Now, looking back, our trip is telescoping into an ever-shorter timeframe. It already feels normal to be here. It is interesting to note that we did not have to suffer the anticlimax of returning to a life unchanged from our absence, as we are now living in a new country, starting everything from scratch. It is hard to discern what specific lessons we have brought home with us, what new perspectives we have gathered, but somehow we know we have gained greatly. Of all the places we visited, India and Nepal surely made the deepest impression on us. Now they are no longer in our skin, though they will forever be somewhere in our hearts.

EMMA IN MUM'S CLOTHES KEEPING OUT OF THE COLD

Now, finally completing this blog, I wonder if we will read it in later years. I wonder if it will evoke the memory of our travels enough that we will once more smell and feel the highest and lowest times from the trip. It may serve as little more than an exercise in writing, as well as entertainment for its small, committed audience. Hearing that anyone at all was giving time to this rather long-winded journal was a powerful fuel to keep writing it. For that, we owe you our thanks and hope you’ve enjoyed the ride. Maybe just once you’ve felt close enough to reach out and touch a distant place, as seen through our eyes. If so, all that writing was worth it.

Part I: The Party of the North

The train from Mangalore stopped six hours later in Margao, the second city of the tiny coastal state of Goa. Goa, not really India, the old stronghold of the Portugese and their Catholicism. Good old Goa, party capital of India, beach capital of India, booze capital, tourist hot-spot, richest of all the states; not really India yet still inescapably Indian. Our final stop after five months on the lam. Avoiding Goa’s famously expensive cabs, we asked a rickshaw driver to take us from Margao station to our friend Pubali’s house in Anjuna. We had to steal ourselves to accept the shocking price of 600 rupees (about seven quid) for the hour-and-a-half rickshaw ride, although a cab would have been outrageous at about 800 Rs, such was the level of pedantry we had reached. What’s more, taking the slow way across Goa gave us a deeper view of its beauty than we had got the first time we were there, back in November. Being a Sunday, Christian weddings were blooming everywhere and our driver insisted on stopping at several of them so we could peek through their gateways, into festival gardens full of lights and the energy of celebration and family.

Fumbling through clouded memories of our last visit, we guessed our way to the path leading to Pubali and Matt’s house, buried deep in the palms, on the edge of impassable jungle. The night air was heavy with cicadas and sweat. Far back in the loaming we could see the light from the living room. Then, closer, an explosion of fur as the two familiar bundles of Pubali’s pet spaniels, Sherlock and Diva, burst onto the veranda to snuffle at our ankles and welcome us back, back to the tropical coast of India.

ANJUNA SUNSET

We spent four days in Anjuna, mostly doing what visitors to Goa mostly do, sitting in beachside bars watching the sun arc over and fall into the ocean, watching the people pass by on the beach: the freaks, egoists, hippies, holidaymakers and market stall sellers. On the first day we took a look at Morgim beach, a short drive north of Anjuna. We baked ourselves on loungers on the sand amidst dozens of young tourists, almost all of them with Russian accents. The nickname “Morgimsky” has evolved to illustrate the recent influx of Russians to Goa, particularly focused around Morgim. It used to be Brits, following with their suitcases and football shirts on the heels of the trendsetting hippy settlers. Now shifts in the global economy have laid a path for the growing classes of wealthy Russians. A local cab driver described how dire the reputation of these newcomers is. I was apologising to him on behalf of my country-folk for the hordes of sunburnt lager swillers from my homeland, up on the nearby beaches of Baga and Calangute. He protested, “No, no, you English very good behave. You dress is shirt, nice shorts, you say thank-you, you pay money good. It is Russians, they are very bad. They are rude, they wear old shorts, no T-shirt. They speak English no problem but I ask for money for taxi, they say ‘No speak English, only Russian’. Russian women the worst, they say bad things in Russian about me, they think I no understand,” and so it went. That’s our lot finally off the hook then.

That night Emma, Pubali and I struck out in search of the elusive Party, walking a long way through the darkness on the beach to a club called Blue Waves. En route we swigged at a bottle containing a mixture of one part lime soda, one part Feni. Feni is Goan moonshine, typically distilled from cashew or coconut. Branded bottles of the spirit can be bought for around 80Rs (about a quid), usually clocking-in at between 20 and40% ABV. But we had got our hands on an unlabelled bottle of liquid that the shopkeeper claimed to have made herself. It cost 30 rupees. Thirty! We had to add two parts of water to it just to get it down to a strength at which it could be mixed with a soft drink. Well, anyway, that’s the excuse I’m sticking to for what happened on the beach before we entered the club. In spite of Emma and Pubali drinking from the same bottle, some reaction went off in my head like a grenade, sucking the world away and jellifying my legs. Emma tried to communicate with me, telling me to lie down but I couldn’t connect will to action. She had to explain the process in detail: “Bend your legs. That’s it. Now put your hand down. Well done…” Consciousness rolled out of me like a falling curtain, then partially returned and hovered nearby without drifting close enough to grasp. Coaxed by the girls I slowly rallied the focus to stand and follow them into the club, somehow passing the door staff without trouble. I then sat out the whole event at a table, picking gingerly at an omelette and a glass of water. Emma had bought me the snack in the realisation that I hadn’t eaten for most of the day. Going without food, for me, is like sneaking kryptonite into Superman’s underpants. I soon came round, gathered my wits and realised that I hadn’t missed anything at all – the party had been rubbish. Then the staff closed the club at ten o’clock on the spurious claim that the police had ordered them to.

That disappointing party illustrated an aspect of Goa’s personality I alluded to after our first visit. It seems that some epic thirty-year festival of freedom and experimentation had raged along Goa’s coast until the recent years through which it began to collapse under its own weight. There seems to be a community of revellers constantly circulating and updating the rumour of where the next big night will be. Then they flock like vultures down to the Party when it rears its head. Thus we chased the Goan Experience on successive nights. But the Party is an elusive beast. It never quite performed with such magnificent form as all the hype had promoted. Some said we had missed it by a few years, some said it was still there but not on the nights we had seen it. But I think there is a little more to it than that. It seems that the very concept of this mind-blowing party is more like a big club night, founded on a very narrow range of music (primarily Goan Trance), it just happens to be in a grand setting. It’s not quite our scene. Or maybe we’re just getting old and boring, who knows?

I don’t mean to suggest that those nights were no fun, they were fantastic. They just didn’t quite fit the picture drawn by those people who live under Goa’s spell. The daytimes, however, were up to the standards of the best kind of holiday. We were joined by two friends of Matt (who was stuck in England the whole time, to everyone’s annoyance) and his former girlfriend Claire, who comes into this tale a few days before the end. The two newcomers, Gary and Rachel, became firm friends in no time. On their first few precious days it was a treat to watch them discover some of the quirks we had become used to over the months. Gary got shamelessly ripped-off on his first purchase of jewellery at the market, before hardening-up and getting a handle on haggling; both of them were in disbelief at the prices of food and booze; they marvelled at the chaos and colour of India. All these things we had almost taken for granted but now saw again as we had in September. Matt’s mum and step-dad, Val and Stace, were also there. It was inspirational to watch the pair of them revel in the Goan scene. I hope we too will travel the world after our kids have grown into adults.

Late one night, walking home from the beach, Emma and I were stopped at the junction of two streets by a pair of men in official shirts. One of them had a rifle slung from his shoulder. He asked questions in an aggressive tone: where had we been, where were we going, where were we staying, were we carrying drugs, why were we out so late… In a duet we had learned well, Emma played friendly and I played dumb. It was like Good-Cop-Thick-Cop. The policeman soon ran out of questions and just kept repeating, “So you have nothing for me?” To which we politely refused. I didn’t even realise what he was after but Emma knew well. Clearly he wanted a bribe. In any case, he eventually gave up and let us continue.

The next morning, waking with Feni-beaten brains, the night’s revelry came back in fuzzy pieces. How many bars had been in? Had we really gone skinny-dipping? That would explain why our clothes were covered in sand. Then Emma came upon the dark realisation that only her clothes had returned with her, not her sacred money belt. One rule of backpacking is never to be separated from that one essential accessory in which you keep your cash and passport but we had encountered unexpected circumstances on account of the unclothed swimming palaver. Now we were in big trouble.

Pubali took me immediately to a nearby garage, where we had hired scooters back in November. I asked the forecourt manager if he had any available now but he didn’t. I insisted, “Are you sure? No scooters? You have nothing? This is important”.

A daunting expression of uncertainty overcame the man. He said, “Well, we have that!”

He gestured to a small pile of scrap metal on one side of the yard. I examined it. More or less, it was bicycle-shaped. At some point in recent decades it may have served as a form of transport but substantial doubt surrounded even that idea. Somewhere in that half-eaten chassis there must have been a contraption vaguely resembling an engine and, after some frantic working of the pedals, it growled into life. I negotiated about 80Rs a day for it and pulled away into the street with my knees flapping around my ears, looking like the sort of clown that has court injunctions against him. Cutting short the tale of a painful few hours of sweating, pleading and dwindling hope, a young English lad we’d befriended the night before emerged from the crowd holding Emma’s belt in his hand. Needless to say, I bought him a beer… with Emma’s money.

OUR RIDE - SOMETHING VAGUELY RESEMBLING A SCOOTER

Then suddenly it was Friday 12 February and the final appointment of our honeymoon had rolled round and caught us by surprise in a way unique to Goa. Time doesn’t run at any kind of sensible pace there, it just disappears into the first drink and hides from sight until, unexpectedly, it leaps out and smacks you on the back of your pickled brain. Our old friend Claire and her boyfriend Dan had told us that they would arrive in Goa on 12 February and wait for us outside Paradise Bar on Palolem beach around sunset. But Friday had come along and it felt like we were just getting started in Anjuna. We very nearly didn’t leave. But a glimmer of clarity came to Emma and I at lunchtime that day and we resolved to get going. We found Gary and Rachel on the beach and put it straight to them: we were either leaving right away or we weren’t going to make it in time for that long-promised sunset. I’ve believed for a long time that it is generally better to move on in the hope of new adventures than stay put in the hope of continuing the current ones. That theory found a whole new justification that day.

Part II: The Sunset South

Though Catholicism is prevalent in Goa, nowhere in India is Hinduism far from hand. The day we moved south to Palolem was an auspicious one for Hindus, as it was Lord Shiva’s birthday, “Shivaratri”. Halfway to Palolem our cabby was happy to take us on a detour to a remote Shiva temple so we could pay our respects. He also stopped by the roadside nearby to show us a sacred tree in the shape of Ganesh, the elephant-headed god. By the time we reached Palolem the sun was turning-in, the light was sharpening, Golden Hour was beginning. Whereas Anjuna’s buildings are mainly solid, permanent structures, Palolem stretches inland from the coast in long rows of colourful bamboo shop-fronts, resembling the market stalls at a large festival. In this respect, Palolem felt more commercial and tourist-oriented. Then we saw the beach.

Access from the shops to the beach is made through a dense strip of palm trees, from which we emerged onto the sand in that perfect light. The beach is laid down in a shallow arc with considerable headlands at both of the distant ends. The southern headland is a pair of low bulges with a Mohican crown of silhouetted palm trees, bursting into the sky like fireworks. The northern headland is craggier and more prominent, with a slim channel separating the terminus of the beach from the adventurously entitled Monkey Island. Along the entire length of the beach is a continuous line of palm trees, leaning over in a towering green fringe. Jutting from the base of those trees is a staggering number of bar shacks, literally hundreds of them. The shacks could have stolen some of the charm that such a postcard beach inherently has but they don’t denigrate it in the slightest, they strengthen it. Something in the organic appearance of those wooden structures, and the notion of indulgence with which they are associated, only serves to improve the view. As we were taking it all in, our dear friends Claire and Dan spotted us from their deck chairs outside Paradise, bolted to their feet and charged us down, delivering hugs and screams of happiness.

We sat out the sunset with beers, laughing at the unbeatable pleasure of being in exotic places in the company of old friends. Besides ducking away for a few minutes to reserve a pair of shacks to sleep in, which were right next to the bar, we hardly moved from that spot for three days. That may seem lazy, although we could be forgiven for kicking back for the final days of our honeymoon, but there’s more to it than that. It was simply the best place to be. The unstoppable freight train of gregariousness that is Claire and Dan had obviously passed through this part of the world before and willing passengers were all around.

Paradise is run by a group of friends, some of whom we had met through Matt and Pubali earlier on our trip. They treated us as if the whole venue was putting on a party in celebration of our presence. They started a tab for us when we ordered our first drinks and we soon forgot all about what little money we had left. Then, sitting at those seats in the sand that evening, our old chums’ magnetism drew an audience that swelled through the night. Six of us slowly grew into 15 or so and guitars sprung up from nowhere. We sat in a circle, singing songs until the small hours. The similarity to a music festival was really digging in. It was blissful.

The next day we only moved from the bar for a quick shopping trip into Chaudi, two kilometres away. So nonchalant had we all become that we drifted apart and lost Claire on the way off the beach. Fortunately that was just what we needed, in order to get her some surprises for her imminent birthday. What’s more, as only Dan and I were left together we realised that we needn’t travel by any conventional means, we could arrange our own transport. We haggled with a shopkeeper over one of his scooters and promised to bring it back in a few hours, then scudded off onto the main road out of town. At one point Dan was at the handlebars, a cargo lorry was approaching in the opposite lane while being overtaken by a motorbike, then a rickshaw swung into view, overtaking the motorbike and stealing what was left of the road. We braked, wiggled, swerved, bounced narrowly past our slaughter, then accelerated, swerved and wiggled back into our lane and soared on. I leaned into Dan’s ear and shouted, “My mouth has completely dried out but I can’t stop smiling!”

On Sunday morning we convened, all with hangovers, back at our spot outside Paradise, awaiting the boat we had ordered the day before. The two main shack boys, Raj and Amun, had offered us some breakfast before our voyage but it only turned out to be some white toast, then there was a long, hungry wait while nothing happened. This was our second-last full day abroad, it had to get better. Then Raj took me to his scooter and drove me to the market in Chaudi. I stumbled brainlessly behind him as he darted between tradesmen, fixing deals. We bought tiger prawns, squid and mutton, then hacked huge chunks off a wall of ice blocks, filling two sacks with large rocks of the stuff. Something magical gripped me in that moment, as I felt closer to India than perhaps at any time before. We weren’t getting ripped-off, we weren’t engaging in some silly tourist activity, we were just doing what all the other locals do when they have families or customers to feed. The market was manic but Raj’s energy easily matched it so I could enjoy passively observing.

When we returned to the beach a painted wooden outrigger was resting in the shallows with a few passengers aboard. I could discern the profile of Emma, hiding under her parasol with her sunglasses on, looking elegant in an old imperial kind of way. I helped the boys gather further supplies from Paradise’s kitchen: dried spices, fresh herbs and limes, a box-load of potatoes, dozens of bottles of beer, gin, whisky, brandy and mixers. At the capable hands of our dear shack-boy friends the day was improving around us. The fishermen tending the boat finally cast us off and hopped aboard. Besides Emma and I, there was Claire and Dan, Gary and Rachel, Raj, Amun and his girlfriend Sophie. We motored steadily through a glassy sea. The out-rig bounced softly on the water, shedding a slight wake behind us. Looking back, Palolem was laid-out for us, basking under that tireless furnace in the sky. The sweep of high palms resembled a cliff, from the foot of which the shacks seemed to jut like natural rock features. From just a few metres offshore the beach looked somehow distant and surreally beautiful.

PALOLEM BEACH FROM OUR OUT-RIGGER

Rounding Monkey Island and swinging into the shore, we soon landed at Honeymoon Beach. It is a tiny rectangle of sand just big enough to throw a frisbee across, nestling amongst several house-sized rocks that sit stubbornly in shallow waters. Here was a classic vision of romantic paradise and not another soul was there to spoil it for us. Here was Honeymoon Beach, at the end of our extraordinary honeymoon, on Sunday 14th – Valentine’s Day.

Dan and I waded out to one of the smaller rocks, scaled it and leapt off its back into deeper water. I felt the cool liquid engulf me, heard its roar in my ears, waited to float back to hot sky above. I emerged to the sound of Dan laughing even more joyously than in all our previous moments of disbelief at our fortune; great hoarse peels of guffaws that were inescapably contagious. Thus breathless with elation we swam round to the other side of the rock, scrambled up it and jumped again and again. The others were floating neck-deep just out from the beach, chatting and laughing in their own world, equally contented. We played together, we drank booze, we lounged, swam, we learned to do handstands and cartwheels, and that sunny, perfect day rolled on. Raj and Amun built a small fire in a rocky nook and gathered volunteers to prepare the food. Claire and Dan taught us the fascinating process of how to gut and clean squid, then we cut the potatoes down to a pile of narrow fries. We cooked rounds of mutton, squid, prawn and chips, each one gaining ever more intense flavour from the spices and lime in the pan. We picked the hot morcels from the pan, devoured them and licked the spice from our fingers.

DAN AND BEN AMIDST HOUSE-SIZED ROCKS

Raj, Dan and I set ourselves a mission to prove our manhood. A larger rock, further out in the water, had to be climbed at any cost. I tried to cling to tiny finger-holds but couldn’t lift my full weight from the water. Raj, however, scaled the sheer face like a spider monkey. Clinging to the summit, Raj lowered his leg and called to me to grab it. He is half my size but held fast as I lifted myself by his ankle, such is his surprising strength. I grabbed the sharp top edge of the rock with my fingertips and pulled as hard as I could. Panic started to pull back at me, adrenaline enshrouded me like a shrinking robe, tingling my skin and stealing my breath. Nearly there, just get your toes into that gap. That’s it. Now one more haul and… victory! I left one leg behind and invited Dan to climb me in the same way as I had climbed Raj, until all three of us were standing as champions on the back of our vanquished rock. We were untouchable in that moment. We could feel every molecule of the gentle breeze brushing our wet, grazed skin. The clarity of the light was intensified by the buzz of our defeated fear; the sun bounced off the water stretching beneath us like a silver cloth. We counted ourselves down, bent our knees, raised our heads and launched into weightlessness for a brief, rushing moment. Then splash! Embraced by cool liquid arms and pulled down, down, then up, up, finally bursting back into the air and finally there it was again, that laughter, shared between friends. We immediately swam to another part of the rock and worked out an equally challenging ascent for a few more jumps.

Before our maritime taxi returned to collect us, Raj had one trial left. On previous years he had scaled the largest of all the rocks and scratched his name into it with chalk. The rock looked insurmountable but the spider monkey made short work of it. His name will sit there, looking out with pride across the ocean until the monsoon washes it off and Raj will have to wait until next summer to reclaim his rock.

VICTORIOUS RAJ CONQUERS HIS ROCK

We returned ruined. The sun had caught every one of us and beaten our energy away. Claire fell sick that evening and stayed in her hut while the rest of us retired to the bar and barely spoke. However, Claire’s misfortune did well for us, as we had her out of the way so we could make costumes and decorate the bar for her birthday the next day. The theme was to be pirates. We fashioned swords and flags, inflated 100 balloons and draped them all over the place. Raj and Amun showed just how wonderful they are by making elaborate costumes for themselves, too. Then a couple of the other shack boys collected hats and swords to make up a decent pirate crew.

THE FULL PIRATE CREW

We spent the next day steadily regaining our vitality under the influence of alcohol. We dug out a pirate ship on the sand using an old-fashioned Indian spade. Dan etched a design around it, showing the ship pulling a net in which the Kraken had been captured. We added a plank to be walked, in the layout of a hopscotch game. We ARRRR’d and staged elaborate swordfights, slowly finding ourselves again as the day wore on. But soon it was late and we were growing quiet once more. Emma and I knew this would be the last time we said goodnight to each other as honeymooners, five months and two days after leaving home.

PIRATE MAYHEM ON THE BEACH

The tides of joy and wonder turned the next day, as we packed our bags for the last time in India. Our landlady asked for extra money for checking-out late but we refused on account of her having screwed us around for a day or more when we had arrived. She stood her ground and we were dragged into a row that ran on and off for hours. We finally gave up on negotiating and walked away. She screamed after us, “F***ing bastards! I call the police now!”

“Okay”, we called back, “We’ll be waiting in the bar just over here, send them over”.

Of course no police were called, although that may have rounded things off in a suitably amusing way. Instead, we just sat with our friends, thinking of little to say, until the sun started to redden for another perfect sunset. This time we weren’t going to stay to watch it. We shouldered our ruck-sacks, hugged our friends one last time and walked in silence to a cab.

The rest, I mean the journey back to London, doesn’t deserve much telling. There was the experience of watching Mumbai wake to the morning commuter rush from the window of a taxi but there was little else to write of. Suddenly we were sitting in clean, spacious aeroplane seats, flicking through the options on the digital screens in the seatbacks in front of us. We didn’t feel any sentimentality for where we had been or pay any consideration to where we would be in eight hours. I couldn’t find the desire to write in my journal, I just watched one film after another. England finally popped out from under a layer of cloud, showing itself blue with fog and the last light of a sun that had already set. Here was our homeland sweeping underneath us on the heels of the most snowbound winter in memory. And there, in the arrivals lounge, were the smiles and kisses of our family, familiar, unchanged and happy to see us safely home.

Mum drove us back to her place in Colchester. We stopped en-route at our old London house for a drink with our friends. Their company was delightful but it didn’t feel like we were completely present, distracted by a slight sense of confusion or displacement. Back in the car, driving through the motorway lights, the outside temperature gauge dipped to zero degrees. Then later, on the shadowed back roads, nearly home, the gauge fell to minus-three and my eyelids started to roll.

ROTTING TRUCK IN FORT KOCHI, KERALA

We emerged into the lobby of Chennai airport weary and wary. We were back in India, in the thick of it. But it didn’t look so bad. The build of the airport was basic, the walls stained in places, but it was tidy. I took myself on the adventure of my first visit to an Indian toilet in almost three months and was surprised to find it to be modern, it even had urinals. As I relieved myself into this most luxurious of Western appliances I wondered what all our anxiety had been for. Then I was distracted by a sprinkling sound. The urinals had been screwed to the wall but not plumbed into any pipes so the urine just fell through the hole in the bottom onto a drain on the floor, splashing sandalled feet on impact. Did I cringe? No, somehow it was like coming home.

We treated ourselves to our first ride in the ubiquitous limo of India, an Ambassador car. We had wanted to try one out since first seeing them in Delhi but they always felt like a luxury for the extra few rupees. They are ancient, curvaceous tanks with bulging seats and acres of flared steel. Inside, we sank into another world. The radio was at full power and the air was alive with the bleat and buzz of horns and engines. The beast-car held us snug under the dome roof of its gurgling belly as we stared out, wide-eyed, teeth-bared, into the hot night city lights. Here was India raining on our senses once more, captivating, suddenly making sense all over again. Thus acclimatised, we knew how to purport ourselves when we arrived at our hotel, storming into the hallway and kicking the sleeping porter awake off the floor. He took us through a series of high atria that crowded us with walls full of cracks and creeping foliage, through archways and corridors, to a vast room at the back with double-height stone walls and a bed in the middle. The pale blue walls and window shutters were leant an eerie charm by a strip light on one side of the room. 350 rupees you say? This’ll do.

When we were in Chennai before it was horrific, the city was rotting and half-drowned from the monsoon and our hotel was a filthy pit. This time we had done our homework and it had paid dividends. Chennai had changed, too. Now dry from three rainless months it resembled the archetypal Indian city of broken pavements, tangled architecture, wires strewn overhead like a pasta accident. Not quite the same, Chennai was a touch cleaner and felt more organised than the others. We noticed more advisory signs and rules about safe carriage, there seemed to be more staff and equipment with which to serve the masses. The differences were subtle and perhaps illusory. This was India, nonetheless, and it felt no more so than five minutes after leaving the hotel when my $2 Australian sandals snagged on a crooked paving stone and snapped. I limped perhaps only twenty metres before finding a man sitting cross-legged on the pavement with a shoe repair kit laid out before him. He looked at my mass-produced rubber sandals and shook his head in resignation so from my bag I produced my old leather sandals from Delhi which were faded and half-wrecked. He threw the first pair into the busy street and set to repairing the others. He then fixed Emma’s sandals and even her trainers. I pointed to all three pairs and said, “70 rupees?” (under a quid). He smiled, took the money and we were on our way again.

In our short stay there we took little from Chennai except one thing that we consumed in abundance: food. Indian dishes are light-years away from the twenty-dollar meals in Australia, and Chennai is particularly good for food. We engorged ourselves on what are often called “Meals” in South India, “Thalis” in the rest of the country. You get a handful of different dishes with rice and perhaps chapatti or papad, with endless refills of every bit. In one restaurant in Chennai the Meals were served on a banana leaf, from which we scooped sticky handfuls and stuffed them into our mouths. Waiters raided our table like wasps, slapping further dollops on top of the old ones before we could finish them. Chilli and a dozen herbs and spices tingled and brought us out in a ravenous sweat. It was overwhelming, I nearly cried with joy. Emma reflected eloquently on the remembrance of what we’d loved so much about India, she said it was like being in on a secret. Some of our well-travelled friends had tried to convince us to join them in India in previous years, telling us that we’d spend less than we expected and we’d love it in inexplicable ways, but we shrugged them off. Now we knew what they meant. That heavenly meal in Chennai, for instance, which came with bottled water, juice, coffee and some onion bhajis, came to 88 rupees. Our friends were right, it is that cheap, and we will never be able fully to explain why it’s so wonderful.

BOTTOMLESS "MEALS" SERVED ON A BANANA LEAF

Satisfied with Chennai, we jumped back onto the joyride of India’s trains. Every minute of the twelve-hour overnight journey from Chennai to Kerala was a treat. We slept soundly and woke shortly before our arrival on-time on the opposite side of India.

Here was Kerala, a narrow coastal state near the southern tip of India, buried in palm trees and steeped in an eclectic cultural history. Kerala was the first state in the world to democratically elect a communist government. As a major trading port, Kochi, our destination, hosted an extraordinary mix of religions. In the majority are Hindus, Muslims and Christians (a “50-50” spread between the three, as our rickshaw driver memorably described), then there is a significant number of Jains and Jews. Wealth, politics, faith and colonialism have stirred Kochi in fascinating ways.

We first approached Kochi from it’s best angle, on the water. A chugging old diesel ferry took us from the mainland across a channel to Fort Kochi harbour. The town is unlike much of the India we’d seen. Colossal umbrella-shaped trees line a broad promenade of grassland and stone, surrounded by a cobble of red brick and white plaster buildings with red tiled roofs.

On the waterfront we found the Chinese fishing nets which adorn the covers of infinite travel guides. We had seen them from every angle and in every light in so many photographs but were surprised by how big they were. The captain of one of the fishing net teams beckoned me to join in. I took one of the ropes that dangled from the wooden counterweight towering above us. We hauled, leaning our weight into the work and the net slowly levitated clear of the water. The captain and I clambered to the edge and surveyed our catch. There was just a handful of teeny mullet convulsing at the centre. The captain explained that the fishing used to be much better but had dwindled since the tsunami hit the opposite coast and swung round, affecting the marine life.

We explored Kochi on foot for a couple of days and were charmed by it. From the minute we had arrived, however, it was obvious that we were back on the tourist trail. The restaurants were overpriced and served unadventurous food catering to the Western palette. We had to explore far from the main strip to find the kind of dirty, understated local diners where the dining gets really good. That was a small inconvenience. Kochi is the kind of place we would take our mums if we were ever to show them India, such is its accessibility and beauty. There are rows of emporiums selling exquisite antiquities, there are elaborate dance shows on offer, churches, temples and synagogues rubbing shoulders amidst the palm fronds under a humid sun. So much history, trading and faith, nestling around narrow streets on an island. We wandered through its bustle until our feet hurt and our mouths were raw, then we refreshed ourselves and went in for more. Kerala charmed our socks off.

CATHOLICISM IN KERALA

We didn’t hang around too long though, we had one last appointment to make. We tried to get train tickets out but they were booked-up for several days. However, by then we knew many of India’s tricks and refused to believe that there would be no train for us. We went directly to the train station and jostled from one counter to the other until finally sitting at the station master’s desk and handing him our tickets for four days hence. He tapped a couple of keys on his computer, scribbled a note on our tickets and handed them back. We were booked on the train to Goa the next day. It’s easy when you know how but it’s not something you can learn any way but the hard way.

SINGAPORE JUNGLE AND TOWERS

For one thing, the atmosphere of the airport did not feel so eerie and futuristic coming as we were from the developed world, as opposed to the raggedness of India the time before. What’s more, on our first visit we walked around a commercial sector of the city on a weekday morning, it felt like a ghost town, while this time we had a whole day to play with. We approached the visitor centre’s front desk, over which was daubed the motto, “Uniquely Singapore”. An excessive team of staff arranged a place for us on their free tour bus, gave us promotional gifts and a questionnaire covering the quality of their service. Then the bus swept us through swift traffic down a straight avenue overhung by flat-topped trees, with endless white apartment tower-blocks on one side and a harbour heavy with giant steel ships on the other. We passed the nearly-completed Bay Sands hotel complex which loomed in grey curves over the water like a fantasy from a futurologist’s sketchbook. We alighted under Suntec City, a complex of five dull brown sky-scrapers encircling the world’s largest fountain, which was switched off. The air was turgid with tropical heat.

This time we walked away from the commercial heartland, heading north into the shopping district. This time we found a different Singapore. Through Liangh Seah Street we were overlooked by shuttered windows and flanked at street by bustling Chinese restaurants. We passed under an archway into the covered market of Bugis Street and felt all our senses assaulted. Cheap fashion, electronics, tourist tat, snacks and juice; a carnival of colour, texture, smell and noise. Unfortunately the thrill of the scenery was tempered by growing discomfort. Because Tiger Airways have such fascist restrictions on luggage, we had dressed in our heaviest clothes – trainers, jeans and hoodies – and filled our day bags with books, cameras, paperwork, everything we could to keep our suitcase weights down. Added to that, we had only eaten a small breakfast after no sleep at 05:00 and it was now 12:00. Our shoulders were aching, hips and knees creaking, legs and bags smothered in hot sweat, feet swollen and on fire.

We escaped back into Liang Seah Street, now heaving with workers taking their lunch on seats on the pavement. Even at midday there were queues for the more popular restaurants. Emma grabbed a pair of seats and I gritted my teeth for a long wait and an expensive meal of basic street food. But in no time I was standing over a wide counter of steaming dishes full of variously identifiable foodstuffs. I just pointed at different dishes, aiming for a broad mixture of colours, each time asking, “Veg?”. Two plates piled high with many different concoctions – shellfish, chillies, omelette, vegetables, rice, salad, some nondescript fried things – all for $5.40 (what’s that, two quid?), plus $1 for some fresh lemon barley water on ice. Suddenly we were anaesthetised by heavenly grub, muscling in with the locals, deep in the beating heart of a thronging city.

We managed to amble through a few more streets as the refreshment of lunch was eaten away by our heavy loads. Those malls, those temples to consumerism, mesmerised us for a while with their exquisitely kitsch toys and trinkets, their branded togs and technicolour foods. We walked through an underground gaming arcade so obscenely chaotic with flashes and sound-effects it warped our minds. I tuned my ears into the cacophony and imagined we were in a flimsy public shelter during an earthquake. But we soon caved to fatigue and had to sit out the last hour or two before the tour bus took us back. Of course, the tour leader handed out questionnaires covering the quality of his company’s service. As we glided over flyovers, through the shimmering vehicles and glistening towers, our minds moved to the next stage, India, and we felt something surprising: apprehension.

India had given us so much beauty and novelty but, too, it had crushed and stretched us in exhausting ways. We were excited at returning to India’s unique world but the memory of its hassle was daunting after so long at ease in the Southern Hemisphere. Back in the Budget terminal a disorderly fan of Indian men was coalescing on the check-in desks. Most of them were taking consumer electronics such as TVs and speakers home with them, labelling the boxes illegibly with marker pens. Groups of them were working noisily together to communicate with the desperate check-in clerks. Some were staring, others jabbering into mobiles, some were just getting in the way. When we finally got our bags checked we turned around to find that our trolley had already been nabbed. All I could think was, “Oh god, here we go”. At the departure gate about one in every five men was pulled aside for attempting to carry excess luggage onboard. Incomprehensibly, some men had actually taken the wrong seats and I saw one who complained to the flight crew that he didn’t like the one he’d been allocated. On landing in Chennai three announcements were made asking overeager men to sit down while the plane was still taxiing. By then all we could think was, “Oh yeh, here we go again!”

“Ahhh, it’s okay, it’s fine, no worries. What time is it?”

“It’s pretty late”.

“I had a big night”.

“Sorry mate, I’ll let you sleep. I just wanted to see if you were still up for meeting us today”.

“Nah man, it’s all good. Get yourself a coffee, I’ll be there in half an hour”. We have some lovely friends.

EXPLORING THE COAST AROUND ROCKINGHAM

Spence gave us the master bedroom in his house, relegating himself to a mattress on the floor of a small back room. He bought the house a few years ago and recently threw himself at renovating it. When we arrived the walls were freshly painted and he had just laid the last panels of a wood-vinyl floor throughout. On seeing Spence’s good work I said, “I’d love to do something like this one day but unlike you I haven’t got a clue how to do anything practical like renovation”.

“Neither did I mate, I learned it all on YouTube”.

We didn’t linger at the house as our short stay in Western Australia was shrinking fast. We took a train to the centre of Perth and waiting for us there was our old friend Rachel. Rachel had toured India by herself, starting just two weeks after we did and teaming up with us in Goa in November, then she’d been through Thailand and moved on to Oz, starting in Perth just ahead of our arrival there. She was golden and relaxed. We had a beer in a downtown bar that had been fitted, like many in scorching Oz, with water vapour jets to cool the customers, engulfing everyone in a slightly disturbing mist. Disturbed even more so by the beer prices we left and Rachel led us to her hostel for a cheaper brew. The hostel was buzzing with young travellers, most of whom seemed to be friendly with Rachel already. She leaned over to us and whispered, “I’m 25, okay?”

Our enjoyment of cavorting with multicultured people worryingly younger than ourselves was ruptured by a scuffle nearby. Amongst typically friendly, open people, a small group of heavily-accented Irish lads had been making themselves increasingly irritating with bravado and posturing. Now one of them had taken a disliking to a posh English gap-year boy. He tore off his shirt to reveal the skinny chest he was projecting in anger. His face was screwed in a pathetic attempt to look menacing. Somehow the crowd surged out onto the street to take the fight outside but it mounted to little. Unsure of where to direct his wayward testosterone, the Irish lad head-butted the front window of the hostel. An Irish girl leaned out the door and shouted, “Ah, you’re just a knacker!” Then the police arrived – on horseback, to our glee – and we sneaked out through the mêlée. We gathered from conversations that night, not to mention immediate evidence, that the Irish have a poor reputation in Perth. One girl we spoke to said that her and her friends kept being turned away by potential landlords at the sound of her Cork accent. Emma and I have travelled fairly widely and the Perth situation is anomalous. Elsewhere in the world, to hail from Ireland is a passport to hospitality.

That’s enough of drunken people and their weaknesses. Besides, our night ended abruptly after leaving the hostel because it’s annoyingly hard to buy alcohol after about 21:00 in much of Oz. Let’s move to the next day, spent in the infinitely more rewarding company of Mother Nature. Spencer took us to some of his favourite spots around his home town of Rockingham and added to the mounting proof of quite how lovely outdoor Australia can be. We waded out on a low tide across a few hundred metres of crystal water to a small, rocky protrusion called Penguin Island.

REEDS ON THE BEACH NEAR ROCKINGHAM

Most of the penguins on that eponymous island are in captivity but we found the odd wild one scuffling around under the searing boardwalks. The higher parts of the island were dominated by a regal crowd of nesting pelicans, squadrons of which made occasional launches and encircled us in the clear sky. Huge, black, skink-like reptiles, their scales shimmering like oil, made sporadic sorties from the bushes to take food scraps from picnicking tourists. The island teems. The surrounding sea teems more still. We all snorkelled off one of the headlands amongst crowds of darting fish. Spencer and I ventured further off, into rougher and deeper water. He dived deep under an overhanging section of rock and popped up on the other side, so I filled my lungs and followed him through. In that brief moment of beating our limbs against the water our old friend Adrenalin tapped us on the shoulders and made us a little giddy with pleasure.

Back on the mainland we toured the waterfront in central Rockingham. There is plentiful public parkland along the front, surrounded by spacious venues offering good eating (and very good ice-cream, for the record). At the back end of the afternoon the trees filled with noisy galahs and the sunlight took on a prettier and less aggressive demeanour. We went to another of Spencer’s top hideaways in hope of spotting some dolphins before we left the country. He showed us cliffs that had been pummelled by the sea into a Martian labyrinth of black rock. At the cliffs’ deepest point a wild colony of bees was huddled into a crevice. It was from this weird landscape that we looked out across the glistening sea and saw the slow bulges of dolphins in the middle distance. As if that was enough, driving away we passed a man in smart golfing gear, standing in a lay-by playing bagpipes for nobody but the passing cars.

OUR GANG UNDER A BEEHIVE IN THE ROCKS AT SPENCE'S SECRET SPOT

On our final day we had a quick daylight look at Perth itself. The city’s proud highlight is King’s Park. The park is perched above high, steep slopes and offers a mighty panorama over the city centre and the junction of Swan river. Technicolour streaks of yet more noisy birds darted between an impressive array of trees, with plaques explaining the Aborigines’ many uses for those trees. The park hosts a sacred boab, brought hundreds of miles from its home for safe-keeping in Perth. Spence’s description of the boab tree was more eloquent than anything I could rustle up: “All trunk and no tree”.

Perth is, as many people say, generally laid-back, clean and not without a little style. Outside the city, the region abounds with natural beauty, particularly its wildlife, which is both prolific and on display. It is the only place in the country where we really felt the presence of Aborigine people but we got the impression that white Western Australians have little more good to say about the indigenous race than elsewhere. We would liked to have delved deeper into this dark story but our time was up. We said goodbye to our dear friends over one final overpriced pint in the city centre then took a bus to the airport. We were now well along the retracing of our outward steps and headed home but it didn’t feel like it. Thankfully, there was still plenty of fun and wonder ahead of us.

SUNSET ON STRADBROKE ISLAND

Our off-roading jaunt to Fraser Island was behind us so it was strange to find ourselves out the next morning with Steve, Millie and their three youngest, Justin, Kaleb and Madison, once more bouncing over fallen branches and revving up hills. Such was our entertainment en-route to an afternoon jaunt at a nearby mountain resort called O’Reilly’s. I was passenger this time, while Emma and Madison opted to observe from an air-conditioned distance in Millie’s car. Steve had the wheel beside me and showed us what can be done in four-wheel drive after a reckless young life in Queensland. The track led us to O’Reilly’s, a pleasant hideaway with birds to feed, tree-top ropeways to traverse, and misty blue vistas over the hillsides, through which columns of bushfire smoke were slowly marching.

KALEB AND BEN EXPLORING O'REILLY'S MOUNTAIN

For the next two days the whole country found itself curiously unable to make it to the office because Australia Day had arrived. Steve ferried us out to a small island just off the coast in his little tin speedboat. We set-up camp, spreading our tents out to reserve a good patch on the beach. Like Fraser Island before, the Stradbroke Islands, and all the rest nearby, are beach-rimmed, low lying, you couldn’t ask for more. We set crab pots at several points in the water, cracked open the booze and served up a curry Millie had cooked for the festivities.

For two days on the island the air was 32˚C, the water 29. The boys took straight to casting their fishing net in the abundant shallows. Madison couldn’t keep herself out of the water, only making rare trips onto land to engage in something that would get her covered in sand before returning to more swimming. Emma, Millie, Steve and I made pains to do as little as possible beyond sitting and drinking.

The boys called us excitedly to come and view their catch. We assumed it was just more small fish, of which they’d already hauled in many. They had landed a stingray. It had a body perhaps 30cms across (a young one) and was gasping in a puddle on the beach, thrashing it’s tail at anyone approaching it and bearing two long stinger spikes. Our camp was also invaded by some kind of marsupial or rodent which may been a bush rat. It showed virtually no fear of us as it raided the leftover curry with it’s prominent snout. But the best encounter came later. It was dark and we heard Kaleb before we saw him running to fetch us. He led us onto an empty section of beach and searched the sand with his torch. There was a quiet fizzing noise near the waterline and we could make out a pale patch of ground there, a couple of metres across. As we approached it the pale area shifted slowly away, then, up close and in the torchlight, we could make it out at last. Soldier crabs, tiny blue buttons of shell and legs perhaps two centimetres in diameter, were on the march. So densely were they packed together and so desperate was their desire to run from us that they were piled three deep in places, scrabbling over each other to escape. We followed the largest group (regiment?) of the crabs as it moved as one higher up the beach to the soft sand. Then it disappeared. What was a carpet of live animals one moment suddenly didn’t exist. We then saw that the sand was full of two-centimetre holes. And I mean full – tens of thousands of them riddling a large area of beach, each one home to a little soldier of its own.

THE BOYS OFF FISHING IN THE SHALLOW SEAS AROUND STRADBROKE

On Australia Day itself we gained some insight into Ozzy holidays. Boats buzzed over from the mainland and moored wherever a spot was still available, until the channel we were in was filled by hundreds of them. People kicked balls about, ran fishing lines, played music and, universally, drank in the sunshine. The Ship Shop, a houseboat converted into a floating liquor and general store, paid everyone a visit. We cooked up the boys’ best catches – some tiger prawns, a bream and a sand crab. Set amidst mangrove and sand, all wallowing in clear warm water, it was, well I’ve said this kind of thing before but what the hell? You know what, it was just one of those moments.

BEN AND MADISON PLAYING ON AUSTRALIA DAY

After Australia Day we were running out of time on the east coast but managed to get a bit more exploration in. Margaret and Derek took us out to their local bowls club for dinner with friends. It was a big place, with a dining area serving a differently entitled and priced yet oddly similar buffet each day, a bar area with dance-floor, and two TAB gambling rooms. The TVs constantly display the Keno lottery results. There were a few gravel-voiced old geezers in there, mixed with the younger ones, and a compère providing both live music and a prize draw. Derek and his friend, the other Derek, gave a fascinating explanation of why we had seen so many gambling machines in Aussie bars. I found the answer a bit weird and distressing. I had assumed that TAB was a gambling company like our Ladbrokes or William Hill and that the company owned some bars and liquor shops. But TAB is government-owned and has the monopoly, as does Keno on the lottery side. The government owns the liquor shops, too. The boys said that they couldn’t think of a bar in Australia without any pokies (the Oz version of fruit machines). The other Derek even took me through $5-worth of play on one of the pokies in the club. It was unbelievably untaxing to play, we just picked how much of our cash to lay down on each round, from a few cents to the maximum bet of $5, and pressed Go. Other than that, the exciting bonus game involved nothing besides randomly picking one of five characters to back, then waiting for the results. That’s it, that’s all there is to the unfathomable sums of money going back into the government purse. The bars get a small cut that may still run into tens of thousands of dollars per month for an average size establishment. With such popularity how could a bar not host a gambling room? I find this kind of low culture, both from the brainwashed gamblers and the pilfering government, saddening. The hypocrisy of it all was illustrated neatly in a free leaflet by the door, issued by the government, giving advice to gambling addicts.

Still, we took $22 away with us. Might try that again, could be a good earner.

Now, guess what the weather was like the next day… Yep, perfect. We hadn’t gone all that way to Australia only not to have a surf so that was how we enjoyed our last day out in Queensland. We took Millie’s board and drove just over the New South Wales border to the infamous Byron Bay. Well, infamous if you’re a surf lover, which I kinda still am.

Like so many great places, Byron was put on the map by travellers and hippies, you know the sort of people who don’t try to get put on maps. Then the place flew. Unlike many others, however, Byron didn’t feel ruined by its subsequent development. The town has its share of spoiled kids crawling around in open-topped Jeeps but it also has a healthy supply of beards and tattoos. The streets are full of independent shops and eateries, all very organised and pleasing. The beach is gorgeous, to boot. Golden sand stretches a long way from a lighthouse-topped headland. Dozens of fish and, for a short time, a huge ray, were flitting about in the clear waters while steady, perfectly neat waves were queuing up to throw themselves onto the shore.

Unfortunately for our surfing efforts those perfect waves rarely got above about a foot in height. Oh well, we had fun anyway. Em found her balance paddling the board around and I sort of stood up for a couple of brief moments of delayed sinking.

On our last day in Queensland we got all our admin done and went out in the evening to see an old friend of Emma’s in Brisbane. From the brief drive-through, Brisbane resembled other Aussie cities: a cluster of cubist white and grey tower-blocks at the centre and a clean, sparkling and quite charmless city stretching away from there. One section of the river in the city centre bears a bizarre resemblance to Hungerford and Waterloo bridges and the surrounding South Bank, in London, just in case you wanted to know that.

After visiting the city we made it to bed late. This is customary on a final day in any place. It is customary, too, to have to rise early, tired, as we did the next morning, at 05:00. Derek took us to the airport but Margaret stayed. She said that she does the pick-ups but never the drop-offs, it’s too sad. Both of them gave quick farewells in their own, quiet ways.

We took the long slide over Australia from east to west. At first the landscape below is one of big fields and patches of forest but it soon becomes the huge dead expanse that makes up most of the country. The ground there is red or dirty orange, with some areas rippled like an amber sea, and some sand-blown patches that are the colour of parched bones. The coast curled into view out of the port windows, nearly there? No. The coast curled away again and the desert crawled ever past. Central Australia is an unimaginably sprawling wasteland, an abyss in the developed world. Finally we saw disparate scratches of tracks in the orange earth, leading to abandoned quarries now filled by rain which must rarely come.

We touched down in Perth and I waited at the luggage carousel while Emma disappeared for a few minutes. A polystyrene box came onto the carousel, wrapped in parcel tape and sporting a sign written in marker pen stating, “LIVE MUD CRAB”. A sniffer dog was brought over to inspect the arriving luggage. The dog reached the crab box and gave a look that said, “Yes! Jackpot!” Then the realisation overcame the poor animal that he had a job to do. He then sniffed me and moved on without fuss. It was fitting that an animal should have checked us into that wild, rare corner of the largest, most thinly populated island on the planet. More animals were to greet us yet.

OFF-ROADING ON THE ISLAND

I had heard of Fraser Island from friends and travel magazines but Emma hadn’t. I knew we had to go there if we could. It didn’t take much describing before the island’s siren-like allure sank into Emma too. The thing is, it would have been unthinkable for us to fund a trip there this far into our travels. But we had Derek and Margaret. They’d given us a 4×4, food and cash, we just couldn’t believe our fortune. Steve filled the boot of our car with everything we could want and more: a 4×4 rescue kit, an air compressor and tire gauge, a tent, deckchairs, rugs, fishing rod and tackle, torch, ice box… There’s more but I can’t remember it all. Thus loaded, we hit the road again.

Now please give a moment to this. We had left home over four months previously. Our lives were packed into two rucksacks each weighing under 15Kgs and a pair of small day bags, supported by the combined wealth of our savings plus the generosity of our friends and family. Picture how we felt then, high up over the blacktop behind the wheel of our kitted-out car, roaring up a coastal highway with the radio blaring and the smell of diesel riding with us in the cab.

By the time we reached the ferry point at Inskip, having only stopped for fuel and supplies of fresh food, the day was behind us and the last ferry would depart soon. A sign on the beach road said, “Switch to four-wheel drive now”, so we did, for the first time our lives. Immediately the road was consumed by the beach and our tires were wading through deep sand. Two cars ahead of us looked stuck so I kept the speed up, as directed in a verbal driving lesson from Steve a few days before. We drove onto the ferry straight off the sand.

The deckhand was very friendly so I took the chance to talk ManStuff with him. “I’ll lower the tire pressure for the sand, right, down to about 18 or 20 PSI, yeh?”

“Twenty”, he said with conviction. I took a mental note, then asked, “So, you recommend a good spot for letting the tires down on the island?”

“What? Just do it on the beach when we land”.

I was trying hard to sound knowledgeable while thanking the heavens that I hadn’t stuck to my original plan of trying to deal with the tires while still on the ferry. I couldn’t maintain the pretence any longer, “Yeh, yeh, on the beach, I was thinking that. So, errrm, how do you let the air out?”

Anyway, it wasn’t hard to bring the tires down, it took that most universal method of ManFixing, that of just poking it with a key. Soon we were driving, gingerly at first, along the hard sand which is only exposed at low tide. The ferry had dropped us at the southern tip of the island and we were heading north along the eastern shore. It is a long, narrow island that stands a few hundred metres from the mainland at its southern end and leans out to sea as one moves towards its northern tip about 100Kms away. It is the largest sand island in the world, essentially just a pair of hundred-kilometre beaches with forest and lakes on the higher ground in the centre. Besides a few resorts and basic services, it is essentially untouched. There simply aren’t any roads, just a handful of tracks for accessing the resorts and some of the natural features inland. Thus Fraser Island has evolved into an off-roader’s paradise. The Environment Protection Authority has designated basic strips of land sheltered behind the dunes on the land side of the beach. For $5 each per day we purchased a license to camp at these sites, talk about a bargain.

On the first night we ducked into the first available campsite and pitched swiftly ahead of the failing light. The sand offered a soft bed under our tent, amidst a pretty circle of bushes full of cicadas. We discovered, to our amateurish shame, that neither of our torches were functional so we sat under the light in the car reading to each other until late. We were startled by a tapping on the window. Two robots were standing by the car. No, wait, robots? It was two teenage boys wearing luminous bands all over themselves so they wouldn’t get lost in the pitch darkness.

“Excuse me”, one of the boys said, “Could you walk us back to our campsite? We’re being followed by dingoes”. I rose confidently to the challenge, puffed my chest and strode back with them. Barely visible in the shadows, a small dog was lurking nearby but it hardly looked threatening. Then another betrayed its presence by rustling some leaves on the other side of us. Ah, they’re just dogs, I thought, and returned to the tent without trouble. But late in the night I rose for a pee and was overcome by paranoia, I felt stupid. I heard a noise but dismissed it. Then another noise and a sense of movement nearby. Okay, I thought, there’s a dingo just over there but so what? It’s just a dog. Then it ran straight at me and stopped at my feet. I tried to be tough by loudly shooing it away and clapping my hands but it barely noticed me. It eventually sidled off. I was, I admit, more scared than I can ever remember before then. I actually had half-waking nightmares that night about our tent being ambushed and our legs being eaten.

BEN DIGS TO HIDE POO FROM THE DINGOES

Early the next morning we turned inland and had our first experience of some decent off-roading. For about an hour we bounced down a sand track in low gear. I tried to keep the wheel running in the existing ruts made by previous cars. Occasionally the car would pop out of the ruts and I would steer it back in. The car would slip down and the back end would wriggle until we ran true in the ruts again. Twice I found myself staring at the bonnet as we lunged up the back on the side of the track. Each time a tree loomed in front of us but I would already have the steering full over so the chunky tires would eventually bite and throw us back onto the track.

We stopped near the centre of the island at Lake Mackenzie, the biggest of Fraser Island’s unique “perched” lakes. Stepping from the car Emma realised that she’d left her sandals back at the campsite, tempting the thieving dingoes. But the tide was nearly up so had been cut off and wouldn’t be able to retrieve her sandals for a few hours even if they were still there. We carried on without Emma’s only footwear. The lake was beautiful in an extraordinary way. A bone white sand beach slopes down into the clearest water we’d ever seen. Floating face-down with our snorkels and face-masks the eery thing was that the water was so featureless. There is nothing, no fish, no shells, no debris, just the ramp of white sand which abruptly turns into an abyssal blackness towards the deep centre of the lake.

Leaving Lake Mackenzie at the end of the morning the car park was overflowing and the lake foreshore was beginning to fill with people, which would have tempered the tranquillity we had felt there if we had arrived later than we did. Just down the road, however, the lesser-known Lake Birrabeen had only a handful of people strewn across its broad shore. The sand was broken by patches of reeds, making it more attractive, and the bath-warm water was so shallow that we could lie down half in and half out of it. That peaceful, accessible lake was reminiscent of the kind of dreams one has when one is very, very happy in life.

EMMA INDULGING IN LAKE BIRRABEEN

After Lake Birrabeen we endeavoured down a long off-road stretch. The inland loop took a good chunk of the day with infrequent stopping and we didn’t see another car the whole time. Deep sand at first soon hardened to a faster surface knobbled by tree roots, branches and leaves. Occasionally the track would soften for a short bumpy section, where the roots were more exposed. With every new challenge my confidence and our speed increased until we were rattling along far inland in fourth gear.

We found Emma’s sandals unmoved and uneaten. Then we hit the beach again to make our way further up the island. The tide was falling now but gave us little hard sand on which to get our speed up at first. Beach driving is utterly different to the inland tracks. A steady but strung-out stream of 4x4s flies along the fringe of a high, violent sea. From behind the wheel the experience is mesmerising. There is little steering required, just a gentle winding along the line of the shore, as white water breaks on one side and reaches its damp fingers towards you, never quite catching your tires if you’re focused. It’s easy to get complacent but the beach presents one unique danger: washouts. A washout is essentially a stream running across the beach to the water. The water erodes the sand to form small cliffs on either side of its course. Some of the cliffs are a few centimetres high and innocuous, a few are over a metre; virtually all are invisible until the last second because a depressed lip forms on either side, obscuring the approaching threat. People actually die hitting these things sometimes, their vehicles dive into the washout and are pitch-poled over their bonnets. But you learn to spot the signs: a patch of silvery water reflecting off the beach at its lowest point, a sudden swerve in the tire tracks ahead.

The driving on the beach was smooth and swift, close to flying. Co-driver Emma would yell out any possible obstacle or point of interest with arbitrary discretion, “Bump! Washout! Jellyfish! Rock! Bird!” Then, reaching further north, a spectral shape appeared ahead. The T.S.S. Mahano was shipwrecked on the beach three decades ago and still stands, although wind, water, salt and the consumptive course of the years have nibbled the ship down to a twisted half-skeleton. It was eerie and fascinating to look over this dark orange corpse in the rich light of sunset. We camped soon after, alone in a little nook behind a small dune, with fish eagles circling above us and, later, the twinkling heavens. No dingoes disturbed our dreams but we kept a stick ready for them this time.

THE RUSTING CARCASS OF THE T.S.S. MAHANO

Riding out early with the tide we ventured to the furthest point north accessible to vehicles. There, at what is known as the Champagne Pools, is one of the only rocky areas of the island. The rocks have formed in a pair of rough circles so as to create sheltered pools for swimming. We lounged in the pools with our snorkelling gear on and swam among hundreds of colourful fish. Waves from the sea break over the rocks and roll down into the Champagne Pools, bubbling-up the water and making it fizz all around one’s ears. In this way too the fish are tossed into the pools and cannot escape on that tide. It is a perfect spot, again like somewhere from a dream. And we were the only people there. On Fraser Island it is the little heavens like Champagne Pools and the lakes that punctuate what is otherwise quite a punishing place. Getting anywhere involves being jiggled about like the toy of an angry child as one battles down the off-road tracks. Shelter is sparse so the vicious glare of the Queensland sun rarely blinks. After two days and nights we were hardening up and becoming quieted by the heat. Poor Emma’s Irish blood was boiling and she became increasingly fractious and defeated. We agreed to make a dash for the mainland, albeit via the scenic route.

THE CHAMPAGNE POOLS

After a fast beach run we took another inland track and stopped at the wonderfully entitled Knifeblade Sandblow, a steep, smooth bank of sand cutting, indeed blade-like, through the forest. Clusters of stumps from trees which hved been consumed by the roaming sand poke through, resembling the ribs of some decaying beast. We didn’t take long out of the car to view the sandblow but still the heat was crushing. Emma was growing quieter and both her temper and sense of rationality were withering. At the next stop, Boomerang Lakes, the heat closed in even tighter, stifling us. At the edge of the woods approaching the lakes Emma couldn’t go on so I walked a short way alone, into the open. The lakes turned out to be a reedy swamp. The surrounding trees looked close to death, slowly bleeding crimson sap and dropping desiccated seed pods like leprous skin. Few birds made any noise and those that did sounded unearthly and cautionary, only the cicadas filled the air with their static buzz. Everything took on a hostile air, like some unfriendly alien planet. It was time to escape the sun.

EMMA AT THE EDGE OF HER WITS IN THE UNRELENTING HEAT

That inland track was the longest off-road run of our time on the island. Emma read a footnote to that section on our map advising only very experienced drivers to attempt it. People get stuck on those tracks for days, no exaggerating. Only two weeks before us, Steve and Millie met a couple who had been stranded on one of the island tracks for two days only a short way from the beach. Emma kept the footnote to herself and I continued pounding our car over the sand wearing a maniac grin. The sparse eucalypt woods changed abruptly to rainforest and quenched us with mercifully cooling shadow. There, high, narrow palm trunks are dominated by 65m-high“satinay trees, straight cylindrical poles which run way up without any branches before fanning out like an umbrella at the very top. The rainforest resembled a hall of pillars supporting a ceiling of draped green cloth.

Coming down through the rainforest, awoken from the hypnosis of the sun, we had only a kilometre or so left before making it back to the beach when my as-yet clean record for not getting bogged into the sand was smashed. I turned onto the top of a downhill section with a steep, maybe 80˚, corner at the bottom. I should have dropped a gear, perhaps gone a little faster, maybe turned a little more smoothly, who knows? The sand took all our speed and suddenly I had no revs to play with. We stopped dead. I dropped to first gear, gave it only the slightest throttle and slowly slipped the clutch. We moved, downwards. Seriously, straight down, as if in an elevator. The engine stalled. I tried repeatedly, even with the vigorous full-lock, left-right working of the steering-wheel Steve had taught me, but no luck. Suddenly the first car we’d seen in around three hours, two cars actually, came into the corner behind us with a lot of speed to make it through. Throwing up a cloud of sand they stopped just shy of our rear end. The drivers and one passenger, all Aussie men, got out and looked us over. Without even a hello one said, “We’re gonna give you a shove. If it works, don’t stop”. With only the strength of their own backs they pushed at our bull-bars and we popped clear and backed up for another go at it. This time we got away, just. We weren’t going to stop to say thank-you or check if they also made it through.

Almost instantly we were in a very different place. We were seated on a shady veranda ordering food and drinks from a resort bar with music TV playing and people getting slowly drunk. Now we could see how other people “do” Fraser Island, with hotel rooms, seafood platters and cold beer. For us the island had a constant edge of inhospitableness that called for hiding in stolen patches of shade, or running with the tide window, or focusing all muscle action on wheel and peddles on some rattling track, or scanning the bush for lurking dingoes. All this was broken by moments of sheer bliss in the company of nature, or easy fast runs up the beach, feeling lawless and soaringly free. And you know what? Every second of it was invigorating. Go there some time, grit your teeth and point the bonnet into harm’s way.

On the final long sprint down the beach to the ferry point we felt happy and comfortable. As if to give us a send-off, 6 oystercatchers in v-formation flew just off our bonnet for the last few hundreds of metres. With the lurching sea behind them and the misty shadow of the mainland further off, it was a spectacular closing scene. Then the ferry captain invited us to join him on the bridge and entertained us with anecdotes for the short crossing before we reset the tires at 40 PSI and returned to the world.

OUR MIGHTY VEHICLE RESTING ON THE BEACH

Chapter 2: Four Feet and Four Wheels Back on the Mainland (23 Jan)

After leaving Fraser Island we drove further north up the coast and soon ran out of day. We found a campsite run by a kindly lady from the Channel Islands who directed us to drive into the citrus-smelling gum trees and pitch anywhere on her extensive camping plot. The site was busy with young fruit-pickers from all over the western world, complaining about pay rates and comparing travel stories. It was nice to nosey into their world. I heard one, an Englishman, say to an American, “You’re getting ripped-off, mate”.

The American replied, “Yeh but in two weeks I’ll be in Alice Springs earning the big bucks, doing plumbing”.

Somebody turned the birds back on too. We awoke to the kookaburras doing their ADHD monkey impression, while some other birds made calls like a trumpeter and a penny-whistler drowning at sea. Em somehow mustered a delicious meal with our leftover food and took the wheel for the first time so I could relax in the passenger seat. The gum forest soon disappeared and the land became one of fruit groves of all sorts. Rail tracks criss-crossed the land to serve such prolific fruit farming. We found our way somehow to another perfect swimming spot at Elliot Heads, a channel of warm turquoise water shored on both sides by white sand. The water was impossible to leave but we were done, content, happy to head home even though we had gone so far.

Overhearing a radio interview about the joys for all the family at nearby Noosa, and because it’s called Noosa, we went there on the way back. We arrived on Hastings beach at Noosa, which turned out to be a famous hippy, surfing and rich kids’ hang-out, and treated ourselves to a date. We revelled in good food and a live singer who somehow filled his set with some of my favourite obscure songs, then we embarked on the final run back.

I was back at the wheel. It was a late, tired drive along the main highway, which is poor in features to distract the driver, there aren’t even any corners. But Emma by then had trained her co-driving skills to a commendable level. She tuned the radio to a good station, fed me some trail mix and water, and rubbed my shoulders while prompting me with involved conversation. Life behind the wheel had become, for our little travelling duo, bliss.

POSING WITH A POOING KOALA AT CURRUMBIN WILDLIFE SANCTUARY

Our plane was three hours late leaving Sydney for Gold Coast and we’re deeply suspicious of Tiger Airways’ reasoning for the delay, if they even gave any. It seems the current favourite excuse for airlines is that the previous flight was late. I always want to ask, “So, our plane is late because the last one was?” I take it that causal rationality is not a training requirement for ground staff these days. Tiger have plenty more than delays to be criticised of but I won’t grumble now, there’s much happiness to tell of. What’s more important is that Derek, Emma’s mum’s brother, and his wife Margaret, collected us from the airport and introduced us to their rather groovy home.

Firstly there’s Margaret and Derek’s house, which is set in a large plot down a quiet road within easy reach of Brisbane and Gold Coast. There are two houses on the plot, the other being that of their son Steve and his wife Millie, with their various offspring, Dillan, Justin, Kaleb and Madison (apologies if I’ve misspelled any names). They had the second house built recently for them, right next door to mum and dad, how sweet is that? The main house is big, open and full of unique design elements, being what you would call an “architect designed home”. There’s a lot of exposed wood and brick and a high, vaulted roof. The kitchen was built on a converted veranda so cooking feels more outside than in.

Then there’s all the fun things to see and do in the area, and the potential list is huge. We started at Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary, which is one of many such animal parks in the region. Also nearby are several full-on theme parks, water parks and myriad smaller affairs for everyone’s enjoyment. We were happy seeing native animals rather than roller-coasters. The best part of Currumbin was getting close to the kangaroos, so close they let us stroke their luxuriously soft fur and they bumped their noses against our camera lenses. They are placid, curious beasts. We also had the pleasure of holding Happy J the koala who, like all koalas, poos almost constantly through his brief waking hours, as he did at our feet as we posed for a photo.

EMMA GETTING SOME ROO LOVE

It was great to meet the family and learn about their lives. In an unfairly brief manner, it’s something like this… Steve works with his dad at the family pipe-laying business. He’s happiest with a tent, fishing rod and some kind of powerful machine. Millie is a full-time housewife but has mostly outdoor-related hobbies, primarily being on one of the best surf lifeguard squads in the world. Dillan is grown-up and has left home to train as an electrician. Justin is big into the outdoors and his naval cadet service. Kaleb is a cadet too, although he’s younger and only just in high school but he harbours an exceptional talent for art, producing aboriginal paintings so professional he has already had non-trivial commissions. Madison is the youngest at five and far too adorable for her own good. What’s worse is Madison she knows it and how to use it.

Emma and I explored nearby Tambourine Mountain one day, partly for sightseeing and partly to get the feel of what was to be our car for the duration of our stay. Derek and Steve had brought over one of their work cars for us, a thumping Nissan Patrol 4×4. Oh yes, that’s right, our very own ManToy.

Tambourine Mountain hosts a charming community of boutique art and food establishments, all very healthy stuff. But the best bit for us was a stroll through the gum tree rainforest there. Kookaburras filled the air with their mad call, like a self-help group for howler monkeys who are suffering from stutters. We saw big, weird things like land mullets and bush turkeys. Palm leaves patterned the light all the way up to the canopy over which soared a few great trees with twisting trunks which resembled skyscrapers made from spun rope.

RAINFOREST CANOPY AT TAMBOURINE MOUNTAIN

We explored the coast for a while in our growling tank. We aimed for Sanctuary Cove because it sounded nice and had a brown sign dedicated to it but it turned out to be a smart resort with no obvious place for us to picnic away from cars and restaurants. After passing several places with inviting names such as Hope Island, we finally settled on Labrador, which is nicer than it sounds. Not that I have anything against Labradors, we’ve owned several, but I wouldn’t want to eat my lunch on one. This Labrador has a natural lagoon that invited us to get into our togs and swim in the warm, shallow water encircled by white sand. We were really starting to like this part of the world.

BEN SQUINTING TOWARDS MANLY WITH SYDNEY BEHIND HIM

On approach from our budget airliner, Sydney was hidden behind a layer of low cloud. When we ducked under it at last we were just above the rooftops. A matrix of neat little box houses slid under us like a toy town on a conveyor belt. We never saw much of central Sydney on our previous visit, we were always passing through to be with friends nearby, such is the allure of slow-forged companionship. This was the case again now, as we went straight from plane to train to visit our old family friends Peggy and John once more.

We felt a slight sense of unease looking out the window of our double-decker train (brilliant inventions!) through the long chain of suburban towns between Sydney CBD and Penrith. They all looked liveable – spacious, modern and well appointed with amenities – but almost every one seemed to centre around a shopping mall owned by one of only a couple of monopolising brands, primarily Westfield. Shopping centres are useful but what’s wrong with a town square and some locally-owned shops?

We were treated to a few beers and a delicious Chinese at the local club. They have this obsession for club membership in Oz that we can’t fathom. We signed a temporary membership form for practically every pint. What’s more, few bars exist unaccompanied by gambling facilities under the same roof. Imagine if every British pub had a Ladbrokes Lounge. But more of that later. We got happily sauced and revelled in the easy conversation in which John and Peggy are so well versed.

The next day we woke to a feature of Australia the impact of which we had almost forgotten: the birds. Of this whole trip — India, Nepal, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand — the Aussies crap on the rest when it comes to avian superiority. Dozing in John and Peggy’s spare bed that morning I started a new habit of describing the birdsong in my notebook. Novelty mobile phone rings; snoring giants; bells rung underwater; girls shrieking; rats being tortured; a whoopee cushion being stamped on… Oh but more of that later, too.

Over to Steve and Cat’s place now, all the way back through town and across the harbour to Manly. We drank at the local skiff club as the sun went down on the water, then relaxed at the flat in each other’s company. At some point every night the avian cacophony finally stops and there is, no, not silence, just a stand-in orchestra of frogs and cicadas. Then the birdsong returns with the morning sun, waking us just as it did that next morning, with an impression of an octopus stuffing squeaky toys into a letterbox.

Our friends took us on a tour of the Northern Beaches, which have such pleasant names: Long Reef, Freshwater, Curl Curl, Dee Why. We watched paragliders sharing the Cliffside thermals with a falcon at Long Reef. I took Emma for a play in the surf at Curl Curl and things got hairy for a few minutes when a rip current caught us and held us out of our depth for a while. We swam the wrong way a couple of times but soon got around it.

PARAGLIDERS OVER THE NORTHERN BEACHES (SORRY ABOUT THE DUST)

My oldest friend, Jamie, joined us at Curl Curl from cavorting in the city the night before. We ventured further up to the rich suburb of Pittwater and the beach where Home & Away is filmed, like we care. The fancy houses up there are mostly quite ugly and utilitarian in exterior design but they are spacious and have a lot of glass and deck space so may be great from the inside. I doubt the owners care too much. You see, coastal Australian living is oriented towards being out of the house. It’s clear that Aussies spend loads on toys they can use in the open air, such as power kites, snorkels and golf clubs.

EMMA AT SUMMER BAY (HOME & AWAY) SURF CLUB

We went to a house party that night. The theme was “Australia Day” but nobody told us. Doesn’t matter, we got royally drunk on wine and rum. We later staggered into a bar and then some awful underground club with a few local friends. Maybe it wasn’t awful, who knows? I just decided it was unbearably cheesy, stopped dancing and stood motionless in the crowd. The bouncers threw me out for that, bless ‘em. Nobody minded though, it was a good time (and method) to leave.

And the next day we were gone from the place, quick as a flash.

THE MOUTH OF THE GLOWWORM CAVES AT WAITOMO

We spent our last night in New Zealand precisely where we had spent our first, back at cousins Ben and Mon’s house. We were late arriving due to an important detour to deliver a T-shirt from the owner of a Nepalese nature reserve to his brother in Auckland. It was a long-standing promise to a kind man and his family, finally put to bed thousands of miles and a few months later.

Ben and Mon’s too little terrors, Fraser and Lachlan, entertained us all the next day, begging to be swung around the living room or to put on Emma’s make-up. They joined us at the airport, where we watched the other planes taxiing about, loading and unloading. You know, real man stuff. But Lachlan, of whom I have previously mentioned a love of high-heels, seemed most pleased as we entered the departures lounge and a lady walked past. He pointed at her feet and shouted, “Mum, look! High-heels!”. Priceless. Those kids are as cute as they come.

FRASER AND BEN

And that was New Zealand. It has its few annoyances, such as astronomical mobile phone pricing, archaic internet services and a crippling isolation from, well, everywhere. The country has a self-image of being a leader in healthy eating but the fayre is usually predictable and they have no concept of vegetarianism. But these are trivialities lost against a dazzling backdrop. It’s hard to grumble, really, because it’s beautiful and friendly and we love it.