TASHY TRAVELS

Every Sunday, I am going to upload a post about the different countries I have visited and/or lived in since 2002.

I can assure you of some interesting stories.

AUSTRALIA 1 - PART ONE

With us, essentially, not getting anywhere quickly in Poland, it was decided we would make a 3-month visit to Australia as I had been saying I thought our project would work better in an English speaking country. We set off in early March 2003 and returned on 1 June 2003. The following is some of what happened. I should point out that I had wanted to go to Australia since the early nineteen sixties. Now I was there.

This first post is about our arrival and first few weeks in Bondi.

My first trip to Australia was eleven weeks long and based in Sydney with a four-week campervan journey up into Queensland.

We landed at Sydney airport. We had done a bit of research before leaving Poland and decided to stay, initially, in Bondi. We collected our luggage, left the terminal and found the correct bus. Oh boy, was it the correct bus! We climbed on board, ladies first, and my girlfriend asked the driver for two tickets to Campbell Parade, Bondi, and could he show us when we reached Noah’s backpackers. I had figured out that if Noah could build an ark, backpackers would be child’s play.

‘No problem’, said the driver, ‘how’s Poland? She just stood stock still and looked at him. Later she said she felt as if she must have had Poznan stamped across her forehead. ‘Never mind’, he said, ‘take a seat’. Now the travellers among you will know that when you have 12 week’s luggage, and one of you is not male, finding space on a normal commuter bus is not easy. Eventually, having smashed several shins (getting my own back for Lillie and Thomson), we found a seat.

No sooner had we sat down than the driver climbed out of his little seat, turned to face everyone, the bus still had about five minutes till departure, and announced that he had two passengers on the bus who had just finished a long haul flight so could everyone stand up and exercise as he didn’t want us getting deep vein thrombosis on his bus. And, believe it or not nearly everyone did. Once we sat down again the couple opposite us, who were normal commuters, it was about 5.30 in the afternoon, told us that they deliberately got this bus each day just because of the driver.

We set off. Then we all had to join in singing ‘the wheels on the bus’ with our friendly, though slightly freaky, driver. We stopped at a stop later, I think in Randwick. An old lady got on and asked for a ticket to somewhere, I don’t remember where. ‘Lucky you stopped me’, said our driver, ‘because that’s exactly where I’m going’.

Eventually we reached Mr Noah’s backpackers and our driver let us off. I don’t remember a parting comment, I was too busy getting my own back for Warne and McGrath, but I’m fairly certain there was one. Next day we realised my girlfriend had an old LOT airlines sticker on her suitcase, she travelled a lot (pun intended), and the driver, who for some reason I think was called Michael, had obviously seen this and put two and two together. We related this story a few times and were told that a few weeks earlier, the local broadcaster had made a short doco about this guy. As an introduction to Australia, things couldn’t have been much better.

Next morning, about 6 am, our little bodies still being in Europe, I had brought my bigger one to Australia, we got up and went down to the beach. And this is when my slight disappointment with Australia began. Bondi is nice, the weather was fantastic, the water was warm but it was only marginally better than some of my beloved Cornish beaches. My problem was that I didn’t really know what I had expected, just that this wasn’t quite it. I also suffered this later in the Pacific where somewhere I wanted to see the scene I had always imagined for Robinson Crusoe. I never found it.

We stayed with Mr Noah for two weeks, I thought it best as he did everything in twos, and then went travelling for a further four weeks. We returned to spend our final five weeks in Bondi. Over time I really grew to like it. It had life and a varied one at that. Each day you would see people power-walking along the front, some pushing pushchairs. One thing I noticed around Australia, but here on Bondi Beach in particular, was the different ages mixing together.

We met a guy, older than me, who came down each day and went out body boarding. He had retired from a manual job and this was, as he said, the best form of exercise. He generously lent us his body board during our first two weeks and tried to help us understand the intricacies of surfing. Of course there were the young, bleached blonde adonis-types but they fitted the place rather than patrolled it. Lifeguards were there, surf schools operated on the sand and, although no ball games were allowed, we managed a daily routine of throwing and catching a tennis ball without any complaints; after all it wasn’t a game just a form of exercise.

One afternoon, when we were in the water, the shark alarm went off. Life guards shepherded us out of the water and a brave guy went out, presumably looking for the shark, on a jet-ski. He was on the jet-ski, not the shark. The shark was in tight speedos and wearing a gold chain. The guy on his jet-ski criss-crossed the cove for ten minutes or so but then, even while he was still out there, people began to meander back into the water. Tough guys these Aussies.

There were, to be honest, an awful lot of Australians, not tourists, who seemed to spend time, each day, on the beach. Now I know the wonders of the internet, and the time difference, may mean these people were brokers waiting for the European or US markets to open, but I had my suspicions.

Bondi also has an open air swimming pool. Any such question starting with the word ‘why’ will be referred to a Bondi resident although I believe no sharks have ever entered the pool. The pool is part of the Icebergs club which is situated next to it, above the bay.

But I suppose my best experience in Bondi was the night we went to, I think, the Bondi Hotel for a night clubbing experience and I was not allowed to enter without proof of my age. The walk back to the backpackers to get my passport was the sweetest I have taken in many years. The fact that the woman on the door never looked at my date of birth when I returned will, in my mind, be an oversight on her part. Thank you Bondi for giving me back my youth, a tough job if I may say so.

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