The Long Hitch Home

PROLOGUE

The shrill of a military ambulance siren jolted me from my slumber as if I’d been punched squarely in the face. In an instant we were all on high alert, jumping from our seats inside the dank Red Cross field hospital, hastily preparing for the vehicle’s arrival.

Go! Go! Go! yelled someone outside.

Grabbing my helmet I ran down the aisle between two rows of steel-framed beds and collided with a petite nurse fixing a bandage around a soldier’s bloodied head, knocking her to her knees. There was no time for apologies. I powered through, running past battered soldiers and a barely human-looking corpse that had been dumped unceremoniously near an ammunition box. My heart pounded in my chest. I hoped I wouldn’t be the one who made a critical error this time.

Forcing my way through the tent’s heavy fabric, I stepped into a torrent tearing apart the earth, creating ankle-high pools of muddy slop. Within moments the obese droplets had soaked me through. The rain fell with an unnatural intensity, the likes of which I had never experienced before. I shivered.

Seconds later the ambulance skidded to a halt, slewing sideways and throwing a vile spray in its wake. Two medics reached it first. Wrenching open its rear doors with a critical urgency, they hauled out a stretcher holding a motionless form.

A primal wailing came from inside the vehicle.

I reached the ambulance and stuck my head in.

Three bloodied casualties remained. The nearest cried out, clutching what looked like a bullet wound to the abdomen. He would have to walk. Supporting him as best I could we hobbled inside the tent, just in time to see a fellow medic pretending to have sex with the corpse.

We burst out laughing.

Cut! shouted the director.

It was my third day on set as an extra, a job I was doing not out of love for the silver screen but for some quick hard cash while I was working out what to do with my life. Today I had been given the part of a Second World War medic. The day before it was a U.S. Marine, the week before that a British P.O.W.

All was not going well.

This particular scene, shot in the clearing of a pine forest in southern England, was battering us into submission. It had taken most of the morning and countless retakes. By now all involved were soaking from the rain machine suspended from a crane above the set, and were more than ready for a hot drink and a bacon sandwich. It would be a long time coming.

Do you know how much it costs every time one of you fucks this up? yelled Rupert, an Assistant Director.

He was fresh out of school—an expensive one—and rumor had it only got the job through family connections. He was the least-liked person on set, and competition was running high for that accolade.

Move over to the ambulance and stay put until I tell you! he yelled at the extras in the tent. He accompanied his demand by giving those within arm’s reach a slight push as they went past.

Could he be any more condescending?

Yes.

Chop, chop. Quick as you can, I don’t have all day! he added.

But then he manhandled the wrong person.

A big, muscled, no-nonsense ex-army corporal—a real one just playing the part of a medic on set—spun around and eye-balled Rupert with real venom.

Don’t touch me, boy! he asserted in an uncompromising military tone that superseded Rupert’s tenuous authority. Why do you touch people as they walk past? Are we incapable of reaching a point fifty feet away without you physically guiding us in the line of travel, or do you just have a thing about feeling up strangers?!

My heart warmed to him immediately.

Rupert went white. The threat of real violence was in the air.

He might have had a fancy-sounding job title, but in reality Rupert was the lowliest of the multiple Assistant Directors on set, being a so-called third AD, one step up from the starting job in film—a production assistant or runner—and so was hardly in a position to sack the guy.

Rupert stared at the ground, squirmed uncomfortably, then backed down.

Sorry, was all he could muster in a meek voice.

I never saw him touch another extra.

It was another couple of hours before we got the scene right and made it back to the expansive catering tent. The place was heaving with a couple hundred extras: Nazis, U.S. Marines, Red Cross Nurses and Medics, all lounging at long tables looking bored. The majority had spent the morning here, waiting to be called for their particular scene. Not surprisingly, the best food had already been devoured, leaving us with the vegetarian option for lunch—lukewarm bean-based casserole.

I headed for a table containing a couple of U.S. Marines with whom I’d worked the previous day: Chris, a big Greek personal trainer in normal life, who had a strange obsession—or, more likely, complex—with critiquing the size of other men’s biceps, as well as an odd pride in his almost total covering of gorilla-like body hair, and Russell, a full-time extra and total movie nerd who had been in just about every major feature film shot in the U.K. over the last decade.

Guess who you’ve just missed? asked Russell as I sat down.

Job done! Job done! said Chris suggestively with a smile, impersonating the legendary oddball on set, who supposedly concluded all his sentences this way. I had yet to meet him.

Is he here today? I asked, intrigued at the prospect of meeting the man who had been the talk of the set the day before and had acquired the nickname, Captain Black—so called for his resemblance to the fictional nemesis of Captain Scarlet in the hit 1960s Supermarionation, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons.

The good Captain’s been giving it the large portion all morning. He’s really starting to put people’s backs up. Lost track of all the shit he claims to have done, said Chris, who began to count on his hand, Dance instructor on Harry Potter; personal stunt coordinator for Tommy Lee Jones; former stockbroker; 7th Dan Aikido black belt; archery instructor on Robin Hood, tactical weapons specialist; ex-Special Forces but currently in the military police.

. . . who of course give him time off to be an extra, chipped in Russell, rolling his eyes.

And he’s only twenty-four! The guy’s completely delusional. If he’d done half of what he claims, he sure as hell wouldn’t be scraping by doing slightly above minimum wage background work, concluded Chris before adding, Got very puny arms too.

Slightly above minimum wage or not, I wished I were getting more of it. The hourly rate wasn’t so good, but the real money was from all the additional things you got paid for: having your hair cut, getting wet on set, changing costume, receiving your lunch late. The list went on. I’d been booked for a few more random days this month but some of those on set had got weeks of solid work, and a decent slab of cash. I had a couple of other part-time jobs as well, setting up stages for pop and rock concerts, and gardening for a friend’s landscaping firm. None of it was big money, but if I wanted to go traveling, especially on the epic overland trip I had in mind, I needed all I could get.

I told the others of my plan to head abroad.

You’re not going to write about your travels again are you? asked Chris with a wry smile.

I might.

Are you sure that’s a good idea?

Can’t see why not.

It’s just, I read an online review of one of your books the other night.

Oh?

Yes, it said, ‘The author sounds like a bit of a tool.’

Sounds accurate enough, I laughed.

How’s your last one selling? asked Russell.

I’m working as an extra. I think that tells you everything you need to know.

Indeed it did. The trade was littered with artists, writers, musicians, and other creative types who hadn’t quite made it, at least to the degree of earning a living from their chosen craft. I’d had over forty jobs since leaving school, ranging from factory cleaning to investment banking, from sales to laboring, nearly all had been stop-gaps while I attempted to make a go of something else I was working on in my spare time—which, until recently, had never taken off. With the publication of my first book—a travel memoir on Iran¹—the year before, I had naively assumed I would be waving goodbye to such an exasperating working life, and that I could finally become a full-time travel writer. If I ever wanted this to happen, then one thing was certain—I needed to start selling more books.

Whether writing about my travels or not, adventure and exploration are, and always will be, essentials in my life. For me, they are like breathing—they keep me alive. Their promise nurtures my spirit when stuck in awful dead-end jobs, and while actually traveling the experience renews me afresh, letting the real me emerge, not the shadow of my true self I frequently feel when trapped in tedious, low-paid employment. So often between trips a sort of sleeping sickness descends upon me, a stagnation of spirit borne out of the monotony of making ends meet by any means. And my home town, London, was exacerbating the problem. True, it is a wonderful and varied capital city, and there is much in Samuel Johnson’s old adage that to be bored of London is to be bored of life, but it does also depend on what sort of life. If stuck in London with little money, it can quickly grind you down, with dejection and alienation soon setting in. Most of my good friends had now departed, and were scattered across the country and globe, leaving me wondering why I still remained. It had become a rut. With no car, and rarely having any disposable income, I was nearly always stuck there on weekends, most of which my girlfriend worked, leaving me alone and poor in one of the world’s most expensive cities. So I would wander, trying my best to wring every last drop of interest from its free museums, architecture, and parks that, by now, I had visited and gazed upon all too often, and which seemed to have their color slowly leaching from them. I needed to shake off the gray and get the sparkle back, to wake from my emotional slumber and live life to the fullest again; to swap monotony for rapture through action, doing, and being. I needed to get out of London; to make good my escape, and the further away the better.

And I knew of a powerful and time-tested method of escape: hitchhiking.

If there is one form of travel that awakens the real me, it is setting off on an adventure by way of a stranger’s car. Hitchhiking is the travel equivalent of a jolt from a defibrillator, an in-at-the-deep-end shock to the system that within moments of climbing into a random vehicle leaves me reborn as if a different person. On the road you are blessed with the company of such varied characters who drift freely in and out of your life, giving you the opportunity to become acquainted with people from backgrounds who, outside of the hitch, you might never meet. You never know who is going to pick you up, how long you’ll travel with them, and what opportunities will come your way. I ached for new experience, and knew that through hitchhiking it was guaranteed. I needed to gaze upon new landscapes and buildings, to experience new cultures, to meet new people, to taste new foods, but most of all to feel alive again—I needed to journey once more, for within the hitch was life itself.

My plan was simple, to hitchhike home from just about the furthest point it was possible to go to from England—the southernmost tip of Australia, the island of Tasmania, where my girlfriend’s family came from and we had arranged to spend Christmas together. To make it back from Tasmania would encompass roughly 18,000 miles through nineteen countries: Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Laos, China, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey, Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Austria, Germany, France, and finally England. It would take me past wonders man-made and natural, through the changing of four seasons, and across huge environmental extremes of barren desert, tropical forest, towering frozen mountains, and verdant temperate pasture. I anticipated the journey taking between 3-6 months, for which I had around three thousand U.S. dollars to cover food, accommodation, visas and contingencies. It would be a tight budget and a trip like none I had completed before.

I couldn’t wait to begin.

CHAPTER ONE

A Devil of a Place

The island of Tasmania, or Tassie, as it is affectionately known to Australians, is a special place. The southern most Australian state, if you keep going south from Tasmania the next landmass you’ll hit is the frozen continent of Antarctica. It is the twenty-sixth largest island in the world, roughly the size of the Republic of Ireland but with a population of just over half a million, fifty percent of whom live in Tasmania’s capital, Hobart, the second oldest city in Australia. This leaves vast swathes of the island empty wilderness. Towering forests, craggy wind-swept mountains, thundering waterfalls and elegant sweeping beaches abound. Unlike the dry heart of the Australian mainland, Tasmania’s climate is temperate. It has cold winters and highly variable summers in which you can experience four seasons in a single day. It is home to some of Australia’s best-preserved historic architecture and convict sites (the island was founded as a penal colony), the world’s tallest hardwood trees—the colossal Swamp Gums (Eucalyptus regnans) which can reach heights of 330 feet—and one of my favorite animals, the Tasmanian devil. This rowdy, muscular, dog-sized mammal is the largest carnivorous marsupial on the planet with the most powerful bite of any mammal relative to body mass.

After a delightful Christmas with Emily and her family in Hobart—a charming historic waterfront city, whose skyline is dominated by the dramatic four thousand foot peak of Mt. Wellington—it wasn’t long before my mind turned to the Australian mainland and my imminent long hitch home. The only exceptions that I was prepared to make to my rule of nothing but hitching back to England, were when I was in a city—where it is next to impossible to hitchhike—or on seafaring sections of the trip. Under those circumstances I would pay for a ferry to the next landmass, or a local bus to get me to the city’s outskirts. Other than that, I’d thumb a ride the entire way. A ferry left Tasmania from the northern town of Devonport for the mainland city of Melbourne, but I wondered if I could begin my journey in more style than that.

Every year one of the world’s most difficult yacht races, The Sydney to Hobart, sets off, as its name suggests, from Australia’s most populous and renowned city, Sydney, for Hobart, 630 nautical miles away across the treacherous waters of the Bass Strait. It begins the day after Christmas with most competitors arriving in time to enjoy the New Year celebrations in Tasmania—although many fly back immediately after arriving to celebrate in Sydney instead. With more competitors sailing to Tassie than back to Sydney, I decided to try to hitch a ride on one of the sparsely-crewed yachts heading to the mainland after the race.

The alarm clock rang in the bedroom I was sharing with Emily at her family home, heralding the New Year with a ghastly electronic shriek, rousing me as if I’d been prodded awake by needles. I groaned, hit the snooze button, and closed my sluggish hangover-heavy eyes. In what seemed like seconds it was tormenting me again. I turned it off. Could I really be bothered to get up and traipse around the marina first thing in the morning? If I wanted a yacht though, I had to get cracking. Looking over at Emily, whose curly locks spilled over the downy pillows, I snuggled in for a final departing hug, her warmth and beauty tempting me to stay.

Minutes later I was driving away from the forested slopes of Mt. Wellington, down through empty tree-lined streets, past Victorian and Georgian properties dripping in character, towards the city center’s waterfront heart, Sullivan’s Cove—the landing site used by the British when founding the city in 1804. Located here is the main marina, Constitution Dock, where a flotilla of racing yachts was berthed, their gently swaying masts visible from afar. I left the car by a small park and began strolling toward them past a cobblestoned area of former Georgian sandstone warehouses, once used to store grain, whale oil and wool, now converted into galleries, cafés, craft shops, pubs, and restaurants. From the marina itself ran multiple piers where row upon row of racing yachts were berthed. These ranged in size, modernity and value, reflecting the different racing divisions—and wallet size of the owners. It was a beautiful sunny morning, making for a dazzling display of light on the water’s surface. Skipping across the marina was a cooling salty breeze, creating a symphony of pinging sounds from the yachts’ taught halyard lines that blew against the hollow aluminum masts along which they ran. Accompanying this were the lonely cries of gulls overhead, the fluttering of official race flags, and the faint lapping chop of the ocean against the yachts’ brilliant white hulls.

As I gazed at the myriad vessels, an agitated excitement enveloped me; a euphoric realization that this could be it: if I found a place on a yacht then my hitchhiking adventure would begin. Once more I would enter that sacred realm where I feel most complete—being on the move. Already the torpidity of London was fading from my spirit. But logically speaking I didn’t feel too optimistic of getting a ride. After all, the place was awash with world-class yachtsmen, whereas I had practically no experience, having done but a basic sailing course some eight years earlier and next to no sailing since. There was no shortage of yachts to ask though. It was a numbers game, I figured. If I asked enough people, then I’d be in with a chance.

Despite it being New Year’s Day, a surprising number of people were up and about, tinkering with their yachts, displaying no sign of being worse for wear from a heavy session the night before. Strolling down the pier I approached a man on the first yacht to my left.

Excuse me, I said, with a buoyant smile, I don’t suppose you’re looking for crew for the return leg to Sydney?

No, we’re from Tassie. We’re not sailing back.

I thanked him and moved on to the next yacht where a bronze-skinned, white-haired man in his sixties was pottering about on board a sleek medium-sized yacht.

I greeted the yachty, and asked if he was looking for crew to sail back to Sydney.

He looked me up and down.

Yes.

Bloody hell. I hadn’t been expecting a positive response from the second vessel I approached. His matter-of-fact reply left me stumped, and I paused, tongue-tied for a second, struggling for a coherent response. He came to my assistance.

Have you sailed before, and more importantly do you get seasick?

I proceeded to exaggerate my previous experience and assured him that I didn’t get seasick. This was untrue. On the first day of my sailing course I’d spent a good while throwing up over the side. I wouldn’t be letting that inconvenient truth throw a wrench in the works. After all, my sickness hadn’t lasted more than a couple of hours, so I hoped I’d be okay this time. I’d need to be. It was a four to five day sail to Sydney and we could be in for some exceptionally rough seas. The previous Monday had seen winds of fifty knots hammering the yachts as they made their way to Hobart. The going had been so rough that even veteran wave rider and seven-time world surfing champion Layne Beachley, who was crewing on board a one hundred foot supermaxi, came down with such severe seasickness that she was confined to her bunk from the first day of the race until the last. I hoped I wasn’t asking for more than I could handle.

We leave in an hour and a half from the Sandy Bay Yacht Club after the winners’ presentation. Can you make it there in time? asked my potential skipper.

I hadn’t been expecting this either, having assumed that no one would actually set sail today. I figured most people would head back some time after New Year’s Day, giving me plenty of time to pack and say goodbye to Emily, whom I wouldn’t be seeing now for several months. But I wasn’t about to turn down what seemed like a tremendous stroke of luck, so I gave a resounding, Yes.

After the briefest of introductions—his name was Tony, and the yacht’s, named in honor of his wife, Eleni—I bade my new skipper goodbye for now and turned on my heels to make a hasty trip back to get packed and say my farewells.

Tony called out after me.

If you’re not there in time we’ll leave without you.

My heart pounded in my chest as I ran to the car. In my excitement I fumbled with the door lock, dropping the keys on the sidewalk. I struggled to find the right one and then had similar panic-induced difficulties with the ignition. I floored it all the way back to Emily’s, the car’s tires letting out a screech on the hot asphalt as they came to an abrupt stop outside her home. I was in a real hurry, but instead of rushing inside, I sat still for several seconds, let my heart settle and gathered my thoughts. An excited smile crept across my face—I was about to sail over six hundred nautical miles across a stretch of notoriously difficult ocean and start my hitchhike back to England.

The good times were about to begin!

Emily was still curled up asleep when I arrived, wrapped in the fluffy duvet which she had rearranged so that it was around her head like a huge shawl, leaving only the round of her face visible. I smiled at her tenderly, then gently rocked my sleeping beauty to consciousness, her big blue eyes looking up at me through the sea of covers.

I’ve got good news and bad news, darling.

She guessed. You leave today.

In about, I checked my watch, an hour and fifteen minutes.

In what is without doubt the quickest and least thought-out packing I’ve ever done for such a vast trip, I threw everything I had taken with me to Australia into my backpack, stuffing it down with brute force. There was far more than I needed, or had intended to take on the journey back, having planned for Emily to carry superfluous items on the plane with her. There was no time for this now. It all had to come, essential or not. I’d work out what could be offloaded later. After a brief, though fond, farewell to Emily’s family, we jumped back in the car and headed for the yacht club in nearby Sandy Bay.

The place was packed in readiness for the official winners’ presentation. The competitors were all seated at a patio area outside the main clubhouse with views across the marina, where a small purpose-made stage had been erected for the event.

Taking a seat behind some media cameramen covering the action, we settled in with a cooling drink to watch the proceedings, sheltering beneath a parasol from the now-roasting sun. It was only when Tony was presented with an award—a wooden plaque with a cross-section of a yacht—that I realized he’d won his race division. Photos followed of him and his winning crew posing with the trophy.

When proceedings came to a close, we approached Tony, who introduced us to the crew. Other than Tony, only one of the racers, Albert, a twenty-one year-old engineering student from Sydney, was returning to the mainland on the yacht. The rest of the original crew were flying. The new team that I’d be joining consisted of Steve, a burly and bearded sea dog in his forties from Brisbane, and Jessica, a blonde Swedish girl in her thirties, currently living in Tasmania.

Minutes later I was being shown onto my floating home for the next few days by Albert, while Emily waited on the pier. She looked upset. After stowing my backpack down below I went up to console her.

Don’t worry Ems, I’ll be home before you know it.

There was no time to chat, and so with some tender parting words and a warm last embrace, we said goodbye.

CHAPTER TWO

Departing in Style

The sail out of Hobart takes you through the vast sheltered estuary of the Derwent River, which gradually widens past oyster-clad rocky coves, sandy beaches and picturesque penguin-populated islands, on its way to the cold treacherous waters of the Tasman Sea beyond.

Less than twenty minutes sailing and already Hobart was disappearing from sight, with the towering summit of Mt. Wellington now my final visual reminder of the city. Steve passed around a huge container of sunscreen while Tony, currently manning the yacht’s huge blue helm wheel, gave us the low-down on the coming day’s routine.

We’ll be sailing in rotating shifts of three hours; Albert and Steve on one, Jessica and Jamie on another, with me fluctuating between the two as necessary. You’ll either do a single night shift from midnight until 3 a.m., or a double from 9 p.m. until midnight, and then 3 a.m. until 6 a.m.

This meant we’d be getting no more than three hours sleep at a time. I was still pretty tired from last night’s session on the sauce and this morning’s early start, so hoped I’d get the single shift.

Jessica and Jamie are on the double tonight.

Shit.

Before reaching the Tasman Sea we put on waterproof jackets, and Tony handed around seasickness tablets in readiness for the bumpy ride to come. It was just as well. When we rounded the final headland and hit open ocean, conditions changed dramatically. Huge dark swells appeared from nowhere, lunging the yacht up and down. No longer sheltered from the wind, the sails took the strain, with the yacht heeling to one side.

Pull in the main sheet, shouted Tony.

To capitalize on its propelling effect we hardened up the main sail further, hauling on its chunky line, then locking it in place on a tighter angle to sail closer to the wind. Explosions of water erupted against the hull as we sliced into oncoming freight train waves, covering us with spray as the wind lashed our faces.

To our immediate left, rising vertically from the ocean floor were the beginnings of some of the most striking coastline in all Australia—the fortress-like cliffs of the Tasman Peninsula, some reaching a thousand feet. Many of the ominous gray rock formations that make up the cliffs resemble chimneys, and have acquired appropriate monikers: organ pipes, fluted cliffs, totem poles. The waves smashed against their unyielding bases, creating bursts of brilliant white.

Further up the coast the towering cliffs flanked the entrance to a bay that led to an infamous former penal colony, Port Arthur. For the convicts transported here from Britain, glimpsing the forbidding surroundings of their final destination for the first time must have been terrifying. They were sent to the end of the world from which they knew return would be all but impossible. ²

By late afternoon Jessica took a turn for the worse and was sick over the side of the yacht. Despite feeling sorry for her, I couldn’t help but be pleasantly surprised with my own lack of sickness so far. It was to prove short-lived.

In the interests of staying alert and awake on my first night shift, I decided to heed Tony’s advice and get my head down for a couple of hours before it commenced, and so shuffled into one of two narrow sleeping sections at the stern of the yacht. With a low roof just above the bed, it was a tight fit, although not uncomfortable, and came complete with a thin mattress enclosed by a netted section that prevented you from falling out due to the yacht’s steep angle and frequent bumps.

In what seemed like minutes, but was actually a hiatus of a couple of hours, I felt someone tugging at my foot.

You’re on in ten minutes, said Albert, who clambered back on deck.

Crawling out of my little den, I stood as best I could in the cabin, holding onto the railing of the stairs to steady myself as the yacht lurched violently back and forth. Putting on the waterproof jacket, pants, boots, and gloves that Tony had supplied me with took the best part of ten minutes to achieve. I knew from experience that the longer you spent below deck in an upright position the more likely you were to get seasick, and so from now on I decided to sleep fully clothed in my waterproofs. By the time I emerged into the cool evening air and clipped my chunky safety harness to a big metal ring on deck I was feeling queasy. With my arrival, Steve and Albert headed below to sleep. Jessica was already on deck and looked like she was feeling better after grabbing some sleep in one of the other bunks. She sat perched on the elevated side of the yacht, angled out of the water by the wind’s force on the sails. I clambered up to join her while Tony manned the helm.

Being summertime it was still light, although by now there was a low golden sun. I stared at the glowing cliffs in an attempt to take my mind off feeling nauseated. The thing was, I didn’t want to admit to myself that I was downright seasick. The moment I did, I knew there would be no return. But with the churning seas showing no signs of abating, and having no option to lie down, it didn’t seem likely the feeling would subside. As day slipped to night and true darkness enveloped our world, I began to feel progressively worse, the turbulent motion building inside of me until I could take no more. In an act of defeat, I stumbled to the other side of the yacht closest to the water and began retching into the sea. I continued until my stomach had nothing left to give. An overriding desire to lie down saturated my consciousness. The first opportunity was hours away, and if conditions got no better, I had at least four more days of this to go. Not that I was wholly downcast. A colorless image of the tedium of my existence in London flashed before me—I might be feeling sick now but at least I was feeling something.

The second shift of the night followed a similar pattern to the first with the sickness only departing when, exhausted, I finally crawled into bed at its end.

I awoke the next morning for my 9 a.m. shift to far calmer seas and a stronger constitution. Sticking my head up on deck, I was greeted by a gentle and renewing breeze playing its way across the idyllic surroundings of one of Tasmania’s most iconic and photographed locations, Wineglass Bay. This stunning bay curved, as its name suggests, into the graceful arc of a wine glass, and was framed behind by undulating green hills, thick with bushland and dotted with the occasional rugged boulder. Along the shore stretched the whitest sands, lapped by waters the color of unblemished turquoise. It was the most idyllic spot to have woken to, and the perfect place to stop off for breakfast.

Who wants a cup of tea? asked Jessica to all on deck, before heading down to get the kettle going on the yacht’s nifty little stove. We had a leisurely breakfast of small individual boxes of cereal, eaten direct from the packet, which we poured milk into to save on washing up. The sailing was pretty easy going for most of the day, with much calmer waters than the one before, and it wasn’t long before the final rocky headland of Tasmania was disappearing behind us and we were sailing into the paddock of the Bass Strait—a notorious open stretch of water separating Tasmania from mainland Australia. Despite its reputation, we were lucky and encountered propitious weather, so much so that we hoisted the yacht’s huge billowing yellow spinnaker sail—apparently an uncommon thing to do because of the high winds endemic in the area.

For the rest of the day we saw no land or other vessels, bestowing a liberating feeling of the desolate, as if the outside world had ceased to exist, accompanied only by a jellyfish drifting idly by, or a sea-bird gliding overhead.

When night arrived, Jessica and I took it in turns handling the helm across the expanse of darkness. We were treated to some of the most magnificent stars I’ve ever seen, a layered drape of dazzling complexity and awe, whose intensity seemed to burn holes in the cold charcoal-black atmosphere. Every so often the glorious silver arrow of a shooting star would streak across the firmament, its tail lingering for a split second in the wake of the matter disintegrating into flashes at its head. And my spirit would soar.

Jessica and I chatted for most of our nocturnal shift, and even discovered we’d both taken salsa lessons—something Emily had cajoled me into of late—from the same person, Super Mario, the million moves man, but on different sides of the planet. Jessica was extremely keen on salsa and even ran her own dance parties in Hobart. Literature was another common ground of interest, with Jessica considering writing a book, a fiction of some sort, although sadly she hadn’t worked out much beyond this. It was an enjoyable shift, made all the more so by knowing that it was, for us at least, the only one of the night, and when it came to an end we would sleep until dawn.

By early morning the landmass of the world’s largest island, and the only island that is also a continent, was apparent, not by sight but by smell. I’m not suggesting that mainland Australians stink—although there are probably plenty of Tasmanians who would subscribe to this—but rather that the distinct aroma of bushland and forest drifted across the water a good hour before the continent itself came into view, appearing on the horizon amid a vivid sunrise of orange and angry pink.

It wasn’t long before a lone seventy-five foot high, square sandstone tower, topped with battlements, appeared among distant bushland, standing proudly above red cliffs at the entrance to Twofold Bay.

That’s Boyd’s Tower, announced Tony.

The tower had been built by a Scottish entrepreneur, Benjamin Boyd, in 1847 as a lighthouse, but ended up being used as a lookout by local whalers to spot their prey. It was now part of the Ben Boyd National Park, at the entrance of which it stood. Just up from the tower was a pulp mill of colossal proportions, complete with several mountainous hills of reddish wood chips, the likely source of the scent that had alerted us to land when miles out at sea.

A pleasant day of sailing commenced, followed by a night shift of epic proportions. Jessica, Tony, and I were treated to marine phosphorescence the likes of which I had no idea existed, its sublime arrival coinciding with the appearance of a pod of dolphins playing about next to the yacht. It was as if I’d taken some super strong LSD, such was the intensity of the colors radiating from the water. One moment the dolphins were up close, exploding out of the sea beside us, throwing psychedelic-colored water into the air and sounding off their characteristic clicks and whistles, the next they had darted off, and the ocean was silent again, leaving us scanning for their return.

Over there! one of us would shout on spotting an illuminated wake, and the party would start over again. It lasted for about ten minutes before the dolphins departed for good, leaving me on a natural high for the rest of the night.

I’ve seen phosphorescence like that once before in Thailand, said Tony, in the calm considered manner of an experienced mariner, something I took to be rather telling. Tony was in his sixties and had sailed most of his life, so if he’d only seen phosphorescence of such brightness once previously, then I was very lucky to have scored such a sight on my first major sailing trip.

All things considered, it was a pretty uneventful trip back to Sydney from here on in. We moored up in the marina of the exclusive Castlecrag area five days after setting off, having covered 630 nautical miles.

CHAPTER THREE

A Meth to My Madness

Where you bloody going? asked a tired-looking and wrinkled middle-aged woman through the open passenger window of a powerful-looking Holden Commodore sedan. Behind the wheel sat an equally aged man wearing a baseball cap and a pair of shades. We were on the western outskirts of Sydney—a location I had arrived at early in the morning after scoring a ride from Tony.

I’m heading west, trying to get to Port Augusta, I told them.

We can take you to Dubbo, said the driver, revealing the most horrendous set of worn down black-and-yellow-stained teeth I’d ever seen.

I had no idea where Dubbo was, so I began to make inquiries and handed over my map to the woman, holding up three cars on the thin strip of truck stop exit road behind us.

They began blasting their horns.

With no further ado the woman leaned out of the car window to face those waiting behind.

Oh, fuck off with yous! she yelled, accompanying this with the middle finger.

She turned to me and calmly pointed out where Dubbo was. It was to the west. I got in.

Tires screeched and we were off.

A bony hand thrust into the back.

I’m Bindi.

We shook.

I’m Jamie, nice to meet you.

Robbo, announced the driver, reaching around with his palm down and elbow up for a handshake in the manner of a gangster holding a gun—taking his eyes off the road for an uncomfortably long period in the process.

We’re not a couple by the way, he said, gesturing to Bindi, as if this was important information to state upfront.

Nah, been mates for years, replied Bindi. Be too weird to root now!

They both laughed.

I hoped Robbo wasn’t clarifying for my sake in case I fancied a crack at her.

You’d be a bloody pommy, wouldn’t you, Jamie? asked Bindi.

I answered in the affirmative, that I was indeed an Englishman—pommy being Australian slang for their English betters.

Robbo, it soon became clear, drove like a lunatic, weaving his way in and out of traffic at far too high a speed on the Great Western Highway that led from Sydney towards the Blue Mountains, a region of spectacular forested gorges, roughly thirty miles west of the city. As we approached the Blue Mountains, houses became more sparse and the landscape gradually changed, until we were twisting our way down craggy hillside roads cut into the cliff, eventually giving way to pastures and rolling hills dappled with gently swaying eucalyptus trees.

If there weren’t so many fucking cunts on the road we’d be flying along! exclaimed Robbo.

He could have fooled me.

Despite Robbo and Bindi’s penchant for profanity, they were super friendly to me, offering cigarettes, sodas, and candies my way and taking genuine interest in my trip. With a bit of prompting they began to tell me about themselves. Both were Koori Aboriginals, which came as something of a surprise to me as neither was particularly dark skinned. (The Koori are the original inhabitants of land that now encompasses the states of New South Wales and Victoria.)

I asked them some generalities about the Koori as well as other Aboriginal people.

The Murri Aboriginals from Queensland are a bit uppity, think they’re better than us, said Robbo.

And you’ve got to be careful of them ones from the Northern Territory, added Bindi. They’ve got powers. Can point a bone at you or sing you back.

Pointing a bone, Bindi explained, was the Northern Territory Aboriginals’ way of placing a curse on someone; singing you back, a method of magically enchanting the subject of their affection to return to them, willing or not.

Robbo put on a CD of Koori country music, by Roger Knox.

He’s known as the black Elvis and the Koori king of country, said Robbo. Listen to the words.

These featured the chorus lyrics, The brown skin baby, they take him away. This, I knew, was a reference to the so called stolen generation of Aboriginals, a racist government policy based on theories from the eugenics movement, whereby Aboriginal children—usually with a degree of mixed blood—were forcibly stolen from their parents and placed in Christian missions where their culture and language was banned, in a quest to civilize and have the color bred out of them. Roughly 100,000 children³—equating to as many as 1 in 10 of all Aboriginal children⁴—were kidnapped from their parents, causing untold misery and suffering. The practice also saw stolen children shipped off as bonded labor to ranches or white middle-class homes as servants. Many were lied to and told their family had died; others, as documented in an official inquiry of 1997, were physically and sexually abused.⁵ Astonishingly, the policy ran from 1910 right up until 1971.⁶ Such was the social upheaval and trauma caused, that huge numbers of Aboriginal children turned to alcohol, drugs, and violence, which resulted for many in a premature death. Even now, the life expectancy of Aboriginal Australians is lower than the rest of the world’s other 90 indigenous peoples.⁷ Sadly, Bindi’s own family bore this out. She was forty-seven years old but told me she had seen five of her fifteen siblings die. When we drove past a roadside cemetery she leaned out of the car and shouted, Hello sis!

When I die I’m gonna have my Maltese dog buried at my feet, she said, adding, Don’t worry, he’s already dead. Had the poor bugger cremated.

Came pretty close to copping it myself recently too, continued Bindi. Hubby was driving with me in the passenger seat when we got hit head-on by a truck with bull-bars. Broke my wrists, had my spleen patched, broke my right hip, collar bone, lost eight teeth and broke my right leg. Hubby died four times over, broke his jaw, cheekbones, and his head swelled to the size of a beach-ball. Family only knew him from his tattoos.

Bindi showed me, with a touch of pride, some of her scars.

Tell him about the surgeons, said Robbo, with a giggle.

Oh, yeah, laughed Bindi. After my hubby came round from his operation, to check he was with it they said to him, ‘Davo, can you tell me who the Prime Minister is?’ He says, ‘How the fucking hell should I know!’

After about two hours on the road we arrived in the small town of Bathurst, the