Australia: The Outback & Hippies
Summer Shugyo 20.X.3 Pt.III

Arriving in Australia was a bit of an adjustment in several ways. First, there was the physical: I had just come from Singapore which sits more or less on the equator and is quite the warm (unbearably so) location in July. Arriving in Perth I was reminded that it was winter time in Oz, and my shorts and flip flops weren't going to cut it on a windy night. That night it was less than 7degrees C, opposed to Singapore which had regularly been in the 30's. Next, there was the cultural differences: Singapore is a bit of a conservatively restrained place, Australia less so. The second I arrived in Perth I was greeted by several variations of the same magazine, which may as well have been called “tits”. I appreciated their forwardness. Finally, there was adjusting to the fact that a large portion of my gear had been unsympathetically confiscated in Singapore... gear I needed for Australia. You see, I had business in Australia, but that hadn't always been the plan...

About a year prior I had been informed by the university I needed to schedule my final internship so I could graduate. Finishing the last of my coursework and stuck in a finished-but-no-degree-limbo I decided I should get on it. What to do? I certainly wasn't going back to training clients or clinical rotations or hospitals like my peers. No; not Nash. I did some digging, found some loopholes, and used some eloquent word wizardry to convince the university that an outdoor survival leadership nature school course should count as my final internship, despite it being more or less entirely unrelated to my studies. It worked. I was scheduled to spend the summer in Brazil, in the Amazon rainforest, traipsing around with the prestigious NOLS, National Outdoor Leadership School.

Ahh, the rainforest; so much not a desert. I was to be backpacking and canoeing around and through the Amazon river basin, learning all I could from the school and reveling in the fact that I got this to actually work. I had already decided to catch a piranha, eat it, then make jewelry from it's bones. Actually getting everything squared away with NOLS however turned out to be a huge pain in my ass. Normally if I was to enter a country that had vaccine restrictions or visa requirements I could find a way in without such things. Not with these guys! They were very on the up-and-up, which made things extremely difficult for me. I was given a burner phone so they could reach me for clerical purposes (argh!), and had finally come to terms with the fact that I was actually going to need to get a yellow fever vaccine. The day before I was going to get it, I received a call.

They had canceled my expedition.

“Why!?”, I inquired. Because they couldn't get enough people to go. How many were there? “Pretty much just you.” Despite my urging, they held steadfast that it was logistically impractical to launch an expedition into the heart of the Amazon for just one man. Seemed fine to me. They said they would transfer me to another course and asked what I would like. I couldn't know on the spot because there were heaps of calculations I needed to do in regards the university and their time frame, and what skills I wanted to learn. Later that same day I found out I was eligible for the university to send me to China, expenses paid. Everything was starting to fall into place. I figured out the course that closest fit my needs and wants was in Australia, so preparations began anew.... heading to the desert....

8 months of planning and string pulling is what it took to execute, and it wasn't easy. Scholarships, grants, loans, favors, you name it, I probably used it. For example, I used the university's funding for getting to China, bought my own ticket, and actually got them to pay for me to go to Australia from China, with a flight to Singapore in between. Expenses paid. Not everything went that smooth though; NOLS had sent me a packing list of things to bring for the course, and it was ridiculous. Way too much, too specific, and too expensive. I was to spend July and August sea kayaking and backpacking through the Kimberly region of the outback, but from the list you'd think I was going to scale Everest. Plus, a lot of that stuff took up WAY too much space. I needed to carry half through China, and mail myself the other half in a giant box to Australia.

It was this gear that was confiscated in Singapore. Which brings us back to my arrival in Oz. I arrived in Perth and then stayed the night at the airport, actually fairly comfortably, since some planes were delayed and they inundated me with food vouchers. Food vouchers I gladly used. The next day I set off for Broome, my actual destination in Western Australia. Broome is a small coastal mining town founded on pearling, but it's actually quite lively. I stayed at a hostel that is literally less than 5 minutes walk from the teeny tiny airport. The hostel was certainly not what it was made out to be though, supposedly quite the party hole, I found it otherwise. The bar closes at 11, there is to be no noise, no outside drinks in or vice versa, no guests, and the pool was closed. Lame. The redeeming quality of the place being the actual people in it. Kicking around Broome for a few days I hung out with the other travelers for a bit. A Canadian girl, German girl, and myself went to a beach party and Cable Beach one night, but it was over by the time we got there. At least there was still a beautiful nighttime beach. Another night we rented bikes and rode around town. Another day I spent perusing the non-stereotypical China town. When it came time for these girls to leave I saw them off at the airport and was amazed. I may have visited the last sane and free airport in the world. Non-passengers were allowed to escort passengers all the way to the plane and wait with them. I had forgotten I had a knife on me, and one of the security officers held it for me and gave it BACK when I was leaving! I even asked were to get a lighter and the personnel just gave me one! I was stupefied. The other thing that was bamboozling me was figuring out how I was going to pick up the giant box of gear I had mailed myself. Heavy and awkward, I was not excited at the prospect of rucking all of it on my back for the next so many weeks, but at least I could put my actual personal gear I had been using up to that point on the box and use it as a storage unit while I was in the field; which I did.

The following morning was the first day of the NOLS course. Everyone was to meet at 7am, so I got up at 5 to exercise and do my laundry, since I knew I wouldn't have the chance for about 2 months. I saw several people at the hostel we were to meet at that I was sure were NOLS students. I didn’t let on that I was as well, and got a girl to give me a jar of peanut butter. They later told me they thought I was one of the instructors. Perfect. The ACTUAL instructors arrived and took us to base, were we all tried to find out just who these people in the group actually were. The group consisted of 13 people, once the final girl arrived who thought the course started the day after it actually did, and so had missed half the first day. Amongst the group were Americans, an Englishman, a Thai, and an Aussie. 5 girls, 6 boys, and 2 women instructors, English and Australian. The first bit of the day was spent in briefing, finding out everything in Australia can kill you. Cone shells, blue ringed octopuses, and all manner of snakes just to name a few. The best part? You wouldn’t even know you had been bitten. Neat! Next was measuring, bagging, and sorting our rations for the entire course.

They claim they have consulted a dietitian to make sure the rations are nutritionally sound. I call shenanigans unless the dietitian was from the 1950's and the conversations went something like this: “Can a human eat this for 2 months and not die?” Yes, but... “Good!”; and that was the end of the consultation. Survivable? Sure. Healthy? So much no. Why were we slogging around with bags of mints, bags of lemon sugar, and all manner of cake mixes!? Don't tell me it's actually appropriate carbohydrate/calorie dispersion, because I went to University to learn that sort of thing; Also there's no nutrients in there. The rations sucked is what I'm getting at. The second half of the first day was spent packing our ridiculous gear. We were sea kayaking first, and it turned out most of the gear on our packing list wasn't applicable. Great... at least we could rent gear we needed! Though it was an astronomical price and inferior quality. Zippers? Broken. Seams? Busted. Fabric? Full of spikes. I wasn't happy about accumulating all that crap before leaving for Australia, then not being able to use it, but at least I could still use it on the backpacking section. That night we were driven to a campground to spend the night, as a way to ease us into our new spartan lifestyles, though it was luxury to me. We were given our first “cooking groups” which were groups of 3 or 4 people who slept in a tent together, cooked together, and managed gear together. I was paired with guys named Justin, Charlie, and Hal, and we were comically volatile. We spent the night erupting into fits of laughter, keeping everyone up. It was a scene repeated for the entire trip.

The next morning we were up at 4 and gone by 5 for a 10 hour bus ride to the Dampier peninsula were we would initially launch our kayaks. We passed the ride by making jokes and messing with sleeping people. We camped on arrival. The next day our resident Englishman, Hal, showed signs of a returned ear infection he had been fighting since he was in Fiji. Should it actually BE a flair up and his eardrum ruptured again, it would mean the end of his diving career, which is to say: his career. He was medevaced to a doctor who did not clear him for the field. Group minus one. We did keep his rations though, so theres that. Because of the evacuation of Hal taking so much time the group suffered a massive delay and had to launch during low tide. The launch was a grueling gauntlet of packed kayak carrying over uneven rocked covered in razor shells, with a group who was discombobulated and poorly coordinated. So properly began our sea kayaking. We made camp on a near by beach where a huge gas refinery loomed in the distance, nicknamed Mordor it's fires shot high into the sky, lighting the night and burning 24 hours a day. There is almost no where in the Dampier it can't be seen. A super liminal reminder of what corporations do to the world.

The sea kayaking itself was super fun, and I gained all the skills I had hoped, though thats not to say there wasn't some downs to go with those ups. As early as day 3 the group was becoming frustrated with their overly authoritative leaders, myself naturally included. The two female instructors seemed to be running some kind of social experiment, the kind where you tell good kids they are bad and vice versa. Also the instructors were at times so overbearing with their militant feminist hippyism that even the best of group found it difficult to bear. Sometimes lectures would run late into the night, unnecessarily, and we would need to be up at sunrise to be ready to launch with the tides. Also, since this was a school, we had to attend all manner of classes ranging from the very relatable to the not Nash practical. Learning southern hemisphere celestial navigation is a good skill. Learning to make pizza on an island is not a skill I care about. Even still, I learned a lot, and I suppose any learning is good, after all “There is no such thing as waste, only things in the wrong place”.

On a typical day we would launch our kayaks in the morning after having packing them with an unrealistic amount of things, paddle all day, camp on some island beach, cook dinner, have a massage train, study for classes, then go to bed and repeat the next morning. Breakfast was muesli, lunch non existent. Sometimes we would come across amazing Aboriginal historical sites containing petroglyphs over 40,000 years old. To be in the presence of such culture and history is awe inspiring. It also boggled the imagination to know that only a handful of non-Aboriginals had ever been to these sacred sites, So much so that it inspired me to teach one of my classes on Dreamtime, the Australian Aboriginal philosophical/religious view of the world.

Life sea kayaking was great; constant sea spray, bathing in the ocean, unintentional dreadlocks, and being lulled to sleep by the waves. Not to say anything of the time I almost blew myself and 3 others up with a stove fuel can on accident, or any impromptu singalongs. The real highlight of the section came when the instructors stepped down and we each got a turn to be “leader of the day”. The meant we were in charge of were the group went, how, with whom, and so on. Time for me shine! I had heard the instructors mention an island that sounded majestic, but out of the way. Asking if we would go there, the only reply I got was “If someone leads us there.”. Checking the sea chart I saw it in all it's glory; written around it were notes and descriptions like “Turtles!” and “Octopus everywhere!” I looked at the group and said “We're going.” Legendre! To get there we needed to cover quite a distance, but I was ready to lead them to the promised land, and I did just that. The day was made even more difficult by having to lead our first reration that same morning as well, but we made it, and Legendre did not disappoint. Forced to keep a Journal, my romantic run-on sentences for Legendre read thusly:” Kayaking through the mangroves on the way to Legendre, our pod was besieged by sea turtles; Dolphins frolicked in the periphery, the ocean glistening brightly as the sea spray and waves aided us in distinguishing between the smooth wales and the much closer sharks darting between us and the open water.” later: “The expedition ventured to the north end of Legendre and came upon the full magnificence of the Indian Ocean, it's spectacular waves surpassed by the managary of life within those waves; Whales breached in the distance the second we were in view of the sea, and when we approached the ledge separating earth and ocean, passing nested crabs, groups of giant manta rays came to greet us.” So as you can see, not only was Legendre amazing, but I keep one hell of an epic captain's log. It truly was a grand island, and while there we caught enough fish to have a fish feast. We stayed for 3 days enjoying all it had. We pitched a mega-tarp, made out of all of our individual tarps, we went snorkeling, tide pooling, hiked to the Indian Ocean were we may as well have been on the other side of the world. The creatures we saw! Crabs, dewgongs, turtles, whales, dolphins, manta rays, sting rays, cone shells, clams, oysters, snakes, octopi, all manner of birds and fish, and so much more. It was even more amazing and lush an island due to that years unusually long wet season. Of course it came with a price: The morning dew may as well have been buckets of water dumped on us; and the sand? I may never get it out of my hair or belongings. On the way to Legendre sea water somehow got in my waterproof sea bag, through a garbage bag, through a ziplock bag, through a water proof case, and into the battery housing of my headlamp causing the batteries to explode. The chain reaction caused the backup batteries to get wet, which then exploded and ruined some cloths, my favorite atlas, my copy of “meditations” by Marcus Aurelius, and one of my journals. Legendre! While taking the island in for 3 days the group was able to catch up on one of it's favorite past times: Story time with Nash! A staple through our entire NOLS education, and quintessential to the true Nash experience.

After leaving Legendre it was more or less business as usual: the rations had turned everyone's poop the same color, “NOLS gold” and made us try to remember a time when every bowel movement wasn't an emergency. “But what do you use to go to the toilet?” I hear you say. The usual: A small shovel and rocks and grass. But just because our waking moments were a mad dash from one BM to the next doesn't mean the interesting things were done happening. Far from it. We visited mysterious pearler graves, found rock that is squishy like putty (yes, it was rock), and continued viewing rock art that predates recorded time and even features extinct creatures! I had even been openly challenged by an instructor to pitch a tarp alone, which I accepted and completed, twice. Once in calm, once in wind. We also spent time visiting billibongs, and mangrove forests, though they were nothing like Thailand's. Interesting things. Dynamically our group had fits of incohesivness as well, which was always interesting. At times it was as if our group was chosen based on the same criteria reality television shows use to ensure no one gets along. 4 people were on mood stabilizers one of which had stopped taking all medications cold-turkey right before the expedition; panic attacks and mood swings abounded. There was a hot-head, a hippy, a military yuppy, a guy with different learning patterns, two people with the worst balance and coordination I had ever seen, a spacy ditz who brought 200$ top of the line sunglasses with them on the expedition but didn't want anything to happen to them, and wore diamond and saphire earingand then lost them. Despite all this we managed to hold it together more often than not. By the time our sea kayaking section was finished we were about as cohesive a unit as we would ever be. On our final day of kayaking we had to paddle through hellacious winds; It was quite the endeavor. After finally making it to the drop zone we did a complete and thorough equipment cleaning, including the kayaks, and drove to a camp. We ran into some other students from NOLS who had just finished backpacking and were about to go sea kayaking. We told them to head fro Legendre. That night we sat as one big group and I told some stories; they wondered if I was real, or putting on a front. All assured them it was genuine. At the end of the night we were officially debriefed by our instructors and given our evaluation review. Mine? It boiled down to “great leader, but needs to put group before himself”. All I heard was “be less awesome”, and I cannot.

The next morning was a 10 hour bus ride back to base, where we would switch equipment, instructors, and get a briefing on what was to come. It didn't go that smoothly though as a blown tire had us waiting for it to get repaired. We took a trip to the mall in order to fill time and get supplies. Never have I looked as out of place as I felt. I looked like a 17th century sailor, with half the hygiene. I guess that's what happens when you spend so much time in the wilderness then break down on your way back to civilization. The diversion did give us the opportunity to stock up on supplies though. I liberated a bunch of things from a coffee shop, and used my own tea bags to get free tea. The tea I had pilfered out of an unclaimed NOLS ration. Justin bought two HUGE sacks of oranges. And a coconut. He had heard in the stories that I could chop one open with my hand, and wanted to see it in person. I was happy to oblige, and at the first road house we stopped at we feasted on chopped coconut. The 10 hour drive through the uninhabited desert passed quickly enough, with me planning future expeditions and Justin farting so badly it almost crashed the bus. The tire event set us back a good deal though, and we didn't get to base until 22:00; at which point we still had a full reration to do, bet briefed, meet our new instructors, who turned out to be a Brazilian man named Marcelo, and a Swiss girl named kareen, and we needed to switch our gear. It was here we found out all the gear that had been on our packing list that we couldn't use before, we still couldn't use. NOOO!! NOLS! Dammit. We got done at 1 in the morning, and had to be ready to go at 5:30am. A rough start, and one that set the tone for the rest of backpacking.

Get up at 4, hike before 6, hopefully finish by 13:00, though this wasn't always the case. Sometimes we had 11 hour hikes through the harsh outback sun, which has the highest rate of skin cancer in the world, owing to its lack of ozone. Even if the heat hadn't been a problem for the group, the shear mass of our bags would have been. Too many things crammed into an already too large 100 liter bag. Tents, food, stoves, fuel, sleeping mats, sleeping bags, etc. You name it, it was stuffed in there. We weren't allowed to have anything lashed to the outside of our bags either, even though we were told to get lash-straps for that very purpose, because it may snag a tree. I did disagree with many of the systems NOLS used, but I promised I would bite my tongue, pride, and prior experience. I promised this to my sea kayaking teacher who foresaw, accurately, that I would probably be insubordinate during the backpacking. Keeping my promise paid off later though: not just because of all the skills I learned, but working on the intangible “soft skills” of leadership paid dividends.

A regular day was getting up at 4 and sleeping by 8, but what happened between these times was the best. Right away we became familiar with the dreaded saltwater crocodiles, known to eat people all the time, because we were constantly in their territory; their bright red eyes starring up at us from the rivers at night. Poisonous spiders, always around but big enough to easily avoid. At night, there were beautiful diamond like sparkles that surrounded us everywhere; investigating the shinnies I quickly discovered that they were in fact spiders eyes. Green ants were another fauna hazard. Bright green ants who built wondrously articulate nests in trees out of leaves. If someone was misfortunate enough to bump one of these nests the ants would instantly begin to swarm and attack, crawling into and out of places they didn't belong like something from a horror movie, they would bite and hold on for dear life. They call the resulting panicked flailing the bitten person does the “green ant dance”, its this dance that causes people to trip over rocks or fall off cliffs. On one occasion I sat on 3 nests simultaneously on a small tree. What an afternoon that was. It was fine though, the venom isn't toxic to humans. In fact, if you pick a green ant up and lick it, you get a delicious tasty burst of zinc and vitamin c, tasting similar to powdered green apple flavoring. I licked so many ants... maybe if you get ENOUGH venom it's bad? Our threat near rivers may have been crocs, but the large threat everywhere else was bulls. Wild bulls everywhere. Hoards of confrontational wild bulls. Luckily, no one was gored though on the previous year's course one of the instructors was gored and med-evaced. We did however have to stand our ground on several occasions, and back down occasionally; the whole time wondering if I could chop a bull's horns off with my hand. Pretty sure I could... though getting to them on the huge beasts is another story. Outside of the bulls, we had snakes to constantly worry about as well, with 8 of the top 10 most deadly snakes in the world calling the area we were in their home. Several sightings, no bites. The last major dangerous land animal was the boar, though we only saw a few; they behaved more like the kangaroos and wallabies we would run into, they just hopped away. The actual land of the Kimberly has it's fare share of foibles as well. It's a burn eco system meaning that it catches fire and burns completely down at least once a year, so the entire region could literally burst into flames at any moment. The rocks making up the ground are covered by cane grass, making each step an unbalanced gamble. Then of course theres the desert heat during the day, and the desert cold at night. The place is the outback's outback. The outback has a peculiar tree as well, called the Boabab or Boab. It's only found in Madagascar and the Australian outback. It looks like it came straight from a Tim Burton movie; It's branches looking like roots, it's trunk bulging in all directions. In Africa it's known as the devil's tree, I know it as a tree with delicious fruit that I ate all the time to make up For the terrible rations. Plus, it's fruit.

Traveling through the Kimberly has a steep learning curve. Things that are a good idea in other regions are a terrible idea in the Kimberly. For example, you may think that because the Kimberly is prone to burning down, you should border your fires with rocks. Bad idea. Due to their gas content, when heated the rocks explode making them as good as shrapnel grenades. The whole place is full of need-to-knows such as this, but of course learning such things is the very reason most of us where there. Once we absorbed the skills needed, or a close approximation, thats when the adventures could really start.

Lying on smooth sheet of rock under a cosmic tapestry unspoiled by light or cloud while being lulled to sleep by waterfalls became our norm. We went sacred aboriginal places only a handful of non-aboriginals had been, and soon it was time for us students to take our turns as “leader of the day”. I got to have a proper Nash-style adventure when I became the leader of the day for a group consisting of all the girls and myself. “Nash and the girls!” While leading that group we heard a distress call from in a ravine, and it turned out to be our Brazilian instructor who had strained a tendon in his foot. Nash to the rescue! I told the group to stay put while I hiked down and back, taking about an hour, to get the instructor sorted. We bonded a bit that day and I got invited on some nights to dine with him and Kareen and swap adventure stories. It didn't hurt that he also studied martial arts and loved adventures as well. The rest of the students and I mostly did great as leaders if I do say so myself but we did have our fair share of happenings; never again will I suggest traversal through a gorge as a short cut, unless there is a VERY compelling reason to do so... that was one rough Jurassic park like 11 hour odyssey, and even 6 liters of water a person wasn't enough for us to not have brown pee, such was the labor. We had our relaxing moments too. On one “layover day” I spent almost a whole day playing with a baby praying mantis. Good times. I also spent a whole day building a new bag from scraps of my old one, and a sleeping mat I had rented from NOLS. It was not returned in the same condition it was issued, but at least I got good with a speedy sow...

Then there were the occasions our resident army man became ill. So ill I was awakened one night with sounds of what I suppose someone turning into a werewolf might sound like. It was just uncontrollable vomiting and asphyxiation on said vomit I was hearing. So ill there was a day his group had to stop every 30 minutes or less so he could have uncontrollable spontaneous diarrhea right were he stood... then had to be drug into the shade while he lie unconscious battling a fever for a couple hours. So ill he was getting Hong Kong boot rotting feet. So ill we had to quarantine his bathing area and label his things with blue tape so the poxy bugger didn't give everyone the plague. He was ill. Later, qualls ate most of his food in the middle of the night due to improper storm-proofing.

Even with our classes on wilderness medicine, culture, navigation, etcetera, and our army man seeming to rot in front of us, we had plenty of time for Nash story time as well as our new favorite game we'd been taught in the field: “YeeHaw!” It's a loud silly game, which fit the group perfectly. We had even re-earned ISGT, “Independent Student Guided Travel”, which was when we got to venture off on our own for the day, which had been suspended because of Marcelo’s leg strain. They were now so comfortable with our skills that even injured they would let us go. One of the things we had to due was pass an undercover medical scenario were someone in the group was chosen to fake an injury, like a leg break or seizure, and we had to respond appropriately. I was never fooled, but the group did well. I understand the value to such a thing, but disagree with it's use fundamentally, much like how I understand how child soldier and slaves are extremely useful but I don't support their use. They even tried a social experiment where they paired all the girls together in a group and forced them to go by themselves as a confidence booster, so they knew they could navigate on their own, as the instructors were sensing a subtle “boys versus girls” vibe. Of course the girls made it to the “X” just fine, but because all the girls were in one group, that meant the other group was all the alpha males! We crushed this all day hike in about an hour. We marched through the wilderness like a well oiled SWAT team on an important mission. Operation bro-out was a huge success.

Everything was going great... Until it wasn't. Slowly the more stubborn members of the group (everyone) began to grind on the nerves of everyone else. The whole group couldn't go an hour without messing up and getting a lecture. One of the guys even accidentally had a poop on sacred land (he pooped on purpose, he just didn't know it was sacred land...), which did not go over well. Before long the whole group dynamic had been shattered; everyone once again vying for alpha male (or female) position. Finally the tensions came to a head one fateful day. Two members, goats I called them due to their resolute stubbornness, led us practically to oblivion. The rest of the group begged me to take the lead and get us to whee we were supposed to be going, but I refused. I was tired of bailing the groups out, without them admitting to themselves that our skills were not equal. If they wanted my help they could officially admit they needed it, otherwise I was content for us to wander until everyone dropped but me. They eventually acquiesced, and came to me. We got to were we were going, but the group had entirely disintegrated.

As a result of the meltdown we were all assigned a solo. The solo being a meditative fast with no contact with anyone else, no supplies, in a stationary position for an undetermined amount of time. The instructors led each of us to our individual spots, a ways away from another person, and there we were to stay until retrieved by the instructor. They took our maps, compasses, and watches, so we wouldn't try and escape. We pretty much had nothing but our sleeping bags really, and we were to stay within 5 meters of our cairn. My spot was under a beautiful tree by a creek. We were to have no distractions which made me think: Are the lives we live in modern society not distractions themselves from the reality of our need to strive to thrive and eventually our own deaths? There wasn't much to do on the solo besides philosophize since all our belongings had been taken save for water purification drops, and some paper and pen, and I took some thread. I sowed up my worn out pants as I sat listening to the bulls, salt water crocodiles, green ants, and the like. I spent the rest of my first day practicing martial arts and meditating. Due to the fasting I was mostly useless the second day, which I spent falling in and out of consciousness. One time I woke up to a huge pelican standing over me, watching me sleep. That was a startling way to wake up. Aside from getting creeped on by various creatures we had been given a thought assignment by the instructors as we were getting dropped off: write a letter to ourselves in the future. Odd.

Roughly 48 hours we were out by ourselves. Enough time to calm down and reflect on ourselves and our place within the group. At the end of the time Marcelo came and got me, then the rest of the group one by one, bringing us back to base camp where everyone was welcomed with cobbler the instructors had cooked for us! Cobbler never tasted so good!

During our welcome back meeting/solo debrief we were told the good news: We had earned ISGE! My goal the entire time, which I was sure we had no hope of attaining after our group's breakdown. ISGE is short for “Independent Student Guided Expedition”. The finale of our training in the course. One student is selected by popular vote as the “best of the best” and then becomes leader of the expedition, leading the rest of the students on a 5 and a half day trek across the outback with no instructors. The pressure and responsibility of filing rout plans, maintaining order and safety, and completing the journey would weigh heavy on whoever we elected. I was elected! Surpassing alpha male to rank of omega male, the alpha's alpha. Captain. Since there were 10 of us we split into two groups of five. I led one, and the other elected leader, a girl named Rachel, led the other. Our groups were forbidden from coming into contact with each other, or with the instructors, during the 5 and a half days. In fact, Marcelo said “ I don't want to see or hear you for the next 5 and a half days!”. To keep us from running into each other the 2 leader and 2 instructors met to make route plans where we would not come across each other, but wouldn't be further than a day's march from each other should the worst occur. We recorded each other's expected daily positions, just in case. The first thing I did when planning my route was to find a place no group had ever gone, and chart a course for it, making sure I chose the spot most likely to have water. Next I checked the map for any notes of crazy things seen by other groups, then headed for those, all the while making sure we made it to the rendezvous by the appointed time. Next, I set about drafting the members of my perfect 5 member party. I had already carefully planned out the group dynamics in advance, as I had anticipated becoming the leader. A monkey was thrown into my wrench works however, when the instructors let it be known that they were aware of an “exclusive relationship” between a boy and girl on the other team. Since this was forbidden we had to jockey our rosters until we came to an agreeable solution. The instructors left that night, our two groups left in the morning. So began our journey with me as the leader of the expedition.

The first day went great. We made it to our “X” in good spirits. We built a fire, told stories, and relaxed until the evening. The next day went even better when we found a nice croc-free riverbank to make camp on. We fished, and feasted on our catch roasted over an open fire. We were doing so well, I was having a blast even with the reports and paperwork I had to fill out every night. The journey was going so good I was afraid I wouldn't get to be my usual “Loose-canon-breaking-the-rules-to-better-his-group” type captain. I had nothing to worry about...

The third day was rough from the start. The lady who I had chosen to lead that day was having a rough go, belligerent and emotional from her lack of medication. She violated protocol and over packed her bag resulting in the injury of her ankles. These were just the tip of the day's iceberg though. Late in the morning while walking through a dried riverbed we came upon a bull. We had become well versed in dealing with them by now, and weren't concerned. Like always we formed a line, raised our arms, and yelled at it to scare it away. Unlike always, this particular bull didn't give a crap; It merely looked up at us, paused, then went right back to drinking from it's puddle. We took a few steps towards the very large animal and tried again with maximum conviction. This time the bull looked up and then casually sauntered over to the steep river bank and let out an aggressive moo. We stared confused for a few seconds before it became intimidatingly clear what was happening. Soon, 11 more bulls arrived and lined up along the bank, like a cavalry. There were 2 calves in the group, and we were in a river bed about 3 meters deep with bulls on one side a mountain on the other. We were in the kill box, getting ready to be ambushed. The bulls made aggressive gestures before motioning towards us. Our only hope was to climb the mountain, which we did. Periodically we would look out from a rock while climbing, and find the bulls still below us, still challenging us. When we made it to the top our resident unmedicated women promptly had a panic attack, then became emotionally unstable (more so), and resigned her day of leadership. Myself and my Australian buddy Simon picked up the slack.

After climbing down the other side of the mountain and skirting a few rocky outcrops we arrived at our destination for the day: the previously uncharted territory, which was the most likely source of water! … except there wasn't any water. It was as baron as land gets actually. We searched and searched,; no water. We found a boab tree and dug under it and dug through a dry riverbed: no water. As unfortunate as it was, 24 hours of careful movement with no water isn't fatal, and that was our destination which we were forbidden from leaving. I was content with staying, had it not been for the bulls. Lots of them, and they were aggressive. We needed to stay there, but if we did we were likely to be trampled or gored. I rechecked the charts.

There was a spot labeled “wetlands” not too far off. Even if there wasn't much water, at least we could get away from the bulls. I made the executive decision to move us off our “X” , and was prepared to accept full responsibility. We were forced to hike during the death hours between noon and 2, when the sun's power was at it's zenith. We kept each other going through motivation as the dehydration was making even the simplest tasks difficult. Finally we arrived at “The Wetlands”. What we discovered was worse than we feared: There was no water, and there were heaps and heaps of bulls. Aggressive bulls, who projected an air of convict-hard ghetto toughness. We were not welcome there. Quickly consulting the chart we found a p lace a bit far away that may have water, and may not have bulls, but we had to pass through more wet lands to get there. I decided we should make a break for it, way off of our original mark. I would either get a medal or get expelled, but I had to do what I had to do.

Cutting through “the wetlands” turned out to be even harder than we thought, and not just because we had to go back-to-back to keep an eye on the bulls, but because the ground had become so badly corrugated by the hooves and weight of the creatures that we could barely stand, much less walk through smoothly. With high stress and a couple of close calls we made it through and came upon a clearing. The clearing even had a riverbed with green foliage! We climbed in to get some shade and see if we could find water.

We did find water... technically. It was a puddle full of bull poop, algae, and mosquitoes. The smell alone was thick enough that you needed to chew before breathing in. This was the only liquid we had found in a day, and we were becoming quite low on fluids thanks to the hike through the hot baron lands. I was drinking it, I decided. I first strained all the chunks out with my bandana, so the liquid was left to fall into my water bottle. I used double the normal amount of water purification drops, with the thought that killing some of my own stomach bacteria wouldn't be as bad as getting giardia and dying of diarrhea. My new fluid was safe to drink, though dark as tea and smelled just the same as before I'd strained it. Somethings better than nothing, and I was thankful for it.

We continued snaking through the riverbed until spiky plants and shifting sands made it more trouble than it was worth. Climbing out we continued our hunt for the place that would become our campsite. Our lady was not in full bull paranoia mode, so we needed to find a well protected spot. I did what I could, mediating the rising tensions of the evening. I finally convinced everyone to camp at the base of a steep rock hill, offering us protection on 2 sides, with a dry riverbed offering us protection on a 3rd. The open side had high visibility and no bulls in sight, though we could often here them. Simon even ventured off with another member of the group, Charlie, and they discovered a water hole where we could stock up for the morning! There did seem to be a croc in it, though it was probably a freshie. The night was full of moo's and mosquitoes, but exhaustion caused me a good sleep.

The next day was better than the previous and we made it back to our old route and then to the place we were supposed to be that day: “Crazy Boab Tree!”. Crazy indeed. This was a huge, towering boab tree: I wouldn't be surprised if it was thousands of years old. I was oddly drawn to it, but it gave the rest of the group bad vibes, so we camped a bit away from it. Without water. There was no water anywhere, but we were safe and had plenty to drink that morning before we set out, so I decided we were staying put. Simon went mad at the thought of no water, but I finally convinced him that his mind was just playing tricks on him, and that this was a challenge to strengthen his spirit. He is heavy into yoga, so I knew this would work. Though the group was dehydrated, overall we were in high spirits.

The next morning we left camp at 5:30 and found water after an hour of hiking. The rest of our journey was comparatively uneventful and the Nash group was the first to arrive at the final destination and meeting place. Setting up a not on a bright sarong we let the other groups know where to find us, pitched a tarp, and relaxed until the others arrived.

The Instructors showed up next, and it turns out we were 5 hours too early, so we were thrown out of our campsite for the following 5 hours until they were ready for us. After enough time passed we entered the campsite to a congratulatory celebration. Everyone made it, no casualties!

That night around a fire we began our 3 day combination debrief/party. The first night we played “ultimate charades”, which is timed. Team Nash with the victory! The next day we had more debriefs, including how to reintegrate into society since we'd been in the bush so long, and we received our grades and evaluations for the course. I was given top marks and recommended to take the Instructor's Certification Course and become an instructor for NOLS. They said they almost didn't recommend me due to the fact that I don't like being tied down, but that that is ultimately WHY they recommended me. They said they wee impressed with how honestly I enjoyed being in the wilds, and that I would ruffle feathers by being around stuffy-academic-expensive cloths-outdoors types, and that my motivation is what would make me so good as an instructor. Also they were inspired with my repair skills, as I had repaired my bag to such an extent that it was basically an all new one.

I'm considering doing the instructor’s certification in a couple years.

That night we played more games around the fire and had a dress up contest using the things we had in camp. I was torn between going as a gypsy-pirate or a ninja, but decided on the latter. Justin won the contest by becoming a perfect caricature of our instructor Marcelo. We also play “sing down” which is a group karaoke/ trivia game. Team Nash with the win, 3 out of 3 rounds!

The next morning marked our final day in the outback with NOLS. We packed up and hiked a reflective silent hike into the rising sun towards our pick-up point. During the walk I meditated on the aboriginal's “5 steps to becoming a man”:

1. Leave Home

2. Scarification

3. Perform Random Acts of Kindness

4. Undergo Extreme Challenges and Hardship

5. Return Home

Once we reached the pick up zone we waited for our bus, ate, then enjoyed a 6 hour bus ride. We camped at a trailer park that night. Then I had a shower! For the first time in 45 days! New High score- 45 days without bathing!

On our final day we made it back to the NOLS base in Broome, and spent the whole day working. We worked on the base, cleaning it up, and worked repairing equipment. Mid-day we had a big BBQ with quintessentially Australian treats. I had 3 gigantic burgers, which turned out to be a bad idea since I had had so little food for so long! I also reclaimed my giant ridiculous box that I left at the base, and set about reallocating my resources. Finally it was time for the finale: Graduation. We received our diplomas and certificates and whatnot but with someone else's name, and we had to do an impression of them so they could guess who we were and claim the rightful diploma. Hilarity ensued, and with that, we were finished.

That night we went out to dinner with our instructors. We all laughed and reminisced over beers, but those beers came with a warning: “Be gentle on your bodies. Eat and drink with moderation; it's been 2 months since you drank alcohol or ate most foods.”. Moderation? I had other plans: a re-tox! The instructors only had time to stay for the first drink then left us to our own debaucherous devices. We hit it hard. After several rounds at the restaurant we left to ruin other venues. The group was staying at the same hostel I had stayed before the course, and I managed to stay for free by crashing with the army man who got his own room. Free stay! We went from the restaurant to the hostel, gathered our wits and booze, then walked 7 kilometers to the beach, drinking the whole way there, were we had heard a beach party was going on. Before we even made it to the beach we passed a bar with a front lawn and I stopped to dance to the music coming from inside. On the lawn, by myself, as other members of the group went to the bottle-o next door for more booze. During the interim others joined me, and soon we had started a full lawn party!

We were fast becoming too intoxicated to function at all and we hadn't even made it to the beach yet. On the way Justin pulled an American flag from his bag and wore it like a cape. Finally we arrived at the beach, and then had to walk another kilometer to the party. The girls took off their shoes and ran off in all directions losing each other and their shoes. Justin was too drunk to walk. Simon wandered off. Carrying Justin and collecting shoes as I went I got us to the party. Justin was down for the count; he couldn't stand or function anymore by the time we made it.

The party was a roaring bonfire on the beach with a huge group of people gathered around it, from every walk of life. One of these was a guy called “John Smith” who may be the most intoxicated person I've ever seen in my entire life. He had an uncanny ability to simultaneously wax incoherently poetic and walk backwards, avoiding all obstacles and terrain changes along the way. It was almost as if he'd done so many drugs that he had attained a higher consciousness and wished to share his truth with everyone, but had lost the ability to communicate with people. An interesting fellow, but he freaked the girls out and got on Simon's nerves.

Sitting around the fire my group which had become an alternating roster of people wandering off and coming back, consumed 4 bottles of wine that we had brought with us. I picked up and opened the 5th bottle, taking a slow drink and relaxing by the fire. Suddenly a guy next to me turned around and said “hey where's my wine?” Everyone shrugged unknowingly. “Is that my wine?” he asked looking right at me. “Uhhh... No.” “Oh, ok. Where is my wine though?” No clue. Turns out we had only brought 4 bottles; I was definitely drinking this guy's wine. Oops.

The night wore on and everyone's condition continued to deteriorate, except I had already been there and back and thanks to my fast metabolism I now found myself disturbingly sober. This made me the de facto baby sitter of the group, and what a job it was. A couple of the girls had gone missing, and the rest of the group was intent on finding them. A beach-combing search party was formed. After an hour it was brought to light that the girls had taken off with some foreign buys. Good enough for me, I was more than ready to leave, and I was sure they would eventually turn up at the hostel. Simon didn't want to leave until they came back. It took another hour of coercing before I could get him and the rest of the group to head out. It was now 3am and the group was on the wrong side of the party bell curve. Then stumbled back “John Smith”.

He went back to freaking out the remaining girls and pissing off drunk Simon and Justin. Justin was sure he was going to beat this guy's ass, and repeatedly shouted as such, despite the fact that he couldn't stand or walk without my assistance. Still, John Smith kept talking and wandering over to us. Simon violently shoved him, telling him to “Fuck Off”. I finally mobilized the group and we were on our way back to the hostel, but in order to get to the road leading to the hostel we first had to navigate a pitch-black trail through trees and foliage; John Smith was following us. Tensions ran high, and I put myself between the group and him. One, in order to placate him in case he was actually going to try to fight us, two, to protect the group, and three, to take this guy out in case he was truly violently crazy. I walked the whole trail at-the-ready, but nothing came of it. Once we emerged from the trail to the road, John Smith just wandered off. The group then sloppily slogged the 7km back to the hostel.

We arrive back at 4am. The doors were locked, but after enough knocking the staff let us in. Army man with private room didn't go out with us, so he had long since gone to bed, meaning I needed a place to stay. As luck would have it, one of the girl in the group was going to stay with one of the guys in his bed, so she offered me her bed. Perfect. I snuck into the darkened room, climbed into her bunk, disrobed, and quickly lost consciousness. Waking up at 6:50 I sat up and looked around. Looking like a sweaty pirate wearing nothing but a bandana and my underwear I gathered my things and snuck out. Free stay! The hostel was none the wiser... or they wouldn't have been if it weren't for one little detail.

I showered and met up with the rest of the group, Including the missing members who had returned to the hostel exactly as I said they would. The girl who's bed I'd slept in passed me a piece of paper. “I had this waiting for me from the hostel. I think you should have it.” It was a threatening note warning her that she was not to bring men into the room she was staying in, as it was an all-female dorm. All-female dorm! Imagine paying extra money for the comfort and security of such a thing, only to wake up and see me sleeping in the room in my post-party state. Hilarious She of course hadn't warned me about this, and that was the little detail that tipped the hostel off: My distinctively non-feminine characteristics. Even so, I still managed to stay a few days there for free.

That day marked the last day all of us from the course would be together. That early afternoon we started the daily ritual of seeing people off at the airport. The first to go was Charlie. After he left the group headed out to a hippy/gypsy market that set up shop every weekend. Lots of street performing, shiny jewelry, cloths, and whatnot. While there we ran into our sea kayaking instructor, herself a classic hippy, the first of many times. After the market Justin and I took off to see what interesting things we could do in Broome. We discovered that the entire city's inhabitants seem to be drunk and ridiculous at all times. Once night fell, Justin, Simon, and myself went to the oldest outdoor movie theater in the world, and watched a movie (“The Wolverine”) accompanied by some booze we brought in and some drunk ridiculous racist people.

As the days went on our numbers continued to dwindle until finally after our last farewell brunch we were 3: Simon, Irene, and Nash. Irene moved into a hostel on Cable Beach, Simon and I moved onto the beach itself. We set up in the dunes on the beach; it was serene. Every night we were lulled to sleep by the waves, every morning woken by the tide and sunrise. Each evening Simon and I would build a fire and he would cook a gourmet meal for us, and we would drink and relax in our sandy chalet. During the day we would store our bags with Irene at her hostel, kick around town, and pick them up in the evening. Then I would have a workout on the beach followed by a sunset sea swim. Once we had been discharged from our wilderness school and become acclimated and dependent on that lifestyle there was no reason to change; we just kept up doing our thing, but on the beach. Of course, what we were doing was technically illegal, but every morning I combed the beach for rubbish and cleaned up in order to justify my existence there should I be stopped by beach patrol. This beach was my base for weeks, and several interesting things happened while I was staying there.

Occasionally while I was in town I would head to the grocery and read magazines. One day I noticed they were rotating their stock and decided I would comeback later that day to dumpster dive and salvage some reading material. I returned to the store and snuck around back finding row upon row of dumpster. I searched them all, but found no magazines. What I did find was a couple of people loading a truck, very suspiciously, with food for an outback expedition company. I don't know who caught whom, but after some conversating they showered me with gifts from their spoils: A box of cereal, a head of lettuce, and a big package of beef; Simon and I had a beach side burger buffet that night. After that, dumpster diving became de rigueur; the grocery was getting rid of perfectly fine unopened “gourmet” packaged good, now mine for the low cost of free. Plus, not only was I saving money, I was preventing food waste. Just doing my part for the world.

On another occasion Simon and I went to sleep curled up by the fire, as per the usu, and I woke up to him walking around putting wood on the fire. Except, then I looked across from me and saw Simon laying where he had been … there was someone we didn't know tending our fire... Stranger danger! Simon woke up and began talking to the large bearded stranger. Turns out the very loud, intoxicated man had been living in the dunes on the beach for over a decade, had seen our fire and decided to see what was up. The guy was actually quite nice, and very interesting, but I was tired. I decided to go back to sleep and let Simon entertain our guest, with the hope that I wouldn't wake up missing kidneys or something similar. All was well come morning. The whole thing was surreal enough that I would have thought it a dream if it wasn't for Simon corroborating the even. We never saw homeless beach Santa again after that, though we did have several other interesting guests.

We wound up coming across 2 Irishmen and a Scotsman who were traveling together and wound up hanging out with them for a few days. They wee staying in the same hostel as Irene, and together with a bunch of people from the hostel we all went out to the “Staircase to the moon” festival. The Staircase to the moon is an event in Broome that occurs infrequently, during which the moon rises up over the sea and the alignment of the mangroves and lack of waves causes the moon's reflection to appear as though it is a staircase leading straight to the moon. To honor the even the town sets up a night market with stalls, bands, and food among other things. It's beautiful. Being the hippy environment that it is, we naturally ran into our sea kayaking instructor again, and kept doing so at all similar events. When the staircase to the moon festival had ended, I went out with several guys from the hostel, including Sam, everyone's English little brother, and one of the managers of the hostel who used to be a kickboxer. We got along great and went to a riotous bar, on their dime, having a wet t-shirt competition. While at the bar Sam concocted a ridiculously brilliant “oceans 11” style scheme to take this other guy's beer so we didn't have to pay for them. It almost worked, but in the end our intoxication was the kink in our chain. All in all, a good night.

The following day while walking around on the beach Simon and I spotted someone in the distance with a surfboard. It was an odd time at an odd spot, so we were naturally suspicious. It turned out to be kareen, our Swiss outback teacher! She also had nowhere to go after the course ended, until she was shipped off to teach the next course, and so had eventually moved into the dunes like us. She came to our camp and the 3 of us hung out, and then we hung out with the 2 Irishman and the Scot.

While stumbling through the dunes back to our camp one night I stepped on a broken beer bottle and badly cut open my foot. As blood mixed with sand and sand with my gash, I used my bandana as a bandage and made it to camp to treat my foot with my first-aid kit. It hurt, and the wound would plague me for days. This is why you don't leave glass on the beach!

I was beyond restless by this point as I had been in Broome far too long for my liking, and now had a gash in my foot. I began making plans for my escape, and Simon did the same. Of course, when you're skint broke it's not as easy as just leaving. We went to Irene's hostel to try and find leads to rides out of town, or at leas to jobs we could get to get us enough money to escape. During this reconnaissance mission where I met Felix. Felix is a dapper, well traveled, intellectual and intelligent Englishman only a couple years younger than myself. The quintessential positive English stereotype. Once morning Simon and I were sitting at a table in the hostel's courtyard when Felix, then a stranger, sat down across from me. The 3 of us engaged in regular conversation at which point I do what I do and made some overly convoluted joke purely for my own amusement, expecting no one to get it. Felix got it, and responded with one his own. From then on Felix and I were friends. He said he fancied me for my intellect, which shows how dry those particular wells were in the area, and told me I looked like Heath Ledger crossed with Mickey Rourke. I guess I'll take that as a compliment? Our afternoon ritual consisted of having tea, discussing current events over a news paper, and engaging in witty banter. Meanwhile, Simon found a lead to a job on a pearling ship.

Pearling would net 250$ per day for simple deckhand work. Great! I did deckhand work in Alaska, and the job was similar. I wanted this job. Simon on the other hand hadn't worked on ships, and gets sea sick. We both tried to get hired on, but I didn't have a work visa. The captain said he didn't care, but because no one else on the ship had one SOMEONE had to have them, and I was the low man on the totem pole. I spoke to the Aussie government about getting one, and they informed me that it would be 400$ to apply, then I would need to leave the country to get it, which would cost more money, and finally return to the country, costing even more money I didn't have. I didn't have enough money OR time for all that. I was to be back in the states at a wedding not too much further in the future.

I went to the internet cafe to try and figure something out; while there I received an email from the university telling me that because I had just finished my final internship, I needed to produce a 30 page internship portfolio. The thing had to be typed, printed, bound in a binder, and manually presented to the internship director! I sent him an email letting him know that I was living on a beach in West Australia, and that the portfolio was not getting done like that. They said I still had to do it, but that I could mail it. It would cost me 100$ to print and another 100$ to post. No way. After some back-and-forth we came to an agreement: I could email it. Emailing it was technically a violation of the rules, but so was everything else I'd got them to let me do, so as long as I told no one, we had an accord.

I wrote the thing over the course of several days lounging on the beach, scribbling bits of it on napkins and notebook paper, then going to the 'net cafe to type it up. After several failed email attempts it finally went through, and I was done with the thing. In the meantime Simon had moved into a sort of hippy commune outside of town, leaving me to live on the beach all by me onesies. The compound consisted of a series of shipping containers that had been decked out and retrofitted as single room apartments, complete with door, window, wood floor, electrical outlets, nice-ish walls, and an air conditioner as well as shelves and a desk. Very livable. In front of the room containers was a large pool, and in front of that an open air fully roofed commons area complete with kitchen, shower, tables, laundry facilities, and pool table. On top of the commons was an actual house, where the owner of the commune lived.

I was now in full “escape from Broome” mode. I was looking for a ride out, and it just so happened the 2 Irishmen and Scotsman had agreed to take a rental car to Darwin. They invited me along, but I turned them down since I was looking to go to Uluru, Ayer's Rock. I didn't figure out until later that Darwin is the best way to get there...

I found another guy going, but he blew me off. Simon suggested I try returning a rental car; I made it pretty far in the process before hitting the financial snag of the deposit, which I didn't have. My energies were now focused on getting out of Broome, but that didn't stop me from going out with Felix and Irene's hostel to a pub for quiz night. I though between the two of Felix and Myself, we would win for sure. We did not do well. A few days later Felix and I went to the mall for one of our final tea-times together. We hitched back to the hostel with a guy he knew from the Australian defense force who was based out of Darwin. I thanked him for the ride. That night one of the hostelites had a birthday party, which both Simon and I attended. At the party I got to talking with another Oz native, Ethan from Melbourne. He informed me he was about to go on a caravan to Darwin. He and an English girl named Nikki would be joining a group of other people Ethan knew. They told me they were going via the Gibb River Road, to the King Leopold ranges, and up to Darwin. The whole process was to take over a week. “Glad I'm not with them” I thought. For one, I had JUST COME from exactly that area having survived for a couple months there I wasn’t' anxious to go anywhere near back there. Secondly, over a week!? You can made the drive in a day and a half! I told them about my time there and what they could expect, then wished them the best.

Shortly thereafter Felix and I had our final tea with Irene as our guest. Irene and I escorted Felix to the airport, where he was to jet off for greener pastures. He said he would keep in touch, and he was true to his word.

Meanwhile, ride after ride out of Broome continued to fall through for me. I was complaining to Ethan about it one night, while fixing my foot at the hostel after having stepped on a second piece of glass (!!!). He complained to me that he was tired of the caravan's repeated delays, and people bailing on it. If only he had another reliable person to go to Darwin. If only I had a ride to Darwin. The speed with which we realized we could help each other was comically slow. I told him that if my current ride prospect fell through, I would join his caravan. Sure enough, my ride fell through, and I was officially counted as one of the member of Ethan's perpetually delayed convoy. There were several false starts, but eventually we did leave. The last couple nights before our departure I stayed with Simon, in his commune. We had a feast, courtesy of his cooking, for old times sake. I also showered and did my laundry so I was fresh for the convoy. The group was set to depart at 0600, so I borrowed Simon's bike at 0500, thanked him for everything, and set out. I almost crashed by hitting a dead kangaroo in the middle of the road, but swerved to avoid it at the last second. I made it to the hostel, the convoy's pickup point, on time.

At 0600, two 4 wheel drive vehicles pulled up. A white one and a blue one, carrying several people between them, and adding four from the hostel: Ethan, Nikki, Nash, and Giovanni who was an Italian who had just joined and had way way too much luggage. Riding in the white troopy was a guy from Alaska/ New Mexico, A Frenchman mechanic, a German drug-fried artist, and an Australian girl. In the blue were an Australian guy from Southwest Australia, and his German hippy girlfriend. In fact the whole group, save a couple, were full on hippies. Part of their food budget was officially allocated to weed, although Nikki and I took to Rum and Wine instead. Before food would even become a concern though, we had to set out, which of course didn't go smoothly. Right from the get-go the 4 wheel drive on the troopy was unstable, so we made a stop in nearby Derby.

Derby was not great, though we ran into some aboriginals who took Ethan's guitar and insisted on serenading us with it for a really long time. One was called “Maggie May”, and the other was her husband; they become our groups constant comedic reference point through our time together. We wound up staying in Derby for most of the day, which set the precedent for the rest of the trip: staying in places longer than we want, automobile breakdowns, money disputes, the group's frantic scavenge for weed, and food compromise. Once we got the vehicle up to snuff we went to go get some petrol. I became the group's official fuel funds keeper and monitor. Straight from the very first fill-up the books weren't balancing. I tried to show the drivers the diligence so I wouldn't be accused of stealing any money from the coffers at a later date, but all I got in response was “don't worry, we'll work it out later”. Another trope of the trip: Do it later. Final order of business that day was food. The group had pooled their money, against my wishes, and decided on communal group type food. I wanted to eat the cheaper of the cheap survival food, and the group was getting city food. Noooo! The last of my currency was slipping away.

Once we finally properly got going it wasn't so bad, though everyone was permanently stoned. The English girl, Nikki, had never been camping before this excursion; of course, the whole trip would be camping, so she was real accustomed to it by the end, despite her severely well-to-do upbringing. On the first night the caravan drove their 4 wheel drives into a field, cut some barbed wire and drove deeper in, despite not being able to see where they were going due to tall reeds. The vehicles increased speed, racing each other, only coincidentally stopping short of hitting a stone wall, signs, and ranch debris which had been obscured by the reeds. Then the group got out and built an unsafe fire; the idiosyncrasies of the region unknown to them. So it was that everyone in the group was either dangerously immature, or dangerously inexperienced, leaving me again as default guardian. Those situations are were a lot of fun comes from though, and I did enjoy their company. Being around the group made me realize maybe I really COULD be a NOLS instructor... but I would need to work on my group watching skills.

As the group prepared to tackle the dangerous Kimberly region and Gibb River Road we were assured we need not worry about water. After all, “Our water storage system can hold 80 gallons” they said. First day in, we find out the water storage isn't working. Immediately we are on tight water rationing, and it is not going well. The Aussie hippy who took charge of the group (I was just a guy trying to get where I was going) would say don't use water for this or that, then turn around and do just that. In fact he very much had the same negative qualities I had seen in every other Australian I had interacted with up to that pint form that region he was from. They seemed to have a nonsensical overbearing dangerous hippiness about them. Even worse, I had now formed a stereotype in my mind, which I didn't like. I tried to be the neutral voice of the group, but the rouge goat was viewed as a danger to himself and others. The car he was in and the car everyone else was in had no communication, and it was making many member angry. On one early night we camped on someones homestead, and many members were talking of abandoning the convoy at the next town we reached. Even if they were to do such a thing, getting to the next town was a challenge... getting anywhere was a challenge.

If the car broke down once it broke down 20 times. We had barely covered any distance at all. We had a fun time swimming in beautiful caves and tunnels but it was day 4 and we weren't even close to Fitzroy Crossing. We hadn't made it anywhere! Around this time is when the group discovered story time with Nash, though Nikki never believed any of them. The group would sit around a cozy fire and be rocked to sleep by my tales of daring-do in foreign lands. How they could sleep through them I don't know, but the following morning after our first story time we had a morning swim at tunnel creek, followed by the car being broken down all day.

Finally making to to Fitzroy Crossing, we discovered the car was fubar-ed. However, we managed to make it to a nice sandy riverbank in Fitzroy Crossing before the car totally crapped out. We had been on the road almost a week and covered less than one day's reasonable drive. Now we were stuck living on a riverbank in FC for almost another week. So much for speeding to my next destination and my countdown clock of time left in Oz was still ticking. All things considered, it was more enjoyable than not though. While living on the riverbank there was one night were we looked over at the forest bordering our riverbank and found that it had burst into flames, as the outback is want to do, and on the other side of us was a river with crocodiles in it (freshies). Stuck between bushfire and crocs. Just another typical day in the life of Nash. The river was just fine to swim in during the days, and amongst the group hanging out in hammocks and working on the car I made sure to gather water for boiling to drink.

Since we were together so long we all had time for stimulating conversations with each other. Here's an excerpt from one such gem:

F: Dingos are so majestic, they're more like cats than dogs.

Nash: But they are dogs though.

F: No, they're more like cats.

N: But they interbreed with dogs. They're canines.

F: So, who says cats can't breed with dogs?

N: Science.

F: Really?...

Besides debating philosophies, disusing living, and scientific classifications of animals, we also ate. A lot. Worse than the groups appetite was it's penchant for wasting food. People would open a tin of food, eat half, then let it sit out overnight until it was unsalvagable. Wasting food is a pet peeve of mine even when I'm not in a communal living food rationing situation, but we were in a food rationing situation! They also made dangerously large, unstable fires, which while neat were wasting our wood reserve and not contributing to productive heat, cooking, or light.

Day 4 in Fitzroy Crossing we decided to use the other car to try and help the first. The attempt caused the second car to breakdown as well. Now we had zero working cars and 2 broken ones. I wondered, “Is Fitzroy Crossing maybe cursed?” We managed to get our second broken vehicle to a road. When thankfully some aboriginal guys drove by at just the right time; they towed us into town.

While the mechanically inclined members of the group tried to fix our death mobile the rest of us kicked around town. I loved looking at the way certain signs were clearly marketed towards one group of people over others, say aboriginals compared with white Australians. For example, a sign advertising wild natural food would say “bush tucker”, or a dietitian was called “good tucker lady”. There are myriad examples, but my favorite was a poster listing the reasons to stay in school, the best of which being “It makes you FEROCIOUS and DANGEROUS!” That's the only reason I was in school for as long as I was.

Meanwhile a couple of New Zealanders happened to come upon our group trying to repair the automobiles and decided to stay and help... for 10 hours. Talk about a committed random act of kindness! They were an old married couple, and seemed to be escaping the doldrums of monotony. Whatever works. As they got cracking on the cars the rest of us went to a pub, and then to another pub. On our return from the short pub crawl that night we found two things: People still working on the cars, and a couple of German guys we had never seen before. Through his interactions with the group one of those German guys had decided that this was the life for him. He wanted to practice his English and was inspired by the 2 Germans in the group who were fluent, and he wanted adventure. He said he had already been in Australia about a week and hadn't had any real adventure and he was getting antsy. He wanted to join the group. We tried to explain that the group was disintegrating and immobile. Several people were talking about leaving, and our rides were non-operational. Giovanni had to bus out that day to make an already scheduled flight. These German guys even had bus tickets they had paid hundred of dollars for, leaving Fitzroy Crossing in a couple hours!

The German had made up his mind. He wanted in the group. Conversely, Nikki had had enough. They bartered for awhile before the German sold his 230$ ticket to Darwin for 70$. During an emotional send off Nikki left on a bus at midnight, though we all agreed that we would try to meet up in Kununurra, IF the group ever made it there. Kununurra was supposed to be the golden hippy land of opportunity and good vibes anyway; it at least had to be way be than FC! With that, the German rookie joined the group. Since we were shuffling group members, and such many members of the group spent the remainder of the evening sorting and re-evaluating their things. This meant jettisoning the now unwanted, which I promptly took. I was the new proud owner of some Aussie video games I couldn’t play, and a new t-shirt I desperately needed! I planned to use the games as hitchhiking currency. It was late after Nikki left, and after sorting we were all tired, so we decided we would all just sleep out in the town center. Not 30 minutes after the girl left, the world flipped it's shit.

This happened to be the day that Fitzroy Crossing, a mostly “dry” town, allowed the aboriginals to drink alcohol; it did not sit well with them. The first sound to rose me from my restless slumber was a constantly rising car stereo coming from across the street. A group of drunk aboriginals had showed up at a drunk aboriginal's house to complain about the noise, at which point the one playing the music responded by continually increasing the volume and yelling threats. The threats were returned, and then some. More aboriginals continued to wander into the scene, joining sides. The situation escalated quickly and it wasn't long before riotous noise and mob on mob arguments broke out all around us. I along with the rest of the group, tried to go back to sleep, cozy in the grass as this situation became a very real danger to our safety. Getting mugged would have been the least of our worries, but the whole group was resistant to move... except for one. Who should happen to rise up and become the voice of reason? None other than the Aussies hippy. He pleaded his case with me, begged me to help him convince the others to get he hell out of there. It was inconvenient, and unexpected, but even a broken clock is right twice a day; Facts are facts no matter were they come from. The two of us worked together and convinced the group to get, back up, and go. Though once they were fully aware and awake, it didn't take much convincing.

During the marathon car repair session the group actually managed to get one working, and we used that one to tow the other one out of the madness. We kept going until we hit the outskirts of town, and then we set up camp at the side of the road. German guy picked a great first night to join the group. In the morning we were approached by a West Australian ranger and reprimanded heavily; turns out there’s no camping within 20km of a town. We were literally on the border, so we were about 20km shy of the minimum, but he let us off with a condescending warning. Later that day a group going to Kununurra pulled in by us, and they had an empty seat. I would have taken it, but they immediately broke down. Fitzroy Crossing IS cursed! Or, maybe not, it could just be that the corrugated roads are rough on the vehicles and by the time they make it there they need work. Either one; the end result is the same. We found out the mechanics wouldn't be open for 3 days, That means the group couldn't get the part they need for 3 days, and even then they didn't know if they could fix the main vehicles. I would not be sticking around to find out, and neither would Ethan. I'd had enough of vehicle breakdowns, poor group communication, and Fitzroy Crossing. In the morning Ethan and I took to the main road to hitchhike away. We were confident we'd made the right decision; the last we saw of the group they were passing time by staring at ta ravenous ant mound and wagering on how long it would take them to disassemble bread pieces they tossed at them. Only 3 days to go!

After about 30 minutes of waiting by the road with our cardboard signs, Ethan and I were picked up by a stereotypical east coast Australian guy, and he took us to Hall's Creek. Hall's Creek is a tiny town, and we had the misfortune to show up on a day when there was a music festival going on, so everyone there was there to stay for the day. Getting a ride out was to be impossible warned the locals,and they looked to be right. We were in the town all day with no leads. We passed the time with Ethan playing guitar and the two of us singing, until finally, at a petrol station, we ran into a Japanese guy and a Taiwanese girl headed to Kununurra. We managed to humbug a ride with them, by pretty much just forcing ourselves onto them and then into their car. Ethan and I stuffed ourselves into the already over packed back seats and tried not to die; The Taiwanese girl was driving, and she was frighteningly awful at it. On top of her lack of skill and expertise it was the middle of the night on an unlit road with bulls wandering into them; we had more than our fair share of close calls. By the time Ethan and I arrived in Kununurra we were exhausted and decided to just stay at the Japanese guy's hostel. I could have used a shower, to charge my camera, and to sort my things out anyway. Turns out Nikki was currently staying at the same hostel! The 3 of us had a reunion the following day, at which point we also found out that Kununurra wasn't the hippy utopia the hippies made it out to be. In fact, it was pretty much a shithole, complete with emptiness, a dull atmosphere, and negative vibes. Despite all this, the 3 of us made the most of things: drinking, watching football (Ethan's pastime), playing pool, nature watching, and so on deep into the night and we all wound up back at Ethan and Nikki's hostel. I had checked out that morning, fully intending to get back to my regular vagrancy; but since it was going on 3am Nikki and Ethan didn't much like the idea of me sleeping in the abandoned lot on the street that I had scoped out earlier. It WAS extremely late/early and had I even wanted to pay to stay at the hostel for a few hours (the same price as paying for a full day!), I couldn't because the office was closed. They wanted me to stay though, so I thought I would pay when the office opened... or not. I am consummate in the art of sneaking in and out of places for free, so they convinced me to stay, and I decided that because it was only 2 hours it wouldn't be a big deal. If they caught me in the morning I would just pay since the office was closed, but if not, free stay!

First, I needed to find a room to sneak into, since the rooms were locked I waited until someone came out to go to the toilet and slipped in behind them before the door closed. Since my bag was large and it would not only have slowed me down but aroused suspicion I left it in the foyer by the office, figuring it would be safe for the next 2ish hours. I was wrong.

I awoke at 5am to sneak out, and found my bag gone. I had a cursory look around, couldn't find it, and decided that the staff must have found it during my nap and put it in the office for safe keeping. I snuck out with the plan to return in 3 hours when the office was open.

Three hours later, I returned. I went to the office and spoke with the landlady. Before I could speak, she ripped into me with the distant gleam of eye and pursed grin of a psychotic. “I saw you use the facilities without paying!”, she yipped. Facilities seemed to imply toilet and kitchen. I told her it was late and the office was closed, and I would of course pay. “You're only offering because you got caught! Don't try and pay after I call you out. I don't want your money; you're a freeloader and you're not welcome here!” I explained that my bag has moved and inquire to it's whereabouts. “The staff didn't move it. If they had, I would know>” I then explain that it seemed my bag had been stolen, and requested that I be allowed a thorough search of the area. “You're bag is not my problem, and I won't help you locate it. Leave.” I bargain for her to give me 10 minutes to look for it. She agrees. I rip the entire place apart in the 10 minutes; no bag. I left nothing unturned and found nothing. My 10 minutes were up, so I ran to Nikki and Ethan and explained that my bag, containing everything, was stolen; I was being forcibly removed from the premisses, and was not stranded in Kununurra. Nikki responded with “Why are you so calm!? What are you going to do!?” Well... we all hand stress differently. I'm sure it was half analytical thinking and half shock that produced my calmness. As for what I was going to do, the police seemed a good idea, especially since I didn't have a passport anymore. “You idiot! Why are you so stupid!? You shouldn't have left your bag there you stupid idiot, and stop being so calm about this!” Nikki always knew just what to say...

She was correct about the graveness of the situation though. Among the contents of that stolen bag were my books, passport, cloths, tent, sleeping bag, shoes, sunglasses, knife, flashlight, and most importantly my journals which contained 150 untyped-unreproducible hand written pages. The journals I was most upset about. I did still poses my wallet and my camera however, so I wasn't completely without material possessions.

Now that my schedule had become suddenly very clear, I headed off towards the police station. I was greeted by a nice female police officer sympathetic to my plight. I filled out heaps of paperwork. “Where are you staying now, for when we need to contact you?” The street somewhere? “Yeah, I guess what else can you do? You don't have a passport or anything. Just check in periodically to see what we've got.” I appreciated the understanding blind-eye she turned to my illegal vagrancy.

With nowhere to go, and all the time to get there, I was left alone with my thoughts. I spent those rough couple of days oscillating between the deepest depths of crushing depression and uncontrollable rage. The first day the police turned up nothing; I got myself together and did a reconnaissance sweep of the hostel. It was here that I figured out that there was no way the crime wasn't caught on camera. The bag was at a nexus of at least 2 clear lines of sight from cameras, and likely a blurry 3rd one. Also, the hostel was locked up that night, so in all likely hood it had to be someone on the inside with access between 2 and 5 in the morning. Knowing I was banned from the premises I decided to enter anyway in order to present my finding to the crazy lady hostel owner who threw me out. I asked her to review the footage and tell me what she saw. She refused. She yelled that she would not help me in anyway, and my problems were not her problems.

Fine. At my earliest ability I returned to the police and told them of my recon, the guarantee of evidence if the landlady reviewed the footage, and her refusal to cooperate. I then reminded the police that she was refusing to cooperate in an investigation regarding the theft of United States of America Government property: a passport. Surprisingly the police hopped-to. They immediately called the hostel owner and informed her that they would be over the following day to review the footage, with or without her cooperation. This was an uncommon occurrence for me: The police actually helping me! They told me to come back tomorrow after their search. The rest of the day I kicked around Kununurra. While going to the grocery store to get whatever I could (I still had some money in my wallet and the dumpsters were locked and guarded), I ran into Ethan's friend who happened to be staying at a campgrounds outside of town. Ethan had told him the situation and he offered me his condolences. He said there was a to-do at the hostel that evening and invited me to come and hang out with him, Nikki, and Ethan. He thought it would help take my mind off the situation, but all it did was reinforce it as I reminded him I was banned from the premises. I thanked him and took off. He found me about half an hour later, eating kiwis in a nearby ally. He said “I knew I'd find you here! I thought 'where would I be if I were homeless?' Eating in an alley.” He then told me that he had called Ethan, and Ethan had talked to the landlady and she decided to remove her ban on me. A complete 180 from her “You're the scum of the earth” spiel from before. A suspicious change of opinion after the police called her...

That evening I did go to the hostel and Ethan, his friend, and Nikki did their best to cheer me up. Nikki drew me a funny picture of Kununurra illustrating how shit it is, and it did cheer me up. Ethan was his usual dryly humourous self, so I was glad for their company. The night wore on, and then down, and I got ready to leave. I was to stay with Ethan's friend at the campground that night, so the two of us began heading out. As I was leaving, something caught my eye through a window and behind some blinds from the corner of the locked computer room. I did a double take, then stared in disbelief. MY BAG!

Unmistakably my bag.

I got someone to unlock the room. Sure enough it was my bag. It had absolutely not been there earlier; I tore the place up searching for it several times over. Whoever stole it had put it in that room recently. I immediately set about inspecting the contents to see what all had been stolen. I did have some rather expensive equipment after all. I have a very specific and particular method of packing and closing my bag, just so I know if people have been in it, so I can say with the utmost confidence that not only was nothing missing, but the bag had never even been opened!

Now, let us review the facts shall we? What sort of person would go to the trouble of stealing a bag, jam packed with valuables, and never even open it? Someone with ulterior motives besides the bag itself. Also, whoever stole it needed access to the facility between 2-5am, and keys. It also strains coincidence that the day the police called my ban was lifted and my bag reappeared. I propose without credulity the most likely situation was the landlady stealing it to “teach me a lesson” after she knew I didn't pay. That also explains her refusal to review the footage, her reversing her ban, the mysterious reappearance of the bag the day she got the call from the police, and her “emergency surgery” the very next day that caused her to immediately and spontaneously need to be on the opposite side of the country the very day the police were to arrive. Schizophrenic harpy bitch; she had an air of genuine madness about her. I hope she did have an emergency surgery. No matter though, I was just glad my bag was back. After I got it that evening I continued on with my plan to stay with Ethan's friend, Alex, at the caravan park/ campgrounds. I snuck in and stayed for free... Free stay! I'm good at learning lessons.

The next morning I snuck out at 6, successfully. I met up with Ethan and Nikki, now back to my happy go lucky self, and we wandered around town together. While wandering, who should we happen to run into but none other than 2/3 of the hippy caravan we'd split with in Fitzroy Crossing! They made it! We caught up with each other, swapping adventure stories that happened since we split. That night Ethan, Nikki, and I stayed at the caravan park with Alex and his Canadian girlfriend who had just arrived back from Canada. The hippy caravan came over that night and visited us, detailing their continued travel plans. Ethan decided to go with them. Then Nikki joined. They both tried to get me to join, but I wasn't really into it. The group had it's fair share of issues my first go'round and I wasn't excited to rejoin. Though, after a pleasant night of red wine, sweat, croc spotting, and getting yelled at by some old Aussie bloke in a camper, I was starting to think about rejoining as well. The next day was spent doing laundry and taking care of incidentals at the caravan park, during which time I decided I would rejoin the hippy caravan. After all, they were going the same direction as me and after the rest of the caravan arrived they told me they had just bought a new car which they assured me was in top shape and would definitely not be a repeat of the last one.

It was a repeat of the last one!

The first day off we discovered that the battery/alternator was crap and we had to push-start the car all day, and after getting it going we had to keep it going or it would die. It wasn't ideal, but the day before we left Nikki's German friend Marcel had joined the roaming party, and since he was a mechanic with his own working van chock full of tools and resources he was a valuable addition to the group. And, being valuable, he was instantly one of my favorite members. Moving one, the disorganized, dysfunctional group rambling continued...

...Until the next town, Katherine, at which point the “new” car with no power steering needed a new alternator. The car finally got working, after another day sitting around, and after a quick sojourn to some waterfall pools we made it to our camp for the night, at 1am. At which point we set to drinking until 3:30. Nikki woke with a hangover, and the rest of the group was business as usual including my 6:30 morning exercises.

After more car trouble (AAAARRGGGH!!!), and a full day spent sitting around Litchfield waiting for the vehicle to get fixed, the caravan finally made it to Darwin! Now that we made it to Darwin, the capital of Northwest Australia and an actual legitimate city, the question turned to where we were going to stay. Some of the group wanted to go to a hostel, some of the group wanted to sleep in their cars, and Nikki was planning to stay with a guy, Josh, who she had met in Broome who actually lives in Darwin. Ethan didn't have anywhere to go, and the group was factioning quickly, so he wound up staying with Josh and Nikki. As for me, I also didn't have anywhere to go, but Josh's was full... or would have been, were it not for the fact that when he showed up to pick up Nikki and Ethan we realized we knew each other! I had hitched a ride with him in Broome, courtesy of Felix. Josh was the member of the Australian military I had ridden with during my final time in Broome! He remembered me and allowed me to crash on his floor, even though he insisted on the couch but his floor was just too comfy.

To celebrate our arrival in the big city the group and Josh decided to go out drinking, and as is often the case, we drank what some would call dangerously to excess. In the midst of our bender Ethan became distracted and wandered off to become a street musician for the night, along with some guy he knew that he ran into plus several members of the hippy caravan who were drunk busking. Drink after drink we partied on until finally we started becoming “too” drunk. Nikki became the overly drunk girl that needs to be put to bed, so Josh and I took her back and did just that. We lost Ethan in the drunk scramble and he wound up getting lost, passing out, and sleeping in the streets. Most of the others wound up similarly. Using Nikki's phone in the morning, I was able to find a confused Ethan and get him back to Josh's. A rough night for me, considering it was the first time in a real city in several months. I thought it may be best if I didn't stay in one for long. I wasn't going to continue with the caravan though. I needed to go it alone, or at least a different route. Of course, since the caravan was splitting up, this time for good, we needed to have a proper send-off. The next we drank because it was the last day before the caravan departed.

We began drinking at 4 and continued on into the wee hours, just like the prior day. On this day though, I bore witness to one of the most epic bar-room brawls I have ever seen. Two 'roid raged Irishmen intent on killing each other started a fight in a pub, broke a bunch of glasses, kept fighting untill they got outside, broke more glasses, fought each other through a mob of people (that I then fought through to get a front row view), then fought the police when they arrived. It was epic. After the fight, Ethan, Myself, and the gang headed off to the Sunday night beach markets. More drinking and final hang-outs ensued. While drinking the booze, watching a band consisting of one guy playing 4 didgeridoos simultaneously, skeezing food off the vendors, and the climbing of trees the caravan tried to get me to go with them. No dice. My mind was made up. Ethan, however, chose to go with them. He was sure I would come around and rejoin. Nope. The next morning the group departed. We all wished each other well. Only Nikki, Josh, and myself remained in Darwin. After the send off the three of us set about celebrating Josh's birthday... by drinking! We went to several different places and drank, and finished at Josh's apartment were he wound up breaking one of his own glasses by accidentally knocking it onto the floor. Not surprising. I seem to have that effect on situations. In fact, the whole week blurred into one continuous late night drinking binge. It was always some reason to drink, and drink we did.

Since Josh spent his days at work, and Nikki and I were still staying with him, I spent my days wandering the “cultural” bit of Darwin, such as the gross beach trail that lads to the museum. I'm sure the ditches were full of heroin addicts I couldn't see... or maybe they were eaten by saltwater crocodiles? As the days wore on and Nikki had less and less distractions from me, the inevitable happened: She had had all she could stand of Nash. She became over emotional one day from the humidity and exhaustion and wound up taking it out on me. I considered leaving right then, but I'm glad I didn't because she calmed down and we made up... by drinking. A nice dinner and drinking. Everyday drinking.

During this week of drinkscapades I started receiving emails that required my actual attention. First I recieved word from the university that I was now, officially, graduated; they wanted me to come back and finalize some paperwork and I needed to physically pick up my diploma and various things. I would never trust them to post in internationally. Next I received an email stating that the house I had used as mother-base for the past couple years had been sold, and that I needed to empty it of my things lest they disappear with the house. Finally there was the issue of the weddings. Seems like people are always getting married! All of these things required fairly immediate action and attention, meaning I needed to get to the states pronto. No prob, with the exception that I was broke... or should have been. Turns out that when I lost my bag and passport friends had volunteered money and help to do what they could for me. Even though I had gotten my things back I still had all the favors they'd done for me, so using that plus some donations and a loan I was able to get a ticket from Darwin to the states no problem. On my final day in Darwin Josh took Nikki and me on a saltwater crocodile cruise down the Adelaide river, proving without a shadow of a doubt that they are apex predators; perhaps Earth's greatest. Afterwords Nikki and Josh bade me farewell at the airport, and I was off.

So after a great time in Oz it was time for me to go, mostly due to university clerical issues, base salvage, visa complications, finances, impending weddings, and the need for me to gather materials and capital for future ventures, I flew out of Darwin to the States. I had been all over the Western half of Australia, so when I return I shall pick up where I left off: Heading East and drinking. I'm positive I'll see again the friends I’d made there.

As for the actual ACT of leaving Australia? Well when they went to scan my passport it didn't work right. The staff said “Did you check in with an Australian passport?” No. “Oh. It says you did. Weird.” Weird indeed, just like in the Philippines on the way there. I'm certain China broke my passport red-listing me for my “incendiary devices” and now it seems to scan me in as a native of whatever country, and out as American, ensuring a huge security hassle... oh China... At least the flight had a guy who shared with me a route I was unaware of to Antarctica... new adventure opportunity!

As I was boarding the plane out of Australia, reflecting on my journey, I looked over and saw the same style rack of “Tits” magazine that had greeted me on arrival. I thought     “Goodbye for now Australia. Stay Classy.”


-Nash