Australia, Hobart to Darwin.
Aug ‘15 to July ‘16
So I’d decided to do a full lap of the planet, and I was off. Closed the front door for the last time, big breath, in the car and away. This. Is. It.
First stop was Launceston to see some good mates for my first overly night on this adventure, and it was certainly that. So much so that I couldn’t wait to get on the overnight ferry to the big island and have a detox. A great final send-off, and a point in time that feels like only recently, but was actually over eight years ago.
Wild how fast times goes. Even in the short term, it only feels like a couple of weeks since my last Substack, but in reality it’s well over a month. Time to hurry up and type.
I didn’t really have much of an idea of how or when I would manage to leave Australia, other than catching ‘a boat up north’ somewhere. I had my car with me, and just thought I’d drive until I found that moment, visiting mates along the way. But even then I never thought it would take me almost a year to leave!
First off was Melbourne, driving off that ferry in the morning was such a good feeling, actually on the road, with no real plans and even at that stage, an ever extending timeline. I knew then that I wouldn’t get this done in a year or so.
I had about a week in Melbourne staying at a mates house whilst she was away in the UK, so it was a good time to take stock of what I was actually doing, and to spend some quality time with mates in one of my most favourite cities.
From there it was across to the nation’s Capital, Canberra. Staying with a mate that I met whilst adventuring around India a few years previously. From there it was North only, for 1,000’s and 1,000’s of miles.
It took me about 35 days to reach Queensland, stopping off at various different towns, and staying in various different hostels. Adventures too numerous to condense into one post unfortunately. But there were many and varied haha. I stayed in Sydney for a week or so at a couple of mate’s houses, and had such a good time there, as I do every time I visit. Great city, great vibe, so beautiful in the Harbour area.
Soon after setting off traveling I had a invite to go sailing on a mate’s yacht, someone I met in the Cook Islands a couple of years beforehand who was sailing the Pacific, solo. Having bought his yacht in Ft Lauderdale and sailed through the Caribbean to Panama, traversed the Canal, and across to Australia. I think meeting people like this on my previous travels put my mind to thinking about the possibilities of my own route around the world. This was proper adventuring.
So I met him and his son and partner in Stockport on the Sunshine Coast from where we set off sailing up to Tin Can Bay, via a few different places like Moreton Island, Rainbow Beach and Fraser Island where we walked for miles across the island, avoiding dingoes, through deep sand on an adventure within an adventure. Call it a side quest.
Up until that point I hadn’t seen so many humpback whales at one time. Whilst we were under sail they were literally everywhere you looked, coming north from Antarctica to calve in the warm tropical waters of the Coral Sea. Some so close to the boat that you could make eye contact as we sailed on by. Just incredible.
There were a few memorable encounters. Like the day we were approaching Moreton Island for the 2nd time and saw a humpback just floating, slapping her massive tail fin against the water, time after time, as her newly born calf breached the water, circling his mother as he did so. This went on for maybe 15 - 20 minutes as we sat on the side of the boat and watched in awe. It was one of the best moments I’ve ever had out on the water, a wonderful memory to cherish.
After sailing back to Stockport a couple of weeks later I drove further up the Queensland coast to the place that hooked and reeled me in for about 8 months, Airlie Beach.
Warm tropical waters, lush green islands, the most dazzling white sand you’ve seen, sailing, the Great Barrier Reef and the most welcoming and fun collection of people.
Initially it was going to be a few days then onwards, having by that point decided on Darwin as my final Australian stop to find a yacht into Indonesia somewhere, but as it turns out I couldn’t quite leave.
If you ever find yourself in Australia, and up in Queensland, then Airlie Beach is the place to go. A great base for sailing trips around the Whitsunday Islands, and also diving/snorkelling trips out to the Great Barrier Reef which lies 42 nautical miles from the mainland. It’s also a great place to unwind and party. I ended up doing all of these things, working on a yacht, taking 18 backpackers out sailing for three days, two night, and also working out on the GBR as a deckhand on the boat taking everyone out and a rescue swimmer whilst out there, with plenty of partying in between it all.
It was hard to call what I was doing work, as it was so much fun. People were paying to come and visit the Whitsunday Islands and you were being paid to make their time there enjoyable and safe. No wonder I wasn’t in a rush to leave. Such a contrast from my last job.
There was a surreal morning in Airlie where I woke up to missed calls and messages, telling me my father had died suddenly back home in. Someone I hadn’t really talked to for a few years, for different reasons. Bizarrely I had decided to write him a postcard the day before and it was sitting there on the breakfast counter that morning, ready to be posted… staring at me as the realisation of what had happened was sinking in.
With that news the ‘no aeroplane’ thing was off for the time being, and I was soon on 5 flights back home to Shetland to bury him. Writing this now, I think I’ve been putting off updating my travels on here as I didn’t want to speak about it so much, so I’ll get back to thoughts and feeling on this another time..
After the funeral and wake were passed and I’d visited as many people as I could, I took the same 5 flights all the way back to Airlie Beach. So I wasn’t any further ahead on my travels, and indeed I ended up staying and working there for another few months. But the road to getting over the death of my father was a much longer one.
I got in touch with a couple not long after I got back, who were looking for a crew member on their yacht, to help them sail for three months through the Indonesian archipelago. They would be sailing as part of a flotilla of 40-odd boats named Sail Indonesia. The boat was their home and they had three cats onboard. It sounded a little mad, but perfect! I just had to wait a few months until the time was right to head up to Darwin and join them.
By the time I was ready to leave I had sold the car that I’d driven all the way from Hobart, and after a very big send off, I was on a long long bus journey to Darwin, via one night at a place in the middle of the Northern Territory called Tennant Creek. That place was an adventure in itself, with a lot of people just sitting out on the streets, seemingly up to nothing much, and a police ute doing the rounds quite often.
To me it was quite a sad place and I was happy to get going again, leaving behind a lot of people who I’m pretty sure wished they could do the same.
I’d been in the Northern Territory once before, although that time I was driving, so it was great to sit back and watch the red world go by as I entered the final straight to Darwin. Flat and dry, with the odd emu and kangaroo in sight. An amazing endless vista, it’s incredible. I obviously didn’t know then, but I’d be seeing a few more endless landscapes on my travels back home to Shetland..
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