Once Were Warriors

Having been to the far south of New Zealand I thought it only fair to make my way to the far north as well. Unlike the South Island, which was sparsely inhabited by Maori, this has always been the Maori heartland. To this day the region is home to the highest Maori concentration in the country and is an essential stop for anyone wishing to try and understand the two sides to New Zealand. I find it useful, when thinking of New Zealand, to compare it to Australia. Of course they vary markedly in size and geography, but their recent histories share many similarities that do make such comparisons meaningful. Both were inhabited by indigenous populations that were isolated from the rest of the world until their contact with Europeans in the 18th century (not 100% true for the Aborigines of the Top End who traded with the Makassarese, but good enough as a generalisation); became British colonies; indigenous people were greatly dispossessed by the colonists; gained independence in the early 20th century; economies are mainly based around primary resources (mineral for Australia, agricultural for New Zealand). Yet despite these similarities there are glaring differences between the two, most notably with regards to their indigenous peoples.

Australian and New Zealand road signs share a common design, but instead of kangaroos you have kiwis, and instead of wide, flat, limitless expanses you have volcanoes.

Albatross

Melbourne was the end of the line for me as far as my Australian adventures were concerned. Nevertheless I still had a crucial job to do: sell the car. Having never owned a car I had assumed that this would simply involve placing an add online or in a hostel and then just sit and wait for the deluge of offers. Sadly it wasn't to be. Posting the ads proved to be quite straightforward. Online was naturally easy and took just a matter of minutes whereas with the hostels I had to print out flyers and individually put them up in each hostel.

Although I had been to Melbourne before and my car shenanigans, I still took the time to do a little sightseeing, such as visiting the Royal Exhibition Hall, the only extant world exhibition building from the 19th century.

Belum

I was now in the southeast of Australia, a part of the country I had already visited before, and I was alone. So what was I going to do? The answer was simple: party! Well, not quite. Over my years travelling and living in London (which is the 12th largest Australian city by population) I've accumulated a fair number of Australian friends whom I rarely get to see due to the obvious insurmountable distances. My little sojourn in the southeast would hopefully redress that, as the urban strip stretching from Newcastle to Melbourne is home to around two thirds of the country's population so pure probabilities meant that I would be able to see most of them.

A cliched photo of the Sydney opera house and CBD taken from the iconic harbour bridge.

Old And New, And Maybe True Blue

With my brother gone my father and I could revert to sleeping in the back of the car. We had a week to get down to Sydney for my father's departure and so we decided to forgo the well-worn coastal route through the beach resorts of Surfers Paradise and the Gold Coast, and instead we headed inland over to the dividing range before heading south into a part of New south Wales known as New England. The gently rolling green hills, quaint, tidy towns, and burbling streams, so uncharacteristic of the archetypal image of the vast Australian outback, dry, inhospitable, and probably out to get you.

The vast, untamed expanse of the Great Dividing Range at Gibraltar national park.

Coasting For A While

From the outback we had to quickly reach the coast as my entourage was about to expand substantially once again. My brother had also decided to come out and join us and we were to meet at the northern coastal town of Townsville (an odd, tautological name if you think about it). About 100km before reaching our destination we picked up a hitchhiker and since the roles are usually reversed I took the rare opportunity to do a good deed and help out another traveller. He turned out to be from Romania (although he initially said Transylvania as more people are familiar with that name thanks to Bram Stoker). As we progressed through our initial introductions it turned out that not only was he Romanian, but he had spent the past year in Indonesia studying Bahasa and was a good friend of Horia's. On top of that he actually knew who I was and had seen my blog before (and could even remember its ridiculous name). It seems that the world truly is getting smaller.

Iulius chilling with us at a national park. He's currently travelling throughout Oceania on his own little anthropological project to study indigenous and colonial cultures and their interactions (he had some great stories about his travels in Papua New Guinea). You can see his progress on his website, Southern Cross Badge.

Riding With The Stockmen

It was of course nice to see my father again after a year and a half and it would be good to spend "quality time" with him. However I would, by necessity, have to change my way of travelling to accommodate him somewhat, as it would be hard to expect someone in their late 60's to hitchhike and sleep rough, which would have been my first resort if left to my own devices, out of necessity if nothing else (Australia was already expensive seven years ago when I was first here, but since then the Aussie dollar has appreciated in value by about 40%, whilst prices have simultaneously gone up too, on the back of a gigantic natural resources boom, so that a simple overnight bus trip now costs more than my entire monthly budget in most Asian countries). The first thing that needed to be decided was transport: how are we going to get about this not insignificant country. Since flying was out of the question some sort of vehicle was in order. We weighed the pros and cons of renting and buying and decided upon buying our own vehicle, judging it might work out a little cheaper and, more importantly, give us more freedom and flexibility. It is a dream of many to buy a van, to be fully self-sufficient, and head off into the wild blue yonder. The reality though was that most of the vans for travellers on sale were either wildly overpriced or in such poor mechanical condition that arrival at our intended destination was akin to a spin of Russian roulette. So after discarding the poor pickings of Darwin's van offerings we expanded our search to estate cars (station wagons) in which it would be possible, at a pinch, to sleep in the back. Here the selection was far greater and of better value as it was aimed towards a more discerning, local market, rather than gullible backpackers. And within a day we had found ourselves a 2001, 4 litre Ford Falcon (a decidedly Aussie model not found anywhere else) that had been converted to run on LPG (thereby hopefully reducing our upcoming running costs).

With our trusty car, just before setting off, that, in flagrant contravention of Aussie backpacker tradition, we have neither painted with flowers nor given a name to.

From The Beginning

I enjoy travelling greatly. Expanding my horizons, meeting new people and learning about new cultures keep me interested and on my toes. The itinerant life is not for everyone though. Living out of a backpack can be tiring, though for most people it is the lack of permanence, stability and long-term human relationships, be they friends, family, colleagues or a partner, that play mostly on the mind. Man is indeed a social animal. These aspects do not weigh so heavily on me (whether that is a social strength or weakness is up for debate); but relationships are reciprocal affairs, and however much I may be callously OK without my nearest and dearest the opposite is not always true. And so my father decided (rather spontaneously for him) to come out and travel with me whilst I'm here in Australia.

Looking out across the Kakadu forest from the top of the Arnhem escarpment at Gunlom Falls.