End of an Era

That's it. The End.

I've left this blog hanging long enough, maybe some people thought I died in a plane crash on the way home. The truth is that when I got home, everything just got very boring for a long time.

It took the university six months to send me out my degree (which is still unframed, kept in the mail packaging), and after all that time it doesn't even say what kind of grade I got. By Australian gpa standards I think it was a distinction, but that's all moot now anyway, as I've gone and got myself a job!

Six months of applications finally yielded some interviews in December. I got my best shoes on, and stuck 'em firmly in the door of Jaguar Land Rover (not literally mind, I was trying to appear professional). They liked the cut of my jib, and invited me to come work for them... but not until the beginning of July; so I still had another six months of holiday, still brimming with youthful energy, but still with absolutely no money... so I spent most of it playing old computer games. Hence the "very boring for a long time."

I stopped cycling, I stopped fencing. I stopped cooking, and driving, and taking pictures. I stopped sitting in the sun, though for the most part  it was Scottish weather which made that impossible. Having 'all the time in the world' I never forced myself out of the house, because there would always be another day. Strangely, the best thing about my year and a half in Australia was that my time was limited, I knew I had to get out at every opportunity to see the place, meet the people. There were missed opportunities of course: If I'd joined that AERO society when I arrived I'd have met a lot more like minded students quickly, and if I'd read the news before my expedition (and brought a map) I'd have got to more places; but the friends I made and the sights I saw, I wouldn't trade them.

When people ask "Hey you were in Australia right? How was it?" I automatically reply "big, flat, and hot." And it was. Of course it was much more than that, but it fits people's expectations and starts the conversation. It's difficult to describe the scale of the place; in my month of travelling, spending dawn to dusk at the wheel some days, I saw only the bottom right hand corner of the place. when a friend of mine moved from the UK to Sydney, I thought "great, we're both so far from home, I'll see if we can meet up for a pint," only to remember that Sydney is two days drive from Adelaide. I had never visited him in London when I lived in Glasgow, and that was less than half the distance. Of course it's an easier drive in Australia, the roads are straighter since there aren't so many hills to get around, and greater distances mean less commuters and day trippers, so less traffic. I don't think I remember a single out-of-city traffic jam (getting to the beach on the gold coast maybe?). The heat though, I remember that. Hiding in my room with the air-con on during the height of summer, open the door and you'd be hit by a wave of thick sticky heat. Since it was over body temperature, the faster you moved through it the hotter you got; and the quicker you could get downstairs, grab a drink or ice-cream, and back to safety, the better. When Flossie visited, fresh out of the Scottish winter, she ignored her crippling jetlag to wander outside, all smiles with her arms in the air, embracing the sun. A week later, she was hiding inside like the rest of us. Why can't it be less sunny so we can go see stuff?

A lot of my best memories are probably from the big road trip, I saw a lot of the country and got a good feel for the place. Swimming in heavy rain, driving through those bugs, the Great Ocean Road first thing in the morning, and Tasmania; but also the caves I saw when my parents came to visit, and the wildlife park (especially the first time after such an exhausting climb). The only crab I ever caught that was just big enough to not throw back, the bonfire in the woods that was the easiest bloody fire I've ever started (man that whole place just wants to burn), the farmer's market where the food is so cheap because it just keeps growing year round, the cheeky lorikeets, the festivals, the wine.

There are some things money can't buy, which is a bloody good thing as I was pretty broke the whole time. Hopefully when I'm older and richer I can go back to that land "20000 years in the making" (or some such marketing bollocks), and see everything else.

For now though, my life goes on in a non-Australia blog [toppingtale.wordpress.com].

Note: G'day mate, she'll be right, no worries, POME (pommy) bastard, you got a possum in your bin mate: are all real things people say; water doesn't drain any particular way; they do have a lot of barbecues (though I didn't see anyone cooking shrimp); they DO have good beer (but you have to look for it); it's cold in winter, just not enough for snow, and it never rains, but it pours.