Hundreds of Kilometres of Bugger All

Pardon my French, but I am not exactly sure how else to describe the stretch of Queensland after Townsville, almost until Brisbane. Pleasant bugger all, it has to be said, the trees are a little greener - although some still carry scorched scars from bush fires gone by - and the rolling hills in the distance, the sense of the sea in the air (the Bruce Highway runs a few kilometres inland, too far to see ocean but close enough to know its there) the occasional glimpse of a kangaroo, I really can't complain about any of it.

I have read much of Australia described (by Bill Bryson in Down Under) as an ideal small town America that hasn't existed since the 1950s, and that is definitely evident in the small towns of Central Queensland. There is an innocence, an open friendly simplicity to life that is rarely found elsewhere. The old men passing the time of day by the roadside, who, when I pulled over to ask for directions back to the highway (despite the many inarguably wonderful things about the Land Down Under, clearly labelling streets and intersections 'aint one of them) thought carefully, discussed it amongst themselves for a few minutes then gave me a choice of no less than three options, depending on how quickly I wanted to reach the road and whether I wanted to see some pretty sights along the way; the young kids playing unsupervised in a field; the thoughtful and friendly conversations I overheard when I stopped for a cup of tea in a small coffee shop. Tea - that's another thing. In common with Canada, there are facets to Australian life far more British than Britain ever bothers to be these days: almost every cup of tea I was served came in a small teapot, a delicate china cup and sugar bowl and usually made with real tea leaves, as opposed to the tea bag dunked in a mug I would expect in London.

However, I am making it sound as though the road is highly populated, with charming company all along the way. Those three instances of human contact I just mentioned were the only signs of life I encountered for sometimes hours at a time. To be fair, though, from Townsville as far as another small town by the name of McKay (pronounced by the locals in the correct, Scottish way of McKai) it was rare to go more than maybe 40 minutes or an hour without at least a petrol station or fruit and vegetable stall. So when I pulled into McKay just as the sun was going down (due to its proximity to the equator, it is not unusual to be pitch dark in Queensland by not long after 6pm - bear in mind of course that in August it's the middle of winter!), had a pleasant dinner, a brief walk around the downtown area, and decided that there was nothing much to entice me to stay the night, I had little reason not to plan on pushing on for another couple of hours then finding a nice little motel in which to rest my weary head for the night. Equally it didn't - and I fully admit that this was short sighted of me - occur to me that with over half a tank of petrol it might have been prudent to fill up before pushing on.

It is probably somewhat predictable then, that three hours later - three hours in which the solitary break in pitch darkness around me was my own headlights - the car was spluttering on the dredges of petrol fumes and a light that read "you've got to be kidding, I am dying here" had lit up on the dash board. And I hadn't passed one sign for petrol in hours - never mind the welcoming motel with fluffy pillows and hearty breakfast of my fantasy. It was me, and hundreds of kilometres of bugger all.

Afraid that the engine would cut out altogether, I pulled off the highway and thankfully stumbled across a campsite. Despite it only being around 9pm, the campsite was clearly closed for business - the office was locked, and the many caravans and tents scattered around were dark. I even fancied, as I sat alone in my desperate car, that I could hear families snoring softly, cosy in their sleeping bags. There was nothing else for it: there was no way I would find a petrol station - never mind an open one - at this time, so I clambered over to the backseat, liberally sprinkled the contents of my suitcase over myself and snuggled down to snooze fitfully, dreaming of outback murderers, hungry crocodiles and snakes that can open locked car doors.

A few hours later, I woke, gritty eyed and sore, to be greeted with a hazy, magical dawn. The blindingly pure sun was just peeking over the horizon and shining through the trees; shining so startlingly brightly as it scorched off the morning mist and glinted on the dew that the countryside was draped in a reflective, ethereal quality. Almost as though nature was making up for my crappy night, when I glanced out of the rear view window, I was treated, in a natural spotlight, to the sight of two wild kangaroos, maybe two feet from the boot, nibbling on grass. Okay Australia, you're forgiven.

Red Red Wine and Rain Down Under

As I sat on the terrace of the bar at 1770 in central Queensland reading, occasionally idly contemplating the stars and listening to some spectacularly named - Lochlan, Tallullah and Ruby - local children play as their parents ate at the table next to me, I turned the page of my book, took a sip of my red wine and, with gruesome predictability, tipped the remains of the wine down my front.

This isn't the first time this has happened: when I say I have a drinking problem, it has nothing to do with any issues with alcohol, simply that very often, getting the contents of the cup or glass down my throat with no detours is an insurmountable challenge. Just moments before typing this, I cheerfully knocked a glass of cranberry juice (with a loaf of bread) all down my pyjamas and over most of my kitchen. I don't even bother to swear when I do it any more, just sigh and reach for the nearest dishcloth.

In this instance, I sighed and headed up to my room to change. I was wearing a white sleeveless top (like a wife beater for girls) which I had just changed in to before going down to eat. I have two identical such tops, and briefly considered changing into the other in the hope that no one would notice, but in the end couldn't find it so chucked on another T shirt, went downstairs and ordered another glass of wine.

The following morning, at a disgustingly still-dark hour, I rose and sleepily wriggled into my bikini and a pair of shorts. I was headed for the beach and an early kayak tour of the cove. Rummaging around for a t shirt, I came across a white sleeveless one, and chucked it on. It probably won't shock anyone to learn that when I arrived at the beach just as the sun was coming up, I glanced down to see - that yes, I was indeed wearing the red wine stained one.

However, even the pitying looks of my fellow kayakers could not detract from the experience. The first time I ever kayaked, I doubted that anything could top the experience - it was on Lake Tahoe, also early morning, when my then boyfriend and I had almost the entire lake and surrounding snow capped mountains to ourselves. I have kayaked plenty since in English Bay, Deep Cove and Lions Bay in BC; but this -- this was incredible. Surprisingly for the amount of traffic that the Reef and nearby coastline must surely endure, the water is startlingly clear - I could see the sandy sea bed the majority of the time. The highlight however, was the dolphins. A group of them - five, six, maybe - frolicked around us, so close that I almost felt I could reach out and touch them. In the same way that I would describe the kangaroos I saw as giant squirrels, dolphins close up struck me like fish shaped dogs. Their curiosity, the manner of their play, their apparent intelligence and they way they seemed to communicate and check each other out - just dogs that can swim without looking like idiots.

The tour only lasted a couple of hours, so by late morning I was parked on the beach with a book where I remained, turning myself occasionally to ensure even tan and avoid bedsores, until it was too dark to read. I do believe, that had I not woken the following morning to pouring rain and gale force winds, I would never have managed to wrench myself away from the paradise that is 1770. Instead, I pushed on towards Brisbane and swiftly discovered that Queenslanders drive in the rain the way that British Colombians drive in the snow: by pretending that it isn't happening and being surprised and a little confused when their car ends up in a ditch. Despite the driving rain bouncing off the tarmac and reducing visibility to the car in front (the traffic coming into Brisbane was fairly heavy), everyone - including trucks, in fact, especially trucks - happily shot along at around 110k plus. It reminded me of crossing the road in Vancouver: I was genuinely afraid for my life. I pulled off the highway and sat forlornly at an outdoor kiosk under a tarpaulin listening to the battering rain, occasionally getting splashed, as I moped over a cup of tea and read a bit, attempting to give the impression that I always sat out in the pouring rain for a bit of a read.

It shouldn't be surprising then, that I was very happy to reach Brisbane and - after a slightly hair raising diversion in which I utterly lost my bearings and fancied that I began to see signs for Perth - my friend Anna's flat. They say that blood is thicker than water, and I don't doubt that it is; but this summer I am truly learning that whatever substance exists between friends (Cosmopolitans mostly, in my case... yes I am stuck in the 90s, sue me) is thick enough to be pretty indestructible too. Due in part to my travelling so much, I am lucky enough to have a wide and varied circle of friends dotted around the globe. Currently, my best friends live in Vancouver, Perth (Australia, not Scotland!), Los Angeles, Chicago, Glasgow - and Brisbane. Of course there are down sides: it's all very handy when I need somewhere cheap (read: free) to stay in far flung places, but not much use when I am looking for someone to nip down the pub with in London. In addition to getting to stay in and watch a lot of Big Brother when I am in London, there is also the worry of keeping these oh-so-exoticly-residing friends. How easy is it to sustain a friendship without that day-to-day random phone calls, nipping to the pub, blethering over a cup of tea at the kitchen table aspect? The answer, as I discovered that evening in Brisbane, is: when the friend is true, very. Anna, her boyfriend Jack, and I went out to dinner, and poor Jack could only look on bemusedly as Anna blethered away as though we'd only just paused for breath the last time we saw each other - over three years ago. With military efficiency, we swiftly gossiped about everyone we knew, up dated each other on everything that that happened since 2003 and pronounced the chef edible.

Flower of Scotland

I have a theory that being an ex-pat makes you more patriotic. We left Scotland the day before my 8th birthday, and so, being "the Scottish one" has always been part of my identity, in a way that it wouldn't be if I'd grown up in Glasgow.

In fact, even long before we moved away, I was used to being the foreign one. We went to the States for a summer to visit my mum's sister and her family when I was three. That autumn, we went for a weekend to Aviemore and stayed at a hotel where there was a nightly show for kids featuring a mean clown. I know he was mean because when he asked all the kids where we were from, I put up my hand - having been used to this question in America - and replied "Scotland."

"Ach, I know you're from Scotland" he snapped, which was fair enough given that we were in Scotland at the time, but still, I felt it a bit harsh. I don't think I have yet forgiven clown-kind.

My patriotism even survived He-Man ruining my Highland dancing career in 1985. At the end of term, each of us had dance a presentation piece to the teachers to show what we'd learnt. Displaying a flair for the dramatic that has got me in plenty of trouble since, I borrowed my little brother's He-Man swords to use in my routine in the hope that the teachers would think I had figured out the Sword Dance on my own. Tragically, during the dance, I skidded, kicked the 'on' switch on the sword and had to finish the routine with red flashing skulls at my feet and a tinny voice proclaiming " MASTERS OF THE UUNNIIVVEEEEEERSEEEE" over the hi-diddly Highland dance music.

When it became clear that the teachers had noticed - the tears streaming down their faces was probably the first clue - I skipped straight out of the room and as far as Miss MacDonald's Wee Dancers of Kilmacolm are aware, have never been seen again.

Panic in America...

You know when you feel as though you haven’t quite broken up with someone enough? When you have cried and wailed and attached yourself, limpet like, to their leg as they tried to leave you, but still, you sensed that deep down there was a teeny bit more heartbreak left to be wrung out of the situation and damned if you weren’t going to wring it?

My very first sojourn to Canada ended rather abruptly when it turned that the Canadian government wasn’t keen on granting visas for foreigners who wanted to fart about and try to make movies – there are, after all, more than enough Canadians farting about and trying to make movies, so I was out on my ear. This all happened so abruptly, however, that my family had already booked and paid for a trip to visit me, in three months’ time – in the country I wasn’t allowed to live in any more. Also around this time, my boyfriend and I were not getting on terribly well and had discussed breaking up – but, in the end decided that it would be a better idea to travel around the U.S. in a tiny car and tent together for three months at which time I would head back to Canada to meet up with my family. Brilliant? Or not.

That lasted a few weeks after which point we decided that the breaking up idea in fact had been the right one, and I took a train to Boston to stay with my aunt until it was time to sneak back into the Great White North. Except that a couple of months later, we decided that, in fact, we’d better just see each other one more time to make sure that the breaking up idea was the one to go for. I jumped on a train in Washington D.C. (after visiting another aunt) for a day and a half’s journey after which time I would have almost 2 days in Chicago to sort things with old what’s his face then jump on a plane to Seattle and get a bus up to Vancouver where my family would be waiting and bob would be my uncle.

Things started to go a bit pear shaped when the train pulled out of the station in D.C. – and promptly began to reverse. It turned out that there had been a crash (no one was hurt so I was allowed to be annoyed) on the track to Chicago, so we had to head down into Virginia to get on to another track. Virginia, it turns out, is ever such a pretty state, but being in a bit of a hurry to get to Illinois probably isn’t the best circumstance in which to appreciate it. Nearly 20 hours later, at an interminable wait outside Cleveland, with my precious time in Chicago ticking away, I’d had enough and burst into tears. A very sweet elderly couple who were due to get off in Cleveland kindly asked me if I was okay (which was somewhat a redundant question given that I was heaving with sobs and struggling to catch my breath while drowning in snot, but undoubtedly well intentioned.) I was of course terribly British about it and said that I was just fine, thank you for asking. When the couple got off the train, the old man handed me a bag of pretzels, which I tried to hand back as I don’t like pretzels, but he told me to keep it anyway. Not wishing to appear rude, I did so – and as the train pulled out of the station I glanced at the bag, and realized that he had put a $10 note in it for me. I was quite stunned by such a random and incredibly kind gesture from a stranger – although I would love to know what he thought I was crying about!

Upon finally reaching Chicago, a couple of hours chatting with the man confirmed that yup, breakup still definitely on. Unfortunately, we came to that conclusion with a good two hours to go before I had to be at the airport for my flight to Seattle, and there was no one else to drive me. So we had lots of fun sitting in stony silence in my cousin’s apartment, with me occasionally choking back sobs because damned if I was going to cry (more) in front of him. The silence was occasionally punctuated by me grandly pronouncing that I didn’t want him to drive me to the airport, in fact I never wanted to see him again, and he would ask if I had the money for a taxi to the airport and I would huff that no, I didn’t, and he would reply that then he would drive me and I would snort ‘fine then’ and we’d go back to silence and choked sobs.

After storming through the departure gate at Midway and childishly refusing to hug the now very definitely ex, I nearly came to blows with a woman at the coffee shop over the pronunciation of the word “raspberry” (don’t ask) and boarded my flight to Seattle.

The flight itself was uneventful enough, other than the fact that it was 20 minutes late. Not a big deal, or so you’d think. It meant that I when I struggled outside (bear in mind, I was carting every last one of my worldly goods in a massive suitcase which was literally bursting at the seams, a large backpack, and, just for good measure, a small backpack) – I arrived just in time to watch the back of my bus departing in the direction of Vancouver.

Dragging the lopsided suitcase (for one of the wheels had broken off) and vainly attempting to offset the weight of one backpack by strapping it sideways so that it rested on my hip and in theory countered the weight of the other backpack on the other hip – which gave me the look of a hunchback with an inner ear problem – I made off for the taxi rank. Unfortunately, bumming around America for three months doesn’t pay terribly well, so I had to pay for a ride to the Greyhound station with small change I found at the bottom of each piece of luggage. Oddly, given my charm, the taxi driver was not a fan of mine, so he thought it fun to drop me off at the bottom of a hill near the Seattle Greyhound bus station.

I discovered that by straightening my right leg so that it was parallel to the suitcase (Seattle’s hills are steep), balancing the bigger backpack against it and sort of lunging forward with my left leg – the momentum of which would yank the suitcase/backpack combo forward – I would find myself, at intervals, slightly startled, approximately half a foot further up the hill than I had been. If not terribly elegantly. On the plus side, I did get to do this with a stunning Pacific sunset for company, although whenever I turned around to have a look at the bay the suitcase would invariably slip out of my grip and merrily trundle back down the hill, which was fun.

Eventually, in pitch darkness, I made it up the hill and into the bus station, where I was greeted by a young man, for whom – I suspect – hospitality was not a first choice of career. He perked up somewhat when he got to deliver the news that the next bus to Vancouver wouldn’t be departing until 12.30am (three hours from then) and would arrive at around 5am. And also, my suitcase was too heavy. Stunned by the news that my suitcase weighed a bit, I asked for a little further clarification. Apparently the big strong men who load luggage for a living were not covered by insurance to lift up the suitcase that I (a not big, not strong, not man) had carted all over the United States. The solution my good friend the Greyhound man cheerfully offered me was to unload around 15 pounds from the case (wish I’d had him around back in Boston.)

“And where do you suggest I put these 15 pounds?”

“Uhh… I have some garbage bags?”

With my worldly goods now packed securely in a suitcase, a large backpack, a small packback and two garbage bags, I headed to the vending machine to see what culinary delights were on offer for that evening’s meal. Deciding to partake of a starter of Ruffles chips, followed by a main of M&Ms cooked to perfection and washed down by a tangy Lilt, I fed the machine my last three dollars, which it happily accepted but – clearly it had the temperament expected of all the best chefs – chose not to serve me my meal. So I kicked the crap out of it and burst into tears.

Cut to 10 minutes later, I was sitting on the best bench the Greyhound Bus Station has to offer, surrounded by sympathetic homeless people as I wailed “but I thought hee looooovvveed meeeeee….” and a woman wizened with years of exposure to the elements patted my arm and clucked “If he didn’t see what he had in you then he’s not good enough for you, honey” and various other residents of Seattle’s streets nodded in agreement. (Incidentally, years later, that very ex mentioned that he was thinking of moving to Seattle – I advised him to stay away from the bus station as he’s not very popular there.)

Finally, the bus arrived and I managed to snooze all the way to the Canadian border, where all passengers were ejected, handed our luggage and pointed in the direction of customs. Concerned that my Quasimodo lunge wouldn’t endear me to Canada Immigration, I invented a new way to walk while carrying nearly 150 pounds of crap: backwards. This worked just wonderfully, right up until I crashed into a display of Maple themed stuff and knocked it all over. Had this happened going in the other direction I am fairly sure that I would have been carted off to State prison with all the potential terrorists and B.C. pot activists on charges of being too much of a bloody idiot to enter the United States, but this being Canada, three immigration officers jumped up to help me carry my stuff to the desk.

My passport was duly stamped, the crap was duly searched through, and a security guy carried my suitcase and backpacks (I took the garbage bags) back to the bus and off we headed up Highway 99. As the sun rose over the North Shore mountains, I struggled into a hotel room and fell asleep next to my sister.

Leaving On A Jet Plane.... Or Not....

I've been feeling a bit awful about the environment. Recently, the news has been saturated with dire predictions of global warming and accusing all of us who fly regularly of killing off Third World crops and murdering polar bears. I'm not too bad, as far as environmental conscience goes: I don't drive, nor leave my cell phone charger plugged in or TV on standby and I faithfully recycle (I even set an ex up with a friend recently). But the flying thing, I can't get past. Last year, I went on no less than 16 plane journeys (counting the outbound and return as two), none of them really necessary if we are to be strict about it. Travel is the greatest passion in my life, I sometimes feel overwhelmed by how much of the globe I have yet to see. But if my zipping off with my seatbelt on whenever seated in case of unexpected turbulence is going to destroy parts of the globe I have yet to see, maybe I should just stay at home and sit quietly on my hands?

When it comes to long haul travel, it's not as though there is much choice. The quickest way to get to Australia while remaining in contact with Earth is by cargo ship (which doesn't sound to me as though it'd have movies or individual chocolates with a cup of tea) and it takes at least 36 days. 36 days! My plans for 2007 do include a trip Down Under, but try as I might, I can't find a spare couple of months for the journey there and back.

The worst part is, it's not even as though I enjoy flying - I generally see it as a necessary evil between me and wherever I want to go. I am not a very good air passenger. During my outbound flight to Australia last summer, I got out of my seat in an attempt to alleviate claustrophobia, asked one of the cabin crew for some iced water and promptly fainted in the aisle, spectacularly depositing the iced water over an unfortunate row of people.

Which doesn't even compare to the time I was on my way to Vancouver, happily glugging back litres of water in an attempt to attain peachy perfect skin despite the 9 ½ hours in a pressurised cabin, when we hit some turbulence. Fairly bad turbulence, bad enough to necessitate the seat belt light going on for 40 minutes. Which is a long time by anyone's standards, but trust me, it's an eternity when you've just gulped no less than 2 litres of water. Finally, having resorted to undoing my jeans to ease the mountainous pressure on my bladder and squirming like never before, the seat belt light flicked off and I dashed out of my seat like, as they say, a bat out of hell. Relief was sweet - but also brief as the seat belt light flicked back on seconds after I'd sat down, and seconds after that, the plane plummeted so sharply that I was catapulted off the toilet and slammed in to the door with such force that I saw stars and my nose started to bleed. Which was bad enough, until I remind you what activity I'd been engaged in before the world fell from under me, and share that blood wasn't the only bodily fluid lavishly sprayed all over the cubicle and my clothes.

When I was about five, I wet myself at school and was sent home with my knickers in a paper bag, but never had I experienced sitting through the remaining four hours of the flight, an inevitable interrogation at Canadian Immigration then a taxi to my apartment in the West End in the same state. As I stared around with an indescribable horror, there was a knock on the door and a member of the cabin crew helpfully informed me that I had to go back to my seat as "we were experiencing some turbulence." In the end, I got through the flight, the airport, and the taxi home… wearing a pair of pyjamas from First Class.

So anyway. I've decided to give up short-haul flights. The rail system on the continent is fantastic, in fact, I've worked out that if you include journey to and from the airport, plus all the checking-in and security rigmarole, it'll only take me a couple more hours to reach my parents' in Geneva by Eurostar and TGV from Paris. Whether that will really do enough to reduce my carbon foot print I can't be sure, but at least I will get to finish the journey wearing my own clothes.

All Around

They say that Glaswegians have always been travellers. By virtue of being several hundred miles closer to North America than anywhere else in Great Britain, for many years it was the centre of trade with the New World - particularly the tobacco trade with America. Importing tobacco was responsible for turning Glasgow from a large-ish villge that still lived up to the Gaelic meaning of its name "dear green place" to the industrial, smoky (in more ways than one!) city that we know today. In return for baccy, we sent back to America a typically nifty Scottish invention: sticky-backed plastic, which is why the Americans call it "Scotch tape". This is all a very long way of explaining that for as long as the city has been a city, ships from exotic corners of the globe have chugged up the Clyde and let the working people know that there was a great world out there worth exploring, long before the working people in other parts of the UK realised.

And explore it we did. As Billy Connolly famously pointed out, we explored the warmest, sunniest, generally wear-sunglasses-all-year-round places, then promptly settled happily in the dullest, rainiest, generally wear-wellies-all-year-round-places. Having lived in Vancouver for two years, and happened to spend a weekend in Sydney when it suffered the most rain it had in 120 years, I can't really disagree.

So as you can see, it's really not my fault. I am patriotically destined to get itchy feet every few months. My parents kicked it off: by the time I left school, I had lived in 4 countries - and tried to persuade teachers in each one that we hadn't done homework in the last, so I really couldn't be expected to start now. So a few months ago, when my friend Toby told me about the "30 Countries Before 30" challenge, I was already on my way

I have already visited, in no particular order:
Scotland

England

Wales

Ireland

France

Italy

Vatican City

Greece

Holland

Switzerland

Belgium

Luxembourg

Spain

Portugal

U.S.A.

Canada

Australia

The Bahamas (a country? ... let's say yes for now... )

Singapore

Thailand

Germany

Monaco
Croatia

Which I don't think is too bad in 28 years. The list comes to 23, which means I have two years (oh all right, a year and a half) to hit seven. I think it's do-able.

ETA: Ahhhh! San Marino! 24! Thank heavens for random little European principalities. Six to go…