,” I said coolly. “Don’t worry though, I took care of it.”
“You didn’t kill it did you?” asked Hannah.
“Yeah,” I replied, stopping short of adding ‘And all by myself,’ and awaiting the adulation that was sure to come.
“You know that when you kill a spider, it attracts other spiders?” She said with a growl.
I don’t think any of us slept well that night.
The hostel provided free bicycles so I thought I’d spend the next day riding along the magnificent coastline. Hannah and Peter had the same idea and set off just before me, their planned early start delayed as they couldn’t find their town maps. The area was quite hilly and so remembering that Port Maquarie was said to have the highest urban population of koala bears, I had the chance to try and spot a few in the trees as I pushed the bike up the slopes. I didn’t see any koalas and got the micky taken out of me by a passing elderly Aussie bloke for not cycling up the hills. But the bike proved to be great fun with the speeds that I achieved on the downward gradients as I zoomed along. I must have looked pretty stupid in the helmet that was provided though, it looked like it was made out of paper-mache by a six-year-old. I would have felt safer if I had wrapped my head in cling film.
It was the day of my dad's birthday, the first occasion for celebration that I was away from home for. And I’d been a bad son, I had sent a card but I had my doubts whether it would have made it to the UK as you're supposed to declare what's inside on the envelope, presumably to catch out the terrorists who write 'Anthrax' on theirs. So my dad’s card may have been destroyed in a controlled explosion somewhere. I also kept forgetting to pick up a phone card, the only change that I had of $1.50 was swallowed up by the payphone after allowing me only enough time for my mum to tell me what time it was in the UK. Sadly, I didn’t get the chance to have a word with my old man before the pips went and the line went dead.
Back at the hostel in the evening, some new guests had arrived. The place was quite small with the dormitory rooms surrounding a central open courtyard. The seating and hammocks created an atmosphere that was good for meeting people and socialising. Two girls were playing cards. Tera who was from Saskatchewan in Canada was being taught the international traveller’s card game of shithead by Wendy. From Las Vegas, Wendy was heading southward and was near to the end of her trip and as such made for a useful source for information. A very happy-go-lucky girl she didn’t do many favours for the reputation of the people of her homeland, coming out with a theory that an American attempt to take control of the Canadian state of Quebec was going to happen. The Goon she and Tera were drinking must have been hitting home, I got a taste of the dirt cheap boxed wine thanks to the generosity of a Geordie called Claire. As well as an introduction into the rules of shithead and my first taste of Goon, I experienced my first Tim-Tam, a biscuit much like a Penguin that is almost an institution in Australia. It was courtesy of Katherin, a young German girl taking the chance to travel before starting her studies to become a doctor. With Pete and Hannah back from their cycling and Ian on duty, we enjoyed each others company into the night, drinking and playing cards. As nice as it was that the group was mainly female, I did have to endure sitting through four separate conversations about Johnny Depp.
We were later joined by an Australian man that Tera had met on her train journey into town. He staggered into the courtyard from out of the night, carrying what remained of his own Goon - the inside bag with a few remaining mouthfuls. It was obvious that he had taken a shine to Tera’s curly blonde locks and shining blue eyes and had tracked her down to try his luck. His advanced years and dishevelled clothing didn’t give him a good start and so he got straight down to the business of trying to impress her with his list of achievements that included the winning of an Olympic gold medal for swimming and the millions of dollars he’d accumulated. Quite why he was reduced to drinking Goon, travelling by train and wanting to stay in backpacker accommodation wasn’t explained. After the joke had run thin, Ian politely asked him to leave on account of the hostel being full and the grounds being for guests only, both of which were blatant lies but a less confrontational option then the truth of his being there pissing everybody off. Before leaving, he tried one last time with Tera.
“I’ve been told I have to leave,” he slurred, “But can I have your number?”
“I’m travelling, I don’t have a number,” she replied, double checking the mobile she was carrying wasn’t visible.
“What about your home number?”
“I won’t be back home until Christmas,”
“I’ll call you when you get back then.” He wasn’t giving up.
Tera scribbled down some figures and he looked as pleased as if the numbers were the winners for that week’s lottery.
“So goodbye, “ he said to her, the rest of us invisible.
“Bye,” said Tera the irritation in her voice obvious to all but him.
“I’ll call you at Christmas then.” He struggled to stand to leave, but a sudden thought came to him. “What day is that?”

* * *

"Have you ever ridden a camel?" was my opening line to the two Scottish girls that had arrived. We had decided to go for a camel ride along the beach. When I rang up to book it, I was told in no uncertain terms by the uptight woman on the other end of the line that there couldn’t be any cancellations as they would be ordering an extra camel for the size of our group. Where you order a camel from, I don't know. When we did a head count in the morning we were two people short and so any arrivals to the hostel got the sales pitch for the camel ride in great detail from Ian and the rest of us pestering them afterward. Luckily we managed to persuade an Irish couple to join us. The ride was good fun in no small part due to the handler who - in stark contrast to his wife who I’d talked to on the phone - showed enthusiasm, told never ending jokes and was the most 'Aussie' person I'd met.
It was sad to see the little gang we formed at the Ozzie Pozzie breaking up as everyone continued on with their own journeys. There was time enough for another couple of hours lounging in the hammocks before I got a lift to the coach station with Katherin and Claire for the bus that would take us to Coff’s Harbour.
Sitting alongside the hills of the Great Dividing Range surrounded by hundreds of banana plantations, Coff’s Harbour is a popular stop on the backpacker trail and has a reputation as one of the most adrenaline filled sports capitals in New South Wales. With a similar feel to Port Maquarie, I made the stop in the hope of doing some white water rafting but disappointingly, the drought in New South Wales meant that the river rapids would not be rapid enough for it to go ahead.
The three of us were staying at the YHA for no better reason then the charismatic hostel bus driver was the first to grab our attention when we arrived. He treated us to a little tour around town and took us to a look out point to take in the beachfront and mountains on the way to the hostel. I felt in full holiday mode.
I was put into a dormitory with Rob who was working at the hostel and one of the strangest people I’d ever met and quite possibly the least Aussie person I would meet. When I saw him for the first time, he was sitting on his bunk and playing with his newly purchased mobile phone. He showed off his Britney Spears ring tone with no sense of shame and bombarded me with the most awful jokes that were of the type of those from Christmas crackers in the style of an attention seeking child. The other Australian guys working at the hostel apologised more then once for his ways during the evening we spent drinking Goon at the hostel’s poolside. But despite the irritation of Rob we had a good night that went on and on, with Claire and I the last to call it a night at 6am.
With the rapids off, we headed to The Big Banana after a meagre few hours of sleep. Rob was giddy, it was as if he had been checking the smell from the petrol tank of the hostel van he volunteered to drive us there in. I guess it wasn’t often people agreed to a day trip with him but in our sleepy state we probably would have agreed to anything. As for the Big Banana itself, well, I suppose it was quite big and, well, looked like a banana. That was it really. There were a few touristy things including the usual souvenir shops with banana theme crap, and some nice lookouts over the town but I think I would have preferred a lie-in.
Still with Britney Spears ringing in my ears I took a walk to the beachfront for the afternoon on our return. Just off of the coastline were a string of islands, one of which - mutton bird island that was named after the wedge tailed birds that nest there - could be accessed via a breakwater boardwalk. The island is also sacred to the Aborigines, adolescent males would swim over to it as a symbol of passage into manhood. As well as the bird life, a walk over to the other side of the small island makes for a good place to spot whales. I was there at a good time of year as it was the time of their migration up the coast. Though not clear, I saw something whale like splashing around in the distance. Now that was as cool as a banana.

The next day I thought I'd take a walk around the town centre. The long walk was a waste of time as there wasn’t much to it, and being a Sunday, most things were closed. As I was there, I thought I'd check where the bus left from for my onward journey the following day, when a stocky guy of what appeared to be Maori origin began following me on his pushbike. He had the build of a rugby forward but gave away several inches in height to me
"Oi bro, where you from?" he queried.
"The UK," I answered politely. Something in his demeanour didn't seem right. He kept at my pace, slightly behind and on the outside of the path I was walking along that was raised on a grass embankment from the road.
"You just get here?" he grunted. He could have got a job at Porky’s in Sydney. There was no denying I was a tourist, I was foolishly carrying my travel guide in full view.
"Yes, just having a look around," I said, subtly securing my daypack to my back and looking around for 'exits'. I really hoped that he hadn’t seen me withdrawing the week’s budget from an ATM a few moments before. After I walked on with him following, he suddenly pulled up beside me and jumped off his bike.
"Right bro, give me all your money or I'll stab you," he said just as casually as if he were asking the time. He was reaching down for a bulge in his pocket in the front of his jeans. If he had a knife, it wouldn’t have been much bigger then a Stanley knife. Crocodile Dundee he was not. Or maybe he was just adjusting his penis and he was going to hit me with that. There was no way I was just going to hand over that much money. With or without a knife, I didn't fancy my chances in a scrap though. I bolted. Down the grass verge and across the road, I didn’t even turn as I heard my assailant emitting a guttural roar. There were no natural turns to give him more options should he be pursuing me so it was a straight sprint up the road toward the town centre. After a few seconds I glanced behind me and I saw that he wasn't giving chase. I supposed he was worried someone might have nicked his bike.It would have been naive to think things like this wouldn't happen during my trip. It just surprised me that an attempt was made in broad daylight and near a shopping centre with busy streets. On the bright side, hopefully this would be my run-in for the trip over and done with and it could have ended up much worse. But I know I’d been sloppy in appearing like a tourist, the lesson was learnt.

Seemingly Infinitely Long

2009-05-04T13:27:00.001-07:00

Just about all backpackers travelling the east coast of Australia stop at Byron Bay, the hippy beach side town with the easterly most point in Australia. But it isn’t for photographs at the lighthouse by the sign saying so. Nowhere more typifies the coastal pilgrimage of the wandering holiday traveller more, with a host of hippies with dreadlocks, devoted surfers and sun worshipers. The small town slowly affects its laid-back mood on the visitor and the longer the stay, the harder it becomes to leave. There’s more to it though, then just the cool bars, bead shops, massage parlours and yoga studios. It’s as if there’s something in the air itself that limits the ambition to no more then the want for a couple of hours in the sun.
The problem with Byron Bay has to be the hostels which comes as a big surprise for a place that is such a holiday Mecca for the budget traveller. There was one hostel who’s reputation preceded it long before my arrival to Byron Bay. The Art’s Factory was a fairly easy walk from the central bus and train stations and was going to my first choice. When I arrived there at around midday, a pool party was already in full swing and wherever I looked those dreadlocks were an ever present as I was shown around the five acres of grounds. A notice board advertised the days available activities as didgeridoo and fire twirling lessons amid the signs advertising the film for the day in the hostel’s very own big screen cinema. It was more of a resort then a hostel. Due to the popularity, I could only be offered a mattress in a large, pointy roofed tent. It seemed a little too alternative for me and I didn’t like the lack of security in the tepee thing and so I left the party people to it and headed back into town to look for an alternative.
Most hostels were a good distance out of town and although they included regular bus pick ups into and out of the centre, it was more then a little inconvenient walking back in the pitch black having missed the last bus, constantly looking over my shoulder for Maori on push-bikes. The hostel I chose was The Rainforest Retreat, and was adequate enough but with the boxy rooms and a small kitchen it would not be high on the list of places in a list of best stays. It did have a nice pool area and I liked being in the bush, the small clutch of buildings just outside of town were surrounded by dense forest. I could have done much worse, Tera complained to me about the hygiene of the hostel that she chose to stay at, summing it up by declaring that she felt the need to buy a new pair of sandals after using hers for the commute to the shower.
Travelling along the coastline, I was beginning to see the same faces. People I recognised from coach journeys or from hostels would catch my eye and leave me in a moment of puzzlement while I searched my brain for recognition. I got into town the day before Tera, and we arranged to meet up at the legendary backpacker bar called Cheeky Monkey’s. I was glad of the familiar company, not only was she just about the only person worse at shithead then me, but both of us were at the more mature end of the typical backpacker age group. As such we had each other to roll our eyes to when the dancing on the tables and indulgent party atmosphere got going. But being Byron Bay, we didn’t have to look too far to find a more chilled out place to see out the evening.

"I don't want any of you ending up at either of these two buildings," said Ivan, our tour guide when we arrived in Nimbin. We had booked onto a tour, the small group made up with about half a dozen others, for the trip from Byron Bay. I exchanged smiles with Tera as we looked out of the mini-bus window to see that the buildings in question were the police station and the hospital. We were well aware of the town’s reputation as Australia’s cannabis capital, but there was more to it then that. Ivan was enthusiastic with a great knowledge and interest in the local politics and he gave us a talk about how Nimbin came to be when we’d stopped just outside of town near to Nimbin Rocks.
When the right wing Australian government followed America into the Vietnam War, thousands of protesters arrived in the area for the 1973 Aquarius festival. Though a labour government was soon elected and pulled the troops out, the community retained its image as an alternative hub and issues such as environmentalism and animal rights became cause for support and raising awareness. Many of the inhabitants arrived for a few days and yet ended up settling in town. It's seen as Australia's drug capital and the government came to tolerate the town hoping it would implode, even sending convicts there hoping that the failure of such a community could be used as an example of the dangers of legalising cannabis. Instead, the locals took in the new comers and they became integrated into the society. At the last vote, the legalisation to ban dope in New South Wales was blocked by one Member of Parliament only. Ivan’s opinion was that right wing governments didn't actually mind the heroin users - they don't do anything - but they have problems with the pot smokers as they are more likely to be the people protesting against government policies.
Nimbin Rocks were some large rock formations in the hills just outside of the town. Of significance to the Aborigines, they were used as part of a coming of age ritual for the men where they would climb up the rock face and pass through two of the rock outcroppings. They would then be circumcised using no more apparatus then two hand-held rocks.
Despite the huge reputation, Nimbin is tiny and the main high street can be walked along in just a couple of minutes. And that's when running the gauntlet of the various colourful characters offering you dope. We stayed an hour and a half which was plenty of time to wander round, have a mooch through the psychedelic museum and make a stop at a cafe.
As part of the tour we stopped at Nyon falls, a beautiful secluded spot with a waterfall and accompanying waterhole. Too cold to swim, we were happy just to stare distantly at the natural beauty that surrounded us. We then moved on to a spot overlooking the region’s very low looking reservoir for a good old Aussie barbecue. It was the tastiest meal I’d had for a long time.
It was a long drive back to Byron Bay and after so much time spent on buses recently, exhaustion became overwhelming. I wasn’t the only one, the happy giggling that filled the bus on departure had subsided and everyone’s head’s lolled into unnatural angles. I didn't even notice Tera getting off when we arrived at her hostel in the evening.
I was glad that I had a few more days in Byron Bay to relax. The karma was certainly affecting me. I arrived back at the Rainforest Retreat craving crisp sandwiches, chocolate biscuits, a cup of tea and a big hug.

After a couple of days of my being in Byron Bay, there was slightly less water in the Pacific Ocean then there was beforehand. I feared that this might have caused an imbalance to the earth that may make it spin off of its axis and plummet toward the sun or career into space. Should this happen, it’ll all be my fault and all because I took my first surfing lessons. Despite my best efforts to appear like Patrick Swayze in Point Break, I was more like Patrick Moore, being wiped out countless times and hence swallowing bucket loads of the Pacific.
The problem really was that I started off too well. Our instructor ran us through the basics on the beach including how to read the waves in order to tell where the rips were and a run through of the stages we needed in order to successfully stand up. I thought I had a good understanding of the process and thought I looked pretty good. But then we were still on the beach and the boards were not being pounded by waves or moved by the strong ocean currents.
I headed out into the water, full of confidence and I managed to control the ride on my first wave to shore whilst lying on the board. I headed back out to attempt standing, and on only my second attempt, I had a degree of success, I managed to be fully vertical for all of two seconds. But I then got cocky, I thought I'd venture further out and take on some of the bigger waves, some of which were quite intimidating and a job to paddle through to get to the start position. In the deeper water, the waves just wiped me straight out. My frustration grew as time and time again I put effort into wading out with the cumbersome surfboard only to be smashed by a wave into a heap of limbs and board back toward shore. By the end of the lesson, I was physically tired and had a brand new set of cuts and bruises from hitting the ocean floor. I couldn't put my watch back on due to the swelling in my hands. It was a great fun. Despite my tired and broken body I was left wanting more as I gradually got the hang of it.
My time in Byron Bay was nearly up. On first arrival, I didn't really see why the place was so popular in many people's eyes, but after a few days I was totally sucked into the town’s laid back cool nature where time becomes irrelevant. I spent a good week in the area and even got in some quality beach time despite having the 'I'm going to the beach’ curse, whereby anytime that the sentence or the like is uttered it promptly rains. I could now see how many travellers could spend weeks and even months in Byron Bay. It was only with a great determination that I was able to get up for the early bus and watch the sunrise over the bay next to the lighthouse. The rest of my last day was spent lazing on the beach. Those were the only ambitions left that Byron Bay hadn't relieved me of.

* * *

It’s not often that overweight Australians are seen. The parks are full of joggers and the beaches are full of fit looking people surfing, playing beach volleyball or else one of the variants of the country’s many forms of football. The country’s obsession with sport is encapsulated by the sports news, which were often as long as the main news bulletins. The obesity crisis reported by the media in other western countries did not seem to be a big issue here. However, on arrival at Surfers Paradise, my first stop into the state of Queensland, I had to wonder whether the place wasn’t a dumping ground for those that could be judged as having too much excess flesh. Plate tectonic activity is causing the continent to slowly tip into the seas to the north. Maybe there was a secret plan to arrest this slide by working out a suitable position for a fulcrum and having these types of people put into place as a counterbalance. Much of Australia had reminded me of home but nowhere more so then the stretch of coastline of the Gold Coast. I could have been in any British seaside town with nightmare over-development packed with touristy gimmicks, only with more sunshine and skin cancer clinics. The hostel pick-up summed it up. I was picked up by limousine, though a little battered I still liked the thought of the locals wondering who the VIP was. Then when I got out I saw that it had the backpacker’s logo and name emblazoned across the side. It kind of ruined the effect. In the evening I got talking to David and I kindly helped him to drink his carton of beers. A short, slender New Zealander, he was yet another traveller running away from a going no-where life. He reminded me of Sylvester the cat from the tweety pie cartoons with his lisp and the slightly eccentric manner in his ways, but I liked him a lot. As well as the munificence with his beer, I found him to be open minded and very friendly, though it didn't work on the Brisbane girl’s soccer team that we met at the Shooters bar that we ended up in. David was a little naive for his age of 29, being taken for a ride by some of the girls that were only out to get him to buy them drinks. I felt sorry for him especially as it was me that was given the promise of a tour of Brisbane.
I decided to follow the girls into the nightclub next door after I’d somehow inexplicably lost David. I was worried that as I’d drunk quite a lot by now and with the reputation of the strictness of some places, I wouldn’t be able to get in. "How many have you had?" asked the bouncer. "Only a couple," I replied. "How many’s a couple?" "Two or three," I said more vaguely because I'd actually had six or seven. I looked the bouncer in the eye, well one of the four I could see on his two heads and tried not to swoon, though that probably made me wobble about more. He must have grown bored with me and he allowed me to stumble in.As a mid-to-late-twenties, single backpacker, the theme parks, tacky bars and tourist attractions of Surfers Paradise didn't interest me so instead I took a day trip to the hidden gem of South Stradbroke Island. Having read about it in my travel guide, I quickly found that it was not easy to get to and all the tourist information booths tried to sell me tours. After some investigation and chats with the hostel staff I found a way to explore it my way. After a bus ride and a good hike, I finally found the easily miss-able ferry jetty that would take me there and back for a mere $25AU. I felt I was beginning to know what I was doing with this travelling lark.
South Stradbroke Island and its northern counterpart are sand islands covered with thick rainforest. It’s a strange sight to see the dense bush growing straight out of the sand. Apart from a couple of tightly knit basic holiday resorts, there was no development to be seen when I first arrived on South Stradbroke. It plays host to tame free-roaming wallabies that are without cause to fear man. As such, I managed to get up close and pet some of the younger ones. One side of the island has a seemingly infinitely long deserted beach with the most awesome waves I'd yet seen. I spent a pleasant day on the beach, walking through the bush and playing with the friendly wallabies.
With only one ferry to and from the island each day, I needed to be sure to get to the ferry pier in plenty of time. My cunning plan of marking the beach with the correct turn off failed when the tide had come in and washed away the arrow I’d drawn in the sand. I thought I’d be OK though, I thought I knew the general direction back. I was walking back through the forest when I began to lose confidence. I was sure I hadn’t gone as far as I was on the way in. Looking around, all I could see was a sea of green. I was getting more and more lost and the 22 by 3 kilometre island seemed to be getting bigger and bigger.
I thought I was safe when I got to one of the holiday resorts, but at that point I’d thought there was only the one resort where the ferry had arrived. Inevitably, I was at the another resort and on the wrong part of the island, going up and down the waterfront questioning my own sanity about why the ferry jetty had disappeared. I must have made the day of the guy who worked behind the desk at the resort. He gave me directions once he figured out I wasn’t a lunatic and imagining things. But I had barely half an hour to run back through the sandy trails through the rainforest and along the beach to get to the other resort on already tired feet.
Adrenaline and panic can be very productive things. I would never dream of betting on myself to cover the distance through sand in less then half an hour but somehow I made it to the jetty, with just enough time to grab a much needed can of Coke at the resort bar. The laid back ferry operator took one look at my dishevelled appearance that was totally in contrast to his own cool demeanour.
“Had a nice day?” he queried.
The return ferry was actually a speedboat as most of the people that went over in the morning had elected to stay at one of the resorts and so the large passenger ship wasn’t needed. Speeding along in the boat cheered me up and helped me to forget the blisters on my feet with a thrill ride back to the mainland. It was capped off with the glimpse of a shark that briefly surfaced.

Worth The Trouble

2009-05-04T13:26:00.003-07:00

"How did Benedict get to be pope so quickly? Because he was first to get his towel on the balcony." This was the best joke I'd heard in a while, taking a swipe at Catholics and Germans in one. What made it better was that it came from Aoife, a dormitory mate who was so stereotypical Irish Catholic that she could have been in the comedy show Father Ted. She even came complete with "Jesus, mother of Mary!" expletives.
I was in Brisbane, staying at a hostel called The Banana Bender. It was nice enough, with a large sun deck come eating and common area at the back for lounging around. But it just seemed to be mainly full of Germans. There was a couple of Japanese girls that I got talking to, Acorn and O-mommy, their names spelt phonetically here. O-mommy was a young girl in Australia to learn English. She'd only been learning for three months so when she asked where I was from, I decided that explaining Milton Keynes would be too confusing so said Nottingham. She hadn’t heard of it and so I started ranting about Robin Hood and the movie Prince of Thieves, at which point her face lit up with some kind of recognition. I think she got the wrong end of the stick and thought that I was Kevin Costner, asking to interview me for her English project and generally following me around the hostel from then on.
Brisbane was a nice enough city, but because of the way the river meanders, it makes finding the way around a bit confusing at first. The city itself isn’t an action packed one as most of the points of interest are outside of the city. I'm not usually a fan of zoos, but this being the home of crocodile hunter Steve Irwin, I thought I should take a look at Australia Zoo. I found it a little disappointing for the hefty admission fee. It was geared far too much toward younger children and parting visitors with more money, with shameless marketing for pictures with a cut out virtual Steve or the chance for pictures with some of the animals. And it wasn't that big, not yet anyway, the former family run zoo was still in development to match up with Steve’s global stardom, with a giant new African section under construction. I did get to see my first Cassowaries, Tasmanian Devil's, Dingo's and my highlight, the world's ten most venomous snakes - all from Australia naturally. And there was the famous Crocodile feeding show in the newly purpose built open-air amphitheatre.
I also took the tour of the Castlemain XXXX brewery, though I couldn't remember much about the history or how the stuff was made as my short attention span was pondering the four tall ones that would be received at the end of the tour.
An unexpected highlight was the trip up to Mount Coot-Tha, derived from Ku-Ta the Aboriginal name for a bee that lives in the region. It's a great view over the city with several walking tracks back down. I took one called the JC Slaughter Falls which featured an Aboriginal art trail. I don't want to be disrespectful, but I'm going to be - they are no artists. Some handprints, simple swirling patterns and piles of stones didn't work for me, though they'd probably get a Turner prize nomination if they were done in the UK.
On the way down I stopped at a picnic area. On the table read the warning, ‘Don't feed the animals, they may become sick or peck, bite or kick other visitors.’ Just as I unwrapped my sandwiches, a psychotic looking bird landed by my table. It looked like a Kookaburra but had an aggressive glint in his eye and looked as if he could give a nasty kick. I managed to stare it down but then his two mates arrived to one side, slowly encircling me. I then realised that I hadn’t seen any other people for quite some time. Had they all been pecked, bitten or kicked to death by these birds after someone had given up a ham sandwich? They withheld their attack on me when they realised I wasn’t worth the trouble, seeing that I was a backpacker and as such my sandwiches had the most meagre amount of ham in them in an attempt to stretch the food budget. I counted myself lucky to have made my escape.

I'd lost my lucky dragon pendant that I got from the fortune-teller in Hong Kong. I felt that I was in deep trouble and would be at the mercy of knife wielding muggers, pschycotic kicking birds, Portuguese/Macau madmen and my own clumsiness on a surf board. Maybe it was with my sunglasses that I'd already lost as well.
A couple of hours up the coast brought me to Noosa, a small holiday town that, while a little touristy hadn't gone to the extremes of Surfers Paradise, making it a very pleasant place. The sun was finally back out and I could get some more quality beach time.
The hostel I was staying at was called Koalas Beach Resort and with a free drink with a meal that cost under $10 topped off with a live band, I made the bar and restaurant my home for the evening. I've never been too self-conscious when dining alone, but I was glad to have received the company of Jen from Quebec who was the waitress that served my meal. Working at the hostel to supplement her finances for her travels, I didn’t even need to leave a tip to have her company when she joined me during her meal break. It wasn't much longer when my new dormitory mates arrived. They were Ralf, a Swiss guy who liked walking around the dormitory in just his underpants, Tanya, a Russian who's been living in Dublin for years and so had the strangest accent and Alexandro and Marco, Italians who talked like old women, especially early in the morning when sleeping should be done. Happy hour pitchers all round.
On the table next to ours were two locals. One of them could only be described as backward and reminded me of the character Cletus from The Simpsons. His mate also had a bit of the village idiot look about him with his baseball cap on at a skewed angle and he was sporting a fresh cut on his cheek and a black eye. The Chavs had arrived in Noosa. They stood up from their table leaving their nearly full pitcher, shiner coming over to our table.
“Can you keep an eye on our beer,” he said from the corner of his mouth, “We’re just going for a piss.”
”Sure, but I can’t guarantee I won’t drink some,” I joked with a wink. They seemed friendly enough but judging by their appearances I wouldn’t have dared to do such a thing. We got talking to them when they returned about the usual stuff of where we're from and compared and contrasted English and Australian beers which always seemed to be a topic of conversation when talking to an Aussie bloke. After talking to Cletus for a good while, I realised that we hadn’t properly introduced ourselves. I gave him my hand to shake and introduced myself.
“By the way, my name’s David,” I said, “And you are…?” I asked fully expecting a hillbilly name to reflect his in breeding.
"My name's Dave," he said.
I later got talking to Shiner. "What do you think of Noosa?" he asked me.
"I like it. It's nice and relaxed, not too touristy and the beach is beautiful," I replied.
"Na mate, it's fucked up," he said.
A little surprised at the degradation of his home, I pushed him further, "Really? What's wrong with it?"
"Noosa the place is OK, but the people are fucking fucked up," he said as if this explained everything. Later they both disappeared together again and Ralf and I made short work of what remained of their pitcher.

* * *

Fraser Island is the world's largest sand island and together with the Fraser coast on the main land is said to contain more sand then the whole of the Sahara Desert. All the way along the east coast are advertisements for tours and trips to the island - it is one of the main highlights of Australia for many people. A Swiss man I met briefly in Noosa confessed to crying when he saw the beauty of Lake McKenzie for the first time, one of the many fresh water lakes on the island.
Fraser Island has more ways to kill you then any other tourist destination and as such, the highest leisure fatality rates in the world. The seven most poisonous snakes in the world all live there as well as all the nasty spiders. Going into the ocean is out of the question as the chances are that you'd end up in either a rip or the belly of a Tiger Shark. There’s also a large population of Dingo’s that roam freely over the island. David Eason, A 46-year-old British backpacker who’s guide foolishly allowed him to walk by himself in the area of Lake Wabby in 2001 was never seen again after he’d set off. Months of futile searching went in vain until 18 months after he disappeared, a woman hiker discovered what the Dingo’s had left of his skull. They don’t know if it was the Dingo’s that killed him, but they certainly didn’t leave much of him to be identified. In the same year, 12 year old Clinton Gauge was killed after a mauling from a Dingo just a couple of hundred metres away from the safety of his campsite. There are numerous other stories of aggression toward humans by the wild dogs.
While I was in the country, legislation was being discussed to stop tourists taking the self-drive trips onto Fraser Island due to the high number of vehicles involved in accidents, with at least one incident a day being reported. Cars would frequently hit sand dunes too hard or get caught in waves from the ocean - it would only take a couple of feet of water to lift a motor vehicle out into the sea. And it’s all too easy to roll a vehicle over by turning too sharply in the sand.
None of this was mentioned in the brochures, though I was glad I might be among one of the last to be able to do a self-guided tour, if a little scared after finding out about all the dangers. I was glad when I’d found the dragon pendant at the bottom of my sleeping bag just prior to the trip onto the island.
It was the night before we were due to make the barge sailing and we were being given an orientation talk by Chris, one of the guys from the tour company Fraser Escape in Harvey Bay. Though he had the vast majority of the people worried about what we’d got ourselves into he was at least entertaining in doing so, telling us all about the different ways we could be killed. He was a very typical Queenslander, speaking slightly out of the side of his mouth as he told sexist jokes about women doing all the cooking and having to go into the bush in pairs to relieve themselves, carrying handfuls of toilet paper. He ended by threateningly saying, “I’ll kick your fucking heads in,” if we damaged his vehicles. I liked him a lot. After the scare talk, we were put into the groups that we were to spend the next three days in. I’d already met Gillian, a 23 year old from Southampton who was collapsed in the dormitory and snoring like an old overweight man from Newcastle when I first arrived at the Fraser Escape hostel. The rest of our group was made up of Miriam and Sharon, two delightful girls from Dublin who I was to end up having the strangest conversations about onions with. There was Geoff and his younger brother Lewis from Cardiff who seemed to be in Australia to drink as much Goon as they could. Then there was Hike from Germany who had the funniest laugh and her boyfriend Sven who knew no English but had the widest grin in the world. Finally there was a Belgian man called Keon who didn't seem to have had a shower in a very long time and by virtue of me, him and Gillian being the only solo travellers in the group, he became my tent mate by default.
Initially it was Geoff who tried to take the lead. “So who can drive? I can’t and nor does my brother.”
“I do,” said Gillian, “But I’m not too sure I want to after that talk.”
“You’ll be OK, we’ll just take it easy,” I said.
“Well, I’ll see how it goes.”
“Who else?” asked Geoff.
“Well I’m happy to drive.” I said, secretly wishing I got the chance to drive along Fraser’s 70-mile beach.
“We can drive,” Hike chipped in, as Sven continued smiling away. Surely his face must have been aching by now? “But we’d rather not,” She continued, “We are driving our way around Australia and so would be grateful for a break.” It looked like I’d get all the driving I wanted.
The next task to sort out was the food that we were to take with us. Chris advised that we nominate two people that would collect $20 per person and then head off to the supermarket. We all looked at each other, waiting for anyone else to blink first. It was already late, and I wasn’t sure at this point if the faintly rancid smell in the air was due to me or Keon, either way I needed a shower and didn’t fancy traipsing around a super market with no clue to what we really needed.
Geoff piped up “I’ll go if no-one else is up for it.” Good on him. I looked around; Keon still hadn’t said anything more then his name, Gillian looked like she may fall back to sleep at any time, Hike mumbled something about needing a shower – damn, that was my excuse. Sven sat there grinning and not understanding a word that was being said. Nobody was biting; fair enough, it was time to put my hat into the ring.
“OK, I’ll go,” said Sharon, just as I was opening my mouth to volunteer. Sorted.

“Do you mind driving first?” Gillian asked me in the morning. Dave, the head of Fraser Escape and a veteran of Fraser Island trips had just given us a second talk. There was no humour this time, as he went into detail about driving the 4x4s, just deadly serious stuff designed to scare us some more and maximise the chances of him getting his vehicles back in one piece.
“If you get too close to the ocean, you’ll be coming back in a helicopter... if you drive over too fast over a sand dune, you’ll be coming back in a helicopter… if you drive too far up the beach on the lighter coloured sand, you’ll get yourselves stuck…if you turn too sharply or go too fast, you’ll be coming back in a helicopter… if you don’t take responsibility for yourselves, you’ll be coming back in a helicopter.” I was beginning to think that Dave had a sideline in helicopter tours. To emphasise the danger, Chris had been called out to the island, all we were told was that another group had got themselves into trouble.
After we checked over the vehicles and loaded our kit onto the roofs, we were driven in our vehicles to the barge followed by the other two vehicles from Fraser Escape for the morning crossing. Stopping at some traffic lights, a man in a car caught our attention, motioning that we had a flat tyre. We made a quick check. Either our kit was loaded in such a way that it was causing us to lean, or else we had a slow puncture. We made it to the barge point and the Fraser Escape guys discussed our problem with great concern for our well being.
“Just go and whack some air in it at the garage around the corner,” one of them said to our driver, “It’ll be alright, there’s a spare if you guys need to change it.” I had visions of us stuck on a beach attempting to work a jack in the sand surrounded by Dingo’s.
I took us off of the barge and onto the sand into the rainforest after we’d made the barge crossing with my heart pounding, palms sweating and Chris and Dave’s warnings ringing in my ears. We were now on our own. We made our way along the narrow track, followed by the other two vehicles from Fraser Escape. My hands clung to the wheel nervously – it was months since I’d last driven and the 4x4 handled like a tank as I manoeuvred it through the trees. Now and again, the tires would slip on the sand, rain had recently fallen and the puddles disguised potholes that threw the passengers in the back violently around. It took a lot of concentration - the third vehicle stopped after 20 minutes, the driver already wanting a rest. But I was growing more confident, it felt good to be behind the wheel again and though the 4x4 was big with a heavy clutch and not the easiest to steer, I could feel the power it was capable of. I was loving it in fact. I just hoped that the tire would be OK.
Our first destination was Lake McKenzie. It's regarded as one of the world’s most beautiful spots. Many films and music videos have used its clear beautiful blue water as a backdrop to fool the viewer into thinking they are watching a scene from the Caribbean or Mediterranean. Unfortunately, the heavens opened up just as we arrived so it was an early lunch of ham, cheese and salad sandwiches. Somehow, even though Geoff and Sharon had bought the most backpacker budget friendly supplies they could, the sandwiches tasted like the best the world had to offer now that we were roughing it. After we’d eaten, the interspersing rain wasn’t enough to stop Miriam, Sven and I taking a dip in the gorgeous waters.
The couple of hours we spent at Lake McKenzie weren’t enough but there was a long drive ahead through the forest to the western beach and then northwards up along the coast if we were to stick to the schedule Chris had recommended to us. My confidence was growing handling the 4x4 as we made it to the start of 70 mile beach. We’d lost sight of the other two Fraser Escape cars as we filled up on our water supplies and had a last kick around the few buildings that marked the last tiny point of civilisation we’d see before we set off down the beach.
This was what the Fraser experience was all about. Cruising along the beach that extended as far as the eye could see with the crashing waves of the Pacific Ocean to one side and the beautiful rainforest to the other. The mood was lifting and the horror stories that the Fraser Escape guides had told us were fading from memory. We had a good group of sensible people, it was only those reckless individuals that ended up turning over their car or taking on a pack of Dingo’s I thought. Geoff and Lewis cracked open the first box of Goon in the back and spirits were raised further while Sharon and I took in the view from the front.
The beach was practically ours. When a rare vehicle did come from the north a smile would be raised by everybody as the occupants returned our manic hand waving. We passed a light aircraft, taxying on the sand, preparing to take off. There are road signs that warn that the beach is used as an airstrip. I didn’t need to be told that the aircraft have right of way.
Suddenly, Sharon screeched “Look Out!” But I’d already seen it. A sand dune that had come out of nowhere. I made the decision that it was too risky to snatch at the wheel in an attempt to avoid it. I hit the brakes but there was no chance of stopping in time. We hit it hard and took to the air, crashing down in slow motion. The guys in the back got it worst, Geoff and Lewis by the back doors particularly so, with Geoff’s head being banged against the roof of the car and Lewis losing the contents of his camping mug.
“Everybody OK?” I called to the back as I slowed the car to a crawl.
“Ah, shit, Ow!” moaned Geoff. “I’m OK,” he managed as he composed himself after a few moments. Lesson learnt: take it easy and don’t get complacent. Sharon quietened down considerably as she scanned the beach for any more sizeable sand dunes as we continued on. When the rain started up again, although only lightly, I flicked on the wipers. No response. Something had happened to our electrics. I noticed that according to our odometer, we had only covered a few kilometres. We’d been travelling for half the day, there was no way that it was working correctly either.
We arrived at Elie Creek, a strong stream running from the bush that could be potentially strong enough to carry a vehicle into the sea. I stopped the car, got out and waded into it in my sandals to feel its strength like I’d seen in the video Dave had shown that morning. Back in the car I rolled up to it in second gear, hitting the accelerator as we slipped over the edge of the bank. There was a round of applause from the back after we emerged unscathed at the other end. I felt I’d made up for the earlier incident, though Geoff had drunk enough Goon by now to forget the bump on his head as he began singing welsh anthems.
The turning for the campsite that we were scheduled to stay at was 25 kilometres from Elie Creek, but without a working odometer we were lost for an accurate way to measure the distance. All we had to go on was a visual mark on a hill - a ‘scar’ of missing trees that Dave had told us about. We pushed on scanning the tree line. Preceding the Titanic, the largest ship in the world was the Scottish built Maheno. Just north of Elie creek is where it ran aground, now a permanent feature of the beach.
“I don’t know what that says about Scottish shipbuilders,” Chris had said during the talk, adding the Scots to the list of people he was to insult. I didn’t actually spend much time looking at it when we stopped, or even think of getting a photograph, absorbed as I was in trying to find something out of place as I checked the wiring in the car.
“Do you know what’s wrong?” asked Gillian as I fumbled about.
“It’s probably a lose wire somewhere,” I replied, “I can’t really get to it to have a look,” I said as if I knew what I was doing. I didn’t.
We carried on North looking out for the scarred hill and anything in the bush that looked like a turning. Out on the horizon loomed Indian Head, a large rocky hillock looking out over the ocean that marks the end of the section of beach and not on our schedule until tomorrow.
We’d missed the turning.
We turned around, deciding that it wasn’t worth a stop at that time with the day getting old. Stopping every so often to check anything that might indicate the campsite we finally found the scarred hill and made it to the campsite grounds as twilight set in.
We rolled up to a familiar looking 4x4 just as the rain started. One of the groups that had left with us this morning had already set up, a group of ten Irish in full song with a bewildered looking Canadian couple. I jumped out of the car feeling elated but relieved, I’d enjoyed the days’ driving but the tiredness from all the concentration had set in. I necked a mug of Goon straight away.
There was more work to do before we could relax and the rain just got heavier. It wasn't much fun putting up the tents and getting the food cooked in the rain and the Goon didn’t take long to set in. I wandered if I might get a helicopter ride back to the mainland as I climbed onto the roof of the 4x4, trying to pick through the equipment by the light of my mag-light and my head spinning from the alcohol. But moral was high as we eventually sorted ourselves out, eating the sausages and steak that Miriam cooked. Lewis missed most of the fun, collapsing into one of the Irish guys tents as the Goon he got the better of him. It’s a good job the two Irish lads whose tent it was had such a good sense of humour, the tent was wrecked and flooded. We sang the night away with the guitar the Irish had brought. I just wish I could've remembered how to play Champagne Supernova better, or better still obeyed my own self-imposed rule of not playing the guitar when drunk. The night was rounded off when a few us took our drinks and torches to the beach.
Somehow we managed to get up and packed up camp by the 8am start we had scheduled. The early morning brought some much-needed sunshine and the drive to Indian Head that had seemed so long the day before was soon covered. Gillian took on the driving for the day, and it was good to be relieved of it, even if she insisted I sit up front with her. We got to the point where we needed to drive through the softer sand around the back of Indian Head. Gillian engaged the gear putting us into full 4x4 mode that would lock and put extra power into the wheels. She lined up the car with a worried look on her face.
“I don’t want to do it,” she said suddenly.
“Don’t worry, you can make it,” I said
“Will you do it?” Hike asked me.
“I will if you want me to, but Gillian, can do it.” I said, passing the buck back to the beginning. “Just keep the revs up and don’t stop,” I said as reassuringly as I could.
“OK, I’ll do it,” She said. “Does anyone wanna get out?”
She gunned the engine and we all shouted encouragement, at least I think we did, I didn’t notice much over the roar of the engine and my own shouts. We ploughed into the soft sand and were making progress, but then one of the wheels moved up the side of some previous tracks. We lurched to a dangerous angle. I heard the engine note dropping pitch.
“KEEP GOING! GO, GO, GO!” I yelled. We continued moving, making agonisingly slow progress as we all shifted our weight in an effort to balance out the tilt of the car. And then we made it to the harder sand. We all cheered. Gillian had done well.
Climbing up Indian Head allowed a fantastic view of the ocean with the chance to see the migrating Humpback Whales blowing water in the distance and the odd Tiger Shark dorsal fin surfacing. Around us we could see Fraser Island in all its glory, there can be fewer sights less impressive with dense rainforest spawning from the sand plains that stretched as far as the eye could see. We were limited to just an hour or so, high tide was due and we had more miles of beach to cover.
Continuing on northwards, we arrived at the Champagne Pools, the only salt-water area of the island that was safe to swim in. The Tiger sharks know that you’re there, they just can’t get to you. A small beach opens out onto the pools that were thronged with backpackers. Going for a swim in the pools is no easy task either – this was Fraser Island after all. The rocks that lead in are sharp and jagged with the large waves that come flying over the end of the pool walls that are powerful enough to knock you off balance. As I turned into one of these waves, I lost my balance from the force, readjusting the position of my feet as I fell. I stood directly on a piece of rock hidden out of sight beneath the water surface. Messages of sharp pain came to my brain from my right foot. I paddled out to the pure sand bed of the centre of the pool to inspect the damage. I could see my own blood turning the water a wispy red in the area around the flat of my foot. The Tiger sharks would have been going crazy out there.
Late in the afternoon, we headed back to the 4x4. Geoff got a splinter caught in his foot that rivalled my own injury. Everything we owned was now covered in sand, including the sandwiches that we made for lunch. We were looking like we’d spent weeks out on the island and not just a day and a half. We headed off earlier then scheduled, hoping that our broken odometer wouldn’t prove too much of a hindrance in finding the second campsite. We knew that there were no scars in the tree line or any other distinguishing marks to look out for, just the potluck of our spotting the turn off into the trees.
We drove up and down the beach, retracing our steps again and again with the paranoia that we’d driven past the turning again. The light was fading with the day turning into the gloom of twilight. Another vehicle approached, its’ headlights ablaze. We could hear the voices in the back singing a now familiar tune as they approached: “I love you baby, if it’s quite alright, I need you baby, trust in me and I swear…”
The second Fraser Escape vehicle.
The Canadian couple sat in the front looking even more perplexed then usual and a little hard of hearing as we tried to figure out where the damned campsite was.
“How about we just camp on the beach,” the guy suggested.
“Well we could do… I spotted a small clearing in the trees we just passed about a quarter of a mile back. We could camp there, we should be far enough back to be out of the way of the tide.” I said.
We found the spot I was thinking of, an old track ran around the back of the beach with a couple of clearings. We got to work on setting up camp for the night in the fading light as a third group of campers rolled up and started setting up next to our combined group. A ranger pulled up as we were sorting ourselves out.
“You guys gonna be OK out here?” she asked.
“Yes!” We all called like an assembly of children.
“Well, look out for Dingo’s. You do know what to do if you see one?
“Stay together, and stand your ground. Fold your arms and stare them out. Whatever you do don’t run,” answered Geoff, repeating the instructions that Chris had given us, only with less swearing. She was satisfied with that and left us to it. Still, it was reassuring to be part of such a big group.
Geoff volunteered to do our groups cooking, a bucket full of bolognaise. The pot of meat and vegetables was good, even though the sand that got into it added a crunch that wasn’t needed. Still it was a good meal, and the alcohol was soon flowing again. As we sat playing drinking games I looked up at Keon who was sitting on an upturned crate opposite me. He’d suddenly gone pale and was gazing out behind me into the pitch black.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Thought I saw something,” he said scanning the tree line by the light of his torch. I got my mag-light going and scanned around too. Nothing.
“I must have imagined it.” He said.
“Dingo!” yelled Gillian who was sat next to me on another upturned crate. “It just ran along the back of the tents!” Keon and Geoff grabbed torches and followed some of the Irish lads that were already on their way to the outer ring made naturally by our tents. I followed with my mag-light in hand.
The Dingo stood proudly at the top of the dune that separated the track from the beach, defying us as we shone light into its eyes. We formed a line and began pacing slowly toward it causing it to lose its nerve and run down the dune to our left. Our torchlights swung in an arc to follow it and caught the movement of a second Dingo. And then a third. We held our line and continued our advancement, intimidating the retreating Dingo’s whose numbers kept growing as their pack clustered together away from our torchlights. There must have been about 20 of them out there, but even though they had so many numbers, we were managing to intimidate them enough for them to realise that Geoff’s sand filled bolognaise wasn’t worth taking on a posse of drunken Irishmen for. We returned to camp, hearing the odd Dingo brushing along the back of the tents and not daring to go out to the bush for a piss without several buddies. The fun and games carried on into the night. Hike and Sven retired early and I wasn’t too far behind, Gillian was tired from her days driving and was glad I was happy to take over in the morning. Somehow I managed to sleep through the chaos when a couple of the Irish lads heading out for a piss came across a guy from the third group of campers, rummaging around the back of our truck and going through our bags. They stripped searched him and found he had taken Sharon’s credit cards and a bunch of Keon’s cash from their wallets that they had left in the car. The uncomfortable times I had spent sleeping on my own wallet now seem justified. He was lucky the Irish lads couldn't find enough rope to tie him to a tree for the Dingo’s.
The next day, we miraculously were all awake and packed up camp as scheduled for the second time. We worked out that the turn we had used as the makeshift campsite was 500 metres from the track to Lake Wabby, our destination for the morning. Luck was on our side.
We began the couple of kilometres hike to the lake after taking a look at The Pinnacles, some unique rock formations at a point in the cliffs at the back of the beach nearby. The big attraction of Lake Wabby is the steep sand dune that runs into the lake. It’s perfect for sledding, rolling or tumbling down into the water. It's a shame that it was raining again and me and Geoff used our foot injuries to chicken out of throwing ourselves down the slope. I had the voice of Chris in my head saying, “If you don’t do it you’re a big girls’ blouse.”
It was a long drive back, returning down the beach and through the rainforest in the increasing rain. We were scheduled to go and see Lake Mckenzie a second time, but with the weather worsening we had to abandon the plan in order to make our rendezvous with the barge back to the mainland. The brief showers materialised into full-blown downpours and the windscreen became so blurry I had to stop and get out to manually wipe it down every few minutes. It took all of my concentration to drive through the forest, squinting through the little gaps I could see through the rain spattered glass with the rest of the group deadly silent, their knuckles white from clinging onto anything with a solid base to brace themselves from the impact with the pot holes. Even Sven couldn’t manage to smile. At least I managed to get a laugh when I sprayed the screen with the windscreen washers.
We made it to the barge in one piece and the shower back at the hostel felt like five star luxury. Everybody was on a high and it was off to the hostel bar where the beer flowed and the music played. As part of the fun, the Fraser Escape guys held a mini award ceremony, the winners of such categories as ‘best driver’ or ‘best cook’ receiving a free beer. It’s a shame they didn’t accept our suggestions for ‘best foot injury’ and ‘biggest thieving cunt’.

A Matter Of Time

2009-05-04T13:26:00.001-07:00

"Can I take your tray for you sir?" asked the McDonalds worker, somehow without adding, "And then please bugger off." It's a rare thing indeed for someone working at McDonalds to be so helpful or even to call a customer ‘sir’, but the fact that I smelt like a river probably warranted my prompt removal from the premises. My plan was to lunch there as I thought my smell would blend into that of the food, but it clearly hadn't worked. I made a point of returning later for a coffee after I’d had a shower and a change of clothes in order to prove to them that I did belong somewhere on the social ladder. I'd just completed my dive certification, a four-day course that qualified me to dive to a depth of eighteen meters anywhere in the world. I didn't think I'd have too much trouble with the course after arriving in Bundaberg and being taken to the student dive accommodation by an elderly gentleman called Bob. He thought it was necessary to demonstrate to me how the gate lock worked and then again with the front door. His demonstration of the blinds didn't go well however and I wandered off to acquaint myself with the bathroom while he fiddled about. On my return, he was still fumbling about with the blinds.
"Don't worry, I'll work it out if I need to," I offered. Bob didn't look convinced that I was up to the job but left me to settle in. Staying in the apartment was Shelly from St. Albans with an Essex accent that sounded like fingernails being scraped down a blackboard. She was at the school learning to be an instructor. When I first bumped into her, she was cleansing the house by waving around what looked like a giant smoking cotton bud that smelled of marijuana because one of the previous occupants had left bad karma. I now believed the stories about what too much of the Queensland sun can do to people.
Bundaberg in itself does not make for a particularly interesting stop. Apart from being just about the cheapest place on the east coast to learn to dive, its one other claim to fame is as the home to the famous Bundaberg rum that enjoys popularity throughout the country. Backpackers that are not in town for cheap dive courses have most likely stopped by to pick up a few extra dollars working as vegetable pickers. Day one of the course found us watching boring videos going over the basics. My 'buddy' for the course was Guelle, a beautiful Mediterranean looking, petit French girl. We learnt about all the different parts of the kit, all of the hand signals, all the ways that we could kill ourselves and all the sea life that might come along and eat us (OK there isn’t actually that much to worry about with that one... apart from around Australia). At the end of the day we were given an exam, probably to make sure I'd been watching enough of the videos and not staring too much at Guelle.
On day two we practised the skills needed at the swimming pool and that we had the required attributes needed for being competent enough to dive. This included a medical examination that consisted of a limb count, a check on the ability to not fall over and being asked to blow into a tube to check that our lung capacities were up to scratch. In the pool, our swimming skills were checked with us completing a swim of two hundred metres and a check that we could float for ten minutes. We then moved on to the diving skills themselves and we went through those necessary for the qualification which included; the removal and replacement of our masks underwater, the removal and replacement of the regulator, sharing the regulator with our buddy on an out of air signal, emergency ascents, swim our ‘tired’ buddy 'back to shore' and a practice at keeping buoyancy at a given depth. I was most worried about having to swim the two hundred metres. I never did get my ten metre swimming certificate at school. Conditions on day three for the first dive were not good. A storm had blown over the region - much of the Gold Coast was underwater but it wasn't all good news. Visibility under the ocean surface was reduced to less then a couple of metres and getting into the ocean from the rocky foreshore was a trial in itself. Our first descent was a debacle; there were two instructors and four of us students landing on top of each other. I let go of the guide rope and almost instantly lost sight of everyone else. OK, breath, don't panic I thought. I tried to remember the procedure, look around for a minute and then ascend if I was still on my own. With no timing device, I guessed when a minute had passed and then got moving, slowly putting air into the BCD (Buoyancy Control Device). I had no idea how fast I was ascending, or even if I was moving at all, but then I got some water into my regulator just as I'd breathed out. I blew out hard with what air I had left in my lungs but I didn't have the necessary puff to clear it. I tried to summon some more air from somewhere in my lungs when my mask leaked, I needed more puff to blow out through my nose to clear that but I still couldn't even sort the regulator out. Panic was setting in. Drowning. An ascent that is made too fast causes the extra Nitrogen in the body’s tissues due to the surrounding water pressure to turn from a liquid to a gas. These bubbles can get into the blood stream and lead to some nasty embolisms. But fuck all that, we hadn't gone that deep and I'd already started my ascent anyway. I kicked upward as hard as I could. Made it. Open, fresh, glorious air. I looked around. The others had already come to the surface and were waiting by our dive flag thirty to forty meters away, demonstrating the strength of the ocean current to have taken me that far away. Despite being shaken, I was OK. The instructors took us down one at a time and tested our skills individually without incident and we got out of there. The wind had picked up on the next morning and the ocean was judged to be too dangerous especially after the problems we’d had on the previous day. So it was down to the river for the day's diving. I totally messed up the mask removal and replacement - a common difficulty I was told - and had another panicky ascent. I got it on the second attempt. It was such a weird sensation, with the mask on some respiration is still available through the nose but removing the mask feels like a leap of faith. In the pool I had whipped it off and back on without a problem, but in the murky waters that approach led me to panic. I had to go through the process slowly but surely, letting in small amounts of water at a time and forcing my respiration system to go against nature by breathing solely through my mouth. I had more problems practising removing and replacing the weight belt as one of the weights slipped and restricted the buckle and I ended up tangled up in a buoy rope. My mask kept filling up for good measure - at least I became expert at clearing it. I don’t think Guelle was impressed, she took to the tasks with aplomb while I looked like a fish out of water. But I managed to complete my tests and we sat patiently on the riverbed waiting for the other pair to complete their tests. Whilst I was waiting and trying to ignore the cold that was penetrating my wet suit, I spotted what first appeared to be a discarded condom. Terrific. But then it twisted and I noticed it had an eye, the curious fish had come over to watch us fumbling about and have a good laugh no doubt. I found out later it was a Trevellian, quite common, but beautiful.
I'd scrapped through the course and decided to reward myself with a non-related pasta lunch with some gluttonous fast food. It would nearly be time to leave Bundeberg and I was glad to have completed my open water dive course and looked forward to seeing the Great Barrier Reef further up the coast. I couldn't honestly say that I felt confident with the idea of going back in the water.
I did get the hang of the blinds in the end though.

* * *

The history books show that the second place Captain Cook landed on his voyage of discovery around Australia was the present location of the town 1770, the year of Cook’s arrival giving the town it’s name. That or it was his way of remembering his pin code. The history books fail to mention that before oil took over, the area was an exporter of hemp, one of the less controversial things said by our tour guide. It was a free tour with a pick up from the door of the hostel I was staying in, Cool Bananas, in Agnus Water, 6 kilometres from 1770.
The guide had forearms so big that they appeared out of proportion to the rest of his body and so he reminded me of Popeye. He introduced his mongrel dog as Gus which he told us was short for ‘disgusting’ who was along for the bumpy ride in the army camouflaged 4x4. Popeye considered himself a radical and told us about the time when he once tried to get elected as mayor. He said that he got 26% of the vote, though I wasn’t sure if that said more about his policies or the population of Agnus Water. He was full of conspiracy theories and his favourite for the day was about the chemical trails from aircraft. He said that they were deliberately tampered with by the government in order to cause droughts in an attempt to cull the population and to raise water rates. Later, and out of nowhere, he came out with a quoted line from the bible about the sons of god coming down to earth and breeding with humans creating abominable beings.
"What do you think that's about?" he asked us rhetorically. Queenslanders? I thought. Though I kept it to myself given the proximity of Gus' jaw line to my crotch. "Aliens!" he exclaimed after we embraced the question with silence. "Why do you think that the ancient calendars only run up to 2012? It's because that will be the time of the second coming! They knew stuff back then that we don't know now." Jesus. "Has anyone heard of David Icke?" he asked next. Half of the group just looked baffled or as if they’d lost interest. But I was willing to play along. "Yeah, he's that loony-toon, I remember when he did that famous interview ranting about aliens. He's totally mad." I replied. "WHAT! He's speaking the truth!" he cried. If he wasn't our tour guide, I'm sure he would of reached for some spinach and then strung me up in the bush. I switched off while he ranted on about the virtues of David Icke. I couldn't make up my mind if he was for real or it was all a show. After he'd calmed down, he kept the silence broken by telling a string of unbearable jokes about the laziness of the people around town.
"The road workers here are so lazy, it takes them two hours to watch 60 minutes…. One bloke was so lazy, he married a Sheila that was already pregnant"
And so on. Ten years prior, Agnus Water had a population of 200. At the time of my visit, it was around 2000 and the developers were moving in big time. 1770 is smaller still but it's just a matter of time until the whole area becomes another Noosa or Byron Bay. It would be a shame; it was a wonderfully weird secluded place that was genuinely in the middle of nowhere. I just wished there were more choices of places to eat rather then just the fish and chip shop or the cafe.
The Cool Bananas hostel was one of the best on the coast. Not only was the free tour with Popeye and Gus thrown in, but also the place itself was a great place to be, with a great TV lounge and a patio area with seating and hammocks. As I was signing myself in, helping myself to one of the banana shaped sweets on the reception desk, one of the names in the guest books jumped out at me. I dumped my bags in my allotted dormitory and went and found Aoife in the patio area, now travelling with a friend from back home that had recently flown in. It was great to see her again and we spent the evening comparing stories of our adventures on Fraser Island and on our travels in-between.
Further north, Queensland was full of towns attracting backpackers for the best sites for diving or the season’s fruit picking work. I was in no hurry to do either and so I took the mammoth ten-hour overnight bus journey from Agnus water to Airline Beach to try and catch-up with some warmer weather. The remoteness of Agnus Water was exemplified by the Greyhound bus stop for the town. Just to get to it required a lift in an old beaten up mini-van by one of the locals that had an agreement with the coach company to do so. He left us at the bus stop, in the middle of nowhere at the side of the road in the pitch black of the late evening, the only light coming from the moon and stars. The sky was unbelievably beautiful, hundreds of stars that otherwise wouldn't be seen with even the tiniest light pollution.
On that ten hour trip, it really was impossible to get a sense of the scale of the country as we rolled on for mile after mile passing through the infinite bush land that loomed ominously out of the bus window. Even when passing through a town, they were so generally under developed that it was hard to see any details in the buildings that lurked from the shadows suggestively from the little light that was around.
The atmosphere of the journey allowed me to reflect on what I had experienced so far. Yes, Popeye had had some strange ideas indeed, but like most Australians I’d met he was super friendly, always wore a smile and had that Aussie endearing ‘no worries’ attitude. I also liked the attitude that I found the Australians had toward consumerism. Nobody really cared what car they drove, the labels on their clothes and in fact it seemed the cheaper the better judging by the endless advertising for bargains and offers in the predominantly lowbrow shops. Few Australians talked about house prices, having the latest mobile phone or how much they earned compared to the next man. There was no set of media images that people attempted to live up to, everyone was genuinely being themselves, even including the many people in Queensland that were as mad as cheese.

Hook Line And Sinker

2009-05-04T13:25:00.003-07:00

For much of the year along the northern stretches of Queensland, it is not advisable to go into the ocean due to the various toxic jellyfish or 'stingers'. I was lucky enough to be there out of season, but a stinger suit and hood were still advisable. However, they resembled the attire of The Gimp from Pulp Fiction. Watching our group emerging from the sea after snorkelling must have been like seeing an early episode of Doctor Who. With our suits covering us from head to toe in black, our monster flippers giving us a menacing purposeful stalk and complete with the snorkels, we may well have had many a small child running to hide behind the sofa.
I was in the Whitsunday Islands, a group of 90 that were once a coastal mountain range that were then cut off from the mainland by rising water levels at the end of the last ice-age. Before I left Agnus Water, I booked ahead and got myself onto a three day sailing trip from Airlie Beach. I spent a bit more cash then the norm to get on a good boat, the smaller, faster and more comfy then average Ambition. The extra few dollars were well worth it.
The sailing was fabulous. With my new diving certificate I was able to dive at one of the most amazing stretches of the Great Barrier Reef. If Australia is at the edge of no-where, then the reef is another world all together with huge corals and beautiful fish that have not yet learnt to fear humans - the more curious would swim right up to me. Before the dive I had to admit that I was worried after my experiences back in Bundaberg, but as soon as I’d made my descent and saw the clearer blue waters with the array of beautiful alien life and landscape my worries had washed away. I just wish I had better buoyancy control, we couldn’t really practise it properly back in the pool in Bundaberg as it wasn’t really deep enough and the appalling visibility in the ocean and river wasn’t suitable either. Several times I became a body contortionist like Tom Cruise in the famous scene from Mission Impossible, avoiding touching the corals on the seabed as I got my descents all wrong. The other certified divers looked on with amusement as I yo-yoed like a prat as I over-inflated my BCD in attempts to correct myself.
The trip did allow for plenty of chances for snorkelling to allow a look at the reef without the stress of diving. We made several stops on the island’s beaches or in the open water to indulge our senses with more reef watching, the donning of our gimp suites causing more amusement each time. But no matter how stupid we looked, we knew their importance and we had a reminder that even though it was out of season, those stingers could be out there. Jamie, a small, young Scottish lad was my buddy for some snorkelling from the boat. I followed behind him as we paddled our way toward the reef. He suddenly changed direction and accelerated away. I didn’t need to be told; I powered away from the general area. Though unlikely, Jamie was convinced he’d seen a Jellyfish. They are practically invisible to the human eye in the ocean but the usually unflappable Jamie was adamant he’d spotted one.
I got talking to David, a Canadian in the group on the trip with his girlfriend, and he told me about when he was stung in a freak occurrence all the way down south in the waters off of Sydney.
"It was like a thousand needles being punched into my skin and then set on fire," he described, "The jellyfish only just brushed my foot. It was agony for two hours or so but was still tender to the touch for days afterward." He told me of a guy who got a tentacle wrapped around his leg, crying his heart out as the shock set in. Poor sod. They say to douse the area with fresh water or vinegar, but the truth is there's really not much more that can be done other to wait the pain out and hope that your heart can take the stress. But if the sting is from one of the particularly nasty ones like the Box Jellyfish or the Blue Ringed Octopus then the chances of survival are virtually zero.
One of our stops was at Whitehaven beach on Whitsunday Island itself. The beach was voted the most desirable holiday spot in the world on four occasions in the last 20 years. I was amazed that it wasn’t more. The white sand is as fine as talcum powder and the blue water that winds around the estuary is stunning. The climb up to the lookout to take in the view was well worth it. It has to be one of the best sights in the world. On the way back down to the beach, I got talking to Jamie, fresh from the jellyfish scare we got talking about the array of dangerous fauna and flora that the country harboured. We arrived back onto the sand after comparing scare stories of the spiders and snakes we’d encountered between us. In the middle distance I spotted a group of seagulls standing around minding their own business.
“You know there’s even a type of seagull that’s poisonous?” I joked.
“Really!?” replied Jamie, eyeing the ones in front of us with suspicion.
“Don’t worry, those ones are OK…I think,” I said. He bought it hook, line and sinker. It's a wonder that some people manage to get out of the airport.
After I revealed the joke for what it was, Jamie told of a similar story he’d heard regarding the misconception of the dangers in Australia. “When you get up to Cairns, you’ll see these trees that have a kind of lattice structure to their bark with a hollow middle. The Aborigines would bury their dead inside the tree hollow. Some of the early settlers who knew all about how dangerous the animals and stuff here was got really spooked when they first found these ‘man eating trees’.”
Hayman Island, also in the area, is one of the world’s premier resorts if you've got the $500 a night spare to stay there. The visitors would be paying twice as much as us for our entire sailing trip just to move from island to island. Maybe Tom was out there somewhere doing his Mission Impossible bit at the same time as me.
The weather was near perfect with just a little rain on the first morning as we headed out. And then glorious sunshine for the rest of the three days. I was in a great laid-back like-minded group and the two crewmen looked after us well. They fed us like kings considering we were at sea, feeding us on steaks and roast dinners and it was so good to get back to the boat and be welcomed with a brew and cakes after snorkelling or diving. Virtually all of the boxes got ticked during the trip, a pod of dolphins passed the boat within a few feet and we spotted a whale breaching a couple of hundred metres out in front of us. Sitting on deck sharing a few glasses of Goon on the open water, the clear sky revealing a glorious starry night was one of the best ways an evening could be spent. We retired to our cabins, the migrating whales calling to each other and the slight rocking of the cabin creating the perfect way to fall asleep.
We returned to Airlie Beach, a little unsteady on our feet after three days on the ocean, but all in great spirits. It really was one of the best few days I ever spent. We all met up in the evening in the bars of Airlie Beach. The town itself came into being for the tourist trade and aimed primarily at backpackers after a pilot strike in the 1980s stalled the top-end tourist market. Originally a mudflat, the beach was imported from nearby Bowen after the Shire council turned down developer’s proposals there. Airlie went on to be one of the top backpacker stops on the east coast. It was certainly a favourite of mine.

* * *

Many people said to me that I was brave to be travelling alone. I wasn’t having any of it. Other travellers are always there to advise and loneliness is rare, a few minutes sitting in a hostel common room usually ends up with introductions and a chat to someone new before long. And being alone, there was just the one person to please.
After arriving in Mission Beach, I got talking to Jake from London who'd arrived in Cairns and was heading south. His cockney accent stood out a mile and he projected an image of a confident young lager-swilling bloke. About 20 kilometres away from Mission Beach was the town of Tully with its' namesake river which is regarded as one of the best places in Australia for white water rafting. The two of us were well up for some of that with Jake as excited as a kid at Christmas. It would be his first adventure trip having spent most of his time in Cairn’s working. However, he was travelling with his South African girlfriend Bowen, who was less keen and wanted to get going down south. They left the next morning with me gladder then ever being alone an able to do my own thing.
Mission Beach itself was a much quieter sort of place compared to many of the other stops on the coast. Although heavy with traveller traffic, the expansive beach offers plenty of opportunity for seclusion. Around Mission Beach is Australia’s most significant cassowary population - a big dumb emu like bird with nasty claws, horned head and a bad attitude. The cassowaries I’d seen at Australia zoo really had to be seen to be believed. They looked like they could be a relic from the time of the dinosaurs. A large sculpture of a cassowary stands near to the Mission Beach coach stop that stands like a frightening but strange monster from a child’s nightmare. It seems that there's something new to worry about at each stop. We made a stop at Cardwell for a break on the coach journey up. Signs at the beach warned not to go near to the water due to more life threatening nasties, more jellyfish and crocodiles littered the stretch of coast.
I had spent the day with Jake and Bowen, we headed into town and enjoyed ourselves frolicking on the beach and drinking refreshing beer at a cool little beachside bar. I left the two of them to it as they decided on a romantic meal at the bar watching the sun go down. I walked back toward the hostel along the beach and came across some fresh cassowary tracks in the sand. With the light fading, my pace quickened and I was glad to get back.
The hostel I was staying at was the Mission Beach Backpackers lodge, remarkable only for it’s low rates and high bunk beds. My designated bed was a top bunk, though there didn’t seem to be an obvious way to get onto it. The bunks were without ladders and even with my gangling frame, the climb up was like scaling the valley cliffs in the Blue Mountains. Goodness knows how the more vertically challenged or those with vertigo coped.
The shuttle bus for the white water rafting picked me up nice and early the next morning. As I bundled myself into the van, my bleary eyes focused on a familiar form. It was Aoife. Again. Australia was a small country really. The rest of the group was full of yet more Irish. I was sure their country was empty. With the amount of Germans I was also meeting I was convinced that there was a war going on between the two that they hadn’t told the rest of the world about and mass evacuations to Australia had taken place.
We made our way to the river, driving through the town of Tully. On the road leading back out of town we passed a road sign that read ‘This road does not lead to Cairns or Townsville’. Only in Queensland could there be road signs telling you where the road was not leading.
The day was great fun. Even the part where I was thrown out of the raft, narrowly missing some rocks and being dragged along one of the most dangerous stretches of the river.
“Whatever happens, don’t fall out at this part,” our guide had said, “Anywhere else and you’ll be OK, but here, it’s very dangerous.” We came up to the drop in the river and I lost my balance as the boat threw us around. I did manage to keep my grip on the hand held rope as I fell, my eyes locking onto those of Siobhan, the Irish girl who was sat next to me, the look of absolute terror in her face mirroring mine. I was dragged along down the incline, the rocks in the river scuffing at my legs as the guys in the boat tried to haul me back aboard. I was lucky; I didn’t hit any of the large sharp rocks full on. The others bundled me back onto the boat and we all caught our breath as we left that section of river behind.
“Are you OK?” everybody asked.
“I think so…can we go again?”
Our group was quite small, the two looney-toon guides dividing us into half and taking us out in a boat each. As such we were free to stop at the odd pool to swim, jump off of the high rocks, dive down waterfalls and play games that generally led to people getting dumped into the river. My favourite was to have two players standing on the side of the dingy at either end and the group inside paddled so as to spin the boat in a circle until one of the competitors fell. We stopped for lunch, another good old Aussie bush barbecue.
“Are there crocodiles in the river?” asked Aoife. Stupid question I thought, they’d never take us in a river that had crocodiles in them.
“Yep” replied Mike, one of the guides.
“Really? I asked.
“Yes”
“But isn’t that a little dangerous?” asked Aoife.
“Don’t worry. It’s not that hot around here at the moment, they’ll all be in the warmer waters. Any that are around will be docile.”
I wasn’t convinced. I still couldn’t tell when Australians were joking or not. I made extra sure to hold on tight during the afternoon session.
We covered the course in one piece, a couple of others being thrown overboard which made my fall look less idiotic. It had been hard work but enjoyable, the calmer stretches of river afforded a view of the beauty that the river basin had to offer. On the drive back to Mission Beach Mike told us more about the cassowaries.
"If you see one while you're driving then nail it," he said. "They're endangered so you won't get the chance to for much longer." Although doing so would get you a longer jail term then hitting a child. Mental note: if driving in Queensland and a cassowary and a child jump out in front, aim for the child. “There’s only a couple of hundred of them left in the wild.” he went on.
“Have you ever seen one?” asked Aoife
“No. But I’ve got a mate that came up here for a break. He was walking in the bush and saw one. He didn’t really know about their nature, he just saw this big dumb looking bird. He started teasing it and throwing stones and mud at it and getting into its space. The thing charged him with that big old horn. Luckily my mate had enough time to leg it to a tree and climb up out of reach. The cassowary was really pissed off and hung around for a few hours. He was up in that tree for two days before he decided it was safe for him to come down. Needless to say, he hasn’t lived that one down.”

The last leg of my journey along the east coast of Australia brought me to Cairns. I was glad of the break from the Greyhound coaches for a few days, they were uncomfortable enough for anyone over six foot tall but I always seemed to get the American who puts their seat into recline in front of me. On the rare occasions when they play a movie it's usually stuff like Eddie Murphy in the Disney film The Haunted House, or some dodgy western I'd never heard of. I heard tales of journeys when Lord of the Rings had been played. And why-o-why were the drivers so obsessed with the toilets? "Welcome aboard, at the back of the coach is the toilet, when the sign is illuminated it is occupied." They would begin. At which point I would put on my personal CD player. Between a track I could still hear them prattling on, "The flush is operated by firmly pressing the handle located on the back unit..." Cairns was not what I was expecting. More of a small town then a city, it was like Surfers Paradise but with crocodiles. The artificial lagoon on the esplanade, the fast food restaurants and the Irish theme bars summed the place up. At the hostel Parkview where I was staying, the owners, a pair of middle aged brothers, gave us new arrivals a scare story of all the street crime as if we'd never been in a city before. They told us that there were now harsh anti-drink regulations as there used to be a death a week due to tourists getting too jolly and hitting each other with tables or knifing one another. Thankfully the regulations seemed to have worked and I'd had a good evening after arranging to meet up with Aoife again. We spent the night in the famous PJ O’Briens Irish bar and moved onto the infamous Woolshed. The dingy, rowdy all night party atmosphere reminded me of the places I could have been in back in the UK that would have served just as well. Fair enough for those younger travellers that had came all that way to spend their time in places like that, but just one night on the town was enough for me. I was looking forward to getting into the Outback.
Cairns was jam packed with travellers who had come up to the tropics for the good weather. The receptionist at Mission Beach had offered to book me a bed ahead. I wished that I hadn’t declined his offer. I arrived in Cairns and went through the hostels in my guidebook, each phone call ending with more regret as they were all full. Just as I was growing from concerned to worried, one of the brothers from Parkview had shown up and whisked me away. Though I’d got my digs, I was glad to have eventually found a vacancy at another hostel for a few days later. Parkview was the first place that I stayed where budget equated to being treated like pond-life. The showers were cold, the bathrooms dirty and the washing liquid/detergents that were used in the kitchen could only be branded 'waste of time'. The elderly mother of the owners shuffled around silently like a ghost, in an impossible battle to keep the place clean that someone of her apparent frailty could never win. Half of the appliances in the kitchen were on the blink and signs all around the place warned 'anyone in the kitchen after hours will be evicted!' If you were hungry or thirsty after 10pm then tough shit. The rooms were the barest possible, skeletal metal frames and uncomfortable mattresses made up the bunks that were the only features in an otherwise featureless room. Not that I want to name and shame the place. Parkview, Grafton Street, Cairns.
I moved into the hostel Tropic Days, a much more pleasing place to be. Colourful decorating in the jungle themed grounds with it’s large bar and movie screen area that felt much more homely. The lighter mood of the other backpackers staying there told the story in comparison to the misery at Parkview. My mood was lifted chatting to the other guests as I filled my boots at the all-you-can-eat curry buffet. I took a day trip to Kuranda, a village in the rainforest in the mountains just north of the city. It's famous for its arts and crafts markets but I took a bush walk and came over the gorgeous Byron Gorge and falls about two kilometres from the village. It's a spectacular view and one that I'm surprised wasn't more recognised, my guidebook only briefly mentioned it. It must be truly amazing in the wet season with the waterfall in full flow.
As I was enjoying the view, along came a group of Japanese tourists. They did the usual thing of taking pictures of each other from every angle and then left. And there was me congratulating myself on finding something off the beaten track. Some of the Japanese didn't even stop to look at the falls properly. Maybe they wanted to get away from the madman Brit who was taking pictures of a Bendyman when they had arrived. Back in Kuranda, I discovered the most efficient way of touring the village. Just follow the signs for the toilets. I covered every corner of the place faithfully following the signs. I just needed a Greyhound driver to give me instructions on their use when I finally found them.

The One That Got Away

2009-05-04T13:25:00.001-07:00

"This is your captain speaking, we've just lost one our engines, but don't worry we still have three more. It just means that we'll be arriving 15 minutes or so later then expected," came the message during the flight. Fair enough I thought, the 15 minutes didn’t really matter much to me. A few minutes later the captain sparked up again, "I'm afraid we've lost another engine. Don't worry though, we still have two more but we'll be half an hour or so late." OK fine, another 30 minutes later wasn’t too bad. A few more moments later and the captain made another announcement “We really are having rotten luck, it looks like a third engine is going down, we’ll be an hour late now I’m afraid.” Damn it I thought, if we were to lose our last engine then we'd be stuck up there all day.
OK, that didn't happen but I thought I'd need to make something up to write about for my trip to Darwin as I wouldn't have anything good to say. Many travellers that I’d met had slated the place, and it had a reputation of being the exception to the rule of Australians being a friendly bunch so I wasn't really expecting too much. I couldn’t really blame the people that lived there should the stories be proved true, I got off of the plane to temperatures in the early 30s Celsius and the calm breeze “is as windy as it gets” according to the words of the airport shuttle bus driver. And this in the deepest darkest recesses of the Australian winter. When the unbearable temperatures and the rainy season of the summer comes along, I wouldn’t be surprised at a bit of irritability of the people living with it everyday.
The bus driver was friendly enough and we chatted casually while we waited to see if there was any more business for him from the next flight that had landed. I asked him what the best things to do in town were.
“Get your self down to the markets,” he said.
“The markets?” I thought it didn’t bode to well that the star attraction was a bunch of stalls selling bric-a-brac.
“Yeah mate, “ he said enthusiastically, “You’re lucky you’ve arrived today – they’ll be on tonight. We’ll drive past Mindell where it is on the way to your hostel so I'll point it out to you. Just make sure you don’t eat before you go, that’s all I’ll say.
“…O…K…” I said, my attempt at sounding as excited as him failing miserably.
I arrived at the Frogshollow Backpackers, a hostel with a pool and spa area with overhanging palm trees and balcony areas that gave the place a real holiday feel. Bare chested guys and bikini clad girls wandered around as the friendly woman at reception checked me in.
“So I hope you enjoy your time here,” she said as we concluded our business, “By the way what are doing tonight?”
“I’m not sure yet,”
“You really should go to Mindel Beach for the markets if you get the chance. They‘re fab!”
“Oh….O…K….”
I took my bag up to my dormitory and met Mick who had just about finished sleeping off a hangover. A shaven headed Irishman of the same age as me, he had that cheeky charisma so common to the Irish. He’d been in town for a good few days and told me about his trip to Kakadu National Park and the things to do around town including the must see museum and the best bars to go to.
“What about these markets? What’s the deal about them?” I asked.
“Hmmm… I don’t know, I got here last Friday and they’re only on Thursday nights so I haven’t been to one yet. But everyone here keeps raving about it. It’s just a bloody market after all.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Well, I was going to see what the crack is if you fancy coming along.” I did.
The Mindel Beach Sunset Market was fab. True, many of the stalls were selling tat but there were many booths selling interesting novelties like crocodile tooth jewellery, animal skulls and colourful saris. Arts and crafts stalls showcased the creativity of Darwin’s people as well as stuff coming in from Asia.
“Darwin’s gonna be big,” one stall holder selling grandiose belt buckles told us, “We’re the gateway to the markets of Asia. This place is gonna explode within a few years."
What made it most of all though was the great ambience of the place with musicians and street performers entertaining the crowds. Food stalls sold the best of world cuisine all at reasonable prices. People browsed through the stalls, sat and listened to the music or indulged on the fabulous food on the beachfront setting, with the sun going down in the background.
Following Mick’s advice, I headed to the Northern Territory museum in the morning. I got my first taste of the famous Darwin hospitality when checking my bag in at security. The security guard seemed put out at the effort of leaving her chair and snarled back at me as I thanked her. I wasn’t one for museums but I had a couple of days to kill and the museum had free admission. It was well worth this entrance fee and the hike it took to get there in the heat. It covered an array of subjects from Aboriginal artwork to local wildlife but the highlight for me was the exhibit on cyclone Tracey, the storm that decimated the city in 1974 and Australia's biggest natural disaster. Sitting in a room in the dark listening to a recording of the storm as made by one of those sheltering in their house was chilling. It's the second time Darwin has had to be rebuilt after the Japanese bombed it to oblivion in World War Two. Darwin is a place with scars. Maybe because of its near destruction on these two occasions, the argument could be put forward that the city had ample chance to be rebuilt into something grander.
Darwin pleasantly surprised me though. I liked its small town charm. It's hard to explain why Darwin has got its negative reputation in the travelling community. True, the locals are not as friendly as elsewhere in Australia but no worse then anywhere in the UK. Maybe people get to the capital of the Northern Territory State and expect more of a big city and find out that the place is actually quite small. Maybe it's the beach that was the worst I'd seen in Australia with waters that can’t even be used to cool off in with the prevalence of those nasty jellyfish. Or maybe it's the high proportion of Aboriginal people that make people feel uneasy. There were obvious segregation issues there and I heard numerous stories of drunken Aborigines hassling and intimidating people in the streets. Stories in the news highlight the reluctance of Aboriginal people to embrace western ways such as the sky-high truancy rates of the children in schools. They seem to live within but outside of the society drifting along on the welfare state. Many people tar them all with the same brush but there are signs of those trying to adapt to the changes in their world. Aboriginal art is growing in popularity the world over and they are slowly opening up and speaking about their culture and belief systems. I was looking forward to learning more on my forthcoming tour.

* * *

I think there comes a point where most people in their mid-twenties realise that they're not going to make a great impression on the world. You won't make the next big scientific discovery, write a number one song, or become the prime minister. I’d reached that point and felt comfortable having done so. I was content with the idea of just being able to see some of the amazing things that the world had to offer and I was expecting my trip into Kakadu National Park to reveal itself as one such example.
A guy that looked like a moody French artist checked me out of the Frogshollow Backpackers. He spoke with what must have been the campest accent in the Northern Territory.
“So where are you heading to next?” he asked me.
“I’m going to Kakadu for a few days before I come back here.“
"Oh Fabulous!" he exclaimed. I handed him my key and gave him the dormitory number.
"Oh, You've been in with those Aussie gits," he said referring to the group of Australian youths from Brisbane who Mick and I had unfortunately shared the previous two nights with. They were in Darwin learning to drink and starting fights with anyone that gave them the slightest cause. One almost kicked off when one of the gits got into an argument with an Irish guy that was staying in a dorm a few doors down about the pronunciation of his hometown.
"It's cark," cried the Irishman.
"No! It's cowk," screamed the Aussie git.
“I live there, it’s CARK!”
“Don’t tell me how to speak English, it’s COWK!”
And so on. If it weren’t for the Irishman’s mates dragging him away punches would have been thrown. I would have helped break it up had it not been so funny.
With the Aussie gits in our dorm, me and Mick decided the only way to get through another night was to go out and get more drunk then them. We were joined by Sarah and Alison from Surrey who'd we got talking to at the hostel. On our return, mission fully accomplished on the alcohol consumption front, we ignored the 'no swimming after 9pm,' signs and hopped over the fence and stripped to our underwear for a midnight dip. As much as we’d drank, we didn’t go the whole hog as some English lads that turned up later. How unfortunate for their dignity that the water was so cold.
With our new mates splashing around and making a racquet, the artistic French poof appeared looking even more moody to throw us out. Mick and I dripped back to our dormitory to find the Aussie gits already fast asleep. Next day the sign read 'Strictly no swimming after 9pm.' Our actions had changed the world, though only in a small, modest way.
I was sorry to be parting company with Mick who was heading to Queensland. We’d shared a couple of fun evenings together as well as the ordeal of the drunken Aussie gits coming in in the middle of the night. He left me a bag of ‘Coon’ cheese, a delicious if racist brand.
And so I was already tired when Adam, the guide for the trip into Kakadu arrived early in the morning to pick me up. He had only been doing tours into Kakadu for nine months but his knowledge of the area and wildlife was first rate, though I wished he could have handled the 4x4 a bit more gently. He had a highly amusing habit of adding, "I reckon," to the end of just about every other sentence he said.
"We'll head right into the park to get most of the driving done and then have a late lunch I reckon,” he said when he’d picked up the rest of the group from their various hostels and hotels. "You're gonna have a great three days I reckon." In the group was Pamela, a young Mexican, Angela and Claire, two sisters from the United States, a very quiet German couple called Catherine and Karl, Carston who was from Denmark and lastly there was Rick from New Zealand.
It was a fair old distance from Darwin to Kakadu, about 230 kilometres into the bush. We made a quick stop at the side of the road to pick up wood for the evening campfires and another at a small store to pick up beer for the evening campfires. The feeling of being completely cut off from civilisation came into about when everyone lost their mobile phone signal and the radio belted out static only.
We made a stop at the Alligator River, a strange choice of name considering the waters were full of crocodiles. We took the boat trip along the river that gave us close up views of monster crocs as the guys on the boat held out strips of meat on poles to coax the crocodiles into springing from the water.
We left the other tourists behind and headed into the park proper, the desert planes gradually filling up with thicker and thicker forest. The roads became less defined and the ride more and more bumpy, Adam seemingly more excited then us. He suddenly swerved off of the road and jumped out of the car. “I just saw a snake I reckon!” he called as he ran off toward the small shed where he’d spotted the movement. The rest of us stayed in the car and I just managed to see the huge python disappearing into the building as Adam tried to creep up and do his Steve Irwin bit. He came back disappointed at the one that got away.
We drove on into the afternoon and got to our lunch stop slightly dizzy and bruised from Adam’s off road driving. We’d made good time though and had plenty of time to look around a site of Aboriginal rock art. Kakadu is abundant with the stuff and Adam told us a little bit about the Aboriginal culture.
"Most Aborigines are great friendly people I reckon, and most still live off the land. The ones in the cities are usually outcasts who have done something wrong. They believe that everything should be shared as we all brothers so they don't understand that it's unacceptable to us when they just take things. If someone in a tribe caught a fish for example and ate it on his own, he could be outcast or even killed I reckon." I remembered Mick telling me a story just a few days before about a run-in he’d had. He was using a public telephone when an Aborigine man came up and tried to take the cigarette that Mick was already smoking. Of course Mick told him where to go, but from the Aborigine guy’s perspective, he should have shared the cigarette.
Adam continued on, "Each child is given a 'skin group' and there's a complex system where some skin groups are compatible and others are not. Some groups cannot even speak to others, having to communicate through somebody else. For example brothers and sisters are given incompatible skin groups to avoid incest I reckon.” I guess it made for a good excuse for people not to speak to their mothers-in-law.
He pointed out ancient pictures of animals on the rocks, depictions of successful hunting and strange figures that represented characters from the stories that make up their belief systems. Although Aboriginal people across Australia have their separate tribes, there is a shared religious belief, central to which is the idea of The Dreaming, the time of creation when the lands and life was created. The Rainbow Serpent is the central character in a group of spiritual ancestral beings that are the sources of the stories that gives the people their laws and customs. These stories are only vaguely interpreted to non-Aborigines, like an induction into the religion that would be given to a child. This in turn garners little real understanding and maybe even a little contempt at the childish nature of the stories told, and so the barriers remain.
We headed to our campsite and set up camp. We got the fire roaring and ate a glorious meal of kangaroo meat stew and buffalo sausages. To break the ice within the group Adam told us of a story when he'd just started taking tour groups into the park.
"I'd just come back from one of my first trips and was checking the kit. I realised that I'd left a couple of esky(cooling box) lids behind so thought I'd better go back and look for them. So I took off down the highway and heard a tapping sound I reckon. I didn't make anything of it at first. Anyway, when I got back to the campsite and jumped out, there was this bloke from the tour group on the roof of the car. He'd gone up to get his bag I reckon. He didn't shout out when we’d left as he thought I was pulling a joke I reckon. It wasn't until I hit the highway that he started getting worried but couldn't anything but hang on." What makes the story even funnier is that outside of the towns and citys in the Northern Territory there are no speed limits. Drivers can go as fast as they please. "I got up to about 125km/h in parts I reckon."
Spirits were high as we got stuck into the beer and. commenced a game, the object of which was to pick up an empty cereal box from the ground with your mouth without touching the ground with any other part of the body other then the feet. Failure to do so meant elimination, success, passage to the next round when the cereal box would have an inch strip torn off. When Adam suggested it, I don’t think he reckoned on Angela being a gymnast and the determination of a quiet German. Karl just refused to be beaten and the two of them continued long after the rest of us had been eliminated. We had to get the shovel and dig a hole to put the scrap of cereal box in before it proved too much for Karl. At the back of the camp was a billabong. It made the news a couple of years previously when some German tourists went for a midnight dip. One of the girls never came back. Even if their English wasn’t good enough to understand the text, the accompanying pictures on the warning signs should have been enough to discourage them. From a safe distance, our torchlights caught the eyes of a gigantic crocodile, our beams of light turning them a chilling red.
Adam had us up at 5am, watching the sunrise and getting an early start on the day’s activities. We spent the two days hiking some tough trails and playing at various swimming holes and plunge pools. The relative comfort and ease of passage of the dry season was offset by the lack of water flowing through the Alligator river system. The bare rock face that greeted us after a hard boulder covered hike at Jim-Jim Falls was disheartening. At least the relative splendour of Twin Falls made up for it even though the fee for the boat trip to get us along some of the river was extortionate. The twin torrents fell spectacularly into a large pool idyllic for swimming alongside a sandy beach.
Carston kept trying to impress everyone with his scientific knowledge. While waiting for the sun to go down so we could enjoy the view he came out with "We need to move more mass to the centre of the earth to increase the angular momentum." After swimming he showed off yet more of his knowledge. "Wet your T-shirt and wrap it around your water bottle. The evaporation from the T-shirt takes the heat out of the water bottle.” He ate like a pig and didn’t seem to care if anyone else got their share. He would constantly wander off on his own, the whole group having to wait for his reappearance. He was beginning to annoy me.
I decided to try and out nerd him, the degree I had in physics coming in useful as I threw him a couple of special relativity and quantum physics paradoxes to shut him up for a while. It probably wasn’t a good idea as we tried to outdo one another. At the end of the hike to Jim-Jim falls he ran up to me and said, "That's a couple of thousand joules used up," with a chuckle.
"Actually, we hiked for 900 metres to the pools. Say you weigh 80kg,” I said, actually being kind with the approximation, “And energy is the product of mass and the distance, you would have used up about 72,000 joules on the hike back. And that's assuming you went in a straight line of course."
He didn't speak to me much after that.

Sticks And Bones

2009-05-04T13:24:00.001-07:00

I moved on to the town of Katherine, a few hours south of Darwin. Plan A hadn't worked out - hanging around to find someone to give me a lift - so it was back on the Greyhound coaches. I wasn’t too disappointed when I found that the driver for the journey had the same voice as Harold from Steptoe and Son.
"Good morning, my name's Michael and I am your dwiver,” he started in a cockney accent from the 1950s that was unable to pronounce it’s ‘R’s. He inevitably began the speech about the toilet facilities.
“At the wear of the coach is the toilet. When it is occupied the sign will be illuminated. On the back unit is the flush that is opewated by firmly pushing down. No smoking is allowed anywhere on this coach, including the toilet which has a smoke alarm fitted for your safety…”
And so on.
After the information on the toilet he then decided to point out some of the points of interest in the landscape, I couldn’t decide if this was so that we might learn something or just to keep us amused by his voice for a little while longer. Either way, he was the first driver that I’d ever had on a Greyhound to do such a running commentary.
"On your wight is the wailway line where the fweight twains wun... On the left you'll see the wemains of the bush fires, lit duwing the dwy season so that we can more easily contwol any fires that may happen in the wet."
After awival... sorry arrival in Katherine, I went for a quick walk around town. Again the Aboriginal population was more significant and as I made my way along a quiet street one came up to me.
"Hey mate, where you from?" he asked as he fell into stride next to me. He was a big guy and obviously drunk. Memories of the Coffs Harbour mugger came flooding back and I started looking for 'exits' again.
"Sydney," I lied, trying not to look like a tourist and putting on an awful Aussie accent.
“Oh yeah. You up here on holiday?”
"Na mate, I'm doing some work up here,”
“Yeah? How long you been here?”
“I’ve been here for a couple of months now." I said. What the hell did he want? Was he looking for a chance to mug me?
“My name’s Barry,” he said extending his hand for a handshake as we walked along. What could I do? I shook his hand, keeping a wary eye on his body language. The handshake and his body posture were relaxed - he didn’t seem to be a potential assailant. He spoke with pride about the tribe that he was from, declaring it the biggest in Australia whilst all the time I was thinking up excuses to cross the street. He left me alone at the end of the block as I made to take the road crossing. He bid me a farewell and didn’t even ask for money as we went our separate ways. I was honestly relieved to see him disappearing down the side street but then felt guilty, why was my natural reaction to feel so threatened? Barry had been perfectly polite and though a little worse for wear he’d given no reason for me to fear him.
I was staying at the Palm Court Backpackers YHA, a converted motel that wouldn’t have looked out of place as a stop on a road trip across America. As such, the rooms had ensuite bathrooms and the free pancakes in the morning and friendly social atmosphere around the pool area was a welcome break from the rough edges of the town itself.
On the journey from Darwin I'd got talking to Philip, a more mature traveller from Belgium. He was a short, very slightly built man - all sticks and bones - with a calm manner and a very softly spoken voice. The grey in his short hair made him look older then the late-thirties figure he admitted to me. It was refreshing to talk with him on politics rather then the usual conversations about beer and partying that I would have had with the typical backpacker I’d so far come across in Australia. We found that the two of us had similar schedules down to Alice Springs and so would no doubt enjoy each other’s company for some time ahead.
It was interesting to hear a European perspective on my own home country as we chatted about the perceptions of and from our countries and the goings on in Europe. There seems to be so much that we don't hear about due to the UK media's almost xenophobic attitude toward the rest of Europe and we don't realise what we get out of it. I've always been pro Europe, but travelling and meeting different people had shown me the relative peace and prosperity enjoyed by our continent, an equilibrium that has taken hundreds of years and countless wars and feuds to arrive at that we take for granted. Maybe something could be learnt by the rest of the world from the history books of Europe about the need for diplomacy and the futility of military conflict.
There was a second Barry at the hostel. An American, he questioned me on the number one singles in the UK since 1956. He'd memorised the lot for the UK, US, Australia and was currently working on Canada’s. Though he had no idea who the Crazy Frog was. He must have been in his late forties and said he had travelled to 175 countries. I didn't even know that there were 175 countries. The last country he’d been to before his return to Australia had been Iran. He told us that he had to practically denounce George W. Bush and American foreign policy to persuade them to let him in. He certainly liked to travel and was prepared to do just about anything to get where he wanted to go, including travelling out of the U.S. and through central America just to find a way to get into Cuba. The little jaunt that I was doing seemed pretty lame in comparison to the travelling that Barry had done.
In the morning I caught a bus out to Nitmiluk National Park, home to the collection of 13 gorges more commonly known as Katherine Gorge. The park is owned and managed by the Jawoyn people and they are a constant theme, with hundreds of rock art galleries throughout and exhibits at the visitor centre. There are land and water options to see the gorge including canoeing, boat cruises or the chance to cool off with a dip, though fresh water crocodiles inhibit the waters. Said to be more intelligent then their saltwater counterpart, they know that humans are not natural prey but they will attack if provoked. I wish I'd decided to take a swim with the freshies, the hiking trail I took was hard going. It's a shame that the trails don't run along the gorge, as a hiker you only get the odd lookout to appreciate the gorge before being sent back inland where the temperature could be as much as ten degrees Celsius hotter then on the water. At the visitor centre, the maximum recorded on the day was 40 degrees Celsius. No wonder the moderate eight kilometre Windolf Walk I elected on was such a struggle.
Part of the trail itself was actually a riverbed during the wet season. At some parts the orange markers that indicated the trail were hard to follow and I needed to double back on more then one occasion. I arrived at Pat’s Lookout, a point on the gorge rim with fantastic views over to the opposite cliff face over a beach directly below. The trail split off to a more difficult one that headed down to this beach and I picked my way over boulders, down the narrow and steep gorge face. The beach made for a nice peaceful spot that I had all to myself.
Rejuvenated, I made my way back upward. Going down had been much easier, then it had been pretty intuitive to know where to go and gravity was on my side. The climb back up was strength sapping though, and it wasn’t obvious where the link to the main trail was. The orange markers were too infrequently spaced and I must have missed the one that pointed the way back. I continued climbing and found myself back at the gorge rim level but without the rim in sight, just empty rocky sandstone plains in all directions and no noticeable pathway. I wasn’t too worried, the rim couldn’t be too far away and I thought I knew which direction it was in – once I found it I’d be able to follow it back to the trail so I gave little thought to turning back and retracing my steps.
The terrain was largely uneven, with huge outcrops of rock and thick knee high bush acting as obstacles. In traversing such things and with the length of time I was walking I began to worry. Was I losing my way? The sun was directly overhead and so not much help as a guide. The landscape gave no clues as to where I should head or even where I had been. Panic was setting in as I became more and more flustered in the heat.
I climbed up one large outcrop of rock in the hope of spotting the gorge. All I could see was more hazy rust coloured scenery. I wasn’t sure what to do. I scanned back and forth deciding if I should push on or go back in the hope of finding the canyon that led to the beach. And then something caught my eye, an unnatural glint of orange. It was a trail marker. I was saved.

* * *

I think some of the unfriendly people who worked in customer services in Darwin had all been moved to Tenant Creek.
Philip and I decided to rent a car between the two of us to get to the Devil's Marbles. On picking it up, we were served by a woman with a sense of humour by-pass.
"Are they easy to find?" asked Philip.
"Yes, you just drive south in a straight line for 100 kilometres. You can't miss it, there’s big signs showing the turn off." she replied.
"I don't know, I've got a pretty lousy sense of direction," I smirked, "And I am pretty drunk,"
She looked at me with a scowl. She didn’t appreciate the joke at all. "I'll pretend I didn't hear that," she said.
Driving in the outback is just about as dull as it gets. If the car had cruise control we could have sat in the back. Philip was not used to driving on the left-hand side of the road and so was happy to leave the driving to me. It didn’t really matter, outside of town there was very little traffic and as the Hyundai was an automatic I had little to do. It was exciting just to find a slower vehicle to overtake, or a treat negotiating around a bend. It was a good job that I loaded up on coffee before leaving as the sun bore down.
The journey was well worth it. Leaving the car we were struck by two things; 1) The wonder of the Devil’s Marbles themselves, strange rust coloured rocks, many of which were perfectly spherical and some perched on top of one another where they had no right to be. It's as if gravity didn't apply. 2) Millions of flies. The little bastards constantly molest the visitor, turning them into flapping lunatics in an attempt to swat them away as they go for the moisture in your eyes. But they were not enough to spoil things. I'd come expecting a few rocks, but they stretched on for a good mile or two, each formation unique in itself. Geologists credit water erosion, Aborigines the Rainbow Serpent - they certainly are baffling enough to give the impression that they could only have come about by design.
On our return to Tennant Creek, we made use of the car and took a quick look around one of the town’s old gold mines. Tennant Creek remains small and wild despite $4billion worth of gold having been mined there. The small Tourists Rest Hostel where we were staying was comfortable enough with all the required facilities needed and bizarrely, an aviary. During our stay, I never did see the elderly owner sober. He was a British ex-pat and seemed a friendly enough guy and we’d spent the first evening drinking a couple of beers with him and a few of the other guests in the outside patio area. He’d been in Australia for the best part of two decades and considered himself more Australian then British. Unfortunately, as he became more and more drunk, the prejudices he held surfaced and what had been such a sweet old man became an ugly, cynical twisted individual who’s view on people from parts of the world different to his own I couldn’t understand. He attacked the Aborigine, people from the middle east, the far east, Latino’s and America for no obvious reasons other then them being from a part of the world different to himself.
When we went and took the car back to the car hire place, a grumpy man who I guessed was the husband was with the grumpy woman. Oh what fun they must have. I could only assume that they had had a recent death in the family. We'd been told that all costs were included as part of a special Devil's Marbles deal that included the petrol but they insisted we went to fill it up. They got really aggressive when we protested and we eventually backed down. It put a dampener on a good day that left us brooding and in no mood for the nine-hour overnight bus trip that lay ahead to Alice Springs. To cheer ourselves up we headed out for a spectacular meal; the first traditional roast I’d had in months served all-you-can-eat buffet style for just $16. It was in what felt like an establishment for an old legion club, a bar and the buffet arranged on one side of a large hall with cheap and cheerful décor, the local olds there for their weekly night out.
There must have been something in the Tennant Creek water; the day was capped off with another grumpy sod that served us at the bus terminal. I’d had enough – I would register a complaint with the car hire company first thing in the morning for the rudeness of the couple.
That would show 'em.
We got to Alice Springs a couple of hours before the dawn. Neither Philip or I had managed to get any sleep on the Greyhound and so we arrived pretty exhausted and very cold. The drop in latitude from the distance covered and the desert night air caught us out as we trudged through the streets of Alice trying to find our hostel in the dark. Once we found the river it would be easy to figure out where we were, unlucky for us we had arrived during the part of the year that it had dried up, making our navigation slightly more challenging.
After a walk that seemed much further then it actually was, we arrived at the hostel. We’d been told there was no night reception, but that we could wander in and make use of the communal facilities until the morning. The cereal for the free breakfast and the futons that we came across in the common room could hardly have been more eagerly received.

After The Wilds

2009-05-04T13:23:00.001-07:00

One of the benefits that my degree level education gave me is that I knew that a camel has a specific heat capacity close to that of a baked potato. With this in mind, and no baked potato options on the menu at the Kings Creek roadhouse, I opted for the camel burger for lunch. It made the walk back to the bus a little uneasy, passing the camel enclosure trying not to look any of the animals in the eye. The burger was delicious and at only 5% fat, much nicer then the tough and overpoweringly strong beef like flavour of Kangaroo that I'd tried previously. I will turn vegetarian one day, right after I give up drinking alcohol and caffeine, but I certainly wouldn’t be able to do any of these things whilst I was in Australia.
The Kings Creek roadhouse is somewhere between Alice Springs and the Uluru-Kata Tjita National Park, home to Australia's most enduring symbol. Transport to and around the area was included with my Greyhound pass, though most other people seemed to get independent tours from Alice Springs. I was the only one on this particular trip and so Mark the driver was happy for us to take a schedule of my choosing for the three days that we would be out there. Approaching the park from the east, you get a glance at what at first could be mistaken for Uluru but is in fact Mount Connor, an impressive enough sight in it's own right but only gets a brief mention in the guide books. It's nothing compared to seeing Uluru or Kata Tjuta for the first time, the names for Ayers Rock and the Olgas respectively by the Aboriginal tribe of the area. 20 kilometres apart, they sit on the desert landscape like some computer generated graphic with their constantly changing colours that seem somehow separated from their surroundings.
At Uluru, there are two options to fill out the day after the mammoth drive from Alice Springs. A ten kilometre walk around the base or the challenging climb up to the top. The Anangu tribe of Aborigine that own the park prefer people not to climb for spiritual reasons. There were certain areas that were closed for sacred reasons around the base and through Kata Tjuta when I went there and so my opinion was that if that they were that much against people doing the climb then they should have just closed it. Aside from respecting the cultural traditions, the climb itself is a risky proposition. There are plaques at the base that are a reminder of those that have died, 33 people in the previous 20 years at the time of my visit. There are steep sections almost vertical for 2 metres in parts, and high winds and high temperatures add to the difficulty. Many of the problems arose from people overexerting themselves or chasing after blown away hats, cameras or other accessories. Back at the hostel in Alice Springs I spoke to one girl who told me the reasons why the Anangu people had their reservations. She told me about the sadness that they feel when people die on their land and each time it happens they hold a ceremony. This much is backed up with the information at the cultural centre but she went on to say that whenever someone is killed the ceremony involves the banging of their heads into the rock until their head bleeds. If that is the case there’s little wonder at the reluctance to perform these ceremonies. Giving all of this careful consideration, I still made the decision to climb.
It wasn’t easy. The true scale of Uluru isn’t revealed until you get up close and it really is breath taking. What looks like small features from distance become towering caves or cavernous valleys. A fixed chain helps with the initial long steep first section that quickly gets the heart pumping. A glance over the shoulder does little to allay any fears – it was hard enough getting up the incline but I was worried about how the hell I was supposed to get back down. But I was passing children and older people that were coming down. If they could do it, so could I. With fatigued legs I made it to the end of the chain section. A trail of white lines continued for another kilometre or so, meandering along the upper sections of the rock through mini valleys and scaling near vertical sections. At every turn I thought the summit was in sight but then the completion of a section would reveal another that hadn’t been visible from below. Eventually the trail flattened out and I saw a group of people standing around, taking a breather and getting their photographs. I’d made it.
And it was well worth it. Having lived in cities for most of my life, it's a rare thing to have such an unimpeded view for 360 degrees, Kata Tjuta standing eerily in the distance and the ant sized vehicles in the car park below the only features in the flat desert landscape. I rested for a while, took on some much needed water and enjoyed the camaraderie with those that made it to the top before setting off back down. The climb up took just over an hour, getting down was less then half of that, the chain section not as troublesome as I’d feared. With a reasonable level of fitness, common sense, a good pair of boots, plenty of water and not rushing, there needn’t be problems tackling the climb.
After getting back down we headed out to a lookout point to see the changing colours of Uluru as the sun set. A few minutes would cast the rock into a totally different shade. The rust orange gave way to glowing reds, pinks and purples that completely changed the mood of the rock. I couldn’t get enough; I left wanting more time to gawp. 'The rock never disappoints,' it said in my guidebook. Damn right.
The next morning we headed out to Kata Tjuta, a set of 36 massive domed rock formations. We set off in the pitch black and arrived at a viewing station to watch the sun rise. Anangu for ‘many heads’, many travellers had told me that they had actually preferred the beauty of Kata Tjuta to that of it’s better known counterpart. We headed around and into the rocks themselves and walked through the valleys in the chill morning air, the character of the rock faces changed at different angles including a spooky similarity to the head of Homer Simpson on the drive in.
We then made our way to Watarrka National Park, another 500 kilometres away. The park is home to King’s Canyon, a great spot for hiking in more red centre wonderment. The trail was more moderate then the previous day’s exertions and so I could savour the colours and the details of the canyon faces a bit more as Mark led me up, around and down the canyon past water holes and feature filled crevices.
Since I elected to take a tour that just provided transport I'd needed to sort out my own accommodation and food. Unfortunately the Ayres Rock Resort and Kings Canyon Resort had the monopolies in the area. I’d heard the rumours beforehand; their attitude was that most people would only be visiting once so why provide a good service? I just paid for a bed in the dormitories which were extortionately priced. On the ride back to Alice Springs I spoke to some people that we’d picked up who had gone for the whole package which had included paying $160 for a twilight champagne dinner overseeing the rock. They told us it had consisted of a poor barbecue with cheap sparkling wine. I’d spent $3.50 on a microwave lasagne. The crass commercialisation of the resorts almost ruins the whole spectacle of the area.

Getting back to Alice Springs felt a little strange after seeing what I had. Walking back to the hostel in the evening, I noticed how all the houses had fences around them and most had burglar alarms that went off as I passed - the four legged and barking kind. I wondered what it was that led to this paranoia in such a small quiet town. Maybe it's those damn hoodlums that come over and cause trouble from the next town, 1500 kilometres away.
Overseen by the MacDonell mountain ranges, I found Alice Springs to be a pleasant town despite the harshness of the surrounding environment, it’s isolation from the rest of the world and the stark racial divides. Nowhere more were the segregation issues more evident with whites going about their business ignoring the groups of Aborigines that congregated at the town’s edges. Drunken Aboriginal people waste their days sitting in the dried up Todd riverbed or hang around in the Todd Street mall. Very little interaction between the two groups was in evidence, each seemingly unaware of the other actually being there.
I’d got to know Mark pretty well over the few days during the trip out to the two national parks which gave me the chance to pick at his knowledge. He’d told me Dreaming stories of significance about features on Uluru, Kata Tjuta and King’s Canyon and given me some further insights into Aboriginal culture.
“They can be very tough,” he began with one example. “Say you’d beaten up someone from my family quite badly. To get some justice a punishment might be decided upon, say a spearing through your leg. If you accepted it then justice would be seen to be done and the issue finished with. If you hadn’t opted to accept it, you would have been cast out of your family and tribe, bringing disgrace to you and your family. However, my family would still need to see some kind of justice done, someone else from your family would take the punishment on you and your family’s behalf. That person would have had great honour put on them and they would have been well looked after. A lot of the Aborigines in the towns and cities now are people that have been cast out or are descendants from those.”
I was interested on his opinion on how the two cultures could be integrated. “It’s obvious that there are real problems with segregation, what do you think can be done?” I said.
He thought for a moment. “The problem is that those guys coming into the cities can claim all sorts of benefits. Anybody with any Aborigine blood can make a claim and the government has put in place probably the most generous welfare system in the world. But as you’ve probably seen yourself, the streets are full of Aboriginal people that spend the money on getting drunk or on drugs and this angers a lot of people. The government have gone too far in helping them.” I detected an edge of bitterness to his voice as he talked.
After the wilds of other outback towns Alice Springs had a comfortable feel to it. I whiled away a couple of days hiking some of the desert trails outside of town, visited the Historical Telegraph station and climbed Anzac Hill with it’s better then expected view of the town with the MacDonell ranges in the background.

* * *

The problem with Australian television is that there are commercial breaks every five minutes. My main problem with this was not the fragmentation of the programme or film being watched (although it must be said that the quality of programming is generally quite poor – Neighbours had won best drama at a recent awards show). Nor was it the intrusion by advertisers and marketers with their commercialisation that bothered me. But having been subjected to Scooby-Doo and Cody Banks during the latest coach trip I was happy to find that the evening viewing in the hostel TV room was the movie X-Men. However, what was bothering me was that the ad breaks gave the opportunity for my viewing buddies to start another conversation. Ordinarily this would be fine, but I was joined by a young British girl called Rose who had the twin character flaws of being at the stage of youth where she thought she knew everything, and being born into minor aristocracy so that she thought she knew everything. On the opposite couch was a stereotypical Aussie bloke who helped to run the hostel. He'd done well to get so drunk in the time since he’d picked the two of us up from the coach terminal, though I have my doubts that he spent much time sober. I had my suspicions that the Bundaberg rum he returned to after checking us in was not his first for the day. He was attacking it by the half-pint as if it was water. The mind numbing conversations that the two of them got into run well into the resumption of the film. When they began on the fox hunting ban in Britain with Rose coming out with all the cliché pro-group arguments and Bundy man lapping it up and agreeing like a loyal dog, I was about ready to throw myself out of a window. The problem though is that the hostel was in a dug out, a dwelling dug into the side of a hill in the town of Coober Pedy. As such there were no windows and no elevation from which to throw myself, being as we were, six metres underground.
The town is the world’s largest opal producer - 80% of the world's supply is mined there. Approaching on the coach from the north I saw thousands of tent-like piles of dirt, dumped onto the landscape from the 1.5million mines. The town is one of the wildest in the western world, until ten years ago no families lived there and tourism was out of the question. The regular rioting and fighting would not make for a good picture-postcard scene. You could happily wonder into the local supermarket and buy a few sticks of dynamite for your daily mining needs. The police rarely got involved in matters, the town’s populace sorting out their own problems. If someone was caught stealing for example, they may have returned home to find a smouldering wreck where their car had been. And a relaxing walk in the desert was out of the question; those 1.5 million mines are left largely uncovered.
‘Coober’ meaning ‘white man’, and ‘Pedy’ meaning ‘hole in the ground’, was the Aboriginal people’s observations of the first settlers. Many of the buildings were dug into the ground to escape the extreme conditions with temperatures of up to 50 degrees Celsius in summer but down into the minus figures during the winter nights. But the main driving force for living womble-like were some of the early miners that arrived who were First World War veterans. With limited timber supplies they used their skills from digging trenches to dig the first dwellings. Even the town’s two churches are dug outs.
I was walking through the supermarket to see if I could pick up some dynamite when a dishevelled looking woman came up to me. Her clothes were no more then rags, her jet-black hair knotted and wild and it looked like she hadn’t seen the inside of a shower or a bath in a long while.
"Where can I get grease?" she asked, as if I knew because I was the only male visible. "It's grease for a car," she quickly added. And there was me thinking that she was going to eat it.
"I'm not sure, lets have a look," I replied and tried to be helpful in looking along the aisles for it. After it was obvious there was no grease or dynamite I gave up as she wandered off, clearly thinking me a poor excuse for a man. When I was paying for my other groceries she re-appeared at the check out behind me.
"I never found any grease," she stated hungrily.
"Oh dear. Why don't you ask the lady at the till?" I suggested. She looked at me as if it was the stupidest idea in the history of mankind and walked off.
I spent my couple of days browsing the many opal stores and other underground buildings and took one of the obligatory mine tours. Rules have come in to formalise proceedings such as mining no longer being allowed in the town itself, though many of the locals get around this by regularly extend their underground homes - one such dwelling has scores of ‘bedrooms’. It’s still easy to set up as a minor, just over $10 and filling in an application gets you a license and some time on a stake of land and the means to get digging are never far away in Coober Pedy. The town could be held up as a success on cultural diversity, attracting people from all over the world trying their luck at mining. Up to 50 or so nationalities could be represented at a given time.
These days, the town has become tamer, opening up to tourists with not just mine tours but an assortment of activities. The desert around town has played host to movies such as Mad Max 3 and Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and there are various guided tours into the outback that include the chance to noodle for opals. The place’s isolation is ideal for stargazing and there are ‘sky tours’ available. One of the more popular options is Crocodile Harry’s Crocodile Nest, an underground museum dedicated to a local legend who was the model for the character of Paul Hogan’s Crocodile Dundee. Had I more time or even any skill at the game, I might have been tempted with a round at the golf course. With dry, desolate desert ground, the golf fanatics get their fix by hiring a square section of Astroturf. Players carry it around and set it down when it’s time to take a shot.

The coach leaving Coober Pedy was so full of strange characters that I half expected it to pull up at the lunatic asylum. I'd got talking to two young German girls while we were waiting for it to arrive and we continually exchanged exacerbated glances over to each other at our bus mates. Near the front was an eccentric Italian with the hair of a poodle and a head disproportionately large for his body. He would wonder up and down the aisle waving his head around for no reason, his giant head getting in the way of the film being screened. Just behind him was an elderly woman of what I guess was Greek origin. She found a book that had been left on her allocated seat and made a huge fuss of whether she was actually allowed to sit down. Once that one got sorted out - it being decided that the book was not a paying customer - she would then defend her space with venom when anybody came near, including the poor woman who was to sit next to her and try and get her book back. Behind me was a Chinese man who I guessed was from Macau - every time we stopped he left the coach to empty the fluid content of his sinuses by the roadside. Across from me was an enormous guy who really should have been charged for two tickets. It looked like he'd ordered the works as he manoeuvred several aluminium cartons of Chinese takeaway on his lap and the neighbouring seat. As he got stuck into his beef chow-mien a woman who was walking past the bus paused at the door. She was swaying in the breezeless night air and staggered on as if on a whim while the driver was busy putting bags on board. She headed straight for the back, leaving a slight smell of alcohol in her wake and collapsed into an instant slumber on the back seats. The driver came aboard and did a head count.
"25, 26…27?" he counted out loud. He looked confused as if that was too many. He shrugged his shoulders and got us underway anyway. As we did so a group of Aussie gits toward the back started gobbing off, trying to impress a couple of unimpressed girls. There was also the obligatory woman with screaming child that I think are Greyhound employees due to every bus containing them. The choice of Total Recall for the movie probably didn't help, the kid screaming and crying every time Arnold Schwarzenegger despatched a baddie in a grizzly, bloody way. It was a long 11-hour drive through the night. I'm not sure if the motley crew on the bus said something about Coober Pedy or that my emergence from the outback would be with a bump.

Forgotten How To Laugh

2009-05-04T13:22:00.002-07:00

I arrived in Adelaide just before the dawn did. A recharging cappuccino at the bus station gave me just enough energy for the walk with my backpack to the hostel Annie’s Place that had a famous namesake in Alice Springs under the same management with a reputation as one of the best hostels going. I was looking forward to getting there and catching up on some sleep.
The Irish girl on the morning shift on reception surfaced – eventually – to check me in and I collapsed into bed just in time for my new dormitory mates to start getting on with their day. Their fumbling and rummaging disturbed my attempts at slumber to the extent that I decided my first few hours in Adelaide would be better served washing the outback dust from my clothes and going out to get acquainted with the first conventional town I’d been in for a while.
Adelaide must be the dullest city in the world. It’s a struggle to find the words to describe it or think of anywhere to compare it. As the first completely planned Australian city I’d thought a better job could have been made of it. A grid system one mile square forms the centre with all the usual chain stores and a Starbucks or McDonalds on every other corner. The Chinatown and central market was as interesting as it got. Further out, green leafy parklands spanned the suburbs. The happy-go-lucky Aussie attitude seemed to be distinctly lacking; the smiles and good natured atmosphere were replaced by a more British-like pessimistic attitude toward life.
A tram ran from the city centre to the suburb of Glenig, a mildly interesting seaside area at best when in the midst of winter. The beach itself was uninviting and the couple of thousand dollars it was to do an out of season dive with Great White Sharks in the South Australian waters would have been more daredevil with the budget then that of the body and mind.
It got to the point where I decided to fill the day by going to museums. However, the immigration museum actually turned out to be really good. It was brutally honest, hiding nothing about the early shameful treatment of Aborigines or that of suspected communists, Germans during the Second World War or nationalities that Australia just didn't want to be allowed in. For example, a Japanese applicant might have been given a language test to be allowed to enter. Fair enough you'd think, but the test would be in Swedish to ensure failure.
The most moving part of the whole experience for me though was some artwork by Aborigines. This included a painting with two Aborigines walking in a desert scene, casting white shadows. An Aboriginal child was depicted writing decreasing fractions on a blackboard with a picture of the now extinct Tasmanian Tiger. And a picture of the planet made up of the dry hard outback desert being encroached by white colouring stuck in the memory. Powerful stuff.
After passing through the exhibits, a comment board with visitor’s notes showed the strong feelings from both sides over Australia's complex historical immigration history. Many notes commended the museum’s sobering unabashed depictions whilst others voiced disgust and pointed to a lack of patriotism.
I also visited Adelaide Goal that had been holding prisoners up until the eighties. Some of the corpses of the 45 people that were executed remain buried in the grounds making the place slightly creepy. Tales of a haunted cellblock were amongst the stories on the audio tour about life in the goal. I must admit that the single cells didn't look too bad, I'd certainly stayed in worse places and at least the prisoners didn't have to put up with the snoring of a German or a Dutch couple having sex in the same room.
More experienced travellers that I’d met had talked about being on the road for four months and beginning to tire of the lifestyle. I was finding that to be true. I was aching to have my own room again or not having to write my name on my food before trying to stuff it into an over-crowded hostel fridge. Having the same initial conversation when meeting new people all the time was becoming tiresome. It was hard to put in any effort knowing that people met would probably only be in my life for a day or two.
I discovered that Tera was coincidentally in Adelaide at the same time as me and it was good to meet up with her. She was suffering too, and was even contemplating going back home to Canada early. We spent an evening in a quiet bar having a much-needed moan to each other. I blamed Adelaide. It was a Saturday night and we explored a few streets, any sense of jovial atmosphere was lacking as the rain came down to underline our moods. The bars were deserted, the people of Adelaide seemingly to be either small in number or with more important things to do then go out on the town and enjoy themselves.
After so much missed sleep travelling on the overnight buses perhaps my mood was down to tiredness. I could at least take comfort in a bed of much greater snugness then a bus seat with an ensuite bathroom and a free, if simple breakfast at Annie’s Place for a couple of days until I’d caught up with some sleep. That was until the broken fire alarm that repeatedly kept going off through all hours of the night. I put it down to fate’s way of telling me to get out of Adelaide.
And so I flew to Hobart as soon as I could. As the plane passed over Tasmania I could see from the window that it was a complete departure from the mainland with beautiful rolling hills, lush forests and unending greenery.
Tasmania had somewhat of a negative reputation with the people on the mainland that I’d met, those that I talked to about the state describing Tasmanians as ‘backward’ with surprise that I wanted to go there. True, the island wasn’t near the top of the places that I wanted to see before I went to Australia, but I had a good reason to make a stop.
Andrei, a former work colleague back in the UK picked me up from the airport. It was good to see an old friend – one that I thought I wouldn’t see again when he left the UK to return to his native Australia. As he was originally a Sydneysider, I had to wait a little longer to meet a Tasmanian. It didn’t take long for me to realise what the mainlanders were talking about as we made a stop at the Narrara Backpackers Hostel for me to check in and drop off my bags. I’m not sure if the way of talking that the manager had was due to shyness or bluntness.
"Are there Internet facilities here?" I asked.
"Nope." He replied. I expected him to expand on where I might go so let the silence hang for a moment. He just smiled and looked at me.
“So… is there a library or Internet café nearby where I might be able to get on-line?”
“Yep.”
Again silence. It was going to take some coaxing to get the desired info out of him. “So…can you tell me where?”
Hobart itself was a beautiful city, sitting at the mouth of the Derwant River and shielded from the harsher weather by the impressive Mount Wellington that looms over the town. The state capital of Tasmania and Australia’s second oldest city, it had certainly come a long way since its beginnings as a penal colony.
Andrei took me back to his house and It was really good spend time in the company of his family as we talked about old times over a few beers and a barbecue while listening to his 60s/70s Aussie rock collection. I must still be getting used to Australian beer as he whipped me at the game of table tennis we had on the table he had in his shed. It was one of the nicest days I'd had in a while and reminded me of all the homely comforts I was missing by being on the road. It almost made me want to get back to a normal life.
Almost.
I staggered back into the hostel, pausing for a brief chat with one of the other guests who was sitting on the porch. He had long dark hair, the clothes of a hippy and I put his one word answers down to him appearing more out of it then I was, not because he was from Hobart.
But despite the slight eccentricities, I was finding the local people charming and among the friendliest Aussies I've met. When I awoke in the morning, the hangover not as bad as I’d been expecting, I got talking to Peter who was my only dorm mate. A taxi driver from out of town, he used the hostel as a base while working the state capital and he proudly talked me through what the island had to offer. I headed out for my first look around Hobart in full tourist mode.
Salamanca Place and Battery Point at the harbour was the central hub for the visitor, with rows of Georgian buildings with classy restaurants, café’s and shops. The area also plays host to the Saturday market, an affair that the locals take great pride in, but an inferior rival compared to the experience of the Mindel Beach Sunset market in Darwin. I stopped at a tourist office near the waterfront to investigate some of the things to do as had been laid out by Andrei and Peter.
"Do you do tours to Port Arthur?" I asked the elderly bolding grey-haired gentleman behind the counter.
"Yes." Came the reply. I expected him to expand on this so let the silence hang for a moment. He just looked at me and smiled.
“OK… how much are they?”
He just handed me a leaflet without a word.
“Riiiight. Thanks. Um, what about Russell Falls, do you do tours out there?”
“Yep.”
More silence. I gave him my best quizzical look. After a moment he handed me another leaflet.

* * *

I spent a very pleasant day climbing the 1270 metres of Mount Wellington, though was disappointed to find out that toward the north, Mount Ossa at 1617 metres beats it for height.
"Why would you want to climb Mount Wellington?" asked Andrei's son Matthew when I met up with them later.
"Um…because it's there," was the only reply I could think of.
"Haven’t you ever heard of the phrase 'mad dogs and Englishmen'?" said Andrei.
I almost didn't make it. Halfway up it started to snow and there was already a layer of the stuff making the path slippery. I'd slipped a couple of times as the friction of my boots let me down. Maybe it was nature’s way of stopping me singing She'll be coming round the mountain.
"If you don't like the weather in Tas, wait five minutes." I remember Andrei telling me. I did, the snow stopped, and I made it to the freezing, windy top for a spectacular view of the town.
Next day, I took a tour to Port Arthur, over the narrow Eaglehawk Neck connection to the Tasmanian Peninsula where a statue stands in testament to the site where once guard dogs kept would-be escapees from getting away. Port Arthur was where the badest of the bad criminals were sent, though some of the initial sentences seemed harsh; deportation to Australia for 'being drunken' or 'being idle'. I pondered on the relative populations that Britain and Australia would have now if these policies were still in force. I saw and heard about the punishments the convicts would get such as up to 100 lashings that 'felt like being hit with barbed wire' or the solitary confinement cells that would turn some men to lunacy. ‘I have quite forgotten how to laugh…’ was the quote from one William Smith O’Brien from 1850, an Irish Protestant who was sent to Van Diemen’s land for his part as a leader after a failed uprising. A ferry cruise took us past the Isle of the Dead, where 1100 convicts and guards are buried in a lump of land that looked smaller then a football pitch. Looking south of the bay, the next landmass would be that of Antarctica.
There was a memorial garden on the site to remember the 35 people that were shot dead by a crazed gunman on 28th April 1996. It was still a sensitive incident with notices asking visitors not to ask the staff about it. The area first appeared like a sleepy, pretty little village rather then a former prison. In such a beautiful part of the world with its forested hills and bays, it's hard to imagine the horrors of the history of the area.
I filled out my week visiting the city’s Cadbury chocolate factory and the beautiful botanical gardens as well as helping to drink more of Andrei’s beer. I was also given a tour of the city by Peter. He was exceedingly friendly and had been generous with his time, offering to show me around the suburbs and helped me to plan my trip around the island. However, at one stage the talk turned to immigration and the stereotypical Australian bloke came out.
“I'm not racist but...” and, “Why should I have to put up with the 99% of the bad people that come over, just for the 1% that do any good”. I did my best to take his points on board without agreeing with him, but it seems odd how people like this never think themselves racist and use completely made up statistics to back their weak arguments. I stopped pushing it after mentioning the Aborigines after which he really couldn’t stop himself. ‘Well, they were here first,’ I just about managed to stop myself from saying. Maybe I should have. I came to the country with an open mind, but I was disappointed to have heard this stuff said regularly. Strange how the Australian woman that I'd met seemed perfectly nice - it's a wonder how some of the Australian blokes manage to pull any of them.
I was looking forward to getting out of the Nararra Backpackers and Hobart. Along with Peter, the hostel was full of locals, down on their luck with nowhere else to stay, working simple jobs or just wasting away. It was a little unnerving being one of the few travellers there, though most either kept their distance or were friendly enough. Nick, the guy I’d met on the porch on the first night had actually been at one of his most astute moments, his days were spent drinking beer or smoking dope. It was fairly obvious that it was he who was responsible for the food that was going missing from the hostel fridge.
The main issue I faced was that with so few of them around at the time of year, the state shuts down for tourists. It's not easy or cheap to get around at the best of times, and I'd scanned through brochures and leaflets seeing things that sounded fun, only to spot 'does not run in August' in the small print. With my options limited I decided to hire a car.
It was fun driving again and really the best way to see the place, though was not without it’s challenges. On the first day’s driving I had snow, rain and high winds thrown at me in succession and came almighty close to running out of petrol on the deserted country roads. The roads twisted through the countryside to the extent that the speed limit signs are more of a personal challenge then the law. But the scenery was stunning. I visited Russell and Horseshoe falls, Hastings caves and I also visited the Tahurne forest air walk, walkways built up to 50 metres high in the forest canopy giving spectacular views of the eucalypt forest and the Huon and Picton rivers. It felt a shame that I only had the little Mazda for a week as I could have spent days exploring trails in the forest that I only took a few hours in.
I stayed in a small sized town called Geeveston at the edge of the southwest island wilds. Bob’s Bunkhouse, the charming small hostel that was my home for the night had just started up and the two gay men running it were struggling with the locals prejudices toward them, attitudes that could be considered 50 years out of date elsewhere in the world. The place was charming enough, gloriously warm and comfortable rooms with a fully equipped kitchen and cosy fire in the common area. The only other guest in the hostel was Martin, a middle aged man from New Zealand who seemed to have life sussed. He talked about how close he was to his kids after divorcing their mother and how he managed to work just enough so that he can travel and get his golf handicap down to six. I had no idea if that was any good, but he seemed pretty pleased.
We talked about the travelling lifestyle and the frustrating differences between travellers and tourists.
“What is it with those people - especially the Japanese and Koreans – who take rolls and rolls of pictures. They don’t actually stop and look at where they are and what they’re looking at, they just take their pictures and turn around,” he complained.
“Yeah. And why can’t people go somewhere without access to refreshments?” I said taking my turn. “You might just be making an hours journey on a ferry or train, and yet people still can’t go without paying stupid money for a cup of tea.”
“And why do people rush to use the toilets just before the plane lands? You know in a few minutes there’ll be access to a lot more comfortable facilities when you arrive.”
“Speaking of planes, why do people feel the need to rush to the front when boarding is called? The seats are allocated!”
We also agreed to the benefits of travelling alone, with no one else to get tired, hungry or bored before you do. And we both agreed that the number one crime inflicted upon the travelling humanity is the snorer. We chatted into the night and agreed that one of us should write a book on this stuff.

Somewhere Between

2009-05-04T13:22:00.001-07:00

The little white Mazda had the acceleration of a fat American running up a hill and drank petrol like a melancholic Irishman drinks whisky. Despite this, I was getting quite attached to it until I made my petrol stop following my night spent at the tourist town of Strahan on the west coast of Tasmania. A guy came out to pump the gas with a smirk on his face and when I followed him in to pay, a woman appeared who seemed equally amused. "I was just saying to my husband, you should go out and serve this lady that's pulling up," she said, "We had to laugh when you got out."
I looked from them to the Mazda and must admit, it did look like a girl’s car. "I must admit, it does look like a girl’s car," I said, quickly adding defensively, "But it's not mine - it's a hire car and this is all they could offer me. Maybe I should go and get it painted red." "Yeah, at least then it might go faster," she said. I left them smirking away. I wish I'd said blue. I'd covered the central and western regions of the island, taking in Lake St. Claire along the way. It looked an easy drive from the south west up to Strahan but the roads wound up and down valleys through the mountains, through territory that apart from the roads was largely untouched by man. The miles I covered as the crow flies were puny compared to the hours it was taking me to do so. There were signs warning road users not to drive after dark because of the dangers of wildlife stepping in front of the oncoming traffic.
As the sun got lower in the sky, I eventually rounded one corner in the hills that overlooked a valley. The landscape had suddenly changed dramatically, the hills that had been thick with forest was now bare. In the valley below was the town of Queenstown, built on first gold and then subsequently copper mining, the trees had long since been used to feed the smelter and the land polluted by sulphur from processing. The road wound down toward the town which seemed deserted, the population in steady decline as the last few mines completed their life’s work.
I pulled into Strahan after dark, tired from the full day’s drive. The Strahan YHA at least wasn’t busy enough for me to have a dorm mate in the tiny two bed room, though the school group that were staying on the premises made enough noise for the whole town. First a small fishing village, Strahan is the only place of substantial size on the entire west coast and has become somewhat of a Mecca for ecotourists. In the early morning I took a quick drive along the quiet waterfront and around the various holiday cabin parks before setting out for Dove Lake and Cradle Mountain.
When I got there, there was a foot of snow and threatening clouds that obscured the view of the mountain. I decided to give the hiking a rest - not because I was being a wimp and didn't want to go out in the cold - but because my 24 hour national parks pass had run out. So I stayed with the car, ready to make a quick get away should a ranger show up. As I took one of my walks around the car a 4x4 pulled up and out stepped a man in his late 30s. He was either wearing everything he owned, or else he was very heavily built. I guess the truth was somewhere between the two. I was wondering if I was wasting my time and wondered if I could claim to have seen some of the mountain, all be it just a small section of it.
"Hey mate," I called to him, "Is that the base of Cradle Mountain?" I enquired, pointing to the bottom of one of the mountains at the other side of the lake.
"Na, it's further back, behind and to the side of the one you're looking at," he replied.
"What do you reckon are the chances of actually seeing it?"
"Well, the mountain's obscured by cloud for 300 days of the year. You need to be pretty lucky." My disappointment grew. "But I was here just last week," he continued, "You think the snow's bad now, we had heaps a few weeks ago, up to your hips it was. I come down here during my lunch break as much as I can, last week it was just like this then all of a sudden the clouds lifted and I was treated to a magnificent view." He handed me his digital camera and I scrolled through the pictures of the snow-covered mountain under blue skies. I looked up, there was a small glint of blue to the south in the sea of grey.
"Hey there's some blue sky over there I said. We might get lucky again," I said hopefully.
"Well you never know," he replied without much conviction. The blue in the heavens slowly began eating away at the grey while he quizzed me about my travels but time was getting on.
"Well must get back to work," he said. "Good luck," he said nodding toward the mountain. He got back into the 4x4 and drove off.
Half an hour later and my patience paid off when the mist cleared enough to present the mountain. It was well worth the waiting and the cold I had endured.
I drove on for that nights planned stay in Stanley on the north west coast, home to The Nut, the rocky remains of an ancient volcano separated by a fine spit from the mainland. In the YHA hostel there was only one other guest but he could also have been called The Nut. He was shaven headed with a goatee beard, looked to be in his mid-forties with a tattoo of a spider on his neck and another of flames on his wrists all of which complemented the ring he had through his nose. He was wearing a grey T-shirt and black leggings, over which he had a grey skirt which at least took the attention away from his bare hobbit-like feet. There was a scar on the top of his head, either from the last punch-up he'd had or else from the operation where he'd had a portion of brain removed. He was sitting watching TV with the sound turned off. After we exchanged hellos, I asked if I could put the sound on. "I'd rather not, it annoys me," he said in his Aussie tinged but unmistakably Scottish accent. "So you just like looking at the picture?" I said. "No, I hate TV. It changes people moods." I left him to it to sort out my kit while I tried to figure out if I'd missed something. I had just enough of the day left to take the 152 metre climb up and around The Nut and have a look around the pleasant little town.
Later, despite my growing fears, I started chatting with The Nut back at the hostel after he asked to borrow some of my newly purchased coffee. I'd just gone shopping and decided that it was silly for someone with such a caffeine addiction as me to be relying on there being free hostel tea and coffee wherever I stayed. It had only taken four months to conclude this. After helping himself to a second mugs worth, The Nut confessed that he was there as he was on the run but he wouldn't tell me from whom or why. He did tell me that he couldn’t go back to the mainland because the police were also after him and he’d had his passport confiscated. He admitted to being violent in the past, especially when he’d been drinking though he'd given that up. I was glad Stanley only had the one pub.
Just when I thought he couldn’t get much weirder, he did. “I keep seeing people with glasses,” he said. "Everywhere I go, there they are, people wearing glasses, looking at me through them."
“What’s wrong with people with glasses?” I asked.
“I dunno, something’s going on though, there’s definitely more people wearing them.” As conspiracy theories went, it seemed pretty lame to me. He nearly jumped out of his seat a few moments later when a guy on TV appeared with spectacles. After he calmed down he then spotted a man walking past out of the window with glasses and stood centurion-like looking out until he disappeared from view. “The bloke that was here last night wore glasses too,” he said, “He kept looking at me through them… I think he left this morning.” I couldn’t think why.
After a while I realised we hadn't formally introduced ourselves.
“By the way, my name’s David,” I said leaning over to shake his hand. I was expecting him to have a name that could be turned into a serial killer nickname like Buffalo Bill or Jack the Ripper.
“I’m Kevin.” I realised then that I was probably safe but even so, I left the coffee in the kitchen when I'd gone to bed, hoping that the gesture would keep him from murdering me during the night. I was glad I was put into my own dormitory and that the doors had locks. I left him in the common room with the mute TV.
When I got up in the morning, Kevin was still in the same position with the TV doing its stuff silently. Though I was a lot lighter on coffee, I was glad to be leaving.
It seemed funny that I could have built a snowman by Cradle Mountain, yet a day and three hours driving later, the sky was blue and the day pleasantly warm as I made my way across the North of the island, through small coastal fishing and port towns to Launceston. The Launceston Backpackers hostel was a grand old restored house with a cavernous kitchen and common areas that seemed a little out of scale for the few guests. I did get talking to an odd travelling couple - a well spoken, carefree English man who was with a very serious younger German lad. Launceston is Tasmania’s second largest city, but the town was easily explored by foot and the three of us took off to walk along Cataract Gorge, a spectacular valley with sheer cliff faces carved out by the South Esk River. The well-spoken man and myself were in our element tackling the hiking trails whilst the serious German moaned all the way at the slight physical effort involved.
The two of them epitomised the two sets of characters that I’d come across in the travelling community. The well-spoken man told me that he had a perfectly good job with good money but had reached a point where contentment was turning to boredom. Much like myself, he’d put his career on hold and taken the decision to see some of the world while he was still young enough. The serious German was on his way to university later on in the year and was in the group of pre or post students that were on the road looking for new places to drink beer. With no responsibilities and the opportunities of cheaper then ever travel that generations before lacked, they largely seemed there just because they could be.

I’d been getting to see a lot of the Tasmanian wildlife whilst driving around but unfortunately, most of it was splattered across the road surfaces. I'd seen Wombats, Possums, Wallabies and all sorts of other things that I couldn't identify that had got the bad news from the traffic. It was also interesting to get the chance to sample some Australian radio, from which I learnt that the majority of Australians would prefer to have a tail to a beak. With my last two days with the Mazda, I drove down the east coast, the tamer side of the island. These things are all relative though, when going for a bushwalk in Freycinet National Park there were signs reading 'Do not bring in pets or firearms to the park.' Did that mean that there were Tasmanians wandering around carrying guns for the rest of the time? Are there as many people with guns as pets? I just hoped that Kevin back in Stanley hadn't got hold of one.
I took the walk that afforded me the view of Wineglass Bay, one of Tasmania's most famous picturesque spots. Very nice it was too, though the complete five-hour hike over 11 kilometres was pretty tiring. I'd based myself at Bicheno an adorable little town by the sea and home to The Blowhole, a part of the rocky shoreline on the beachfront where the rock formation causes the launch of a powerful spout of water several meters into the air whenever any substantial waves turn up. It was also a great place to spot Penguins at night according to the manager of the adorable Bicheno Backpackers and so I headed back after dark armed with my mag-light. The noises they were making could have come from aliens in a sci-fi movie. I could hear them but couldn't see any of them at first. Then as I ventured closer to the sea front, the torchlight caught some movement. There were two of them, little fellas, no more then a foot tall waddling toward the shelter provided by the bush. They were having trouble negotiating the cracks in the rocky surface. One of them chanced it and jumped across. He made it but then stood there at the edge looking around to make sure his mate had seen his act of daring. The stupid sod then toppled into the gap.
Taking care not to shine the light into it's eyes, I peered down to see that it was wedged in between the rocks. Stupid Penguin. What now? Did my presence cause him to fall? I had to do something or else I might not sleep that night for the guilt. I didn't want to grab him as it might stress him to the point of him going to peck, bite or kick at me.
I went over to the bush to look for some something that I might use, though what I had no idea. And then my torch batteries died. In the pitch black I decided to abandon my ill-conceived rescue plan. I headed back to the hostel, the place deserted with the one other guest out for the evening. I made a point of returning to the beach next morning. The Penguin had vanished. I guess he'd made it out himself. That or some predator got a free breakfast. It was time to head back to Hobart, stopping at Andrei’s place for a cup of tea and to tell the tales of my adventures over the previous week before I returned the hire-car, pretty pleased it and I were back in one piece. The car rental guy gave it a quick glance and looked disappointed that it was OK. I think he was hankering after an insurance pay out for a new toy. Or maybe he had lost the office sweepstake over whether the Brit would kill himself on the winding roads of Tasmania.

The Surrealism Of It All

2009-05-04T13:21:00.003-07:00

I spent a couple of relaxing days back in Hobart, treating myself to a couple of replacement T-shirts, a much needed hair-cut, afternoon cappuccinos and late nights watching the England cricket team begin to reclaim the ashes. I was staying at the Adelphi Court YHA, one of the homeliest hostels I’d stayed at. It’s out of centre location meant it attracted an older crowd such as the man from Hong Kong who’d kept me awake with his earth trembling snoring. Hostel bunks were more often then not basic mattresses on rickety metal skeletons that would squeak with any kind of movement and the ones at the Adelphi were worse then most. However, no amount of kicking at the frame was enough to stifle the Hong Kong man’s snores.
Robert was a very polite Australian guy in his mid-30s, in Tasmania for work, we shared the viewing of the early evening cricket sessions together in the large expansive common room that looked as if it belonged in a manor house.
“So are you a big cricket fan?” he’d asked me when we first met.
“No not really, I’m not usually interested… I am now,” I said as my fellow countrymen had taken a lead in the series.
Suitably rested, I bid Andrei, his family and Tasmania farewell as I made my way back to the mainland of Australia. The journey to get from Hobart to Melbourne was an eventful one. I'd booked an airport transporter shuttle bus, but 15 minutes late and with my plane due to take off in less then an hour, I rang the air porter HQ to be told that the bus driver had forgotten to pick me up. Terrific. They sorted out a taxi for me and I got there with just 10 minutes to spare before boarding was completed after a heated discussion with the taxi driver about who was going to pay the fare. I abandoned him outside the terminal building in dramatic style with shouts of “I’ve got a plane to catch!” and promising that the guys at the shuttle bus HQ would reimburse him.
On the evening of the flight there was a nasty storm blowing through the area of Victoria and the Bass Strait.
"There are winds in excess of 80 kilometres per hour and so we may experience some turbulence," announced the captain. The 'some turbulence' was more then enough to cause shrieks of terror and lift us out of our seats at times.
The captain piped up again on the descent. "We may experience some more turbulence as we attempt to go in to land," he said. Wait a minute. Attempt? You attempt to do things that you haven’t done before. You don’t attempt to land a plane. You bloody well land it, or else you shouldn’t be flying it in the first place. I didn’t like the implied gamble that he was taking. On the approach to the runway, the plane rocked from side to side, seemingly at risk of a wing hitting the tarmac if we continued in the same fashion. It was almost as if the pilot was building up the courage to do a barrel roll. White-knuckled fists clung to the armrests and breath was held as we levelled out just in time to touch down. The relief was palpable in the air with the eruption of cheers and applause.

* * *
Of all the life in Australia, there is one that is more feared by backpackers then all the snakes, spiders, dingoes, sharks, jellyfish, cassowaries and crocodiles - the bed bug. I'd seen terrible cases, with people having had an estimated 200 bites in one night. And once they infect you they can get into your clothes and bags and lay their eggs and so it takes some effort to get rid of them. I’d noticed that they seemed to go for some people more then others and I'd noticed that women were generally more susceptible. I'd managed to stay clear of them so far but that was soon to change.
I was staying in St. Kilda, a suburb of Melbourne though officially in the city of Port Phillip to the south of the huge Albert Park, the home to the Australian Formula One Grand Prix. It's a grungy, down to earth place. The prostitutes and drug dealers are still around but it had cleared that side of itself up in recent years and was now known as a fun-loving precinct with dirt-cheap accommodation. Unfortunately, in Jackson’s Manor, the hostel I'd chosen for my initial stay an infestation of bed bugs took place. They must have got into the furniture of the common room as they quickly spread. Before I knew it, I was waking up with scores of bites down my back and joining the growing number of guests switching dorms and complaining. It was like a military campaign trying to get rid of them, with the steaming of mattresses and various chemicals being lain. The moody guy who was running the hostel had been too slow to act after the initial reports, probably in no small part due to the pay dispute he was having with the owners. It was a shame; I quite liked the hostel, the people and the area. One of the people staying there was Stanley, a middle aged mature student from Sri-Lanka. He talked more then an old woman on speed on national chit-chat day. He was a good-natured bloke though he tried to come across as a know it all and had the annoying habit of making you repeat everything you said. I introduced myself when I first met him in the hostel kitchen. “Hello, I’m David,” I said. "What?" he replied. I repeated myself, a little more loudly. "Oh, I'm Stanley," he replied, "Are you on holiday?" "I'm travelling around Australia, I've come to Melbourne to look for some work." "Huh?" "I said I'm travelling. I'm stopping in Melbourne to get a job." “How long have you been in Australia?”
“Oh, about four months or so,”
“Hmm?”
“Around four months!”
"Oh right. Where are you from?" "The UK." I answered. "What?" "UK!" And so it continued. My query into where he came from led to him talking non-stop, covering subjects including the suitability of George W. Bush as president, the political persuasion of the average European, the tram system of Melbourne, the benefits of eating chick-peas, the strengthening Indian and Chinese economies, the alcohol content of beer, the popularity of chocolate and the suicide rate of people that gamble, all before I managed to get another word in.
Melbourne and Sydney will always be compared to each other as the two biggest cities in Australia. Though not as aesthetically pleasing, Melbourne is billed as 'the most liveable city.' There are hundreds of hip, yet unpretentious cafes, traditional pubs and restaurants. There isn't the same glossiness of Sydney but any spare time available is well spent hanging out, taking in the buzzing yet laid back vibe. The place is as multi-cultural as you can get - the second largest Greek population outside of Athens lives in Melbourne. There are people from all over Asia, Europe, Africa and the Americas. I'm sure there are problems that you get in any sizeable city, yet there didn’t seem to be any major issues with crime or violence even in the supposedly slummy area of St. Kilda which was really good to know in such a culturally diverse place. If Melbourne is indeed the most liveable city with such diversity, then maybe the rest of the world should take some lessons.
I moved on from Jackson’s manor to the Greenhouse Backpacker in the centre of town and spent a morning washing the bed bugs out of everything that I owned. The place had got a mixture of reviews from the people that stayed there, its sheer scale making it hard to socialise. The industrial sized kitchen could get over-crowded and the dining area resembled a prison’s with rows of long tables. But it was spotlessly clean with the friendliest staff of any hostel and the free breakfast, occasional evening meal and the relaxing roof garden area made it a great place for me to base myself after my new hair-cut had helped me to score a job in the city.
I knew I was lucky. I was blessed to have knowledge in an area of demand which made things easy for me in a country crying out for skilled workers. I felt sorry for some of the people that had come half way around the world and needed to supplement their travel budget by handing out leaflets in the street, cleaning toilets or fruit picking. I’d heard about how hard the work in the fields was; backbreaking physical effort in the harsh heat of the Australian weather on a minimal wage. I was happy to be able to sample Australian working life in an office, the laid-back attitude meaning I had an easy time compared to similar jobs back in the UK. I was welcomed with open arms and there wasn’t the office politics that I’d been used to. Being around at the time of the Ashes and the Aussie rules football final added to the fun with an almost party atmosphere with theme days and sweepstakes for these sporting occasions. Though, I soon became ‘the pommy bastard’ as the cricket was won and I took the sweepstake for the football final. The Melbourne Cup was the pinnacle and was treated almost like a public holiday, many places of business closing for the day for a horse race that lasted less then five minutes.
With a break from moving from place to place, I welcomed the chance to live a life with a bit of routine to it. It was interesting to stay in the same place for a significant amount of time and getting the chance to spend time with the same groups of travellers who were also staying in Melbourne long term and making use of the ‘working’ bit in their holiday visas. There were people on the road from completely diverse backgrounds and yet living in a hostel was a great leveller. There can't be too many places where a group conversation can include people from every continent, political persuasion, social class, religious connotation or sexual orientation at once. It was almost the beginning of a cheap joke - 'There was an Irishman, Jewish man and a lesbian...'
I was learning that beyond the stereotypical 18-30 beer swilling party crowd there are certain skewed characteristics of the average backpacker. There was an almost universal contempt for George W. Bush and right wing politics in general and it makes sense that people of that persuasion would more likely to be the stay at home type, working off a mortgage and going to Ikea at weekends. Not that there's anything wrong with that, it's just unlikely many people in a hostel has that lifestyle as a major ambition. I’d met many would be writers, artists and musicians, many of whom had thrown away perfectly good jobs at home with a sense of not doing the right thing with their lives. The traveller community is indeed full of dreamers.
Ask many of the people what they miss from home and inevitably, friends and family comes top of the list. However, many people would say that they didn’t miss anything. I almost felt guilty by how little I missed home. Was that bad? Of course I would think about home and the people there, but I was too engrossed in seeing new places, meeting new people and learning new things about myself and the world. The idea of going back to the UK was more scary then the one of leaving to go away in the first place. And I knew it would all be over in a blink of an eye.
I did miss a few home comforts though. Decent Heinz products were impossible to get hold of. There are tins of stuff masquerading as baked beans but were in fact nothing more then tasteless fibre pellets. And don't think you're safe with soup, I made the mistake of thinking a bowl of tomato soup would make for a healthy tasty lunchtime treat. Pouring the contents into a saucepan I dismissed the initial observation that the viscous fluid seemed a little bit thick. When I dipped in my first square of bread, I needed both hands to pull it back out and I could have done with a chisel to use with my spoon. Undeterred, I managed to swallow some of the stuff, coating the insides of my mouth and gullet in the gunk that had the consistency of gloss paint that hung around for hours afterwards. I gave away the second can that I had bought, the recipient at first grateful for a free meal, pointing out the word ‘condensed’ on the label to me as if this was where I’d gone wrong. However, the addition of water made little difference to its palatability. Our relationship was never the same after her stomach cramps started and she lost her taste buds for the rest of the day.
And what the bloody hell is Vegimite all about. I felt duty bound to try some, heeding the advice to spread it thinly on the corner of toast I'd sacrificed due to the reputation of it’s powerful flavour. It was nearly as bad as I'd been led to believe, it was very much like Marmite that has been buried underground with some kippers and a hot radiator for 1000 years. It became known affectionately as 'convict Marmite' by the non-indigenous backpackers. It was hard to understand its popularity, the average Australian’s enthusiasm matching that for the Tim-Tam challenge. This is the idea of biting the corners off of these 'convict Penguins' to suck up tea through them. It takes some skill, I saw some people that got themselves into an awful sticky mess.

* * *

I made my way slowly, deliberately forward, up and over the ledge and knelt down. Looking to my right I could see faces, their features contorted into caricatures of themselves. I gave a slow wave that caused the smiles to widen to yet more grotesque proportions before their owners waved maniacally back. I took a look around me, at the multitude of life that was almost too much for my mind to comprehend all at once. It all seemed to be heading directly toward me, seemingly closer then it actually was as it passed. None of it mattered though, not until I glanced up and saw the huge dark shape passing overhead - the silhouette of a killer.
The eyes appeared lifeless and cold and yet seemed to be taking in all of the details within the small confines of the claustrophobic space. The jaws hung slightly agape giving it the look of hungry determination with rows of razor sharp teeth revealed. Its movement was seamless but deliberate and purposeful and it carried the threat of incomprehensible speed and power perfected by millions of years of evolution. As it passed overhead it gave me the little attention I deserved: I was in its domain.
James waved me over, pointing to his eyes with his fore and index fingers in a ‘V’ shape and then pointed forward into the abyss. I leaned forward and began to kick my legs, using my hands to hold my body off of the silt-covered surface as I moved along. Where were the others? They should not have gone so far ahead. I looked around; James had disappeared into the semi-darkness behind me. Nevermind, as the instructor the other two guys were his problem. I was doing my own thing.
I found a tooth in the silt and carefully picked it up. It was the size of half of my small finger and had the appearance of more a weapon then a tool as I held it up for the faces to see. Another shape appeared overhead amidst the chaos. It was flatter and less intimidating then the one before and as it passed I reached up with my gloved hand, allowing my fingers to brush gently over the soft membrane of the underbelly of the giant mantra ray. As it swam off in the direction I had come it was passed by James. He paused to look at me and shrugged his shoulders in question. I shrugged back in answer. He continued swimming on ahead in search of the two novice divers.
The presence of James combined with my own had caused a temporary lull in the activity in the immediate area. I began to swim back scanning in three dimensions for the creatures that I had come to see. And then at the edge of my peripheral vision I saw the shark, slowly skulking along the surface. It was massive, at least my body length and half again. I knew it was a Grey Nurse shark and had no interest in me so my apprehension was buried with this knowledge combined with the thought I was putting into what I was doing and the surrealism of it all. My eyes stung from the water that had got into my mask and the refraction of light made the experience seem as if I was watching everything in 3-D from another world. A second shark passed me by, a smaller Bull shark. I decided to continue back to the end of the tank that was one of the main features in Melbourne Aquarium and check in with James and the others.
James had his hands on the shoulders of one of the other divers. He was short and very skinny, almost too thin, and had been full of apprehension while we were getting kitted up. The other man, a large guy with a barrel belly was kneeling in the silt taking it all in very calmly. James looked up at me and banged the sides of his fists together. He wanted me close by. I found out later that Too Thin had lost the regulator out of his mouth and had freaked out and so James wanted everybody close together in case anything else happened to Too Thin. We swam back toward the exit/entrance point stopping about half way back. We formed a jagged zigzag shape with the relative positions of our bodies. With any luck the sharks would use the four of us as a slalom course.
The large Grey Nurse passed by on the right. I was furthest back and watched it flexing its jaws, chomping down on something invisible to my vision with awesome power. It began to turn and I pivoted on my spot, daring not to take my gaze away from it. The shark passed barely two feet away as I spun to the other side to watch it as it went behind my back. I caught a look at the faces, concern etched across their features from beyond the Plexiglas.
Facing back forward, I saw Too Thin had his arms wrapped around himself and had a slight juddering motion to his form. I had my own problems apart from the cold that was kicking in, the dry air I was breathing had awoken Terry, the cough that I'd had for so long it now had it's own name. I'd found out in a moment of terror during my last dive that it was possible to swear underwater. I wasn't so sure about getting away with a coughing fit. I tried in vain to keep Terry in check, stifling the spasm that the coughing gave me by trying to keep the shape of my mouth in control around the regulator as it cut into the insides of my mouth. The moment passed and I got control of my breathing again. I was becoming happier in the confidence that I was gaining underwater.
Before long James gave us a thumbs up. It was time to surface. I slowly inflated my Buoyancy Control Device, two quick taps of the air valve at a time and began my ascent. As I got to the surface, the other guys took their turns to get out. As I hovered around, a metre or so beneath the surface, I looked around to see a Bull Shark heading straight towards me. James had advised for us to move to one side when they swim straight at you like this. There was no obvious choice of which direction to take as the shark and I formed a straight line with our bodies, the direction to move in down to chance.
I moved left at the same time as the shark moved to it's right, leaving our courses to make an inevitable union. We had began the ridiculous dance like when a couple of pedestrians walking opposite ways start moving left and right in time together in a futile attempt to avoid each other. Wanting to spare the sharks' blushes, I continued left. It got the message and passed along the right side of my body. I'd drifted away from the exit point and it was all I could do to avoid kicking the shark in the face as I swam toward the exit point.

* * *

The signs that label the road as the B100 do little justice to the reputation of one of Australia's proudest tourism attractions and one of the world's great road trip experiences. Winding 175 kilometres along the Victorian coastline, past world renowned surfing beaches, temperate rainforest teaming with animal and plant life and iconic cliff tops, it was a shame with my time in Australia nearly up, I could only take a couple of days to appreciate the Great Ocean Road.
I opted to take a tour rather then hire a car and drive it myself. I'm glad I did. Bruce our guide was good fun, highly knowledgeable and gave us some unexpected bonuses like when we made a stop in the bush to spot koalas and feed feral parrots out of our hands. I was already thinking up jokes about pulling the birds or having a red head eating out of my hand when Bruce told us it was the males I had attracted, their red heads the give away for the King Parrot breed.
I was always a little concerned with what people I might end up sharing tours with but I was particularly pleased when Maria and Cecilia stepped aboard. Stereotypically Swedish with long blonde hair, blue eyes and stunning good looks I was already adding Sweden to the list of countries I wanted to visit as I got chatting to them.
Also on the trip was a man called Greg from Switzerland. He was a good few inches taller then me and so had a permanent slouch to his demeanour from having to crane his neck all of the time. He was also a rubbish timekeeper; we lost time after he was late back from lunch on the first day. We had wanted as much time as possible at the 12 Apostles, the stunning rock formations that rise out of the sea. The two of us had a mad dash to get our photographs in as we opted for an additional helicopter flight. The Apostles deservedly sit alongside Uluru and the three sisters as icons of Australia even though they are slowly disappearing. Just after arriving in Australia I was disappointed to learn that one of them had turned into a pile of rubble, the constant battering of the sea causing one of them to collapse. A greater irritation turned out to be the walkways and viewing platforms which are constantly thronged with tourists as the area is the biggest draw in Victoria. It takes a long time to move along the platforms whilst pausing to let the Japanese tourists take pictures of each other.
We found quieter spots to enjoy the amazing coastline, more secluded beaches and look-out points that showed off the beauty of the coastline that never seemed to end. One of the highlights was a lookout by London Bridge, an island of rock that was once reachable by a narrow rock bridge. Unfortunately, the coastal erosion had caused the bridge part to fall into the sea, but not without making an amusing story that was keenly re-told to us by Bruce.
Just before the bridge collapsed, a couple had walked out to the island and were trapped with no way back. The T.V. crews arrived before the rescuers to capture images of the trapped man and woman. The couple got an unwanted 15 minutes of fame when their pictures were beamed all over Australia and made it impossible for the two of them to cover up the affair that they had been having to their spouses.

We arrived at the Grampians just before twilight and passed the evening with a delicious barbecue laid on by the hostel hosts rounded off with cheap wine from the drive through bottle shop. By now I’d drunk enough Goon to last a lifetime. Suitably jolly we went off to spot some kangaroos that were known to be rife in the area and unafraid of people. I must have thought I was David Attenborough, managing to creep up to a group of them that were feeding while the Swedish girl's camera flashes worked double time behind me. The girls were making cooing noises at the small kangaroos I managed to hand feed. Or else they were cooing at me...
The next day spent hiking through the bush and hills of the Grampians was excellent, even if it took a big selling job by Bruce with his CD collection to get us up and onto the bus by day break. Getting back to nature was a welcome relief after the weeks I’d spent working in Melbourne. I was finding out that wasn’t really the city person that I thought I was.
We could only cover a small amount of what the mountain ranges had to offer in our short time in the Grampians but it's obvious that a lot of cash was being spent on the area to get the facilities up to a good standard. At McKenzie falls for instance there was a new state of the art toilet facility that sure beat pissing in a bucket of sawdust as elsewhere in the bush. But I wasn’t sure that the huge sign bragging about the toilet was quite needed, going into detail how it works and that $230,000 had been spent on them. They were obviously very proud. In comparison, it seemed a little odd that there was only a small knee high indicating the trail to get to the falls themselves.

The Order Of Things

2009-05-04T13:21:00.001-07:00

With the southern hemisphere summer underway I took an earlier flight to New Zealand then the one that I had scheduled. I'd heard so many good things about the country that I decided to extend my time there. Landing in Christchurch I jumped aboard the shuttlebus that would take me to my accommodation. I was soon joined by an elderly British foursome who spoke so poshly, I was wondering if I'd got onto the wrong vehicle by mistake. I counted their use of the word 'lovely' six times and 'wonderful' twice as they talked about the dinner parties they'd had with Quentin and the upcoming dinner party with Hector, and that was even before we'd left the car park. They used other big words which I couldn't later recall as I didn't really understand what they meant. I was stunned when we left them at the YMCA and they had only added another dozen 'lovely's.
I had chosen to stay at the Kiwi House hostel. The name turned out to be somewhat of a misnomer. It was run by a Japanese lady and as such about 80% of the guests staying there were Japanese. She must have her marketing strategy sorted out for back home. It wasn’t the worst hostel I'd stayed in and it was just about the cheapest, but it wasn’t the best for a lone Brit to socialise in or the most practical for anyone over six feet tall. It didn’t take long to get claustrophobic in the tiny six-person dormitory and I felt I should have taken a picture of any floor space should I have spotted some. It was harder to see then a duck-billed-platypus. My feet would dangle from the end of the bed at night and I was risking concussion if I was to stay longer then the few nights I had initially reserved.
I became fascinated by the obsession that the Japanese girl staying in the dormitory had with moisturising cream. She had huge bottles of the stuff and seemed to be travelling with very little other luggage. One of the many bottles she had must have been the only thing she would be able to cram into her tiny handbag as she went about her day. Maybe she was a sales person for the stuff. That or her daily ritual was an addiction and it belied her age, she looked like she was in her early 20s but maybe she was actually 82.
Christchurch was a beautiful, calm, tranquil place with a small town feel despite it being New Zealand's third largest city. It's billed as ‘the garden city’ and it's not hard to see why. The botanical gardens rival the city centre in size and the Avon River meanders between the two, overlooked by the start of the southern mountain ranges.
It really was lovely.
It was hard to imagine the problems that the city centre was to supposedly have with crime. The problem with Christchurch as far as I was concerned, was that the attractions were so spread out, a bus journey was required whenever you wanted to do something unlike the Australian towns where most stuff could have been walked to. I plumped for the Christchurch Gondola, a sky lift up into the hills that were formed from the first volcanic activity in the area. I was glad that I'd brought along some tuna sandwiches, hungrily devouring them on the journey up, though next time I wouldn’t be buying the cheap oily stuff with onion - carriage number ten would have smelt for hours afterwards.
The views of the city were nice enough, though paled into insignificance when compared to what I'd seen before. I must have been getting spoilt and after eight months travelling complacency could well have been setting in. There were some nice walks around the extinct volcano rim and a nice museum called the Time Tunnel that give the background history to the region in just about the right bite size measure. It was a pleasant day all round I thought on the way back down, though I did notice that carriage ten was strangely vacant despite the number of people milling around.
There are numerous options to get around the country, though none of them are cheap. One of the backpacker bus companies, Stray Travel, laid on a free city orientation in an effort to sell themselves to the backpacker community. I dragged along Caroline from Cambridge who had arrived at the Kiwi House and doubled the British population of the hostel. She had more then a passing resemblance to Tara Palmer-Tomkinson with her accent. She was suffering from the same jet-lag that I had experienced from the modest distance crossing over the Tasman Sea from Melbourne. The guide for the tour was named Grant whose friendly nature, sun-bleached skin and bulging muscles went to show how much he enjoyed the outdoorsy, adventure-activity lifestyle. I was convinced that part of his stocky build was down to him having some Maori blood. There was an element in his wide, staring level eyes that I’d seen in a Maori guy I’d met in Melbourne. Caroline and I soon got chatting to him as the tour got underway.
"It's so idyllic here," Caroline said, "I bet you get loads of people coming here."
"Actually no. The backpacker population is falling," Grant replied. "There's less backpackers coming through nowadays and the average age is going up. It used to be 20 year olds that had just finished Uni, but now the average is 24. Dorm beds are lying empty all around New Zealand, the demand now is for single and double rooms as the older crowd demand more comfort."
“I bet there’s loads of people that would want to come here to work though. Or it would make a great place to come to retire to, its such a quiet relaxing place,” said Caroline.
"The problem is that New Zealand only has a population of four million and that pushes up the cost of living. It's such an expensive place to live now, and yet the average wage is only 20,000 dollars a year. People just can't afford to live here. The travellers work in Australia and come to New Zealand for a holiday - much like you’re doing - there’s much more money to be made there compared to the cost of living. Look at the cost of houses now.” He gestured to the very pretty and yet unspectacular dwellings we were passing along the sea front. “These can be between 175 thousand dollars and half a million, just a few years ago there wouldn’t be any less then 100K. The government is trying to help by giving people their deposits. That’s been going on in Australia for years but it's too little too late. All our skilled workers go to Australia or the UK to make any kind of money."
"So there hasn't been any development in the last few years?" I asked.
"Oh yeah loads. The guys in construction or with any trades have done well, the worldwide house boom saw to that. But it can't go on, there's no great demand anymore, it’s only the few rich buying holiday homes around here now. The locals just can’t afford it. It's gonna come crashing down sooner or later."
I reflected later on this. I thought it would be a shame should New Zealand become a place for executives to have their holiday homes. The country has a charm due to it being unspoilt and relatively free from commercialisation. The people of New Zealand that I met saw that there was more to life then chasing money and seemed perfectly content with their modest laid-back lifestyle.
Grant took us all around town and across the seafront, stopping for a walk along the pier and for a stop to appreciate some of the coastal rock outcroppings before we headed back to the centre.
“So, what do you think of Christchurch?” I asked Caroline.
“Actually, it’s just like Cambridge,” she said, referring to the river and gardens.
“Well, I guess that’s saved me one trip.”

Grant had done his job well; I was sold by the Stray travel pass. It wasn’t my first choice way to see New Zealand, but I was on limited time and they covered most of the country that I wanted to see. Mainly though, it was because I was in Christchurch in the week before Christmas with no plan and at the start of the holiday season when tourists would start flocking to the country. Stray had the bonus of guaranteeing accommodation and having precedence on some of the activities as the silly season got underway. I liked the independence that I had travelling so far and I was uncertain that a backpacker bus would be for me, but Stray were known to cater for the more mature crowd and I didn’t want to risk spending Christmas sleeping on a beach. Or worse.
I was looking forward to getting underway as the first bus picked me up. The driver was a big Maori guy named E-Haka. It was easier for me, Adrian, and the Dutch couple, Denis and Liz who were there for the journey to use his nickname – Chopper – that he’d picked up from his previous job as a logger and a testament to the two digits I noticed he'd lost when we shook hands. I guess he got out at the right time. It may have said something about his navigational skills with an axe as he threw the map to Denis and with it, the responsibility to guide us to our destination. Fair play to Chopper though, he was new to the job and showed lots of enthusiasm as he told us what lay ahead for us. To pass the time as we headed northward along the east side of the south island, he taught us some Maori words. Though the only word I got the hang of was 'Kia-ora' from the avalanche of tongue twisting words he tried on us and that's only due to the similarity to the fruit juice drink and that it was written everywhere as a greeting. More fun though was the introduction of the tractor game that he taught us.
“What you have to do is shout out whenever you see a tractor. But you have to shout out its colour. If it’s red you shout out ‘tractor red!’ and you score a point. ‘Red tractor’ would be wrong, it must be ‘tractor’ and then what colour it is. If the tractor is moving shout out ‘tractor red, working’ and you get an extra point.”
It sounded ridiculous. But with the size of the agricultural industry in New Zealand, our conversations were frequently punctuated with the yells of the variously coloured tractors, and it was certainly more fun then playing ‘I spy’. Denis built up an unassailable lead as we passed through a small town and he shouted out ‘tractor dealership!’ as we passed a yard full of them. I was sat the furthest back in the coach and as such was still to get off of the mark in the tractor game.
“Come on Dave,” said Chopper, “Are you anti-tractor or something?”
The almost deserted roads took us toward the sea where we hugged the coastline as we approached our destination. It was a gloriously pretty part of the world, rolling forested hills, shingle covered beaches and cliffs giving way to the open sea. We spotted a pod of dolphins off in the distance and huge seals lounging about on the rocks below. Our stop was Kaikoura, Maori for 'meal of fish' from the abundance of crayfish in the nearby waters. Beautiful mountains that were unfortunately covered in cloud for much of the time I was there overlooked the small town. A coastal walk starts at the opposing end of the bay with a board posing the boastful question ‘Is this the most beautiful view in New Zealand?’ No, not with those clouds. On a clear sunny day? Maybe. It was too early in my New Zealand trip to say so.
The bay had a long stony beach that stretched for a good few kilometres off of which was a war memorial. I counted 96 names listed that had made the supreme sacrifice in the two world wars and the conflicts in Korea, Borneo and Vietnam. In contrast, the memorial in Melbourne had a display with hundreds of medals, each one representative of ten men from Victoria who had been killed. There in Kaikoura, the losses were much more palpable in a town with a population of just 2500. The must-do activity in Kaikoura was to swim with wild Dolphins. Denis, Liz and I were all geared up for it especially after seeing the pod that we’d seen from the bus on the way into town. Chopper was up for it too and was as excited at the prospect as us, Adrian singing the praises having already done it when he passed through Kalkora earlier in his trip. At the 11th hour, almost literally, the expedition was called off when the centre rang us just before midday as we were dropping our bags at the hostel and getting ready to leave. Gale force winds were blowing in from the south which would make any boat trips too dangerous and so the excursion was off. It was hard not to feel massively disappointed especially as my chance to swim with Dolphins back in Australia had also fallen through. I just hoped I would get the opportunity again. It would have made a good present so near to Christmas - maybe I hadn't been good that year.
The homeliness of the Dolphin Lodge hostel where we were staying offered some comfort, with a free evening meal of tasty vegetable soup. The common room was a great place to relax with a good book or watch one of the hostel’s movies, and the hot pool out in the rear must be a great place to hang out during the summer. There were few excuses to be bored, seemingly every wall was covered in amusing cartoons and captions, only a selection of which I got through. Because of this, the time people would take in the bathroom would be just a little longer in the Dolphin Lodge when compared to elsewhere.
Chopper joined us at a couple of the bars we hit in the evening. He was still in work mode, introducing himself to the bar staff to get his face seen and familiarised with on the Stray route. In one bar, another Maori saw him and they locked gazes, something he'd told us about as the beginning of a ritual to determine dominance. They shook hands calling ‘hey bro’ to one another never taking their eyes off of each other as they touched noses in a Maori show of greeting and mutual trust. The newcomer broke off first - Chopper had 'won'. They went on to compare the tattoos that covered their arms which told their life stories of where they came from, to who their tribe and parents were.
"He was only a little fella," Chopper said later. Yeah right, I'm tall, yet the ‘little fella’ could look me squarely in the eye and must have had at least a dozen kilograms on me from the look of his build. The Maori are certainly made to be a warrior race.
The bouncer who was also of Maori descent came over a little later in what appeared to be another test. He was very softly spoken as he asked us politely about where we were from. But he had such a huge presence about him that even Chopper fell silent and his exaggerated movements and the over-use of onomatopoeia in his speech that was common in many Maori people was subdued. It was fascinating to watch.
“I’m a New Zealander first and foremost bro,” said Chopper, “Most people feel the same. Being Maori, the tribe you come from, it’s all secondary to being Kiwi, and those of European descent feel the same. It’s totally different here to how the Aborigine’s are treated in Australia. I feel so sorry for them. But here we all get on.” The scary looking bouncer gave a slight nod in agreement before wandering off, having established his hierarchy in the order of things.

* * *
It was hard to muster up any enthusiasm for Christmas especially when my plans for it involved a bus journey to the tiny town of Picton for the last available beds, a ham and cheese sandwich for lunch and a dinner of pasta with a tomato with garlic and herbs sauce. I don't even like garlic. And I bought more condensed Heinz soup by mistake. Why don't they print the word 'condensed' bigger? It should have a prominent warning on the label like the 'smoking causes cancer' warnings on cigarettes.
The highlight in the build up to the Christmas season for me was a news report I caught that involved a riot of people dressed up as Santa Claus. I thought it was a Monty Python sketch at first but it seemed to be genuine as even the newsreader struggled not to smirk.
To be honest, the holiday period was going to be a non-event for me and I was happy for it to pass me by, probably due to me already being on a holiday of sorts. It was actually nice to have a year off. In fact, I think it would be a good idea for there to be an island somewhere for people that want to opt out and get away from it. Heck. New Zealand would do nicely. Ignoring the Slade and John Lennon Christmas songs from the bar over the road from the Dolphin Lodge, I was just about there.
Having stayed in Kaikoura an extra day for another failed chance to see if the weather would clear enough for another crack with the dolphins, we boarded the next bus leaving Adrian behind as he’d elected to spend more time in Kaikoura. I was hoping we would have picked up some more passengers in the hope that the extra numbers would lower my chances of sharing a dormitory with Denis and Liz again. She really must have had the patience of a saint with his snoring which was of the deep nasal, slurping, drawn out type. It was made worse by him having the ability to fall asleep almost as soon as he would lay down with the snoring starting and running unbroken until he would wake up. Waking him up would be of little use, Liz’s efforts in vain as a few minutes later the snores would spark up once more.
Our driver to Picton was nicknamed Noddy, originally from the UK he was the opposite of Chopper, with ten months experience in the job he had a much mellower attitude.
“He’ll make a good driver,” said Noddy about Chopper, “That’s if he doesn’t burn himself out first.”
Whilst Chopper would be chatting away throughout the drive, Noddy was far more subdued, playing us chill out tunes from his CD collection and only occasionally getting onto the microphone to tell us useful information for pub quizzes.
"Think of the biggest road in your home country," he said, "Probably be the M6 if you’re a Pom? Well this is the main freeway in New Zealand." We were just passing over a rickety bridge made from decaying wood that was only just wide enough for one vehicle to pass along at any one time. We hadn’t seen another vehicle for many minutes. New Zealand really is a small country.
We arrived at the Picton Lodge, an opened planned affair with the rooms, kitchen and common area off of a large landing area. It had a holiday park feel to it, but the guys running it made us feel at home by laying on a simple but much appreciated Christmas lunch of salads, nibbles and cakes. A great atmosphere was generated with the other guests and a few of us took an afternoon walk through the beautiful fjord-like hills that stretched along the harbour.
As well as an older English couple that were dive fanatics, there was a quiet Israeli guy on the walk that I tried talking to. His was short and of slight build and his face was partially hidden by his dark beard. After the usual conversation about where we were from and where we had travelled to respectively he began to open up to me. He told me he’d recently finished his national service and was glad to be done with it.
“Did you see any action?” I asked.
“I saw some things,” was all he hinted at. We did go on to talk more generally about the problems that his country had. He seemed to know his stuff and he gave me a detailed background to the history of that part of the world.
“I’m hopeful for the future,” he continued, “But the big problem will always be what to do about Jerusalem. I don’t have a problem giving the Palestinians their own land and state, and most other Israeli’s don’t have either. But there are parts of Jerusalem that are sacred to both sides. Neither one would be willing to give it up.”
After a pause in the conversation he asked me my age.
“I’m 27…” I answered, a little puzzled as to why he would be interested, “What about you?”
“I’m 26…today…”
“Oh well, happy birthday!” I said, and then without thinking added, “Oh and happy Christmas too!”
“Thanks. But I am Jewish…”

Making Up The Numbers

2009-05-04T13:20:00.001-07:00

There was a dizzying array of things on offer to do in New Zealand. We were continually bombarded with brochures, adverts and information on the places to do bungy jumping, skydiving, kayaking, white water rafting, caving, horse riding, fishing, swimming, sailing, jet-boating, whale watching, knife making, bone carving, gold panning, greenstone spotting, skiing, seal swimming, snow boarding, hang gliding, scenic flying and glacier walking. And these were just some of the things where I knew what they were. There's also zorbing, which I found out consisted of getting into a giant hamster ball and then being pushed down a hill. The real die-hards would have a bucket of water and/or a friend thrown into the hamster ball with them. There’s also swinging (no not that...), whereby after being strapped into a harness with bungy ropes over a large drop, you launch yourself into a free fall before the ropes change your direction and swing you into a giant arc.
There were gentler alternatives on offer, my favourite being the advert to adopt a tree. You can plant your own for an extortionate fee and in return you will get correspondence to let you know how your tree is progressing. You can expect pictures of it as it grows and a certificate of guardianship though no mention of how many other trees are destroyed to produce this literature was mentioned. Nor did it promise that the tree would show its gratitude by writing to you itself. 'You can come back one day and visit your tree!' exclaimed the text. I could only imagine the emotional scenes as trees cry out 'Momma, Dadda!' as they are reunited with their long lost parents.
* * *
"You guys should know plenty of New Zealand history," Noddy said to Denis and Liz. “Do you know how New Zealand got its name?”
"Ya, Zealand comes from the Dutch word, Zeelant!" said Liz.
"Spot on. Many of the first explorers came from Holland, there are places named after Dutch people all over the country. So do you know all about Tasman?"
"As in Tasmania?" replied Denis.
"Yep.”
“We know the name is Dutch but don’t really know much more then that.”
“I’m stunned. I thought this would the sort of thing that they would teach you guys in school! Well, let me tell you all about it then. Tasman was the Dutch explorer who passed through the area 100 years before Captain Cook got to Australia. When he approached the western shore near to where we’re driving to now, the local Maori tribe saw the ships coming in and they’d never seen the like of it before. It must have been like us seeing space ships landing.
“The Maori had sophisticated ways of communicating and struck up a welcome with loads of shouting, singing and the banging of drums. The correct response would have been to remain silent, but not knowing this, Tasman ordered his trumpeters to start playing in reply. The Maori took this as a declaration of war and attacked one of the boats, killing a couple of the men and dragging others away. The captives were later cannibalised. Tasman didn't know what else to do so he just upped sticks and left. He never set foot on shore but the part of the coast where we’re heading now bears his name - the Abel Tasman."
We had picked up a couple more passengers that joined us after making the ferry crossing from the north island in Picton. A German called Jo, began teaching me random German phrases, most of which involved an octopus. 'Ich Stehlen der tintenfish von die backerei,' - I steal octopus from the bakery and ' Ich speile fussball mit einen hund, einen katze, einen pferd, einen huhn und mit einen tot tintenfish.' – I play football with a dog, a cat, a horse, a chicken and with a dead octopus. She was carrying a thick book titled The Penguin History of New Zealand.
"That's a lot of information on Penguins," I said.
She looked at me as if I was mad, and then pointed out the logo of the publisher.
Titus from Switzerland was the other new passenger. He had the habit of making a noise that resembled a motorbike failing to start whenever you would talk to him.
"What are your plans in Abel Tasman?" he asked me as we stopped at one of the activity centres.
"I think I’m gonna stay an extra day,"
"Mmm hmmmmmm mmmmm,"
"To do the sailing trip tomorrow,"
"Mmmm hmmm mmm mmmm,"
"The one where you go sailing for the morning and later they take you out and drop you off part way along the Abel Tasman track where you make your own way back to the hostel."
"Mmm mmmmm hmmm mmmm."
It was hard decision to make, there was an almost gluttonous number of options along with the sailing that included sea kayaking and water taxis to various points on the Abel Tasman trail. The whole trail itself could take the hard-core walkers three or four days to complete and is one of the most popular places in the country for hikers. The half-day’s walk that came with the sailing trip would be enough for me. Seeing Liz and Denis book their water taxi and walk for that afternoon with a view to leaving with Noddy on the following day convinced me to wait behind. They were a lovely couple, but I couldn’t face another night in a dormitory with his snoring. It didn't take too much convincing to get Jo and Titus to join me sailing.
Getting into the Abel Tasman National Park felt like I was starting to see what the country really had to offer. The thick, lush forest of the park known as Marahau to the Maori was set next to golden beaches with perfect beautiful blue water and we were blessed with glorious sunshine during our stay.
Stray's tagline was 'Taking you further off the beaten track,' which was certainly turning out to be the case. Our hostel was called Old McDonalds farm, the facilities were basic but it isn't often that I had the chance to be greeted by pigs and sharmers - a half llama, half sheep animal - in the morning. With an oink oink here, an oink oink there, everywhere an oink oink....
The morning spent sailing around the bays was fantastic and it was a great walk along the track, stopping at some of the beaches to swim and soak up some sun. The three of us took it in turns to sing walking songs from their country, ten green bottles would never be the same for me again.
We were sitting on the porch area of the hostel when the follow-up Stray bus arrived. Off stepped Tracey and Toni, two women from Auckland in their late thirties that had such a similar manor that I constantly failed to remember which one was which. Their jet-black hair and pale skin made them look like they came from the UK, it was only their accents that gave them away as kiwis.
Next came Gemma from Dublin, her skin even paler despite the months she’d spent working as a geologist in Wellington. She was followed off by the driver, a fit looking Maori woman.
“Oh no,” whispered Jo.
“What’s up?”
“That’s Nancy, I was on her bus on the north island. She’s crazy,” she managed to say just before Nancy spotted her and I saw what she meant, Nancy’s enthusiasm for life coming to the fore as they greeted each other like old friends. Lastly came Anna, a tall, stick like woman whose loud Essex accent pierced my ears uncomfortably. We all spent a pleasant evening in each other’s company and I picked up some more teachings from Jo, though by the end of the night I’d also picked up the nickname of The Tintenfish from Nancy who had overheard our German mutterings.

After taking the morning to enjoy the sunshine over Abel Tasman at the beach whilst the previous evening’s arrivals did their boating trips, we travelled on to Barrytown stopping at the Pancake rocks, a unique rock formation on the coast. The rocks had been formed in hundreds of layers giving them the appearance of stacks of the foodstuff. They went on for a good stretch along the coast and blowholes had been formed in some parts of the rock formations, nature giving us a bit of a show with the rough sea causing spurts of water.
Calling Barrytown a town was pushing it with its population of just 92. On arrival I took a quick stroll around the hostel which also doubled as the town’s bar. I got around to the front of the building where a local who looked like he'd been drinking since sunrise, a full nine hours previously, stumbled toward me, spilling his pint. He managed to spit out the words "You louk dish-horientated mate." I looked disorientated?
“I’m alright mate, I thought I’d just have a look around, you know.” I said.
"Oi Tiny! Leave him alone," one of his mates called. I didn't get it. He wasn’t short. Nor was he particularly tall to deserve the nickname in irony. He was indistinguishable from his red neck buddies as he blended back in with them on the porch.
The next day, Gemma and I took a trip to the bone-carving workshop. The two of us made our own trinkets, Maori ‘fish hooks’ that were a symbol of strength and of good-luck when travelling over water. They seemed pretty apt. The rest of the group had opted for either the knife making workshop or a lie-in. Maybe they could combine the day’s activities. In the morning, people could make their own knife, at lunch they get to kill an animal with it and then carve the bones in the afternoon. It’ll only be a couple of years before it would happen I was sure.
We filled out the rest of our day with a visit to the beach and a chance to look for the precious greenstone. On the way we passed the town cemetery, a huge plot of land with barely six gravestones set in it in one corner.
"That's a good sign," Gemma commented, "Not many people die in Barrytown."
"That or the bodies don't get found," I replied.
I was hoping that Gemma’s geology knowledge would help with our greenstone search. She had me smashing rocks apart as she analysed potential specimens. They all looked the same to me. We returned to the hostel with our pockets full of rocks for the inspection of Dusty, one of the guys running the place and the resident greenstone expert. He must be sick of tourists like us coming back with crap from the beach.
In the evening, the hostel hosts put on a barbecue and we spent the evening eating and playing table tennis on the table in the bar area. As a group, we were getting to know each other well. Jo was the opposite of the German stereotype, very laid-back and fun-loving while Titus was turning out to be one of the funniest people I’d met on my trip. Toni and Tracey had the habit of the unsure, doing a running commentary on everything they did. They worried far too much, needing to know exactly what was going to happen. ‘When are we leaving tomorrow? … How long will it take? … Are we stopping for food?‘ they would ask me as if I knew, - I had no more idea then them. But being British, I would still try and be helpful and give them an answer.
Newly arrived were Kevin, Claire and Bryan who were from America. Making up the numbers was Machico, a young Japanese student who was studying in New Zealand at an English school and was taking some time out to see something of New Zealand.
Jo's real name was very hard to pronounce and so she had used Jo as her English name to keep things simple, though this didn't quite work when she met Machico for the first time.
"What's you name?" Machico asked of Jo.
"Jo."
"Joh?""No, Jo,""Joel?""Jo."
“Jowe?”
“Jo!”"Jeaw?" NO, JO!" cried Jo. At this point I got involved."Jo!" I said."Jeow?""Jo!" I shouted."Jo!" Jo screamed.
A pause.
"Johl?"
When she finally got it, she tried the next line she must have learnt from her last English lesson.
"What is your religion?"
"I am Catholic," answered Titus.
"I’m Christian but don't really believe in it at all," said Jo.
"And you?" Machico said turning to me.
"I'm Aquarius," I said.Next day we headed south to the town where we would see in the new year. In the mid 19th century, the German explorer, Julius Von Haast was looking for greenstone in the area when he stumbled into a valley containing a huge glacier. It runs up from one end of the valley floor into the mountains, covering an area of 30 square miles. Hot air from Australia rises up rapidly when it hits the New Zealand coastline and causes huge amounts of snowfall in the mountains, an average of seven metres a year. The weight of the snow causes the lower levels to compress turning the snow into ice and forcing it into the valley.
The moving glacier reminded the imaginative Von Haast of the Austrian ruler at the time due to his long white beard and so he named the glacier after him. The small town nearby that sprang up also bears the name of Franz Josef.
The Maori have their own mythical explanation on how the glacier came to be. The Kati Mahaki or south westland sub tribe, call the glacier Ka Roimata o Hine Huhatere meaning ‘tears of the avalanche girl’ after Hine Hukatere, a Maori woman who travelled into the mountains with her lover Tawe. He was not as skilled in climbing as his sweetheart and he slipped near to the top of where the glacier now stands and fell to his death. Hine’s tears were frozen by the gods as a testament to her grief, the huge volume of which formed the glacier.
It certainly was a unique sight, seeing so much ice surrounded by rainforest in a relatively warm place. Taking a climb up into the lower levels of it was certainly a good hangover cure and not a bad way to start the new year. We’d spent the previous night celebrating at a cheesy 70s theme party in the hostel bar. With such a multitude of nationalities in the group we had several cheers during the day’s hike as the new year got under way in our respective countries.
In the afternoon, Nancy called a group meeting after only just emerging into the new year, her hangover fully evident. “I think we should stay here an extra night. It’s a long drive to Haast and there’s nothing really there to see.”
Most people muttered their indifference.
“I wouldn’t mind seeing Haast, why are we not going?” said Toni. Or Tracy.
“Well, I just can’t be bothered,” said Nancy, her willingness to argue clearly lacking, her energy having been expended when she was dancing on the pool table the night before.
“We’ve got to cover the distance anyway, we might as well take a look at Haast,” said Claire.
“OK, if that’s what you guys want to do,” sighed Nancy, “But don’t expect too much when we get there.
With that, we got back onto the road and headed South for our stop over in the town of Haast. It may not be a glacier but at least Julius got a name check somewhere.
"Haast is a confusing place," Titus read out the first line on the town in his guidebook as we neared it. Though it was referring to the relative distance of Haast to Haast Junction, another small settlement nearby, the line was probably more apt in more ways then intended. The hostel was a strange affair, a large common room and adjoining kitchen was full of low-brow families with screaming young children. The dormitories were comfortable enough but were set right next to the chaotic common area. It was not the typical youth hostel environment and resembled more a refuge for disaster victims.
The town was even smaller then Barrytown. I was a little concerned about a notice in the hostel reception that also doubles as the town shop. It seemed that a crime wave had hit Haast.
'Criminal fisherman!' it read, complete with photofit. 'This man has been known to be fishing without a license. DO NOT approach him. He may be using the aliases 'Gordy' or 'Turnip'. Reward offered.'
I hurried back up the road, feeling the most threatened since my arrival in New Zealand.

Relief And Contentment

2009-05-04T13:19:00.002-07:00

Lets get one thing straight, I am not an adrenaline junkie or a dare devil of any sort. When buying biscuits it took me an extra moment to go for the 'extreme' variety rather then go for the safer butterscotch. I sleep in the foetal position on my side, my legs tucked up and my body slightly curved which probably speaks volumes about how daring I am. It does keep me from snoring and so I heartily recommend it to anybody thinking of sleeping in the dormitory of a youth hostel. So finding myself sitting on the Kawarau Bridge having a bungy rope attached to me really set the 'what-the-fuck-am-I-doing' meter to ten out of ten.
Situated just outside of Queenstown, the AJ Hackett bungy site was the first commercial jump site in the world and bears the name of the guy who invented the sport. To be in New Zealand and not do a bungy jump would be a bit like going to Egypt and not looking at the pyramids. Kind of. It would be rude not to. So when the activity sheet came around on the bus I put my name down for the 43-metre jump without fully thinking through what I would be getting myself into.
"What's going to happen is that you're going to shuffle out onto that ledge, give a wave to the camera an then I’ll count you down, 5-4-3-2-1 and then off you go," said the Scottish crewman. Yeah right, he made it sound so simple. He was tying a towel around my ankles, presumably so I didn't spoil his nice bungy rope when I pissed myself. Over his shoulder was a very pale looking young girl. She was in tears as she stood on the ledge with another crewman who was leaning in close, giving her encouragement. My guy turned around to help. She took several deep breaths before she took the dive and disappeared out of my line of sight.
I looked around at the bridge and saw Kevin's legs under the rigging. He was jumping after me after 'losing' the game of paper/rock/scissors we had played to determine which of us would be the first jumper. Next time I'd choose rock.
The Scot beckoned me to the ledge. I shuffled over and saw the girl lying out flat in the dinghy in the river below, her face a deep beetroot colour but her features indistinguishable from the distance. The Scot began gobbing something off as I shuffled over, I couldn't make it out through his thick accent and my rising adrenaline levels. I was most worried about having the bottle to make the jump; everything after doing it would be beyond my control. Anna had told me earlier about her jump, saying that the longer you wait, the harder it is to jump.
“Five!” said the Scot.
I looked out into the horizon and took a deep breath.
“Four!”
I closed my eyes.
“Thr--” I decided not to hang around. I dove straight off of the ledge.
I remember letting out a guttural roar after I'd promised myself to be cool and try and shout out something about octopuses in German. The horizon had given away to the river that came rushing up to me fast. The world ran in slow motion for just the tiniest of moments as the slack in the bungy rope was taken up. What followed were a couple of seconds of utter disorientation as the world became a meaningless blur while I was flung back up toward where I’d started.
I reached the point at the top of my flight. The world came to a brief stop as my senses came together and I saw the grey cloudy sky in a moment of pure relief and contentment after the previous ones of terror and confusion. Thank Christ for that, I thought, believing that the worst was over. And then gravity became the over-riding force once more and the whole procedure was repeated a second time. And then a third. It was like a recurring nightmare. The energy stored up in the rope dissipated enough during my forth bounce to the extent that I had a vague notion of where I was relative to the bridge and river. I also became aware that my jacket and T-shirt was now coiled around my upper body leaving my lower trunk exposed and me looking rather undignified. I was soon reaching out to the guys in the dinghy to pull me in. The jump seemed to have lasted forever but at the same time it was over very fast.
“How was that?” asked one of the guys in the boat in another Scottish accent.
“Mega,” I said, trying not to come across as too shaken and yet not really caring. He gave me a smirk that told me he was far from being bored at seeing people in my state.
Back in the centre we watched the films of our jumps. I was quite pleased at how calm I looked and the look of surprise of the Scot on the bridge as I left him to it before he finished with the count down. "You went quickly, I hardly got any photo's," said Gemma later who along with Jo were my camera girls. My initial flight was somewhat less graceful then Kevin's though, my body slightly arched with my legs tucked up in the position of a foetus before I was snapped out straight.

* * *

Our time in Queenstown was spoilt by grey skies and intermittent rain. There wasn’t too much to do in the place in such bad weather. It's a shame that for many people on the trip, their time in the adventure capital of the world was spent doing laundry.
"It's your fault," Jo accused me in jest, "Ever since I met you, it's rained everyday. Bugger off!" she said, much to the amusement of Titus and Machico.
The town itself was much smaller then I was expecting - the main centre could be covered in a few minutes. The hostel we stayed at was a large industrial sized affair with dozens of dormitories on numerous floors with metal framed beds and minimalist deco. In the hostel kitchen, I bumped into Denis and Liz again who had decided to stay an extra couple of days in Queenstown. Denis was moving about with crutches and his right foot was heavily bandaged.
"Blimey, what happened to you?" I asked when I saw the state that he was in.
"We went white water rafting a couple of days ago." he replied. I was fully expecting a tale full of danger and excitement culminating in a death defying accident. "When we got back I slipped in the shower."
Despite the lack of character in the hostel, it’s prime location in the centre of town was handy, even if we didn’t get any further then the karaoke bar next door where we sampled Queenstown’s famous lively night life. Carl, a smooth man with the voice of George Clooney and the looks of a young Kevin Spacey was another Stray traveller who had joined our group, though there was some confusion when we introduced ourselves to each other. The music was loud and I’d already made full use of the 2-for-1 beer vouchers the hostel had given us when the two of us shook hands.
“I’m Dave,” I yelled over the music.
“Doug?” said Carl,
“Good to meet you Doug. Where are you from?”
“Wait, my name’s Carl.”
“Oh… are you sure?”
“Erm…yeah. I’m from near Toronto.” At this point I put the confused look on his face down to him being Canadian. “So Doug, where are you from?” he asked.
“The UK. And my name’s David.”
“… then who’s Doug?”

A few of us filled out the following day with a trip on the town’s gondola. The rain halted long enough for us to appreciate that there was more to Queenstown then adventure sports and partying, the view of the snow capped mountains that overlooked the town and the huge Lake Wakatipu was far superior to the views served up after the gondola ride back in Christchurch. Being Queenstown, an activity wasn’t far away, whether it was a bungy jump, bungy swing or the downhill carting track. Still high from the previous day’s bungy jump, I was content taking a walk in the hills.
Next day I was back on Nancy’s bus, the gang bidding farewell to Tracey, Toni and the Americans who’s holiday time was up. We headed south and then back northward along the west coast, winding around the mountains into Milford Sound. The roads that took us around the mountains had added miles onto a trip that would have been much shorter then as the crow flies but with such glorious scenery, that was a bonus.
Milford Sound is one of the top draws of the country and is certainly in the running as one of the most scenically stunning, with snow capped mountains overlooking the fjords and numerous waterfalls cascading down into the rainforest covered valleys that we passed through on the drive. The recent wet weather added more volume to the almost infinite number of waterfalls.
“If you think what you’ve seen so far in New Zealand was beautiful,” Nancy had said as we left Queenstown, “What you see in Milford Sound will blow your mind.” She was right. The rain didn’t even matter that much, Milford Sound is one of those rare places that would have a unique beauty whatever the weather.
“I came here last year,” Anna told us, “It had been snowing, and the whole area was covered in white, it was fantastic, but totally different to what it looks like today.”
The drive featured Homer’s Tunnel, a one-mile length passageway through one of the mountains with a very steep decline. At such a distance we had plenty of time to get out, stretch our legs and take in the views in the preceding valley while we waited for the traffic light at the entrance to turn green. The road is only wide enough for one vehicle and it was surreal making our way down through it in the dark.
We arrived back at the western coast and took a boat cruise deeper into Milford Sound's fjords. We were treated to more breathtaking scenery but standing on deck resulted in getting wet from the persistent rain, and the wind was almost high enough to cause friction burns. Just for good measure, the captain ran us alongside a powerful waterfall, getting close enough for those of us on top to get a further drenching.
After the cruise, we retraced our steps back southward to the town of Te Anau for our accommodation for the evening. I jumped off of the bus early with Titus, Jo and Machico to walk along the lake front back to the hostel. As we set off, the rain got going again. Machico had been taking notes from earlier and she ran up to my side to try out some of her new English words on me.
“David?”
"Yes Machico?" I said.
"Bugger off!" she said with a beaming smile. After much chuckling all round, I congratulated her on her improving English.
“David?” She called to me again.
“Yep?”
“What does ‘bugger’ mean?”
“Oh, it’s erm… something we say when we’re annoyed.”
“Oh.” She said, taking a moment for that to sink in. “David?”
“Yeah.”
"Can I say piss off?" She had been doing her homework. Titus could barely contain his laughter.
"You can, but that’s very rude," I replied. She paused for another moment.
"Can I say piss on?"
"Well...yes but only in context, like ‘I piss on the floor’,"
"Oh. I...piss...on...the...floor..." she repeated, nodding her head with each syllable. "Can I say ‘bugger on’? I...bugger...on...the...floor..."
"Erm..."
The hostel in Te Anau was of the form of a military barracks, though one where each recruit got a single room. Inside was a narrow single bed, a desk and a chair. It was like being back in student halls of residence but it was at least an upgrade from all the nights I’d spent in dormitories over the previous nine months. A room to myself felt strange, I almost wanted somebody to come in and switch the lights on, rustle plastic bags or generally shuffle about as I tried to sleep. I truly wouldn't even of minded having a sleepwalker or a sleep talker in the room as I struggled to settle in my isolation. I drew the line at the thought of there being a snorer in the same room though.
I didn't sleep well that night.

Left Floundering

2009-05-04T13:19:00.001-07:00

After the stay in Te Anau, we headed to Invercargill, the southern most city in New Zealand and home to the southern most McDonald's in the world. Apart from that, Invercargill had little else of interest other then the proximity of the ferry terminal at Bluff where a voyage was available to Stewart Island, the third of the main set that make up New Zealand. After we pulled up to the Tuatura hostel where those people that weren't taking the trip were staying, a hostel worker jumped aboard to give us the usual hostel info and try to sell the city to us.
"There's a cinema or alternatively there are videos at the hostel. There's a supermarket down the road..."
Titus and I were sitting at the back chuckling to ourselves, "'What did you do in New Zealand?' people will ask, 'I watched a film and brought some milk'," we snickered. "I don't care about this, we're going to Stewart Island!"
We had planned on taking a fishing trip on the tranquil island that had a population of just 390 people. Although the ferry crossing was quite expensive and I wasn’t much of a fisherman, I was still looking forward to the trip and the chance of spotting the Albatross that lived around the fishing lake area.
"OK guys, come and chicken!" said the girl. Titus and I were sent into another fit of giggles at her Kiwi accent that twisted the pronunciation of 'check-in'. Nancy went off to the hostel to sort those out the accommodation while Titus and I whispered ‘fush and chups’ to each other in the common piss-take of the New Zealand accent.
"Bad news guys," said Nancy when she came back.
"The fishing is off?" Titus said, guessing that the weather was being as unkind to us as ever.
"No-no. That's still on, but the hostels on Stewart Island are choca-block. There's not gonna be enough beds." A period of chaos followed as people got on and off the bus trying to decide how much they wanted to go to Stewart Island while Nancy juggled the numbers.
"Well, I'm not too bothered about going," Gemma said. "We don't have much time and the ferry is a lot of money to spend one night." She had a point. I decided to jump off with her, Carl and Anna, and we decisively went to check into the hostel leaving Titus, Jo and Machico and the rest of the group to go to Stewart Island. My earlier jokes didn't seem so funny as we spent the day wandering the damp streets contemplating the meagre choices on offer at the cinema."You should have come," Machico reported in the morning when we met up. "There was a spare bed in the end." Great.
"The fishing trip was excellent," said Titus. He'd caught half a kilograms worth of delicious blue cod that left me very jealous. "There were loads of Albatross as well that came right up and flew along side the boat. Jo liked it enough to stay for an extra couple of nights. "
"You made a mistake," said Machico bluntly.
That day's travel took us to Dunedin, a student town said to be the Scottish city of New Zealand and particularly influenced by Edinburgh. I didn't see it myself, the only clues were the odd name such as the Robert Burns Bar. The city is home to the Speights Brewery and a Cadbury Chocolate Factory where tours are available as well as a host of museums. It was all a bit too touristy for me and I felt like I’d been there before so I was happy to join the others in the pool hall below the hostel for the evening.
Early in the morning, Nancy took us to Baldwin street, possibly the best or worst hangover cure possible depending on your point of view. The street is the world's steepest and from the start she was always going to struggle to convince us it was worth the trek up.
“There’s a bar at the top,” she said, “There’s a free drink for anyone that walks up.” People will believe anything at that time in the morning. We all shuffled off the bus and started the long walk, some taking a steady pace, others attacking it at speed only to be left floundering later. Arriving at the top, my heart was attempting to burst from my chest and my legs complained at the effort. There was no bar, just a cal-de-sac and a smirking Maori woman. We started back down. I can only imagine what it must be like for the people living on the street, not only the daily struggle up and down the hill, but having to contend with bus loads of tourists panting outside their front gardens. At least they didn’t have the eyesore of wheely-bins on their street; they were banned after some drunken students decided to ride them down the hill in them and a young woman in the group was killed when she crashed at the bottom.
We headed north, making a stop for lunch at the Moeraki boulders, an unusual set of large rocks dumped randomly on the beach. With little else of interest on the east coast other then a few other scenic photo opportunities, it was a long drive through the Canterbury Plains back to Christchurch. Nancy passed the time with a quiz on New Zealand facts won by Gemma, my efforts being particularly useless. She also taught us how to count to five in Maori, though as linguistically challenged as I am, I wouldn’t dare repeat it to another Maori after Nancy revealed that the word for ‘three’ sounds very much like the Maori word for ‘vagina’.
Travelling on the bus had been getting on my nerves as it got more and more full up. I was beginning to feel stifled and constricted by the timetable and annoyed by the herding on and off the bus and waiting while the photograph brigade did its thing. Even though I was meeting and making friends with new people I couldn’t help but crave my own space and be able to do my own thing.
We arrived back in Christchurch, the loop of the south island complete. It was sad saying goodbye to many of the people I’d met who would be going their own ways, not least Nancy who had filled the trip with fun and laughs in her own unique way. I drew a picture of an octopus in her comment book for her to remember me by.
It had turned out that Gemma and I had similar travel plans in that I had none in particular and she needed to get to Christchurch by mid January for her flight back to Wellington. With the discovery that the both of us had a few spare days we'd planned a couple of excursions from Christchurch that were not covered by the Stray coaches. With our day in Invercargill freed after our not going on the Stewart Island trip, we’d organised a hire-car. By this time, Carl’s suave charm had done its job on Gemma. Fair one. I was glad that Titus had agreed to come along on the trip to Mount Cook so that I didn’t have to play gooseberry.
Mount Cook National Park is home to New Zealand’s highest peak and as it turned out, my favourite part of the country. Monster snow capped mountains had even Titus - used to the Swiss Alps - making 'Ooh' and 'Ah' cooing noises and the brilliance of the blue water at Lake Tekapo on the way in left us all gaping like slack jawed red-necks. We pulled up at the small YHA in the little park village that sat meekly at the bases of the mountains. The hostel was a homely wood cabin-like structure and perfectly apt for the location. Having done the driving throughout the day the others allowed me to relax while they set about creating a home cooked meal for my efforts at being able to drive a car along long deserted roads for extended periods. I felt a little sorry for Titus, after a couple of rounds of shithead, he departed for the other budget accommodation in the area - a group of sheds with basic facilities - as his late decision to join us wasn’t in time to secure a bed at the YHA.
He joined me bright and early in the morning for the hike the two of us planned, leaving Gemma and Carl to their lie-in and an easier walk then we had planned. We hiked through the beautiful valleys and over rivers using swing bridges, finally getting to a position to see the full splendour of Mount Cook itself. At first, it wasn’t obvious which one we were supposed to be looking at, us and many of the passers by asking each other which of the majestic mountains was the one. I could have happily spent days hiking in the park but had to make do with that morning’s walk, our schedule having only been made for the one night. We rendezvoused with the others, me again taking the wheel, already looking forward to a nicely cooked meal in the evening when we got back to Christchurch.

* * *

During my first few days in Christchurch, I had spent some of my time sitting in Cathedral Square in the city centre just people watching. A mother with a little boy and girl had come along and sat down on the benches nearby. While the mother got onto her mobile to phone Dad and give him some shit, the girl had kept her younger brother amused.
"What's your favourite animal?" she asked him.
"Dolphin," he said without hesitation.
"What's your favourite name for an animal?"
"Dolphin,"
"If you could be any animal, what would it be?"
"I, wanna be... dolphin."
After my experience at Kaikoura, we'd booked the swimming with dolphins trip well in advance in the town of Akoroa, 80 kilometres from Christchurch on the other side of Bank's Peninsula. Titus had run out of time and was on his way to the North Island so it was just me, Carl and Gemma that made the trip.
As we sat down at the back of the bus, I pulled my bag onto my lap to fish out some sunscreen and noticed a patch of moisture on the seat where my bag had been sitting. I rolled my eyes at Carl in a 'some people' gesture as he saw my discovery. The 'some people' was indeed me, a bottle of raspberry coke making everything I had in my daypack sticky and stained but with a hint of raspberry essence. Too late, my lap had got a good soaking from where I’d rested the bag. At least it would relieve some of the stench in my day bag that had accumulated over nine months of travel.
The three of us got talking about Gemma's favourite subject; food. Carl had an aversion to red meat after a spiritual Red Indian man had told him if he continued to eat it he'd have health problems later in life. On the other hand Gemma admitted to having eaten everything from Crocodile to Kangaroo. I was sticking to the philosophy of not eating any thing that I wouldn’t take on in a fight.
There were two distinct parts to the seaside town of Akoroa, one with a heavy French influence and one that was British. The French arrived first in 1838 and thought it would be a good spot to start a colony and purchased the land from the local Maori. They returned to France to make their preparations while the Brits turned up and signed the treaty of Waitangi with the Maori, the document that gave the British sovereignty over New Zealand. Though now officially British, this didn't stop the French sending their settlers to start up next door to the Brits, the two colonies growing into each other into what was to become Akoroa.
My first observation of the place however, was to notice the high numbers of birds. There were hundreds of seagulls, sparrows and ducks flying around the bay.
"They're bloody aggressive," Gemma said, the birds flying straight at us as we walked around the bay and only pulling out of our way at the last moment. Maybe we were encountering the French ones.
"I get more worried when they hover directly overhead," I replied, looking up with concern.
The skies were inevitably grey and the wind was higher then when I had been in Kaikoura. It was also a Tuesday and I'd picked up an aversion to Tuesdays. Sure, Monday's are the start of the working week, but at least then you are fresh, Tuesdays still leave a long week ahead without any sight of the weekend. Further to that though, I'd noticed that most disappointments, bad luck or misfortune would happen to me on a Tuesday. In short, if it was a Tuesday, I may well of ended up getting shat on. And so when the three of us rolled up to the dolphin swim centre I was full of pessimism about our chances of making it into the water with the dolphins.
"There'll be a full refund if you don't see any dolphins, and a 50% refund if you don't get to swim with them," said the dolphin lady at reception. The sheltered waters in the bay of Akaroa were calm enough to allow us to get onto the boat but there were no guarantees that the bad weather hadn’t sent the dolphins further out to sea. We squeezed ourselves into wet suits and set off toward the boat with the rest of the group, passing the life sized statue of a Hector Dolphin that stood outside of the entrance to the centre. These were the ones that we were going to be looking for. At only five feet in length in adulthood, they are the world's smallest dolphin species.
"They're tiny!" Gemma exclaimed.
"Yeah, but do you think you could beat it in a fight?" I teased.
After 15 minutes or so cruising out of the bay we made our first sightings. Moving in groups of between two and six they would swim over to the boat and then pass under, disappearing while we sorted ourselves out and jumped into the ocean to try and join them.
"They are naturally curious and playful, but there are a few things you can do to try attract their attention," the dolphin lady had said. "Make clicking noises through your snorkel, or else you can use this," she said holding up a ratchet. "Also, sometimes singing or humming through your snorkel can work, they like that. Jingle Bells is one of their favourites."
Was she being serious?
I sputtered my way through a verse of Jingle Bells getting water in my mouth and into my mask. I tried a verse of She'll be Coming Round the Mountain and then The Beatles’ All You Need is Love in the expectation that the dolphins with their mild, laid back nature were hippys at heart. We saw nothing. I shouldn't have been too surprised, I had cleared the entire dance floor singing Radiohead’s Paranoid Android by at a karaoke night. And that had been without singing it through a snorkel.
We began a routine of jumping on the boat, cruising around until we spotted more dolphins and then promptly losing sight them when we got back into the water. I tried clicking noises, cooing noises and even a few moos. Only Gemma had any luck with the ratchet, a pair of dolphins swimming underneath her less then a couple of feet away.
Back on dry land and with my 50% refund, I headed for a fish supper while Gemma and Carl went to check out some culture at the museum. Although I didn't really get to swim with the dolphins, I still felt some elation at seeing them close up with the highlight when a pair of them had leapt from the water ten metres or so in front of me. I was in a good mood as I enjoyed some delicious blue cod at the beachfront. Then I felt a light tap on the top of my head. I looked around. Nothing, I must have imagined it. Then came another tap. I looked up to see a cheeky looking sparrow in the tree above me, with what could only be described as a smirk across its beak. It stood in the tree, well out of my reach making a chirping sound that sounded like a chuckle. I gingerly dabbed at the sticky mess in my scraggly, salt water damaged hair. I made a dash for the public toilets that were luckily just over the road to attempt a clean up, the industrial strength taps sending a fountain of water over my already cola stained trousers. With my scruffy beard fully cultivated and my battered boots completing the look, I headed back toward the hostel hoping to avoid arrest and wondering what girls like Gemma saw in guys like Carl that I didn’t have. I walked along the bay thinking ‘I, wanna be... dolphin.’
We were staying at the Chez la Mer Backpackers, a place where I felt compelled to leave a congratulatory note in the hostel comment book. It was run by an American couple who had chosen that part of New Zealand as the place where they wanted to be, and who had created a small oasis for travellers. I had been sold by the mention of free gourmet coffee, but we were all impressed by the relaxed atmosphere in the garden and patio area, with a water fountain feature and hammocks. The fully fitted kitchen and lounge area felt like we were staying in someone’s home rather then a budget hostel and we passed the evening drinking red wine and playing scrabble from the hostel’s selection of board games.
In the morning, Gemma and Carl had decided to get back out onto the water with a sailing trip. I made use of one of the hostel’s bicycles and headed out to the village of Onuku. The five kilometre ride made for a good work out, the road like many others in New Zealand wound up and down and the sun was out. Onuku itself consisted of a few dwellings that included an interesting small wooden Maori church, there since 1878 that was sadly closed at the time of my visit. Sitting in the shade of the trees next to the stony foreshore made for a great spot to catch my breath before the ride back to Akaroa in time for the return bus back to Christchurch.

Rough Around The Edges

2009-05-04T13:18:00.002-07:00

I had yet another day to spend in Christchurch, our return from Akoroa coinciding with the day that Stray did not have a departure from the city that I felt I had already spent way too much time in. Christchurch is not the most exciting place to be, and when the rain came and settled over the city for the majority of the day it was near impossible to find ways for me to amuse myself. Kicking around the hostel, I came across a German couple in the kitchen, their boredom threshold broken to the point where they had taken to reading the ingredients from the contents of their food shopping to each other. I took to walking the streets in the rain, the drenching I got and the cold giving me cause to take a second shower.
Our base in Christchurch was the New Excelcior Backpackers, a central hostel with a convenient bar residing next door to it. The rooms were situated around a central first floor courtyard and it attracted a laid back crowd. It was fairly quiet for the time of year. My only other dormitory mate was Richard, a thirty something Brit fresh to the country and the backpacking community. A keen walker, he took great pleasure in showing off his sparkling new kit that included the latest Gore-Tex jacket, collapsible cooking utensils and other camping stuff. I worried for him, his good nature and the expense of his equipment might have made him a target for the unscrupulous. I’d decided not to travel with anything that I didn’t mind losing, getting broken or having stolen.
He was another who had given up a well-paid job to go travelling. After we’d got to know each other he admitted to how disorientated he was and how worried he was about what might happen. I remembered back to my first few days away and had to admit how far I’d come. I’d got to the point where I got a small thrill from not knowing where my next bed would come from or where the next stop may be. I figured Richard would be all right, as long as he kept an eye on that jacket.
Machico agreed to meet us for one last time. She was back at school in Christchurch, while Gemma and Carl would soon be heading back to their holiday jobs. ‘I have a surprise you’ Machico’s text message to me read beforehand. Standing with Machico was Jo, who had caught back up with us and it was good to have a get-together with the remains of the south island gang.
True to form, the sun came back to it's fullest blazing glory for the bus northward, over ground I'd already covered previously for an overnight stop back in Kaikoura. There were certainly worse places to have to spend an extra day. Pete, the new driver, a thick set man who looked like he could be the bad guy from a Sylvester Stallone movie actually rolled up on time for my pick up. I think that it had been the only time when a kiwi’s estimate of the four dimensions had been made correctly, every other bus turning up a few minutes late. The more experienced drivers would refuse to give an estimate of the time of arrival without adding a margin of error of at least an hour. It took some acclimatisation to get used to the New Zealand attitude toward time keeping.
And it's not just time measurements that seemed to be a problem. I would wince whenever the bus would squeeze through the entrance to bridges, through tunnels or around sweeping bends, the obstacle’s construction would only just be big enough for the bus to negotiate. Using a sink in New Zealand highlighted what I'm getting at. The taps are made with the tiniest overhang resulting in the need to flick water out into the open with the only finger that can be got into the stream of water as it falls hugging the side of the basin.
When I had been driving the hire car we had passed through a village and I noticed a speed limit sign of 50 kilometres per hour. Fair enough, but coming up to a sharp bend in the same village was another sign saying to take the bend at no more then 65 kilometres per hour. I didn't get it.
With Jo for company, I decided to take the Kaikoura coastal walk that I’d missed out on last time I was in town. This time I was more prepared, Chopper had said it would take 20 minutes to get to the start of the trail from the hostel. When I had attempted it, it had turned out to be a one-hour hike just to get to the start which lead to the abandonment of my plans on that occasion. But this time we had plenty of time and took the easy walk at a relaxed pace. We returned in time for the vegetable soup and some movies at the hostel and then we headed for ice-creams at the beach as the sun set, Jo filling me in on what I could expect on the north island on what would be our last night in each other’s company.

The bus set out early next morning. My only bus mates for the drive to Picton for the ferry crossing to the north island were Geoff and his girlfriend Mesha. He was a good-natured Irish lad and I had to wonder what he was doing with this cockney girl. She was unaware of the limits to her intelligence and was in somewhat of a sulk that morning. She moaned about everything from the attitude to the Stray drivers to the unpredictability of nature. The two of them had been up since before dawn after they had booked an early morning whale-watching cruise, but alas, the bad weather causing the trip to be called off.
“Why could we not go out?” she complained to Pete.
“If the weather’s bad it can be dangerous to take people out,” he answered.
“But we paid to see whales.”
“You got your money back didn’t you?”
“Yeah, but we really wanted to see them.”
“Well, there’s no guarantees, even if the weather is good, you might still not of seen them.”
“Why?”
"It's the pacific, not seaworld," Pete said, his patience at the very edge of it's limits.
We made the crossing, the ferry taking us over the Cook Straight to the north island of New Zealand, arriving at our hostel in the late afternoon. We were staying in a massive building that was home to The Base Backpackers, a hostel chain famed for attracting the party crowd that I’d managed to avoid up to that point. It was clean, comfortable and served our needs and I didn’t mind being there in the end after being put into a dormitory with three young girls from one of Stray’s rivals, though as it turned out I would have long since retired before they staggered in of an evening.
The capital of New Zealand is nicknamed 'Windy Wellington’, and for good reason. Looking out of the hostel window from the fourth floor was quite amusing, seeing the pedestrians walking around as if they were drunk, slightly bent over as they shuffled along, occasionally staggering off course. And I had apparently caught it on a good day. It seemed a contradiction that the city prided itself on having everything of interest within walking distance when it could be a struggle to even stand in one spot, let alone walk anywhere. Looking skyward, the wind drove the clouds at such velocities that it appeared as if the sky was falling.
The city is compact due to the surrounding hills, development going upward rather then outward, the high rise buildings giving it a big city feel even though only 350,000 people lived there. Wellington is very proud of the new Ta Papa building or 'Our Place' when translated from the Maori. It is the country’s national museum after taking the title from the one in Auckland. Architecturally stunning, days could be spent wondering through the details it holds. There were exhibits on natural history, art, Maori culture, technology, pretty much anything and everything in fact. When I visited it, I was done after three hours, my concentration broken by the time I got to the floor on stamp collections and my stomach craving one of the apple based cakes served in the café. I did get some enthusiasm for the exhibit on the Treaty of Waitangi, the two versions in the respective languages still causing conflicts, the best part of 200 years later. A quick mooch in the Museum of Wellington City and Sea for a look into the city’s history and a look around the government buildings of the Beehive and Parliament House and I was all cultured out for the day.
The start of the north island tour left from Auckland and so the next day was spent on an express bus for the ten-hour drive to New Zealand's largest city. Crossing the middle of the north island, we came into a former volcanic plateau, the centre of which is now lake Taupo, formed from the crater left behind after the greatest volcanic eruption know to have occurred anywhere. The Romans on the other side of the world made observations of the greying of the skies as the eruption effected the ecosystem of the whole world.
We came to a point where an impressive snow capped mountain came into view. Behind that in the distance was a flat topped volcano, it's shape a familiar form.
"The second mountain you can see in the distance is Mount Ngauruhoe. You’d probably know it better as Mount Doom from the Lord of the Rings movies," the driver announced.
"What? That little one is Mount Doom?" whispered Mesha.
"Erm...yes, the one behind the snow capped one, that is very far away is Mount Doom," I replied. I wondered if Mesha felt suitably stupid when we got closer and the true scale of the volcano revealed itself.
Surrounded by desert, the remoteness of the setting made me reflect on the scale of the distance I'd covered throughout my trip. Though not the epic struggle through Mordor of Frodo Baggins, it did feel like I had made a gargantuan effort just to get to where I was.
Auckland is home to some one million people and yet is geographically the sixth largest city in the world. This is open to some question though, the city’s boundaries apparently at a point in some insignificant hills in the middle of the countryside with few buildings around. It is known as the 'city of sails' as it has the densest per capita boat ownership in the world with one in ten people in Auckland having private access to one. I took a walk to one of the main harbours, rumour had it that the $5million yacht of Roman Abramovich was in town. I took a look around Viaduct Harbour where scores of huge luxury craft sat proudly, many of which could have been worthy of the massive price tag. Around the harbour were exclusive cafes where the great and the good of Auckland were shamelessly consuming in an area that stank of money. I could, but won't get into an analysis of who had the 'richer' journey out of Roman and me in getting to Auckland. But those were nice boats. I went back to the hostel to a pasta dinner. Again.
I was staying in the ABC Backpackers, the largest I’d ever been in that left me with a cold feeling toward it because of its size. In my dormitory was Robert, an 18 year old from Melbourne who had been sent to travel the world by his parents. With braces on his teeth, acne that went all the way around to his neck and down his back, protruding ears and with less meat on his six foot frame then on a duck's beak, he was every bit the awkward teenager. He was to become my shadow for the following few days as it emerged he had a Stray pass too.
The start of the north island tour put us onto the bus of Kerry, a veteran driver. Despite having a girl’s name, or maybe because of this, he was rough around the edges even by Stray standards. He was a short, squat guy with close-cropped hair and a harsh, gravelly 30-a-day smoker’s voice that suggested a like for whisky and late nights. But he knew his stuff, giving us a full commentary during the day’s drive. He was mentoring Geoff, a guy who could only be termed ‘cool’ probably due to him being an ex-radio DJ. His bronze skin together with his long dark unkempt hair and designer stubble gave him the look of a surfer. He wouldn’t have any problems as far as customer relations went, joining in with things in the typical kiwi relaxed manner. The holiday season was getting into full swing; the numbers on the bus were much more significant then had been the case during my travels on the south island.
We stopped on Mount Eden, an extinct volcano that gave us a spectacular look out over Auckland that included a fantastic view of its famous tower and One Tree Hill, a place of significance to the Maori and the inspiration for U2’s song of the same name. Unfortunately, the ‘one tree’ was no longer there after a Maori activist took a chainsaw to it during one night in 1994. It just about survived another year before more vandals finished it off and a memorial was built as a replacement.
We travelled toward the Coromandel Peninsula to the town of Hahai. One of the early pacific islander settlers who was named Ha had landed in the area. Ha was a powerful chief and it was customary to be able to lay claim to any land that resembled a body part of the claimant. Due to his power, nobody questioned his claim that the land that jutted out to sea resembled his nose despite the amount of imagination needed for such a ridiculous notion. ‘Hai' was the word for 'breath' and thus making the link to the chief’s nose. This in combination with the name of the discoverer gave the place its name of Hahai.
The town itself was no more then a small holiday town and we stopped just long enough to claim a bed and drop off our bags in the small simple dormitory buildings in the edge of a caravan park. Nicholas, a tall blonde haired and blue eyed German who could talk for his country was one of my dorm mates. We dashed off to the beach to take a kayaking trip, Robert at my side as ever.
I took the back seat in the kayak with the access to the rudder and with it the responsibility of navigation, hoping that what Robert lacked physically was made up with enthusiasm. Wrong. He used his oar to poke at the water and occasionally made a sweeping gesture in the water with it, his clumsiness giving me a face full of the pacific more then once as we struggled to keep up with the rest of the group.
We were kayaking around several islands in Mercury bay, named by Captain Cook when he observed the planet when anchored there. The star attraction was Cathedral Cove, a rock jutting out from the cliff face with a tunnel that had been formed from erosion. We made a stop at the nearby beach for coffee and a look around. Standing inside of the cove, looking up and using some imagination, the inside of the rock resembles the shape of the inside of a cathedral. Or the inside of a big rock.
Next day, we headed to Raglan, a beachside town on the east coast of the north island and the country's premier surfing spot.
“This is my favourite place in the whole of New Zealand,” Kerry said, “I come up here when I get some time off and hit the surfing beaches. The hostel where we stay do an all-you-can-eat buffet for $10 – I think it’s Mexican tonight. I tell ya, it’ll be the best $10 you’ll ever spend. I always say, if you’re not happy with the food I’ll give you back the ten bucks myself. I’ve never had to do that yet.”
Kerry’s money was safe. The food at The Lodge was indeed excellent, with bucket loads of chilli and all the required garnishings to make monster burritos. The Lodge itself was like a holiday camp. Tucked away in the forest, there was a gym hall with table tennis and a basket ball hoop, a look-out over the beach for when the sun set and a Flying Fox, a zip line ride with an old tyre suspended from the line by a chain that you ride down its length on. It took some bravery to ride especially after dark. Naturally, Robert cut himself on his effort, his ear catching the hand chain at the bottom. There were walking tracks around the hostel, one of which went right up into the hills. The rules had changed recently, walkers having to sign out after a group of Germans got their timings wrong and were caught in the hills after dark. They only made it back in the pitch black by using the flash repeatedly on their cameras. Their holiday pictures must have been rubbish.
It was a jovial atmosphere around the hostel in the evening, everyone full of chilli, filling up on beer and the odd person covered in scratches from the Flying Fox. I got talking to Bryan, a guy from Dublin in the same occupation as me in my former life. He was a likeable funny guy and I didn’t mind talking shop with him into the night, Robert hanging around in the background trying to figure out what the hell we were going on about.

Greatest Things

2009-05-04T13:18:00.001-07:00

Hobbits do indeed exist in New Zealand. We had arrived in Waitomo, a region famous for its multiple number of underground cave systems and the expense at which it was to access them due to the money the farmers charge for access over their land. 'Wait' is the Maori word for ‘water’, 'omo' is the word for ‘underground’, hence giving Waitomo its name.
I'd elected for a morning of black water rafting and hanging around after signing up in the caving centre, a squeaky voice piped up. "Anyone here for the Black Water Rafting, come with me outside for a role call!"
I looked around but couldn't see the owner of the voice. I moved to go outside and nearly stepped on what I first thought was a small child that I hadn't noticed. It turned out to be Ollie, the guide that was to take us down into the caves. He and another pair of guides drove us out to the caves where, in a shed, we donned another unflattering wet suit finished of with a pair of wellington boots. It was a bit of a walk to the cave entrance and I wouldn’t have blamed the farmers if they had chosen to take pot shots at the group of Oompa Loompas passing by.
I was soon jealous of Ollie's small frame as we made our way through the cave system, crawling through claustrophobic tunnels and scrambling over rocks. At least I had an advantage over the little people who had to swim through some of the pools and stretches of the underground river. The rafting part of the title turned out to be misleading. On longer parts of the river we used the inner tube from a truck tyre, presumably left over from one of New Zealand's numerous road accidents. A particular highlight was floating along on our tubes singing Row row row your boat in the dark with our torches switched off. The only light was that of the pinprick amazing colours from the glow worms on the ceiling of the caves.
* * *
"This is one place I can fart and get away with it," Kerry announced as we arrived in Rotorua in the afternoon. I still stank from the mud and grime from the caves and so it took a while for me to figure out what Kerry was talking about. A smell of sulphur hung in the air, very much like the 1000-year-old egg that I had tried back in Hong Kong. The town is on a point above the earth with high volcanic activity going on, vents consisting of bubbling mud, steaming pools up to 500 degrees Celsius and geysers prevent eruptions by releasing the built up pressure and heat.
"The nickname is Roto-Vegas," said Kerry, "It's all about money around here now. They found that the eruption of the geysers was too unpredictable and so began clogging it up with soap in such a way that it would erupt at exactly 11am and 2pm everyday so the Japanese tourists could get their photographs on cue."
We dodged the commercialisation to spend the evening at the ranch of Slim, the head of a Maori family where we were in for a culture night. “The evening is what you make of it, “ Kerry had said, “You can sit there like a fucking knob or get yourself involved. You’ll enjoy it more and they enjoy it more when people get stuck in.” I exchanged glances with the others, wondering what we had got ourselves into.
The evening started off well as the Maori family treated us to a fantastic meal with various meats, potatoes and vegetables. A young Maori girl of about nine or ten years of age put on a show, mesmerising us with a pair of swinging balls in a twirling display. Sure enough, it wasn’t long before audience participation was required; the young girl leading the women from our group in a dance with the swinging balls designed to entice men-folk. Watching a bunch of clumsy giggling girls fuck up a Maori dance didn’t work on me.
They got their chance to have a laugh at the boys, Slim teaching us the Haka as used by the All-Blacks. We came across as intimidating as a group of girl guides. To make us feel even more useless, Slim had us all performing an exercise used by Maori warriors to sharpen up their co-ordination and reflexes with a sort of juggling of sticks in pairs. The ringing of the wooden sticks hitting the floor rang around my head for hours afterward.
They put on a play about a traditional Maori fable with singing and the playing of traditional Maori musical instruments and lots more audience participation. I felt pretty tough as a Maori warrior until I saw my 'opponent' who had a nasty looking spear while I was given a flimsy baton of wood that resembled a table tennis bat as we re-enacted a battle scene between two rival tribes.

* * *

"When you get to the skydiving centre, ask them if you can do a tumble," Kerry said as he drove us to the airport just outside the town of Taupo. I wasn’t too sure about that. There were already too many decisions to make when we arrived - what altitude to go up to, whether to get a DVD made, whether to buy the T-shirt - that I wasn't sure if I wanted to max out the adrenaline rush any further.
"Are you able to do a tumble?" I asked Mike, my tandem buddy, potential murderer and lifesaver all in one while he got me into the jump suit and harness.
"Yep, we'll do a tumble and get a few twists in," he said in a calm measured voice as if he jumped out of planes and performed acrobatics in the air everyday. Well he did, several times actually. I'd now somehow got myself into a twisting, tumbling exit from 12,000 feet. I only wanted to ask if it was possible to do some tumbles for my further consideration. But now it seemed as if I had committed myself. I didn’t want Mike to think I was scared so there was no backing out now.
I got talking to Julia, a cheerful British girl who was jumping with an American skydiver with bleach blonde hair and a winning smile. "He's just convinced me to go to 15,000 feet," she reported, "I'm a sucker for a guy with a nice smile." At that point a pang of jealousy lit up with the realisation that I'd never be cool enough to be a professional skydiver. I was beginning to take a dislike to these people; their film star good looks having nothing to do with it of course.
"You're mad," I exclaimed to Julia about adding another 3,000 feet of altitude.
"Actually it’s safer, it gives our melon-headed guys longer to sort out any problems," said the receptionist.
“I think I'll go up to 15,000 please," I said.
With us was Simon from London who looked like he was going to be sick, realising what he got himself into after signing up only because he heard that Taupo was one of the most cheap and scenic place in the world to skydive. Nicholas and Robert would be on one of the following jumps after the three of us and were looking a lot calmer. After getting to know Nicholas over the previous few days, I’d found that he had the habit of over utilised the degree he had in stating the obvious from the university of life. "There’ll be more free fall time at 15,000 feet," he said, also signing up for the big one. It was an extra $100 for the higher altitude, the cash brought us another 30 seconds of terror. Bargain.
Mike went through what was going to happen with me. "When we get into the plane you'll sit between my legs. At 8000 feet I'll get you to climb onto my lap where I'll connect your harness to mine at four points, each one capable of holding 5000 pounds." A quick mental calculation told me I'd probably be OK with the meat pie that I had at lunch. "At 12,000 feet you'll put your hat on. At 15,000 you'll slip your goggles on and we'll slide over to the door where you'll swing completely out of the plane, me still inside while you tuck your feet underneath the plane and arch your body into a banana shape. Do you like bananas?”
“Well, not really, but I don’t really se- “
“Good, just keep thinking of bananas. That’s your job. Keep your body shaped like a banana after we jump and try and kick me in the bum as you keep those legs tucked back. We'll do those tumbles and twists as we fall for 60 seconds. At 5000 feet the 'chute will open and we'll cruise down looking at the scenery for about five minutes."
I nodded away, struggling to take in what he was saying. I did like the idea of kicking the smarmy git in the arse though. We had a few more minutes before take-off and so I wandered over to see how Julia and Simon were doing.
"A friend told me if you seem too nervous, the instructors tell you jokes to take your mind off things," Julia said.
“Like what?" I asked.
"OK, after you get onto their lap they might ask, 'What's the difference between a BMW and an erection?'" She let the silence hang for a moment before delivering the punchline, "I haven't got a BMW."
The three of us squeezed into the small light aircraft with our skydiving plebs like sardines in a small tin box, the plane taxying for what seemed like a life-time before we finally began the long ascent.
"Are we at 15,000 feet yet?" I asked.
"No, we're at about 20 feet," Mike chuckled behind me. "You wanna get out now?"
We cruised skyward and he left me to my thoughts, occasionally waving his hand held camera in my face for a thumbs up for the DVD they were going to try to sell me later.
We went through the routine described by Mike. I mustn't have looked too scared, else Mike just didn't fancy me when I climbed onto his lap. They didn't mess around once we hit 15,000 feet, Simon first out barely moments after the door being opened. "You ready?" yelled Mike over my shoulder.
No.
"Yes!" I cried.
He shuffled us over and threw us out, I didn't even have time to make a decent banana shape, the chance for me to shine in my role as the fruit over in a flash. I couldn’t even get a few good kicks into Mike's buttocks. Maybe he’d told me all that stuff to give me something to think about on the way skyward.
We tumbled and twisted. Utter confusion. I had no idea what I was seeing, just patches of green and blue that seemed to merge into one. I hoped Mike had his mental faculties intact, I wasn't capable of coherent thought at all. He levelled us out, facing us toward the ground. A cloud was to our half left but then came and went in a flash. It felt like a dream. Some people say that freefall feels like flying. Bullshit. Facing the ground you see the details getting bigger and bigger VERY FAST. Mike waved the camera in my face again. I pulled a couple of stupid faces but soon had to give up as the acceleration levelled out and took us to our maximum velocity of 1000 feet every five seconds. The pressure on my face left me incapable of making voluntary movement with it. I had a vague notion that the first stages of the parachute opening were taking place above me and I braced myself mentally - there was nothing I could do physically.
Crunch. The harness ripped up painfully into the insides of my thighs as the parachute opened.
"How was that?" Mike asked as we both caught our breath.
"Amazing!” I said, gritting my teeth at the pain in my legs where the harness dug in. “Is there a bar around here?" I added, aware of the camera.
Mike pulled on the toggles, spinning us around to take in the scenery, the harness cutting deeper into my legs each time sending my brain more messages of discomfort.
"How do you feel?" he asked.
"Cold, and a bit hungry. So where's Mount Doom?"
"What?"
“Mount Doom?”
“What’s that?”
"You know, Mount Doom, from the Lord of the Rings films?"
"Mount Doom?" Mike must have been one of the few people to not know about the films and the book. This wouldn't look good on the DVD.
He pointed at a few of the peaks reeling off their Maori names. When he named Ngauruhoe I recognised its shape from the films and felt content. We cruised down for a nice comfortable landing, me giving the ground a big hug and a promise not to take it for granted again.
"Would you do it again?" asked Mike, shoving the camera back in my face.
No.
"Oh yes definitely! That was amazing!" I said, the soreness in my thighs giving me a walk like that of John Wayne. But oh yes, I would do it again. It was one of the greatest things I had ever done.
The Tongariro crossing is regarded as one of the world’s greatest one-day walks and still high from the parachute jump, Julia, Simon, Nicholas and I took the six-hour hike together with a young, small petit German girl called Katherine in the morning.
"I like to have good equipment," Nicholas started, "I have a good jacket. When it rains you get wet," Never. "People generally don't feel comfortable when they're wet and cold." Right. "I have lots of food, " he said beginning the day's second lecture, "You get energy from food, so you have to eat." Argggggghhhhh!
The 17 kilometres passed through desert shrub land, past Mount Ngauruhoe with breath-taking scenery. After the flat plains the terrain got trickier, culminating in a tough steep climb onto the active volcanic plateau, a stage known as the Devil’s Steps. We all managed to struggle to the top, hot from the effort and from the steaming rocks around us. It was match the scene from Lord of the Rings time; I'm convinced Gandalf was leading the fellowship the wrong way. If he only looked over his shoulder in one of those mountain crossing scenes he would have seen Mount Doom directly behind him and saved us all the cost of two more cinema tickets.
Julia was struggling but getting by with her steady pace, but Katherine was really suffering, a migraine attack making her lose the plot. She rushed ahead wanting to get to a lower altitude and to complete the crossing as quickly as possible.
On the other side of the volcano ranges there were beautiful emerald lakes below. The volcanoes themselves looked otherworldly, one named Red Crater for good reason as it looked like it belonged on Mars. I took off down the volcano slope, hoping to catch up to Katherine, sliding down the loose shingle all the way. I caught my breath at the base next to the lake seeing the rest of the group still loitering at the top. I headed on to the next section, another long plain just as a group of clouds drifted in, reducing the visibility to a few tens of meters.
A long stretch downhill winding through valleys and through rainforest completed the walk. There was no catching Katherine, I slowed my pace and the others caught up with me a couple of kilometres before the finish where we found a much happier Katherine then the one we’d seen tearing away from us on the volcano.
Our accommodation for the evening was in Whakapapa, the ‘Wh’ pronounced as an ‘F’ so that the utterance of the place would sound rude enough to turn heads. The village was no more then a few buildings mainly catering for the holiday crowd on the lower echelons of Mount Ruapehu.
It was a welcome relief, the cabin feel of the hotel come hostel was one of the most relaxing places I’d stayed at, our tired legs treated by the warmth of the spa pool. It was the first soak I’d had in a tub since I’d been away. I loved it. I took two showers, the overhead heater in the changing area topping off the luxury. It’s a shame we only had the one night there, I barely sampled the ambience in the comfortable lounge area and didn’t make it to the bar or restaurant, fatigue getting the better of me.

Against The Clouds

2009-05-04T13:17:00.003-07:00

Back in Auckland I was pleasantly surprised to find Chris - a fellow Brit who spent some time in the Greenhouse Backpackers in Melbourne at the same time as me - sitting on one of the top bunks in the dorm as I walked in. I knew he’d gone onto New Zealand but didn’t know he’d be in Auckland, let alone the International YHA, let alone dormitory 19. It's a small world.
His usual cheerful persona was a little stunted as we caught up and exchanged stories of our respective adventures around New Zealand. After months on the road, the travelling lifestyle was getting to him.
"I've hit a brick wall," he confessed to me over dinner in an Indian restaurant around the corner.
I could see where he was coming from. I'd often been asked my favourite place between New Zealand and Australia. At a push I would say Australia. New Zealand was more consistently beautiful but Australia had much more uniqueness to it, no where else has an Uluru, 12 Apostles, three Sisters or Great Barrier Reef and the need to travel for hours through empty desert just to get to them added to the romance for me. But was much of my relative apathy for New Zealand down to travel fatigue? Was it possible to be appreciative of each place as if it was the first?
There was still a lot of country to explore to the north of Auckland and I used the last few unchecked boxes on my Stray pass to go and see some of it. The driver arrived in a small mini-bus for the few people that were going north. He was a young guy, short and slim with a constant smile on his face which made him resemble a children’s television presenter. His nickname was Nemo, as he had a reputation of always getting lost.
We visited a reserve to look at trees. Big trees, mind. They reached dozens of metres into the air with the girth of several American people, but they were still small compared to the ones I’d seen in Tasmania. We continued onward for a stop toward Goat Island. Snorkelling had been on the menu in the marine reserve but it was a cold day and Nemo couldn’t offer us gimp suits. Only the two Brazilian girls in the group were brave enough to give it a go, the poor lambs shivering and wishing they were back in Rio afterward. We had a picnic on Lang’s beach and a stop at Whangarei falls before we started on the drive to our accommodation for the night.
Sure enough, after driving through the forest for an hour or so Nemo muted the CD player and said, “Um…I’m not quite sure where we are…I don’t recognise any of this.” We got to a crossroads. “Which way do you guys reckon we should go, I’m thinking left?”
“Right,” said Dennis, a tall Dutch guy with a quiff who was sitting up front with Nemo.
“What about the rest of you?” Nemo asked over his shoulder.
“Right,” we all echoed, not trusting Nemo’s judgement.
We arrived in the late afternoon at our hostel in the centre of Paihia. The travel fatigue had settled in as I couldn't be bothered to make the first move to chat to any of the other travellers. It must have been something in the air, only Dennis made an effort to talk to me as we settled into our dorm.
"Do you like Simply Red? They're my favourite band."
"Really? They're a bit out of date," I said.
"No, no, they're really big in Holland. I really like Mike Hucknall."
"Well ten years ago maybe." I said.
We continued sorting our kit out for a few moments.
"Do you like Phil Collins?"
"Are you being serious?"
I took a walk around the small bay. Out to sea were a group of islands dotted off of the coast which gave Paihia its other name of the Bay of Islands. It was like many other seaside towns of the country, just with extortionate Internet rates, it being so cut off from everywhere else. I took the walk from Pahia out to Waitangi, the site where the historic treaty with the British was signed. In such a land of peace and harmony, it just seemed a little bit of a shame to me to be charged $12 to stand in what was just a field where the treaty was signed.
On the way back into town, I bumped into Chris yet again. He’d decided on his own Bay of Islands trip. That or he was stalking me. Either way it was good to have a friendly face to go for a beer with as the rain began to settle in for the evening, the remnants of a cyclone from the pacific passing by.
By the morning, the drizzle had turned into downpours. I’d already booked to go on a day trip to the top of the country. I just hoped it would clear up. The driver that turned up in a mini-bus that had seen better days was a slightly odd but likeable little fellow, his facial hair went beyond being a moustache but didn’t quite make it as a goatee. He had an amusing way of making whistling, clicking or beeping noises into his microphone to get our attention.
A short drive took us to the start of 90-mile beach which was actually only 65 miles long. I guess the name just wouldn't have the same ring to it. The beach is a state freeway allowing us to take the 4-wheel drive bus to the tip of the country. Awaiting us at the northern end of the beach were giant sand dunes, great fun to body board down even in the pouring rain. Half of the group walked away with injuries but all with smiles.
We arrived at Cape Reinga, the northern most accessible point in New Zealand as the sun finally won the battle against the clouds. A small lighthouse overlooked the clashing of two oceans: the waves of the blue pacific waters smashed against the greener waves from the Tasman Sea coming in the opposing direction to spectacular effect.
The Maori believe that this is the point where the spirits of the dead pass to the underworld. On the drive back south, half-goatee told us more about the Maori, pointing out remnants from the past on the terraces dug into hills from battles with the British - the Maori were the pioneers of trench warfare and the only people that the British couldn't colonise by force. They were intelligent navigators, the first Polynesians making it to New Zealand and as far away as Hawaii. Without sophisticated navigation equipment they must have used the stars and as such were probably the first people to realise that the world was round and not flat. Technically, there are no pure Maori left, but there has been a big drive in the last 20 years not to lose Maori culture. The language is taught in schools and there are opportunities all around to learn more about the Maori. I returned to Auckland and to find Chris back at the YHA. The city has a mixed reputation with a love/hate divide for the place amongst the travellers I spoke to. Many a New Zealander treated it as if it was it’s own country. NAFA was an acronym so commonly used that it made it onto roadside advertising. It stands for ‘Not Another Fucking Aucklander’ by the way. Most people just explore the main centre, it’s trendy bars and restaurants offering nothing more then what could be found in any other city. With my last day in New Zealand, Chris and I did at least manage to get out and explore some of the outer areas, taking a ferry trip of to one of the many islands. But I was really just killing time. I was waiting to board another plane, not a ferry.

* * *

I managed to find a position that put minimum pressure on my bladder which was fortunate as the aisle seat was occupied by a gargantuan American woman. I wasted away the hours watching the second and third Lord of the Rings films having covered the first during my travels around New Zealand. My bladder reminded me that I had thrown three cups of water, one pint of beer, two glasses of wine and two cups of orange juice at it since I arrived at Auckland airport. In my half slumber, I continued to wonder why the staff at the Burger King in the airport still asked if I wanted 'take out' when I was trapped in the ether between the customs and the gate to the plane. Where exactly could I have taken it out to?
Leaving the plane, my priority was to get to the men’s room. The toilet had a sticker boasting an automatic flush. How did that work? How did it know when I was finished with what I was doing? I looked on for a moment after I’d made my transaction. Nothing happened. Maybe the sticker was a decoy, stuck on as a joke and so I poked around trying to find an invisible button. Nothing happened. Maybe there was a sensor. I tried waving my hands around the bowl and then around the stall like a demented sorcerer. Nothing happened. I slipped out sheepishly, the evidence of my shameless consumption readily available for discovery.
"Everybody move! Let’s go! LET’S GO!" bellowed the security guard frantically as we lined up for customs. It was in contrast to the voice I heard after I'd passed through, having had my photograph and fingerprints taken for use as evidence for the crime I left behind in the toilets. The calm voice over the Tannoy had said, "There is an emergency, please vacate by the closest stairwell." It was so cool that the other passengers and I all stood around at the luggage carousel believing that no emergency could be bad enough for us not to be able to pick up our bags before leaving. That was until another security guy came running up with more exclaimed ‘Let's go!’s. He had a big gun. I went.
Welcome to America.
After a few moments we were allowed back in to pick up our bags and I then went and found a shuttle bus to take me to my hostel. The chatty, funny driver was everything I wanted Americans to be.
"I had some Australians in here the other day. Do you know they pronounce Mel-born as Mel-burn? I said to them, 'How do you pronounce the Matt Damon film, The Bourne Identity?' ‘Born’ they said. That just confuses me." I wanted to take him home as a souvenir especially as he left me with a 'Welcome to San Francisco, have a nice day!"
It had been a long day. With the cross over the international time line, having flown over the world's largest ocean and the international timeline, I had still managed seven meals and over 12 hours of sleep in a single day. I was staying at the Green Tortoise, a legendary hostel conveniently located despite its proximity to the red light district. It had a huge expanse of a room that resembled more of a dancehall then the usual hostel common area. Groups of cool people would hang out, play instruments or fight to have their IPod on shuffle over the music system. Despite its size, there was a real sense of hippy community, helped by the free breakfast bagels and regular evening meal and party nights. The rooms themselves were in stark contrast, hidden around and on the other side of the building, they were kitted out snugly, the beds complete with quilt bedding. I was sharing with another David, a Gentleman in his 50’s on a temporary job in the city and a group of three young Australian boys from Newcastle. Their black clothing and taste in music could have put them into Aussie git territory, but they turned out to be a charming group just out to have fun.
I was all ready to go, the jet lag giving me the same happy delirium I’d had after arriving in Hong Kong as I took to the streets. Walking around town, I was continually hit by music flowing onto the streets from jazz cafe's and bars. Sweet, delicious smells invited the pedestrian traffic. It felt as if calorific gain was possible just from inhalation and my senses were on the verge of being over-ridden after the relative blandness of taste in Australia and New Zealand. Beautiful Californian girls passed me by, one after another. Impossibly small and cheerful dogs trotted along with their owners. China town and little Italy oozed authenticity with the former covered by decorations and spent firecrackers from the Chinese new year celebrations. The air was still filled by the banging as children continued to set off poppers. Shops sold slices of Californian lifestyle and yet the atmosphere was much less pretentious then I imagined it would be. Buildings rose up spectacularly, up into the steep streets and the rolling hills beyond. People walked around with smiles on their faces, happy to be alive and living in the moment.
I believed I was going to have many 'nice days' in America.

Mockery Of The Scale

2009-05-04T13:17:00.001-07:00

I'm not a fan of traffic lights. They are inefficient, do nothing for the flow of traffic and can even be dangerous. Give me a roundabout every time. They are beautiful in their simplicity and keep traffic flowing in an efficient manner. I may be biased having grown up in Milton Keynes, the city of roundabouts with a grid system based on that of San Francisco. So I should have felt at home in the city. Wrong. After being there for four days, I still hadn't found any roundabouts. Not a single one. Traffic lights were at a premium too which smacks of madness with so many junctions. The system in use was to have stop signs at each junction and the driver with the biggest 'who dares wins' attitude gets over the crossroads first. At the hostel I got talking to Jerry, a harshly speaking kiwi about the subject who had dared to hire a car. "It's bullshit," he spat. Quite.
The cost of a single ticket gave me admission to Alcatraz, the ferry to the island and an audio tour. I made my way around the crowded and surprisingly small prison grounds soberly. The voice from the headset directed me around cells that were once home to the likes of Al Capone and Robert Stroud, the ‘birdman of Alcatraz’ and told of the brutal people housed there and the conditions in which they were kept. Despite the number of tourists, the tour was excellent and confirmed that Americans sure did know how to put on a good show.
I just had to walk the Golden Gate Bridge whilst in San Francisco. It was a hike just to get to it from downtown but it really is a wonder of engineering brilliance considering its scale and the wildness of the sea currents in the bay below. Laying your hands on the rails or cabling allows you to feel slight movement as the bridge takes the endless strain. I passed some of the bridge workers, their life's work never complete as they continue the re-painting of the orange rust colour to keep corrosion at bay. It took me a few moments to notice that the 'emergency' telephones along the length of the bridge were directly linked to counselling lines for the use of those walking the bridge who'd had a bad day and were thinking about whether to jump over the side.
The so-called international hostel was actually full of Americans. They may not like to travel much outside of their own country - only 20% of U.S. citizens have a passport - but they sure liked to get around internally. I suddenly became very aware of my accent; in a sea of American voices, the British unfortunately sound as silly as the token Englishman in a U.S. TV or film It's like hearing yourself recorded and played back. 'I really don't sound like that do I, old chap?'
With my chances of being able to negotiate a car through the crossroads of the country near impossible and the train service regarded to be more unreliable then that of the UK, it was back on the coaches for me. Greyhound operated in America and my experiences in Australia hadn’t been too bad, though the American version had a more negative reputation. I tentatively brought myself an Ameripass, a ticket that allowed me unlimited travel in the US. My first stop would be Merced, a town from which another local bus would get me to a hostel on the edge of Yosemite Park.
Setting off on the Greyhound, I needed help from a lesbian couple to get my arm rest folded out, the twist and pull technology - or was it pull and twist? - baffling me as much as the automatic flush had in the toilet at San Francisco airport. I noticed that I was near to the emergency exit window, the instructions looking equally confusing. I didn't like the chances that the old Mexican looking woman sitting underneath it had of being able to open it. If there were an emergency with my limited skill displayed so far with the mechanical technology of these lands we really would have been in the shit.

* * *

"There's a free guided walk around the area," said Kate, "The guide is over there in the corner."
I looked over; there was a log fire with a couch and two armchairs to either side but no signs of anybody. "His name is Ying-Yang," Kate continued. I stood up to see if I'd missed a small oriental person lying on the couch. There was nobody. Kate and Scott, the British couple I'd got talking to at the Yosemite Bug Hostel were clearly amused. I looked about again to see what I had missed; log fire, armchairs, couch, a dog in its basket...
"You mean the dog?" I asked, expecting the two of them to laugh at the suggestion.
"Yep," said Scott, "You just go up to him and say 'walkies!' and he'll trot off. He stops and looks around for you until you catch up, taking you on a walk around the forest." Unfortunately Ying-Yang was pretending to be asleep and it was quite late, but I just loved the idea of the dog giving guided tours. The hostel cat on the other hand was useless; the bad coffee that the place served must have been down to her.
The next day Scott and Kate joined me for a hike through Yosemite Park. The winter scenery was fantastic, with gushing waterfalls and tall Californian pine trees that made a mockery of the scale of the people walking beneath them. Crystal clear rivers and lakes reflected the towering valley walls. In my opinion it surpassed the scenery that New Zealand had to offer.We got talking about the food in the U.S.
"They seem obsessed with putting gherkins on everything," said Scott, "The diners are full of people picking the dam things out of their burgers."
"And I bet you always get one that hides itself in the melted cheese and it catches you out." I said.
They told me about a shooting incident that had happened a couple of days before near to the park. "Some guy shot his neighbour in a domestic dispute and then hid out in his house," said Scott, "There were police all around with snipers, helicopters and all sorts. In the end they sent the dogs in and they took him out."
Was there nothing Ying-Yang couldn't do?
It was a bit disconcerting hearing about guns, but the crime in America is exaggerated. In fact, it has been steadily falling since the 1990s and it surprised me to learn that there is three times the amount of violent crime per capita in Britain then there is in the U.S. while the supposedly peaceful Canada has statistics only marginally behind the Americans.
There's also the concern of dangerous wildlife. As well as a number of deadly spiders and snakes, the U.S. leads the world in the number of shark attacks. But these things need to be put into context; according to my travel guide, in 1996 there were 18 shark attacks while 18,000 Americans were injured by... buckets. Still, signs in Yosemite Park warned about Bears and Mountain Lions. "I don't care if it encourages them, I'm throwing it my lunch if I see it," said Kate when we came across some bear tracks in the snow. At least it would buy us some time while it stopped to pick the gherkins out of the sandwiches.
I didn’t like the advice that the signs gave if a mountain lion was encountered. ‘Stand up tall and shout to scare it away. If that doesn’t work, throw rocks at it. If it attacks you, fight it.’ Fight it…? How? Should I have taken martial arts classes before going into the park?
On the bus back to Merced, a couple of tough looking rednecks got on. They both had hair that would have got them into Status Quo, with bushy goatee beards and feathered cowboy hats. One had a denim jacket over his favourite heavy-metal band’s logo emblazoned T-shirt while the other guy had his leather jacket zipped up to his neck. They looked quite intimidating, that was until they joined in with the conversation that the driver was having with the old woman at the front about Disney films.
"I just loved Lady and The Tramp, that's my favourite of all time... And do you have 101 Dalmatians? I have parts one and two..."
The Yosemite Bug was a wonderful place to be, the dormitories were in comfortable log cabins with a central building that housed the common area, restaurant and bar. Out in the middle of nowhere as we were, there were no other options of places to eat but it didn’t matter, the food that was served was exceptional. I decided to stay an extra couple of nights so that I could sample the steak and the rainbow trout as well as to explore more of the park itself, taking along one of the restaurants glorious packed lunches.
Scott and Kate had been travelling east to west across America rather then the west to east I was doing. As such Scott and I were delighted to make use of their poker set from Las Vegas in the evenings, him to relive some memories, me to get some practise in.

* * *

"Where you headed?" asked the woman at our rest stop who had been sat in the seat in front of me with the seat fully reclined.
"Las Vegas," I replied.
"Why are you heading this way?"
It was a good question, the answer to which demonstrated the ridiculous nature of the U.S. public transportation system. To get to Vegas from Merced I needed to catch a bus to Los Angeles, driving into the night in the WRONG DIRECTION adding six hours to my journey. Still, it paled into insignificance compared to recline seat woman who would be travelling for the best part of three days to get to her destination in Texas, a state as big as Germany and Poland combined.
I had no desire to stop in LA, the traveller grapevine filling me in with tales of disappointment, restricted budget options and sightings of gang warfare. Hollywood and Beverly Hills could have been worth a look, but they were areas that would suck up money and offer the kind of tourist trappings I preferred to avoid. The stories of travellers who had said they never felt safe there helped me to make my mind up to get straight onto a second bus for Las Vegas.
My seatmate from LA was Alonso, a Mexican who drove limousines for a living and kept me awake with tales of celebrities likely to bring a couple of lawsuits if published here. Maybe he was full of shit, but he kept me entertained.
Las Vegas was almost indescribable. It was the Superbowl weekend which just added fuel to the fire. People walked the streets all hours of the day carrying their beer or Margarita yards from place to place. The streets were paved with porn, rejected from the guys who handed out the brochures and leaflets or just leftovers from the stands of free stuff on the sidewalks. Considering this, the place felt remarkably clean; there must be an army of cleaners and polishers keeping up the sparkle. I stayed in the grungier downtown area in the Sin City Hostel alongside the strip joints and drive through wedding chapels. Its rooms were as basic as you can get but then you don’t go to Vegas to sleep. I would be partying alone though, my only other dorm mate was a quiet American guy who would be in bed by 11pm.
North of downtown the famous Las Vegas strip begins with the mega-resorts, each one a mini-city in itself: Vegas felt small and yet is huge at the same time. Circus Circus was the most family orientated mega-resort with theme park rides, amusements and circus shows. The Venetian replicated Venice with gondola rides through fake canals that run in and out of the buildings without the stench of the Italian city. The Mirage featured an erupting volcano and rainforest habitat, white tiger enclosures and dolphins. Caesars Palace was just huge, with moving, speaking statues and an inside 'sky' that changes from dawn to dusk every three hours over a cacophony of designer shopping choices. The Bellagio next door oozed class and had impressive fountain shows every 15 minutes on its large doorstep lake. Paris Le-Vegas reproduced Paris with a half scale replica of the Eiffel tower and arc-de-triumph. New York - New York did the same with the Manhattan skyline vying for attention amid the chaos. Inside were replica Park Avenue streets and a mini Greenwich Village. The MGM Grand made it's presence felt by it's sheer bulk and had inside lion enclosures while the pyramid shaped Luxor sends out a beam of light to space with the power of 40 billion candles overseen by a sphinx and obelisk. It was awe-inspiring just wandering and wondering around.
The positive element of having travelled overnight was the saving of $20 or so for accommodation. I took this to the poker tables at the Riviera, a more modest casino at the downtown side of the strip. I'm not a good card player, I still usually ended many evenings as the shithead, but hey, I was in Vegas. Being in Las Vegas and not gambling would be like going to New Zealand and not doing a bungy jump. Sort of.
My first few hands gave me nothing to play with. The blinds came my way, eating into my chips and still with nothing to make a move with. Then I picked up a king and queen, a nice couple of high cards in sequence. I committed some chips to the flop. Nothing favourable came out. I folded before getting too far involved. The next hand got my heart pumping. A pair of aces. I maxed out my bet forcing all but two other players to fold. Out came the flop, the five of hearts, queen of clubs and the seven of clubs. I maxed the bet again. One guy folded, the other called me. I guessed that he had a queen. The next card came down. Ten of clubs. I checked, passing the bet to him. He maxed out. With so many clubs on the table, maybe he'd picked up the flush. But then why would he have betted earlier if he had nothing? I was convinced he had nothing better then a pair of queens which my aces laughed at. I called him. Last card came out as a seven of diamonds, no good to anybody. The bets were maxed and it was time to see the cards. He turned his over first, Jack of clubs and the eight of clubs. He had the flush and I'd lost big.
The next few hands passed by, the other players coming out with numerous pairs, straights and flushes while I kept getting handfuls of shit. I had to go for broke on anything. I got the ace of diamonds and the three of diamonds. Not great but I went all in, hoping to pick up a pair or a flush on the flop or else scare everyone else off. It didn't work, one player flopped two pairs and another a flush. I was down the road, disappointed at not even winning a hand and lasting barely half an hour.
I couldn't decide if I liked Vegas or not. It'd be a great place to come with a group of friends or a partner, but it didn’t feel quite right for a solo backpacker. Taken with a pinch of salt, the glitz, glamour and tackiness make for a fun town and the first walks around leave you stunned. But I just knew that if I spent too long, I'd end up loathing the place.

* * *

The Greyhound buses had the nickname of the 'lunatic' bus due to the clientele that uses them. I thought that this was a little unfair, in a country with such a gap between the have-not's and the have-much’s, the unfortunates that can't afford a car can't help but appear dishevelled and bewildered after hours, sometimes days on the buses when they are already struggling with their existence. The name Greyhound was misleading though, the buses were painfully slow; they need to be named after a mongrel that dribbles on your lap, pisses on your shoes and leaves you covered in hair.
“Good morning ladies and gentlemen. We’ll be making a first stop in just 15 minutes for those of you that want to grab something to eat or drink for the journey ahead,” said the driver, “Just sit tight ‘till then and enjoy the ride.”
We made our way out of the centre of Las Vegas and immediately hit a huge traffic jam on the interstate. The 15 minutes came and went and we’d barely moved. The driver took us off of the main road, hoping to find a way around the hold-up but just proceeded to drive us around in circles around one of the suburbs of Vegas. With the good view that I had near the front, I could see he’d got hopelessly lost and had to retrace his steps, taking us back onto the freeway at the junction where we started. An hour and half later, the traffic had finally got moving and we rolled into our stop.
“I don’t know about you guys, but that was the longest 15 minutes I’ve ever had,” said the driver over the PA.
Getting away from the built up areas and into the feature rich landscape revealed the romance of what American road trips were all about. The road passed through vast plains, desert valleys, mountain ranges and rock formations each unique and worth more attention then I could give them from the bus window.
I was heading on to Flagstaff in Arizona. The Grand Canyon International Hostel was my stop, the only catch to the small cosy place was that the trains that passed by on the line that runs through the small, sleepy town could be heard day and night. The hostel had organised tours to the big gash in the ground, though I nearly missed mine having forgotten to tell my alarm clock that there was a time difference since leaving Las Vegas.
The canyon itself was not as I had imagined; the sheer drops are only present in some of the feeding tributaries. The initial view was a little disappointing to some of us in the group but it revealed deeper detail on closer inspection with jutting out rocks, multiple layers and changing colours as the sun moved across the sky. Seeing it from various look out points at different sections and hiking down a small part of the way revealed it as a wonder to behold. The hike back up to the rim was a lung buster though; at between 7,000 and 8,000 feet above sea level, the thinness of the air leads to little surprise that about 250 people a year on average need rescuing, and 10 of those come back in body bags.
On the return trip, we made a stop at the edge of the Navajo Indian reservation, at 27,000 square miles it is bigger then ten of the US states covering chunks of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah. It was with some sense of irony that we spotted an Indian man riding a horse, dressed in a cowboy hat herding cattle. We made a stop at site where Indian people were selling knickknacks and souvenirs in a small market in the middle of the desert. We were told not to take pictures of them out of respect before we entered. The stallholders eyed us with suspicion as we passed through the eerily silent market that had the usual tat on offer, just with decorative feathers stuck on.
I continued on further south into Arizona. My journey would be a mere eight-hour hop on the Greyhound, and I had a seat to myself all the way to Phoenix when a young stocky guy with shaven hair came aboard and sat next to me.
“Hi there!” he beamed to me. “Take a look at these!” he exclaimed showing me a catalogue of electronic goods. I thought he was crazy so took a non-committal, passing interest. “I’m opening my own store and I’m doing research,” he continued.
“Uh-huh” I said, wondering why he thought I might be interested.
“The mark-up on this stuff is huge! You wouldn’t believe how much money I could make.”
“Oh right.”
There was no stopping him. He carried on, filling me in on his life history that included time spent in the army, his expertise at fitting car stereo’s and the fact his journey had been to his father’s funeral. What eventually interested me though, apart from his strange willingness to open up to strangers was his blasé attitude to his own mortality.
“I live in a real rough neighbourhood. I just hope that I make enough money and have enough insurance for my family should anything happen to me.”
My destination was Tucson, a charming small city with a laid-back vibe and full of south west culture and history with stories of native Americans, early settlers and the U.S. war with Mexico.
I arrived late in the evening, the map of the location of the hostel vaguely in my head. I knew I just had to follow the numbered avenues. I left the bus station and found 6th avenue. Easy, I thought, I walked counting off the increasing avenue numbers. But then the avenue names changed – they were no longer numbers but names. I kept going, hoping that the numbers would return as my backpack seemed to get heavier and heavier. I stopped at a local bus stop. The map of the town centre revealed that I had walked half way across town and that I should have been looking for 12th street, and not 12th avenue. I struggled back to where I started and found the hostel a couple of hundred metres away from the coach station.
I was lucky to get a bed, unusually for the time of year, the whole place was booked up and I had to sleep in one of the rooms being renovated. The Roadrunner was a comfortable place though, a central building with dormitories across the street. I asked Douglas, one of the guys running it about what there was to do around town.
“You must go to the gem festival,”
“Oh yeah what’s that?” I asked thinking it was some kind of music festival.
”We have it every year. That’s why all the accommodation is booked up. There’s tonnes of exhibits on jewellery, precious stones…”
“Um… no thanks, what else is there?”
"Do you have a car?" he asked.
"No,"
"Well, not much then."
"I suppose I could hire one if there's something worth going out to see."
He looked at me blankly. "You could do that... Yup, this is a quiet little town." He then took the disposition of a stone from which no blood would be drawn.
I thought I'd try the visitor centre.
"Do you have a car?" asked the woman.
"I'm afraid not. But I could hire one though,"
"Mmmm hmmm... well there are some nice restaurants around and a museum that you could walk to..."
I was beginning to think that there was a conspiracy against non-car owners. There might be some great secret about Tucson that you only get to hear about when you pass your driving test.
I decided to take the walking tour around the town. An ingenious idea, a green line painted around the streets for tourists to follow covers all the sites and allows potential muggers the perfect places to lie in wait until the naive tourist wanders through. The green line almost developed a personality of its own and it was really taking the piss out of me, sending me up streets only to double back and making me cross busy roads only to walk for a few minutes before making me cross back.
But I soon realised that Tucson is all about sitting back, relaxing and watching the world go by. I was thrilled to be sitting in a proper American diner with a hefty sirloin steak sandwich and fries that made my belly fit for bursting all for just $7. I couldn't work out the obsession with Heinz Tomato Ketchup though. Every table and booth had a bottle on it as well as a dozen or so around the counter. Fair enough, but behind the counter on a shelf were hundreds more bottles of the stuff. I counted 18 along and 6 more deep in a square of bottles - that's maths I can't do. Maybe there's a tomato ketchup smuggling ring going on by the car owners of Tucson. When I got my steak, the waitress said, "Do you want Mayonnaise or Mustard?" After I sent her off for the former, she disappeared, returning with a thimble sized container of it and a disappointed look when she'd seen I hadn't touched the bottle of ketchup on my table.

Mumblers And Twitchers

2009-05-04T13:15:00.001-07:00

"Can I get a medium shake?"
"You mean a large?"
"No, I want a medium."
"Large then."
"No! I want a medium sized shake."
"So you want a large?"
I was sitting in a burger bar eating my gut busting bacon cheeseburger in the town of Truth or Consequences in New Mexico, watching the exchange between an elderly woman customer and the guy who was serving behind the counter.
"Look, what sizes do you have?"
"We have medium, large and extra large."
"Ohhh I seee.... In that case I'll have a medium."
T or C as it is referred to is a small new age town full of healers, alternative therapists and massage parlours. Formally called Hot Springs because of the prevalence of the hot water pools in town, it was renamed after a TV game show with the host - Ralph Edwards - getting a name check in one of the parks. I guess the place is full of coach potatoes with the few options of entertainment in town.
I arrived suffering from a serious lack of sleep, the only bus available was the overnighter that left me at the roadside next to a car parts store. I walked around to the river and found the Riverbend Hotsprings hostel, so called because of its location on the bend of a river and its outdoor hot tubs. Americans famously don’t do irony, but they certainly do state the obvious. The place was run by volunteers and the guy who signed me in was out-of-his-way friendly. The rooms were in basically kitted trailers surrounding a common outdoor area. But the real star attractions were those hot tubs by the river with views of the mountains in the background. I spent a great couple of relaxing days there, having a good soak by day and then sitting around the bonfire with some beers and a guitar in the evening.

Suitably refreshed, I got back onto the road heading northward, along the length of New Mexico into the state of Colorado. Across the aisle from me, an elderly white woman with make-up that looked like it had been applied with a trowel and who spoke in a very well articulated voice but with a cynical twinge had got talking to a young black girl behind her. Judging from their conversation, she was from a poor background but spoke about her hopes for her future with her career and future husband. The coach certainly was a great leveller – I could think of few other situations where these two types of people would have had a friendly chat. By the time we reached Colorado, they were like two old friends.
“I just love Colorado,” said the older woman, “I’ve been all around this country, but I still think this is the most beautiful state.”
“Oh yes, I agree,” said the younger one. I looked out at the landscape, the flat plains giving way to the southern parts of the Rocky Mountains beneath big, clear blue skies. It would take some beating for sure.
My destination was Denver, the 'mile high city' as it was nicknamed. At such elevation the thinness of the air is enough for the boiling point of water to be a few degrees lower - 202 degrees Fahrenheit rather then the normal 212 - so that the people of Denver need to spend an extra minute boiling their eggs. Objects move through the air for longer (the record field goal in American football was recorded in Denver) and it takes only one or two beers to get drunk. Oh, and it gets bloody cold.
The Denver International Hostel not only had the cheapest beds in town, but quite possibly the cheapest in America. The rooms could be considered cramped, but the rooms are hardly ever fully occupied. I met my only dorm mate who was John from Chicago who promised to meet up with me and split some of his redneck 10% beer. If that was to happen I thought I might have to write the address of the hostel on my forehead, just in case. It was a good place to save a few dollars and was well located near to the town centre, but I didn’t dare cook any food in the kitchen. Footwear was required at all times and it was one of those places where using the shower didn’t make me feel any cleaner then before I went in.
The next day I took a walk around to see what Denver had to offer. Not a huge city by American standards, the main area of interest was the 16th street Mall, a pedestrian only strip downtown lined with restaurants, shops and bars that were great for people watching. I needed to duck into various places to get out of the cold, a nasty weather system was heading in and was beginning to bite. I stopped in a sports bar to experiment what effect drinking beer at the high altitude would have while I watched a couple of teams I hadn’t heard of play a sport I didn’t understand.
The thin air and the alcohol did the trick, putting me into reflective mood as I thought about my next move. Despite 300million people living in the U.S., the country had seemed very empty. In most of the towns I'd been to so far there had been very few people milling about particularly at the weekends where I'd noticed many places were closed. It was surprising to me for a country regarded as being so much into their commercialism. The bus journeys between places were revealing endless landscape that changed dramatically; flat dessert gave way to mountains, and then would change into dense forest all in the distance covered in one trip. Australia had been big, but there, choosing where to go to was easy, you just go in straight lines. But in the U.S. there are major towns, cities, national parks, reserves and other places of interest in every direction. It was turning out to be so much harder to plan where to go next and was turning out to be quite daunting. I was unprepared for how huge America felt.

* * *

The next day brought sub-zero temperatures and blizzards that dumped inches of snow over the streets of Denver. I was still determined to see some of the Rockies but public transport was usually limited anyway and turned out to be non-existent in the harsh weather that was passing through Denver. I took a bus to the town of Boulder on the southern tip of the Rockies in the clutching-at-straws hope that I might find a way to see some of the mountain range from there. With the thick layer of snow and more fog then in an 80s new romantic band’s appearance on top-of-the-pops, the chances didn't look good. I went to Boulder anyway, wearing just about everything I had. If nothing else, it might have been a little warmer then in Denver.
I was wrong. The day was spent ducking into various stores and cafes, drinking buckets of not-very-good coffee along the main arcade of Pearl Street Mall. The weather forced me to make a stop to buy a woolly hat and gloves. My attempts to get closer to the Flatirons - an eye catching rock formation to the west of town - was abandoned as I made do with glimpses through the gloom. It was a real shame; Boulder had come top in a poll of the most desirable places to live in America. I wasn’t going to tell that to any of the guys shovelling snow from their driveways.
It was time to leave Colorado. Buses were being cancelled due to the road conditions and so I ended up heading north east to Minneapolis hoping that a drop in elevation and the distance covered by 23 hours on a bus would take me away from the cold weather. I was hoping for a relatively relaxed journey on a not-too-crowded bus. After several journeys I still hadn’t been seated on a bus with a lunatic, having just shared with the usual mumblers and twitchers. I was afraid that I was overdue an undesirable seatmate.
I’d managed to get closer to the front then to the back of the queue for the bus, which looked like it was going to be full. I took a window seat leaving the fates to decide my seatmate. Now away from the more tourist towns of San Francisco and Las Vegas, the majority of people using the Greyhound were more often then not ethnic minorities. I was getting used to being one of the few white faces amongst a bus full of Hispanics and blacks, but I was beginning to notice the reluctance that these people had to mix. I wasn’t sure if it was fear, suspicion or some other reason, but I was finding that I would be one of the last people to get a seatmate. I didn’t really mind, I liked having the extra legroom but I did feel every bit the outsider.
The seats were filling up and the queue was running down. I thought I was going to get away with a seat to myself, but then the guy that had been the very last in line came toward me, the bus full and him with few other options.
“Hey man, mind if I sit here?” he said.
“Not at all,” I said, though I did a bit.
“I’m Will by the way.”
After meeting so many people on my travels, I was no longer prepared to take people at face value, his huge frame and bling LA street style clothes and accessories may have intimidated me in the past. We both kept ourselves to ourselves to begin with, him playing his hip-hop tunes on his CD player and me my rock music on mine. We took a break at a rest stop to stock up on travel treats and Will kindly offered me a little of something from the array of snacks that he had brought. He even offered me his spare batteries when the ones in my CD player ran out. We got chatting and his appearance betrayed an interesting, amusing man of great humility. As it turned out, he admitted that had been violent and had served time in prison but he told me this was all in the past. I believed him; he spoke of his plans for the future with his developing career as a basketball referee and proudly showed off pictures of his fiancée. She was a tiny looking Hispanic girl that barely reached 5 feet in height, they looked every bit a mismatch in the picture. Will loved meeting me, bumping into a Brit was a novel experience for him and the trip he was making to referee a basketball tournament had been just about the longest journey he'd made away from home in his 26 years.
“Where are you from?”
“I’m from the UK,”
“Wow…cool, I knew you were from somewhere like that by your accent. That’s cool man, your accent's tight," he said. I wasn’t quite sure what this meant, but he went on to describe his favourite basketball players, the movie Mr and Mrs Smith, the slush puppy he was drinking and Halle Berry as 'tight', so I think it was a compliment.
We rode on into the evening, making our umpteenth stop when we were rewarded in fine style with a cracker lunatic who boarded the bus. The only trouble was that it was our new driver. She was on for the shift to take us through to Kansas City and she hadn’t got out of bed on the right side. She went ape-shit as soon as she got on and started throwing people off of the bus.
"I know you!” she shouted locking onto a wide-eyed guy who resembled a rabbit caught in the headlights. “You were on my bus last week causing trouble, get offa ma bus!”
The man hesitated as the rest of the passengers fell silent.
“GET OFFA MA BUS!”
He wisely scurried away.
“Phew, I wouldn’t want to mess with her, she’s the Terminatrix!” joked Will.
“You can’t ride on here with that many bags,” she started on the next unfortunate to dare bend the rules, “GET OFFA MA BUS!” I felt sorry for those guys, dumped at the side of the road in the late evening. The Terminatrix took a final walk along the aisle, us passengers trying to avoid eye contact with her.
Will left in Kansas City after we’d shared many jokes about the lack of legroom while the screaming child on the seat in front had kept us awake. I blamed Will for giving the kid some of his sugary sweets. True to character he said, “You know, I’d lend you some of my DVDs. But I suppose living in England you wouldn’t be able to get them back to me huh?”
“Not easily no. Thanks for the offer though.”
"I feel like we've been through a lot together," he said. We had. And I was only halfway through my journey.
The trip became a fight for survival for the basics of human need; sleep was near impossible on those damn buses, food consumption bore resemblance to smash and grab tactics at the poor fast food outlets that we briefly stopped at. And staying warm was a big, big problem. I had a seat to myself for the rest of the way, but I wouldn’t really have minded too much if a big, black, LA gangster type had come to sit next to me to cheer me up.
Arriving at Minneapolis in the early morning, I was optimistic as the skies were blue and the snow showers had passed by. However, the temperatures were still well below freezing. As I woke myself up to disembark, I found my fleece had stuck to the bus window, frozen into place with ice. I got into the station, a very clean and modern building in stark contrast to the Greyhound stations elsewhere in the country. As I tried to refresh myself in the toilets, I found that my drink flask was iced over and my toothpaste refused to be squeezed from the tube. My hair gel was frozen solid and the cold dry air had brought out my eczema leaving the skin of my hands and the blisters of my feet cracked and sore. I struggled with my backpack on the long walk to the hostel.
The Minneapolis International came as welcome relief when I finally made it there. The staff were friendly and informal and the wooden floors and fluffy blankets made for a cosy atmosphere. The dormitory I was put into was a huge room with too many beds to count, but there were few other guests. These were all Americans staying in the budget accommodation while they worked a job in town and so unlikely to be coming and going all hours of the day.
. The air outside was ready to hungrily suck up any body heat. I had never known cold like it. Walking to the supermarket for some basics was an ordeal in itself so I spent my first day in Minneapolis watching DVDs in the hostel. I was joined in the common room by Adam, a truck driver who spent most of his time staring at his laptop. There was a redneck guy with a strong southern drawl of an accent and a big friendly guy who was interested in telling me all about the places to go in town when he learnt of my travels. During the film, the action hero turned down the advances of a girl worse for ware from drinking.
"I like this guy," said southern drawl, "He's got ethics. You know, the same thing happened to me once."
"Me too," said Adam lap-top, "It was the hardest thing, but too many people nowadays would of just had their way with her."
"It happened to me too," said the tourist guide, "I really wanted to have my way with her, but I did the right thing. It was dang hard though."
I didn't say anything, wondering if they were expecting me to announce my own story of my strength of character.
"Hey wow," said Adam laptop a little later, "I just scored 132 on this quiz. It's an emotional IQ test. The average score is about 125. I feel pretty good about that."
"Hey that's cool," said tourist guide as Adam showed him through his results on the computer screen.
Watching this group of Americans interact, it struck me how they spoke in such a self-absorbed way. The stereotype of Americans is as dumb, ignorant and inward looking, but I always thought this was not completely fair. They are brought up by an inwardly looking media and to be polite and friendly. Add this to the way they spin the conversation to themselves and the impression you get is that they are shallow. But I don't believe that they are all dumb. Maybe it was the environments I was in, but there were many American people I had met on my travels that would intelligently debate about the environment, global terrorism and the embarrassment they have for their current administration.
However, there are some things that are hard to defend.
In the film, action hero had discovered a bomb underneath his car. He drives it off of a bridge, sending it into a barrel roll where the bomb is then caught by a hook hanging from a crane. The bomb is pulled off and explodes just in time, while the car completes the spin and lands safely.
"I wonder how many times that had to that," said southern drawl.
"Um…I think that they probably used CGI," said tourist guide.
"Well, I don't know about that. Apparently they used 150 cars during the making of Smokey and the Bandit, they just kept crashing them and crashing them until they got the shots they wanted. They could have just done the same here, repeating the stunt until they got it right."
Hmm.
After the movie, the local news was on. The lead story was about a hit and run incident that happened three years ago.
"This doesn't sound like news to me!" I exclaimed, “It happened three years ago!”
"We now cross over live to our reporter at the scene of the incident," said the news anchor, "Tell us, has there been any progress on this case."
"No."
And that was it.
The next story was about the brutally cold weather. The fire department and water companies had been inundated with literally one dozens of calls concerning frozen and burst pipes. My favourite case that they featured was that of a man who tried to unfreeze the pipes in his house using a hair dryer. When that didn't work, he used a heat gun - whatever that is - and went on to accidentally burn his house down.
The next day I was determined to see something of the city. I caught a bus and then a train to the Mall of America in the southern suburb of Bloomington. Not that I’m a great one for shopping, I’d been disappointed to find many of America’s malls were no more then the usual city high streets. However, The Mall of America was different, it was the countries largest, a huge building covering three floors, the endless array of shops and restaurants were configured around the rim of the building around a central theme park complete with roller coasters, aquarium, bowling alley, hotels and exhibits. It was a mini-city in itself.
The weather was turning for the better and I managed to explore more of the city. I took a walk to the St Anthony Falls Heritage Trail, a two-mile pathway along the banks of the Mississippi River, past historic sites of the city. Along the route was the only waterfall along the entire river, a pitiful drop of a few metres now controlled by man. I took in the surreal Sculpture Garden that featured huge abstract pieces such as the massive spoon and cherry, the wall – again no sense of irony here; it was just a big brick wall - and my favourite, The Octopus. Though, its strange chunky shapes bore little resemblance to the creature of the seas.