Farewell Australia

A big city is a true rarity in Australia. With a country the size of Europe and a population of just over 20 million, the padding of population is relatively sparse. It’s with this contrast in mind that entering into Sydney provides quite the step up from the generic small-town feel of the majority of Australia. This step-up is amplified ten-fold if your passage of travel commences from Byron. I’d been to Sydney once before with Keegan and Bob back in June, but the transition from Brisbane was a slight one. It was the moment at which we disembarked from our 14 hour bus trip, into the middle of the city, lacking all of my vital bearings and having to haul my tortoise shell of a rucksack towards our hostel, a hostel that we knew nothing about, which put this trip to Sydney truly into perspective. Helpfully, after a bit of abnormally un-male behaviour (i.e. asking for directions), we navigated our way through a nostalgically British set of directions (past the Strand, opposite King’s Cross, through Hyde Park etc... Thieving gits!) and found ourselves at the entrance, of what would prove to be, our worst hostel of the year... A good start to Sydney, however, it DOES get better... To an extent.

Before I continue, I’d have for my words to be misconstrued and anyone to retain the opinion that Sydney is a nasty city, as it really isn’t. In fact, you’ll find that after I’ve you’ve taken out all the flaws of our hostel (no social area, 8 oven hobs between 200 people, rude staff etc) you’ll find I’ve got nothing negative to say about the place. We started our Sydney tour by eradicating our Greyhound hangover at the world famous Bondi Beach. For those who are questioning my generous usage of the term “world-famous”, Bondi holds the majority of its high regard within the surfing community and chances are, even if it’s just the slight ringing of a bell, you’ve heard of it through surfing. Once you get there, it is no mystery as towards its well earned reputation. We arrived during a skate and surf boarding competition, so it was plain to see, however even outside of competition time, the perpetually huge waves would give you a clue as to its purpose. Our trip to Bondi marked a relatively low energy sort of day, possibly due to us still being within Byron mentality. After a brief nap on the beach, we headed off for some cheap tapas, an exhausting sort of mini bus journey back to the hostel and then a wander into the city for a few drinks.

Our second day saw us, rather uncreatively, retracing two sets of my own footprints left from my last excursion. We headed first of all to the Sydney aquarium, somewhere I’d been raving about ever since our first touchdown in Cairns. The aquarium is probably the best I’ve been too, although I’ll be the first to admit I’m not nearly as experienced in the field/pond as I’d like to be. But it is the venue for my first ever platypus sighting, which is something that you never will quite forget. While on the subject, a brief interlude of platypus facts always goes down well!

1)      The platypus is the only mammal to lay eggs

2)      The male platypus is one of a very rare collection of venomous mammals with a venomous spur on its rear heels

3)      The female platypus sweats milk for its young, and is the only mammal to do so

4)      When taxidermists first sent a platypus specimen back from Australia to England, biologists dismissed it for months as a practical joke (beavers tail, ducks beak and otter stuck together)

Now that I’m certain everyone is feeling much the wiser for that interlude, I’ll continue with the aquarium! The aquarium had a wide collection of different exhibits that I found awesome, such as the shark tube (you walk over, under and next to sharks outside of the glass), a 20 foot long ray, a pair of dugongs, long-necked tortoises and many other bits that would probably bore normal people, but kept me entertained for hours! First the zoo, and now this, not painting myself in a very exciting sort of light am I?

After the aquarium we completed our compulsory Sydney tourist initiation and did our Opera House and Harbour Bridge viewing experience. We did it via a trip on the Manly Ferry, this being a ferry to Manly, not a masculine boat. The reviews back about the two landmarks have been mixed; I was not left disappointed and thought they were both very pretty, with the opera house notably being very striking. But, others have said that it didn’t match up to expectations, were too small, were ugly etc. Beauty, I suppose, is in the eye of the beholder. It was just as we touched down in Manly, however, when the skies opened and the lightning storm struck with vengeance, so it was with a quick hasty retreat (through the botanical gardens, so not that quick or hasty) back to the hostel and settled in for the night. However, by then Dom and Olivia had arrived, so we stayed up for a bit, drinking beer whilst overlooking a roundabout, this wasn’t some obscure passion of ours, it was merely the only place the hostel had deemed necessary to provide for socialising... But I shan’t go further into that rant I promise.

Due to a booking error, the next day formed Sim and Ben’s last day in Australia before their very early flight to Christchurch the next morning, whilst me and Whisken had another day afterwards to tie up all the lose organisational ends. We did a little bit of researching and decided to head to rent a car and head to the Blue Mountains National Park, just a few hours West of Sydney. With a $50 a day car acquired and an early wake up achieved, we battled through the infernally variable one-way system that is Sydney and headed for the hills. The Blue Mountain NP is a vast area of land consisting of 100s of miles of mountains, forests, lakes and waterfalls, so we knew from the beginning that we’d only see a tiny portion of it. But with our landmark sights already highlighted, we made a route and set off on a hike that can only be described as “understatedly long”. Our first stop was called the three sisters, three giant stacks of stone within a forest that is associated with an ancient aboriginal fable. This portion of the hike involved climbing down more than a thousand steps which, in hindsight, should have set alarm bells ringing concerning our future prospects of returning to the car, but in actual fact, merely lead us to remark how easy the hike was looking like it was going to be. Along our walk we passed Witches Falls, a rather dramatic three-tiered waterfall with lookouts at each of the tiers up the mountain. We also passed a few breath-taking observation platforms balanced precariously over ledges providing a panoramic view of the National Park from which ever altitude you found yourself at the time. Even after more than a thousand ascending steps, we agreed the hike was one of the best we’d done and have some pretty good photos to prove it, along with a set of 8 aching legs as reminders.

Across the next day, once Sim and Ben had left, Whisken and myself mainly got into the business of finishing planning our Fiji Christmas, the remainder of New Zealand, along with some dull financial details such as tax that I shan’t insult anyone’s time by detailing. But mainly, when looking back at the whole Sydney experience, we can feel that we gave our Australian experience a good sort of send off. The highlight will undoubtedly consist predominantly of Blue Mountain views and memories, but the ferry trip and Opera House are also going to have to be fondly remembered of course. Despite the sentimentality associated with our surrogate home over the past few months, as well as the nostalgia impact associated with leaving any country for the last time on this trip, it felt like time to leave. I had been anxiously awaiting New Zealand for some time, and had heard so many different positive reviews of it, that I couldn’t be too downhearted about leaving the expensive, sun-baked vastness that is Australia, but was glad to leave with some damn good memories as well as a general feeling of appreciation for the opportunities it had provided. But, it was on to my 8^th country that we went (or 3^rd last for those pessimists out there), and into the land of sheep, Lord of the Rings and volcanoes that we were aimed for. The adventure continues!

R

Topping up the Soul

I will start this next blog with an admission. I am shamelessly biased towards our next destination, and nothing anyone can ever do or say will change this stance. Byron Bay is my kindred home and the one place we’ve visited where I think I could happily relocate and forget about the real world. It is my headquarters for hedonism, my centre for self-indulgence and my dwelling of decadence. There is not much to report in terms of sheer blog space; Byron is not a place for accomplishment or hyperactivity. Our hostel was the perfect accompaniment to the Byron experience, and we owe to it a lot of the credit for the great time we all had. With a private room, swimming pool, healthy supply of hammocks, private beach and clean kitchen, we were able to exist in perfect bliss for the entirety of our 4 day stay. It was also at this hostel that I met Dom, Olivia, Owen and Laura who we’re hoping to meet up with in New Zealand and who we ended up attaching ourselves to semi-permanently in Sydney, although that is not to be discussed in the same breath as Byron! I will attempt to elaborate on the awesome time we had in Byron, including our day trip to Nimbin, which wins some form of accolade for strangest town ever to be visited, but I’ll save that bit for last.

This blog will have no hint, nor attempt, at a timeline. It doesn’t matter in which order or on which day we did specific things, such is the way of Byron! There were merely highlights, and some good ones at that! I will have to start, as my friends know I have to, with the fish tacos. These fish tacos are not only the best fish tacos I’ve ever had, I am assured they are the best fish tacos in the world. A thin soft wrap filled with barramundi, lettuce, coleslaw, sour cream and salsa, needless to say, this is the way to win my heart. It’s hard to keep track of the exact quantity of fish tacos that were enjoyed during our stint in Byron, double figures are clear, but as for any more detail, it gets a bit cloudy. I can easily consider the gang to be converted to their wonder; it only pains me that I may never have them again. But, if ever there was a primary reason to go back to Byron, I can’t say fish tacos are definitely it... But they’re a solid contender!  The hostel’s private beach was also a great way to spend a day or so. The main beach at Byron is just as beautiful, if not more beautiful with its turquoise blue waters, abundance of surfer ladies and the border of the lighthouse cliff to the right of the beach. But, in the middle of the summer, it is also two additional things

1)      Busy

2)      Home to a host of pythons during breeding season

I am not going to lie that I was more deterred by the crowds than the pythons, but I will at least admit that this exposes a great weakness in my balance of priorities. I stand by the fact I was bothered by the business of the beach on multiple occasions, but the pythons never once got in my way, this to me is validation enough. However, our private beach was innocent on both of these charges and gave us a great way to see out the days. The photos don’t do it justice (strange how they rarely do!) but we had some great times there and I’m glad to report... Not a hint of sunburn, I’m getting better at this it seems!

Other highlights include a bar called Rails, which is based in an old train station, complete with un-used train tracks outside the front of the bar. Rails is home to perpetual live music, as music is the prevailing main occupation for all Byronites,  has a great atmosphere and relatively cheap Australian beer, these features are mostly all I look for in bars, so it was the perfect watering hole for whenever we had a tickle in our throat. I also made good use of the Rainbow shop, home to the most grotesque, garish and appalling clothing you can find outside of civilised society. A particular rainbow coloured hairband proved to be one of my favourites, I even find myself wearing it now as I type, I do sometimes wonder how I will ever return to normalised society again though... The last of the features of justifiable note was our trip on the Happy Bus to Nimbin, which forms the prelude to one of the weirdest road trips I’ll ever undertake.

Nimbin is a small hippy commune in the hills, 2 hours outside of Nimbin. And when I say hippy, I mean hippy in Byron terms, so read it as hippies that, as far as they’re aware, still believe it is the summer of love 1969 and Hendrix is still recording away in some studio outside of L.A. The fact that we were being picked up by the Happy Bus peaked our intrigue, but we mostly shrugged it off as some corporate branding. We were in for quite the surprise. At 10am, the closest thing to a tie-dyed school bus turned up at our hostel, and two heavily dreadlocked gents stepped out and took our names. We climbed inside the bus and every inch was decorated with music and bands stickers from all over the 50s-80s accompanied with a nice purple/brown interior. Our guide then sat at the front, did a headcount, told 10 one-liner jokes then left, this was the last time we’d see him for the rest of the trip! The remaining dreadlocker, an old Jamaican gent named George (or Judge if you can’t quite get your ears around the accent) took over and we headed off to Nimbin! Nimbin itself consists of a single highstreet with a cumulative total of colour which the entirety of London would struggle to be able to reach. The only prevailing sites were pictures of Bob Marley, marijuana leaves and peace symbols and the only people were zombified versions of real people staring at nothing but Bob Marley, marijuana leaves and peace symbols. As you walked down you received a collection of murmurs, grunts and hyper-smiles (as they have been dubbed), but aside from the odd noise, the entire village was silent filled with the closest thing to corpses that I have ever seen walking around. Needless to say, Nimbin is infamously populated with drug problems, and not just the green stuff, if ever the governments of the world are needing a powerful anti-drug initiative, just film a Nimbin documentary, I can assure you it’ll get the message across!

And, with a collection of these highlights above, we concluded our stay in Byron. And had the prospect of a 14 hour trip to Sydney on the horizon. It was a rather down-spirited sort of final evening at the prospect. Not only were we leaving Byron, not only were we headed from Byron to Sydney but we were also headed from Byron to Sydney for the last city of the Australian leg of our tour. I was down to the final 2 months of my travels and into the last three countries before the inevitable return to dreary England. We were filled with such feelings of doubt, worry and doom but for some reason, one simple walk down the streets of Nimbin later we were carefree and hypersmiley again... A truly weird place indeed!

R

A Familiar Home...

The word home is a rather difficult word to qualify. I’ve moved around alot over my short, yet colourful, life and I’ve had many houses, and only a few homes. But, now that a sufficient gap of time has passed since my expedition to Brisbane, I can easily put it within the home category. So, when I saw that our itinerary included 4 days in Surfer’s Paradise, yet no stop in Brisbane (and in inimitable Australia Zoo), I knew I was due a break from my travelling comrades and a stop in at Dads. Despite the fact that it had only been 2-3 weeks at this point, it felt very good to be back and there was even a small creeping sensation of nostalgia creeping around at the back of my mind. After an evening of laundry, English Premiership catch-up, beer and dinner, we had an early night for our expedition to Australia zoo in the morning.

Although this was my second visit to Australia zoo, I don’t recall having written about it at all in any of the earlier blogs. And so now, it feels truly justified to put down in black and white that it is the single finest zoo I have ever visited, and I would struggle to name a zoo that I believe could rival it in the world. It is a healthy advocate of the Steve Irwin legacy, and still, through his family, survives the Irwin name and continues his philosophy of taking care of the environment and the wildlife inherently incorporated within it. Aside from the globally famous crocodile shows, there is a fantastic snake exhibit, an open kangaroo enclosure, koalas and the wide array of animals that we’ve come to expect out of all of the big zoos. The best bit for me and Dad was the tiger exhibit with the resident nutters/trainers inside the cage. The dozen or so tigers at Australia zoo are cycled to avoid overexposure and to ensure that the tigers aren’t distressed by the crowds at any point. This is even more essential at Australia Zoo above all other zoos, because the trainers themselves are permanent fixtures within the glass exhibit. The show consisted of these three people, who have trained the tigers from birth, playing fetch, wrestling, petting and generally teasing the tigers to expunge from them all aspects of excess energy (least they are tempted to use it for devious means!). The show itself was fantastic, but all throughout the show you can’t help but consider the mental state of three normal human beings who read the job description as “antagonise a 400 pound tiger, whilst within swiping, clawing and biting distance at all times” and decided that this was the job for them.

Once we’d finished with the zoo, we headed back home and settled in with some beers and a classic gourmet meal of tuna, beans, cheese and bacon on toast (because there is such a thing as taking TOO good a care of yourself) and relapsed back into the good old times, as if I would be waking up for work the next day and hanging around the house for the next month once again. However, Brisbane sensed that this occasion was a little bit more special than the multitude of other similar evenings and conjured up a multi-pronged lightning storm that crept up upon us from all sides, including directly over the city. In England, I’d seen thunderstorms a few times, but it appears I’d never seen a real thunderstorm. The night seems to get darker than it ever has been, yet the lightning has the power to turn everything back to day for a portion of a second. The thunder shakes the windows and truly hurts the ears, whilst the rain prevents you from seeing anymore than a few feet ahead of you and comes down in barrages that’d knock you down if you got caught anywhere near it. It was the rather perfect send off from Brisbane, and a rather good memory to have as my last.

The tail end of the thunderstorm also saw us into the early hours of Halloween, which formed the day of my reunion with the other three in Surfer’s Paradise. For all those who are unaware and are picturing the white sandy beached, palmed tree’d and bikini saturated sort of surfer’s paradise that I myself pictured to begin with, I can assure you it exists, just not in this particular city. Surfer’s is a giant metropolis which only Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney can truly compete with in terms of cityscape. It was therefore with great relief that I was only there for Halloween, when the only thing on offer in the evening is dressing up like a fool and having a damn good evening. And this is exactly what we did. We utilised the full power of our student-based backpacking stingyness and found some cheap football shirts to allow us to dress us as, none other than, zombie footballers. Therefore, renamed with the finest in footballing puns N’Zombia (me/N’Zogbia), Stabbi (Sim/Xavi), RI Persie (Whisken/Robin Van Persie) and Killieni (Ben/Chiellini) headed out into the streets of Surfer’s for some undead fun. We even managed to bump into a makeup artist who redesigned our wounds and necrosis for free. It was the next morning when we woke up and felt three different kinds of death that we couldn’t be happier to leave. In fact, even if we had a hand designed, financially unlimited and un-time restricted itinerary, it wouldn’t have changed the next stop. The only place in the world for bringing the dead back to life was beckoning. We knew it was time, for a little trip to Byron!

R

Off the Beaten Path

I tend not to go into any form of details concerning our Greyhound trips, there is simply no point. They are a necessary element of travelling, get us to point A-B and do so with minimal comforts or luxuries. However, the one point that is noteworthy concerning 1770 to Rainbow Beach was at about 11am when our state of the art air conditioning system decided to resign, and left us with a 30° final leg of the journey. Now, I know I very rarely attract any sympathy from England upon the subject of high temperatures on my year out, but Guantanamo called, they said they’d like their living conditions back...

However, 2 hours later, we arrived bad tempered and damp into Rainbow Beach, the closest portal for all prospective Frasier Island visitors, of which we belonged to. Rainbow Beach itself is not even worthy of the classification “town”. It consists of a mini-mart, 3 hostels, 2 pubs, a restaurant and a bar. But, the feel of the place is worthy of the name, both stress and rushing were successfully vaccinated against in Rainbow Beach in the year 1822, and they have never looked back since. If you want a quick meal, an accountant or even an ambulance, Rainbow Beach is not the place for you; therefore, it certainly was a place for me. At our hostel we stayed in a small semi-canvas two bunk dorm that looked out onto the fire pit, which was the hub of all socialising at the hostel. Sadly, as with 1770, we were destined to not spend much time in the hostel itself. With the 2 day/3 night Frasier trip the next morning, and the preparations for it starting at 4pm that very afternoon, we had just enough time to take a stroll to the beach and get a bite to eat before it was time to get back into the productivity mode which was so rightly discouraged in Rainbow Beach.

We met the group we’d be calling family for the next few days, were given a classic 1960’s-esque safety briefing on the dangers of driving on sand, and then were told to go do our food shop with our group for the next few days. As is usually the way with such things, we were paired with three teetotallers, two girls that don’t eat chicken or beef, and one that didn’t eat pork, life without challenge isn’t really life at all it seems! So, after some organisational planning that even the caterers for the U.N would be proud of, we were officially ready for Frasier Island. The next morning, at 7am sharp, we met our group leader for the next few days, a Kiwi named Harps who would soon to be joining Bruce in the realms of traveller lore as another legend of the year. Whilst I’m doing introductions, I may as well do a quick run through our group. Aside from the usual suspects of Ben, Whisken, Sim and myself, we had another 4 people to add our car and 7 more in Harps car. Our car was topped up with Nicole (a tall German redhead with a slight American accent and Ipod which kept us very well entertained for 3 days straight), David (Nicole’s French hyper-romantic boyfriend who had some of the most outrageous volleyball talents the world has ever seen), Frazer (A fierce French girl who stubbornly disapproved of my attempts at a French accent, who ultimately suffered for admitting to such a flaw) and Zach (her French friend who, if memory serves, didn’t say a fully completed sentence to me in 3 days). I, with my vast Nissan Micra driving experience, volunteered to drive first, upon the firm logical standpoint that if I can’t drive on tarmac, I probably shouldn’t be driving on sand. The step up from Micra to Land Crusier is akin to enhancing the Micra with a steam furnace under the bonnet, adding a medium sized hippopotamus to the roof and adding rotating step ladders underneath each of the four wheels. Weird car to drive, but within the first10 minutes on Frasier, there’s no way I could ever speak badly of a Land Crusier again for as long as I shall live.

The first day consisted of visiting Lake Mackenzie in a small secluded section known as secret beach which, unsurprisingly, had no other people in sight. We stuck around for a couple of hours playing volleyball, football and the like, but the finest bit was a little bit more feminine than either of those (even the volleyball!). The sand at the bottom of the freshwater lake is so fine that it doubles as an exfoliant and conditioner. So we ensured that we all L’Oreal’d it to the max, and trying my best to not sound like the blurb of a bottle of shampoo, the results were instantly noticeable, were long lasting and was unlike anything you’ve ever felt before (I never said I was trying hard...). After we’d finished we had a quick sample of inland off-roading, a small tour of an old logging site and then headed back to our home for the next two nights. Our campsite was, simply, awesome. It was the only site on the island that was allowed an open fire, had hot showers and proper toilets, a sheltered cooking area and pre-set up tents. It was also home to multiple packs of dingoes, which added a little bit of excitement to the spontaneous loo trips, but also hammered home the authenticity of where we were. After dinner Harps set up the acoustic and started the campfire songs going, which were greatly appreciated from yours truly and then a burst of dramatic lightning stormage called an end to the night and we all retreated to our tents for the night.

The second day we started off with a trip to a small freshwater lake which was home to hundreds of fresh-water terrapins that were in dire need of some tourist-orientated feeding. Harps showed us the correct way to hold them, so once we’d satisfied our curiosity towards the terrapins, which took be a lot longer than the average, we headed on to our next stop; Indian Head. On the way, Harps showed us an area which overlooked the largest dune in Australia which also, rather morbidly, doubled as a mass aboriginal gravesite following a massacre and forming yet another black mark in the history of the English speaking peoples. Indian Head itself is a high rocky peninsula overlooking the entire East coast of the island with visible rocks and sharks milling around the base in the sea. It was also another site of English barbarism when they forced 2000 aborigines to either jump or be shot; needless to say there were no survivors. Harps himself is a Maori and an honorary member of the local Aborigine tribe so refuses to go up there and speaks very aggressively upon the subject, it was a pretty sobering sort of moment but, counterintuitively, one of the more beautiful views. A strange sort of combination to say the least! And finally we headed for the champagne pools, a small group of rock circles which collect the seawater as it comes in, and then retains it as the tide recedes. Because the sea off of Frasier is prohibited as far as swimming goes (due to the strong currents, sharks, jellyfish and other Australianisms), the pools are quite popular, but we managed to go and score ourselves our own little pool. The pools are warmed by the sun, but as you’re sitting there the waves crash against the rock pool and provide a little bit of cooling to provide the perfect Australian sort of climate. We even managed to slide in a bit of international, intergroup beach football, we lost 2-1 is the answer to your question, although the second goal did have a touch of offside to it...

Our final night was the night to celebrate and take it easy, with Harps leading the way. Another campfire was lit, more songs were sung, more goon was consumed and more merriment was had. So it was with a slightly sore head that we awoke on our third and final day, and by that time, our group had formed into a set of firm friends. The final activity for the trip was an hour hike to Lake Waikiki, a perfectly clear freshwater lake next to some dunes with a bordering of dense forest. The prospect of the hike (and alternative of buffet) proved too much for some, so Whisken, me, Nicole, David and four others made the hike on our own and, one hour later, were elated with our decision to do so. The lake was probably the most genuinely beautiful part of the whole trip, and we had to share the little gem of a secret retreat with absolutely no-one. However, once we had swam for an hour or so, and trekked back we were aware the only remaining part of the trip was the ride back. We’d all got pretty close over the past 3 days and weren’t looking forward to the prospect of our separation. Me and Harps had chatted quite a lot over the past three days as well and he suggested the idea of a farewell meal when we got back to Rainbow Beach, after a very very brief consultation with the rest of the group, we decided to meet at 8 for a big last dinner. The night itself was awesome, and a great send off for an awesome tour. There is way too much detail that I could include to do the trip justice, but seeing as I’ve perpetually struggled with conciseness from the off, I’ll have to leave some of these details out. But it was a trip of many firsts, and a great attempt at following on from the greatness that was Castaway. Driving down the beach, alongside the coast line at sunset... Offered me that a year ago and I’d have snapped your hand off!

R

Castaway

So we arrived at our next location no worse for wear from our Wet-Sundays experience, just merely a bit damp. The area itself is a small area of society within a vast expanse of Australian nothingness that forms two separate towns; 1770 and, the rather attractively named, Agnes Waters. 1770 is named as such in tribute to the exploits to one Captain James Cook, who touched down on the beach in the year 1770 (shock horror), found a few bars (...) and decided to set up camp. Agnes Waters was named after an old 18^th century octogenarian with a weak bladder. Choose to disregard that fact at your own peril! We arrived at 1 in the afternoon after a rather unenviable 12 hour bus ride and were instantly told that our trip to Castaway Island would be leaving at 2. We were told to buy supplies for the night and morning and a bit of booze and report for our pre-flight briefing ASAP. I had absolutely no idea what to expect and was envisioning a artificial hand-holding sort of trip under the false banner of authentic cast-away experience, however, I am glad to report I couldn’t have found myself much further from the truth.

We started off with a 10 minute off-road drive through a small area of forest until we reached a long rectangular clearing. There we met Bruce, the finest Australian specimen that any of us have met during our 5 months stint, and his plane, one of the ricketiest 4 seater planes I’ve ever seen, let alone flown in. Within 5 minutes we’d managed to get the wheels off the ground, and so started the first ever stunt piloted flight of my life. The flight was punctuated with high rise stalls into zero gravity nose dives, some heavy banks from side to side and then, after 15 minutes or so, the perfect beach landing with the crest of the sea a few feet to our left. Bruce then showed us our campsite for the night, which consisted of 4 tents, a gazebo with fairy lights, Ipod dock and gas stove, 2 kayaks and a few resident bird-eating spiders and lizards. And with that, once Bruce had taken off once again, we were left alone to our island with only a lighthouse keeper somewhere in the mountains for company. After we’d set up camp, we uncovered an old oyster knife, so decided to mount our kayaks and go in search of lunch, which I can gladly report we found and, after some slight struggling, enjoyed the freshest oyster lunch I think I may ever have!

After a rare display of foresight, leading to us felling a few trees for a giant beach fire in the evening, we read about a sunset dolphin walk (the name itself was easily enough to attract my attention), an hour or so to the West of the island. In a bid to needlessly heighten the drama, the phrase fraught with danger came into conversation regularly; after all, our island was home to the two most lethal landsnakes in the world, the King Brown and the Taipan. Alongside these particular joys of Australian ecology, we also had a host of lethal spiders which had decided to set up camp alongside our one rugged path through the jungle on the way to the beach. At least you know what to expect when you holiday in Australia... However, after an hour of sheer death-defying madness, we reached the beach and were not to be disappointed. As the sun was setting, five or six different pods of dolphins were swimming around the completely deserted bay, we were aware we had to tackle the walk back and it would be ideal to do so with some light, but I defy anyone to walk away from that view; it’d take a stronger man than me!

Even despite my weakness for natural aesthetics, we managed to make it back just before the night truly set in and went straight to work with our gender roles. The ladies working on our beef stew, whilst the men grunted and set to the task of building a testosterone riddled signal fire. Moments later (give or take) we were savouring our hot beef stew around our 8 foot fire, enjoying a bit of whiskey and coke and enjoying one of the most pristine night sky views I fancy I shall ever see. If I may briefly impersonate someone much more advanced in years than myself, as the days of light pollution invariably increase, I predict it’ll be a challenge to find a more undisturbed view of the sky than the one we had on our abandoned castaway island!

As is the way with camping, our next morning was an early one and we awoke to a sight which aided our waking up process no end. One the opposite wall of our tent was a 10 inch long silhouette of a bird eating spider, needless to say, I went from dreaming to pushing my kayak into the sea in no longer than 10 minutes. Nobody would have suspected that the spider was doing me a favour that morning, especially not myself, but it would prove to be another of life’s little surprises. When I was a suitable distance out that the waves no longer caused much of a challenge to my balance, I decided to have a quick post-traumatic stress nap. Ten minutes or so later, I was woken up by a very slight noise of splashing and turned my head to see a turtle swimming alongside my kayak. One of those perfect moments and I owe it all to a spider much larger than my own face... Only in Australia.

After a brief scout of some nearby caves, which were home to a veritable squadron of jellyfish, we had a brief oyster brunch just before Bruce landed to pick us up. The flight back was just as aviationally unsound as the flight out, and for this, we were grateful! With a few more seconds of zero gravity time under our belts, we landed back at our clearing and were aware that our castaway experience had come to an end. It was a very early night for us that evening, preparing for our 5am trip down to Rainbow beach, but I think even without the early wake up I wouldn’t have made it much past 11 anyway, at least this way I had an excuse. And with that, marked the end of the finest trip I’ve had since I left in January (a conclusion which took me some time to confirm!). But the next few days held promise of a trip to Frasier island with some beach/inland 4x4 driving thrown in for good measure. The only way to engage in this profession of mine is to go from strength to strength and I can safely ensure you I don’t intend to find out what the alternative would lead to...