Australia - part three...

I turned off the road, away from the city, down corrugated gravel tracks, in that last thick light of the setting sun, to look for somewhere to sleep. And there was nowhere. On each side barbed wire fences. Beat-up signs. Battered gates. No Trespassing. And farmland as far as I could see. A quarry then; the still clunking, metallic sounds of work, and the feeling of wanting to stop. And collapse. And wake up in the clean, crisp sheets of home and forget about all this moving everyday.

With each hill crest came the same repeated scene, and it seemed quite certain now there would be no place to sleep. In the clear, cold sky, as the sun pulled colour from the earth, stars began to show. And the sound came first, before that hazy flat horizon, of the crashing, roaring sea. My legs span with the new hope.

From cliffs I watched the whites of waves in the dark, blue night, and, though there was no place amongst the rocks to pitch a tent, rolled out a sleeping bag with that strange spinning sense of being upside down I always get when I look up at the stars, and the feeling of needing to cling on to something in my tired and happy joy.

When I awoke it was to be gazing up at the still dark sky, with the long thin blades of grass reaching high above my head, as though they had grown through me as I'd slept. First through the blurry, unfocused lens of sleep, and then with a perfect clarity, I watched as the sun's first rays caught the dancing, yellow blades, but seemed to illuminate nothing else, and for that moment I wasn't me.

Touching the outside of my sleeping bag, I remembered an Aboriginal story, about the sun and about the moon. It tells how the sun, with her cruel heat, sucks life from the earth and leaves a barren drought. And how the moon, in his kindness, brings life-sustaining dew and the restful cool of night. Aboriginals say that the sun and moon spend one, solitary night together, but that the sun is so harsh and unforgiving a lover that it takes the moon a whole month to recover! The moon is back, I thought, feeling that, although it hadn't rained, the sleeping bag was soaked with dew. And cold with that restful cool of night. I packed it wet, left the sea behind, and continued east towards Melbourne.





Thunderstorms had broken that first perfect day, of blue and yellow and green, along the Great Ocean Road, where I had stood with the hordes of Chinese tourists, taking photos of the Twelve Apostles, standing in the slowly sculpting sea. Like artists' models. But models, imperfect, to whom the chisel itself is taken. Bodies forever chipped away at, with unsatisfied, tiny blows, until, finally growing too close to their maker, destroyed, they become him, and swim beneath his skin.

There was the clambering through trees then, wet with the constant rain, and up the steep muddy slopes, carrying a bike and soaking panniers, feet slipping and falling in the swamp-like ground, to pitch a tent out of the sight of the wet, autumnal road. There was the rain, tapping on the tent all night, which sounds sometimes like the cracking and popping of a fire, and warms the cold, dark night. And then there was the decision, after three more days of rain, after everything was wet, to finally pay for a campsite.

After that were the three weeks of Australia getting better - meeting the Davies and being welcomed into their home, and the kindnesses of their friends across Victoria and New South Wales. Staying with Barbara in Mooroopna and the Le Fevres in Albury. Meeting Briony, Brett and their friends - eating Chinese dumplings and looking down from Mel's flat at the shining Melbourne night. Meeting Derek and Anne, near Mount Kozciuszko, and staying with Garrick and Geri in Canberra. Remembering the kindness of everyone in Tantanoola, and my time with Matt and Tweedy in Manly.

Camping in forests, south of Sydney, with the city lights staining the underside of a huge cloud overhead and planes soaring in and out of the yellow, buzzing haze, I sat thinking about what an amazing few weeks it had been. About how easy people had made this journey for me - and about how each of them had become part of my adventure.

Looking north I was reminded of the night we had camped on the outskirts of Ulaan Bataar; Jan, Arnaud, Emilie and myself. Nothing there had blocking the city's lights, with the mountains and desert nothing all around, and Arnaud saying, "Well, from here it looks like a very beautiful city."

From here, I thought, Sydney looks like a fire.