Unlike my other journeys around the planet this one is being written in reflection, fifty years of reflection. So only snippets of events, bubbles of images and other worldly incidents beyond my then comprehension have stuck. The writing flow isn’t there but the opening up of the world left me with a thirst to travel. I’ve had a hunger ever since to rub against all the weird and wonderful the world has to offer. Here goes.

                  At the wobbly, unworldly age of nineteen I threw caution plus every last dollar I’d saved and ventured to Europe with my schoolgirl crush, Irene. Irene was to be the key to opening up Europe for me. This was Irene’s heritage, a foreign land of many languages and at that time multitude of currencies. Her parents, Erica and Werner had escaped the mess of post war Germany for the chance of a new start in a foreign land half a world away. I’d listened to the family speaking a hard guttural language in their delicatessen shop. The shop was a meeting place for many of these uprooted Europeans. It was also a place to find nostalgic brands of forgotten foods and dream of their earlier lives. 

                So boarding passes in hand we found ourselves at Tullamarine airport early on Christmas Day 1974. I’m sure the tickets were cheaper on Christmas Day. No-one wanting to be mid-air on this family day preferring instead to be eating a full roast and plum pudding with both feet firmly on the ground. 

              Singapore airlines was a fledgling airline and had only just started flying to Australia three years earlier. In those early days you were treated like royalty aboard. This was a time when flying had a big dose of glamour attached. The plane was half empty, after departing India the young steward offered to take Irene and I up into first class. Lounge chairs set out like a true lounge room and a magnificent embossed metal panel of Napoleon standing proudly in front of a panarama of Paris. The grandeur, the opulence caught my eye and has stayed with me ever since. I was never to see that level of travel again. But frustratingly knew it was there, up the pointy end.

               The aircraft also had shorter fuel ranges back then. Australia to Europe entailed numerous refuelling stops. We would simply land on some foreign airstrip with airport buildings far away in the distance. The large aircraft door would be unlocked with great ceremony to a long staircase which had been manhandled across the tarmac by tiny worker bees. A pair of over zealous immigrantion inspectors would march through the plane both arms held high with an aerosol of fumigation agent which left many gasping and spluttering in their wake. Then the wafting smell of aviation fuel being pumped enthusiastically into the aircraft’s fuel tanks whilst we sat unsure where we were or who was out there. So after about four of these stopovers we land in a very cold, very white Frankfurt. 

              I’m wound up inside, nervous as all get out. I will be unable to communicate and much will depend on Irene. We are greeted with broad smiles by Gerd and Troudl who are roughly ten years older than us. Gerd steps forward his greeting will be my first test. “Darwin is kaputt “ I look blankly at him ? What the f does that mean? it hardly sounds welcoming. He says it again trying a different emphasis. My facial expression hasn’t changed I still have no clue what he’s on about.

              It finally dawns on me that Irene’s family have a relative who is a professional photographer in Darwin, Australia for National Geographic. But why kaputt ? Slowly the explanation of Cyclone Tracy completely flattening Darwin only hours after we had passed. I still wonder how sophisticated the aviation weather forecasts were back then ? So this first trip to Europe always had a significant time stamp on it for me. Besides kaputt was one of only a handful of words I knew thanks to Hogan’s Heroes, an American prisoner of war comedy TV series of the 1960s.

            Outside the Frankfurt airport the grey, snow covered world is foreign to us. All of the roads are covered in snow which is steadily falling but somehow not effecting the coming and goings of the locals. We sit in the back of Irene’s relatives car with no seatbelts feeling very vulnerable. Australia had compulsory seatbelt wearing from 1970 so it was weird for us. Germany on the other hand fought the introduction for many years as an attack on personal freedom even if they were driving at warp speed. So here we were racing along at speeds well above Australian limits on snow covered roads. What could go wrong ? It’s not until later that I find out they have small metal studs on the tyres to ensure some grip in the snow and ice.

           Our hosts apartment is very groovy to our colonial Australian eyes. Sleek shelving and low voltage lighting. IKEA would arrive in Australia the following year but here was the first stylish Scandinavian products for the masses. Their children Andrea and Stefan are about ten years younger than us and at an early age already know some words in English. 

Southern Germany Krumbach.

                    After a few days under the cautious, parental eyes of Gerd and Troudl, Irene and I are set free to venture beyond Karlsruhe, Germany with our Eurail pass. The only affordable way for us to travel and often the only time we are warm in the height of our first European winter is on those overheated trains.

                   In Krumbach we are directed to the family bedroom of an elderly aunt. Another bed pumped full of duck feathers that reminded me of sleeping in a cloud. What has been communicated between Australia and Germany ? Am I the husband to be ? I am barely 19 years of age. The tension grows between Irene and I with this unexplained marital expectation by foreign family, it strains our relationship. That and the fact that no one outside of the big cities speaks a word of English. It is very much just the two of us.The noose tightens.  

Italy

                   Beyond Germany and Irene’s relatives we roll along on the Eurail network towards Rome, the colosseum and Trevi fountain. A much older Italian train lurches us down towards Naples (the first time I had seen washing slung from building to building, the original Nona’s National flag.) and Pompei. A guide tells us stories of ancient times as we wander through the streets of Pompei. It’s exactly as it was in 79AD, frozen in time when the nearby volcano, Mount Vesuvius erupted and molten lava covered the city. We see humans and animals coiled in the corners of homes killed by the toxic gas which rolled in advance of the molten lava. I’d spent a lifetime in school history lessons with nothing sinking in. Suddenly the stories had flesh on them, monuments that matched the heroics of the era. How could you imagine this history of early civilisation when you lived at the bottom of the world in a country barely two hundred years old.

                We caught the night train around the Mediterranean coast in lieu of getting a hotel room. It was a no brainer. It cost nothing extra, at nineteen you can sleep anywhere and it kept us moving and was part of our prepaid Eurail ticket. That said we were still surprised when a couple board our train not far from Rome and somehow managed to undo my belt being used to lash the doors together. We have already folded the seats down flat to sleep, in fact we were sound asleep until woken to the rattling test of the doors. A stranger’s hand manages to get through a gap in the doors of our carriage and loosen my belt. They squeeze inside and partially strip whilst we feign sleep, then it’s the full business with her crying out and her leg banging against Irene and I. Then as quickly as it started they dress and leave. We sit up unsure if any of this has in fact happened but the heady scent of sex is heavy in the air.  Was he counting the stations to home I wondered ? 

Spain

                 My first impression of Madrid is the amazing hand painted billboards for the latest movies hanging from the city’s buildings. Artists swinging  precariously on ropes dangled from nearby roof tops, paint brush in hand dabbing at the huge sheets of canvas. I’d seen nothing like it. The city erupted into party mode each night, these people lived their social life at pace, work gave them some cash but life was more than work. In contrast Australian workers weary after a long days work trudged off to suburbia as soon as the working day was done. 

                We spend a night at the flamenco, me watching a little too enthralled I’m told… My eyes as large  like saucers and mouth wide open, it’s seductive, prevocative. I am captivated by this beautiful dark haired woman as her skirt swirls seductively. She glides about, her feet stamp defiantly in reply to the guitarists strum and tap. She is seemingly in a hypnotic trance, oblivious to the audience, so wired she is almost trembling unable to ignore the frantic strum and rap of the acoustic guitar. The music pulling at her. I felt like an interloper watching an intimate scene in someone’s bedroom. It was so exotic, so, so erotic, I could only stare as if frozen in the headlights of an oncoming car. 

                Irene and I escape for the day on a train heading South to Seville and hopes of some watery sunshine. I stupidly eat ornamental street oranges that had been hanging sour and rotten from the trees for at least a year ? The weather is finally warmer down here but we know as we turn and head North it will be freezing like nothing either of us have ever experienced or like.

Belgium

                 Brussels, Belgium and the awkward dilemma of being refused accomodation because we are not married ! This was a weird experience and rather unsettling in what we believed was a forward thinking country. How wrong we were, turned away constantly. Eventually a hotel owner took pity on us or more likely needing the cash. Anyway we didn’t end up sleeping outside which was starting to seem a real possibility, the temperature so bitter we would have died of hyperthermia. 

                One of the few Belgium highlights for me in a rather grey and bleak Northern European city were the pomme frites. Delicious paper cones, filled to overflowing with freshly fried, steaming hot potato chips smothered in a rich mayonnaise. How had this decadent sauce escaped my attention for nineteen years ? It was one of those life changing moments.  Not only moreish but warmed both my hands and stomach simultaneously.

              We then marched through the back streets of Brussels determined to find the Brussels piss monument. Eventually we found it, a tiny bronze statue which had a far greater place in folklore than the miniscule statue we stood in front of. So based on that the pomme frites were the obvious winner. 

                Brussels, Calais ferry to Dover then train to London. 

U.K.

                My uncle Graham had escaped Australia twice before. This time round he was living in Barnes on the Thames. I remember being told there had been a murder on or near the Hammersmith bridge and to be wary of crossing it late at night as they hadn’t found the culprit. It didn’t help that the bus did not cross it due to bridge engineering problems. So everyone alighted and scurried across it in the early dark not daring to look behind.

                 We arrived at my uncle’s house mid afternoon but he was still at his work in advertising. His neighbours saw us loitering and invited us in. A rough crew of knockabout Kiwis living the life in London. Soon we were standing around a traditional Māori Hungi steaming away in a trench they’d dug into their rented pocket size garden in central London. So we ended up fed and partially drunk by the time we shuffled next door. My uncle was both bemused and shocked that the neighbours, completely unknown to him, had looked after us all afternoon and well into the night. 

                 It was the height of the IRA bombings around Christmas 1974. We arrived in London to find all of the postboxes with a thick piece of brass plate screwed across the flap. Harrods was a mess of scaffolding after a bomb had blown out a large section of the furniture department. London was on edge. 

               Graham’s partner at the time, Kate tells me of a super funky shop in the heart of London I simply must visit. I was like a wide eyed boy from the country after spending a morning in Biba. Kate was right, it was the grooviest fashion shop on the planet at the time. Most of the staff too cool or too out of it to bother serving you. Years later I was told a story that it was the best place in London to shoplift from. The lighting so poor you stumbled about the large store, the staff completely oblivious to their funky stock disappearing under their noses.

U.S.A

                  The trip wasn’t over yet. There was an amazing flight across the North Pole from Heathrow to Los Angeles. Yes this was an around the world ticket and an absolute bargain at the time. Listening to the Doobie Brothers, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young whilst the plane hurtled through the sky. I peered down to see white on white as our plane arced over the North Pole, the most direct line to West Coast America. 

                        Irene and I both squint as we disembark the plane at L.A airport, we haven’t really seen the sun for a month. We’ve landed in hippy central, it’s 1975 man and everyone is wearing faded jeans, check shirts and a lot of dope is being smoked. We head straight to Disneyland. Any kid who grew up in Australia through the sixties and seventies filled up on this show every Sunday night at 6.30pm. It was the only time our family home was quiet. It was still black and white TV but the imaginative talents of the cartoonists held our mouths wide open in pure amazement. This is where America reigned supreme with its gilded view and perception of the future. We all bought it.

                      Our other L.A highlight is at the Forum theatre where the flute wielding minstrel, Ian Anderson was fronting one of the world’s biggest acts, the English band, Jethro Tull. Again a naive Aussie expected to be able to rock up to the L.A Forum and get tickets on the night. Somehow they managed to find two tickets but not before they had laughed at the naivety which turned to sympathy for the two colonials from down under. 

                   The Forum was and still is an iconic indoor theatre holding a buzzing crowd of 18,000 punters. What I wasn’t ready for was the fact that everyone in the whole stadium was smoking dope and a heavy green haze of marijuana hung thick below the ceiling. As your eyes became accustomed to the fog you watched as one spliff after another was passed from seat to seat. This was truly the seventies man…. And then as if the crowd needed it, Ian Anderson skipped across the stage with his flute high in the air puffing the chugging rhythm of ‘locomotive breathe.’ Wow….

                     Another flight to Waikiki, Hawaii. I told you it was a true around the world ticket and we squeezed one last stop into the itinerary. A couple of days of sun and surf. The best money we didn’t spend was on the O’ahu circle bus trip. I think it was a dollar coin and as long as you didn’t get off you could spend half the day sightseeing as the bus circumnavigated the whole island. The last day was watching guys surf monster waves near Waikiki at a break miles from shore. The surfers were specks but the waves were still gigantic in comparison to anything I’d ever seen. 

                             Finally time to head home. Our flight left at midnight so why wouldn’t you stay at the beach till after dark then throw your jeans over your board shorts for the trip home ? Back into Tullamarine airport after a restless flight. Irene and I had been arguing and it was the end of our relationship. In fact it had soured in London but we needed each other till we got home. 

                            But Australian customs had one last joke to play. “Step this way please sir… are you carrying anything illegal, anything you haven’t declared.” I looked bleary eyed back, shaking my head. “Come this way.” Suddenly I’m in a brightly lit room on my own with 2-3 official looking customs officers around me. “Can you please take off your clothing.” I look at him a little strange, I’m heavily jet lagged and still haven’t taken it in. “All your clothing please.” Off come my treads (car tyre soles with leather strapping uppers) , jeans, t-shirt and yes the board shorts underneath. “Now bend over” announces the guy with a three battery torch. I bend as told and although I don’t feel the cold metal on my arse I can see the flashlight beam shine between my legs. “You can dress now” he announces. Nothing was explained and to be honest I just wanted out of there. 

                        Years later I was retelling this story to a mate who had risen through the ranks of the Australian customs department. He promised to try to find out why. “There will be a file if they stripped you” he announced proudly ( and photographs I wondered ? ) true to his word he eventually told me that I had caught their attention due to my bulky fill of wearing my board shorts under my jeans. At least they’d written a reason I guess. But it was probably more my passport showing London, L.A, Hawaii all at the ripe old age of nineteen that had them thinking I was a drug mule ? Not just a curious fella from down under starting what’s become a lifetime of wandering and wondering.