Guinness on my Compass: September 2000 - "Western Australia – Sleeping rough and camping it up"

Brilliant sunshine greeted my arrival in Perth, which turned out to be ironic, as the day I was to leave Western Australia would also be glorious. The irony arising out of the fact that in between my arrival and departure, the weather was absolutely atrocious. Rain, wind, cold, the works – far removed from what one imagines when one thinks of being Down Under. Fortunately, I was able to stay with Sarah, who had returned to her native Perth after saying goodbye to us in Harare, in her flat in Shenton Park in the western suburbs. This was just as well as I soon discovered that Australia is nearly as expensive as Europe, and certainly far removed from South Africa, where one can have a serious night “on the tiles” for the equivalent of a ten quid. Perth is a very clean picturesque city, especially when viewed from the magnificent vantage point offered by King’s Park. Its twin city of Fremantle seems quite quaintly cosmopolitan and the beaches that border Perth are breathtaking. It amazed me just how many oriental people live here, and the small number of aborigines. But Perth they say is geographically closer to Singapore than it is to Sydney, so I suppose the strong Asian connection shouldn’t be too surprising. However, to be honest, after Africa, I found the city too safe, suburban and sterile. It seemed a bit like Switzerland, just too damn clean and lacking that gritty, grimy edge that makes cities exciting places in which to live. It puzzled me how, no sooner had I recovered from the seven hours time difference, that I began to miss Africa terribly. That was not an eventuality I had imagined possible seven months before when I had passed my first restless homesick night in a dilapidated Moroccan hotel in Rabat.

In fairness, such feelings of being ill at ease in my new surroundings were probably not helped by the fact that after our first major Aussie session, I found myself homeless. I had gone out for dinner and a few drinks with Catherine, her English friends, John and Steph, and our pal Simon, who we had not seen since the Amphitheatre Backpackers in the Drakensberg. The evening started out calmly enough in the quasi-cosmopolitan suburb of Leederville, where we went for a Chinese meal. However, after demolishing a carton box (I can’t think of how else to describe it) of local wine, we hit the Leederville Hotel for a few schooners. By the time we hit the Ibiza-esque dance clubs of Northbridge, the Rise and the Church respectively, the dreaded vodka and Red Bull had reared its head and matters were heading apace towards a shady conclusion. Simon wisely made an early exit, while Catherine also bowed out before time, not because she was being sensible, but because she had contrived to spill red wine all over herself. John, Steph and I battled on through the wee hours until apparently they told me that they were heading off. I don’t recall this probably as I was wearing Red Bull goggles and was busy trying to chat up a pretty Singaporean girl. The upshot of all this was that I ended up wandering around the suburb of Glendalough (the suburb where Catherine was staying with John and Steph) at dawn in the forlorn hope of remembering where their house was. I had unwisely left the key to Sarah’s house in my bag, which was tucked away safely in Catherine’s room, along with their telephone number and address. Finally giving up, I returned on the train to Sarah’s at 07h00 only to discover that she had already left the house. So I ended up trying to sleep in her doorway with tired legs, sweaty clothes and no money in my pockets. Unfortunately, the Red Bull effectively ruled out any chance of shut-eye. I vaguely remember Simon having arranged to meet Cath in town at 11h00 and it was outside the main post office that I fortuitously ran into them, having bunked onto a train. So I finally regained my keys and soon my sanity and some slumber. Odd the way that I managed to negotiate Africa without any major mishaps, but one evening out in Perth and I ended up a hungover, cold and exhausted mess. It was only the second occasion on which I had to sleep rough (the first being one year ago in Stockholm after the Water Festival until my mate Richard came to my rescue). I hope it will be a case of third time lucky.

After having suitably recovered I rejoined Simon and Catherine on the Monday morning for a spot of tourism. Our plan was to spend five days (and the last of my money) touring around the south-western corner of Australia in a camper van! How bourgeois! We all took turns to drive our Britz three-man camper van through the inclement weather. The highlight of the start of our tour was our visit to the million-year old Ngili Caves at Yallingup, with its impressive array of colourfully-lit stalactites and stalagmites. Lots of places here end in “-up” as it is Aborigine for “Watering Hole”, but hard as we tried, we couldn’t locate any towns called “Big Up”. Culinary matters were also well taken care of with visits to the Margaret River Cheese Factory, the Candy Cow Chocolate Shop in Cowaramup, and the lavish Driftwood and Voyager wineries. Our next major stop was Augusta and the Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse, the most south-westerly point of Australia where the Indian and Southern Oceans apparently meet. I had always been taught in school that there were only four oceans on the planet (Atlantic, Pacific, Indian and Arctic), but the Aussies seem to have come up with another one, the Southern. Torrential rain and strong winds contrived to spoil our visit there, and the view just didn’t compare to that of Cape Point in South Africa. Stopping occasionally to look at wild emus and large red kangaroos as they bounced through fields of Arum Lilies and under tall Eucalyptus trees, we covered quite a lot of ground in our camper van. We were soon strolling along the beaches of Hamlin Bay and hiking around the Pemberton Waterfall and its Karri Tree forests. Simon even bravely climbed up the 61 metre Gloucester Tree, but given the wet and slippery conditions I decided against any more brushes with vertigo and stayed firmly attached to Mother Earth. The best moment of our excursion, however, was in the Valley of the Giants in the Walpole-Nornalup National Park, where we did the treetop walk through the huge Red Tingle Trees. At some parts of the bridge walkway, we found ourselves 40 metres above the fores ground. It is quite surreal to walk over swinging bridges through a treetop canopy, but I would heartily recommend it to those of you who are not afraid of heights.

Travelling in the camper van turned out to be great fun and a cheap way to see the country. It only cost us in total around AUS $50 a day rental and say another AUS $25 at the campsite. But given the excellent campgrounds the Australians have with clean en suite facilities, and the relative expense of their youth hostels, our camper van option proved a winner. True, there wasn’t enough room to swing a proverbial cat in it, especially when it came to assembling the beds, and neatness was absolutely essential. But all the mod cons were aboard and each of us took turns to cook. In fact, it reminded me a bit of my time on Oscar. Simon even became au fait with all the silly catch phrases picked up on our Drago trip, which Catherine and I still insisted on uttering. Evenings were spent playing noughts and crosses, checkers and ri-ki-ki, and identifying whose alimentary bodily parts were going bump in the night! We passed an enjoyable final night in Albany, in the Earl of Spencer restaurant and the White Star Hotel on Stirling Terrace, where a decent guitar duo called “Loose Tongue” entertained the punters. The Friday saw us undertaking the lengthy journey through fierce cross winds back to Perth, where we handed back our camper van to Britz and said our farewells. Even though I will surely see both Catherine and Simon again on the East Coast, this adieu and my goodbye to Sarah had an air of finality about it. Though tourist-filled Sydney will no doubt be full of buzz, I shall in all likelihood be too busy trying to replenish my bank account to take it all in and to continue my “devil may care” existence. It’s been over seven months since my last day in the office in Turin and as the saying goes “All good things must come to an end.” So as my Ansett Airways plane taxied down the runway at Perth airport, I was happy to be heading east to the Olympic City. But in the back of my head, I was also aware that my games were already drawing to a close.

Gav (4 September 2000)

Guinness on my Compass: September 2000 - "Sydney, New South Wales - Golden Moments"