We left Singapore and its heavy, moist, wonderful atmosphere at 8pm (local time) on the 14th March 2010. The buoyant weightlessness as the airplane lost contact with the runway of Singapore Changi International marked the end of our Asian Odyssey. We were headed south, across the equator, and even further east to the golden coastline of New South Wales, Australia.
We landed at 6am local time after a six-hour flight with little (Me) to no (Rhi) sleep and slowly allowed ourselves to be processed through customs (something I will no doubt comment on later) before stumbling blearily into the bright, fresh air of early morning Sydney. Waking up slightly with the effects of the cool, fresh air I had the feeling of walking out of a sauna into a pleasantly cool room. I hadn’t realised how much I missed breathing air that wasn’t 90% water. Inversely, I felt like a fish jumping back into water after a brief stint trying to make a go of it on land. It was a great feeling.
We humped our bags towards a travel booth and were greeted by two reps that were so loud and smiley that I concluded they must have been feeling like fish too and wanted to make the most of the air and space around them. We bought our extortionately expensive tickets $14!! (We could have lived like royalty for three days in Cambodia for this amount) and made our way slowly to a minibus that the rep indicated happily across the car park. We ambled out of the foyer and across the car park before tagging onto the outskirts of a gaggle of similarly sleep deprived travellers with red eyes. After spending six hours writhing around on a cramped plane trying to find a position to contort your neck into that hopefully won’t have long-term orthopaedic ramifications it is amazing how many outstanding examples of bed hair there were belonging to this group. We waited patiently, wondering if my short back and sides and Rhi’s tightly ponytailed hair did the group justice when a casually dressed Polish man swept past and unleashed an onslaught in harsh guttural Polish at another man, who, not to be out done returned his ministrations with as much venom as he received. The group stood speechless as the noise escalated to a crescendo and abruptly cut short with the slamming of a door and the screeching of tyres as the second man exited the area. The Polish man turned quickly and offered a sickly smile before unlocking the minibus and gesturing for us to get on. No one moved for a second as the possibility of running flashed visibly across people’s minds. Before anyone said anything the bags were loaded and Graham* hustled the first of us towards the open door. (*Not his real name; for some reason we failed to see a name badge or any sort of official documentation. I assume he must have been keeping it safe and didn’t want to get it dirty carrying it around). The last to join the queue, I was also the last to clamber into the back of the minibus, and to my dismay I saw that the last remaining seat next to Rhi was just being settled into by a young girl. I turned and saw Graham pointing grimly at the seat next to him in the front.
I clambered gingerly into the front cab and before I had managed to sit down and properly close the door I was violently thrown against my seat as Graham threw the bus into first gear and accelerated off in a cloud of diesel fumes. I flailed frantically trying to grab my seatbelt as we careered around a corner and swerved in amongst airport traffic, buses, taxis, young children and luggage carts. A policeman’s astonished face appeared briefly in my window as we scattered a group of elderly women attempting to negotiate a pelican crossing. We veered suddenly to the left and pulled up at another terminal. (The term ‘pulled up’ is perhaps a little weak a description of the actual event. In reality, the bus rapidly ceased to continue moving and, rather maliciously, neglected to inform the passangers and contents which laws of physics it was currently abiding by. Suitcases flew towards the front of the bus and I was glad I had managed to lock my seatbelt in moments before).
Graham turned off the engine, pulled the hand brake up and exited the bus all in one fluid movement. We watched him charge into the foyer in breathless silence. I turned slowly and met a sea of terrified, rabbit caught in the headlight expressions; white knuckled hands gripping seats, eyes wide, jaws clenched. I noted thankfully that Rhi was still sitting where I left her and still in one piece. We let out a collective breath but before we could breathe back in again Graham exited the foyer and propelled himself back through the driver’s door and started the engine. The door flapped wilding as we careened out of the lay-by and re-entered the melee of airport traffic.
‘Where you go?’ Graham grunted as he swerved between two terminal buses. Sleep deprived and scared I stammered ‘S..Sydney’.
‘Yes yes of course, we are in Sydney’ he said staring straight at me annoyed.
‘Oh…er... centre please...’ I managed to gulp in the hope that he would look back at the road. I had no idea where we wanted to go, I felt that the best bet was to jump off at the first place he stopped and chance it on our own.
Horn blaring and road safety seemingly unheard of we gradually saw the sun kissed buildings of the suburbs around Coogee become replaced by the high-rise skyscrapers of Sydney city centre. At the first stop Rhi and I jumped out, along with half of the other passengers. I can only assume that the other half was still too shocked to move or make a decision. They sat silently, their eyes screaming ‘take me with you’. Thirty seconds later a huddle of us were stood in a cloud of fumes, shell-shocked and listening to an eruption of traffic chaos emanating from the corner around which Graham had swerved with a screech of tyres.
We looked around. We were in Darling Harbour and thoroughly glad to be alive. As the effects of the adrenaline wore off, Rhi and I slumped simultaneously and walked hopefully through the Exhibition Centre and out into the early morning sunshine. We needed a café, preferably one with a good breakfast menu and comfy sofas. This combination seemed to be almost impossible to find for two walking zombies, completely geographically displaced and becoming ravenous at 8 o’clock in the morning. Walking in a fug of tiredness we navigated the early morning Sydney streets until we spotted a likely candidate and, fed up of walking, decided to cut our losses and set up camp on the only sofa we had seen since our arrival on the continent. I wedged Rhi in safely and propped up her head, as she seemed to fall asleep on the descent to the cushions. I ordered a cooked breakfast, which came with bacon and beans – two things completely missing from our Asian travels. I demolished it in minutes and settled down to look out of the window; Rhi curled up contentedly opposite me. This was the polar opposite to our previous couple of hours and, with the sunlight streaming in through the steam from the coffee machines and the smiles of the people walking past outside, that I was going to like it in Australia.
We scraped ourselves from the comfortable grooves we had made in the sofa as the sun rose towards the middle of the sky. We were staying with Sam and Ashley at Ashley’s apartment in Petersham. As we exited the coffee shop, the information I have detailed here was the extent of the information we had to base our plans for our time in Australia, so we decided to head for a warm, sunny spot and take stock. We settled down in the park at Darling Harbour, arranged our bags around us in a mini fort and lay in the middle together soaking up the warmth of the sun. Cerulean blue sky above, a cool breeze lifting the side of my shirt, a gentle babble of voices…Suddenly a commotion. I opened my eyes to see Rhi grappling with an oddly proportioned, black and white looking creature. As we found out a later, Ibis are common in Australia and are Sydney’s version of the pesky seagull. This long beaked scavenger had quietly infiltrated our camp and, taking a liking to Rhi’s golden hair, decided that it would attempt to relieve her of it as she was sleeping. Obviously, the fact that this shiny object was attached to Rhi’s head came as a surprise the bird who, as Rhi jumped up, made a fuss and attracted the attention of a huddle of local teenagers who thought the whole episode hilarious. We ejected it grumpily and watched it warily as it eyeballed us from over the wall of bags.
Even as I was in the process of formulating an effective Ibis surveillance rotor for Rhi and I, we both succumbed to tiredness once again and my plans remained half formulated. I came round slowly a while later and voices drifted through a sleepy haze. ‘Kids, leave them alone…. Could be dangerous… homeless people’. I felt something touch my leg and remembering the Ibis all of a sudden I sat bolt upright with a jump. Three children stood stock still opposite me, one frozen bent half over, finger outstretched to poke my leg again. We stared at each other for a few moments and then simultaneously they scattered, running across the grass to a group of other children. Rhi and I had become exhibit A for a local school trip. I could almost hear the teacher saying ‘now do your homework, or you will end up with no job and have to sleep in the park like those scruffy looking people’.
Rhi and I were slowly attempting to decide whether we were still half asleep or not when another shadow fell across us. ‘Morning you two. Nice sleep? I’m afraid I’m going to have to move you now you’re awake – got to cut the grass’. Rhi and I turned and stared up stupefied at the most stereotypical Australian you could imagine. Brown leather shoes, green knee-length cotton socks, khaki shorts exposing knobbly knees, a brown belt holding in a khaki shirt over a rotund stomach and greying stubble. The only thing missing was the corks hanging down from his wide-brimmed bush hat. ‘Move… over there?’ he said hopefully, perhaps thinking we did not understand the language.
We retreated to the edge of the grass and watched the lawnmower moving slowly across the grass, children chasing a flock of Ibis and the sun beating down on us. What a whirlwind entrance to what would become one of my favourite cities in the world.
