12: Clear the Red and Sandy Runway for Takeoff!
26 June 2002
As Brazil prepares to whip some Turkish butt in the soccer, I exit my phone booth in true Superman style (or Superwoman, in my case), wearing my brightly coloured aerodynamic ‘See The World’ costume with a “T” on the chest. “T” for traveller. The “T” had virtually come off in the wash in the past few weeks, and my phone booth was temporarily out of order, but in the words of some honky western singer, I’m “on the road again…”.
My last sight-seeing jaunt in Sydney may have been that proverbial ‘straw’ – the Sydney Aquarium. It simply came down the to the fact that I was sitting in one of the most beautiful cities in the world looking at a whole lot of shark arse, waiting to hear that I had landed a job I didn’t want. Then (slower than your average 60-watt light bulb in the dark ages….) I realised I could be seeing and experiencing the more wild and interesting things that lie beyond this currently chilled urban sprawl.
I made up my mind to leave, and that’s when things started happening. I got 5 decent job offers – of which I turned down with relative certainty (a good start). I got the flu, or something similar that makes your head feel like a big oversized melon, which I ignored, hoping it would go away. To this end, I have been trying the alternative medicine of partying until the wee small hours of every morning and sleeping the daylight hours away.
I had no idea it was possible to feel wholly submersed in Ireland by coming to Australia – but it is. My roommate at the hostel is a Dutch girl who goes by the name Eva. She is heavily disguised as an Irish lass, owing to the strong Dublin accent she picked up in her time living there. She is a masterful persuader, so I find myself pub-hopping from one Irish pub to another with her and a crew of Irishmen she knows well (and which I now know well too), many nights on the trot. I stay until the wee hours of the morning because it is at about this point that I am finally able to understand what is being said in the strong Irish accents, once a pint or five has slowed down the pace of their speech somewhat.
So one could say that I am forced to head into the Outback if for no other reason than to detox. Whilst I searched for methods of travel on the internet, travel shops, talking to other travellers and looking at heaps of hostel notice boards, I came across a German named Matthius. Matthius has just purchased a reliable Pajero and needed a companion to head out to Uluru aka Ayers Rock with him for about 2 weeks or so. I volunteered, and we head out first thing on Friday morning.
I have bought a nice cosy sleeping bag for the cold nights in the outback, and Matthius (bless his soul) is providing the rest – tent, cooking equipment, car, lederhosen – BARGAIN!
My friend Kerry is concerned to the point of attaching a tracking system to my backpack should I disappear in transit, so we’ve developed a code for emergencies, such as a case where I have been taken hostage and am about to die. Should I be granted a final phone call, I will say, “I sprinkled some coriander on my ice cream”. I’m still not sure what she will do with that information, except to notify the police that I will be eating odd cuisine somewhere in the outback? But forethought may be just the thing to avoid the aftertaste of backpacker stew by the roadside… I have also been told to watch out for kangaroos dashing across our path, and to prepare myself for the not-so-lucky lying by the roadside.
So to fund my travels, owing to the void on the Sydney work front, I applied as a market research guinea pig. It has to be the easiest money I have ever made (apart from the reception job I did a few weeks ago). I went to some fancy hotel tonight, where in a cubicle I was supplied with slices of pizza for an hour. I got to eat the pizza, tick some boxes, drink some wine to cleanse the palette and disappear with 40 big ones in my back pocket. Now that I am stuffed with pizza and excited about my forthcoming travels, I am going to go back to the hostel and fall into a dream-filled sleep of cold starry nights in my new down sleeping bag and kangaroo roadkill.
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