abode acrobat . net

Condemned to stay in an uncomfortable hostel, our peers looked on jealously as Auntie Pauline drove us away to enjoy her extraordinary hospitality. She lives with Uncle Martin in a suburb south of Brisbane called Three Mile Island. It’s not really called that of course, but its real name is similar enough for my corruption to be recognisable to others and hilariously funny to myself.

We had made three overnight stops on the way from Sydney to Brisbane, each time the mix of people on the bus changing a little as others spent differing amounts of time in each location. To avoid having to learn names, we just addressed each other as characters from Neighbours. Responding readily to calls of ‘Karl Kennedy’ is an exhilarating experience I can tell you. Most self-respecting young ladies refused to respond to ‘Helen Daniels’ or ‘Mrs Mangel’ - and in the case of one girl from Essex, ‘Bouncer The Dog’.

Presented by the travel company as though it really existed, our first overnight stop had been at ‘Surf Camp’. As you can guess, this was just a contrived way of making money from a worthless piece of coast, but my scepticism faded as the relaxed and friendly staff taught us how to run into the sea with surf boards and splash about with them. One self-proclaimed “surfer dude” told me he’d been born on the moon, and I think he really believed it.

Fun though the lesson was, I thought it was sorely lacking a demonstration from a professional, so I offered my surfboard to a reluctant ‘Brad’ (not sure of his real name, but that will suffice). It turned out he was just as unable to stand on the thing as we were - apparently the waves weren’t quite right that day.

Off we went to Byron Bay, which had the distinguishing attribute of actually being on the map - and put there by none other than the grandfather of our own Lord Byron (these two men also known as Jim and Paul Robinson respectively). The daytime entertainment options were to further one’s surfing capabilities; to walk to the lighthouse (the eastern-most point of mainland Australia); or to take a trip to a town called Nimbin. I chose the lighthouse trip, being careful not to step too near the edge since legend insists a man called Harold Bishop lost his glasses there many years ago. The trip to Nimbin was eliminated as soon as I heard that it is famous for its tolerance of drug-taking - there is only one road in and out of the town, so a lookout post can call ahead in case the police are coming. It was ruled out as much on account of this blog’s anti-drugs stance as for my disbelief that such incompetent policing is possible in a supposedly civilised country. Undercover cops, anyone? This really is not the sixties.

After one night in Surfers Paradise (so named precisely because it is anything but), we looked forward to the final leg to Brisbane and the long-awaited stay with Auntie Madge and Uncle Lou. The charming hospitality of this family cannot be overstated, and I must thank Todd [Andy] for inviting me to stay with them - even if it was because he couldn’t be bothered to talk to his long-lost relatives himself. We both agreed that it felt like we’d been hanging around each other forever, so I booked on a plane to Adelaide to get the hell out of there.