This isn’t so much a guide to Melbourne as it is what I did during the weekend.

• Browsing around Melbourne Central. This large shopping centre and train station has an interesting centre piece of an old chimney under a multi paned glass roof. It’s got a good value food court with free wi-fi too.
• State Library of Victoria – a god send for uninterrupted public wi-fi without the need to buy a Big Mac (or my nemesis, Global Gossip) if you have a laptop. It’s housed in a neo-classical building, which is relatively uncommon in Australia. It’s just across the road from Melbourne Central on Swanston Street.
• Watching hockey at the ABN AMRO Champions trophy. Melbourne is the capital of Australian sport, and you can take your pick from Aussie rules and cricket in season, but hockey’s my game.
• Walking down the Yarra riverfront on a hot day is an excellent free activity. This modern city has a pleasant skyline, with interesting postmodern architecture and markets around Flinder’s Street station.
• Sunday session in St. Kilda, my favourite Melbourne social spot.

The Weekend:

Unsurprisingly, I didn’t sleep well on the night bus to Melbourne. I woke up around seven driving through the Victoria countryside, and we arrived soon after. As usual, not having a map, I didn’t really know where I was going upon my arrival. I wanted to head up to Franklin Street in the north of the central grid, went the wrong way, but eventually managed to find it. I checked into Melbourne International Backpackers at nine in the morning. I had some trepidation about going in a backpackers again, seeing as my luck had been out for almost all of the country, and it was two days until Tom, and old friend that I’d be staying with in the week, returned from the Great Ocean Road. Circumstances didn’t lend themselves to staying at Frank’s (my ex-girlfriend) either, who was another point of contact in the city. In fact, Melbourne International Backpackers was about two hundred metres from her apartment.

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For $25 a night, the room wasn’t exactly worth the money. It stank for one. At least there was a free breakfast at the downstairs bar. The location was perfect for the weekend though, and I headed down to the library to work for most of the morning. Once that was finished, I just pottered around the city and had a Chinese. I couldn’t really be bothered to start making friends in the hostel. The same old conversation was not going to come up again.

Anyhow, at five my old mate Rich, from Canterbury gave me a call and I headed to meet him down near the markets. Meeting up with an old friend thousands of miles from home is always pretty good, and we got typically battered. I went into town, had too many drinks with no dinner, then we took a taxi to some unknown location, drank more, then Rich called it a night. I took a taxi back to Fluid Oz bar, under the backpackers, then stood in the smoking area drinking more with a group of random Australians. I got refused service on about my third beer. It was probably a good idea.

The next day I’d be going with Frank to see England vs. Korea at hockey. It’d been five months since I’d last seen her, and considering the circumstances this was going to be quite a big deal, but with the hangover I had it didn’t really register. We watched the hockey, England won, watched a bit of the Australia vs. Spain match, then headed to the markets. We sat outside drinking away in the heat of the afternoon until about five, when my hangover caught up with me. I had to go home and pass out for the night.

The next day had two main events, interluded by a few hours of boredom. The first was meeting Andrea, who I’d been to the Great Barrier Reef with, to arrange our Great Ocean Road trip for later in the week. I met her, after some effort trying to find her, at Flinders Street Station along with two others she’d got to come along. We had lunch, then booked the car for Thursday through to Monday. They’d drive up to Adelaide in that time while I’d cover the Ocean Road and return to Melbourne. I’d originally thought of doing this with Frank, seeing as she suggested it, but it would’ve just been a bit too weird.

After a couple of hours interlude, I got a call from Tom to tell me he’d come back. I took a train to Armadale and met him at the station, to see my third familiar face of the weekend. I dumped my bag down at his place, then we went for a Sunday session down at St. Kilda. I didn’t know any of the others, but it was a fairly good session, and unsurprisingly, I had quite a hangover the next day.

To my surprise he showed up in the bar at Base on Magnetic Island, when I was getting pissed and trying my hardest to meet plenty of people. I said to him, damned drunk, ‘I shared a dorm with you in Mission Beach, you must be travelling the same way as me! Give me your email address and we should carry on!’
‘Okay,’ he replied. ‘It’s wee,’ he spoke with a Germanic accent.
I typed in wee into my phone. ‘Wee?’ I asked, showing the phone.
‘No, wee, or why?’
‘Wee-oh-why? Like this?’
‘No wee, as in the letter.’
‘Ohhhh, you mean w – I see.’
‘No, no, veeeee, I mean veeee.’
‘V, okay got it.’
‘o-l-k-e-r@gmx.ch,’
It was clear he was Swiss. ‘Cool, I’ll drop you a line mate, nice meeting you.’
While it made a humorous anecdote, I never did drop him a line.

Next up I saw him numerous times in Magnum’s in Airlee Beach. He was in the same hostel for two out of three of my last places. Strange. We didn’t make eye contact, and I frequently avoided doing so. I reckon he must’ve done the same.

In Rainbow Beach, lo and behold, I walked across the green one night and he was heading into Dingos Backpackers. Once again, he didn’t clock me.

I didn’t see him in Brisbane. I’m not sure he even went there. I spent three nights in a grotty backpackers and barely left the library for the duration of my stay, so it was little surprise.

However, on the third day of being in the Gold Coast, he was in my hostel. What the fuck! How could this be?

I don’t recall seeing him in Byron, and seeing as I spent most of my time in Sydney on Bondi Beach or watching a Simpsons DVD, there’s little surprise I didn’t see him there. I did, however, extraordinarily see him walking around Echo Point in Katoomba – the Blue Mountains, of all places!

I picked a pretty lengthy walking track, but the beginning of it had few lookouts and was generally surrounded covered by foliage. It was fairly refreshing though, and what I did get to see of the cliffs at the beginning of the valley were quite spectacular, although not quite as great as what I got to see at Echo Point, and The Three Sisters, where, for obvious reasons, most of the tourists hang out.

I’ve seen quite a few beautiful sights in my time away. A few highlights include the view of Phi Phi from the summit, the mountain passes between Luang Prabang and Vang Vieng, the three towers of Angkor Wat, the views of the surrounding countryside from Mount Kanlaon, and the site from Mount Coo-tah, but Echo point was certainly up there. I could stare at it for ages. The view sprawls out across a valley covered by a eucalyptus jungle, with brown cliffs occasionally rising up into flat topped summits. At dusk, it was simply amazing, and I felt like I could love Australia again.

Most of my two days there were spent walking around various tracks or taking another look from Echo Point. I can’t say there was a lot of socializing, because there wasn’t, and while I was tempted to head back to Sydney for a final night of lash with Josh and the girls Emily and Aimee, I opted against it in an effort to save money and get to Melbourne for a Friday night. The lash wasn’t so appealing anymore anyhow. To be honest, while I’d had a great time in Fraser, I hadn’t really been feeling the lash since my first night in Magnetic Island, back in the first week in Australia. I’d rather save my money for the United States.

I switched hostels for the second night because Blue Mountains Lodge had free Internet – my first encounter of this in Australia. I also had a dorm room to myself for under $30. The accomodation in the place was superior to anything I’d been in up to this point – minus Gilligan’s, which was absolutely brilliant.

On the Thursday, after a final look at Echo Point in the morning, I took the train back to Sydney so I could catch my final night bus to Melbourne.

I was looking forward to Sydney. Josh Chowney, who I’d earlier travelled with to Chaing Mai and been to a ping pong show with, would be my host, so again I’d be out of backpacker accommodation and paying nothing. I was meant to head over to his house at about nine, but I simply couldn’t wait any longer at about seven thirty so I gave him a text. To my surprise, he replied right away, giving me instructions on how to reach his house in North Bondi. It didn’t take long before I was there.

I felt fairly whacked in the morning, but didn’t go to sleep and we headed down to Bondi Beach for a couple of hours in the afternoon. Afterwards, back at home, Josh went out and I tried to get some kip for a bit, but I didn’t get much before we were tucking into a bottle of wine and then heading out.

I had high hopes of going out in Sydney, but this particular Thursday night was a particularly drab affair. Most of the bars we went to around Kings Cross were empty unless they were a gay bar, while Oxford Street, from what I remember, was close to empty. While Josh and I certainly have good banter, all I really got out of it was a stinking hangover – I hadn’t had one so bad since Boracay.

My work brief for that week was 10 articles, and they had to be delivered on Friday. I’d done seven, but simply couldn’t face finishing them off for the day. Home alone, every time I went to the computer to start, I broke into a feverish sweat and had to collapse back into bed. It was a complete nightmare. Josh had gone out for the day with a work social, but had invited me out for the evening. Even though I desperately wanted to go, I simply couldn’t. My body wouldn’t even let me eat until 8PM and I completely missed the work deadline. I went to bed about eleven that night and finally got a decent sleep.

On the Saturday Josh and I headed out and I got to see what an incredibly naturally beautiful city Sydney is. Walking from Bondi Bridge, we headed towards Coogee, walking through a stream of populated city beaches in the heat of the afternoon. After about an hour, we caught the bus to the harbour and took a walk across the bridge. It’s a spectacular view from up there – seeing the Operah House is something every traveller to Australia intends to do, and from afar it still looks magnificent. Up close, you kind of notice that it looks quite dated.

Josh had to go to work at six, so after a beer down at the quay, I headed back to Bondi Junction, got incredibly lost on an attempt at a walk back to Josh’s, then ran back to Bondi Junction and took a bus back to his house. I got probably the most untold deep fried fish I’ve ever had (I’m quite a fan) down at the beach front – it was fried barramundi, but the Australians don’t seem to care so much about the chips part of fish and chips. Satisfied, I went to bed.

To be honest, I didn’t do a whole lot else in Sydney. On Sunday I sat in the house and watched almost the entirety of season six of the Simpson’s. It might sound boring, but it’s easy to take small things like this for granted when you live in a house. I’d been living in hotels and dorms for the best part of five months and it was nice to sit back on a sofa. In the evening, I met an ex girlfriend of mine down the Bondi RSL, and got rather pissed until ten o’clock. She’d been living with her boyfriend in Bondi for the best part of two years, and I couldn’t believe how different she sounded – almost fully Australian!

Josh didn’t come back from work until too late, then on Monday and Tuesday he was working again. It was the familiar unlucky breaks in Australia. He’d had barely any work up until I arrived, then he just got shifts constantly from the minute I arrived. Running low on cash, he had little choice to take them up. On the Tuesday, I decided it was time for a change and headed to the Blue Mountains. I’d spent five full days in the city but not done much more than the walk between Bondi and Coogee and the harbour. Sometimes it’s nice to take your feet off the gas.

1. The vast majority of English appear to be very dim Med holidaymakers who are out here for work.
2. Almost everyone else is German.
3. Sharing dorms with 18 year old European girls who talk about their health insurance plan and don’t drink is dull.
4. Cans of coke are $2.
5. It’s more expensive than Britain.
6. Shared kitchens are murder, no matter how big they are.
7. Your experience relies entirely on the luck of who you’re placed with.
8. It’s largely devoid of its own culture.
9. The weather isn’t all that great
10. Forcing yourself through goon bags is unpleasant, yet the only affordable way to get drunk.
11. In Australia the traveller is amongst the poorest.
12. There are only two ways to go on the east coast of Australia – up and down.

12 Reasons Why Indo China is Awesome to Travel Solo

1. You can get drunk every night.
2. You meet like minded people all the time.
3. Everything is so much cheaper than the west.
4. You never have to cook your own dinner.
5. The weather is always warm. Although it rains in the wet season, it’s still hot.
6. It’s rich with many different cultures and history.
7. The food is incredible.
8. You can live in luxury for 10 pounds a night.
9. Most people are following similar paths, with similar agendas.
10. The beer tastes great.
11. In Asia the traveller is amongst the richest.
12. You have to make important decisions about where to go next, as there is no defined route.

Fortunately Ray turned up in the kitchen at about 5. I’d now met him in three of my last five stops, and we’d said we’d meet in Surfer’s, but never got round to it. It turned out that he’d had an amazingly debauched time. While I’d got denied entry and felt little enthusiasm for getting hammered, he’d met a crazy group of Irish and laid three girls in four nights – prolific scoring. ‘That’s never happened to me before,’ he told me. I wasn’t sure he’d be able to continue the good form here, especially not with the schoolies.

In another stroke of luck, we bumped into Aimee and Emily in the centre of town. It turned out I was in the wrong hostel and given them the wrong telephone number, so no wonder we’d been out of contact. Fortunately, they were up for coming out that night. Good stuff. I went with them to their hostel and was pretty glad I hadn’t checked in their. Their dorm was huge and they said no one had good chat. I guess mine was small and no one had good chat, but it was just a bit better, minus the free wifi.

Back at the Backpacker’s on the Beach I was sitting down for a chicken sandwich when a quite attractive girl with braids sat down beside me and started talking to me. Slightly surprised, I found out she was Canadian and travelling alone. I invited her out for the night and we went over to the girl’s hostel, but it turned out it had taken so long for them to get food in Cheeky Monkey’s that they weren’t back yet, even though they’d gone there a good few hours. Instead of going into the hostel, Ivy and I sat down at the beach and got through a few cans. Finally I’d met someone new who actually had good chat! We headed back down the beach to our hostel, but I managed to stub my toe badly on the dark path across the railway tracks. When we got to the patio, it was bleeding pretty bad. I’d basically struck the front of my toe off. Ivy got me a few plasters, I collected my box of goon, and then we headed over to the girl’s hostel again.

We drank goon until we got chucked out at 10.30 (at my hostel, they allowed you to stay up drinking all night) and then headed to Coco Mangas, Byron’s other club. I should’ve remembered that anyone staying at Backpacker’s on the Beach got discounted entry and a free drink, but forgetting this, I had to fork out $10 just for entry, and then the bar was… well, appalling. For one it was tiny, then it was full of 18 year old Australians and there was, again, barely a single girl in there. Rather than going off and trying to pull, I stayed with the girls and watched in a curious sort of horror about how they were getting accosted by a multitude of young Australian’s who had utterly no chat, but just stood in front of them or danced. The girl’s were quite a good looking bunch, so no real surprises there, but they seemed rather bemused by the approaches. After just a few drinks and a couple of trips to the toilet to tend to my wounded toe, I got Ivy and we left. What an utterly terrible place. I went back to the hostel, drunk a little more goon, then went to bed seething. This was completely crap – it wasn’t a good place to go out in at all!

The next day, I woke up, then sat about on the beach, talked to Ray for a while, and generally couldn’t be arsed doing anything. The girls had gone to Nimbin and I felt terribly hungover. Three days in a row of hard and yet utterly fruitless lash had got to me. I also felt pretty tired of the place, and Australia, and to be honest, travelling in general. I just wasn’t getting the luck I’d had previously. Something about travelling in Australia just wasn’t ticking right. I went to bed that night pretty homesick. I missed the permanence of home, the moving on and on and on, staying in backpacker’s and not meeting people was hurting. I felt over it. I did get a bit of respite by phoning my old mate Rich, who I’d meet in Melbourne, and then Josh, who I’d be staying with in Sydney.

The next day I met Emily and Aimee early on and we had a BBQ with their friends that we’d met with in the Gold Coast. I had a few burgers and a huge steak, washing it down with a few beers – it was fairly untold – then sat around, caught some rays, and read my book. At 5.45, it was time for the night bus to Sydney, where I’d meet Josh who I’d earlier travelled to Chiang Mai with. And I was out of the beach syndrome of the east coast and wouldn’t be staying in a backpackers. Things were looking rosier, I felt.

One thing that I found incredible was the build up for things that often seemed rather limp. People big up Airlee Beach, when it’s only existence is as a two night stopover to flee to the Whitsunday Islands. Anymore time than that and you become seriously bored – as I had done. The one place that everyone I’d met had bigged up more than anything ever was Byron Bay, and I travelled there half knowing that I would be disappointed. When you boil it down, it’s just another beach town. Beach syndrome is chronic in Australia. The East Coast crawl is just travelling down a beach!

To be fair to Byron Bay, it certainly has some character. I hadn’t come across anywhere that didn’t look overly new and functional so far in Australia. Surfer’s was the epitome of that, while Brisbane and Cairns were like massive modern grids too. Byron had something noticeably different right away. It felt like a Californian town rather than an Australian one. The aggressive signs warning you of doing anything seem to have been lifted, you could drink your own booze in the hostels, and the buildings were pleasantly older and more diverse. The whole atmosphere was more chilled out.

That said, that this is regarded is a good thing is quite a paradox. Byron Bay is chilled out only insofar in its relation to the rest of Australia, which really isn’t that chilled out at all. It might seem a more laid back way of life, helped by the weather and (usually) people, but powers that be go too far in regulating everything to the point where the traveller’s options become limited. I never got close to the level of freedom I felt in Asia. Economics plays a large part, but also the laws of developed lands create an interesting paradox – they are less free. Laos is a one party state you wouldn’t want to mess around with, yet you can do almost anything you like. In Australia, there’s all sorts of laws – particularly regarding drinking – which seem rather too prohibitive. I considered that I never felt as relaxed in Byron Bay as I did a Railay, or Malapascua, or the Four Thousand Islands, and from what I remember of California, places like Santa Monica and San Diego simply creamed all over it. We will see when I return there.

The number one thing for me about Byron, was that you could simply drink in the hostels. Licensing laws being what they are in Australia, hostels normally completely prevent the consumption of alcohol in dorms. This sucks and Byron didn’t have it. Bonus.

One thing that struck me is that most people I spoke to had been in the town for quite some time. The reason – they loved it. ‘But what have you done?’
‘Gone to the beach, smoked weed…’
Great if you like that, but I can’t say I’m into it. It’s a bloody boring activity. Sitting on a beach getting stoned.

The luck of the drawer here made me finally run out of patience too. Aimee and Emily said they’d checked into ‘Main Beach Backpackers’, but mistakenly I checked into, ‘Backpackers Inn on the Beach’ after forgetting the whole ‘main’ bit. Then I found myself rooming with two young French girls who barely spoke English. It was beyond a joke now. In my whole time in Australia, the only time I’d roomed with an English people was in Airlee Beach and Surfer’s Paradise, and they in the latter they were all little dweebs. Seeing as there were so many of them around, and I’d stayed in no fewer than nine hostels, I found this quite astonishing.

I suppose it wouldn’t matter so long as I could find Emily and Aimee. They weren’t in the hostel, to my confusion, and their check in card wasn’t at the front desk. Still, they must be around, I thought. Luckily I bumped into them on an off chance in town. It turned out they wouldn’t be going out after the previous evening in Surfer’s. I bought a box of goon and a six pack anyway, then went back to my hostel to drink through it. I wrote a few articles for work, then at ten I finally went and sat at someone else table and started conversation. One guy was a young Dutchman still struggling with English, then the other was a 20 year old Swede called Tom who had an almost perfect English accent. The problem was, this guy was seriously outspoken to the point of annoying. I found myself disagreeing with his words of wisdom in my head, but just attempting to nod pleasantly as he spouted them out. I really seem to pick them up.

Now we come to Byron’s ‘clubs’. A big bunch of people on the East Coast had been bigging up ‘Cheeky Monkey’s’ – Byron’s biggest hottest night spot – apparently. Unfortunately though, it completely sucked! Tom was the first person I’d met who didn’t actually like it, and when I went I realised why. To be fair, it was Sunday, but the bar was completely cock heavy to the point of sausage fest and it was little more than a Yate’s. Poor poor banter. I think we had one scooner and decided to go back to the hostel. I had a full box of goon waiting for us. This was actually outstanding. We sat with a mixed bunch of people – USA, Germany, Canada, England – and got battered. After a while most of them had cleared off to bed, so Tom and I accosted a group of Australian schoolies and chatted to them for a while. They were actually pretty decent, but being as drunk as I was, I had little to say and my conversation didn’t seem to interest them. My appearance probably intimidated them too, as I looked about 35.

Later on, I headed down to a disused train track behind the hostel with a group of people, and sat there continuing the box of goon. I have no idea who they were, and I don’t think I ever saw them again, but I wouldn’t have recognised them. I went to bed at four, with little recollection of much.

On the Friday, hungover, I was sat on the beach trying to read when the schoolies organisers began testing the sound system. It was fucking loud. I couldn’t believe how loud it was. You wouldn’t even have music that loud at the Reading Festival. This went on for quite some time, and then I got interviewed by a news channel about skin cancer. Emily and I were seriously tanned, so I think the reporter picked his targets well. Those bloody Brits and their sun. Normally you don’t get such brown ones.

Friday night the girls went out to watch the new Twilight movie. There was absolutely no hope I was going to that. It was a bit of a nothing day really. At 2AM that night, after a sober night in, some guy came round waking everyone up asking their names, because they’d overbooked the room and needed to move someone. What a fucking place. It was heavily staffed – it almost seemed every second Brit staying there was employed by the place in some way – but they couldn’t even organise the bed spaces properly, then had the cheek to wake everyone up. What were we paying for? I got back to sleep alright, but it was pretty ridiculous.

To be fair, the hostel had quite a good atmosphere to it. The twenty bed dorm was spacious and everyone was pretty sociable, while the majority of people present were English. Maybe it felt Brits abroady, Magaluf style, but they were all a rather friendly bunch. There were definitely a few people I reckoned I’d get on well with if I’d stayed a little longer.

Saturday the schoolies carnage began. From midday the centre of town began to fill up with 18 year olds and lower and it didn’t show any signs of respite. By the early evening, the whole town was brimming with cheeky Australian kids who were going to get fucked up that night. I ate out again – this time with a curry laksa for $9 – then we went over to the other girl’s hostel again to drink some goon. This time, I went too far. I had a full bottle of red, then plenty of glasses of Emily and Aimee’s goon. I was soon absolutely battered.

When we got into town, the girls went into a bar but I wasn’t allowed in, because I’d struggled to get my ID out. You can’t argue with bouncers, I thought, and I didn’t have the girl’s phone number again – I really should’ve got it by now! Instead, I went to Cocktails and Dreams alone, somehow got in, and spoke to an Aussie. I simply can’t remember anything about her – not a single feature – we must’ve chatted for a while, maybe five minutes, until she said, ‘You’re really drunk.’ I knew it was game over then. I went to a kebab shop and there were people absolutely everywhere – anywhere you looked there was a horde of teenagers moving about, shouting. I get a kebab and sat amongst the crowds in a drunken haze. The kebab disappeared, then I found some English guys from the hostel and followed them for a while. However, something in me must’ve reckoned it was all hopeless, as I awoke fully clothed at nine the next morning. The whole evening was pointless, albeit a cheap one.

In the morning the girls went onto Byron Bay early, I went into town, saw the mass of schoolies, then bolted back to the hostel. Once my bus arrived, I was happy to be out of there.

I had a feeling Surfer’s Paradise would be different. As Australia’s number one holiday destination, it sounded like it would be a good crack. The main beach is huge, with skyscrapers creeping up to it, while there are plenty of bars and also three theme parks. The thing was, this week was going to be the start of the notorious schoolies festival. Basically this is when Australia’s 18 year olds break up from school and go on the lash. The Gold Coast is the prime destination for this.

I knew I wouldn’t be seeing Annette again for a while, disappointingly I considered I might never see her again. However, after watching her go and having the stuffing knocked out of me, I hatched a new plan. I started thinking I could work in Australia for a while. A copywriter is what I am, and it’s on the skill workers sponsorship list. The problem was I didn’t have a valid work visa, so I’d have to leave the country, then return in order to work. Annette said she was going to Melbourne. My mate Rich was in Melbourne, Rhys Cole would be in Melbourne, another mate Tom would be in Melbourne. Melbourne seemed the only candidate. All the same, while I had rose tinted spectacles of working and living in Melbourne, I had to keep on travelling as I’d always done, with the intent of meeting some fine women.

I’d been talking to Ray, and thinking this could be like Cairns all over again. The Gold Coast had that kind of promise, and surely it’s not hard to pull an 18 year old? Well, the whole thing was a disaster if that was my real intent.

The first night we went out was Thursday. I took the bus from Brisbane and met a girl called Sophie that I’d been to university with, and it turned out she was working in Byron Bay. We had a good chat about life etc and then I arrived at Surfers. After spending half the day searching for Aimee and Emily, I felt a little concerned I hadn’t bumped into them. They’d said they were staying at Backpacker’s in Paradise, so I checked in there, but I couldn’t find them. I couldn’t find them on the beach either. BY this time I’d pretty much given up on preparing my own meals. It was frankly too expensive to do this solo with the amount of people dossing about while eating out is actually relatively cheap in Australia. When you think four mushrooms cost $1.50 sometimes, and full on Chinese meal costs $7, you can see the benefits of this approach. That night, Subway was the takeaway of choice. Foot long please.

Outside I got talking to a trio of English guys who seemed alright to begin with, until I realised they were pretty immature, and one of them had a seriously obnoxious attitude. He was clearly a public schoolboy, yet he tried to sound all ghetto all the time. Just wanting company, I said I’d go out with them that night, but thankfully, Aimee and Emily were in the twenty bed dorm when I returned. I said I’d rather get ready, wait for the girls and see them in town. Bollocks would I.

The girls took a quite outrageous amount of time to get ready, but I waited with them, basically bantering them in a futile effort to get them to hurry up. I seriously don’t understand the level of preparation women need to go through just to get out of the door. We’d be out for as long as it would take them just to prepare at this rate! An hour later, some of their friends from back home appeared – more Kent ladies – and then they headed off to get some booze. This took ages as well, and I just sat in the bar drinking ridiculously expensive bottles of beer. After two of these, they appeared with boxes of goon. Ideal. We’d be getting smashed.

We headed to a hostel down the road where Aimee and Emily’s friends were staying, which didn’t have a bar, and began cracking into the goon. To start with, things were a little civilised, then we soon broke into an orgy of ‘What the fuck?’

What’s the name of the fucking game
What-the-fuck
INSERT HERE A fuck what the fuck, how about an INSERT HERE B fuck

I was anal fuck. Other names included titty fuck, fat fuck, dirty fuck, oral fuck etc.

Anal fuck, what the fuck, how about a titty fuck?

Due to it involving clapping and whacking the table, this game got really rather raucous. By the time we’d left, four of us had nailed a full box of of goon, and I was roaring drunk. Outside, one of the girls fed me the remainder of the bag simply by opening the tap into my mouth. We headed up the road smashed. Apparently the place to go was Cocktail’s and Dreams.

Annette had previously lived in the Gold Coast, and she’d told me it was tacky. By tacky, I envisaged something rather like Blackpool, but this was all ultra modern. However, there was something a bit shit about it. Like most of Australia, it had a character crisis. It was like a strip of chain bars reminiscent of some hell hole like Jumpin’ Jacks, O’Neil’s and Chicago’s… indeed it was tacky. Fucking tacky, and don’t even get me started on the bouncers. Cocktail’s and Dreams was… okay. It had a bar and a dancefloor, but it was quite cock heavy when we were in there and the girls suggested we should go somewhere where you could talk, rather than just be accosted by men.

We were in some Irish bar, and by that time I was utterly blasted. I can barely remember anything about it other than talk to Emily about her boyfriend situation, who was back at home for the 8 months that she was away. Sometimes I wish I’d stayed with mine, although it’s all a bit of a hypothetical mess that one. I think most people on a three month or more trip should experience it single – there’s just too much drunkenness and opportunity. Then we both ended up in McDonald’s – I don’t even remember having a proper dinner, so it was much needed. When we got outside, the remaining girls were getting their name’s taken by the police. They’d taken wine out of a bar and were drinking it on the street – one of Australia’s big drinking no-nos. Remarkably, the police didn’t fine them, even though they were sat by a sign stating that anyone caught in the street drinking would indeed be fined. I’m convinced that had they had penises, they would’ve had to get their wallets out.

Then I’m a bit confused by the turn of events. Aimee, Emily and I went back to Cocktails and Dreams, but after I’d gone to the toilet, I couldn’t find them. I thought they must’ve not heard me and just left. Annoyingly, I didn’t have their number, so I couldn’t find out where they’d got to. I’d been out solo a few times in Australia, and it was a little hit and miss, but I didn’t want to do it that time. I resigned on going home, found Aimee and Emily’s friends in a bar down the road, drank a pointless pint, then sidled off into the night. It was all a bit limp.

It was also conveniently close to the State Library of Queensland, where I’d spend the next two days solid. The first was spent researching various visa options, such as the likelihood of me working in Australia or the United States, getting a noodle soup from central Brisbane for lunch, then uploading photos to Facebook – which took ages. At seven I received a solid brief from my agency back at home, went back to the hostel and had a sad dinner of cup-a-noodles with carrots and asparagus. Meals for one were getting classier.

The second day I got to the library at close to ten, then worked as best I could on the articles I’d been briefed for. I simply couldn’t concentrate, no less because the ‘quiet area’ of Brisbane library had a creche in it! Well, he who drinks Australian thinks Australian. At about eleven thirty they all broke into Incy Wincy Spider, so I cracked out the headphones and put my music on as loud as possible. Work did not go well. By the end of the day I’d been in the library for some six hours, but still only managed to write three and a half articles. The vast majority of my time had been spent fucking about, complete with a pointless gander around the center of town where the only accomplishment was buying an Angus burger. I did, however, at least manage to catch Ray, the Irish guy from Airlee Beach, on Facebook chat, and it turned out he was in a hostel just up the road. I agreed to meet him for a beer.

Things went from bad to worse as I got no reply from my text sent to Annette – my mind needed some TLC after two days of self enforced solitude, and I thought I’d be getting it – while the heavens cracked up into a fantastic electrical storm and it pissed it down with rain. When I got back, I was feeling pretty bored, and a long way from where I’d been just at the weekend. I headed up to where Ray said he was but couldn’t find him, then went back to my own hostel and sat at the bar. I ordered a pint. The barman told me it was $7 for two until nine o’clock, so suggested I got that. I agreed, necked the two pints in fifteen minutes, then wondered what was next. Annette texted me to say she couldn’t make a full blown date tomorrow night but could make a drink after work. That would be fine with me, I thought, although not the best case scenario. I wandered back up to Ray’s hostel and this time found him in there. It turned out to be $5 for a pint of Stella before 11. I don’t know how many we had, but probably plenty as I managed to rinse the best part of $35, lose a full deck of cigarettes and awake the next day with the biggest pounding headache I’d endured in a long time.

This hangover was bad, and it was here to stay. Regrettably Ray and I had arranged to go to the XXXX brewery tour – not exactly the best hangover. I meandered over to his hostel at midday, feeling rough as fuck and downing a pint of chocolate milk, only to find he wasn’t there and wasn’t answering his phone. Bearing this in mind, I felt like I should make the best out of the day and go to the library and do some work. That didn’t happen. I broke into hot flushes and cold sweats as I stared at my computer screen. Fearing the worst, I packed up and headed to the Queensland Art Gallery. They were preparing for a large exhibition and there was nothing to see as yet. I nearly bundered on several occasions, and ended up draping myself on a leather sofa for several minutes until I realised I was in a most inappropriate place for such behaviour. I got up and headed back to my hostel, thinking bed was the only option. Then Ray ran, ‘Hi James, yes, sorry, I was asleep there. So do you want to go down to the brewery tour?’
I don’t know what possessed me to say, ‘Yes,’ but suddenly I felt better.

The brewery wasn’t far, but it was approaching three once we’d grabbed something to eat from Coles and actually got there. ‘Sorry, next tour is at four guys.’ We’d have to wait an hour in the bar, while I’d arranged to meet Annette at 5.30 – at ‘an hour and a bit’ the tour might bite into my little, and possibly final, tete-a-tete. Even so, we agreed on going, paid our $24, then played pool in the bar – I lost by potting the black. If you’ve ever been on a brewery tour, then this brewery tour wasn’t really worth it. I tried my hardest to care how beer is made, although the history of XXXX was reasonably interesting, but in the end all it boiled down to was people working in a factory – dead dull. Whether you work in a box factory, as I have, or a beer factory, then it’s dull. The same mechanical processes repeat themselves over and over as the product heads to sales.

It also took a bit too much time. We only finished the tour at 5.25, so I had to miss out the best bit – the actual drinking – and sprint to Roma Street in order to meet Annette. By the time I got there, I was ten minutes late. I could feel the whole thing as a little awkward, as if we were breaking up or something. In essence, I suppose we were.

We walked across the street and talked for a while, then we got a drink from a bar. She got a white wine and I got a scooner of Toohey’s then we sat down. She explained that there was some shit going down other than me, so she was meeting a friend tonight. I felt pretty sad we couldn’t go out together that night, but something was telling me this wouldn’t be the end of it. Her saying she was going to Melbourne to work put a vision in my mind of working there too. It was supposed to be a good city, I had friends there, and then she’d be there too. Maybe I should go.

When she went to the toilet I started preparing a speech about how nice it all was, and how we got on so well, and how the trouble with travelling is that you can never get too involved. Somehow, although it was broken up, I managed to deliver what I had to say entirely perfectly, such was how she put me at ease. It would definitely be a shame to leave. I hadn’t met many, if any, people like her. When she kissed me on the cheek to say goodbye, I said it deserved a better kiss than that, and we had one. Then she said goodbye, and I watched her walk out the door and up the street.

I took a sip of my drink, looked at the people around me, and gave it thought of what I really wanted. What I really wanted had just walked out of the door, and now I’d be going through the typical motions. I was sick of saying goodbye. I didn’t want to do it anymore. In earlier days I’d have probably gone up to some random and stoked up a conversation with a degree of apprehension, but now the wind had fallen out of the sails. What I wanted out of Australia had passed; it had pretty much passed in the first week. The pleasant weekend of living in a home and having some affection for someone was what I wanted now, but I had to move on, on into the backpacker hangouts and pot luck and simple fortune for beery evenings. I had to start again. Again.

Still, Ray was around, and the girls I’d met in Airlee Beach and Laos previously would be meeting me in the Gold Coast, but something was gone. The same passion and excitement I’d had in Asia, and I’d felt upon my arrival to Australia, wasn’t really there anymore. It felt like being back in England, working, the same monotony of Western rules and safety and conformity ticking through the day. Take me back to Chiang Mai, or Laos, or Angkor Wat, I reckoned.

While I couldn’t go to those places, I could still relive my Asia dreams to some degree by heading to Chinatown. It was a long way, but I didn’t care, I had nothing else to do. I must’ve walked for an hour or so, along the wide river and through the Fortitude Valley where Annette and I had been on Saturday night. I was busting for the toilet by the time I got there, and after some hopping about the place, I finally found a public lavatory across the road from a toiletless McDonald’s. After that, I ordered a Chinese meal in a restaurant, sitting alone in loserville, and for the first time I began to miss home. Everything about the city was too familiar, but without friends to go through the day with there wasn’t much good to be had with it. The meal wasn’t particularly pleasant either, and it reminded me more of Soho than it did of Laos.

I walked back through the city realising I hadn’t seen a begger for the whole time I’d been in Brisbane, then met Ray for a few drinks in his hostel’s bar. There was karaoke on but we were too tired and sober to get amongst it. Tomorrow would be the Gold Coast anyway, we reckoned, and there couldn’t be a much better place to beat sorrows and get back on track than Surfer’s Paradise. Hopefully it would be like Cairns all over again.