Train-ing!!

On Track

An aeon has passed since I last took a long distance train in Australia. Despite regular travel to various parts of the country for many years, my flimsy excuse for not using land-based public transport was always that I didn’t have time. Flights were way quicker. And cheaper. Bugger the planet. Everyone else does.

But those days have well and truly ended, happily dumped in the dustbin of my history. I have no more excuses. I’m no longer time poor.

Now I have forever.

And the train to Sydney’s so fun!

Comfortable. Easy. No check-in. I can take my pointy nail scissors right on board, even my classical guitar! I could carry a rucksack bomb on board if I was that way inclined, but then I guess you’d probably not be reading this blog right now.

A NSW Rail guy just came through the carriage asking who wants to have a hot cooked lunch! A hot cooked lunch, he said! How kind. Yes please, veg curry thanks, how much? $9.50. What? Not $19.50? Are you sure? Aren’t we still near Byron?

Oooh, action! Just for contrast, a very grumpy female rail staffer just completely verbally assassinated a male passenger for smoking on the platform, wow, she was the Ice Queen, that chick from Frozen, whatshername, Elsa. (I brought up 3 girls, I should know that sort of stuff).

It was pretty amusing, but I could only smirk inside, because if she saw me laughing she’d probably cut me to shreds too, she’s super scary. She actually said to him:

“How many times have I made announcements that passengers aren’t allowed to smoke on the platforms? Huh? How many times? Too many times. Right? And you know what? I’m sick of it. We’ve got a timetable to keep to and I have to get my customers to where they want to go, right? We’re a few minutes late and I need to make up time. If you want to smoke you can grab your things and leave the train. Is that clear? Huh?

Ouch! The electricity was zapping off her aura as she left the carriage, the hairs on my arms and in my nostrils followed her out.

I didn’t even hear the guy’s reply, I think his tongue and voicebox got lasered off by her look.

I also didn’t realise I was her customer. I thought I was just me, going to Sydney.

And I didn’t realise she was personally responsible for the train’s arrival time either.

Ooooh, am I  getting closer to Indonesia? Nah, not a chance, it’s Coffs

Quaint countryside

Rolling through rolling hills

One of the better named Australian towns

Reflecting on the beauty of nature

Sydney Central Station Main Concourse. Weird how they angled the roof.

The Right Hand Knows Not What The Left Is Doing

So anyway I’m in the Big Smog to sort out my bureaucratic affairs, and of course to catch up with friends, and revel in some city action. The bureaucratic side of things is almost too ridiculous to discuss, but I will anyway, because it passes beyond the realm of complete and utter human stupidity, and is therefore blogworthy.

I’m a Polish citizen, as my dad was Polish.

Well, I thought I was. I have an expired Polish passport in my possession. When I went to renew it last year a friendly woman at the Polish Consulate in Sydney told me that my Polish citizenship was basically no longer valid, and that the passport I was holding was basically not worth the high tech plastic it was printed on.

Great, thanks a lot.

You see, since I first got my Polish passport, EU passport regulations have changed, and there are now new and much more stringent citizenship proof requirements.

Unfortunately, as I can’t speak more than a few words of Polish, (including the important words na zdrowie, which you say before slugging down shots of vodka), nor do I have any knowledge of the rabid sinkhole of Polish government bureaucracy, it was impossible for me to negotiate the maze alone, so I engaged an agent in Warsaw, at a not-too-modest cost.

She was great, it took a few months, but eventually I got a letter from the Governor of the Polish Voivodeship (sort of like a duchy) of Mazovia, stating that my always-on-time but now late father was indeed a Polish citizen (surprise fucking surprise).

I also got a certified Polish copy of my Australian birth certificate, with mine and my dad’s name on it. Great.

I made an appointment at the Polish Consulate in Sydney (you need to go in person), got all my docs together, and Krzysiek’s yer uncle.

I wish.

I headed all the way down to Sydney, and needed to produce my valid Australian passport there to prove my identity, which I did, which records my place of birth as Adelaide, which is where I was born. But my Australian birth certificate (and new Polish one) listed Woodville as my place of birth, which is a suburb of Adelaide.

And guess what? They can’t deal with that! They can’t get it into their Polski ogórkied bloody brains that Woodville and Adelaide are the same bloody place! And therefore they can’t process my application!

What??!!!

The friendly consular assistant woman actually said to me, “look, there could actually be another person with your exact name who was born in Adelaide on the same day as you, and the identity could be confusing.”

What?!! As ifffffff!!!

I wish I’d have thought of it at the time, but I should’ve said, “yeah sure, pācki head, you know as well as I bloody do that that would never ever ever happen, but if, by some incredibly uncanny unheard-of once-in-a-millennium mega freaky coincidence it actually did happen, do you think he’d look like this!!?” And point at my face. “My passport is a photo ID, for Buddha’s sake!!! It’s me!! Me me me!!!”

The woman then said to me, “look, I’m sorry, I’m not trying to be difficult, ok. If I send this application off to the Ministry in Poland they won’t process it, they’ll just send it back, and you’ll lose a few months. The only way you can get a new Polish passport is if you get a new Australian passport with the place of birth listed as Woodville.”

So that’s what I’ve done. I have a new Australian passport in my hot big hands. It took the Australian Passport Office 4 whole months to get it to me after I applied, but I have it nevertheless. I have all the other docs I need, and I’m now in Sidderney, in the land of the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, to sort it out.

We’ll see how that goes🤞

Round 1

In the first part of my epic non world record-breaking circumnavigation of Australia, before I started this blog, I left the floodwater-sodden soils of Byron Shire, on the far north coast of NSW, headed up to Queensland, back down to Melbourne, across to Adelaide, and then drove up to the spectacular Red Centre, before heading east back to Queensland and eventually back to Mullumbimby. On the way I did trackloads of hiking, and went to WOMAD to literally rock my socks off.

It was a little dusty

So for your viewing and reading pleasure, as I describe that long trip in the next few blogs, I’ve decided to also include a few of my other forays into amazing places, that happened either before or after that longer trip, just so you can enjoy more of the good bits of this absolutely incredible unbelievable country that I’ve been exploring.

You’re so lucky.

Let alone me.

Beautiful one day. Perfect the next.

Yeah, well that’s what the ad says about Queensland. I was in Bris-Vegas a couple of days ago, and I went to a tea towel exhibition.

What?

Piss off, there’s nothing wrong with that.

It was actually interesting. Tea towel art can be quite revealing really, in a touristy, humorous, kitsch kinda way.

It’s worth zooming in, it’s funny, plus it’ll help you understand why I have to start this section in Queensland.

The whole of the east coast of Queensland skirts the Great Dividing Range, that humongous 3,500km north-south collection of mountains, plateaus and hills, that goes from Dauan Island in the Torres Strait, off Cape York, all the way down the east coast of Australia, and eventually to the Grampians in Victoria. It’s the fifth longest land-based mountain chain in the world.

The Gold Coast Hinterland

A bunch of us have spent a chunk of time hiking in the southeastern rainforests in Queensland over the past months. It’s been amazing. The rainforest national parks of Yugambeh (Lamington) and Springbrook are right smack bang in the Great Divide, and are only an hour and a half from Mullum.

The traditional owners are the Yugambeh, Birin Burra, Wangerriburra and the Migunberri people, and they actually want the parks’ names changed to reflect their own traditional names.

It’s an incredible wonderland in there, part of the magnificent Gondwana Rainforest World Heritage Area, a 366,000 hectare expanse that contains the most extensive area of subtropical rainforest in the world. That’s pretty special ya know.

The World Heritage area stretches from southeast Queensland right down to the forests inland and a little south of Port Macquarie, and the NSW part includes the Border Ranges, Nightcap, Gibraltar Ranges, New England, Oxley, Dorrigo and Barrington Tops national parks, and a bunch more.

The rainforest in the Queensland section is actually quite close to that largely barren urban tourist jungle of the Cold Ghost, but it feels like it’s millions of miles away.

The tree that Miranda and Isa are marvelling at in the above pic is an Antarctic beech tree, an incredible relic from the days when Australia, South America and the Antarctica were joined as one land mass called Gondwana. Some of the Antarctic beeches in the park are estimated to be 2,000 years old! And they look it too.

They’re beautiful. It feels so incredibly powerful to be around living creatures that old. I can’t describe how special it is, it’s actually a very rare privilege in this world. Lately I’ve had the chance to do that a few times in Australia, we’re incredibly blessed to have those undisturbed pristine ancient treasures amongst us. They’re priceless. We need to protect them, once gone they can never ever be replaced.

Rather than just grow taller and taller, the beeches’ moss covered roots sprout what look like new trees from the same above-ground root system, so you get what looks like a grove of trees, but it’s actually just one.

Well it’s a rainforest innit

See the 2 blue Lamington spiny crayfish?

Not to scale

Carnarvon Gorge Great Walk

We hiked some of those beautiful Yagumbah and Springbrook rainforest tracks to kill 2 birds with one extremely fast and sharp stone - both to marvel at the rainforest wonderland, but also for, as Phil would say, “trai-ning!” (said loudly with a British army accent).

We were actually limbering up for the Carnarvon Gorge Great Walk, which was way better than just boring old “great”. How was the party? Great. Ooooh, did you enjoy that as much as me darling? Yes thank you, it was great 😴Yeah right…

So when I say “we” trained, I mean Phil Miranda Isa and I trained, Iain didn’t (he didn’t need to), and Frankie didn’t either (he did need to). Isa didn’t end up doing the Carnarvon hike unfortunately, motherhood called.

The Carnarvon Great Walk is a 6-day 90km hike in the amazing Carnarvon National Park, situated way out in the sticks about 9 hours northwest of Brissy. For everyone besides Iain and me, this was the longest walk they’d ever done, and it was a physical challenge, but it turned out to be a bit easier than (some of us) expected.

Very skinny dipping

All of those pics were taken on the first day, a long 20km hike right up the guts of the main gorge, with lots of side trips to incredible places. The Yinggarda traditional owners’ cultural heritage in the area is outstanding, some of it is out standing on the walls of the gorge, in the form of incredible ancient rock art paintings. And no wonder they hung out in there, it’s cool, sheltered and magnificently beautiful.

The next morning involved climbing up the side of the gorge, it was tough, but tougher for some more than others:

Note the deep dark and dirty pleasure in Phil’s eyes

The view from the top of the gorge

A Reg Grundy Production

Phil and Miranda attempting to camouflage

Once up in the high country it was colder, we had beautiful fires every night, we rugged up and saved the world by having profound deep conversations. Up there we walked through high grasslands and rolling hills, interspersed with open forests of the glorious and ubiquitous Carnarvon fan palm, and tall gums of various nationalities. It was so beautiful.

Miranda feelin it

There was a major hiking emergency one night though, it was in tents for all of us. We’d just gone to bed, headlights out (as Frankie calls head torches), when we heard loud cooooooeeeees coming from way over in the bush.

Shit!! Some poor hikers had got lost, trying to find their way to the campsite in the middle of the night, a really tough gig for them. We immediately called out to help them, to let them know where the campsite was, and started to get out of our tents.

And then we heard a lone voice calling out in the distance, “oh thanks a lot, it’s just me, I went off to have a crap and lost my bearings.”

It was Iain.

We couldn’t believe it, it was ridiculous and hilarious.

And we’ll never ever let him forget it (even though it could just as easily have been me).

Under takers

Spiderman

The view from the other side of the gorge

Last sunrise (my only sunrise)

So after a week of hiking up on the plateau, and slowly making our way around to the other side of the gorge, we finally climbed back down into it, and completed the hike. It was a beautiful week, I felt a sense of elation at the end, I’m not exactly sure why, it just felt so good to have been there, to experience that country with some of my close friends, and we virtually had the whole place to ourselves for the whole week.

The notable exception to our group solitude was at our rest day campsite, where there was a lone camper, an older man who didn’t really seem to want to chat at all, and told us he’d come to that place to get away from it all, and for “peace and quiet.”

Well, if “peace and quiet” involves listening to a bunch of lunatics play loud funk music, laugh and call out late into the night, as well as watching them wildly dance around a fire as if they were on some wacky mind bending substances (which they quite possibly were), then he was totally in luck.

I gotta say (again) that being in the bush for that long changes you, you should do it sometime. Should schmoud. Don’t worry, after a while your legs and feet adjust, and you get used to carrying that big heavy pack on your back.

You may not believe this but eventually you forget it’s even there, to the point where when you take it off and start walking you fall flat on your face, because you’re so used to supporting it.

Hence my nose shape.

Elation nation

On their last legs

Fighting a Winning Battle

Yay!!! I did it!!! I finally slayed the Dragon of crossed ‘t’s and dotted ‘i’s!

I tell you what though, I was nearly thwarted by the Wicked Wizard of accented “o”s.

There I was, at the Polish Consulate, which, I might add, is starting to feel like my second home. They don’t even ask me my name at the security gate any more, they recognise me and let me in, and I nonchalantly dribble out “dziękuję ci, (thank you) in a perfect Polish accent, to which they rattle off something in Polish that I pretend I haven’t heard and don’t respond to.

So all was going to plan, a different friendly woman at the counter this time, who checked all my documents, including my new Australian passport with Woodville on it, and then she said, “oh, are you …..  or …….”? and she rattled off my surname in 2 different ways, once using a normal “o” vowel, and the other using the “ó” vowel. (I’ve refrained from including my full surname here because I’m wanted by the FBI, CIA, ASIO and by the ADJC. The Anti-Dad-Joke Coalition).

You see, my old Polish passport, which they had previously told me was absolutely worthless and may as well be used as toilet paper, (or as a bum scraper, given the rigidity of the pages) was now suddenly inexplicably important. My old expired Polish passport lists my surname using one “ó” letter, while my Australian one has a good ole Aussie “o” in it (well 2 in fact. No more clues for you CIA).

So then she said I needed to complete a Change of Name form to make everything match up. Oh for fuckety fuck’s sake, you’ve got to be kidding!! Now I’m really gonna use that rucksack bomb that NSW Rail let me bring down here.

And off she went to check with the Consul.

She returned with Friendly Woman #1, and they both proceeded to fiddle around on the computer for about 10 minutes, keying in my personal data in all sorts of random ways, using different vowels, different types of data, it was just like an episode of Polish Monty Python (Mónczdzy Pytón) gone absolutely fucking bonkers.

And then suddenly all the dark clouds parted, the angels appeared, and #2 said to me (in her very cute accent), “ok that’s all good now, here’s your receipt, you will have your new Polish passport by Christmas.”

What??! Am I hearing correctly?? Are you speaking English???

Yay!!! I couldn’t believe it! At last! After all this effort! It’s done!!

I was so ecstatically happy I jumped over the counter and kissed her on the lips. It was nice. She kissed me back. That was better.

The rest was in Polish, so you wouldn’t understand.

Unusually, I didn’t make that up.

Oh come on, of course I bloody did.

What really actually happened was that with a big smile on my face I left the consulate building, walked through the gardens to the front gate, and went to let myself out. The front gate was electronically locked. There was no security guard there now. I went back to the building to ask the woman to unlock it. She’d left the counter. There was no one there either.

Oh for fuck’s sake, I still have the fucking bomb you bigos dikosses!!!

I waited ten minutes, and, very luckily for her, Friendly Woman #2 eventually returned to the counter to electronically unlock the gate, just before I pushed the big red DSZ button (dszihad).

As I left I noticed that she had put fresh lipstick on.

Or did I imagine that as well?

Unlockdown

Sydney is pumping. There’s people everywhere. The metro’s packed, the streets are packed, the cafés are packed, everyone seems to have made a pact - a pact to no longer give Covid a second thought. Or a first one. It’s a mask-free socially undistanced cosmopolitan thriving crazy ant’s nest of activity and movement. I love it!!

Screening procedure

The Margherita had kicked in by this point

I love this city. Some places more than others. Newtown, Surry Hills, the Indian zone in Harris Park, Bronte and Coogee, Glebe and Annandale, the myriad art galleries in the city, Chippendale, Wombarra (which is a little south of the city).

And that’s just the start, there’s so many different zones to hone in to. Multicultural havens all over the place. Italians in Leichhardt, Viets in Cabramatta, Middle-Easterners in Bankstown, Chinese in Burwood Chatswood and Ryde. It delights me.

The street art around Newtown is inspiring, and prolific.

As is the poster posturing.

Such an inspired song title

Yeah, of course we need to defend nature, resist, and have a revolution. But not with AK47s, ya wankers.

I’ve been in this city a lot, meeting up with friends, checking out exhibitions and bands, feeding my ravenous multicultural appetite, and of course, engaging in a turbulent stream of consular activities.

Harris Park is jam-packed full of respectable riff raff from all over the Indian Subcontinent, which of course includes Indians, Pakistanis, Bengalis, Nepalis, Bhutanis and Sri Lankans. Covid made absolutely no difference whatsoever to its bustle.

I know that for a fact, because I was there during Covid, the restaurants were pumping, and I could see with my own eyes that the hand sanitiser definitely wasn’t.

Wigram Street feels just like India, there’s old school diners, sweets shops, Indian supermarkets, and you can hear Hindi, Urdu, Malayalam, Tamil and all sorts of other swearwords everywhere.

Wow! (It made me say that).

Every time I come to Sydney I’m totally inspired by the amazing art everywhere. There’s the Art Gallery of NSW, the MCA (Museum of Contemporary Art), the White Rabbit, Carriageworks, Brett Whiteley’s Studio, the Sydney Bienale all over the place, including at Cockatoo Island and Barangaroo, the hundreds of private galleries, and there’s loads of art in the streets.

The new Sydney Modern is opening soon too, a massive new gallery space right alongside the Art Gallery of NSW, a hugely significant addition to Sydney’s art scene.

Pop up Warhol of our Dear Leader Murderer Mao

Forgotten Manus refugee

Daniel Boyd’s Pirate Cook

Napoleon’s cavalry going hell-for-leather, raising cutlasses to cut arses

A Michelangelo sculpture of me fighting a tiger snake. As you can probably tell, it’s not realistic. I told Mike to reduce the size of my real muscles in the sculpture, to make it slightly more relatable to normal people.

Sydney Modern on the rise

Sidney Nolan figure come to life

Flower tower

This mural is of Adam Goodes, 2014 Australian of the Year and famous indigenous AFL footballer, community worker and anti-racism campaigner. In 2013, because of his response to a racist incident during a game (he pointed out a young female fan to security guards after she called him an “ape”, and she was ejected), he became the target of a sustained campaign by opposition fans.

Know what they did? Every time he touched the ball during a game they booed him. Every time, on and on, every game. Week after week. For two whole fucked up years! There was no strong sustained action taken by the AFL to stop it.

You can imagine what it was like for him, it wore him down, it caused him an incredible amount of stress. As did the media commentary. Some football commentators at the time even supported the crowd’s right to boo him, surprise surprise.

It eventually got so bad that he retired from the game altogether. He was one of the greatest players in the game at the time, and that’s how he ended up.

The whole sad affair was just another shameful episode in Australia’s ongoing litany of insidious racist events. Two docos have been made about it - The Final Quarter and The Australian Dream, and they’re both really good.

The Rich Get Richer, The Poor Get The Picture

Inequality is rife in Australia, and getting rifer by the minute. The richest 1% own more than the poorest 70%, and this repugnant ratio has been getting progressively worse for decades now.

You may be surprised to learn that Australia is one of the least equal countries in the developed world now, ranking 33rd out of all the 35 OECD countries for wealth equality. This country absolutely ain’t what it used to be, that bubble has well and truly burst.

There’s a helluva lot of money floating around Sydney, Australia’s richest city. Just look at the cars, the ritzy restaurants, the concrete and glass towers, resort apartments, the designer clothes.

And then there’s the poor. The homeless. Scraping around for a few coins that no one even has in their pockets anymore.

I actually don’t feel that great about taking photos of them, but I’m making a point.

There’s so many homeless in this country. It’s heartbreaking to see. But you’ll never guess how many there are, because most of them you don’t see. They’re living in their cars in a carpark somewhere, or sleeping under a bridge, or in a park in the suburbs, or in a shop alcove in the CBD, or along the railway lines or a dry riverbank in a small country town.

There are currently an estimated 278,000 homeless people in this country.

The Swiss Investment bank Credit Suisse recently named Australia as the richest country in the world, in terms of median wealth. The actual richest of any of them. And here, in the richest country in the whole fucking world, we allow over a quarter of a million of our fellow Australians to live without homes.

Indigenous people. Families with children. People with chronic mental health issues. Victims of abuse and domestic violence. People with devastating addiction issues. Teenagers. Kids that haven’t even reached their teens. Old people. People with chronic health issues. Normal everyday people who simply can’t afford rent, even though they’re working.

And at the very same time the very rich amongst us accumulate many many times more wealth than they’ll ever need in their own, or in any of their descendants’ lives.

Mahatma Gandhi once said that the true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members.

Well right now I feel very very ashamed to be an Australian.

This country has moved so far away from what it was when I was a young boy, from the caring, fair, compassionate and egalitarian society that I grew up in.

It used to be a country that welcomed and supported refugees from war-torn countries, provided social housing for the homeless and poor, paid adequate unemployment benefits and provided welfare services for those who couldn’t find work, provided free and adequate health and hospital services, and free university tuition for everyone. People could work, save enough to buy their own home, and have a little bit left. People could find a place to rent, and could afford it.

The only thing that’s changed since those days is that the mega wealthy now hoard a huge chunk of the money that’s required for all of those desperately needed services, it’s all in their massively oversized grotesque investment piggybanks, which fatten and multiply exponentially by the second.

And other wealthy (but not mega-wealthy) people have 5 or 10 or 20 investment properties that someone else is paying their mortgage on, and they keep buying more, so prices stay high, and our kids can never afford to buy just one of their own.

This is not the type of country I want Australia to be.

And I’m sure as hell gonna fight against it.

I actually understand where that AK47 idea comes from.

We’re Connected

Oh man!

How have I been so incredibly lucky to be friends with such amazingly cool interesting heart-felt deep beautiful people in my life? Or have them as family?What did I ever do to deserve to behold such precious treasures in the midst of my being?

I can’t even begin to tell you how privileged I feel to walk amongst such inspiring and warm cosmic sages.

And it’s such a gift to be able to catch up with some of these gems in Sydney.

I met April hot off the train, she was hot, I was off the train. We stayed at the mercurial Mercure, mercurial because of the wildly unpredictable nature of the customer service, which ranged from nonexistent to bootlicking.

April was here for a conference, we went Italian in Chippendale (Andiamo), and we both agreed that the home made gnocchi was the best we’d ever tasted in our whole lives.

And that’s saying something, as we’ve both hung out in Italy a fair bit, and have been knocked up with gnocchi quite a lot over the years.

April and I have known each other since I first moved to the Byron Shire in 2000, we’ve been close forever, have lived together twice (it was easy), our kids are friends, you know, we’re connected.

She’s the most amazing person. A renowned child actor (she played Annie in Annie Get Your Gun, and toured with the national theatre when she was a kid in South Africa), she’s spent her life and career in theatre, she’s an amazing actor and singer, brought up a beautiful daughter as a single mum, and has taught drama at our local Steiner school for many years. She gives so much to so many people, and is adored by everyone she knows.

It was so great to catch up with her finally, and get the chance to get into the nitty gritty of our current lives, loves, joys and troubles.

The tomato gnocchi was outstandingly unbelievably delicious. The mushroom variety was even better.

It was so great to hit Newtown the next day, all the more great to hit up Maddie, for her amazing vibrant generous company.

Maddie and I used to work together, hanging out with people with so-called disabilities. From the moment I saw her I knew she was at least 900 years old, I could tell that just by looking at her piercing eyes, and from her natural openness and ancient wisdoms, which would gush forth for hours during our shifts together.

She moved back to Sydney a year ago, and is studying psychology. One day she’s gonna make a huge difference to the mental health of many many people through her knowledge of the use of psilocybin and related substances to treat many forms of mental illness, anxiety and trauma. It works amazingly effectively.

I’ve placed myself on her list of future research experiment participants. I’m on the list at number 1 recurring.

Maddie and I always keep in touch, writing text-tomes about everything that’s going on in our lives, I admit I’m more guilty of tomeing than she is. It’s a really special and rare connection that I cherish, especially because she has such a weirdarse sense of humour, which when interspersed with her deep insights, is a very entertaining heart opening tasty mélange.

Here’s Maddie with one of our fave people:

We ate the most incredible vegan-but-you-absolutely-wouldn’t-know-it’s-vegan food at:

It's the best place ever, a graffitied den of rabid hippy vegans who look incredibly like normal people (considering they’re vegan). There were no dresses (except on men, or on other less-specifics), no dreadlocks, kaftans or muslin, but there were probably Muslims. I didn’t ask.

The vibe was pumping with friendliness and amazing Taco Tuesday delicacies. And it was cheap too (4 bucks a taco).

We sat outside and drank cocktails, and caught up on age’s worth of life in a few too-short hours.

That’s the thing about vagabonding.

You enjoy the very best of people, appreciate everything about them, revel in their amazing company for just a few moments, and then you piss off somewhere else. It’s beautiful and really sad at the exact same time.

Blind happiness. I suggested to Maddie that she keep her eyes closed and put on a pretend smile for the pic, due to the CIA ASIO thing, you know, with biometrics and facial recognition technology and all.

With my wit I could walk right into a job with a mob like this

Cooloola Great Walk

So, back to the Sunshine State.

A bunch of us were planning a week-long hike on the World Heritage-listed Fraser Island, which is a magnificent island off the coast of Hervey Bay. In fact it’s Queensland’s largest island, and happens to be the largest sand island in the whole wide world (www.wow).

We’d sorted out logistics and booked some campsites, but Qld National Parks closed the island shortly before we were due to go, didn’t they, so we were forced to go to the next best place, to the mainland across from Fraser, an area called the Great Sandy National Park. It turned out not to be the next best place at all, but just the best, it’s a magnificent and unique place in its own right.

The 100km hike is on the traditional lands of the Butchulla and Kabi Kabi people. It starts in a town called Rainbow Beach, and ends near Noosa Heads, the northernmost tip of the Sunshine Coast. It passes through the stunning upper Noosa river system, amazing stretches of dunes and sand blows, extensive subtropical rainforest, and perched lakes, which, you may be surprised to hear, don’t have any perch in them. They do have other fish though.

A perched lake is a lake that sits on very porous beach sand. Over time, the water pressure and chemical reactions cement the beach sand with various bits of decomposed organic matter, along with aluminium and iron, to create a relatively impermeable layer that forms a permanent lake, perched above sea level. It’s amazing.

But the real magic is swimming in it.

Blissed out Isa

Hey, where’d she go?

She must be drowning, but, ahhh, man, it’s so comfy here, ahh, well, I guess I’ve still got Phil and Miranda to hike with

Don’t ask, because I don’t know

The first part of the hike passed through extensive rainforest areas, many of the larger trees were in the process of being slowly strangled to death by strangler figs, a gruesome but naturally occurring process.

We hiked through a number of sand blows, which, surprisingly, are places where the sand blows. They’re basically huge moving open dune systems, the sand is mobile due to prevailing coastal winds, and over decades the whole open dunes move around, very slowly.

Blowing sand

This rock has been formed by organic matter fusing with sand. Other jealous sand then sand blasts it till it’s completely eroded away, back to sand. Boy, it’s a dog eat dog world. Tall poppy syndrome is so bad in Australia.

Sand forest. Really unusual.

Of course, it goes without saying, so I must say it, that it was really awesome to hike with Miranda, Isa and Phil again. We’ve done a lot of hiking together lately, it’s just so easy with those guys, they’re all such cool and interesting people, chilled with everything, we’ve all been good friends for ages, it’s super fun. I’m sure I’ll tell you more about those guys in some other volume of this burgeoning encyclopaedia.

Danger time. While it looks like these guys are dancing to weirdarse psychedelic music, it was all a front. At sunset every night I had to make myself scarce, while they turned into werewolves and wereshe-wolves, or werebitches, or whatever you call them.

So eventually we hit the coast again, and walked along the beach on our way to end the hike. Phil and Isa were feeling so motivated and track fit that they decided they weren’t ready to stop, and thought they’d walk all the way back to Mullumbimby along the coast.

After a few kilometres I ran after them and told them it might be a bit too far. They pretended they’d missed the track marker leading off the beach back into the bush, but I didn’t believe them.

There was such a great cameladerie between us and these guys

And so we hiked out, another magnificent week-long foray into another time zone, another cyber-free deadline-free big bite of nature.

A satisfying taste of what life can really be.

Final dance party

Phil playing hard to get

I knew he’d come round

At least their great has an exclamation mark.

It makes a big difference.

Ooooh, did you enjoy that darling? Yes!!! Thank you!!! It was so great!!!!

BrisVegas

When I used to hang out in Brissy in the 80s and 90s, the place was as boring as batshit. Actually, even more boring, because at least batshit really really stinks, so at least it invokes some sort of emotional reaction. Brisbane used to be so bland that when I went there I started to doubt whether I was actually alive at all, because I wouldn’t feel any sensations whatsoever for hours at a time.

There was really only one place to see live music in the city, the Story Bridge Hotel. There were no interesting eating or art zones, no riverside hangout spots, there was just the boring ole Queen St shopping mall.

In fact I think boring is pretty much the most generous adjective you can ever use to describe a shopping mall.

Well, since those nothing days the population of Brissy’s more than doubled, to nearly 2.5 million. The mining boom has brought in truckloads of money, and still is. Migration, particularly from Asia, has changed the face(s) of the population. There’s loads of places to see live music, eat, trip out on art. The riverside’s been utilised as a hangout zone, and for walking and bike tracks. It’s a vibrant new unblanded city now.

This sign’s really useful for me, I’ve been travelling so much lately I often forget where I am

Cycle path alongside GOMA (Gallery of Modern Art)

Pitiful Queensland Art Gallery (QAG) Le Louvre wannabe

Massive new Waterfront Brisbane development on the river, and very very tall pedestrian bridge. Gee, it looks so steep, I hope old people can get up and across.

Oh, I get it now

Brissy is the closest city of substance to the north coast of NSW (forget the City of the Cold Ghost I’m afraid - well most of it). So I go to Brissy a lot, to see gigs, exhibitions, and just because I can’t live without cities for too long, otherwise I start to fret and bite my nails and get itchy inside my brain.

But I’ve got even more incentive to go up there these days, because my daughter Lali’s moved there to go to Uni, and I love to go up and hang out with her, so we can chat about all sorts of things, go op shopping, and I can buy her dinners, drinks and groceries, just like the good ole days.

I miss being a hands-on dad.

My middle daughter Manu and I went up there the other day to visit Lali, and to shop as well. Luckily, I’m occasionally allowed to buy her things too.

Every 3 years QAG/GOMA put on an amazing exhibition of art works by Asian and Oceanic/Pacific artists, called the Asia Pacific Triennial (wow, what an APT name). It’s actually a cracker of an exhibition, I’ve been to all of them for the last couple of decades, it blows me away every time. It makes me actually feel something!

I must say all the exhibitions in GOMA regularly blow me away, they generally ding my bell way more than most of the stuff in the MCA in Sydney. I wonder if that’s just the taste of the curators compared to mine, or what?

Anyway I guess that’ll change when the Sydney Modern opens in early December. But there’s plenty of amazing contemporary art in the Art Gallery of NSW too.

Guess who?

Oh man, I know I know. But I’ve already bought my ticket.

Shiva’s guitar. He loves playing Gipsy Kings.

Same art piece, different angle

Cottee’s cordial, in fact

So, the old school famous people in that pic above are (top left, reading across): Jane Fonda, Al Pacino, Keanu Reeves,  Axl Rose, Jimi Hendrix, David Bowie. Just in case you didn't pick 'em all.

Great eating zones seem to spring up in Brissy more and more. There’s a big new zone right under the Story Bridge, on the Valley side, the Howard Smith Wharves. There’s Fortitude Valley itself, for gigs, clubs, and Asian food. There’s the James Street part of the Valley now, with loads of new places to eat, the markets, and the Palace Cinema. There’s New Farm for great cafés and the Powerhouse Museum.

And then there’s West End, jam packed full of great eating places, small live music venues, whisky bars, markets and op shops. And that’s all just a stone’s throw from the river, QPAC, QAG/GOMA and Southbank.

Manu at The Burrow

Lali at a gelateria

No offence, but I think the model should have spat out her gummy lolly teeth before she posed for this one

Frankie at the exact moment of his enlightenment

See the deep contentment in his eyes?

Wasting whisky

Don't ask again. I still don't know

Michelangelo

Michael is probably my oldest friend. We’ve been knocking around together since primary school, and he’s one of the most beautiful men I know, in many different ways. We’ve lived together in loads of different crazy shared houses, have travelled to South America together, hiked together, spent a lot of time exploring Oz together. It’s always super fun. Michael moved to Sydney when we were in our twenties, and I’ve stayed with him and his family over many years.

Michael studied acting, and has performed with various theatre companies over the years, has been in tv shows and the occasional movies, as well as in loads of ads. These days he teaches English at TAFE, and is cruising, and travelling a lot.

He now lives with his wife Christine in a beautiful place in Wombarra, south of Sydney, right below the magnificent Illawarra Escarpment. Christine’s an amazing woman, an Associate Professor of Midwifery, who’s doing some really cool and very crucial work helping midwives stay in the game (there’s so much pressure on them), and has worked with midwives in many developing countries over the years.

As usual I hung at Wombarra with them on this trip. Seeing them is like going home, they’re both the warmest most welcoming smart conscious people. Makin the world a better place. Active in the community. The most gracious hosts. I feel so grateful to have them as friends. And their place is so beautiful too.

The beautiful couple

It really does

Vaga Bondi

My beautiful motorcyclist friend Jean, whom I met in NW WA,  invited me to stay at his place in Bondi. It was so great to catch up again, now that we’ve both finished our circumnavigations, and are sorta back to home realms, albeit very temporarily for me.

He’s an amazingly wise man, he thinks about and understands a lot about human-ness, has travelled extensively, and is so beautifully hospitable. He wined and dined me, even 69ed me (with a bottle of red, circa 69) and the most amazing Italian liquer. He’s such a warm, gracious man.

On Yer Bike

Now that we’re all close and personal, I’ve gotta tell you about this weird thing that I discovered the other day.

After sleeping on a super thin little yoga mat for the past 3 months, my hips have actually grown thin layers of new callusey skin over their pointy bits, where the hips rub on the ground as I sleep (I sleep on my sides). They’re sorta like guitar finger calluses, but not so thick, and they protect my nerve endings so I don’t feel pain there so much.

That’s actually true.

Isn’t that amazing, in a kinda creepy reptilian sorta way?

I hope you still like me after knowing that really personal thing about me, and that I’m actually evolving into a new species of Homo sapiens sapiens, called Homo sapiens vagabondii.

Once I get back to the north coast from Sydney I’m planning on jumping on my bike and riding south for awhile.

I need to do a trip fully loaded up before I head over to Asia in a few weeks, so I don’t take too much crap over there that I don’t actually need, and so I can learn how to balance out my heavy load and my guitar so it feels comfy.

I’m also gonna continue my evolutionary revolution by attempting to grow a few extra layers of skin on my butt, for cushioning my poor sensitive bumcheeks from my hard new leather bike saddle.

As  beauty is only skin deep, I’ve realised that my best option these days is to thicken my skin.❤️