Raw food diet

Today I am listless and lethargic with all the energy of a dead dog. I have lines under my eyes and I shuffle round the house with a lumbering, unsteady gait, trying distractedly to find something to do.

It's not flu. It's not a hangover. The reason for this is that I have just begun something known as a 'raw food diet', which I will be on continuously for the next three weeks. I can eat only fruit, salad and nuts, plus certain specific meat and dairy produce. Caffeine and alcohol are both horrifyingly off-limits.

I have to eat specific foods, in a specific order, at specific times throughout the day. The life of monk-like asceticism and self-denial is mine. All I need now is a robe, a manky length of rope to flagellate myself with and a religion that makes absolutely no sense.

It’s extraordinary how much you can come to rely on food. Food is there to prop you up when you feel low; to console you when all is wrong with the world; to replenish you when you are tired and weary; to waste your time when you've nothing better to do but exquisitely stimulate your taste buds with some wondrous foodstuff. Eating defines so much about our lives. Remove this comfort and you are left staring at the bare bones of your own existence.

And what is it that has sent me on this solitary outwards path into the nether regions of the soul? Why could I possibly do something so stupid? Well, over the next few weeks I am participating in a ground-breaking personal development course here in Perth that requires a heightened level of mental clarity and focus for a sustained period of time. A level of brain performance that would not be possible eating normally. A heavenly parabola of thought that will breed fresh and astonishing insights into my life, or so I'm led to believe.

As the old adage goes, you are what you eat. We all know caffeine gives you a boost in the mornings then takes it back with interest later in the day (‘first it giveth, then it taketh away,’ as the Queens of the Stone Age sang, though they were talking about drugs). Well other foodstuffs have this effect on the brain, in subtle, far-reaching and incalculable ways. Processed foods serve to muddy the waters of the mind and distract its focus away from the path it wishes to follow.

As such the course requires I must shun them, and the only things that can pass my lips from now on are the Lord’s own vegetables, grown in his holy nourishing Soil; and the feta cheese, skinless chicken breasts and boiled eggs that are his children. We are all one, connected and hard-wired into the universe, humans, animals and vegetables all. By eating life you regurgitate life through your thoughts and deeds, or so the theory goes.

It's taken a hell of a lot of self-discipline to get this far, but a whole lot more is needed to see this through. Once the detritus of everyday living and everyday eating has cleared itself out, my mind will be clear to soar and swoop like the mighty hummingbird. Many folk never dare to tread that far, and I won’t be practicing the elimination diet for any longer than the prescribed three weeks. If you eat this way for too long there comes a point where malnourishment kicks in and you get sick.

My mouth salivates at the prospect of the finish. As a doughnut-loving sugar fiend, I plan to be back among my everyday thoughts, happily gorging on my everyday crappy, over-processed, mind-numbingly delicious foods once the period is over. And through doing the course I will hopefully take home some enlightenment in a doggy-bag, to remind me of the strange and hallowed spiritual turf on which I once trod.

I’ve already lost a prodigious amount of weight over the last few months, through tons of exercise and cutting out a lot of the crap I used to eat (compulsive cheese sandwich-eating being the main and surprising culprit). My previously rotund frame is now much more thinner; but this diet will take it a step further and give me protruding ribs that could double up as a mid-range xylophone. I plan to continue going to the gym in the midst of this - I figure the exercise won't swallow up too much of my meagre energy and will burn off more fat.

And yet there are two more gaping holes newly rendered in my life; with caffeine and alcohol off the list, I find my general enjoyment of things massively restricted. I’ve lost all appetite for going to the pub and socialising - it just isn't the same when all you can drink is tapwater. Soft drinks can no longer be purchased and consumed, depriving me of the associated cool that aligning my thirst aims with these quality brands would provide. How can I cut it with the cool kids now!

Wisely I chose to quit tea and coffee several weeks ago, so that's one battle less to face. But it's still not a pleasant task to write this as the delicious smells of toasting bread and fresh coffee waft up from my housemates' unencumbered breakfasting orgy in the kitchen. The bloody bastards.

I don’t even have a job now the Christian fee-paying school I was temping at (oh yes) no longer requires my services for proof-reading school reports. I've got nothing to occupy me until the course starts in earnest next weekend.

I can only sit at home, listening to the sounds of nature and the street; absolutely certain in the knowledge that somewhere, someone is having more fun than me.

Melbourne Cup day

Today it was the Melbourne Cup. The Melbourne Cup is a horse race held in Melbourne, hence the name Melbourne Cup. It features about 20-25 racehorses and all the requisite jockeys, in a traditional horse race on a big field. I don’t know what else to say about it. It’s a horse race, but a flipping big one. And all of Australia stops to watch it.

Obviously with Australia being something of a ‘young’ country its customs and traditions are still developing. You don’t get the zealous religious festivals of Asia, or some of the weird folk ceremonies that exist in parts of Europe, which have evolved from medieval or even pagan times. There are only three big ones to remember: Australia Day (where everybody gets pissed), ANZAC Day (like Remembrance Sunday, but everyone gets pissed) and Melbourne Cup day (horse-racing and, yep, everyone gets pissed).

That’s about as deep and meaningful as it gets, but there is the occasional unwritten rule to remember. One tradition of Cup day is that the women, all over the country, get glammed up and go to work wearing fancy hats. So you get a lot of eye-candy, which suits us men just fine. We’re not required to do anything. The ship of political correctness is but a glimmer on the horizon in this country.

All the offices grind to a halt around midday to screen the race, and they put on vast quantities of food for the workers. There is a flurry of last-minute bets and sweepstakes. All pressing business is quickly forgotten for that brief half-hour.

This year, like the last, I was in Perth, plodding along in a temp job; observing the Melbourne cultural circus from afar on a TV screen. I had an inspired bet last year and won about $80 when my horse came in third. This time round I didn’t have the luxury of sneaking out to the bookies, as my work is marooned in a big industrial estate out near the airport. So I just sat there demolishing the buffet and watching the race. It was a pretty decent contest and a horse named Shocking won.

My journey home after work turned out to be strange. With summer newly in bloom, the afternoon sun was stifling. The bus became very crowded as it threaded its way down the highway towards the city, full of people leaving work early. Clearly a lot of workplaces had downed tools for the day and thrown a full-scale party. A crowd of revellers clambered aboard and one of the young guys plonked himself down in the seat next to me.

He was about 18, stank of booze, and wanted a chat. He wanted to be my friend. Nothing wrong with that, but suddenly I realized his hands were caked in blood! Surprised, I asked him what happened, and apparently he had got into a drunken bust-up with his girlfriend at the work party, then she ‘attacked’ him with a bottle. “She’s a f**kin’ psycho mate, ay,” he confirmed. “That’s why I’m going home!”

I reckoned the girl's angle to this tale would be quite different. Who knows what chaos he had left behind. He seemed a bit remorseful and was heading off home to stay out of bother. The bleeding had stopped but his hands were covered in blood. I considered giving sage advice about seeing a doctor then thought better of it; the school of hard knocks would look after this guy. He’d probably wake up the next morning, blood all over his sheets, and wonder what the hell had happened.

I meanwhile was stone-cold sober, still in my work gear and had a book in my hand. He was determined to have a chat, and was asking me where I was from and where I was heading to now. He wasn’t an aggressive drunk, just aggressively friendly, in the manner of one whose drinking habits are yet to be impinged by frequent hangovers. I was stuck in the seat next to him and had no alternative but to take part in a conversation with the guy. Ignoring him wasn't going to work.

He sensed my agitation, and gave me a friendly poke on the leg, unwittingly smearing a postage stamp of blood on my work trousers. I was not happy and told him so. He attempted to touch my shirt in apology. I halted him again. He was like a bull in a china shop. He asked me where I went out at weekends, I told him Fremantle. I was not in control of this conversation.

“You go to Metro’s, ay?”

“Nah, not my scene.” I replied. Metropolis is a nightmare, a massive club where there is trouble every week.

“Yeah, full of dickheads, ay!”

“Yeah that’s right.” He reminded me remarkably of one of said dickheads. “I usually go to Little Creatures.”

“Yeah, it’s good, ay. Full of good people!” Clearly he saw himself in this sub-strata.

He got off a few stops after, looking for a McDonalds. And like that, this crazy drunk man stumbled out of my life.

“Don’t worry mate, I’ve not got the Aids!” he added, touching my fist with his in parting.

"Take care, mate," I answered.

What a weird afternoon! The Melbourne Cup might not have been that interesting but it’s not every day you get to have somebody bleed on you on the bus. I just hope the little bastard's blood comes out in the wash!

May 09 – present: This is Perth

And since my time in Melbourne things have settled down and become rather predictable, almost boring.

I returned to Perth on 5^th May and within a few weeks had found a job in the east of the city doing admin work for a big electrical company. I stayed with my friends Shannon and Troy in Kardinya initially, but soon I found a good house-share near Fremantle, where I’ve been living ever since. My social life has been a bit quiet but I’ve met a lot of new people and have kept myself busy with fitness training, writing and music recording. It's been a productive time.

Everything’s so easy in Perth. The city is big and spread-out, the pace of life is relaxed and thanks to the massive booms in industry there’s usually a decent amount of work knocking about. It’s like life back home but with all the rain, frustration and misery taken out; and with shitloads of beaches, sun and happy contented people thrown in.

Clearly I’m not the only one who felt this way – it has grown astronomically in size over the years, and the city is swollen with expats from the UK and all over Europe and Asia. Amazingly 1 in 10 people living here were born in Britain. You can’t move for bumping into Londoners. Strangely I've not encountered as many northerners.

Some days I love Perth and some days I hate it. It’s too quiet. It is one of the most isolated state capitals in the world. The big cities like Sydney and Melbourne are thousands of miles away in another time zone. Singapore is actually closer than the likes of Bondi Beach and St. Kilda. The city shuts down at 5pm every day and the shops don’t open on Sundays. Some of the pubs even close as early as 7pm! It’s a strange place, modern and clean with futuristic-looking buildings and transport systems, yet trapped in a draconian 1950s trading philosophy.

It was recently voted the fifth most liveable city in the world, but getting round without a car is hard work. The suburbs stretch on endlessly for miles and miles. Even the college students drive cars here. I found it hard to get to know the city and its people as to a large degree it lacks the culture, regional identity and social history we might take for granted in England. And the nightlife is bloody expensive - it costs up to $9 (£4.50) a beer in a pub! Drinking at home suddenly becomes a much more appealing option.

This brilliant clip, which local film-makers Vincenzo Perrella & Dan Osborn made, sums it up perfectly:

Yes! It really is that f**king boring!

On the flipside I’ve totally sorted my life out again and got back on track money-wise. I’m not complaining about how things have turned out, I know I’m fortunate to still be out here in this beautiful country. And so it is now October and summer is drawing near once again. I think I shall remain here for many months to come, completely hooked on Western Australia’s ample charms as I am.

The generosity of my family back home and friends locally has really helped me when things have looked bleak. I’ve been through a hell of a lot of adventure in the last twelve months, which I wanted to narrate via this blog; a task which took me many months. This story is now completed and up to date, but the tale is far from over.

Now, to use a bit of bland corporate jargon, I’m moving ‘onwards and upwards’ into the future; to get whatever is coming to me, be it good or bad. As the saying goes, ‘in life, plan to be surprised’!

Melbourne, Apr/May 09 – Home at Fitzroy

The journey out to Australia was much more tiring than coming home. As Alex Garland once observed in The Beach, the jetlag is far worse if you fly from west to east than the other way round. Piling up the hours, in effect you’re saving them up in the piggy bank for the future return home. A long gruelling flight to Kuala Lumpur was followed by a similarly gruelling eight-hour stopover.

I dozed on my brand new suitcase, wary of dropping my guard in the crowded terminal, and wary of falling over as the suitcase had wheels. The flight to Melbourne lasted another eight hours and I slept like a baby. It was midnight on Wednesday by the time we landed in the city. I had all sorts of paranoid fantasies about my electronic visa being declined as I stood bleary-eyed at the passport desk, but the security guard waved me on through without a second glance. Good to have ya back mate, what’s crankin’?

I caught the shuttle bus into the city and stayed for a few days in Elizabeth Street Backpackers, a huge and chaotic hostel just down the road from Flinders Street Station. I wasn’t in the mood to party – I was very low on cash so my priorities were to find a permanent place to stay and, more importantly, a job! I was excited about living in Melbourne for the next few months though, as it is regarded as the cultural epicentre of Australia. First I needed to find a comfortable, cheap and conveniently-placed base to explore the city.

Unfortunately, Melbourne being full of travellers, all the hostels were full and vacant rooms in house-shares were scarce. I was naïve to think rent would be cheap. The metropolitan area is huge, stretching away for miles in all directions, into dozens of suburbs I didn’t even know the names of. I think one of the hardest parts of moving to a new city is getting to know all the place names, so you don’t look like a gormless twunt when you have to ask somebody for directions. I had little time to work with, and I would soon have to surrender my precious $65/night double room at the hostel.

I did find somewhere, but it wasn’t what I was expecting. ‘Home at Fitzroy’ was its name. A small suburban house twenty minutes’ walk from the city centre, it wasn’t in any of the backpacker guides or Lonely Planet. It billed itself as Melbourne’s greenest hostel and a relaxing place for long-term backpacker stay. Essentially it was a very large house-share, featuring an ever-changing cast of twenty or so inhabitants, some uninhibited partying, and as one internet review memorably stated, “bong-stained retro furniture”. It seemed to survive solely on word-of-mouth recommendations, and was one of the most extraordinary places I’ve ever stayed in.

The suburb of Fitzroy is one of the highlights of the city – a melting pot of bohemian culture teeming with life at all hours. The main strip of Brunswick Street is packed with restaurants, cafes, bars and live music venues. There are big events and gigs every night of the week. Down the other end of the street sits the CBD, an easy walk away. A few streets across is Lygon Street and Carlton, another bustling area. There was always something happening. When I had no money (which happened to be always) I used to just wander through the noisy streets, floating between the crowds and soaking up the night-time atmosphere.

The hostel itself was established at the end of the 90s by a good-natured Aussie couple, who seemed just to want to rent out their property and meet some travellers. They extended the house out into the back yard, built an extra storey of bedrooms and created a courtyard for people to mingle and play table-tennis. Solar panels on the roof powered the hot water. On the house fridge was pinned a grand ‘manifesto’ in grubby laminated plastic, spelling out its aims as an exercise in sustainable communal living. As time wore on it appears they tired of the labour and delegated a series of travellers to manage the hostel and collect rent etc. When I arrived there it was descending into chaos.

It was the sort of thing I would have loved to be part of back in my uni days. There were so many people coming and going. Ex-housemates who knew the door code came back to visit all the time. The whole house was painted in psychedelic colours and furnished with a cluttered retro-futuristic theme. There was a sunken circular pit in the lounge where people would lie on bean-bags and read by the fire. People would plug their music players into the battered house stereo and blast out dance music, ambient stuff, rock or hip-hop depending on the mood, time of day, and their level of inebriation. The tea and coffee were free, and there was an internet room where you could surf for free, and some giant bookcases stuffed with thousands of volumes of eclectic reading in numerous languages, left by an endless succession of travellers from around the globe.

The owners had just appointed Linda, a new full-time manager, to steady the ship and get the place running smoothly again. There were lots of complaints about the noise from the neighbours and the place constantly teetered on a knife-edge of being shut down. In a way it was one of the city’s best-kept secrets, a whole world away from the cattle-market chaos of the big backpacker hostels. But in fairness it was the kind of place that needed constant vigilant attention and should not be left to run itself.

As with most hostels there were cliques and counter-cliques, and a few nutters that made it difficult for the rest. There was a group of Kiwis and Brits who took it on themselves to get pilled up and stay up partying for three days most weekends. There was not much point sticking around in the house when their sleep-defying chemical frenzy was at its peak. It took me a while to make friends purely because there were so many names to learn. Each day would bring a tide of new faces barging through the front door. I was just one man and it felt like a lunatic asylum.

Some of the long-termers were pissed off with Linda for spoiling their fun and trying to change things too quickly. She got her friend in to help decorate and the friend promptly painted over the messy Uluru mural in the computer room, which actually brought one of the long-termer girls to tears. I was glad of somebody trying to bring order to the place and I helped where I could with the tidying up. We went through all the books in the book-cases and threw a lot out; there were some really old ones there. I shared a quiet dorm room right at the back of the yard with a Swedish guy, Olof, and we cleaned that room out. Olof even jerry-rigged a clever pulley system with string and a water bottle to stop the door from swinging open and bringing in the cold. If Linda ultimately succeeded in her purge I do not know.



One of my favourite places was the posh cinema down the road that showed independent films. I often went to the discounted screenings on Mondays, a cheap hit of culture for the hard-up amidst a bountiful well of sophistication. I’m not proud about it but one week we paid for one movie then sneaked into another film for free at the end. I got caught out by a keen-eyed usher when I tried it again the next week and was effectively barred from coming back; all to save paying $6 for another ticket! I felt like such a cheap wanker and I couldn’t even look him in the eye as I left. But all I can say is the longer the economic crisis goes on, the more will try to follow in my footsteps.

The parties came thick and fast. A girl who was leaving held a fancy dress party, where people came dressed as superheroes and movie characters and danced away in the lounge in the middle of the afternoon. You can’t really potter about making yourself a cup of tea when that’s going on. Another time the house-share across the road invited the entire hostel to their ‘tight and bright’ party. The idea of ‘tight and bright’ is pretty simple, guys wear something tight, and girls wear something bright. The small house was bursting to the seams with revellers by the time we all got in, but it was a very well-organised party, where you could help yourself to unlimited booze by paying a $10 cover charge. It was the sort of thing that would have been really good if there’d been half as many people there and we could properly mingle. I sort of hung around at both events, neither present nor absent, not really getting in the mood.

Meanwhile there was always a lot going on in the city. A guy I knew, James, kindly gave me a spare ticket to see the show Suitcase Royale at the Melbourne Comedy Festival. It was alright, a bit zany and surreal like the Mighty Boosh, but lacking that show’s fantastic absurdity and clever musical routines. I was very glad to sample one of the events though. I couldn’t help thinking how great it would be to live in Melbourne if I had money.

Due to the recession, backpacker jobs were suddenly very scarce indeed. I searched endlessly for work without success and had to borrow money from my parents. I’d envisioned myself bagging a high-flying IT job in some fantastic city skyscraper and living the life of a prince on my super-high wages. But I was in dreamland, living in denial of the stark economic wasteland, where all that might be available was a bit of miserly-paid bar or restaurant work. If I was lucky the hours I worked in such a job might cover my rent at the hostel, then in a few months I might work my way up to a call centre position and find a room in a house-share. Sod that. After a long time of scratching and saving I was done working in crap jobs.

After a few weeks in Melbourne I got tired of the rut I was in and realised I was probably barking up the wrong tree. Either I was looking in the wrong places or looking for the wrong thing entirely, and this vast city of money and culture would yield no treasure for me.

Once again I was out of options and out of cash, so I returned to the comforting bosom of the strange, prosperous land that is Western Australia. Surely I could find a job there!

Mar/Apr 09: the return home

Time to make a confession: much as I worry about the environment and mankind's future and all that, over the last couple of years I've built up a heinous 'carbon footprint' from all the flying I've done. Every time I take a flight, I think guiltily about the clouds of noxious jet exhausts burning up the ozone layer, and the little baby dolphins down below who cry confused tears at mankind’s wanton destruction of their beautiful environment. Yet I prefer not to confront the dilemma, as I could not have done the things I have done without this invention.

If, for instance, I’d wanted to come home from Australia in the olden times, I’d have had to splurge all my life savings on a sea ticket and then sit on a ferry for months on end, among the rats and disease, reading poorly-bound books of Victorian pornography. Now it took little over £200 and a single day of flying. And that's the problem really - it's just too convenient for people to ever do without, especially skint backpackers!

There had been rumours for months that an airline was set to introduce cheap flights between Perth and London. Doing some research at a Manjimup internet café I found not only was the rumour true, but that a return trip to the UK and back was just within my means. I’d got my second working visa, a couple of paycheques in the bank, and enough money that I could borrow to make the trip a reality. There was no reason not to do it!

I departed the hostel at Manjimup in much the same way as I had arrived; anonymously and with little fanfare. It had been a weird solitary experience out there in the countryside, and getting my visa had become not only a struggle against time but against homesickness and my waning enthusiasm for the whole adventure. Nevertheless I had worked hard and been rewarded, in hindsight, with a string of memorable experiences. After a few weeks’ break to catch up with my family and friends I would return to Australia to continue the journey.

The flights were with Air Asia X, a budget Malaysian airline who had very recently opened up a long-distance route to London. My total round trip (a flight from Perth to Kuala Lumpur, a return from Kuala Lumpur to London Stansted and a separate outwards flight from KL to Melbourne) cost just £550 – half what you’d pay for an economy seat with one of the big airlines. You had to fork out a little extra for meals and heavy baggage, but they thoughtfully included things like toilets, seats and windows for free, so it was a steal.

The long-awaited day finally arrived – Sunday 22^nd March. I was coming home. Early in the morning I checked in at Perth’s international airport and got the final black passport stamp confirming I was leaving Australia. And soon the plane was up and away into the sunrise, circling the Perth city skyscrapers as it gained height. Five hours later, we landed in Kuala Lumpur, the bleak airport buildings surrounded by palm trees and dripping in tropical heat. After a short break, and some authentic Malaysian KFC, it was time to check in again and begin the journey to London. I got two Malaysia passport stamps even though I’d only been in the country three hours!

The flight to London took fourteen hours and I battled in vain to stay awake, trying to beat the jetlag. The spadeful of caffeine they put in the airport coffee helped. Though the seats and legroom were reasonably generous it was obvious this was a budget flight, as all food and drinks were extra, and you had to pay for a handheld flatscreen thing if you wanted to watch movies. There was no map showing us our position either. Hopefully the pilots had one!

I saw a brilliant (if terrifying) thunderstorm out of the window at one point, the clouds towering up into the sky, firing huge bolts of lightning earthwards. I wouldn't like to have been stuck under that. Other than that it was a smooth flight. The night seemed to last forever as we followed the earth’s shadow around the globe.

The plane touched down at Stansted late on Sunday evening, back in good old Greenwich Mean Time and back in the bitter cold. As the throngs of passengers exited the plane we found the automatic bridge was broken, the airport toilets were flooded and there were huge queues at the passport desk. Yes, this felt like Britain alright! Clutching my Home Office immigration card, I advanced through security and met up with my good buddy Rick, here to collect me. It was fantastic to see him after all this time.

After more than 24 hours of travelling I was suddenly wide awake again and ready for a beer. Unfortunately we’d missed all the pubs shutting by about half an hour! Thankfully when we got to the Travellodge the guy on reception agreed to open up the bar and sell us a few bottles so we could drink in the room. I don’t know if that’s officially endorsed in the Travellodge rules and regulations but we were bloody grateful for this act of kindness!

And the next day I returned home, to my family in Yorkshire and to the old life I had almost forgotten. I'd seen my mum and dad quite recently in Melbourne but it was good to be reunited with them so soon. The next three weeks were a comforting blur of cups of tea, family dinners and trips to Blackpool to catch up with mates. Most of the people and places I’d missed were just as I remembered them. I began to regret the return plane ticket with my name on it, calling me back across the globe. I was seriously thinking of delaying my flight out so I could go over to a festival in Belgium with my mates. Yet I knew that whatever I sought from travelling was still out there and I had to go find it, sooner rather than later.

This was an ending of sorts – it marked my transition from a backpacker to a ‘suitcaser’. Things would have to change; I left behind my travel guitar, roll-mat, sleeping bag and trusty 65L rucksack and switched to a suitcase big enough to transport a midget in comfort. I threw out the faded rags I’d been wearing constantly for the past year and bought new clothes. I doubled the size of my wardrobe.

I stocked up on anything and everything I might need, mindful of the sky-high prices in Aussie shops. I got an international driving permit, a travel insurance extension, a new YHA card and sorted out various other jobs that had been mounting up. I put several gigabytes of songs on to my music player, found some books to take, then played a special ‘comeback gig’ in Blackpool (supporting the Blue Pig Orchestra) and said farewell to my friends. They seemed more used to me not being there now, and so did my family! This travel lark was nearly becoming routine for me.

And so I flew out from the UK on 14th April, back to Kuala Lumpur, and then on to Melbourne. And so ended a magical three weeks; an expensive folly that rejuvenated my soul. Now I had to get back out there and discover how to live again.

Feb/Mar 09: Bondy does Manjimup 2

My experience in Mildura left me seriously disillusioned with backpacking and Australia in general. The town had a weird, unfriendly atmosphere and I didn’t stay a moment longer than necessary. The only place I could think to go was back to Manjimup. It was two thousand miles away on the other side of the country but I knew the score there and there would be no more nasty surprises.

Before dawn on the Tuesday, I began a jumbo day of travelling, catching a taxi into town, then a bus and train down to Melbourne, followed by a Jetstar flight all the way over to Sweet Home West Australia. The total cost was about $250, pretty cheap considering the gargantuan distance. The beatific city of Perth didn’t seem to have changed once iota since I’d left, and to be honest I don’t think it ever does. I stayed the night with my good friends Shannon and Troy out in the suburbs then caught the bus down into the country the following morning.

And a few hours later I was back at the hostel where I had spent Christmas and New Year. This remote place seemed fixed in history too, everything was the same as it had been. The afternoon was muggy with quite a lot of rain, and the grounds smelt of trees and wet earth. Lots of the old faces were still knocking about. Even the surplus food I'd left on the kitchen shelf had not been touched. I had mixed emotions at returning; the feelings of a caged rat mixed with the gratitude for having accommodation and a job sorted with people I trusted.

It was good to catch up with the folk I knew but I felt detached from them now, like a Vietnam veteran who’d seen unspeakable horrors. They didn’t know what things went on in Mildura and maybe they were better off protected from that knowledge. I quickly settled into my metaphorical foxhole and got ready for work the next day.

Abdul gave me a job on his vineyard crew, a considerable act of faith considering there wasn’t much work about. The big grape harvests were only a month away and we were preoccupied with grape-thinning, checking the vines for underdeveloped grapes and pulling them off. It was a cushy job; lots of strolling around and all the grapes you could eat. The work/drink/sleep cycle resumed and I awaited my first paycheque with glee.

Up until now I’ve always used the real names of people in my blog, but I’ve become increasingly aware that this information is very visible on the net, especially with search engines like Google that instantly index pages and render all form of embarrassing anecdotes instantly readable to the world at large. Therefore I would like to invoke my “author’s right” to change names, on the basis that everything else I write here is truth and actually happened.

Our shift leader was a guy named Jim. Yes, Jim. That was really his name, honest. Jim was a hell of a guy; friendly and open yet scary as f**k at the same time. A wizened fifty-something sporting a sizeable beard and long hair combo, he looked like one of ZZ Top, dressed like a farmer and liked to hunt. He’d lived a life, surviving against the odds like the settlers of old, and had scores of stories to tell. Several of his front teeth were missing and he had the deep, deep sunburn of a rural Aussie. Hard as nails in appearance and character, but rigorously honest.

I wish I’d known him for longer and got to hear more of his stories. He’d spent years travelling round labouring on farms and as a fisherman, yet he knew how to fly a Cessna plane too. He told us lots about his family and his upbringing. Every generation of his family seemed to have been involved in some kind of conflict: his grandad was an IRA foot soldier killed in a London bomb blast; his father was a mercenary in the Far East and served time in an Australian prison for tax evasion; Jim himself was born out in the deserts of Central Australia and endured a tough upbringing at the hands of his violent father. Yet he maintained a philosophical outlook on life and was grateful for all that the school of hard knocks had taught him.

Now he’d been mysteriously reincarnated as Abdul’s trusty right-hand man. It was often he who would collect us at first light and drop us back in the afternoon, and administer bollockings when people weren’t pulling their weight on the team. When Abdul was chastising us in broken English he’d stand at his side nodding vigorously like an assistant manager of a football team.

His dream was to buy his own farm. He was an avid fan of hunting and for some reason had taught all his six kids how to use hunting weapons. He told me the youngest two, six and seven, were already experts with throwing star knives and horse whips. It seemed like a bewildering alternative lifestyle, and yet through this they bonded as a family and gained hand-eye co-ordination, practical skills and a tolerance to pain. As Jim told me, “all of them have broken fingers at some stage.”

At home his wife took care of the cooking and he took care of the man stuff. Everybody had a job. I got the sense he was grounded in the frontier mentality of the outback and saw this as the future for his family. It’s not something you'd want to try in your own back garden but it seemed to work well in its context.

He had a strange sense of humour. One day he told us a joke that went something like, "What's funnier than a deaf man being run over? A blind deaf man being run over." We were talking another time and he said, "I saw an awesome catfight in town the other day. Two women absolutely beating the shit out of each other, scratching, pulling hair, it was great. It got me turned on in the end, I went home and gave the wife a right good shagging!" Most of his stories seemed to end with him shagging his wife. No wonder they had so many kids.

Meanwhile the money started to trickle in from Abdul. He was a dependable boss in some ways but a confusing one in others. He would only pay me by cheque, meaning I had to wait for one of the shopping runs into town to cash it and get my hands on my wages. Sometimes it would be a long wait. The shopping runs happened three times a week and featured mad scrambles for the remaining places in the hostel minibus. If you missed the call for the bus, tough shit, you’d have to make do with whatever food and money you’d got, unless you fancied a three-hour walk into town. Soon the grape-thinning work dried up and we were relegated to grape-picking, which paid the same hourly rate but carried far less hours.

Around this time the immigration department emailed me to advise I’d been granted my second working visa. This was brilliant news. After all my calculations and planning and nervous hand-wringing the whole process turned out to be ridiculously simple. I’d spent half an hour filling out my details on the website, paid the $195 charge, and they received and approved it within two days. It was all done and dusted. I started to wonder what to do next.

In the meantime the hostel found me a few other odd jobs. I chased a tractor filling vats of grapes at a vineyard – in one day we harvested an incredible 11.5 tons of fruit. I picked grapes for another farmer, an irritable bloke called Fabio. He wore ridiculous denim shorts that looked like hotpants.

Then they sent me to a truffle farm to help two scientists in a buggy take soil samples from under hazelnut trees. That was a pretty interesting day. I got the impression the two male scientists were a couple. All the orchards and farms were busy harvesting and the hostel was full of complimentary boxes of fruit people had brought home with them.

In March came St. Patrick’s day and all the Irish contingent had a massive noisy party. It stretched over two days. I was invited to join in, but to be fair I just wasn’t in the mood. I’ve nothing against it but not being Irish, or even part-Irish, I’ve never really seen the point of celebrating it. I might as well celebrate the national holiday of Belgium.

95% of the people staying at the hostel were from outside Australia, which is as you'd expect. Working hostels exist solely to help backpackers and travellers get seasonal work. But there was the odd Aussie knocking about too. One of these was Paul (another false name), a guy in his thirties much besotted with partying and having a good time. A friendly bloke, he always had something interesting to say or some relevant 'pub fact' to chip in with, and he was an awesome drinker. He would think nothing of polishing off a single 4-litre container of goon (cheap backpacker wine) in a single night.

I liked the guy but I couldn't help speculating to myself what he might be running from over east to want to take up residence here. Maybe not everyone has the same sense of home and family I do. Incredibly he had been living at the hostel for over two years. Some people just loved the place - the people, the undemanding work, the simple lifestyle - and wanted to stay forever. I was wary of this happening to me; I didn't want this place and this situation to become the be-all and end-all of my life.

The English Premiership (or the EPL as it's called) had a very strong following among the residents. People would often get up to watch the football games live in the middle of the night. One of the hostel's blessings was a comprehensive TV package including all the sports and entertainment channels - a slender thread which halted the slide into full-on anarchy.

The TV room was packed for the Man United-Liverpool match, which began at about 10pm our time on a weekend. All the Irish and lots of Koreans were crammed in on couches and chairs. All those pre-season tours in Asia seem to be be paying off - the Koreans love Man United.

As the only English person in the room (and one of the few Liverpool fans) I felt strangely isolated. Most of them had never even been to the north-west of England and here they were, shouting, tensely watching, united in their passion for English football. Needless to say the smiles were wiped right off their faces when Liverpool pulled off an amazing 4-1 win! I really enjoyed that night.

As always there were many joys to be had living the backpacker life, but I was sick of it. Sick of hostels, sick of dorm rooms, sick of living out of a rucksack and sick of being away from home. I’d been away from my friends and family for fourteen months. I’d missed out on such memorable events as Euro 2008, the financial collapse of the world and an ailing Michael Jackson’s decision to play 50 concerts in London. Friends had had babies. I’d always thought it possible to stay away from home indefinitely, visiting country after country on some sort of magic carpet ride, but now I knew home was more than just a state of mind. The pull was too strong.

Luckily my call was answered by a plucky low-cost Malaysian airline and its ambition to undercut all the big boys. Before I knew it I’d ‘slapped plastic’ and booked a plane ticket back to London.

Feb 09: Mildura - a day on the fig farm

I arrived in Mildura at 7am on Saturday, having travelled all night on the bus. I was sleepy as I unloaded my bags at the station, eager to check into my new lodgings and immediately get some much-needed kip. I planned what to do later: go food-shopping, meet the people at the hostel, a few beers in the evening maybe.

The hostel looked great on the website. “Where excellent accommodation, good work and great wages go hand-in-hand”, it proudly proclaimed. I’d found it a few days ago by random, and was pleased that they could accommodate me at short notice. The manager, Vickey, told me they had grape-picking work available at one of the farms. She’d even collect me from the station soon after I arrived. Everything was going to plan!

There were a few other travellers sat in the cold waiting room waiting for lifts. I wondered if they were going to the same hostel as me. I wondered if there were other hostels. Mildura is certainly a decent-sized town, with a reputation within Australia as a major agricultural centre. The place should be swarming with backpackers looking for work, I thought, so I wouldn’t be short of friends.

Presently the phone rang. It was Vickey, due at the station any minute to collect me. She’d seemed friendly enough on the phone before and seemed to be running this place on her own. “Are you free to work today?” she asked out of the blue.

“Not really, I’ve just come on the bus from Melbourne and I want to rest, can I start tomorrow?” I said.

“Okay, well you’ve basically got two choices. You can do the fig-picking, which pays great money, or you can do grape-picking, which pays really bad money." She’d not bothered to mention the really bad money before. "If you want to do the grape-picking, you can start tomorrow, but I need people today to start the fig-picking and I’d really like to have you working there.”

After a long night with little sleep the last thing I wanted to do was put in a heavy shift on a farm, but I said I’d think it over while she drove here. The circumstances surrounding the job seemed a little strange. I decided yes, what the hell, I’d do it. I could rest in the evening. I didn’t want to miss out on the better-paying job and time was of the essence in getting my visa.

Vickey arrived in the minibus fresh from doing the morning drop-offs, and I met her for the first time. She was a woman in her late 30s with a conspicuous hearing aid that gave her the appearance of a Bond villain. I was still rather tired as she drove me to the supermarket to pick up provisions. We made a bit of small talk but she seemed keen to get me checked in and off to the fig-picking job ASAP.

As is normal she asked for the week’s rent up front, but there were numerous extras – a deposit, an ‘admin fee’ for collecting wages, and transport fees – which brought the sum up to a colossal $250. Being too tired to think straight I withdrew the wad of money and handed it to her like a trusting child, not even thinking to ask for a receipt. How I would come to regret that.

Alarm bells started to ring in my head when she talked a bit more on the way to the hostel. The 'great money' turned out to be $16 an hour, close to the minimum wage. She clearly didn’t hold any of the travellers in high esteem and made out she was waging a constant war against backpackers’ laziness and lack of gratitude. I asked her to clarify what she meant and she gravely confided, “I’m afraid the house you will be staying in is full of negative people.

“You seem like a positive person so I hope they don’t get to you. But yes, we’ve had some problems in that house. Recently there were some Canadian girls there, they caused a terrible fuss, it really gave me a negative impression of Canadian people. They’ve left now.”

She continued off on a tangent: “Living at this hostel is a challenge, but you have to embrace these challenges when you’re travelling – that’s why I enjoyed being overseas when I was in London. My dad always said I was more resourceful than my sister when it came to things like that.”

“I thought I was staying in the hostel, not a house?” I replied. Not only was it a very strange conversation but I had to shout all my questions, as she was deaf in one ear and had the hearing aid in the other. I suddenly felt stupid to place my trust in this odd woman.

It turned out the ‘hostel’ was just a couple of bungalows, supplemented by another house for overspill located on the town outskirts. I was driven to the overspill house, and it was clearly in the middle of f**king nowhere. I didn’t like the look of it; it supposedly housed ten or twelve people but was very small indeed. Still a lone voice piped up in my head: “you can do it, just a few weeks, you’ve survived in worse.”

I had just spent a month at the working hostel in Manjimup (Western Australia), and that was a bit of a hole, but it was magnificent compared to this. Now I thought about it I’d never appreciated how well-run that place was. I particularly missed Naomi – she was an absolute saint next to Vickey – and she had the added bonus of not being completely insane. My overwhelming concern was that I wouldn’t find another place to work in time and would miss out on my visa.

I lugged in my bags and my food shopping from the van, briefly checking out the house and my room. The people living here were either out at work or still asleep at this early hour. I was sharing a small bunk room with three French guys and a Chinese girl who’d also just arrived in Mildura. Like me they were standing around wondering what the f**k they had got themselves into.

Dirty plates littered the sink; the kitchen and the living room didn’t seem to have been done up since the house was built. There was one shower and one toilet that were shared by the dozen or so people living here. There was a strange ‘cocktail bar’ installation joining on to the lounge that was decked out in hideous 60s upholstery. It was a dump.

Worryingly Vickey was expecting us to work not five, not six, but seven days a week at the fig farm. Non-stop, ten-plus hours a day, week in, week out. How would we rest? Or find the time to organise future travel plans? I figured it might work out okay over a few weeks, and the total lack of any free time whatsoever would make it easier for me to save my wages.

I did a quick change into my work clothes then we set off for the fig farm, the French guys following in their beat-up 4x4. Vickey drove on through the countryside and I'm not sure if we crossed into New South Wales as the town sits right on the border. Questions were answered intermittently. She continued her bizarre monologue: “Is that a guitar I saw in your things? I love music. Do you know Chris Issac? He did a gig here at a winery recently. Oh, he was brilliant.”

I didn't like Chris Isaac but I didn’t bother questioning the wisdom of her concert-going decisions. There was already a lot happening today that bothered me. For one thing, she now had possession of my passport, as she needed a photocopy of the visa. Again, a dumb move on my part to entrust her with it, but it was the standard procedure at these places.

The farm lay on an unmarked plot of land up a dusty road, garlanded with a few rustic outbuildings and a couple of walk-in freezers. The savage early morning chill had now given way to the extreme heat of day, the sun climbing high in the sky. We could see a busy harvesting operation already in progress on the endless rows of fig plants, people swarming to and fro carrying big polystyrene boxes of fruit.

Vickey led the five of us to the farm, subjecting us to a new low in patronising ‘advice’: “As you walk on to the farm it’s very important that you lift your legs up and walk quickly. You have to demonstrate that you’re eager to work. The farmers have been through a lot of troubles and get upset very easily. And if they ask you what hostel you’re from, tell them ‘Vickey’s place’. They don’t know what Borderline Backpackers is, just say ‘Vickey’s place’.” It was all very strange.

We were left with a German girl to sign us all in. Apparently she was a supervisor but she seemed pretty new herself and didn’t know where anything was. Elsewhere in the warehouse a group of girls were busy packing the fruit into little plastic containers. They looked like they had a cushy job. We were each given a book of tickets with unique numbers in to put in our boxes, so they could check how much work we did. I was paired up with Ying, the Chinese girl.

And so the picking work began. I didn’t know much about figs, recalling them solely from the dead brown gunk you get inside fig rolls, but live in the flesh they are a difficult proposition to deal with. The apple-sized fruit bruise incredibly easily in the boxes and the trees produce a foul milky sap that burns your skin on contact. We were all kitted out with flimsy plastic gloves as protection and left to soldier on in the heat. We were expected to fill four boxes of fruit an hour.

Supervising our section was an intimidating redneck bloke called Noel with long unkempt hair and a fearsome moustache. He seemed like a proper slave-driver and was clearly used to sacking people at the drop of a hat. He looked at me like shit for turning up in rubber boots in this heat, but as far as I’d known you always needed wellies for farm work. Vickey certainly hadn't bothered to warn me to wear trainers. I complained my clippers were rusty and he simply spat on them to ease up the joint then handed them back.

I got to speak to a few other backpackers working on the farm; most of them were staying at another hostel in town. They said it was incredibly over-crowded too; there were so many travellers booked in that people had to sleep on the floor of the TV room. One guy was sharing a single bunk-bed with his girlfriend. I don’t know how the Mildura hostels can get away with squeezing people in for extra cash; whatever safety laws are in place don’t seem to be enforced.

Ying and I filled box after box with fruit as the day wore on, but it was clear we were struggling to meet the quota. She was grafting away like there was no tomorrow but I felt like I was running on empty, struggling to comprehend the day’s strange turn of events. What was I doing here? 24 hours ago I had been strolling round St. Kilda with my parents and my best mate, on holiday. Here I was, lured into the great beyond by a wildly inaccurate website, and I didn't even know what f**king state I was in!

It was early evening when they let us clock off for the day. I was relieved the hard slog was over, but I wasn’t ready for the bombshell Noel was about to drop. Turns out Ying and I had not filled enough boxes of fruit. We were sacked on the spot. It was humiliating. I felt bad for Ying too as she was blameless.

I’d heard this happened a lot to new people; these fig farmers had a reputation for being utter bastards. The staff turnover rate was very high as they simply didn’t bother re-hiring you if you weren’t fast enough on the first day. I met the owner, and he was genuinely frightening. He ran around shouting and swearing at people if they made even slight damage to his precious fig plants. They really did talk to the workers like they were stupid.

I felt frustrated and powerless. The three French guys commiserated me while we waited for the pickup. They had done okay, despite receiving a furious bollocking from the head honcho for pulling off a leaf. They couldn’t understand why I hadn’t argued the toss and demanded another chance. But I didn’t want to face this shit again tomorrow. If I quit the hostel I’d lose the week’s rent but at least I would get my day’s wages. (Though it would subsequently take Vickey five months and repeated demands to finally cough up the money.)

Vickey was surprisingly sympathetic when she arrived in the minibus. Presumably by giving it a good go I had proven myself not to be a ‘negative’ person. She said she would “sort something out” for me but I knew this would involve doing badly-paid grape-picking.

She seemed to have taken quite a shine to me; she even asked if I wanted to accompany her to a motorbike race that evening. I said I was too tired. I had horrible visions of her trapping me in some sort of dungeon and forcing me to be her 'husband'. I felt a lot better when she handed my passport back. We were dropped off at our house. Ying was making plans to leave for Adelaide and I was in half a mind to go with her.

I met some Irish backpackers who were hanging round in the living room and explained my tale of woe. Like everyone I met that day they commiserated me; I was doing excellently on the sympathy front. I guessed these were the ‘negative’ people Vickey was talking about. I soon understood why.

They’d been stuck in Mildura for weeks, waiting for occasional crumbs of work from Vickey, and they had all run out of money. Strung along on her false promises and too skint to move on. The grape-picking wages at the vineyard were criminal – just 25 cents for each full bucket of grapes. One guy I spoke to explained you’d be lucky to make $40 a day doing this; he was forced to quit after three days due to exhaustion.

I felt sorry for them but no way was I going to let this happen to me. I got a good night’s sleep and spent the next day searching the internet for decent working hostels within a day's travel. The only ones I could find had vague information or very bad reviews. I wished I’d investigated Mildura properly before I came; the reviews for Borderline Backpackers (which tallied very closely with my experiences) showed its website up to be an utter lie. I grew more and more angry as I realised I’d been had. I had a lot to learn.

Now my savings had run out and my choices were severely limited. So I did the only thing I could do. I got out the credit card. And I booked a flight.

Feb 09 - Kings Canyon and the end of the holiday

The night after we feasted on the views of Uluru at sunset, our group got together for a big celebratory dinner at the Kings Canyon campsite. We enjoyed a meal of, oh yes, more burgers, then played some party games. It was a long time since I played any party games, other than drinking games or piling furniture on to people asleep on couches.

There was that old favourite the chicken game. We took it in turns gripping a rubber ball between our knees and trying to chicken-walk along the ground to drop it in a cup; I got an excellent video of my dad doing this. Then there was the kangaroos and emus game, which involved going outside and pretending to be, erm, kangaroos and emus; then the circle of truth, where we formed a giant circle then each person took turns to stand in the centre and perform some special feat.

I told a joke about ducks and Bill Withers, and Anthony entertained us with his vast array of barcode and US highways trivia. We’re very fun people to be around obviously. I like evenings like those – the games were pretty unimaginative but we were making our own entertainment, like they did in the old days. Finding enjoyment from the surroundings, be it playing daft games or killing things in new and inventive ways, seems like a big part of life in the bush.

After darkness fell, Nick told us (almost as an afterthought) that part of the camp was haunted by sinister tribal spirits; people waking in their sleep were sometimes panicked to feel an invisible force pinning them to the ground. I took it with a pinch of salt, as Aussies have a bit of a reputation for bullshitting visitors about made-up scary monsters. But then we got a chance to see if the myth was true, spending another night sleeping out under the stars in swag-bags! Nothing happened, though we hid our shoes from the dingoes as a precaution.

And so the next morning dawned, and we did a big hike round Kings Canyon. Epic scenery, rock formations, wind erosion, wild plants, blah blah blah. More of the same and I loved it, but there just aren’t enough words in the English language for me to describe this awesome experience without repeating words I’ve written about the Grampians National Park and Flinders Ranges, etc. We had been utterly spoilt with great scenery in the last couple of weeks.

This was the longest walk we went on during the holiday and featured some tough climbs, particularly the fearsome Heart Attack Hill that marked the beginning. I liked the way it was named; no poetry, no bullshit, just a no-nonsense encapsulation of its identity. It didn’t prove fatal for any of us but it was certainly a steep unrelenting climb.

Once our group got up Heart Attack Hill we went along on level ground for a while, with the huge valley of Kings Canyon to our right and far-away scenery to our left, then we crossed a couple of bridges; then we went down to see a massive rock pool called the Garden of Eden. It’s a popular swimming spot but travellers frequently fall ill from the dodgy water. Lonely Planet recommended it for a dip, which shows you what they know I guess.

Then we crossed the Lost City, which is a plateau with loads of mesmerising patterned rocks. Nick showed us a plant which produces the natural equivalent of MDMA. He refused to tell us how to prepare the leaves, much to our disappointment! We walked along taking lots more photos of the horizontal rock strata. After all, when would we be coming here again? Most of us had filled our memory cards with hundreds of photos on this trip. A smorgasbord of colourful pixels to dine out on for eternity back home.

After three or so hours of walking we climbed down the opposite hill and that was it, the end of the hike across Kings Canyon. We boarded the bus for the final leg of the journey to Alice Springs. More driving through nothing, then we had a lunch stop at a roadhouse that kept emus in a paddock. One last emotional lunch of burgers and salad, the food we’d survived on almost completely for the past week. Clouds of flies descended on the food, ignoring most of it and heading straight for the tuna.

The bus carried on up the highway, passing an interesting turn off that led to a covert US military base. I was fascinated by all these secret goings-on in the desert. Apparently there are thousands of US personnel housed on this base – God knows why – and they get all their food flown in direct from America. Word is that they are all designated with menial job titles such as ‘gardener’ to hide their true identities. But if anyone asks, I didn’t tell you that. (I’m not dissing gardeners by the way, I’ve already got the CIA on my back after writing that.)

Soon afterwards the beginnings of a town appeared over the horizon. We had reached Alice Springs! The Stuart Highway, that friendly stork guiding us through the treacherous desert, was flying on to pastures anew – and sadly we would have to say adios. On the outskirts of town, the road bent through 90 degrees for the first time in a thousand miles. We stopped at a pair of traffic lights; again, the first we’d seen in a thousand miles. And suddenly we were back in civilisation, shops and houses and streets crowding all around us.

Nick did the drop-offs at the hostels round town; me, Anthony and my parents were almost the last off the bus. Esther was still sat there at the end, grumbling about some perceived slight from Nick. Some of the other guys would regroup later for a tour up to Darwin, but the four of us were glad of a rest from the constant activity, and also had two nights to look forward to in a big hotel.

After a quick shower everyone got together for a farewell party at Annie’s backpacker bar. There were about twenty of us who did the trip and we all sat at a long table and got uproariously drunk together one last time. Email addresses were exchanged. Verbal commitments were made to add one another on Facebook and tag each other in our travel photos. After tonight we would most likely never see each other again.

Nick came too and had some beers with us. He didn’t hold back either, he had the next day off and was evidently very happy to have a break from driving. The last I saw of my group, I was getting in a taxi and he was getting ready to lead them off to a casino! In my experience the point in a night out when your mates decide to go to a casino is the point where you should go home.

Anthony stayed out with them till the wee small hours, partying like the behemoth of high living that he is. Later he had to get the porter to let him into the room. I was passed out on my bed like a proper lightweight and didn’t hear him repeatedly phoning me. That night was a big blow to my confidence in my drinking abilities.

The next day it was just the four of us again. We lived it up in style, nursing our hangovers by the hotel pool. My parents went shopping in Alice Springs and my dad bought a fancy hat made of kangaroo leather. The hotel was really posh – it was the kind of place where you suddenly feel attractive and interesting because the staff are smiling at you, then you realise they have to smile at the guests in these sorts of places.

I went for a wander round Alice Springs with Anthony. There is a dried-up riverbed running through the town centre, the Todd River. Every year they hold a pretend yacht race on it, teams of runners carrying boats along the ‘river’ as a laugh. Like I said, in the outback you have to make your own entertainment. There were lots of Aboriginal people hanging round in the town centre. Having spent all this time in Australia it was the first time I’d seen them in any number.

The next day we flew out from Alice Springs’ tiny airport, to Sydney. We got the standard safety demonstration on how to use the life-jacket, despite the fact we didn’t pass over water at any point during the flight! We spent three days sight-seeing; checking out bare essentials like the harbour bridge, the opera house, the ferry to Manly etc. I’d been there before but it was worth the four of us paying a visit so my parents and Anthony could see the amazing cityscape and the unending panorama of harbours and coves surrounding it. We didn’t get the greatest weather, in fact it pissed it down nearly every day we were there.

Walking round Circular Quay we had a chance reunion with Matteo, the Italian guy from our tour, who was going about his mysterious business in Sydney. A man like Matteo, you don’t ask too many questions. Then the weather brightened up so we did a boat trip round the harbour. The trip was notable not so much for the views as for the tour guide’s strange obsession with Nicole Kidman and camp showbiz trivia. It was quite a good trip though – there are miles of dramatic views around the harbour.

Next we caught a long-distance train down to Melbourne and spent a few days by the sea in St. Kilda. We had literally come full-circle – by a weird quirk of fate our hotel was just over the road from the pick-up point on the Great Ocean Road tour. That adventure on Dave’s bus was now a distant memory from a fortnight ago. I was starting to realise that the holiday was nearly over; soon I would have to go back to farm work in the country.

St. Kilda had a strangely familiar atmosphere; due to its southerly location and colonial buildings it is probably the closest thing you will find in Australia to a British seaside town. Despite that it was enjoyable and relaxing. There was a harbour and a fun park and all the other stuff you get at the seaside. The streets were lined with endless cafes and restaurants, the maddening diversity of choice that is Melbourne’s trademark. The trams flocked here, bringing people to and from the city centre. We pottered round looking at trams and boats mostly, with my dad taking photo after photo.

We wanted more sight-seeing so we went on a winery trip round the Yarra Valley; a day of fine wines, haute cuisine and the painful experience of making small talk with posh strangers. Our guide, an enthusiastic wine buff named Orson, explained how the countryside was marred with bush-fires. Many of the vineyards were bravely staying open for business despite being in high-risk areas. The recent tragedies certainly took the fun out of the occasion.

And so we spent the afternoon going from winery to winery, sipping chilled chardonnay and staring at the massive plumes of smoke on the horizon. It’s easy to forget how massive the bush-fires were, and many people living rural Victoria were affected. I detected an atmosphere of forced jollity among our group. A flowery Canadian tourist named Darcy held court over the table, rapturously praising a hit new musical based on the life of Shane Warne. His passions in life seemed to be the theatre and fancy restaurants. It was interesting to finally get to meet the coach party brigade, but I still harbour a Trotskyite mistrust of them.

That night, relatively sober despite all the wine, we went back to the city and met our friend Seana for dinner and drinks. We ended up in a karaoke bar, an abrupt return to working-class life after all the folly of the wineries. It was the final evening of our holiday and we had a few beers to commemorate this, followed by a few more. Anthony put in a rare appearance on the karaoke, singing Elton John’s ‘Your song’. I was not looking forward to this holiday ending.

The day after it was all over; time to pack up and check out of the hotel. We spent a long day hanging round in St. Kilda with our bags, drinking tea in cafes and watching the hours creep by with sad eyes. My parents took me shopping for new trainers in Melbourne – after all these years I can only be forced to buy footwear with the application of an electric cattle prod or parental shame. This was the last they’d see of me in a long time and they wanted me all turned out in shiny new school clothes.

That evening we got a cab to the city and enjoyed dinner by the river one last time. My parents and Anthony talked excitedly of the flight home; it would be my last ‘posh’ meal for some time and I savoured every mouthful. I felt a mixture of happiness and sadness that I was continuing my strange wandering life while these familiar faces departed home. I felt a bit lonely to be honest, and not for the first time I inwardly wondered what the hell it was I was hoping to achieve from this trip.

We said our goodbyes outside Southern Cross station, a massive transport hub crouching under a giant freakish canopy of twisting metal. We exchanged hugs and then they were out of my life in a flash, speeding away in a yellow taxi, quickly lost in the sea of rear headlights. I headed to the coach stop, humming upbeat tunes and looking forward to my next adventure. I could hack this travel lark; loved ones coming and going did not distract me in the slightest. Probably.

While Anthony and my parents were spending a mind-numbing 24 hours on a plane back to the UK, I was going on a long journey of my own. A crowded bus took me on an overnight journey up to Mildura, a country town in Victoria that sits on the border with New South Wales. I was low on money and needed to get more farm work for my visa. That meant another stay on a working hostel and some serious hard graft!

Feb 09 - Uluru and Fooluru

The next morning we woke very early and ate packed breakfasts in our cave hotel rooms at Coober Pedy. Then it was time to rendezvous with the rest of the group at the cave hostel and board our bus. Today we had yet another epic drive in store, further up through the central deserts of Australia.

As we left town the sunrise cast long ghostly shadows over the unearthly terrain. The surrounding landscape was strewn with piles of rubble from the opal mines. Soon the mines petered out and we were heading through the great nothingness of the Stuart Highway again. The vegetation was much sparser, the horizon utterly featureless.

Our destination was Uluru, the world-famous landmark known in times gone by as Ayer’s Rock. Uluru means different things to different cultures – to the Aborigines, a sacred worship site; to tourists and travellers, a big fun rock to climb on. As you might imagine this has caused a little bit of tension between the two parties down the years. Climbing the rock is now officially discouraged, but not forbidden.

“What colour is your urine?” demanded a sympathetic sign at the next roadhouse. Pale yellow is good; your body’s fully hydrated. Deep yellow is cause for concern – drink more water straight away. If it’s orange then you’re f**ked, no two ways about it. Drink water immediately and seek medical attention. It wasn’t as hot as it had been in Adelaide, but here in the red centre it can reach an amazing 60˚C in the summer, so drinking enough water is crucial.

Soon we left South Australia and crossed into the Northern Territory. The clocks went back an hour. The Northern Territory doesn’t do daylight savings time it seems. Working out the time in Australia when it’s summer gets a bit difficult; half the states put their clocks forward, the rest don’t bother. The same weekend the clocks go back for winter in Europe, they go forward for summer in Australia, and vice versa. Depending on which state you’re in and what time of year it is, you could be anything between 7 and 11 hours ahead of the UK.

Eventually the giant monolith appeared on the horizon; not Uluru, but Mount Conner, an Uluru-shaped mountain that was plainly just put there to confuse people. Mount Conner is nicknamed ‘Fooluru’ due to its resemblance. Fifty miles past Mount Conner, we glimpsed the real Uluru, shimmering majestically in the desert mist.

At the end of the day, yes, it’s just a rock, but it’s a bloody impressive one. Uluru dwarfs the landscape around it, measuring a good two or three miles from end to end. It is set in bushland in the midst of a giant national park. There used to be a resort complex next to the rock itself but this got bulldozed years ago so the area could return to its natural state. Over time the local Aboriginal communities have gradually been able to assert their control over this spiritual site, though it is still a bit of a tug-of-war between them and the government at present.

We began our pilgrimage to the mighty rock by checking into a permanent campsite at nearby Yulara. Here there were water taps, barbeques and washrooms in a basic but clean environment. There were a few different tour groups knocking around in the high season. It became apparent there were two strata of tourists doing this trip through the desert: us, the backpackers, travelling on a budget; and the coach tours full of the elderly and wealthy, waited on hand and foot by phalanxes of guides.

Making the most of the daylight, we did a brief walk past one side of Uluru, going along a path through some trees to a water-hole. The rock towered over us, reflecting beautiful orange light all through the glade. I shot a few videos on my camera, trying to capture its immense scale close up. My mum and Anthony missed the rendezvous back on the bus because they followed someone who was wandering about confused. Esther flew into a panic, convinced some terrible fate had befallen my mother, but eventually they found their way back safe and happy in time for the sunset.

Nick drove us round to a great vantage point where the sun was setting behind us, bathing the entire rock in light. It was a magnificent sight – I’d not been so awed since I visited the Taj Mahal in India. Slowly the sun dipped below the horizon and the colour of the rock changed from deep orange to dirty brown. The daylight was fading and darkness would not be far behind.

Lower down the hill, a massive group of people from the coach parties had been enjoying some sort of exquisite dinner served on long plastic tables with tablecloths. Meanwhile we munched boxes of crackers and drank Asti Spumante from plastic mugs. And I was perfectly happy with that. We were living on the edge, experiencing the raw thrill of the outback. The toffs from the bus were floating along on a cloud of luxury, out of touch with reality; none of them would get to climb the hill and eat our crackers, and it was their loss.

Afterwards we went back to the camp at Yulara and laid all the swag-bags out in the open. Swag-bags are outdoors sleeping bags, traditionally used by bushmen and wandering travellers in place of a tent. We hid our shoes inside the swags so dingoes wouldn’t steal them, and then slept out under the stars, the bushland lit by brilliant moonlight. It was amazing. Quiet was all around, save a bit of muffled snoring, and the weather was perfectly still. I dreamt more vividly than I have since childhood, strange dreams, dark dreams, my brain dazzled by the light from the sky.

We got up in time to witness sunrise at Uluru. Not much I can say about it except the rock turned from brown back to bright orange, so it’s exactly like the sunset in reverse. We began a long hike all the way round the rock, an exhilarating two-hour journey on foot wearing our hats and fly-nets. The flies were everywhere.

Up close the rock has a lot of detailed features where bits have eroded; once again, a geologist’s wet dream. Certain sections of the walk cannot be photographed, as the features on the rock carry spiritual significance to Aborigines. There was a stiff $5,000 fine for taking pictures in these bits and we all nervously followed it to the letter.

It was quite a hot day, though not as hot as the heatwave down in Adelaide. Over in Victoria the bushfires were now raging. We’d hear the apocalyptic news reports every time we passed a TV on the fuel stops. Meanwhile up in Queensland there were tropical rainstorms and flooding. This country is so huge it can have any number of weather-related emergencies happening around it all at once. And I’m buggered if I can understand all that meteorological gubbins, but the rule seems to be there is no rule.

After several miles we’d done the full circle round Uluru; what an epic journey. Next, a short journey to Walpa Gorge in the Kata Tjuta national park and another hike for those that could be arsed doing more walking. My dad and I joined the group exploring the area while my mum and Anthony stayed back to rest their aching feet.

We’d glimpsed the Kata Tjuta hills on the horizon the previous evening; they are a series of dome-shaped rock formations (always with the rock formations) that have significance in the Aboriginal Creation Time stories. Walpa gorge was a narrow pathway running through a very steep rock valley – the sky shrank to a narrow band of blue up above as we walked through. It wasn't quite as impressive as Uluru but still pretty memorable.

Nick told us another grim story about how hundreds of Aborigines had been slaughtered in this gauge by ruthless farmers; as they weren’t classed as people in the olden days, legally it had been seen more as a ‘cull’ than a massacre, abhorrent as that sounds. Next thing we know Esther starts chipping in and he got into heated debate with her about whether the old Christian missions were a good thing. She believed they were, but he pointed out they had been partially responsible for destroying the Aborigines’ traditions and culture. Thankfully somebody interrupted with another question, otherwise it could have turned ugly!

After the standard lunch of burgers and salad at the campsite in Yulara, it was time to pack up and leave. Then another long drive, back out on to the Stuart Highway and up to King’s Canyon. Another campsite settlement awaited us there. The time had really flown by since we left Adelaide, and tomorrow would be last day of the trip (not the last day of our holiday though).

I think all four of us really enjoyed doing the backpacker trips – there was a good mix of people, the sight-seeing was interesting and the guides had both been great. Anthony and my mum and dad got a great introduction to Australia, and it added immeasurably to my experience of the country; prior to this I’d travelled plenty but seen very little of what it has to offer.