Jason Wells

I had no idea how excellent yesterday would turn out. I walked into the lobby of the hostel only to see Michelle standing there! I think we were both so surprised to see each other we just stood there dumbly for seconds before we warmly embraced. It turns out she never got around to moving out of the hostel at all, and has lived there while I travelled Australia. She’s here for a year and has a good job right now, so she’s saving up to do some travel in a few months.

It turned out she and some friends were planning to go to Manly Beach just as I was, so I joined the group. It consisted of myself, Michelle, her close friend Priscilla, Gary (one of the Welsh guys from last night), Susan from Sweden, Sylvia from Holland, and Linda from England. The seven of us took the train to Circular Quay, then the ferry to Manly Beach. The ferry was a fiasco. We didn’t know when we would come back, so we ran around figuring out what to do — taxi? bus? jet cat? Once that was resolved, we had to convince the ticket machines to sell us tickets, which was made challenging due to their all being broken or defective. But we prevailed in the end, and took the ferry to Manly.

Candid shot of Michelle on the ferry to Manly.

Once at Manly the group consensus was to eat lunch. We found a seafood cafe on the esplanade that looked good. We crowded into the back of the tiny place, rearranging the furniture and generally taking over the place. It was a BYO establishment so Gary and Michelle ran to a bottle shop and bought a box of wine. It sounds trashy, but the wine was surprisingly smooth. Very surprising for a wine that cost A$12 for four liters. Cheapest wine I’ve ever drank, to my knowledge. But it wasn’t bad.

We polished off the entire box right there. The restaurant owners took a liking to us. They took pictures of us with our cameras and are even in a few shots themselves. Oddly there were a few stuffed animals behind our heads and they had a bit of fun randomly ‘attacking’ us with a cuddly plush koala or tiger cub. One of the owners, a Croatian as it turns out, had this conversation with me:

Croatian: ”From where?”
Me: ”Huh?”
Croatian: ”From where?”
Me: ”Oh. United States.”
Croatian: ”Ahhh. Kleen-ton! Kleen-ton!”

Then someone came up and gave us astrological readings – he asked our birthdays, and would tell us one lucky number and our qualities and fortunes, as well as our Chinese zodiac signs. For me, my sign is the tiger, my lucky number is 5, and told me I was intelligent, aggressive, and dominant, that I would be successful and a “leader of men.” (I don’t believe in this stuff, but it is odd how consistent these ‘readings’ are between the Chinese zodiac, traditional astrology, and even Myers-Briggs.)

We finally left the place when the wine box was empty. I saw jealousy of our little restaurant party in the eyes of the other customers. Prescilla was pretty wobbly from all that wine, but all in all we managed well with four liters of wine in seven people. It was decided that we’d get another box of the same wine to take with us to the beach. I wasn’t sure if this was legal but the risk seemed minimal in light of the large jazz crowd. We found a chunk of relatively unpopulated beach and sat down on our towels, forming a circle in the sand.

Getting lit on the beach.

We talked and drank and laughed. We polised off another box of wine as we talked about religion, sex, and European politics. It started to get a little racy as the afternoon became evening. Susan posited that blowjobs were more intimate than regular (vaginal) sex. The talked turned to fetish clubs. Then Michelle told me that she and Prescilla had navel rings, and I asked if I could see. They both wore one-piece sundresses, and suddenly, there were two girls standing in front of me, holding their skirts up to their elbows. I inspected approvingly. Sylvia was sitting next to me on my towel, and we were getting very friendly after all this wine. She’s a cute blonde whose command of English is less than perfect — fast talkers like Michelle would run her right out of the conversation. Speaking little, she melted to my touch. Who needs to talk? We were busy.

After a while that box of wine was emptied and another was purchased. This was getting out of hand; it was like if some UN cultural delegation was getting lit at the beach. Sylvia and Michelle decided to go for a swim in their street clothes. Out here, it’s dry enough to make that not completely insane, but at this point it was dark and windy, and when Michelle finally dragged Sylvia back to land, she was really cold. I wrapped my towel around her and held her tight. Her teeth were chattering and I began to wonder if she was courting hypothermia. The girls took her to the bathroom and helped her change into a dry sarong. This helped her a little but not enough. (Michelle wasn’t cold at all. She’s very tough.) So we decided to head back to the hostel. It wasn’t yet 10pm.

I helped Sylvia stagger to the Manly Beach ferry terminal. She could barely walk at all. I was hardly sober myself, to put it mildly, but I suppose she’s lucky that fools are protected by more capable fools. She needlessly apologized over and over, and I said soothing things.

When we got to the terminal Michelle and I realized we didn’t have Sylvia’s ticket! Panicking, we searched all over before Michelle found it in Sylvia’s soggy shorts. I guided Sylvia through the terminal while Michelle cleared the way. It was very coordinated. Interesting skills these girls from Ireland pick up.

After the ferry we took taxis back to King’s Cross. I was beginning to feel relieved. Sylvia’s presence had become an anxious burden, especially on the ferry. I put her in a seat on the ferry very close to the toilet in case she vomited. I held her hand while she babbled to me. She was unbelievably drunk, incomparably drunk. I hadn’t seen this kind of thing since college. Eventually we got her up to bed. At this point things became enigmatic. I gave her a kiss goodnight but she gripped my hand. We kissed passionately and deeply, and I assumed she wanted sex. But not far into it she whispers to me, “I have a boyfriend in Holland.” She was conflicted, but I wasn’t. I kissed her goodnight and left.

All this, and it wasn’t yet 11pm. We had planned to reconnect on the roof so I headed there. A few guys were smoking joints up there, just like last time. The way people do it here is different. Back in the States, it’s like some kind of ritual; pull out a big hookah with a fresh bowl, partake, and pass to the left. Here, it’s just like a cigarette; bum one off someone, then smoke it yourself. They tend to be ‘magic cigarettes’, part cannabis, part tobacco. The quality isn’t high.

Michelle was roaring ready to go back to O’Malleys, the Irish pub of choice in King’s Cross. Nothing noteworthy occurred there, with one exception: I dropped a nearly full schooner of VB onto the floor. I vividly recall watching it slip from my grasp, fall perfectly straight to the floor, and explode into a broth of beer and broken glass. It was very graceful.

So I got bored, and Michelle had wandered off, and I went back to the hostel and slept. I woke up this morning, checked out, and wrote a letter to Michelle. I didn’t think I would see her again before I flew home, and she told me she wants to visit me in Oregon, so I left my address and email. And again she surprised me. When I came back from breakfast, the guy behind the counter had a letter from her, replying to mine. She had never come home last night, and came back around 10am this morning, right while I was out. The guy gave me a key to her room so I could say goodbye. One of the coolest things a reception clerk has ever done for me.

I went up to her room, and only Susan was awake. She was really surprised to see me barge in! I found Michelle sleeping and I woke her up. She told me of her later adventures that night. After she realized I was gone, she went to a party with some guys she met at the pub. She can’t recall exactly what happened at the party, though she did remember losing a game of strip poker. When she ran out of clothes and lost again, they made her stand out on the balcony in the rain, a kind of natural shower she said she actually liked. But she claims to remember little else. Not surprising; she’d been drinking consecutively for nearly 20 hours. I suspect much more happened at the party. Maybe she remembers it, maybe not. It crossed my mind that she might be lucky to be back at the hostel. All that aside, we hugged and kissed goodbye, and she promised to visit me. I said goodbye to Susan too. I hadn’t really connected with her, but I kind of liked her anyway.

And that’s the way it was. I’ve boarded the 747 and soon will be on my way to LA, and later, home. The Australian journey is over. It’s been a phenomenal experience, I will never forget all the people I’ve met and places I’ve been and things I’ve done. It seems incredible, all the things that happened in just one month. Australia is an enormous, beautiful place, and for me it will always have a flavor of adventure, natural beauty, serious partying and beautiful girls. What a fantastic trip.

Yesterday was relatively uneventful, except near the end. (Seems like a pattern out here: mild day, wild night.) I had a few hours to kill in the morning before I had to fly to Sydney. I went to the Pier, a kind of upscape mall, and looked around. I found an Aboriginal art gallery and spent hald an hour evaluating the art. Later I bought a new earring. I got a cup of coffee and sat out on the deck and, with paper and pen, experimented with the abstract Aboriginal artistic style. I did it mostly just to get the feel; it’s respectably difficult to do well. As the time passed I took the bus to the Cairns airport and flew to Sydney.

When I arrived in Sydney around 5:30pm it was pouring rain. Fortunately it ended once I made it to the hostel. I decided to stay at Backpackers HQ again. Call it brand recognition; well, at least I knew what to expect. One thing I didn’t expect were all the familiar faces; I assumed backpackers were constantly on the move, but not so. I dropped my stuff off in my room and met two guys from Britain (one from Wales, on from England). It turned out tonight a major rugby game between Wales and Argentina was on. We congregated at the deck on the roof of the hostel, joining a few others. The Welsh were out in force, and once they learned I was part Welsh, they liked me. The plan was to head to O’Malley’s to watch the game after a few beers on the roof. One of the Welsh guys brought his nation’s flag, he held it up as we walked to the pub, shouting “WALES!!!” on and off.

But O’Malley’s was too full, packed like a Japanese subway. After an hour we went to a hotel bar that was almost empty but had a room with a projection TV. It was pretty wild there! The TV room was full of Welsh rugby fans, decked out in nationalist threads. Most of the guys wore the scarlet Welsh rugby shirt. One of the girls actually had a Welsh flag dress on. I had thought Americans were this mental about flags. When Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales yet lacking any Welsh blood, opened the game, the Welsh in the room nearly got violent. Then the Welsh national anthem was performed and they all linked arms and sang. They drank and screamed and yelled and laughed. It was amazing. They taught me the rugby rules while we watched. (Lots of arguments there.) One of the Welsh guys gave me 2:1 for Argentina, just because he was so pro-Wales I guess. (Or maybe he was just smart. I lost.)

Wales won the game to much jubilation. Us non-Welsh mostly hung back in the hallway and talked. I met two girls from New Zealand, the talkative one was Zona. I didn’t get the name of the quiet one, but Zona said she was the Queen of New Zealand. To respect the honorable Kiwi royal tradition I bent down on one knee and gallantly kissed her hand. Sadly, they both took off before the game ended, but Zona and I got pretty friendly while we were briefly in contact. Later, a tall, lanky English guy named Andy began talking to me. As he progressively got ever more hammered, he decided I would be a good outlet for his general dislike of America. At first this annoyed me — am I responsible for every idiotic thing that Americans do? — but soon I began to egg him on and it got to be fun. He thought it was terrible that sports teams in America move from city to city every once in a while, and so I told him about St. Louis (first the Cardinals leave, then the Rams come), and told him it was all about money and no one really cared. He got really upset, and tried to convince me to do something about it! That killed me. As far as I’m concerned the more cheap and meaningless professional sports are, the better. Why would I fight that? Better to encourage it.

Around 2am I headed back to the hostel. I took all the precautions this time so I have no hangover. But I did wake up too late to be able to do the Blue Mountains. Happily there are alternatives. It’s a gorgeous, sunny day, and there’s a jazz festival at Manly Beach right now, so my day is set. A great way to close my last full day in Australia.

O fateful day! The first Y2K glitch — “9999″ — seems not to have seriously impacted Sydney’s function. Even email is working fine, as I discovered earlier this morning. Disappointing news for the survivalists. Breakfast had its comic element also; I saw a Japanese man taking a picture of a syrup packet. There’s something memorable. Oh yes, I saw a hooker in her 40s, smoking a cigarette and wearing hotpants. Lucky I’d eaten breakfast well beforehand.

I have checked out of this hostel, which I had to do before 10, or I’d have to pay for another day. But I’m not leaving for Brisbane until this evening — the bus departs late, and I plan to sleep on it. So I have plenty of time to kill. Not much exciting action to report; I’m sitting on the roof, basking in the sun while my clothes launder themselves. Later on I’ll head over to a nearby travel office to book the bus ticket. The ride is 16-17 hours, so I should be getting into Brisbane midmorning tomorrow. Perhaps I’ll go to a beach later?

I said goodbye to Michelle today. She has to work today, she’s found a job as a waitress at some secretive little club that has no name, for which members pay a large annual fee to join. She wants to rent a house on Bondi Beach, and she offered to let me crash at her future pad when I return to Sydney to catch my return flight home. We’ll see. She’s a little hard to read. I think she’s a lot more observant and cunning than she acts, and her decisions reflect a complex moral terrain. She’s this huge party animal, drinks like I’ll never be able to (or want to), and her flirting is, well, really beyond flirting; but she borrowed money from me late one night to call her mom, like a little girl far away from home. She’s simultaneously savage and tender.

Some random observations, in no particular order: Indonesians are burning Australian flags, due to the proposed Australian-led peacekeeping force in East Timor. Wonderful to see the Aussies learn a few Yank traditions… I hope the voters pass the referendum to convert Australia to a republic. I sense great potential here… but it probably won’t be realized while Australia’s on the British pap. American movies here are old. Why does it take so long? Certainly it’s intentional.

It’s a little tough to say goodbye to Sydney, I’ve had a lot of good times here, been to some nice places and met a few cool people. It’s a great city. But I’ll be back.

I got off the ferry once more, this time at Darling Harbor, much closer to downtown. It dumped us off right in front of the Sydney Aquarium, so I went in for a look. It was your typical aquarium at first, lots of little tanks full of various fish, though naturally ones native to Australian environments. But then I found the Oceanarium, which is much more impressive. You walk through a clear plastic hallway with an barrel vault ceiling– essentially a clear tube — over which an enormous tank has been built. Sharks and manta rays glide above your head as fish school past you. It was superb. The Aquarium also contained samples of living coral reefs, and it is so colorful and alien I’m dying to see this in person. Only a little while longer, farther north…

Schools of fish and a few sharks inhabit the Oceanarium of the Sydney Aquarium.

I now plan to depart Sydney tomorrow morning, heading for Brisbane. I’d like to go by bus if it’s practical, because I think I’ll get a better sense of scale than I would in an airplane. Still need to figure out the details. I love this absolute freedom I have, ephemeral though it is.

I am being entertained well. I took the train to the Circular Quay (pronounced “key”), the place downtown from which the harbor ferries depart. The ferries are an excellent way to explore the larger area because they make regular stops at many places all over the Sydney harbor. I got off at Watsons Bay. It didn’t seem that interesting at first, and I really got off just to get off the ferry more than any other reason. But I’m glad I did now. It’s one place where you can easily get from inside the harbor to the ocean shore on foot; it’s a quick climb up a hill to the cliffs facing the ocean. I walked up to the highest point on this hillside, called “The Gap”, which parenthetically happens to be the favorite suicide spot of Sydney. The cliffs facing the ocean are high.

The Pacific Ocean crashing into the cliffs of the Gap.

The ocean smashes into the cliffs dramatically. Turning around, I get a grand view of the distant Sydney skyline. The path to this point was built over large rock formations. I noticed weird chunks of asphalt and concrete as I climbed up. Then I found a sign that explained why. The Gap used to be part of a military base that was decommissioned in 1981. When it was decommissioned, things too expensive or too pointless to move, such as building foundations, small bunkers, and parking lots, were left behind. Domesticated plants in gardens became wild. I found old rusty chunks of artillery and random unidentifiable metals. It was really strange, it felt like I had discovered ruins of a lost civilization, like walking amidst the Parthenon. It had a strangely mystical quality. An old gun turret looked more like a small amphitheater with a central altar. Two foot tall walls with embedded iron rings were to be found in odd places. I took many pictures, but I fear they won’t convey the magic.

The Sydney skyline as seen from Watsons Bay.

I’ve found a nice seafood restaurant overlooking Watsons Bay to eat lunch. The view of the Sydney skyline from here is excellent and the scallops are tasty. An elderly couple not far from me is drinking beer with their lunch. The ferry is due to pickup in about 45 minutes. I’m very glad I stopped here. I almost decided to skip it! I had a little chat with the waitress, who recommended that I visit Dunk Island, north of the Whitsunday Islands. I chatted also with a few fishermen who fish off the wharf. People are amazingly friendly here. But they can sometimes have problems with my incomprehensible American accent.