Melbourne revisited

After three weeks in Apollo bay, I felt it was time to move on. I had a great time, learned a great deal, and enjoyed a much needed respite from the uncertainty of where to stay each night. It is expremely liberating to move about in that way, but after months of this, a regular place and a familiar face to come home to are priceless.

I headed back to Melbourne cluching the bag of cookies my generous host had provided for the journey taking time to visit the Twelve, now nine apostles on a trip back to Melbourne.

While taking photographs of those amazing natural sculptures I fell into conversation with George, another ex-IT person who had recently been in New Zealand and began a facinating conversation that lasted almost 2 days.

We shared the train ride with a rather fearful lady who told me all about how terrible the Vietnamese were (I asked her when she was last in Vietnam?) Ditto for Indians, how nice Surfers Paradise was ?!!!!!! (A more soulless place I could barely imagine, though the beach was nice.) She told me how Austrailia was becoming overcrowded with immigrants.

Until this point I had maintained British reserve, content to try and immerse myself in her world, and imagine what that would be like.I burst out laughing and dropped in the stat that more people live in Mumbai than the whole of Austrailia.

It was a terrible shock to discover she was a highschool teacher Thankfully most others are better informed.

George was a fascinating guy to talk to, and we agreed to meet the next day to carry on our conversation which lasted long into the night. Solo travel gives the opportunity to see the world on ones own terms. For me the tourist sights can be seen on documentaries or in picture books, but the opportunity to spend time with people is what makes travel such a broadening experience.

Well aware that that one may never see that person again allows a refreshing frankness. There is no need for the usual facades.

The next day caught up with Fletch, an inspirational young man who I met in Cambodia while he was teaching at a school for street kids. At just 18 he had a grasp of media and world issues most of us do not reach till much older, and some like our school teacher may never know.

Since Cambodia, I was releaved to see he had regained some weight having been very sick, though in the meantime managed to injure his knee, and his wrist while getting used to the crutches. His spirit was not damped though, and he showed me round some parts of town I would have totally missed.

On my way back to the hostel I had another of those moments which are becoming so familiar I'm not even surprised. Walking along with my $1.50 pizza slice I came across a familiar face, a girl from Nimbin who had shared her goon with me at the very straight edged hostel, one of the few Austrailians I had met staying in them. Aussie nationals are unable to stay in many hostels, they are for foreigners only.

She and her friend were going to see Reg D Barker a black comic in town for the Melbourne Comedy festival,with a friend and invited me along for a hilarious show, which opened with a piss take of British understatement and class conciousness. Though its true the funnier the show the harder to remember the gags, and you had to be there.

Back at the hostel some kids from the homecounties were point scoring over where they went to school, how tough it was in the city, I had really forgotten what tiresome social games that demogaphic still plays – brought into sharp comedy relief by the show I had just seen.

Thankfully there were some older folks, including my favourite drinking companions the sharp witted Scots and self effacing Irish whose banter is as gritty as it is honest.

An Aboriginal, who at first seemed drunk was making an arse of himself, asking people their names and where thay were from over and over, hassling women, demanding cigarettes and food from those too meek to refuse. His behaviour would not have been accepted from a white man. He was aware that he could get away with his intimidation because people were so afraid of appearing predudiced.

Common with some black fellers, I belive the land owns me not the other way around. As Alan Watts my favouite spiritual entertainer says - “The earth people's in the same was as an apple tree apples”, I feel I have the right to camp anywhere I please, and I'll stand up to anyone who is being an arse, whatever their colour. The middle class kids had left the foyer where I had been typing away and retreated out back.

Suprisingly when I looked him in firmly in the eye and told him to he was embarrasing himself and upsetting others, he apologised and went off to bed saying in parting “You're alright Jim! You Welsh are the black fellas of Europe I reckon”, and winked!

The next day Fletch invited me to his folks place, to stay and see their ecologically inspired house, self sufficient in power and water and a garden with peacherines, a cross between a peach and a nectarine, though unfortunatly they were not in season to taste.

His mum, an environmental consultant to Government on litter was a fascinating person to talk to, and kindly did some laudry and gave Flech and I some vouchers to use the hot springs. We drove to them in her Prius and stayed in the sulphorous springs till we were quite pruned.

That night I caught an overnight bus to Sydney, sitting next to an IT worker originally from Chennai, and chatted until we fell asleep.

The maritime museum in Sydney is amazing and thankfully free. When I explained my interest in scrimshaw on of the staff suggested I visit the government archives. One phone call and fifteen minutes later I was sat at a desk with six books the librarian had picked out for me on sailors crafts and survival at sea.

That night I met up with Janelle from Cambodia who had recommended the place Chris and I stayed while in Campot. While we caught up, she showed me the sights including the Harbour bridge and took me for half and half pumpkin and duck pizza in the Australia, a grand old pub above the harbour.

Back at the hostel a Korean fellow who was sat on his bunk drinking beer while typing on his laptop fell off, I laughed at his clumsiness but was shocked when he started fitting, his eyes rolling back in his head. I cleared the space around him and had reception call an ambulance. I could not believe the man on the desk continued with processing new arrivals instead of making the call straight away, I would like to think they were too shocked to realise what was going on. The paramedics were there within minutes – by which time he had stopped fitting and was in and out of consciousness. They gave him oxygen and looked in his bag for drugs or medication, finding nothing, and with the driest of humour remarked “Thank fuck he's Asian, he's neat!”

Apollo bay, responses to climate change, peak oil, etc

Well its been a while since I posted here because so much has been going on, though I have covered very little physical distance.

I am now in Melbourne staying in the same bed I left to visit Apollo bay to practice partner yoga, massage, and deepen my understanding of permaculture with a very special person who has been successfully integrating these disciplines into a powerful unifying practice.

This blog is not appropriate to describe the powerful inner journey of these precious few weeks, but it will no doubt come over in future posts. For now, with apologies to Fern for my witterings as she calls them, some thoughts:-

This global wander has been an exploration of contrasts at a very interesting time for our world. True to the spirit of Gonzo and improvisation, I have thrown myself into many strange situations with full passion and observed my reactions, getting caught up in the thick – then freeing myself. Well aware that this time is both real life and an excursion from it. The word Holzwegge seems appropriate, meaning a circuitous wander that has value in itself.

It has been observed of Generation X, we, lacking responsibilities, living in extended youth, reach thirty and suddenly find ourselves in a rush to make up for lost time and become hyper-responsible.
On the cusp between heady, youthful freedom, potency and the diametric desire for more stable, life- preserving responsibility is a wild and confronting place to be – a microcosm of a global unfolding.

In the face of world economic slowdown, peak oil, climate change, those cognoscent are taking action in divers ways. Some are digging in with stores of tools, grain and medical supplies, preparing for chaotic scenes such as I witnessed in Argentina following the collapse of their economy.

Some are reacting dynamically by building resilience into their food, education and social networks, many influenced by the Transition Towns movement, swapping seeds, growing are sharing knowlegde via bulletin boards and web seminars.

Some are choosing to see the world while they still feel they can, others choosing to leave that potential alone and find comfort in goods, insurance policies and reinforce their own commitment to home, friends and partners.

Of that generation whose parents grew up in the shadow of Luftwaffe, and matured during the threat of the Oil crisis, nuclear war and miners strikes we were primed for darker times.

Amongst my classmates we have observed differences in those with younger, and older parents like mine who remember the bombed out shops and food rationioning. My Grandmother I percieved even as a child was still traumatised by those bombings (Swansea – my home town was bady hit) and a constant worrier until she died.

Witnessing the enforced resilience of Vientnam and Cambodia, and of the conciously evolving resilience of the permaculturists has renewed my hope for the human prospect.

The child of the 1950s inspired by Dan Dare comics, imagined electiricity too cheap to meter, flying cars and domestic robots. Throught my childhood in the 1980s, we children had a similar idea of the future, but even then the prospect seemed less rosy.

Two American television shows of the time were the only things that would bring me in from playing in the woods: -The A team and MacGuyver who could wind his way out of any tricky situation using his engineering knowledge, duct tape and his swiss army knife.

I had inherited books and chemistry sets from my parents, though trying to purchase the items for my experiements it was obvious times had changed much to my consternation. It was no longer possible to buy ammonia or hydrochloric acid as cleaners from a hardware store, an icecream seller would no longer “give you a piece of dry ice, for your experiments” even if refrigereation technology had moved on.

Most often one was met with products already processed into goods, and the question “What do you want it for ?” - not easy question to answer as a twelve year old, bent on making a model rocket engine or electified umbrella.

Fears of safety means a modern chemistry set that produces no bangs, noxious gasses or corrosive liquids. Surely that was most of the fun.

Inspired by a book – the Hackers Handbook, guaranteed to appeal to the – here was a world where one could really improvise, the ultimate tool of free expression. Now for once was the ultimate swiss army knife or chemistry sets, with nothing but the computer itself and oneself, with understandingand patience one could make it dance.

I took to progaming very quickly, having no interest in playing computer games, but the nineties ecological issues had brocken into mainstream conciousness bands such the levellers, crass, sang and screamed respectively about the issues of the day, and promoted a rural pastoral vision for the future. I too was caught up in the whorlwind, I still believe in the there is only One Way of life ( and thaaaats your own, your own, your own..... ) Now it feels to me at least, that drunken dream is becoming the sober reality in places and in ways I would never expected or ever imagined I would experience.

It was only later I realised the unity of these divergent themes.

When faced with a radical crisis, when the old way of being in the world, of interacting with each other and the realm of nature doesn't work anymore, when survival is threatened by seemingly insurmountable problems, an individual human – or species – will either die or become extinct or rise above their limitations with an evolutionary leap. This is the state of humanity now, and this is its challenge – Eckhart Tolle

The Stones were right “You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you get what you need” and I most certainly am