It’s time for journey’s end - the Final Conclusion!...

I’ve hiked up mountains and through desolate valleys. I’ve swum with turtles on the Great Barrier Reef. I’ve been to every state in Australia, and I’ve lived in every major town in the country. I’ve trekked deep into the desert and camped out under the stars. I’ve ambled along the shorelines and lapping waves of twenty-five beaches nationwide, including two of the world’s most famous - Bondi and Cable. I’ve explored the delights of the botanic gardens of every state, hiked through the bush and through tropical rainforests, ambled with kangaroos and seen the world-famous Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge. I’ve travelled 33 thousand miles. I’ve met so many great people from many cultures that it boggles my mind just thinking back to them all. Only a few of those people stand out. Those are the people that matter to me. Those are the people I cared about. Those are the people I’ve laughed with and I’ve cried with and I’ve confided in. However, it is befitting that I go back to the roots – to where this adventure began…

The ball started rolling in November 2003 at the end of a drunken night out with my dad. It was a fateful night, because an idea entered my head. We’d only recently returned from a beer-sampling tour of the USA, and the notion occurred to me to return there on my own and search for work. As it turned out, it was a foolish idea. After all, many a nonsensical thought comes in the state of intoxication.

But this drunken comment was destined to dominate my life for the next two and a half years and ultimately change my life forever.

As it turned out, obtaining a visa to work in the USA turned out more difficult than obtaining a work visa for the planet Jupiter. I turned my attention to Europe. After all, I speak French and German, so I figured that such a dream would be in reach. I did research, and it turned out that most European countries are easy to obtain permission to work in.

I took steps to brush up on my language skills, but it slowly dawned on me that there was no way I had enough confidence to immerse myself completely into a culture with another language – to put my very livelihood at the mercy of that language. For a while, I was intensely disappointed.

Then, I began to consider living and working in Australia. It had briefly occurred to me, but I’d put it out of my head. After all, it was a country on the other side of the world. I figured its situation regarding work visas would present as much a brick wall as that of the USA.

When I’d run out of other options, I did my research into the possibility of someone like me going to live and work in Australia, and it turned out to be not only possible, but commonplace.

For a long, long time, I mulled the idea over in my head and spoke to many people about it. However, it was all just talk. I do that often. I talk and talk about something, knowing deep down I’d never do it in reality. I can’t emphasise enough how unlikely a person I am to leave home to go travelling and working in another country. But I’d told many people about it, and it had snowballed out of control.

I decided to bite the bullet and make a visa application. After all, all I had to lose was fifty pounds. When my fixed-term contract at work came to an end, I had no choice but to take decisive steps toward actually living this dream. I booked my flight, found travel insurance and renewed my passport. That was it. I was left with no option but to actually go. And I was so terrified that I never dared to think too long or hard about what I was about to do.

The day I was to leave was so very difficult for me. For anyone else, it would have been one of the most exciting times of their life, but not for me. Saying goodbye to my family was intensely emotional for me, and the most difficult thing was when I was sitting in the departure lounge on my own, worrying, thinking why the hell I was carrying through with this crazy idea. I considered running back through security and abandoning this loony idea once and for all.

But I didn’t.

And so the journey of my life commenced…

As I relate this story to you, it might seem excessively depressive at first. I don’t want to give the impression that I’ve disliked my time in Australia in any way. I simply want to properly express the changes that took place within me over time. More than anything else, I want to be completely honest. So, here goes…

I was way out of my depth when I arrived in Sydney. As pathetic as this sounds, I’d never had to really look after myself before. There was always someone there to guide the way. Now, I was just about as far away as I could be from everyone and everything I knew. I wanted to burst out crying on my first night there, but I didn’t have the energy to do even that.

It’s often the case that things aren’t what you expected them to be, and my situation in Sydney was one such example. I was lonely. I didn’t even realise it at the time, but I was intensely lonely. I’ve always considered my own company sufficient, but I began to realise how woefully inadequate it is. Everybody needs people... even me. Nevertheless, I fooled myself into thinking I was happy. I got into a routine, drank lots of beer and watched many episodes of The Simpsons on my laptop. The thing is, I’d only booked 13 nights in Museum Lodge, so I knew I’d soon be moving into an actual youth hostel and be meeting people. The idea of moving into a youth hostel terrified me, but I philosophically saw it as an up-and-coming new experience.

When I moved into Eva’s Backpackers, I actually befriended four people in the space of a week. Nevertheless, I hated the hustle and bustle of the place. Often, I didn’t have dinner until after 10pm, as I couldn’t face the cattle market that was the kitchen. Sleeping amongst so many strangers was such a foreign concept to me, and I didn’t like it. Also, I was paying more for my rent there than for my single room in Museum Lodge (Eva’s Backpackers is ridiculously overpriced!), and so my decision to move back was inevitable.

In this, The Final Conclusion, more than anything else, I intend to be honest. I haven’t always been honest in the previous fifty-six Travel Updates. Sometimes, I’ve missed out crucial parts of my experiences which, for one reason or another, I simply didn’t deem fit to tell you about. Now, it is time to bridge a few gaps.

One of those gaps was my whole nasty experience with a certain company called Corporate B, aka Tyne International. I’d been desperate to find employment, and the agency was simply ignoring me. I was so elated when Tony at Corporate B gave me a job selling ‘phone deals, that I turned down a month-long job that the agency finally managed to offer me. It was a decision I was to regret for a long time afterwards.

The job turned out to be commission only. However, the sheer quantities of money involved were what pulled me in and kept me there. On my first day, I made $290. However, on my second day, they pulled the plug on that project, and I was to start doing “business-to-business”. I earned nothing from that, despite an entire day’s mentally exhausting work. The next day, they pulled the plug on that, too, and put me on a door-to-door selling project, for which the three days’ training paid $300.

I hated it. It entailed long hours and was physically and mentally exhausting. I don’t mind hard work, but I want to get paid for it! I didn’t get paid. Oh well, I thought, at least I’ve earned the equivalent of a good week’s wages for my training and my first day… Not true. One thing they didn’t even bother to tell me was that, for various reasons, none of that money was owed to me.

The moral of this story… Don’t dare be drawn into jobs that involve selling or charity appeal, no matter how honest the company seems or how fantastic the commission is. I’ve since met people around the country with similar nasty experiences involving selling and charity appeal positions.

All of this took place while I was living in a bug-infested room. I mean, it was great having my own room at the same price as a dorm bed in a hostel, but Museum Lodge is infested with cockroaches. For some stupid reason, which, even in retrospect, I can’t explain, I didn’t complain to them about it. I bought my own bug spray, which didn’t work, and so the problem continued.

It was the morning in which I woke up to find my entire pillow black with carpet beetles that I threw in the towel and told the staff. Even then, they didn’t give me another room, but instead sprayed the room, in the hope they’d go away. They didn’t. The next night, I slept on the floor. It was the following morning that I finally moved into another room.

I don’t want to give the impression here that I hated my time in Sydney, because I didn’t. I have heaps of good memories from that first leg of the journey, but most of those memories involve places and objects – not people. I hardly spoke to anyone during my time there. I only person I truly befriended was a girl from work (the proper job the agency finally managed to get me) called Taji.

It was in Cairns that things began to change. Still, though, I hated youth hostels. At that point, I knew that the entire remainder of my journey would entail staying in hostels, and that thought filled me with dread. I wanted my own space. I wanted to be absorbed in my own little life, letting nobody else in.

The money I’d earned in Sydney was running down and down, and I wanted to obtain a job in Cairns. Not only that, but I wanted an office job. I look back and realise how stupid and naïve this expectation was. You don’t go to a tropical little town like Cairns in its high season and expect to get any job, never mind a good job.

I had to force myself to enjoy Cairns, as bubbling within me always was this feeling of anxiety. I only wish I’d relaxed a bit and just gone with it, but at the time, I couldn’t. The hostel (The Serpent) kept shifting me between rooms. After a restless night (which I’ll talk about in a moment), I spoke to a staff member about it, who gave me nothing but sarcasm in return. On another day, after yet another move, I said to one of the receptionists that I’d move to a different hostel, and she told me the entire town is full – that I wouldn’t be able to find anywhere else to stay. It was on that day that I became intensely depressed. I wanted to go home, and it scared and angered me that I still had so much time left in Australia.

It was in Cairns that I first experienced a horrible phenomenon that is sadly abundant throughout the Australian backpacking world… SNORING!! I’ll take this opportunity to make something crystal clear to any potential travellers who are reading this. If you’re a snorer and you’re not willing to take definitive steps to stop your snoring, then STAY AWAY!! All you’ll do is pick up a string of enemies throughout the country, who’ll hate you with a burning passion. You’ll have hundreds of people waking you up in the middle of the night – night after night – because you, in turn, have kept them up for hours. People will despise you. People will shun you. SNORERS STAY AWAY!! That’s all I’ll say on that subject, although the issue continued to raise its ugly head throughout my journey.

My initial plan for Australia was very simple. I was to go to Sydney, Cairns, Darwin and Perth, plus possibly Hobart (or Adelaide), working in each for two or three months. As I’ve said, my money was going down, so I made the decision to abandon that plan and fly down to Adelaide. I was disappointed that things weren’t working out, but I had no choice. I had to find a way to survive. After all, I knew that Darwin was only about the same size as Cairns, and it too was in its high season. I didn’t realise it at the time, but this set-back was a blessing in disguise.

It was a mix of all kinds of different things that made me (yet again!) depressed when I reached Adelaide. I’d come from the heat to the cold, from a small tropical town to a boring-looking city. And, of course, I was staying in a hostel that gave me a first impression of being absolutely minging. Again, I went around many job agencies, and none had jobs for me. They ignored me completely.

It was a couple of weeks into Adelaide that my luck began to change. My persistence paid off, and I obtained not only a job, but a very good job. I grew to love it so very much, and it was the best job I’ve had in Australia. The people there were nothing short of a joy to work with. I grew to love the hostel – Annie’s Place. I suppose it was around this time that I really began to live, and to actually socialise. I was interacting, and I was smiling – not just outwardly, but deep within my soul! It was a magical time for me, and a real turning point.

I distinctly remember the moment when I took my plans for my journey into third gear. It all began as a plan to simply live in some Australian city and work there for a year. Then, it became four or five cities. One day, I was sitting in the courtyard of Annie’s Place, when I realised that I had been setting my sights far too low. You know, I never had considered myself a backpacker. Over time, it dawned on me that that’s exactly what I was. I was no different to all the other young people I’d met. As such, I realised I owed it to myself to be more like a backpacker. I realised it’d be a damn shame if I didn’t do a hell of a lot more travelling that I’d planned. And so, the cogs were set in motion for the journey of a lifetime.

I initially had two very good friends in Adelaide, who were staying in my room – Yayan and Norma. The three of us used to play board games in the room on those cold nights. We were like a little family in there. It was great! Weeks down the line, as the two of them left to continue on their journeys, I met Angus, a Canadian guy, who was also a good friend to me. What I liked about Angus was his sarcasm, which amused me no end. When I finally left Adelaide, I’d changed. I was happier on so many levels. Gone was the dread, and I had nothing but enthusiasm for what lay ahead.

On an unrelated subject, I’ll put the matter straight on Update 28, about my bike ride across the Fleurieu Peninsula of South Australia. What I didn’t mention in that article was the fact I was stopped by the police for not wearing a bicycle helmet. I didn’t mention it, because I was slightly ashamed. I hate getting into trouble. In truth is, I’ve never worn bicycle helmets, despite the fact I cycle all the time back home. When I bought my bike in Adelaide, however, I learnt that it’s law in Australia to wear one, and so I bought one. However, on this occasion, I simply forgot to wear it. They told me I had to walk my bike along the side of the road back to Aldinga, the nearest town, where I was to buy a helmet. They then drove away, leaving me very frustrated. It was a risk, but I decided to defy them and continue cycling. I diverged onto a quieter side road and continued to make my way along from there. As it turned out, I didn’t get caught again, and made it all the way to Myponga and Victor Harbour and back to Noahlunga.

I’ve noticed on several other occasions how obsessive Australian police are about petty things. Once, when I was waiting for a bus in Darwin, a young woman was walking her dog on the pavement. The dog wasn’t on a leash, but he was obediently running along beside her. A police car pulled up beside her. Two cops got out and told her to put a leash on her dog. It’s pathetic! They’re obviously bored.

When I arrived in Hobart, I was immediately taken in by the quaintness of the town. Looking back, though, I realise that this feeling stemmed from little more than my craving for comfort and personal space. It was a nice little hostel I was staying at, in which I was lucky enough to get my own room. Hollydene Lodge was reminiscent of a guesthouse you’d find in a lot of rural English towns. The staff were friendly, and there were several much older people staying there. I’m the type of person who finds comfort in the presence of older folk. I’m not sure why that is. Maybe it’s because I feel less threatened by them and don’t feel I have to pretend to be someone I’m not, in an attempt to be accepted. (Although, I suppose I should say that that was the old me. I’ve changed a lot since then.)

I found lots of new different beers in Hobart, and there was absolutely no way I was going to leave the town without trying them all. To this end, I ended every one of my evenings there slowly getting pissed by myself in my room. Adelaide had, of course, made me a lot more conscious of a duty to myself to talk to people and to socialise, but I figured that this was merely a short break from that life. I enjoyed myself. Hobart is indeed a charming little town, but I’m glad I didn’t stick around there, as I was almost planning to.

Then came Perth... Well, what can I say about Perth, other than that I hated it. Perhaps “hate” is too strong a word, but I have little but memories of bad feelings about the place. It all began with the hostel I’d chosen to live in, called [censored unfair scathing comments] One thing I hated were the dirty showers. All that separates one shower cubicle from the next is a frosted-glass window, which you can see right through. I mean, for god’s sake, if I wanted to be seen naked by other men, I’d become gay! Anyway, the place is very basic, lacks privacy, attracts idiots, is too crowded and, to say the least, I wouldn’t recommend. After two weeks, I finally had the sense to move into Exclusive Backpackers, just around the corner. It’s only slightly more expensive and is by far the best hostel in Perth.

I suppose I should say I’ve perhaps been unfair on Perth. It’s clean, not too bustling, has a great skyline and river, and has some other great scenery. I suppose it was the crappy hostel that initiated my bad feelings about the city, but it continued with my lack of luck with employment there. I approached Westaff, saying that I wanted to find an office job. They said that wouldn’t be a problem, but would I mind working for short periods in shopping centres. I agreed, but made it clear I wanted to find something better, and that shopping centre work would be merely a stop-gap. Well, they first got me a job working in the town of Whitfords, and then one in the town of Canning. The Canning job turned out to be an on-going position. I was disappointed that this was all they could be bothered to get me, but I sort of philosophically accepted it, putting it down to experience. This was until my third day, when the lady I was working with told me the wages I was being paid. They were ludicrously low.

That was the final straw. I quit. I then immediately went back to the envelope-stuffing job I’d worked a week at previously for a week. It paid better, but was extremely laborious and repetitive. I hoped it would last, but it didn’t. One day, the supervisor told me I could go home. The project simply came to an abrupt end, and there was no more work to be done. I never returned there.

I spoke in Update 34 about rash decisions, because it reflected the way I was feeling at the time. I made several decisions within a short period of time that pissed off the agency (because I let them down) and resulted in me leaving Perth sooner than anticipated. As it turned out, it was the best decision I ever made, as the remainder of my journey flowed smoothly as a result of my decisions. Next, of course, it was Broome, and my first taste of the desert aspect of Australia.

It’s pleasant to live in hot weather day after day, but there is a limit, and Broome exceeds that limit. It imagine it might have seemed as if I was unduly whimpering about the hot weather in the Broome Updates, living in cold northern England, as I do, but when you can’t even walk up the road without becoming dehydrated, sunburnt and exhausted, that’s when it’s undeniably too hot. Nevertheless, I enjoyed Broome. I began to see a whole new culture – including the intriguing culture of Aboriginal life – and I loved immersing myself into it. Broome is home to a small-town remote sort of culture that you simply don’t find in the south-east of the country.

Next came Darwin. Darwin, I am now in a position to say, was my favourite leg of the journey. Again, it was hot, and it was an annoyingly humid heat, but it was more tolerable than Broome. The heat was eased by the fact it was now the Wet season in the country’s north, and the rain clouds provided some shelter from the heat. It’s interesting that a lot of people warned me against going to Darwin at this time of year. People told me it was so humid, it’s hard to breathe the air. Others told me it would be the most intense heat I would experience in Australia.

Long by now, I’d come to realise that most people talk a load of rubbish. People throughout the journey have fed me unbelievable quantities of bullshit about just about everything. In Sydney, a tax specialist told me I wouldn’t be entitled to any tax refund at all, and yet I received an almost nine hundred dollar refund. This, and other such falsehoods, have led me firmly to the conclusion that I shouldn’t have blind faith in anything that people tell me or even things I read. The only way to find out the truth of something is to seek it myself.

I should talk about the friends I made in Darwin. As with all hostels, many people passed in and out of the place, but it was the few who were there long-term, like me, that I came to consider friends. The two best friends I made there were Julian and Sabina. I still find it surprising that Julian and I got on so well, as we are vastly different people. I suppose it’s an important lesson in life that it doesn’t matter how dissimilar two people are, as long as they share the same sense of humour. Well, we certainly did, and we laughed endlessly. I could stay up until the early hours just listening to him talk absolute shit, and I’d be in stitches laughing.

Now, I’ll talk about Sabina – a girl from Germany. How can I ever forget Sabina… I can’t easily describe the effect she had on my life and outlook. I don’t think that even she knows the effect she had on me. At first, it astounded me how many similar interests we had. It wasn’t so much the quantity of mutual interests, but what those interests actually were. During the past two years or so, I’ve immersed myself in an interest in an esoteric worldview, verging increasingly on the spiritual, and what I believe to be an insight into the true nature of reality itself. I encounter very few people with this same view on the universe, but I quickly discovered that she held so many of the same views as I do. She sees the world as I do!

Darwin… I loved it on so many levels, but in this time of honesty that is The Final Conclusion, I must talk about other aspects of it that perhaps I shouldn’t. It was in Darwin that I smoked weed for the first (and last) time in my life. I know I’m treading on dangerous ground talking about this on a website of this nature, but it’s important to read this in the correct context. I tried it three times, and I was surprised at how little effect it had on me. I expected to feel something, but instead I felt nothing, albeit an odd kind of nothingness that seemed less than nothing. Well, if nothing else, it was another experience in life.

I had a good job in Darwin – working in the Royal Darwin Hospital for a government department, dealing with remote health clinics in Aboriginal communities. I know some people from there are reading this, and I must apologise to those people that I didn’t give my all to the job. I normally throw myself into a task and strive to complete it with the utmost quality, quantity and spirit, but there, I didn’t. I suppose I was simply running out of steam. About a month before leaving Darwin, it began to dawn on me that the journey was alarmingly close to its end. With this thought, it seems I developed a measure of indifference. I know I shouldn’t have, but I did, and I’m not proud of it.

Darwin… Could this tropical Australian town have meant so much to me, that I speak about it for this many paragraphs? Well, yes, it did. Or, should I say, it was the experiences I had there and the wonderful people I met that made it such a glorious time for me. Of course, I spent Christmas and New Year in Darwin. Most people flock to Sydney, or other such big cities, to celebrate, but I don’t follow crowds. The festive season was a magical time for me in that town. At the centre of all my memories of the place sits Sabina. As I pulled away from the Gecko Lodge in the airport shuttle bus, I began to cry. Am I really this emotionally fragile?

Alice Springs was also an uplifting experience, although in a very different way. The entire town basically lies in the middle of a mountain range. It is surrounded by desert. Of course, I stayed in Annie’s Place while I was there. It’s not as quiet and cozy as the one in Adelaide, as it’s a much bigger hostel. Big hostels are rarely a good thing, in my opinion, as it’s much harder to meet people. In some towns, though, there is little choice but to stay in such places.

The Uluru/Kata Tjuta/Watarrka journey meant a lot to me. It served to break down yet more of my apprehensions in life. I remember sitting there, drinking Tooheys New by the campfire on Aboriginal land on Day 294, thinking about how vastly different this was to the early days of the adventure, when I was all alone in my little room.

I’ve been thinking long and hard about how best to relate Brisbane to you in The Final Conclusion. In the first draft of this text, I launched an unfair attack on the city. I really shouldn’t. The issue of what Brisbane is like as a city had come up several times throughout Australia, not least because I’ve met several people who come from Brisbane. The first comment someone made to me about it was that it’s nothing more than a big boring city with a dirty river running through it. For a brief period of time, I was considering making it the second leg of my journey, but it was this comment that made me change my mind. Since then, I’d received several other such negative comments, with very few positive opinions to offset them. However, I refused to prejudge the place until I’d been there myself.

When I arrived there, I could understand those negative opinions about the place. I saw it as just another big city, but with no real substance to it. However, after a few days of exploring the place, I began to see things that I liked, especially South Bank, which is probably the nicest part of the city. Okay, the river is dirty, but Brisbane certainly isn’t boring, and it does have beautiful aspects to it.

Then, of course, Melbourne happened. In Melbourne, my beer activities went into overdrive. In Hobart, I had been overwhelmed with the sheer selection of new beers there, but in Melbourne, there were at least three times more!! As such, this city meant very little to me other than beer. Beer is my primary memory of the place, and it’s a shame, because it’s such a lovely city. Most people say it’s a lot better than Sydney, and I’m not sure if I agree or not. It certainly does have a certain charm and quaintness about it.

I stayed in the All Nations hostel. I’ll be honest in saying it’s absolutely crap. It’s not quite as depressive as the 12:01 in Perth, but it comes close. The place is rampant with bed-bugs! Apparently, they’ve tried to spray the whole hostel not long ago, but it obviously didn’t work, as at least three of the people in my room had to sleep with bed-bugs. I was luckily on a top bunk, which reduces the chance of getting them. Indeed, I didn’t. I’ve been lucky with bed-bugs throughout Australia. Excepting those nasty experiences in Sydney, I haven’t had any bed-bugs at all. Many people I’ve met have said that bed-bugs are common in hostels, but not in my opinion.

Canberra was the final leg of my journey, but by no means the least. I told you about many of the prejudices about Canberra in Updates 55 and 56, and I stick by my conviction that they are all a load of rubbish. Australia's capital city is a quaint town, surrounded by some beautiful scenery. The town has character and life. I loved it! The hostel, City Walk Hotel, was damn expensive, though. On-line, the cheapest I found was $26 per night. I have a feeling it might've been cheaper at the YHA, just around the corner, but who knows.

When I look back over the vast landscape that represents the events and decisions during this adventure, toward the horizon that was my departure from England, I’m happy at how things have turned out. Yes, it might’ve seemed a setback having to fly to Adelaide after Cairns, but if things had worked out as I intended in Cairns, it’s unlikely I would’ve reached that fateful decision to see more of the country than I’d planned. Yes, It was a disappointment when my job situation in Perth didn’t work out, but if it wasn’t for that, I might not have had enough time to include such wonderful places as Broome and Alice Springs in my journey. I find it amazing that it has sometimes been small comments people have made to me or seemingly innocuous notions that have occurred to me, which have driven the entire course of the journey.

You know, from the outset, I determined that I would return from this experience a changed person. Am I a different person? I’m not sure. I certainly feel the same person, but for me, the change has been gradual. I suppose, if I really think about it, I have indeed changed vastly since my departure. I’ve gained more confidence than I ever thought possible.

I’ve learnt to be more tolerant of people. Such tolerance is essential in the backpacker lifestyle. I’ve talked in positive notes about the people I’ve met in Australia, but there were, of course, many that I couldn’t stand! In the main, backpackers are a friendly bunch, but you do meet some absolute idiots. The worst I met was in Broome. The first thing he said to me, when I first arrived at the hostel, was “have you got a dollar?” He was constantly scrounging money and other things off people. One time, we were trying to watch a movie, and he decided to give ongoing commentary on it. Needless to say, most people got up and left. He was a thieving moron, and eventually he got kicked out of the hostel.

That was a pretty extreme situation, but there have been other idiots in the various towns I’ve lived in. I had to develop a tolerance for these morons, or else I would’ve gone crazy! I must say, though, that in general, backpackers are a friendly bunch, and it’s pretty easy to meet great people and to get to know them. All said and done, every traveller has one major thing in common – travelling! As such, there are always easy ice-breakers available between people who’ve just met.

This year has made me infinitely more independent, and yet I’ve come to develop a strange kind of dependence on people in another sort of way… No longer am I content to spend all day on my own with my own thoughts. I need people. I like to find someone to talk with and to exchange ideas with. I now find comfort in other people’s presence. I’ve become the social creature I suppose I must always have been, deep down.

However, I’m sad to say I never let people completely in. Even with the closest people in my life, there seems to be a perpetual, unmovable, unseen barrier between myself and them. I suppose I’ve learnt that this barrier will never go away. At least now, though, I’ve learnt to verbalise and understand this aspect of myself, and thus has come a more harmonious reconciliation with my emotions when I feel that people I care about are alienating me. I now understand that this alienation comes from deep within myself.

I’ve grown, and I’ve wised up to the world. As I’ve said - and I really can’t emphasise this enough – I’ve learnt that I can’t rely on people to provide me with the truth. People deceive. I don’t blame them - it’s human nature. The only way to uncover the truth of something is to get off my arse and find it out for myself!

I’ve learnt so much about how to deal with people and situations. Even more important than that, I’ve learnt a lot about myself. Hell, I suppose I’ve even learnt a measure of discretion that has been woefully lacking throughout my life. I’ve also gained confidence beyond my wildest expectations. No longer do I find myself thinking I have to hide aspects of myself, for fear of being ridiculed. I am proud of who I am!

I should talk about employment in Australia. It didn’t seem I would be, at first, but I’ve been extremely lucky. I’ve had some very good jobs. Something that I’ve noticed, and that has begun to frustrate me, with backpackers, is that they almost always aim far too low. Backpackers think that all they can obtain in Australia are “backpacker jobs”. It’s not surprising, really, as when you speak to people about the jobs available in a place, they immediately launch into a discussion of the fruit picking seasons and labouring jobs

Make no mistake, a traveller, given sufficient experience in a given field, can obtain a pretty good casual job in that field. Myself, I’ve had heaps of experience throughout my working life in all manner of clerical positions, and so I aimed no lower than this in Australia.

I dare say I’ve become a bit of an expert in the art of obtaining good jobs in Australia. I’ve learnt this art the hard way. I can now see why the agency in Sydney completely ignored me for so long. The fact is that you should’ve even bother walking into a recruitment agency without full formal attire – preferably including a white shirt. Don’t bother ringing them, as all agencies will give you the standard response – “We’ve got nothing at the moment.” Not only do you have to actually go there in person, but you have to press for an appointment to see one of their consultants. It’s then crucial not to market yourself as a backpacker. Market yourself from the outset as a confident, experienced professional. Push for the type of job that you want – not just “anything’ll do”. Then, and only then, will they sit up and listen to you. I applied these simple rules in Darwin, after I’d finally perfected their application throughout the country, and I obtained a good job after only a week of being there.

The adventure came full circle on Saturday 18th February, when I returned to Sydney. It was strange when I was riding through the city on the shuttle-bus. I kept thinking how different my outlook was when I was last walking those streets. The bus soon pulled up at Museum Lodge. Yes, I was going to risk more bugs, but it was a risk I was willing to take, as I wanted my own space for these final few days. In a way, I suppose, I wanted the jouney to end as it had begun. I strangely crave this sort of parallelism in many things that I do.

I had no major plans for these final days. Indeed, the most exciting thing I did was pay a visit to the Redoak Boutique Microbrewery. The ironic thing is that I lived in Sydney for three months, and yet I never stumbled across this place. It turns out it's the single most plolific microbrewery, with arguably the best quality beer, in all of Australia. However, it's ludicrously expensive, and it's another place that has fooled itself, and its customers, into believing you can't get a proper beer tasting out of a sampler tray. For this reason, on Monday, I spent a small fortune sampling their beers. I told them I'd be back the next day, but I didn't return to finish them. This was mainly in protest against their riduculously high prices, which they sugarcoat with the impression that they're some kind of posh restaurant, which they're not.

Other than that, I basically occupied my time with practical concerns, like confirming my flight change (which STA Travel in Darwin didn't even bother to tell me I had to do) and seeing the main parts of downtown Sydney again, including the harbour and Opera House. It was a weird feeling walking around Sydney again, now with the hindsight of everything I've done since.

My final full day in Australia was spent checking out Kings Cross again, up that much-familiar hill that is William Street. I can't believe they still haven't finished all those messy roadworks! I also payed a visit to the offices of Corporate B, in an attempt to get the $90 that the bastards still owe me, but it turns out they've packed up. I'll have to write that off and put it, along with many other things, to experience.

I’ll take this opportunity to extend special thanks and greetings to everyone I’ve met in Australia, but haven't mentioned by name in this article. I wish particulary to thank all those people who've helped to make this journey a human adventure. Without you, it would've been nothing.

I’ve come to believe – not only believe, but know - that anything is achievable and well within a person’s reach, if only that person desires it with a great enough determination and passion. Anything! More than anything else, I desired to come work abroad. This desire stemmed from that drunken night out and blossomed into a goal that dominated my life. Therefore, it happened. I eventually developed a passion to travel the length and breadth of Australia, and so, again, it happened. Everything really is possible, in every aspect of life. Even for those people who choose not to go travelling around a foreign country, life itself is the greatest adventure a person can have. Every goal in life is within reach, and a person’s most precious dreams can come true.

I imagine that many people will ask me what this year has been like. It is a question I’ll find immensely difficult to answer in any satisfying way. Australia has been a lot of different things to me over a very long time. Australia has changed me for the better. For as long as I live, I won’t forget this year. The next thing is to consider my plans for the future. I want to make something of my life. I want things to be different. Given the lessons I’ve learnt this year about how the greatest thoughts can, with determination, transform into the greatest achievements, I feel now that the sky is the limit for me. I only hope that I can keep this fire that is burning within me alight for the rest of my life.

It was at 5pm on Thursday 23rd February that I stepped through security at Manchester Airport and saw my mum and dad for the first time in a year. It was a feeling like no other. Yes, I’ve climbed mountains, descended into desolate valleys, walked through the desert, amongst many such unforgettable experiences, but none of these experiences compared with this one.

That’s it. It’s over. The Real Australian Adventure has come to an end. I’ve got nothing left to say, other than that I’m about to embark on the next leg of my journey… the journey that is Life!