Not Another Flamin' (Love) Travel Story

By Paul Carson and Sally Carson

THE INCIDENTS IN THIS BOOK ARE BASED ON REAL EVENTS.
THE NAMES WERE CHANGED TO PROTECT THE GUILTY FROM BEING SUED BY THE INNOCENT.

Paul and Julie Carson were living the suburban dream. They fell in love, got married, took out a large mortgage (despite having only a small income) and were parents to the requisite 2.5 adorable children...OK then, it was actually only 2.0. The opportunity to take an extended trip to Europe was forsaken before all the responsibility kicked in, and they were quite settled in their family life for many years.
This world was shaken when Paul took an unplanned tumble over the handle-bars of his bicycle, after a head-on collision with a motor-bike. The consequences could have been far worse, although he did break his back. Being able to walk away from such an event was definitely a positive result and jolted Paul out of his complacent state of mind. He hatched a plan to take Sally for a long European sojourn, about 30 years after the thought initially entered their heads. The mortgage was under control, the children were now adults and you know what they say – “better late than never”.
The trip was subjected to rigorous planning – perhaps you would call Paul a control freak, but he was quite pleased that they booked all 261 nights of accommodation before leaving home! Of course, events during the travel itself would not be so easy to stage-manage. A few concessions were made to the fact that they were fifty-something years old rather than twenty-something, but the plan was to journey independently for most of their time away.
This book sets the scene and tells the story of these travels. As you can imagine, there were some interesting occurrences for a couple who had never been together outside their home countries – the relatively benign environments of Australia and New Zealand. It is sincerely hoped that they didn’t embarrass themselves too much along the way, but the possibilities for this were almost endless – obvious problems were caused by a profound ignorance of the languages used in most of the countries they visited, although Paul contrived to ask the following question as an opening line in various different languages:
“Hello. Do you speak English?”
Other likely causes of embarrassment included Paul’s penchant for getting lost (despite having a plethora of maps and a compass to help him avoid such situations), the scarcity of public toilets in many locations, and an aversion Paul and Sally had to waiting for the posted opening time prior to dining in restaurants.
The facilities provided by hotel rooms varied wildly throughout the trip, although in most places these were at least adequate. However, some of the beds needed rearranging to achieve this standard. It was also fairly common for the shower cubicle in the accommodation to be quite small, which was not much of a problem – only on one occasion was a totally unusable shower encountered! Some of the rooms also lacked enough space to swing the proverbial cat, but on the other hand most were of a reasonable size, some were quite spacious and one in particular was enormous!
Paul and Sally started out their journey rather paranoid about shady characters who may want to rob them...but ended up realising that almost everyone, in almost every location, was glad to offer a helping hand rather than to steal from them. If anything, this made them more susceptible to thievery as the trip progressed and they relaxed their guard, but the only substantial loss that they incurred was achieved legally – by a hire-car company who decided to “charge like a wounded bull”, relying on the small print that everyone reads when signing a rental-car agreement (just joking!)
Travel broadens the mind of course, and it certainly did on this occasion, but perhaps the most obvious truism that Paul and Sally learnt was: “There is no place like home.”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Paul Carson
• Release date: Jan 15, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311113870

Paul Carson

Paul Carson was born in Brisbane, Australia in 1958 and is a long-term resident there. In 1983 he married Sally East, a New Zealander and they have two children - Tess (born in 1987) and Tom (born in 1990). Paul is a qualified civil engineer and his work has taken him to many places throughout Australia during the last 35 years, as well as to Bangkok, Thailand in 1989. In addition to this the family has holidayed many times throughout New Zealand and the eastern states of Australia. In 2012, Paul and Sally took the year off and spent most of the time travelling through Europe and Thailand.

Book preview

Not Another Flamin’ Love Travel Story

Paul Carson (with Sally Carson)

Published by Paul Carson at Smashwords

Copyright 2015 Paul Carson

Cover photograph of Paul Carson at Hafelekarhaus, Innsbruck, Austria was taken by Sally Carson on 11 May, 2012

CONTENTS

AUTHOR’S WARNING

PART I – Prologue

i. March 2012 - When it started to unravel

ii. His Story

iii. Her Story

iv. Our Story (as told by Paul)

PART II – The Trip

1. Karon Beach, Phuket, Thailand, 14-20 February

2. Chiang Mai, Thailand, 21-25 February

3. Chiang Rai, Thailand, 26-29 February

4. Bangkok, Thailand, 1-6 March

5. Rome (Fiumicino), Italy, 7-8 March

6. Naples, Italy, 9-13 March

7. Amalfi, Italy, 14-19 March

8. Rome, Italy 20-26 March

9. Perugia, Italy, 27-30 March

10. Florence, Italy 31 March – 3 April

11. Manarola, Italy, 4-7 April

12. Nice, France, 8-11 April

13. Marseille, France, 12-15 April

14. Avignon, France, 16-18 April

15. Lyon, France, 19-21 April

16. Geneva, Switzerland, 22-24 April

17. Interlaken, Switzerland, 25-28 April

18. Zermatt, Switzerland, 29 April – 2 May

19. Milan, Italy, 3-5 May

20. Venice, Italy, 6-9 May

21. Innsbruck, Austria, 10-12 May

22. Munich, Germany, 13-16 May

23. Salzburg, Austria 17-19 May

24. Vienna, Austria, 20-23 May

25. Prague, Czech Republic, 24-27 May

26. Dresden, Germany 28-30 May

27. Berlin, Germany, 31 May – 5 June

28. Elmshorn (Hamburg), Germany 6-19 June

29. Manchester, England, 20-22 June

30. York, England, 23-25 June

31. Newcastle, England, 26-28 June

32. Edinburgh, Scotland, 29 June – 2 July

33. Aberdeen, Scotland, 3-4 July

34. Inverness/Loch Ness, Scotland, 5-7 July

35. Portree (Isle of Skye), Scotland, 8-10 July

36. Fort William, Scotland, 11-14 July

37. Glasgow, Scotland, 15-18 July

38. Bowness, England, 19-21 July

39. Liverpool, England, 22-23 July

40. Belfast, Northern Ireland, 24-27 July

41. Derry, Northern Ireland, 28-30 July

42. Clarinbridge, Galway, Ireland, 31 July – 3 August

43. Cahersiveen, Kerry, Ireland, 4-7 August

44. Cobh, Cork, Ireland, 8-11 August

45. Dublin, Ireland 12-17 August

46. Beddgelert, Wales, 18-20 August

47. Tenby, Wales, 21-23 August

48. Cardiff, Wales, 24-26 August

49. Oxford, England, 27-29 August

50. Bath, England, 30 August – 1 September

51. Exeter, England, 2-4 September

52. Brighton, England, 5-7 September

53. Woking (London), England, 8 September

54. London, England, 9-15 September

55. Paris, France, 16-22 September

56. Bordeaux, France, 23-25 September

57. San Sebastian, Spain, 26-28 September

58. Santiago de Compostella, Spain, 29 September – 1 October

59. Braga, Portugal, 2-4 October

60. Porto, Portugal, 5-7 October

61. Coimbra, Portugal, 8-10 October

62. Lisbon, Portugal, 11-15 October

63. Barcelona, Spain, 16-20 October

64. Cordoba, Spain, 21-22 October

65. Seville, Spain, 23-26 October

66. Madrid, Spain, 27-31 October

PART III – Epilogue

i. 1-3 November, 2012 – The Trip Home

ii. Home at Last – What Now?

iii. The Highlights

iv. The Cost

v. A Few Home Truths

Appendices

A. What We Took

B. Basic Itinerary

C. Our Favourite Places

D. Accommodation (including ratings)

E. Eateries (excluding Thailand)

F. European Taxi Rides

G. Thieves, Con-men and Rip-off Artists

H. The Cost

I. References

J. Acknowledgements

Notes:

Use of italics – there are many terms and place names, etc. in the following pages where I could have used italics for emphasis, but this would tend to dilute their effectiveness. Therefore I have not generally used them, but have used inverted commas () or underlined words where I particularly wanted to stress something (as well as using inverted commas to indicate conversations or to reference quotations.) However, italics have been used for three specific purposes only:

1. To indicate Sally’s input to the text;

2. To indicate the limited number of web-sites referred to; and

3. To indicate the names of eateries that are mentioned. This may appear to be a rather random rule, but there are so many restaurants involved that I thought it was worth being able to identify when the text was referring to such a place. After all, food is one of the necessities of life…and one of its great pleasures…

Maps – I spent quite a lot of time hand-drawing maps to show the path of our journeys throughout Australia, Thailand and Europe. These maps are quite rustic but, in my opinion, were worth incorporating in the book to demonstrate how we pieced our travels together. The ten pages of maps were therefore scanned and added amongst the text at appropriate locations. However, on reviewing an initial digital version of the book, it became apparent that the items in question had become rather severely truncated and I decided, reluctantly, to excise them. If an alternative to these maps is required, an open atlas on your lap could be used while reading the text – this may help to explain the logic behind our chosen path.

AUTHOR’S WARNING

"THE STORY YOU HAVE JUST SEEN IS TRUE.

THE NAMES WERE CHANGED TO PROTECT THE INNOCENT."

These words flashed on the television screen at the end of each episode of Adam 12, an American cop show I watched as a kid.

This book is based on my experiences but, in an effort to make it more readable, I have left out the boring bits. Also I may have – ever so slightly – embroidered the truth. You know what embroidery is, don’t you? It is when you take a plain piece of fabric and decorate it with fancy stitch work, so that the original material is hardly noticeable. Well, this book is like that. However, if you are getting the idea that nothing here is true, you would be wrong. Most of it is true or at least has a passing acquaintance with the truth. But you know how it is these days. If someone thinks you have denigrated them at all, you get hauled off to court. For that reason I have taken the Adam 12 approach and changed the names. This is not to protect the innocent, but to protect me. And, as you will conclude before you have read too far, I am anything but innocent. Therefore, my disclaimer reads as follows:

"THE INCIDENTS IN THIS BOOK ARE BASED ON REAL EVENTS.

THE NAMES WERE CHANGED TO PROTECT THE GUILTY FROM BEING SUED BY THE INNOCENT."

PART I – Prologue

i. March 2012 - When it started to unravel

It was early morning. My wife and I were lying in our hotel bed in Rome and she was quietly sobbing. I’m miserable and I want to go home, she said. We were about one month into the trip of a lifetime that I had planned and which extended another mind-numbing seven months into the future. How did it come to that? Could any sensible man expect his partner to travel for an extended period, away from ageing parents and grown (but still maturing) children? All at a time of life – we were both in our early 50s – when our bodies were starting to show the effects of our time on the planet? Let me take you right back to the beginning and give you all the background to the story…

ii. His Story

My name is Paul Carson and I was born on September 25, 1958, in Brisbane Australia. Before reaching school age, my family had a few stints in western Queensland where my father was temporarily working. Aside from this, though, my entire childhood was spent in the city of Brisbane up until the age of 21.

I had a fairly idyllic childhood except for the odd bit of violence perpetrated on myself – accidentally of course. Boys will be boys! All my schooling was carried out in state (government) schools on the south-side of Brisbane, schools that I could walk to and which suited me fine.

The end of my senior high school year was followed by studying civil engineering at the Queensland Institute of Technology (now the Queensland University of Technology). I completed my degree in the regulation four years, at the end of 1979. This was a time when engineering positions were hard to come by and, despite my good results, I was without work for a few months. After a few job interviews, employment was actually offered to me at one stage, by a construction company. Unfortunately, they advised that they could not afford to pay the expected salary of about $10,000 per annum and instead offered me $8,000. I turned them down, not wanting to accept a cut-price pay after my hard years of study.

Then I saw another position advertised with a consulting engineering company. It was for a graduate civil engineer in a design office, which was what I wanted. There was only one catch – the job was in Darwin, not in Brisbane. Now, Darwin is in the Northern Territory, which shares a common border with Queensland (where Brisbane is); however the two cities are quite a long distance apart – almost 3000 kilometres as the crow flies! Nevertheless I applied for the job and was granted an interview. The sole interviewer seemed to run out of questions after about ten minutes, so I was concerned that he had decided against me. Thus I tried to prolong our discussion by making conversation and subtly blowing my own trumpet, but needn’t have worried – the position was later offered to me and I accepted.

On March 17, 1980, I was flown to Darwin to begin my new job…and ended up a long way from home in a place where I knew no-one. A case of homesickness was the inevitable result. Despite this I had plenty of support from my new workmates and, within a few months, was enjoying the frontier town atmosphere of the city. It was a very sociable place with plenty of activities – particularly drinking beer (which I learned there), partying, sport and weekends away camping. After flying home for Christmas at the end of 1980, I was more than happy to return to Darwin in the New Year and threw myself into work and socialising throughout 1981. There were plenty of eligible girls in town, but my natural shyness meant that I did not race into any liaisons. After dating a girl called Maryanne there was no chemistry apparent…and she had decided to leave Darwin to go back to her home city of Adelaide. Another good reason for a party!

There was plenty of beer consumed, as usual, at the backyard going-away do for Maryanne, and the voices and noise levels were rising accordingly. Up against the side of the house, though, was a girl about my own age, who seemed to be quieter than most and caught my eye. So I sidled up to her and said…(to be continued)

iii. Her Story

[In order to distinguish my input to this book from that of my husband, my words have been placed in square brackets and italics. You know how it is these days – why use just one precaution when you can use more?

My name is Sally Carson and I am Paul’s wife, but I was born Sally East on January 24, 1959. My place of birth was Auckland, New Zealand, where I spent all my early days.

Like Paul, my childhood was idyllic and I started attending the local government schools. When it was time for high school my family had moved into the grammar zone, allowing me to attend the Epsom Girls Grammar School – or EGGS for short. (I know!) Although a government school, this was seen as on a par with the posh private schools. After Year 10 I left EGGS, having decided to do Karitane nurse training. This is specialised training in New Zealand for infant care and I completed the 18-month course in 1977.

Over the following several years I worked in the neo-natal unit of an Auckland hospital, as well as visiting many homes to provide advice to parents in the care of their babies. Some of these people became my good friends including a couple who were both medical doctors – Steph and Scott Begley. During this time I was also bitten by the travel bug and travelled to Sydney in 1980 for an indefinite stay. I returned home to Auckland due to homesickness after a few weeks but had decided to make an attempt to head for England in the future, to work. I hoped to use this as a base for touring around Europe. Meanwhile, Steph and Scott had moved to Darwin, Australia, to work in the hospital there. They invited me to visit and help them look after their children, which at that stage numbered two. Since Darwin is a lot closer to Europe than Auckland is (as is just about everywhere else on earth), I decided to take them up on their offer. This would take about 8 hours off the flying time to London, and my move to the city was in May 1981.

In Darwin I got caught up in the social atmosphere and made new friends including Liz Roberts, a girl who worked in an engineering office, and her pal Maryanne. After a short time, though, Maryanne decided to move cities, so a going-away party was organised. This was attended by the usual colourful crowd, many of whom I wouldn’t have anything to do with given half a chance. However, one of them cornered me when I was trying to appear inconspicuous and said…(to be continued)]

iv. Our Story (as told by Paul)

(continuation)…To tell you the truth I don’t remember what my first words to Sally were – it could have been something along the lines of G’day. What’s a bonza sheila like you doing in a dump like this? But I doubt it – I’m not one for great pick-up lines like that. It was probably more like G’day followed by a long silence when wondering what to say next. Nevertheless she obviously made an impression on me and I managed to extract her telephone number! Then I waited for the right occasion to present itself, to invite her on a date. Unsurprisingly this happened to be another backyard party. It was quite a fancy one this time – an engagement party for one of my volleyball team-mates. (I was rather skinny – or athletic would be a kinder description – and therefore preferred to play games such as volleyball rather than getting my flimsy frame whacked playing contact sports.)

Sally agreed to come to the party and seemed happy to go on other outings I suggested. My time over the rest of 1981 was spent devising activities for us – to such an extent that I earned the nick-name Mister Keen, bestowed on me by Steph Begley. There was the inaugural visit to the flash restaurant, called The Gamekeeper and the bill for which was over $40! We went to the cinema several times, where I remember discovering that your arm gets rather uncomfortable if you keep it wrapped around someone else’s shoulders for the best part of two hours. Once we even found ourselves watching the wrong movie – after going to the old Parap movie theatre, what came up on screen was a Terence Hill/Bud Spencer spaghetti western, not what we intended to see. To this day, that is our only premature exit from a cinema.

One time there was an all-night movie festival on TV that we were able to watch alone at Steph and Scott’s place – I’m not sure where they were at the time. What I remember of this was two movies in particular – a horror movie called …And Now the Screaming Starts starring a disembodied hand crawling around and creating mayhem. It is always useful to watch a scary movie when you are alone with your girlfriend late at night. The other flick I remember was one of Steven Spielberg’s first efforts – Duel where Dennis Weaver drives a car around outback America and is terrorised by a large truck, with a driver who is not shown. I always remember thinking that Dennis must not be a very skilful motorist if he couldn’t outrun a big vehicle like that in a car. Anyway, it was also not a bad movie for the circumstances.

This was the first time of only twice in my life so far that I have stayed awake all night. Yes, I know, it’s not much of a record, is it?

Late in the year we also went on a camping weekend to the romantically-titled UDP falls, a waterfall with a rock pool at the base named for the fact that it is in the Uranium Development Province. I know what you are thinking, but it was mutually agreed there would be no hanky-panky on this trip. There was a wardrobe malfunction at one stage – Janet Jackson was to perfect this in the coming years – but that was quickly corrected with nothing but slight embarrassment on both sides. I remember gazing into the eyes of my sweetheart and being astonished at how blue they were.

No doubt some of you are wondering what love at first sight is like. To tell you the truth I wonder the same thing myself. You see, although I picked up on something at my first face-to-face meeting with Sally – at Maryanne’s going-away party – in fact I had a meal with her previously and had not even noticed her! The occasion, in accordance with Darwin’s anything for a party policy, was a dinner celebrating Bastille Day. Incongruous as it may seem, in Darwin at the time were quite a few French restaurants. One of these was La Chaumiere, which I attended on July 14 with Liz Roberts and a large group of people apparently including Sally. Searching into the dim dark recesses of my memory, I can accept that there may have been someone present who went unnoticed by me. Also I can truly say that, on our first meeting, I saw no blemishes on the beauty of the woman who was to become my wife. There now, do you think someone would give me a job as a spin doctor?

(Stop press: I have just Googled La Chaumiere and found that it still exists in Darwin! The food there was very good, but the company was better.)

At some stage during our romance, Sally broached the subject of her plan to go to England and Europe to work and tour. My recollection is that I was fairly dismissive of this, as travel was not in my plans at all. In any case, weren’t we having too much fun to need anything like that? It is interesting to me how, as a general rule, women tend to be more motivated to travel than men and are more involved in the planning of it. On many occasions they even head off without their man, who is happy to sit back and stay near the place where he has spent most of his life. I put this down to genetics. Women are the protectors of the family and the gatherers, who sometimes have to expand their horizons to get the job done. Men are the breadwinners and the hunters, who know what they have to do and stick to what they know. This is not meant to be a justification for my poor behaviour – it is merely an observation that I make.

Ultimately it seems that, in the early 1980s, I won the argument. And while I was enamoured with Sally she must have also been somewhat attracted to me, because she could have gone to do her travelling alone but chose to stay. In 1982 we became engaged and our wedding was planned for April 1983, in Auckland. However, it was also agreed not to remain in Darwin beyond the end of ‘82. We would pull up stumps and head to Brisbane, where I should be able to find work. In the end, the company that employed me in Darwin was happy to transfer me to their Brisbane office. (I must have been doing some acceptable work, in amongst the socialising!)

After the time we finished work in mid-September 1982 and before my start in the Brisbane office first thing in 1983, Sally and I took an extended break of 16 weeks. We did travel but in Australia, not in Europe – going slowly and by an indirect route from Darwin to Brisbane by car and camping at many of the magnificent natural attractions in the Northern Territory and Queensland on the way. At this point it is appropriate to state that my interests lie more in the scenic attractions of the natural world than in man-made areas. I also enjoy exploring said locations on foot – in the UK you would call me a rambler, in New Zealand I am a tramper, but in Australia I am definitely a bushwalker. It is not that Sally is uninterested in such walking – let me just say that her enjoyment is more tempered than mine.

Sally sold her old Honda Civic before we left, as it was decided that my larger HQ Holden would be more comfortable for the trip. If I am not mistaken this model is the biggest-selling Australian-designed car of all time, but the lack of features in my vehicle would be unlikely to be viewed favourably by discerning car-buyers today. It was a Belmont, the base model, but even at the time most buyers opted for the more up-market Kingswood or the even more luxurious Premier. As far as extras go my car had none…and I am not joking! Air-conditioning was definitely not provided, and a radio and interior light switches in the car doors were also both deemed unnecessary. On the safety side the brakes were interesting – 4-wheel drum brakes and, of course, there was no anti-skid technology back then. Therefore, if you jammed on the brakes too hard…you skidded. This certainly taught me to monitor the traffic around me and to avoid the passage of other vehicles where possible. To balance all the negative aspects, though, the car was a very simple machine that could be easily maintained. There was very little that wouldn’t be fixed with an oil change, new (or cleaned) spark plugs and cleaning/resetting of the distributor points. If the battery ever failed it was just a simple matter of push-starting the car in second gear.

And so we headed off from Darwin on September 21, 1982, with my old tent and a new gas camping stove. Firstly, a few weeks were spent in Kakadu National Park in the Top End – then a fairly new phenomenon. One of my favourite places in the park was a small natural swimming pool with a waterfall continuously feeding into it, known as the Rock Hole. It was not signposted, so there were limited visitors, but it had beautiful, cool, crystal-clear waters and we camped there alone for a few days. In the darkness of one night, after being woken by the noise of animals moving around outside the tent, I extracted myself to see what was happening. In fact it was a group of water buffalo wandering past our campsite and I was glad that the tent had been placed near the car, which shielded us from their passage. This introduced animal was quite widespread back then, but steps have since been taken to reduce their numbers. They are very solid animals indeed and there were plenty of stories of cars coming off second-best in traffic collisions with them. Suffice to say that the idea of them tramping over our tent in the dark was not one that I found appealing.

Later we spent some time camping at a nice shady campsite at Edith Falls, a much larger swimming hole in the Katherine Gorge National Park, and also stayed at the actual Katherine Gorge camping area which proved to be a mistake – it was very hot (38 degrees) and there was no shade! Further south we pulled in at Mataranka Thermal Springs Nature Reserve. You may think that a hot pool would not be welcome in the tropical Northern Territory, but the somewhat cool mornings were just made for a dip in the warm water, with steam rising off the surface. My memory is that we were the only campers there and at one stage I was standing with a piece of buttered bread in my hand when a bird swooped and snatched it from me. At the time I believed it to be a wedge-tailed eagle but in hindsight realise that I may have been mistaken, as they are very large birds.

The distance from Katherine in the Top End to Alice Springs in Central Australia is about 1,200 kilometres by road and, after Mataranka, there was little in between. The people of Tennant Creek may wish to disagree but, aside from a few rock formations here and there, we didn’t find a lot to look at. That part of Australia was so sparsely populated that there were places such as Dunmarra shown on maps. Now, as far as I remember, Dunmarra was a roadhouse – quite a nice one as I recall but only a roadhouse, so its elevation to map status was interesting. Anyway, after stopping at Tennant Creek for a few days and failing to find anything remotely interesting, we continued to Alice Springs and arrived in early October. Sally’s brother Paul (who had been in Darwin for some of the time we were there) joined us for the Central Australian part of our trip and there was plenty to look at during the three-week stay. We firstly explored the town and the natural features close by including many gorges, rock formations and swimming holes. Our favourite of these was probably Ormiston Gorge (the Jewel of the Centre) but one of the better-known features is Standley Chasm, comprised of a narrow gap between two cliffs. On the day of our visit quite a few tourists were about, and some were bemoaning the fact that the shades of colour in the rock were not as spectacular as they were led to expect. I guess these same people always require sunny days wherever they go, as are shown on all the postcards.

The best-known two places in Central Australia are probably Alice Springs and Uluru (called Ayers Rock when we were there) and people who have not been to the area may be surprised that these locations are actually more than 400 kilometres apart by road. However, this is a mere hop, skip and jump away in the terms of the Northern Territory and we were soon there, at the (now closed) camping ground near the rock. Unlike today’s visitors who have to stay at Yulara – more than 20 kilometres away – our campsite was only a few hundred metres from Uluru and in fact I walked there from our tent and continued around the full base of the monolith, in the company of my future brother-in-law, Paul. In a portent of many similar future occurrences, Sally decided to stay back at the shady camping ground while we went on our quest over many kilometres under the blazing sun, wondering why she hadn’t decided to keep us company. The following day though, Sally did come on our Ayers Rock ascent and it was managed with little fuss. Our aboriginal brothers are more active in discouraging this activity these days, although I think it is still fairly popular. I guess you have to wonder about the intelligence of so many people climbing something because it’s there and I am far from the least likely to partake…as you will discover if you continue reading.

When camping at Uluru we drove to the adjacent (40 kilometres away) Kata Tjuta – then called The Olgas – for another day’s exploration in the midst of amazing rock formations. This is an area that dwarfs Uluru in size and diversity, and we could have spent much more time exploring. (days? weeks?) On that occasion, one of the best views I have ever beheld unfolded before our eyes at the Valley of the Winds and we also walked through part of the incredibly varied Mount Olga Gorge Trail. It had recently rained in the area and there were many wildflowers on display, to make the scenery even better.

After returning to Uluru we packed up and left the following morning, heading back towards Alice Springs. On the way though, we stopped for a night at a place I had heard about that was further from the tourist trail – Kings Canyon. At the time there was not even an established camping ground and only one other tent was in residence. Despite this there were plenty of spectacular vistas through the gorge and it is easy to understand why they built a resort there after our visit. One of the cliff faces at Kings Canyon is a quite smooth sandstone rock face that drops vertically a long way to the canyon floor. At the top of the face, however, is an overhanging cantilever comprising several layers of rock – probably less than a metre thick but overhanging by about four metres. It is one of those natural features which you would expect to become dislodged sooner or later and tumble to the valley below. Now, I knew that Sally’s brother was a bit of a daredevil, but didn’t think that even he would be brave enough to climb out on the cantilever and dangle his feet over the edge. Nevertheless I have a photograph showing he did exactly that – my eyes were probably closed when I clicked the shutter – and from now on in this book I will refer to him as Mad Paul.

That night at Kings Canyon, being a bit bereft of supplies, we had to make do with what was available – I think dinner was something like spaghetti with baked beans and a bit of chilli powder thrown in for good measure. Back in Alice Springs the following day and, after parting ways with Mad Paul, we were a bit famished and I made one of my life’s poorer decisions. Now, service station food is not seen as the peak of haute cuisine, but believe me it was worse thirty years ago. Given that and the fact that Alice Springs is surrounded by desert and about 1000 kilometres from the nearest ocean, what do you think we would have chosen to eat? That’s right – service station fish and chips, followed by one of the more wretched nights of our existence, when Sally and I held a competition to see who could regurgitate more of the contents of our stomachs. Believe me I have never been so sick in my life…and, in my humble opinion, I won the competition hands down. (I am very competitive after all.) A visit to the Alice Springs Hospital ended with a doctor advising us that he couldn’t say if our malaise was due to food poisoning or a virus, so I concluded that the competence of the medical staff was questionable and decided to self-medicate.

Our next move was to head north once again and then east towards Queensland on the Barkly Highway, but we decided to stop in the salubrious surrounds of the Tennant Creek camping ground to gather our strength before making the right turn. As I have already stated, Tennant Creek was a lovely little place and we were sorry that it was not possible to stay longer…OK, I’m lying, I would have done anything to get out of there as quickly as possible and we were soon on our way, driving quickly past the three roadhouses over the 500-kilometre distance to the Queensland border. Even if it was not signposted the border would have been obvious – it was where the good-quality highway became a poor-quality byway. The sparsely-populated Northern Territory was more interested in enticing people out of Queensland (by the good standard of its roads) than vice versa.

Our first stop in the sunshine state was the large mining town of Mount Isa, where I had made contact with a few of my mates. One of these was Ken Hampton, a fellow engineer who was working for the local council and kindly allowed us to camp on his living room floor for a few days. We also went to see some live music at a pub, where the school captain of my final high school year – Keith Brown – was playing in a band which (unless I am mistaken) had the appropriately engineering name of Central Column Support*. They included some quite passable Santana in their set but were only supporting another group who later performed some of the more current pop songs. Therefore, this top-of-the-bill band was far more popular…and, of course, not as good.

*Keith’s day job was as a teacher at a Mount Isa High School.

At this time, my life had interesting parallels in relation to the Azaria Chamberlain case. Michael and Lindy Chamberlain had gone for a camping holiday from Mount Isa to Uluru in 1980 (when I was in Darwin) where their baby daughter was taken by a dingo. However, they were subsequently charged in relation to her death and tried in Darwin in 1982, while we were travelling to and around Uluru. When the jury returned guilty verdicts we were in Mount Isa and, therefore, I had visited the same three locations that they had during the same period, but in a different direction. I was dumbfounded on hearing the result of the trial at the time – it seemed clear to me that the trial judge virtually instructed the jury to find them not guilty, but somehow the jurors didn’t get the hint. Subsequent events proved the guilty verdicts to be a miscarriage of justice – the Chamberlains were pardoned and had their convictions quashed in 1987.

From Mount Isa, our path took us towards Queensland’s east coast via the Flinders Highway. At the town of Charters Towers my car’s brake fluid decided to spring a leak and the dubious stopping power of the old Holden was made substantially worse. (non-existent?) Somehow disaster was averted and, after repairs, we made it to the coast at Townsville to spend some time hanging out and looking at the view from Castle Hill. Continuing north up the coast about 300 kilometres to Cairns, the only rainy weather on the whole driving trip was encountered. After visiting another engineering buddy and his good wife there – Ron and Ellen Rawnsley – and stealing a few home-grown capsicums from them, we headed further north along the coast road and then up to the cooler and drier weather of the Atherton Tableland, camping beside Tinaroo Dam. Good use was made of the fresh capsicums in our version of spaghetti bolognaise (a good Australian staple), the leftovers of which morphed into chilli con carne the following night after the addition of a bit of spice. I remember a European backpacker was also camping there alone for some reason and made quite a point of discussing with us how little food he had – I think it was only a Vegemite sandwich or something. (He had obviously been in Australia for some time.) My unsympathetic response was something along the lines of: You have far more than we had when camping at Kings Canyon, mate. I think he was singularly unimpressed by my revelation, as Sally and I chomped into our platefuls of food.

If Central Australia has an oversupply of gorges North Queensland is similarly endowed with waterfalls, but we dutifully had a look at many of them and I even went swimming at Millstream Falls, supposedly Australia’s widest. I don’t think Victoria or Niagara need to look over their shoulders, though. The best swimming places were not at the falls, however, but at a couple of volcanic crater lakes by the names of Eacham and Barrine. These reservoirs are filled only by the rain that falls directly on the lakes and the purity of the water is obvious. We did a boat tour on Lake Barrine and I also went for a jog around the six-kilometre lakeside circuit track. If that run taught me anything it is this – there are many snakes in the Australian bush and if they really wanted to attack you they could. Whilst on my jog there was any number of them moving quickly away from the pathway to avoid me, as my fantastically rapid progress took them by surprise. They would have been less obvious if I was walking, being able to quietly slither away. I would say that the number of people who have been bitten by snakes is miniscule, other than those who have cornered the reptile and given them no other option. They are generally non-aggressive and I’m sure that is the way you would be too, if you didn’t have any limbs. (I would say that they are pretty ‘armless.)

After driving back to Cairns we did a few day tours, including a boat trip out to a little speck on the Great Barrier Reef called Green Island. Green was also the colour of our faces after the journey over choppy waters. The next day was filled by taking the scenic railway to Kuranda and back – the Skyrail cable-car that exists today between the same points was not in existence at that time. Our trip for the almost 2000 kilometres south from Cairns to Brisbane was then accomplished fairly quickly for us, over less than a week, but I do remember staying at another lovely campsite on the coast at Cape Hillsborough in Central Queensland. Unfortunately, this was during a period of drought and the area was drier than normal.

Ten weeks in total had been taken for the drive from Darwin to Brisbane and the HQ Holden had held up rather well, although some of the tyres were rather worn – to the extent of steel belts protruding through the steel-belted-radial tyre surfaces in some places. I guess some of the bull-dust holes we had bounced through on the dirt roads during our drive didn’t do any favours to the car’s wheel alignment! We spent three weeks in my home city, with Sally meeting and getting to know my parents and the rest of my family. If things were a trifle stilted at first, since she was new to them all, that atmosphere soon disappeared when my folks realised that I had somehow managed to win the lottery of life by hooking up with her. Then we flew to Auckland to meet my future out-laws, at which time the extent of my good fortune became blindingly obvious – I was welcomed with open arms. That Christmas period in New Zealand passed too quickly and soon it was time for me to fly back to work in Brisbane – alone, as previously agreed. Sally was to stay in Auckland until the wedding in April, after which she would return to Brisbane with me.

Author’s note: During that Christmas period in 1982 there were many people who said that Sally and I appeared to be well suited. I guess it seemed that we had similar natures, but you know what they say: Opposites attract. I know, I know – to a large extent they are wrong – it is not sensible for a couple to be in a relationship if they have opposite values. By the same token I would say that a couple with similar values, but with different strengths and weaknesses, should create a more robust partnership than a couple with very similar traits. In the case of Sally and me, I would say some of our major differences are:

1. I am competitive and she is not.

2. I love just about all sport and she does not.

3. I couldn’t give two hoots about cars and she is a bit of an enthusiast.

4. She has loads of patience – she must have stolen all of mine!

5. She is the slowest walker in the world and I am the fastest!

Of course some (but not all) of these aspects are typical contrasts between men and women. To give an illustration of our differences, consider the national sport of New Zealand. With Sally still being a Kiwi citizen, do you think she would be aware of them winning the most recent (2011) rugby world cup? No, of course not! Was I aware of it? Yes, although rugby is only Australia’s fourth most popular football code!

Over the following 16 weeks – I didn’t have to research that, I remember exactly how long it was – there was plenty of time for us to change our minds and call off the wedding, but of course we didn’t. One of my standard jokes is to boast how well I organised my nuptials, in that I did none of the work whatsoever. It was all accomplished by the good folk in New Zealand and I merely flew in, did the deed and flew out again with my booty sitting in the aircraft seat beside me. Our reception was actually quite lavish, being held at the Auckland Domain, and my parents-in-law were not particularly well-off; nevertheless, neither my parents nor I were ever asked to contribute financially to the event. Our wedding date was April 30 and one