Flying to Bali

I'm off on my travels again. Right now I am sat in the departure lounge at Perth Airport. It's 4.30 in the afternoon and I have just caught a taxi straight here from work. Tonight I fly out to Bali for a three-day break.

I am surprised to note from the entry and exit stamps on my passport that my latest stretch in Australia has been a few days shy of eighteen months. A lot has occurred for me in that short time. Long may the forces of change and upheaval continue their bewitching dance!

I've never been to Bali before. I'm excited to see it. Right now I'm killing time till my flight boards. I always find flying exciting - it takes me back to the very first family holiday when I went abroad with my mum and dad.

It was the early nineties and we spent two weeks in sunny Bulgaria. The Communists had left buildings unfinished everywhere and there were topless women on the beach. I loved it. Maybe there is still a subconscious link in my head between getting on a plane and seeing girls' tits. I just enjoy flying.

I'm stopping at a villa in Seminyak that my friends have rented out. It has a pool and a pool table. Yes, that's right, two accessories with the word 'pool' in the title. And there's more features too, including some wicker chairs and maybe some beds and light sockets. It promises to be the height of luxury - it looked great in the photos and we only payed about $35 each a night for it.

Before I get there, another encounter with Air Asia, a microwaved meal of Nasi Lemak (egg noodles, non-fascist related) during my flight and possibly a cheeky beer to go with it!

Sydney to Cairns – Part Five

One flight later, the plane was swooping low over the Great Barrier Reef on the final approach into Cairns. I was blown away by the sight of the tropical hills and the turquoise ocean. After two years of hard graft I had finally stumbled upon the Australia they show in the adverts.

“Enjoy your stay,” the lady next to me smiled, an extremely friendly type. “Watch out after dark for the Aborigines.”

The weather was muggy and tropical, the airport small. The sun shone down on beautiful green hills. I got a lift into town, to a hostel who offered me a private room for $30 a night. This was an incredible bargain. I changed into shorts and sandals and hit the seafront. Cairns is a delight with its natural beauty and laid-back pace. It’s a backpacker town and the premier staging point for day trips to the Barrier Reef.

When in Rome... my first act was to book myself on a diving trip. My second act was to head to the night market and chow down on a monster plate of food from the Asian food court. Forget the cheese plate in the sea – this was decadence. Too full to finish my last piece of hoi sin octopus, I wandered through the market, marvelling at the cheap prices. I had a quiet evening. Revellers down the corridor kept me awake and there were lots of mosquitoes in the room. At least I had my own fridge though.

I’d never so much as snorkelled before so the diving trip promised to be something completely new. There were dozens of boats competing for the tourist trade. Finding the one I booked with was like looking for a needle in a haystack. Our boat carried fifty or so passengers. After an hour and a half of sailing through calm seas, giant turquoise streaks appeared under the sparkling blue waters. We were at the edge of the reef.

If I made a habit of wearing spandex I dare say I’d feel right at home in a wetsuit. However this was the first time I’d zipped one up and it seemed a little tight. I felt like James Bond. The boat came to a halt and our group went snorkelling. I learnt the basics of breathing through my mask and working the flippers while gazing down at colourful swathes of coral and shoals of rainbow fish. It was great to see these things in the flesh, although you wonder how much tourism is destroying their habitat.

Next came a scuba dive, with an oxygen tank, to a depth of five metres. One by one we got kitted up like spacemen and dropped off the back of the boat into the water. I got much closer to the corals, and was allowed to touch a big purple thing on the sea bed shaped like a clam. It felt very velvety and flinched at my touch.

I was guided through this dive by a Japanese girl. Most of the guides, and a lot of the tourists, were Japanese. A Japanese guy with an underwater camera swam down to take my souvenir photo. It was all a bit Disneyland. I could barely recognise myself in the picture as I looked very Japanese with the mask on. This seemed to be a strange consequence of the water pressure.

The boat returned to shore at the end of the afternoon and I set out to explore some more of Cairns. Cairns is by the ocean but there is no beach – just miles of empty mud-flats dotted with crocodiles. The Esplanade has an outdoor lagoon and an array of wood and metal bars for morning push-ups. My explorations didn’t take much time.

On Lindsay’s recommendation I tried a Chinese massage at the night market – suffice to say it was the Bohemian Rhapsody of massages. The man even planted a strange-smelling plaster on the vertebrae of my back to ease the tension. That was $15 well-spent.

Next day I went to see the tropical rainforests of Cape Tribulation. A lovely Aussie girl picked everyone up in a minibus. As we drove through Cairns we spotted fire engines and masses of smoke billowing from a burning house. The morning’s newspaper told of another house burning down. Fires seem to break out a lot in Cairns. Perhaps the cane toads like to chew through wiring.

As we drove up the coast, past an empty nudist beach, our guide told us about Australia. Some of the foreign tourists hadn’t heard of Neighbours. She wasted no time pointing out that she despised the show. I would have loved her to have met my Neighbours-mad Blackpool friends. There would have been a passionate exchange of views.

Our first port of call was a cruise on the Daintree River. We saw crocodiles lurking in the mangroves, but the main fascination for me was a German tourist who was videoing the entire voyage on his camcorder. He was possibly the most German-looking person I have ever seen. He wore a bumbag, sandals with socks, and sported a Rudi Voller moustache and an Italia 90 permed mullet. He was on holiday with his kids. What fantastic trip was he the Holiday Dad for?

The clouds didn’t break all day but the trip was interesting. Next we went for a walk in the rainforest, followed by a free lunch of child-sized fish ‘n’ chips at a beach resort. I sat with a Dutchman and a Portuguese guy who had been visiting Sydney on a business trip from Amsterdam university. Talk about a convoluted story – the introductions took us a full five minutes.

This was as far north as tarmac roads go – there are many miles of untouched rainforest north of Cooktown – so we started to head south again. A car ferry brought us back over the spooky Daintree River, which our guide told us was home of at least one croc-related fatality every year. It reminded me of our family holidays in Cornwall, with the added twist that if you stuck your hand out of the window you might die.

Finally we had a brief stop in the yuppie haven of Port Douglas. Its church has a three-year waiting list for weddings. The beautiful landscape appeared rather drab under the constipated grey sky. How I cursed those clouds for tainting my photos. I bought some homemade iced tea from a cafe and it was rubbish. Literally just Tetley’s with ice cubes in it.

I'd seen reef and rainforest during my brief stay in Cairns. All sight-seeing boxes were ticked. I cut a rather forlorn figure wandering round town that evening. Travelling by myself – something I once did without blinking – had lost its allure. Time to go home and put the kettle on surely? This was the evening when my friends flew home from Melbourne, and I too would soon be heading back to everyday life.

Next morning, the sunshine was back to send me off on a high. I finished a monster cooked breakfast at the hostel and caught the shuttle bus to the airport. The driver told me it was his birthday. Mine was following a few days after his and I would be working too. I’d found a cheap Qantas deal that took me back to Perth in two flights, via, of all places, Uluru!

The aerial photos I got of the mountains and desert were spectacular. Uluru lies maybe ten kilometres from its airport, close enough for incoming planes to see the glower on its face like a disapproving in-law. I was fortunate enough to be bathed in its orange scowl at very close quarters last year. You’re never quite the same afterwards.

After a brief wait in the tiny terminal, it was time to board the same plane with the same stewardesses for the final leg of my journey. It’s a real feat to visit Cairns, Uluru and Perth all in one day.

Landing back at Perth airport, a mere fourteen days after leaving for Sydney, I felt rejuvenated and alive. Truly this was the best holiday I’d ever been on.

For more Cairns photos and aerial shots see my Facebook album here.

Sydney to Cairns – Part Four

Brisbane lay about two hours away from Surfers Paradise. A testing final drive for Dave and Theresa brought us to the capital of Queensland. I liked the place already on first glance. It was incredibly hilly (at least compared to Perth). The bridges and river paint a fascinating panorama from any angle. Our hostel had a fantastic rooftop pool.

After sampling the city’s Hog’s Breath franchise over dinner, I headed out for a quiet drink with Cheese, Caz, Laura and Alex. The bar we stumbled upon changed our holiday forever. If a place can be said to be hallowed, enchanted and throw open the doors of humankind’s perception, then this was it. It boasted pansexual bar staff, interesting clientele, and a new and thrilling delight that answered our many prayers. I speak, of course, of a karaoke machine.

That quiet drink turned into a full-on jamboree, as is the wonder of such spontaneous nights out. We jostled for position on the karaoke with two rosy-cheeked girls in dresses, who seemed eager to provide the assembled punters with the world’s least compelling Mariah Carey tribute act.

Dave and Alex performed a number of tunes together and were clearly seasoned professionals at this kind of thing. One of the plump girls bravely upped the stakes and gave ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ a go. This was an error. My impromptu rap to ‘Gangsta’s Paradise’ inspired one stranger who was watching to whoop excitedly and mime doggy sex in front of the stage. I’ve never seen anyone do that in public before. It’s surely the ultimate hip-hop accolade.

I rose early in the morning to watch the World Cup final in the hostel’s TV room. The score was locked at 0-0 and I managed to watch fifteen minutes before heading back to bed. My friends all slept. The buzz of football’s big party passed our time zone completely by.

Later in the morning we dropped off both the vans at the rental depot and bid them a sad farewell. They had carried us all the way from Sydney with only one problematic headlight bulb to trouble us.

Then we set forth on foot to see the city, still guided by the Sat Nav. Needless to say it threw us a couple of curveballs, but we found our way round pretty easily. There were many grand streets, skyscrapers and river views. Brisbane is not everyone’s cup of tea, but in my opinion it is up there with Sydney and Melbourne in terms of culture. I do like a city with hills in it.

Some of us went to Starbucks to meet Caz’s friend Mikaela and Theresa’s friend Paul. Meanwhile I went with Alex, Katie and Dave to the Brisbane Art Gallery and saw an exhibition by renowned sculptor Ron Mueck. He specialises in producing realistic human figures in unflinching detail, a lot of them naked. You wonder what stories lay behind these fascinating characters. The day certainly inspired me to take more of an interest in art.

After rejoining the rest of the group we of course proceeded to drink heavily into the night. I got so badly drunk I was put in a taxi by my friends, but I still managed to find my way back to the hostel and update my Facebook status with the following pearl of wisdom: “Brisbane is ace as tits. Fact.” And so to bed.

We had another day to kill in Brisbane so we visited the artificial beach and lagoon down by the river. It lived up to our demanding Blackpool standards. Presumably they had shipped in the finest-quality sand from the Bahamas at great expense, such is the logic of these schemes. Some of us hadn’t seen the art gallery yesterday so we took another stroll over there to breathe in more culture. “If it’s free, give it me.” I was enjoying all this art.

That night was my final night with the group and we made an occasion of it, introducing the people who missed it to our new karaoke bar find. Everyone took to the stage with a frenzy. The plump girls were there holding court next to the DJ and our presence was welcomed by the other regulars.

Within a span of time that felt like the blinking of an eye, the nine of us were uproariously drunk and showing the world how ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ should (not) be sung. When I left at 2am the others were still there partying. Was I learning a degree of self-control in my old age? Probably not.

So came the breakfast of farewells. Lindsay and Theresa I would meet in Perth in a few weeks. The rest I would not see for several months. The last ten days had been a roller-coaster ride of travelling, resuming old friendships and forming new ones. For some reason it just felt great to hear lots of northern accents again. The rest of the group would now return to Melbourne before most of them flew home. I chose not to choose Melbourne. I chose something else.

Sydney to Cairns – Part Three

The Scottish sea captain was waiting to show us to our houseboat, which bobbed serenely in the inky black night-time waters of Sanctuary Cove. This was a gem of a rental that Chris had dug out from the cobwebs of the internet. Stepping aboard we discovered a slick interior, several bedrooms, furnishings fit for a prince and a spacious sun deck. Already this promised to be the Boat that Rocked!

We stocked up with hundreds of dollars of food and drink from the shops near the marina and ventured on board, vowing not to return to dry land for three days. Katie cooked a big pot of chilli for everyone in the ship’s galley. Beers were quaffed. Memories of this first evening on the boat have been pushed out by what followed, but I assume it was pleasant.

The next day the sea captain returned and fired up the houseboat’s engine. The ropes were cast off and we were out into the ocean. Luxury mansions drifted past and the skyscrapers of Surfers Paradise appeared on the horizon. We travelled maybe fifteen miles down the coast to a secluded bay and dropped anchor.

The boat towed a small dinghy for trips to shore. After a brief instruction on how to start its engine, the captain left the dinghy and boat in our semi-capable hands. It was time to unpack the beach towels and have a dip in the ocean.

Despite the afternoon sun, the water was quite cold and choppy. Dave and I experimented with floating a cheese-plate in the sea. It ended in disaster, with several crackers and a selection of continental cheeses heading to a watery grave. Such is the price of decadence.

That evening, we threw another party. This was an ‘un-birthday’ celebration as several of us had birthdays due. We drank some more and listened to recordings of a band performing Queen songs in Japanese. The Japanese Freddie amused us with his theatrical panache. I retired quite early and missed the birthday cake, but Caz ensured everyone else got a slice. From what I understand she turned quite sinister.

I awoke very early the next morning and spent several hours writing and watching the sun rise. Once the others had risen, six of us – Alex, Dave, Chris, Lindsay, Katie and I – decided to take a trip on the dinghy to the nearby sand island. We spent a carefree hour on the kilometre-long needle of unspoilt sands, in the brilliant sun, chasing the swarms of tiny blue crabs which scampered from our Godzilla-like footsteps.

The problems came when we tried to return to the houseboat. The boat’s engine wouldn’t start. We tried all the advice the sea captain gave us and nothing worked. Nightfall was only a couple of hours away and the houseboat was too far to swim. The dinghy held four people so we needed to make two trips to ferry everyone back. Chris cranked the engine frantically for around five minutes before we finally got it going. He, Lindsay, Katie and I were in the boat.

The following five minutes were a blur of adrenaline and survival instinct lunges. I was nearest to the motor and pumped the throttle to keep it alive. Stuck it in forward gear. The boat surged wildly across the incoming swell. A wave hit. I pulled at the rudder. We careered off the other way, into deep water. Where the hell were we going?

Another wave hit. We began to take on water rapidly. The boat was vanishing under the waves. One of us grabbed the bucket and began bailing it out. The rest of us lay on the boat to prevent it capsizing and scooped out water with our hands. Somehow we didn’t sink and made it back to tie up at the houseboat. Alex and Dave, stranded on the island, were brought back by some kindly locals.

A stiff drink was needed. When I turned to look back at the island, the area was swarming with boats and concerned people searching the sand. ‘A bunch of tourists in too deep.’ It must happen from time to time. I wonder if we made the local news. The dinghy bobbed innocently in the ocean like nothing had happened. I dare say the bastard was cursed.

Not to be outdone by its smaller cousin, the houseboat was providing its own share of technical wobbles. The grey water pump malfunctioned and regurgitated foul-smelling effluent through the shower’s plughole. The ship’s toilet, already an experience in avant-garde noise art and sphinctral discipline, was now full up and beeping madly. A meaty wave from a passing ship struck us and the boat began listing oddly to one side. Add all of these ingredients together and you’ve got a bad package holiday to Sharm El-Sheikh. I think we were ready to return to dry land.

Nevertheless those three days on the houseboat were magical and unforgettable. Next day, as we chugged back to the marina, the group reclining on the sun deck was a picture of contentment. Caz had failed to apply suncream and turned bright pink like a lobster. We all envied her colour-changing abilities.

Everyone had ‘sea legs’ for days afterwards. The world span slowly round us as if moored to a buoy in a serene maritime bay. Next up: another day in (Surfers) Paradise. Katie cooked sausages in the hostel kitchen while I sorted out my travel plans on a borrowed laptop. I was to part ways with the group in a few days.

We celebrated our return to dry land with yet another piss-up. Hitting the pubs and bars of Surfers Paradise, everything seemed eerily reminiscent of Blackpool. It was full-on. Let’s be under no illusions: Surfers is not a quiet glass of red wine by the fire and a discussion about philosophy; it’s an evening doing shots of tequila through a fire-hose in a crack den. Dressed as a priest.

Never mind, the slap-up breakfast the next morning, in an all-you-can-eat fry-up cafe, made up for any perceived trauma. We strolled to the vans, hungover, taking photos on the golden sands. The views were stunning. I wasn’t taken with this huge, bristling elephant of a tourist resort, but Surfers has an absolutely fantastic beach.

Sydney to Cairns – Part Two

The next day we went to Byron Bay. It had a nice atmosphere and was full of hippie shops and backpackers. We parked our vans at a fortified campsite where there were lots of old people. Our lodgings that night were a cheap and cheerful twin bunkhouse close to the shower block. The triple bunk beds were a squeeze to get into.

I bought a T-shirt with ‘Byron Bay Australia’ on it. It looked proper good. Everyone was buying clothes. We went out for dinner at Hog’s Breath but they didn’t have hog. Then we went out and got pissed, as Byron Bay didn’t shut down at 6 in the evening like the last two places we stayed in.

It was a messy evening involving meat platters, cycle taxis and numerous changes of venue. The bloke in the cycle taxi ferried us all to the other side of town in two trips. Not surprisingly he was a very thin man. I asked him where he got his cycle taxi from and he said Colorado.

We watched Lindsay sing at the jam night. Two guys from a band asked her to record with them at their studio. Later on I hit my head in a minibus. Everyone was going mental and singing something called the ‘Magpie blues’. Things were getting out of control. I didn’t enjoy this night.

The next day, nursing one of many hangovers, we went for a look at Byron Bay bay. It was bloody amazing. There were great views up by the lighthouse and the council had thoughtfully employed a man to run up to our window and tell us the car park was full. We didn’t get any photos up there so the nine of us went for a swim down on the beach. Well it was more like a British seaside paddle; shoes and socks off but no funny business.

There were lots of surfers on the beach, some of whom I am reliably informed by the girls were ‘fit’. Dave spilt coffee down his new astronaut T-shirt and tried to wash it off in the sea. I remarked that it was a likely act of subconscious self-sabotage and that the T-shirt was too beautiful for this world. After those high jinks it was time to do more driving. We had to keep an appointment with the boat man up in Sanctuary Cove.

We stopped off for the afternoon in Nimbin, a famed hippie town. Psychedelic shop frontages lined the street in silent homage to the long-vanished days of flower power. Aging figures in tie-died clothing minded stalls. This town was home to those who turned on, tuned in, dropped out for good then started a small business once the drugs wore off. Signs in the street warned, ‘no dealing’. In a big city you’re never more than six feet away from a rat. In Nimbin you’re never more than six feet away from someone selling a bag of weed, apparently.

The Sat Nav had obviously been at the ‘space cakes’ and directed our convoy down a narrow and winding gravel track. Alex, who usually drives a Mini, put in a great shift at the wheel of the second minibus as the vans crawled up and down hills and through miles of forest, seemingly without end.

Eventually, our strange journey through the woods bore fruit, and we emerged on to another highway that would take us to Sanctuary Cove. Now we crossed over the border from New South Wales into Queensland. The clock was ticking and we were very late for our rendezvous. Chris, the instigator of the trip and official Holiday Dad, was starting to show his dark side to the stragglers.

We’d driven relentlessly for a few days since leaving Sydney and everyone was craving a moment to put their feet up, crack open a beverage of alcoholic content, gaze out to the horizon and give each other a contented high-five. It was with not inconsiderable excitement that we awaited our three days at sea.

Sydney to Cairns – Part One

The trip started in late June when the group of eight came together in Melbourne, with six of them flying in from England for a three-week holiday. Apparently the best thing which happened in Melbourne was that everyone went on a Neighbours tour. Not liking Neighbours, I thought this was pretty tragic. But they got up to lots of fun antics and they were clearly having the time of their lives. Then they moved on to Sydney and I flew in to meet the party.

I was excited as I’d not seen any of my friends in fifteen months. For two years I’d lived over in Perth, doing my own thing, but now I was like a fish back in water. I knew Lindsay, Chris, Laura and Theresa, but Katie, Alex, Caz and Dave Cheese were all new faces. Sydney was like an old flame, as I’d lived there for a month in 2008.

Our very first outing was to Harry’s Pies. This was a dark corner near Central station with tables and chairs, where a bespectacled foreign student in a caravan served up all manner of pie-based exotica. Hangovers and tales of last night’s Irish pub abounded among us. My drinking libido was rising, a day late. We spent a quiet evening in at the hostel.

The next day: road trip! We girded our loins, assembled our party and set sail for the beach at Manley; by which I mean we drove there. We had rented two camper vans to take the nine of us and our luggage up the coast. Our eventual target was Brisbane.

Wicked Campers seem to have two styles of van for hire: ‘new’ and ‘junkyard death trap’. We paid extra for two nice new ones with automatic gearboxes and CB radios. Each van was adorned in a custom ‘graffiti’ paint job. The one in which I was travelling had ‘Skool-a-palooza’ emblazoned on the side in ghetto lettering. We were still Skoolies in spirit, if sadly no longer in age.

In Manley we strolled on the beach then went for lunch with Caz’s friend James. He grew up in Blackpool and now works in Manley as a groundsman at a golf course. We ate in a busy seafront restaurant. They served up a cracking seafood risotto. Later on Laura was sick in the bogs. We said goodbye to James and left.

“On the road again!” came Theresa’s sing-song call over the radio. We were up, up and away, travelling through New South Wales’s breadbasket. Heading north into the night we cut a huge swathe through the countryside, finally stopping for rest at Port Macquarie. Theresa and Cheese did a great job of driving – no doubt sustained by the game of ‘Blind Date’ they played over the radio.

We had expected ‘Port McFlurry’ to be quite a happening place, but when we pulled up, at 9.30 on a Sunday night, it was of course dead. The one and only food shop still open was a Dominos, so we all bought takeaway pizzas. Fast-food franchises are often your only friend in Australian country towns.

Beds were waiting for us nearby, at a tennis court motel run by a friendly Asian woman. We stroked her cat then took our pizzas back to our rooms. I shared a room with Laura and Theresa. I was to be on the receiving end of a lot of girly chats during this holiday.

The next day we had breakfast in Port MacQuarie – mainly memorable for Linz canoodling with a statue of Aussie politician Sir Edmund Barton. Moving on to Coffs Harbour, we found a curious community radio station that resided in a shopping centre. It was run by a friendly lady with a strange name which escapes me. She gave us all a tour of the studios and I waved at the DJ. It was like a step back in time to the mid 1980s.

The barbeque was good. We cooked many fine foods at the park by the beach –supermarket sausages and burgers basically. You’re either too full or not quite full enough after a barbeque. I think we were all very full and there was food left over.

For the next leg of the journey I took over as van DJ and dropped quality track after quality track. I remember selecting the classic hit ‘Bills Bills Bills’ by Destiny’s Child and treating my fellow passengers to some freestyle dance shit. You can take these risks when you’re on holiday.

Arriving in Grafton (a small country town) that evening we found it to be just that – a small country town. All the shops were shut and the streets were empty. It was an exact repeat of our experiences in Port MacQuarie with the added twist that this was a weekday. Perhaps everyone living there suffered from agoraphobia?

After the hotel bar closed at 7.30 we came up with the genius idea of having a shopping trolley race down the deserted high street. Chris and Cheese wheeled the girls along the pavement at full tilt. I think Chris’s team won the race. We whooped and hollered. Curtains twitched. The town slept. Grafton seemed to merit no more than an overnight stop but the hotel was very good. We stayed up playing dirty drinking games in Dave’s rented cottage.

Sydney to Cairns – Introduction

A sudden wave broke. The boat pitched violently like a leaf. The four of us scrambled in vain to stop the water engulfing us. The oar and a lifejacket went overboard. The water surged. The engine let out a distressed whine. The boat span round in aimless circles. Figures on the nearby sandbank looked on in horror. Our trip to the island was ending in catastrophe.

This isn’t some Rolling Stone-style introduction to a tale of rock star antics gone awry. This is an everyday scene from a recent holiday, when my friends and I nearly sparked a major search-and-rescue incident off the Queensland coast.

When we Blackpool folk holiday abroad, we have a knack of drawing attention to ourselves. If I were to give a reason it is simply because we love life. The world is a great big playground.

It was not a good idea for me to pilot the dinghy in hindsight. I knew as much about boating as I did about Kyrgyzstani import tariffs, which is not a lot. But despite a nerve-jangling afternoon featuring a dodgy outboard motor and a few unexpected waves, the gods conspired to micturate the sweet urine of good fortune down on our day. We bailed all the water out from between the seats while I steered the dinghy back to our houseboat; an oasis of calm floating on the sea a few hundred metres away.