Make Yourself A Dang Quesadilla

Late to rise and to the city. There's a busker - Mary Paige - performing outside the Westin Hotel but first I go to Lord of the Fries. Everyone queues there at the shop on the corner of Elizabeth and Flinders so why not me? I go for a mini spicy burger with a box of Aussie chips and walk through the little alleys, filled with lunching office workers, towards the open square.

I set up my picnic - thongs off, big waterbottle, mobile. Fairly spartan but thoroughly enjoyable. She's midway through Across the Universe and when she's done no one claps save me. Soon we strike up an umbilical relationship - she plays and I appreciate.

She has to go in a while, but she grabs a gelato and accompanies me through the rest of my lunch. Melbourne is a city where 20-somethings have no home, no job, but lots of love in and for their lives. If only we could all have a semblance of that.



Next stop, Cole's, to shop for tonight's picnic, and then to Liberated. I'm cycling and it's so easy to in Melbourne, compared to the nightmare it is in Singapore. A bike and a helmet will bring you everywhere. ND at Moonlight Cinema with Marty so I dress up like a geek to suit the theme. There's cheese and crackers and nectarines and chai while laughing ourselves shitty in the middle of the freezing city. Dharma, where are you?

How NOT To Take The Trams

Wake up with Marty feeling so in love. But it is only a lot like love. I prepare to go again and leave for the city on the way to Daniel's and Stefan's place. Taking the tram 8 there is like taking the Magic Tram. Everyone is speaking to each other and it is as if we might break into song just like in Bjork's It's Oh So Quiet. Go in, say hi, go on to Fitzroy. I walk into Hares and Hyenas for some shopping, get accosted by some creep in 7-11 and then buy dinner and go home. Dinner in the house with Stefan and some light reading. Play is at 8pm and I am late so I grab the tram without paying. It's only necessary here.



When you get on the trams, you should preferably already have a Zone 1, two hour ticket from the newsagent or the cornershop. Now most people prolly validate their ticket for a fuss-free, moral existence. What you should NOT do is to just sit near the validator with the ticket in your pocket. Do NOT get a good seat that looks out onto the tram stops so you can tell when the brightly-donned ticket inspectors are about to board the tram. Definitely do NOT validate your ticket immediately if and when the ticket inspectors get on the tram. Thats all a nice law-abiding traveller's got to do.

Be A Hole!

Why does anyone even take Greyhound buses at all? They're uncomfortable and unfriendly and expensive. Canberrans, thats who. It's the hole that is the city and the bad feelings that come with anything associated to it.

The Biggest

Two years later and I'm still not over R and all the sick feelings that come with him and maybe I'll never be over R but thats a little okay now because it's been so long ago and I can prolly live with it.

Veg Out

When I treated Sarah to a vegetarian breakfast at Tilly's, I didnt realise it was gonna have so much effect on the rest of the day. Back home, Sarah goes out for errands and I stay behind saying I'll leave in a while. I end up staying in the whole afternoon watching dvd's and pigging out on Sarah's couch. Well, at least the day is redeemed by going to the observatory where we watch Saturn and the Southern Cross.

What A Change Of Heart Is

It is travelling across an entire continent to support a people you feel for, only to arrive there and being made to think that they dont deserve it. Everyone is tremendously welcoming and loving, especially those from the rainbow chai tent. Almost everyone though, seems to have lost the plot. Political rights are the burning issue but they dont seem to realise that social rights will serve to advance the former cause. The anguish is real and the cause is pure but it is the means that is misguided.

Wake Up

Sarah is such a darling whose very smile makes the day and warms me up from the chill of the night air. She lends me a bicycle when I want to go to Black Mountain, of course it was no use. It takes about one hour to push the bicycle up Black Mountain Tower, where the view is not so good. Still the climb up is worth it only because of the ride down, which is blistering fast my eyes start to tear.



Bobby Flynn joins us back at the tent embassy to say hello and pay his respects to Auntie Isabel. He sits down with us a little while and I dont know who he is but he's pretty hot and very humble. The highlight of the day is the Australia Day Live 2007 concert on the front lawns of Parliament House. It all starts with the tour of the House which is so interesting only because all the tourists in the city seem to be going there today. Walking out of the house there're two girls struggling with their deluxe-sized esky so I offer to help them with it. It seems a simple enough gesture but they're bowled over enought to offer me a drink and to hang out with them. Which I do, and Jen and I go frickin' crazy dancing and stuffing our faces while I ogle at their brother Kevin. Bobby Flynn burns the house down with his hott vocals and sexy attitude while The Audreys are literally making love on stage with sultry sass, a steel pedal guitar and a harmonica. Oh oh oh!



The night takes over from the concert and i go back to the Tent Embassy. Finn, the 13-year-old son of Michael, the chai tent owner, invites me to go scavenging with him after the crowds have cleared from the lawns. I bring along my trusty gallet light and we put on our helmets, riding into the darkness. Finally I get the green bag I'd always wanted but was too stingy to pay 99c for. Back in camp, I lend my sleeping bag to the stoned lady who's lost everything so I go to sleep beside a campfire under the stars. Not before I'm subjected to the most horrendous conversation by bizarro hare krishnas. I go to wash my face at the sprinklers watering the lawns and then try to go to sleep for real, the water in my ears hopefully blocking out the friction.

Road, River and Rail

The sun is shining on my backside before I decide to get up, not to mention the fact that the train manager says we're pulling into Goulburn in 10 minutes. Goulburn, which is me, ten minutes, which is breakfast, shower, take backpack from luggage carriage and say goodbye to Cathy. As the train deposits me on the platform of Goulburn Railway Station, I'm waving to the train manager while clutching my half-eaten croquet in my other hand, realising I dont know what to do or how to go to Canberra - can I from Goulburn at all? Answer is yes - next XPT Xplorer comes in a half-hour while the other one in six hours. I think, ah, okay, I'll walk around for a while in Goulburn and decide. The walk brings me for only five minutes and then I go back to the train station to get the earlier train's ticket because I want to get into Canberra badly. Nothing against Goulburn, they have an eight storey building in the form of a merrino sheep that I'm quite upset I didnt get to go to.

The train pulls into Canberra and I'm underwhelmed. The nation's capital is indeed the bush capital and everything is dry, devoid of life, looking like they dont even try for tourists. My overwhelming indifference made me decide to walk to a park near the city centre (wherever it is, whatever it is) instead of bussing. After a few wrong turns with two packs on in Canberran summer heat, im on the right way but pouring down and muttering under my breath. It takes a little singing and kefe to lighten my step and before long Lake Burley-Griffin is in sight. Walking along the lakeside, the mood gets better and I start to get into the "Shit, I'm in Canberra" mode.


As I'm waiting for Sarah to pick me up outside Old Parliament House, opposite the Tent Embassy, pudgy Guy Sebastian is shooting an ad for Australia Day 07

The green grass of Commonwealth Place, with its heart-fluttering flags of the world and view of the lake, seems to be a good place. A bit of reading, relaxing, resting and drinking takes place here before the sound of music drifting from behind becomes too much to resist and I up and go in the direction of the music. Lo and behold, the tent embassy, the reason why I came to Canberra, is there in all it's colourful glory. I walk in and Auntie Isabel takes me in with tremendous love. Such serendipity could not but make the whole day worth its weight in gold.

Sarah, Marty's Canberra friend, comes to pick me up in her Mini Cooper and I immediately know I'll love her so much! I'm in Canberra! Shit!

Afternoon Delight

The drought has broken in many parts of Australia, most especially the driest areas. Lets just say everyone was washed over by the amount of rain there was, so much that it also washed away the IP's tracks between Port Pirie and Sydney. So the train brings us on a historic IP journey through VIC, and I dont get to do my Broken Hill Redux Edition. Im not the only one looking forward to Broken Hill - the SA government gives all pensioners a free trip to Broken Hill annually, which is very sweet except I think maybe they get bored with it after, oh, five years?

Since the train isnt going through Broken Hill, most from the pensioner posse decide not to travel on the train anymore, leaving the train about half empty. The seats in front turn around so I get four seats to call my brand new colony. I meet a single mother-teacher-traveller and thats how we spend the rest of the day. It's also decided then that I'll alight at Goulburn instead of Sydney because it's so much closer to Canberra. At night, the train passes outside Melbourne and seeing the city lights reminds me of coming back from ConFest and just knowing that Melbourne is a special place.

You Agnostic

What is this about making the mind big, about shining light in the dark corners? This line from Woman Warrior comes back for a cameo. Sitting on the IP again, one cannot look past the trees and the earth and scrub and red soil. And these are just the parts that make the whole. The postcard shows that the train snakes through breathtaking scenery - it is a silver line streaked across the bush-covered mountains on the coast and I am in the midst of it all. Yet any given passenger would never quite know this. Perhaps it'd be better to take a plane and look at the train ride then to sit in the train.

Not necessarily. The plane ride is a Plane Ride and the Train Ride a separate matter; one would be poorer to observe life all the time and not to live it. Perhaps I just have to know things for what they are, and the understanding will, if it will, come with time and love and luck.

Looking at McNaught's comet, this big lump of ice and rock blazing across the sky, dropping above the barren land, I can now barely contain my disbelief that we're the only ones in the universe trying to understand it all. In both senses of the word, surely life extends beyond our understanding. Well, at least now I know.


"GARB" reappears in Cook in 2007.

O! Rachel

Olle is beginning to like me a lot and I'm beginning to like Rachel a lot. I'm on the road again, or rather on the track again as the IP pulls out of the station. At Kalgoorlie, Kristie, Erin, Nick and I go to Paddy's where we get tipsy, do the running man, dance to country music and mistake the moon for the sun.

Dub Side of the Moon

Rachel is lying in bed being morose all over the younger dude. So I lie down beside her listening to Pink Floyd. listening to your heart takes a bit of practice. it is trying to hear the tides of the ocean as the busy highway of your mind is crisscrossed by today's traffic.

One-hit Wonder

It seemed quite logical to believe that today there'd be people at the esplanade park playing footy or frisbee or whatev. simon and andreas, two swiss dudes i met from the park also believed so. ah but we're wrong, because we've forgotten the cardinal rule that Beer always beats Sports. For example, Aussies go to the games to drink beer, they dont drink beer just because they're at the games. It's Friday evening so it's no wonder that the Aussies are all out getting off their tits instead of playing ball. i take a piss in the middle of the city first and then we walk back home in the bitter cold.

This Is an R&B Song

The Swan Bells have a funny little story, which make it a real attraction for me. The government of WA has this great gift of broken bells that the British government doesnt want anymore and gives to them. So what does the Premier do? He uses millions of taxpayers' money to erect a monument to it. This monument is to be ubiquitous and and awe-inspiring. Well of course the State of Wait Awhile runs out of money and has to build it shorter. So now they've got a nice, short building with old bells inside. Cool. Not to mention that when it's really really windy (like today), the whole building becomes a giant bellow and sends a perpetual moan right across the esplanade park.



There're a bunch of blokes playing Ultimate Frisbee on the park so I ask if I can join them and of course I can. We play till the end of lunchtime and then it's time for them to go and for me to go to King's Park. After a pant-inducing climb up Jacob's Ladder, I wander around the edge of King's Park that makes Perth look a little nicer from that height (maybe because there's less oxygen). Next stop, I challenge myself to go to Swanbourne Beach alone, which I succeed at, but it's sucky there because there's a huge sou-westie coming in from the Indian Ocean and i have sand everywhere in my nose, hair and ears.

Back home, Rachel is there wallowing in her giant glass of red. She's down with boy troubles but really this lovely 29-year-old girl is down with life-troubles. So I pick her up and ask her out on a dinner date. We dress her up in eye-liner, vans, a heavy metal belt and Harith's army burnout jacket. Looking like we're mean and we mean it, we go out and Rachel decides on bringing me to the Wheelbarrow and Elephant (her vomitty - literally - ex-employers) for the pub meal I want. It's my treat as she's feeling down but good food and wine later, we're laughing to stupid things like "Kata Lata Kula" and dancing to The Cure.

China Dreaming

this dream was a big motif throughout my australia trip. this was from a few nights after the dream on the train.

Chinese watchtowers are rapidly sending smoke signals with fires from the tops of the walls. Rafflesians are all around dressed in evocative Chinese armour with bright red streamers waving from the top of their helmets. We're all fighting for the one noble cause - Chinese independence. Sword in hand im fighting with all the rage of the universe but around me comrade dudes are falling like paper mache figures. These are people like Sherman (!) and loads of faces from the O-Team. Finally the battle is over and we've won the war! The victory parade is at the spex gal where the Chinese populace wish to idolise us. But i have no wish to go, not when so many of the comrades-in-arms are dead. So i cry the cry of a thousand widows, echoing on and on in the halls of history.

So what was that about? Maybe I'm not afraid of dying anymore!

Ol' Freo

I wake up late and lethargic so I have a doubleshot, which means i leave home very late (3pm!). Im in Freo by 4pm and do my own thing which includes the fire station of course, where they treat me like a VIP and give me tshirts and uniforms and tours. Dinner is a very special treat at the Mexican restaurant where I bump into two girls from the train here.

Now the sinister part of the day. Olle, Adam and I are booked on the ghost tour of the Fremantle Prison which really isnt all that scary, gallows included. When we're watching one of the re-enactments though, and Moondyne Joe is telling us to be careful and all that jazz, I get little chills down my spine because there was the most intense feeling of deja vu i had ever had. Twas as if my dreams I had one night was telling me the future, albeit not a very important one.

Perth Redux

Time to say goodbye again, and then I walk to Olle's home where I'm sposed to collect the key from the Lesbian Neighbour but she's not home. Take a quick walk to Tarts for brekkie anyway, where they believe im a writer and i get a free slice. Drop by the Garage Sale Lady's House to see how she's doing but she isnt at home so I leave a note to thanks her for the crazy tent that was part of ConFest and is now in some Melbourne woman's home. Really, it's part of all that Love. Back home, I meet crazy Rachel and invite Olle and Adam out to Hotel Northbridge to treat them to a Golden Plate Dinner. We're walking back home, freezing, stuffed, but damn, it's great to be in Perth again.

My Girlfriend's Dead

Before boarding the train yesterday I had a shower in Keswick because I didnt want to procrastinate anymore. What a good move, because I had the longest night on the trains I've ever had before. We're playing cards, flirting, singing to the guitar, to the ipod, avoiding people, dancing to george michael, playing word games, tossing the ball around doing anything but sleeping. At Kalgoorlie, im sposed to go for food but end up smoking when Vlad comes up to offer a bong. Hell, I'd have taken a bonk even.


Daniel, who i love truly, madly, deeply. He's a blazing anarchist, polysexual, tori amos luster, lisper, beautiful singer, recalcitrant traveller. I'd like to meet him again in England, and I sure as hell want to watch the Rugby World Cup in France with Simon.





and the scenery behind is just zooming past. there's just too much to care

Cunning Canadian

We agree to go to Tandanya together, with the free tickets, instead of going to the human zoo. It is great. We walk there, and make fun of everything and everyone when we're there. The dance demonstration at 12 was kind of a hoax but still very fun nonetheless. Rika leaves us after that to spend more time in the gallery. The boys go to lunch at Rundle Mall and sit down judging people. We go shopping at Woolie's where I'm pronounced the slow shopper. Back home, the heat is getting to our head so Ambiguous Andrew and I go to the bottle-o for something cold. Every second with AA is excruciating because for the first time I'm on the other side of the closet. It doesnt matter if my wild heart is beating too fast. This is the year to live fast. I might die young but in the end it'd have been an exciting fight for hearts and minds. Getting back, we conclude the nastiest flirting session of the year and play risk, eat roo steak from Rika and guzzle Smirnoff (Lady Drinks). Every city is the same, every time is the same but the people are the ones who make the difference.

Adelaide Redux

We wake up late and I decide to call a taxi instead - the first and only time - just so we can lie down a while more. Parting is like peeling off wax this time, but I know I'll see Melbourne again. Back in Adelaide, I decide to go to Adelaide Backpackers' Inn with Fabio, who I met on the train. We settle down and decide to go to the Balfours pie cart for some pie floater. Apple pie time is immediately after dinner and all the Gorgeous Germans descend in their Saturday best leaving Fabio and I a little shabby-feeling. Shower and changed, we head back to the yard where the Germans still are, maybe thats all they dressed for. It's a very cold night in Adelaide so we're all feeling a little light-headed and I spend the night chatting with Ambiguous Andrew and his mate Rika, the German from Brazil (in the middle near the river), at times making up cheap porn film dialogues.

Land

Vivien sends me to Apollo Bay where I get the V/line to Melbourne. Marty picks me up and it's great to meet him again. Home is near Brunswick where his cat (Fat) Jack joins us. We have tea, listen to Patti Smith and Marty, with his blue eyes and cute lips, makes his move on a steadfast me.

It's not you, it's me

I explain to Rob and Vivien why I have to go, so I play with Smokey and sleep with my ten kittens for the last time. Tomorrow I leave the GOR.


A cold fog descends on the hills around our home, as my heart sinks at leaving.

Road tripping

One of the things that I was most worried about was being alone with my mind and having to face the wonders of the GOR. How surprised I was to be. This was a bam-bam-bam tour that Rowena so approved of. Essentially it meant fast-forwarding through all the mandatory lookout points, just take a picture and get the hell outta there. After all, with so much water and rock and sand, thats the only way to see the GOR innit?


12 Apostles. It's still so righteous there really shouldnt be any panic to see it before it all falls down.


Loch Ard Gorge. Frightening.



Muttobbird Island. Obviously im not much of a photographer.


The Blowhole. Ho Ah Chai would be so proud of me.


The Thunder Cave.


Broken Head. Check out the hugeass boulders sitting in the massive cave.


On the straight and narrow.


The only thing that made me feel slightly down. A river fails to meet the sea.


This road will never end!


London Bridge fell down and is now called Elephant Rock.


The Grotto.


Bay of Islands. The car refuses to start here and instead of stressing out, I take a breath and go for a long bushwalk. When I come back, everything is fine again.


Boggy Creek Pub. It's a scorching day and this historic pub is a good refuge. Most of the patrons here are leather daddies with shining bikes and when I stroll in in thongs and my sputtering car, I get quite a bit of stares.



Childer's Cove beach. At the turnoff and after a drive down the private road is a little lookout. But is that all there is to Childer's Cove? Nay! Ask me if you want to find out how to get to the private beach. It's 2kms of desolated sand where I strip down and go for a swim, and have lunch with the Southern Ocean and four rock stacks across my feet. Beaut. Just as I dress up to leave, a Jewish family (all the kids have pigtails) comes onto the beach. Bizarro.


At the end of it all I've swam in about four beaches and to one island. Dinner is burger, chips and coke on my lap as I drive home from Warrnambool. There's a cosmic smoke column rising from the distance in the northwest, and I leave it behind as I go back across the GOR again.


My Suspect Steed. A 1975 Mitsubishi Sigma with no muffler, bad lights, no speedometer, no fuel gauge, weak batteries, no power steering, and automatic gears that cant shift into drive. But still..