Over the coming months I will begin to pour fourth the bubbling liquid sloshing around my skull that is a collection of memories gathered whilst travelling. I will start by shamefully narrowing the vast delta of the experience down to a tributary and dam its flow before it filters off beyond my capacity to express it. Instead, I will syphon off the best bits, in bullet points. (I apologise for all the water references; I must need to pee)
This list is not exactly in preferential order but the subconscious is a powerful force:
- Tasmania: Is like no other part of Australia I visited; for it is both familiar and yet so unmistakably foreign you can't help but feel lost in its landscapes. Fields fall away to mountains, the cool air juxtaposes the tropical beaches and the waterfalls pour down as if to mock the mainlands draught. The small, quite cities are quaint and simple but shrouded in natural beauty. I possibly saw more indigenous wildlife here than all my time on the mainland. Mt Field N.P and in particular Dobson Lake - which sits towards the top of the mountain - is a location that was so serene it seemed to suck breath from my lungs and add it to the mist that was covering the lake edge. I didn't see platipus, which was the main reason for the trip up. By the time I left I didn't care.
- Ningaloo Reef: Not as famous as its much bigger sibling on the east coast but the Ningaloo is only aided by this fact. The absence of life on the land works to emphasise the abundance beneath the water's surface. unfortunately my time on the reef did not coincide with the arrival of the whale sharks that come to feed in May. However, I did manage to swim with a manta ray. Despite it not "doing" anything other than glide through the ethereal plain that exists in the murk of the ocean - which it is more than entitled to do, although a back flip wouldn't have spoilt the experience - it was still one of the most incredible things I witnessed whilst I was in Australia. A little further north on the same reef at Turquoise Bay; I swam with another benevolent aquatic being: a green sea turtle. Being a fringing reef, it also has the wonderful feature of being close enough to swim to; just make sure you get some local advice before you do, it is still Australia after all, something will want to kill you.
- The Outback: Difficult to explain what or where this is exactly. It is more of a feeling you get whilst in a place that creates the "outback". On the road in Western Australia, the Northern Territory and in Queensland you get that feeling, once you've headed away from any major town or city at least. The heat, the insanity inducing roads and the soaring wedge-tailed eagles that seem to be waiting for your carcass as much as the innumerable bodies of kangaroos and possums you will whirl past. The thing about the "outback" is that you don't expect to really see anything but to your constant surprise, you do; my girlfriend and I once stopped on the brow of a hill to water some baron scrub beside the road, as we did we noticed the open expanse beyond, dotted with distant plumes of smoke from wildfires. That is the magic of the "outback", it exists as much in your mind as it does in the tangible world. The real beauty is that they're rarely the same.
- Karijini N.P: Karijini is cracked and dry like most of the Australian outback, the difference being that the cracks are enormous. It is a park riddled with gorges. Traversing these deep, old wrinkles of the world is like nothing I have ever experienced. The Earth closes in around; rocky walls stacked high, the crimson rocks seemingly piled on top of one another, gently leaning like a beautiful miscalculation. Drying river beds cut through the centre of the gorges whilst lush green gumtrees cling to the rocks all around. At the end of the long, very hot walk through a gorge you'll hit a narrow patch forcing you to scramble high onto the walls or straddle between them, then as they widen, you plunge into a glistening green pool, still cool from the morning shade. Walking through a gorge is to walk in a wilderness of billabongs and waterfalls; sacred pools and huge, ominous rock slides; narrow gullies where water has smoothed the rocks into an elegant and exhilarating slide, and the ever noticeable presence of those leaning red walls. Oh and the clear star filled skies where, if you time it right, you can watch the sun set and the moon rise, fall asleep under the stars and wake up to a burning new day.
- Mon Repos: Mon Repos is an ordinary beach near the farming town of Bundaberg on the east coast, famous for its sickly sweet, polar bear sponsored rum. The thing that sets Mon Repos apart is that for several months of the year it becomes a turtle nesting sight. In summer hundreds of turtles crawl up the beach to bury their eggs. I was lucky enough to be in Bundaberg in November during nesting time. A ranger will take a small group of you quietly onto the beach at night (a tip is to book your place before arriving by calling ahead or using the net) to watch as turtles heave themselves across the sand. No light and no sudden movements, you watch and wait; the great black shell is all you can see and it moves assuredly towards its goal. Then another will suddenly be behind you, sand flicking and flippers slapping and then you are immersed in their world for a few moments. Once they are laying, a torch goes on and you see for the first time this huge leatherback or flatback or green turtle. You notice just how big, heavy and lumbering they are out of the water but how focused on their task of beginning a new generation they are. It is a magical experience and I don't use that term often. (If you miss the start of summer and the nesting period but are around Mon Repos in March stop by one day and you might be lucky enough to see a sight I was not lucky enough to experience, hatching.)
- Sydney: People visit this city in their millions and you can tell. Walk up George Street - the main street through the CBD - and you'll definitely notice the weight of all those entities confined into the prison of tall buildings that makes up the central banking district. The throngs of people, the high prices and the tacky souvenir shops everywhere - with a thousand halogen lights burning your cornea, even from the other side of the street - are a maddening and saddening side of the city. Some people will spend a few days in Sydney and visit the sights, the bridge, the opera house and the such but Sydney is a great place not to be a tourist as much as it is. In a week you could go from chatting over an organic coffee outside a groovy little cafe in Newtown or Glebe, to looking out at the vast expanse of blue-green haze covering the canopy of gumtrees that nestle in the basin of the Blue Mountains. From there to surfing, shopping and a few evening drinks at a quirky little bar or if you've got the cash, at a not so quirky but very stylish bar near the harbour. That is a brief of summation of the possibilities available. The Blue Mountains deserve a paragraph to themselves but I'll try to keep it succinct. Considering they are less than a 2 hour train journey from the centre of Sydney (a day ticket to Katoomba or Blackheath costs roughly $12 or so), you can feel so far from the bustle of the city that you forget that technically you only left Sydney's outermost parameter a few minutes ago in Richmond. Tours will offer themselves to you but you don't need them, a good pair of walking shoes is all you need. A few minutes walk and you'll find yourself at the edge of a chasm, it'll take you all day to come to terms with it and even then you'll still be lost. Back to the city, on a warm afternoon, finding yourself lounging in one of the parks or the Botanic Gardens is not a waste of time; Sydney is about relaxing in greenery surrounded by the hum of city life. Sydney is about BBQ's at the beach and dolphin spotting from the cliff tops at Watson's Bay, its about arriving back on the ferry from Manly to the sun setting and the city lights flicking to life. Of course it rains sometimes and yes its busy, occupationally smutty, overpriced and acridly touristy but it's beautiful too; parks, beaches, mountains, rivers and forests all occupy the same address. It's lively - ask a local and you'll find something happening, somewhere - its cultured and progressive, with a relaxed style that manages to rise above its commercial base. An image I retain of Sydney's contrasting characteristics is this one: on my way to work one morning, I crossed the street into Martin's Place - the very epicentre of the banking district -like so many others, as I did however, I noticed one man, an expensive looking suit clinging to his well built frame, was carrying something I didn't expect to see a middle aged banker carry. He crossed the street also, dropped his skateboard and with a few shunts of his left leg, took off, nonchalantly weaving his way through the gathering mass.
