Australia Again

​AUSTRALIA AGAIN:

 

Australia – land of abundant weirdness. I love its wildlife; its forests are a bit dry and dusty though. 500 hundred varieties of gum tree is probably about 490 too many. Something other than gums and wattles would be good. Very unexpectedly, I love Aussie humour. So gritty you could lay a road with it. Even respectable middle aged ladies swear. Australia is unpretentious.

Kangaroos. So bizarre I’m going to mention them again. Giant bouncing pear-shaped mice with either three vaginas or two penises. The genitals bit is true. I wouldn’t make it up. Go look on the internet.
Sydney.

There is something gloriously casual about Australia that I love. Every day feels likes it’s a Bank Holiday Monday. A sunny one.
I am sitting outside the airport slowly waking up and waiting for inspiration to strike:

To Canada, England or What exactly?

My dad’s well-being is an issue, so is money and whether going to Victoria Canada is worth doing.
As soon as I got off the plane I have had this uncomfortable feeling of having no idea what to do next. In lieu of anything, I go and sit by the nearby river and crash out, wake up, twang guitar. Marvel at the crazy parrot things and eat two oysters straight out the river.

I am still clueless, I figure I need to pro-activate, so up I jump onto a bus into the city to find out about fares to Canada. On the way to the city centre I talk to a Brahma Kumaris aid worker who has just come back from Rajastan.
I consider wistfully the pros and cons of being somewhat rootless and maybe wanting to be in love… (again)
She’s interesting. Then having got out at the wrong end of George St in the centre of town, I make my way back up the hill to find the shop I’m looking for and on the way I meet a young English woman. We go do our things then meet up and chat in the park all afternoon. She’s so good to talk to: she’s the best conversation I’ve had in ages. We book into hostels and meet up again later, this time with her mate Dave. Very good evening. 
The next day I wake up thinking that I still don’t know what to do. I could stay in Sydney, try to find a job and hang out with Sandy and Dave. This immediately struck me as a highly amusing financial self-destruct event.

I change my ticket and decide to go back to Blighty. I am now reconciled with the little voice in my head that’s been telling me to go see my dad and Helen and her new baby daughter.
I plan to hitch-hike back from Sydney to Darwin. It’s a long way but I am up for it.

The next day I feel weird. In a bad way. After a ride to a truck stop in a dry arid place in the middle of nowhere, I find myself doing the old human Catherine wheel trick; everything coming out of me, both ends at once. I really shouldn’t have had those oysters out of the river.

I change my plan again. Actually I can’t be arsed over-landing it all the way to Darwin. I manage to get to Brisbane, in a mood of cutting my loses, and fly from there to Darwin.
In Darwin, Froghopper’s Hostel:

I spend the night surrounded by people partying. I turn down an offer to sit by the pool and end up being on my own. I’m crap at parties.

I usually have some sort of excuse; like not having anywhere to put my gear, being down, too far from town, afraid of meeting a woman and getting tied to the place, not even being legal in the country to be able to settle with the woman I’d meet in the disco. Hows that for thinking my way out of a situation?

I’m fearful of anything ‘complicated’. I come up with all these ‘reasons’, but really, despite everything else I do, I just feel scared. I think there is something about the perpetual motion of my life that makes me unwilling to connect in an emotionally risky way. Bit of a vicious circle really.
I feel like I need to consider things that are going to open my heart and settle into following a ‘real’ flow of things that actually feel like they are doing me some good. I need to not just be following a random series of disconnected compensatory activities as dictated to me by my over-active head. I need to feel more and move with my heart rather than just a ‘To do before I die’ list.
What I need is an environment well tested. It feels like I’ve spent most of the last two years breathing in what’s around me when now I just need to breathe out. Perhaps I don’t need to fear re-connection with Helen B. I never really managed dis-connection fully anyway, even though I’ve tried.

Connecting with Helen in the past has never prevented me from being able to go off again at some point anyway, even if I have often felt stuck there at her place.
Darwin Airport.

Mentally I’m in Norwich.

Life is like taking a ride on a Welsh bus. The journey takes loads longer than I thought it would. I go up loads of hills and up cul-de-sacs for no apparent reason. Sometimes it’ll piss me off but essentially it has a certain kind of beauty even if it’s raining and I can’t see out the windows.
I am sick of wearing stinky boots. I walk barefoot around the airport, hoping my nuclear foot fug will dissipate quickly before anyone spots where it’s emanating from. After a prudent amount of not standing near anyone, I ask if my naked feet will pose any cultural problems on a plane bound for a Muslim country. I am told that footwear is required on all planes. I am therefore directed to a woman in an office who sells me ’emergency jandals’ for five bucks.
Customs pick up potential bomb stuff on their clever machine. Probably my highly explosive anthrax-ridden socks.