Outback Nights And City Days In The Lucky Country. Australia With J.F.Penn

Australia is truly a land of two halves. There is nature in all its diversity — from the vast outback to ancient rainforest, from the coral reef to the desert;  and then there are the great international cities, from Sydney’s Harbour Bridge to Melbourne’s coffee culture, where multi-cultural Aussies work and play in the Lucky Country. It’s also the land of opportunity, with golden-haired surfers riding the waves on white-sand beaches, a rich mining industry and a great standard of living; but it also has a dark history of oppression, resulting in racism and inequality that still pervades the country. In this episode, I explain my complex relationship with Australia, what I learned from living there for five years, and why I had to leave. It’s hard to encompass such a vast place but I also include some thoughts on where to visit, what to eat and how to navigate some of the Aussie cultural differences. * Australia gave me escape — for a while. Travels in the outback. * The dark side of the Lucky Country * Australia changed my mindset around what I could achieve * Australia taught me about home * Other aspects of culture, food, and drink Down Under * Recommended books (1) Australia gave me escape — for a while I fell in love with the idea of Australia when I watched The Thorn Birds TV mini-series in the mid-1980s and later read the book by Colleen McCulloch. It gave me visions of the vast outback, so different from my urban living and the green rolling hills of the southwest of England. The fires that destroyed the land, threatened the ranch, killing all in its path — and of course, Father Ralph de Bricassart, the attractive priest — but that’s another story! In 2000, when I found myself burned out as an IT consultant in London, those visions of the Outback returned and I decided to go to Australia. Surely, I would find escape on the other side of the world? I was sick from working too hard, drinking too much and living a life that made me into someone I didn’t want to be. I craved silence and space. I wanted to escape to a wide-open sky and a vast ocean. I wanted to be alone and find myself again. I flew into Perth and learned to scuba dive (covered in episode 8) and traveled north through Western Australia to Darwin, then down through the Northern Territory to Alice Springs over a period of months. I traveled alone and camped at Exmouth on the edge of Ningaloo Reef where I snorkeled with whale sharks. From my journal: “I’m adrift at the moment, part of no one and nothing. All is empty, waiting to be filled again. I want to stretch the boundaries of loneliness. I am solitary here with the wind and the overcast sky. The rustle of yellow palms, dry from the sun, the blowing of my gas flame and the cicadas. The smell of jacaranda overlaid with BBQ smoke and the haze of mosquito coils. Tomorrow I will rise with the sun and be in the blue again.” From Exmouth, I headed north in a small group tour to Broome and on to the beehive rocks of the Bungle Bungles (Purnululu National Park) and then further to Darwin in the Northern Territory, staying at sheep stations and outback ranches along the way. I remember swimming in waterholes keeping an eye out for freshies, the distinctive markings on the scribbly gum trees, and a wild peacock at a truck stop, incongruous as it picked out scraps of Mrs. Mac’s meat pies thrown from the road trains on their journey across the vast country. It’s a long way to the Top End! Darwin was wild. It had an edge, a feeling that something was about to kick off, or maybe it’s just that I had emerged from what felt like weeks in the middle of nowhere. I was 25 and looking for company, if you know what I mean.