7 Jul 25

Rev Gav

Hitch

Rev Gav’s first book is a Travelog of his gap year that took place in Australia in 1990 and how he became a Christian.

A road in the Australian outback stretches off into the distance.

Preamble

Bump
Surprise
Danger
Scythe
Shark
Jeep
Bounce
Goliath
Orange
Contrast
Unique
Heart
Path
Pillow
Roadhouse
Termite
Rugged
Wait
Leap
Clash
Crocodile
Private
Food
Vomit
Spine
Sign
Chore
Team
Bible
Bus
Bug
Flight
Peter
Dark
Gatecrash
Trust
Brainwash
Can
Awesome
Seed

Postamble

Preamble

(otherwise known as the boring bit that authors stick at the front of their books when you’re itching to get on and read the good stuff)

This book is a collection of stories that chronicle the events that happened to me as I spent eight months hitchhiking around Australia and New Zealand, and how I ended up becoming a Christian. There is nothing special or ‘clever’ about my trip. Hundreds of thousands of people have made the same trip to the same places I describe in this book. So, if you are looking for high adventure then go and read Bear Grylls’ book. He’s way cooler than me, and he has more hair.

Are you still reading? Okay, you can read the book from start to finish to follow my journey, or dip in and read the story or stories that interest you. Maybe you could even read one each day during Lent and theologically reflect? Okay, just kidding – but seriously, I have added a short Christian reflection to each story to help you think about things too.

I’ve written about the fun bits, the embarrassing bits, and even a few bits of which I look back on with shame. If you find some of my comments a little immature, be forgiving, I was only 18 years old.

Enjoy.

1. Bump

All I knew about Australia I had gained from television soap operas; The Young Doctors, The Sullivans, Home and Away, and of course, Neighbours. I knew it was sunny, had a big red rock in the middle, and was infested with over- sized jumping rabbits. My sister had married an Australian and had moved to the continent a few years earlier, and being the dutiful brother, I decided it was time to visit. The thought of going somewhere hot and sunny, famous for its beaches, barbies (not the plastic kind) and Fosters had nothing to do with it. Honest. My gran had left me £1000 and I hoped that these funds would last for six months and enable me to travel, so I obtained a yearlong visa from the Australian embassy in London, booked a flight, and purchased my provisions. These essentials included a backpack, sleeping bag, waterproofs and a map of Australia. I was ready to go.

I turned up at Heathrow airport three hours before I was due to fly, however, when I found my way to the front of the queue at the airline check-in desk, the person behind the desk refused to let me check in. Instead, they made me wait. And so I waited. And waited. And waited. Two hours later, and five minutes before the flight was due to take off, the airline ground staff informed a group of passengers, including me, that they had overbooked the flight and that we had been ‘bumped off’.

A simple mistake? Apparently not. One of the airline staff told me that this particular airline – a supposedly reputable airline – regularly overbooks flights by as much as 20%. This means that on a 747 carrying four hundred people, this airline, on occasion, overbooks the flights by as much as forty people. Forty people! On this day all forty had turned up intending to fly, and apparently it was our mistake – we weren’t supposed to have turned up. A nice lady from the airline apologised for the inconvenience, gave us each a travellers cheque for $250, put us up in the Post House Hotel near the airport, and told us to turn up the next day. So we all trundled off to the Post House Hotel in search of food and a bed for the night.

I have to admit that I was not best pleased. No one wants to wait around for hours in a crowded airport only to discover that they have to do it all again the next day. How could the airline make such a big mistake? Certainly, if I had been running the airline there is no way that I would make such a mother of all booboos. This was not the start I had in mind for my first lone adventure beyond the British Isles, however, I indulged myself at the airline’s expense at the hotel restaurant, and then again the following day at Heathrow’s executive breakfast lounge. This time I was ready to fly with no hiccups – apart from those gained after stuffing myself with both a continental and full English breakfast, complete with fried kidneys and black pudding. Yum!

I remember little about the flight to Sydney, however, I do remember eagerly studying my map of Australia. Upon arrival, after clearing passport control and customs, I made my way to the public phone booths. Finding my sister’s Melbourne

number, I dialled. “Hi Sis, it’s Gav, I’ve arrived! Any chance you can pick me up from the airport?” This request was met with much incredulity and after my sister had entertained her husband and a group of friends that were around her house, and having picked herself up from off the floor, she explained that, yes, although Melbourne may well be next to Sydney on my map, it was about a 12-hour drive away! I sheepishly replaced the handset and made my way to the coach terminal.

Life is full of mistakes. Airlines make mistakes, not because they are huge corporate entities that wish to maximise profit at the expense of customer satisfaction, no, they make mistakes because people make mistakes. I make mistakes because I am human. When we look at the life of Jesus, it looks like he made a big mistake. He started his ministry at the age of 30 and by the age of 33 he was hanging, nailed to a Roman cross – a punishment so horrific that Roman citizens were not allowed to be executed in this manner, and within a few decades the Romans had banned it completely. Jesus hung there with the life draining from his body and many of his followers, known as his disciples, had deserted him – some had even disowned him. How had all his teaching about love and acceptance helped him? Where was this God he called ‘Father’ now?

2. Surprise

After spending some time with my sister in the suburbs of Melbourne, I began my journey by flying from the cool climate of Victoria to the sub-tropical climate of North Queensland. The plane from Melbourne to Cairns was delayed for three and a half hours and I arrived at dusk only to discover my luggage had decided to go on its own adventure – to Singapore. This wouldn’t normally have represented a problem, however, when I emerged from the air-conditioned terminal I discovered that the outside temperature was close to 30°C. I was dressed in a woolly jumper, thick jogging bottoms and knee-length ski socks. I looked like I had stepped out of an alpine lodge. I took a minibus into the centre of Cairns and decided to find a Youth Hostel or Backpackers where I could stay the night.

I walked along the Esplanade – the row of restaurants and backpackers hostels along the sea front – braving the stares of those who could only have thought that I was in fancy dress, or possibly an Englishman. To say I was hot would be a gross understatement. I was volcanic. My thermal clothing helped zap any energy I had and I was dismayed to discover that every backpackers hostel was full. Eventually I came to a hostel called Raptures of The Deep. Its name should have made me slightly cautious, but I needed a bed and this was the only place with one going spare. The man in charge showed me the last available bed in the last available room and offered it to me for $10. I took one look at the room and offered him $5. He eagerly accepted the offer – perhaps a little too eagerly.

Bed number five lay against the only windowed wall. It was the top tier of one of four rather dilapidated looking bunk beds that cornered the room. The bed had no sheets and no pillow. It was a blue, plastic covered, stained mattress supported by a thick wire mesh and this, in turn, was held in place by an unpainted iron frame. The thinly carpeted floor between the beds was littered with clothes and travellers’ debris. Had I walked into a room or a cell?

I was surprised to discover that the room had an en-suite bathroom, and after all my travelling I was desperate to pay a visit. I picked my way across the carpet of socks and junk, stepping over an acoustic guitar, before reaching the open door of the bathroom. Water had flooded from the shower (at least I hoped it was the shower) across the bathroom, out of the doorway and had seeped into the carpet of the room. I ventured in and tried to shut the door behind me. It had one of those plastic accordion type doors that pulls across gaps, attempting to stay closed by the use of a small magnetic strip. These doors rarely work and this door was no exception. Its accordion design meant it sprang back, half open.

The bathroom was at one with nature. A piece of dried soap and some other less savoury looking toiletries around the bathroom looked as if they could sprout legs at any moment and join up with the socks in the bedroom for a game of tennis.

There was a large praying mantis on the ceiling, a spread of spiders, a parade of green ants that crawled along the windowsill and down a pipe to some toothpaste left on the sink, and about three tree frogs looking up out of the toilet bowl. Being a modest person, I find it hard to go with anyone watching – especially when between them they have every angle covered. I didn’t feel like going to the toilet and exposing parts of my body to natures’ onlookers. I mean, how do you pee on a frog?

Things were not going well. Keen to spend as little time in the room as possible I decided to hit the town to find somewhere to have an ice-cold drink. As I walked passed the doors to other rooms I passed one room whose occupant was sitting in the open doorway packing his backpack. “Alright Graham?” I called out. “Hi Gav”, he replied, and I continued to walk on. I stopped. There was something odd about the conversation. I retraced my steps to the open door to find the occupant peering at me with a puzzled look on his face. It was Graham, an old school friend. It was a wonderful coincidence to see a friendly face 12000 miles from home, especially when I needed it. He took me to a local watering hole and we spent the evening chatting and drinking cold beers. Graham, being the perfect gentleman, didn’t even bat an eyelid at my attire, even when couples walked past giggling and pointing at my ski socks and woolly jumper.

I returned to Raptures of the Deep, climbed onto my bare mattress, and slowly closed my eyes as I counted the tiny black dots marching industriously along the edge of my bed.

God is a God of surprises.

There was a young couple that discovered that they had to travel to their birth town to take part in a national census. I don’t know how they felt, but if this happened to me, then I would feel pretty put out at the inconvenience. The couple, on arrival in the town discovered that every hostel was full. Gutting. One hostel manager offered them the last space he had – the room where he kept his animals. The couple, having no other option, accepted. One can only imagine how they felt when the woman, who was heavily pregnant fell into labour. What else could go wrong? But then something incredible happened. The couple became parents that night and after the baby had fed, they wrapped him in a blanket and placed him in a feeding trough. Then, in the early hours of the morning there was a knock on the door. Some scruffy young men entered, and seeing the baby knelt down in front of him, behaving as if the baby was a king. They shared the most astonishing, almost unbelievable story with the mum and dad. This baby was no ordinary baby.

God is a God of surprises.

3. Danger

My spirits improved after I had checked out of the ‘Rapture of the Deep’ backpackers hostel. I checked into the much nicer Bellview Hostel further along the Esplanade and treated myself to a cool shower. The airline delivered my backpack to the hostel and it felt great to don a T-shirt and shorts. It was time to explore Cairns.

Cairns is an expanding town on the coast of Northern Queensland. It has no beaches of its own but its harbour makes it the boating capital of the north. It is pleasantly sunny pretty much all year round and the temperature rarely falls below 24°C. The back streets of Cairns are littered with parks and in the evenings the trees play host to large flocks of fruit bats that cackle and poop on visitors trying to get a look at these amazing creatures. The Esplanade is lined with benches and palm trees. As you sit watching the sun set over the ocean you can read the small signs that warn you of the dangers of sitting on benches underneath palm trees. Apparently it wasn’t uncommon for people to be injured by large green coconuts falling on their heads.

However, Cairns’ biggest attraction is its reputation as a haven for partygoers. The gaps between an impressive selection of nightclubs and pubs are filled with backpacker’s hostels and restaurants. Cairns is a place to see and be seen, a place to spend money and have fun. It is also a base for travelling around the north east of Australia, with the Great Barrier Reef to the east, beaches to the north and south and sub-tropical rainforests to the west. Everywhere you look you are tempted to book trips – sailing, bungee jumping, scuba diving, rafting, crocodile hunting – you name it.

No trip to Cairns would be complete without the obligatory trips to Green Island. Green Island is a coral cay a short boat trip from Cairns. The island has been created over the years by coral slowly growing through the surface of the ocean and now has an abundance of tropical growth. It was an ideal spot to try out some snorkelling and there were plenty of fish to be seen. Green Island boasts Australia’s first underwater observatory situated at the end of the jetty. A trip down the observatory cost $5 and it seemed a little odd as one could simply jump off the jetty with a snorkel and ‘observe’. I sneaked down the exit ramp into the observatory to see if it was worth $5. It wasn’t.

I spent a week at the Bellview hostel, partying and having fun. I shared a room with a French guy named Matthew and a chap from Brisbane with whom I made friends. During the days we explored the town and visited local attractions and each evening we dined at the Backpackers Inn, where one could get all the carbohydrates you could eat for a few dollars, before heading out to the town’s bars and clubs. The clubs were filled with beautiful girls wearing next to nothing, and the heat, cheap drinks and party ‘no consequences’ atmosphere meant that if you wanted, you could meet a different partner every night of the week. A one-night-stand with a beautiful girl, whom I might never see again might be tempting, might even be fun, but at what cost to me – emotionally and spiritually – what effect would it have on my heart?

During one of the days spent wandering around the town quay, I saw some of the local women fishing for parrotfish from one of the jetties, and being a keen angler, I decided to join them. I had read in a tourist magazine that the fishing around Cairns was pretty good. I heard the story of one tourist who had hired a small metal boat called a ‘tinny’ to go fishing and he hooked a large shark in Cairns harbour. The shark dragged the man and boat up and down the estuary for three and a half hours until it was evident to the man that the shark was so large that it hadn’t realised there was a man and boat attached. The fisherman cut the line and went home. With these thoughts in my head, I purchased a $29 fishing rod from a local store and perched myself at the end of the jetty (get it, ‘perched’ – I am so funny). From the jetty I caught some bream and a stingray. After an hour or two of fun, I was just about to pack up and go back to the hostel when I had another bite and I managed to land the most beautiful fish. It had a mottled orange and red colouring with streaks of dark brown and yellow. Its fins were long and flowing and this gave it a graceful, harmless appearance. It was a red-tailed scorpion fish. I had heard that scorpion fish are dangerous and are not called scorpion fish because they listen to 1970s heavy metal, so I wrapped the fish in my T-shirt to remove the hook. As I threw the fish back in the water it brushed against one of my fingers. Instantly, my finger began to sting and it continued to sting for an hour.

I had underestimated the wounding power of that which can appear both beautiful and beguiling. I had learned my lesson. In future, I would be much, much more careful.

4. Scythe

Kuranda is a small village on the edge of the Atherton Tablelands, approximately 15 kilometres northwest of Cairns in North Queensland. The main attraction in Kuranda is its hippy-style market where a constant stream of tourists buy cheap tie-dyed T-shirts and didgeridoos. Kuranda is connected to Cairns via a scenic railway. The brochure said it was ‘the best way to take in the breathtaking and impressive Stoney Creek and Barron Falls’, so Matthew (the French guy I had met in the backpackers in Cairns) and I purchased one- way tickets at a cost of about $20 each. The railway was certainly very scenic, however, it was the end of the dry season and no rain meant there were no waterfalls. The only thing that was breathtaking about the railway trip was that I had parted with $20 for a ticket! I had seen a greater flow of water the time I jumped out of the car into bushes after drinking two litres of orangeade and getting stuck in traffic for four hours on the M6.

The train stopped at Barron Gorge and visitors were given the opportunity to walk 800ft down to the bottom of the gorge and then back up again. Wanting to get our money’s worth, Matthew and I took this opportunity to get hot and sweaty and scaled the narrow trail down to the bottom of the gorge. We were the only visitors on the train to have a go at this, most of the others preferring to take photographs from the top. After a steep walk, we made it to the bottom to discover a troop of beautiful Spanish girls skinny-dipping in the river. For most 19- year old guys, I’m sure this must have seemed like a gift from heaven, however, being hot enough under the collar already, we immediately averted our eyes and set off back up the steep trail.

Kuranda market was full of trophies for tourists to take back with them. Being one for a bargain, I couldn’t resist purchasing two tie-dyed T-shirts for $10. We spent the rest of the day wandering around Kuranda and when it became time to leave, we decided the cheapest way to travel back to Cairns would be to hitchhike. At the time I had no idea that over the next six months I would end up hitchhiking some 24,000 kilometres through Australia and New Zealand. We walked out of Kuranda and stationed ourselves at the edge of a road lined with cane fields. I had heard the stories of hitchhikers getting mugged, robbed and dumped by the edge of the road. These feelings of unease were heightened when I spotted a flattened, sun-dried cane toad lying in front of us. In Northern Queensland, you may make the mistake of thinking that all the car drivers have had one too many, as when they drive they swerve all over the road. However, this is no drink-induced behaviour. It is to flatten as many cane toads as possible.

Cane toads were introduced, in a flash of sheer brilliance, to control the number of beetles in the sugar-cane fields. However, the toads, having no natural enemies other than car tyres, reproduced in huge numbers until they became a problem bigger than the beetles they were invited to eradicate. Northern Queensland is literally infested with these creatures that are quite possibly the most disgusting animal on the planet. They are large – some the size of a dinner plate – with brown wrinkly, saggy skin, and they gobble up anything that wanders too near their gaping wide mouths – including small rodents. Not only are they ugly, but they are also poisonous, so this means that, for example, if a dog eats one it will die. Cane toads are altogether one of the most horrible creatures on the planet. I’m sure they have their place in God’s creation, but to this day, I have yet to find someone who can tell me what it is! It is certainly not in the cane fields of Northern Queensland.

Within a few minutes of waving my thumb in the air, a car pulled over. A ride! The car was blue and white with chrome metalwork, and looked like it had driven straight out of a classic 1950s car showroom. This was it. My life was over. What a stupid idea to hitchhike? No doubt the occupants of the car were going to chop me up and feed me to the dingos. However, to my surprise, the driver was a small elderly gentleman accompanied by his equally small elderly wife, neither of whom appeared to be able to see adequately over the dashboard. Perhaps this was the perfect ruse – no one would expect a pair of smiling, white-haired grandparents to be murderous dingo-feeding maniacs? Matthew and I edged onto the backseat of the car, closed the doors behind us, and we cruised off down the road at a stately Sunday afternoon speed.

The old man spoke. This was it. He was going to say he had to stop by his tool shed to sharpen his scythe collection.
“Do you know Jesus?” he asked.
What kind of a question was that? Matthew shrugged his shoulders.

“Oh, yes, I know all about Christianity,” was my reply. I had been to Sunday school – well, until one day I found myself sitting with my parents in church whilst all the other children went off to their group. Some people called it ‘being expelled’ but my mum said I was not expelled, but that I was ‘asked to leave’. Apparently there is a difference. The couple remained silent for the rest of the journey. It didn’t occur to me that I hadn’t answered his question. We soon reached Cairns and said thank you and goodbye. I was relieved that my first experience of hitchhiking had been so pleasant and that none of the dreadful things I feared had happened. However, deep inside, the old man’s question nagged me. Did I know Jesus?

5. Shark

The best way of seeing the Great Barrier Reef is to learn how to hold your breath underwater for 30 minutes. Alternatively you can learn how to scuba dive. CDC (Cairns Dive Centre) came highly recommended so I forked out $350 to embark on a weeklong dive course. The course was comprised of two days classroom and pool work followed by two ‘inner reef’ dives and a three-day trip to the ‘outer reef’.

On the first day of the course I met my diving partner, known as a buddy. In-between blowing his honker into a hanky, my buddy introduced himself as ‘Bark’. Bark was obviously suffering from a severe head cold and looked like death warmed up and so, to cheer him up I embarked on a series of highly amusing tree puns. “I see you are branching out into scuba diving? Turning over a new leaf are you?” For some reason, Bark hadn’t twigged my humour and was looking at me as if I was completely deranged. It was only when I glanced down at his name badge that I discovered his name was Mark.

We all settled down in a classroom to receive our first lecture about marine life. I looked forward to finding out about the delightful dolphins and cuddly clown fish. Instead, I learned all about the stone fish (the most deadly fish in the world), the sea snakes (all deadly), the box jellyfish (deadly again), the sharks (pretty deadly), the poisonous coral (pretty poisonous), the giant clams (keep limbs well away), the cone shells (another deadly), the saltwater crocodiles (I thought they were joking) and the blue ringed octopus (guess what, another deadly). Apart from these few deadly sea creatures the sea is quite safe as long as you can swim and your air supply doesn’t run out. After some lectures on other heart-stopping subjects, it was time to enter the swimming pool.

We stood in a circle in a small swimming pool whilst the dive master showed us how to use the breathing apparatus. This consisted of a regulator (mouthpiece) attached to one or more air tanks. I found it rather hard to concentrate as my buddy Mark, standing next to me, would repeatedly blow his streaming nose into the water. I spent most of my time trying to dodge the large green globules that were threatening to cling to my legs. Then came my worst nightmare. We had to practice an emergency situation where my air supply had depleted and my buddy had to share his air supply with me. This meant putting his regulator into my mouth. With my eyes closed, desperately trying not to gag, I slowly inserted his salty, sticky piece of black rubber into my mouth and tried my hardest not to breathe.

After two days in the pool and two days diving on the inner reef we finally headed for the open sea on a three-day trip to the outer reef. The trip on the way out made most people green. The sea was rough and the funnel was cleverly positioned at the front of the boat so that the fumes blew back over the decks. The chemical toilet was potent in the extreme and the food at lunch had a distinctly chemically taste. This combination made me hang over the side of the boat in nauseous anticipation. Eventually we anchored, made a dive and were presented with a gratifying spread of colourful fish and coral. Scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef is like swimming in an aquarium. We saw angelfish, butterfly fish, parrotfish, sea cucumbers, anemones, bristle stars, and coral trout. Whilst under the water, the dive master picked up a giant sea anemone and put it on his head like a wig. I quickly discovered why scuba divers rarely smile. It is impossible and potentially fatal to laugh and scuba dive at the same time. This small joke by my instructor nearly left me drowned! A similar situation occurred later on where I saw a fellow diver being mobbed by an immense shoal of fish. They were all over his head and he couldn’t see where he was swimming. You could see him desperately trying to escape the pestering shoal. It wasn’t until after the dive that I discovered he had been sick under water and the fish were eating his diced carrots.

During the trip we attempted two night dives. Unfortunately, I had contracted Mark’s head cold, and during the first dive was unable to equalise the pressure in my blocked nasal tubes. I had to return to the boat before the dive had even started. However, I did manage to make the second night dive. Underwater on a moonless night is black. You cannot even see your hand in front of your face. We had tiny torches that pierced a few yards into the blackness. At any moment a giant something could have grabbed me and swallowed me whole.

After half an hour of rapid breathing and scanning the darkness with my torch I hadn’t seen a thing. However, when we emerged from the water everyone had tales of giant turtles, sharks and shipwrecks.

In the evenings on the boat we played games. One evening we had to perform a party piece. I teamed up with a small group of British guys to perform a personalised version of a popular sea shanty. Here’s the first verse:

The instructors name is Tony
With a face like his he’s lonely
So in the dead of night, when out of sight
He does it with an anemone

I won’t enlighten you with the other verses, needless to say that they went downhill and involved the skipper Pete, a giant clam and the cabin girl named Nikki.

Towards the end of the trip, most of us were a little disappointed, as we hadn’t seen a shark. Then, just before we were about to pull anchor and head home, someone spotted a large grey shape coming towards the boat. It was an immense (and I mean huge) shark. Everyone stood on the edge of the deck looking down into the water. The shark started circling the boat and was – according to our instructor – well over 10 feet long. Immediately we all started to put on our wet suits and snorkel gear ready to jump in and have the thrill of seeing such a large shark underwater. The dive master ran frantically around the boat stopping us from entering the water. At the time we couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t let us? The danger and excitement had gone to our heads. Who wouldn’t jump unto the sea with a 14 ft long tiger shark?

The dive master at Cairns Dive Centre had a job to do. He had to instruct and enable a bunch of people to dive safely. Imagine if he had taught us without any interaction or without any fun? This would have defeated the whole point wouldn’t it? The ability to use a regulator and calculate dive times wasn’t the aim of the course. It’s easy to imagine Jesus teaching his disciples with a furrowed brow and a stern face, ready to tell them how bad they were. I think this has more to do with how he’s been presented in Sunday school than reality. I reckon that when Jesus taught his disciples, he smiled, laughed and got fits of the giggles too. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that much of Jesus’ teaching was centred on mealtimes, full of conversation, wine and good food. Of course, sometimes he had to stop his disciples doing something stupid too – not that I remember any of them wanting to jump into shark-infested waters!

We couldn’t learn to scuba dive in isolation either. Every diver needs a buddy – even ones with severe head colds – and sometimes it’s even better when learning takes place in a group. If we hadn’t been in a group, we wouldn’t have been able to share our ideas of what creatures to look out for, techniques we could try, and experiences of sharks and giant anemones. In the same way, Jesus’ disciples needed to learn together – to be a learning community. Is that what you see church as being – a bunch of people living life to the fullest, learning together, journeying together, experiencing together, making mistakes together?

6. Jeep

After two and a half weeks in Cairns, I decided to travel north, so I caught a forty-minute bus ride to Port Douglas. Port Douglas is the opposite of Cairns. It is small, quiet and has four miles of beautiful sandy beach, marred only by the large signs that tell you not to swim in the sea at certain times of year due to the infamous box jellyfish. The box jellyfish is a nasty critter. Its tentacles are covered with millions of tiny hypodermic needles that inject poison into its victims. The pressure with which you touch the tentacles determines the severity of the sting and even a minor brush can leave you scarred for life. Few people survive an encounter with a box jellyfish. Despite the jellified dangers, Port Douglas is a wealthy town and the hills are scattered with large, expensive properties. I spent the night in the backpackers hostel and it was there that I met an Englishman named Scott and a Brisbane dentist named George.

The following day, after an evening making plans with my two room mates, Scott, George and I visited Budget-Rent-A-Car where we hired a small Suzuki jeep. Our destination was Cooktown, a few hundred kilometres further north. At the time, there were two roads from Cairns to Cooktown; a nice, safe, paved inland road, and an unsafe, muddy, ‘four-wheel- drive_only’ coastal road. Guess which road we decided to take?

Now I have a confession to make. We knew full well that we were only allowed to take the jeep as far as the village of Daintree, 54km to the north, and we certainly were not allowed to take the jeep all the way up the coastal road to Cooktown. One of the reasons for this is due to a small hazard we would have to negotiate if we wanted to complete our trip. George the dentist convinced us that this small hazard was so small on the map that it wouldn’t present a problem to three brave adventurers such as ourselves.

We stopped briefly at Daintree and then Cape Tribulation. For the first few miles, the condition of the road was fine. Okay, so it was a little bit muddy, which meant it was very difficult for us to stop when we met a bus coming the other way on a tight bend. Both of us were travelling too fast and the dense rainforest made it impossible to see the bus before it was time to slam on the brakes. As we skidded towards the bus and the bus skidded towards us we shouted ‘No’ in unison (which sounded more like ‘noooooooooo’) and we managed to stop inches from the front bumper of the bus. After this encounter, we took things a little more slowly.

After several hours, we finally arrived at the small hazard marked on the map. The small hazard in reality took the form of a gap in the rainforest where a ford crossed the tidal Bloomfield River. We jumped out of the jeep to survey the problem and to read a sign on the riverbank.

LARGE CROCODILES FREQUENT THIS AREA. NO SWIMMING.
KEEP DOGS AND CHILDREN AWAY FROM THE WATERS EDGE.

A mark on a pole showed how low the river should be before one attempted to cross. We couldn’t see this mark, so we shouted to the occupants of a large truck waiting on the other side, asking how long it would be before the tide went out far enough for us to try to cross. They informed us that it would be a few hours and as every hour we hired the jeep was costing us money, we had to make a decision quickly. The river didn’t look ‘that’ deep and we didn’t have any dogs or children to feed the crocodiles, so we decided to go for it.

We all jumped back into the jeep and the dentist manoeuvred the vehicle slowly down the bank and into the water. To our relief, the wheels of the jeep gripped the pebbly riverbed with apparent ease. However, the water seemed to be flowing faster now we were actually ‘in’ the river. As we approached the mid-point, the jeep started filling with water. Water poured in through the doors. The river was getting deeper. There was no way we would manage to turn the jeep around now, and we weren’t going to stop (not with the possibility of large crocodiles mooching around). There was only one choice, and that was to keep going.

The water had risen inside the jeep to the point where I had to lift my legs onto the seat to keep them dry and we could hear the water hitting the fan in the engine. It was just as we remarked on this noise that the moment we dreaded happened. The jeep started to move sideways. The river was gently lifting the jeep off the bottom and it was starting to move us downstream. The dentist ploughed on, keeping the revs high. All our eyes were fixed on the opposite bank where a small crowd was gathering to watch our ambitious attempt. One by one we felt the wheels gripping the riverbed once more as we approached the other side and then finally, all four wheels gripped the bottom and we heaved up onto the opposite bank in front of a cheering crowd, water pouring from every hole.

Sometimes in life we have to take risks. Sure, there are times when we should be patient and cautious, weigh the options and secure a future, but there are other times when we have to step out of our comfort zones, go for the goal and live the dream. I’m not sure of the wisdom of driving a jeep across a crocodile-infested river at high tide, but the experience did draw us closer together.

The Bible is full of risk takers. One of Jesus’ disciples Peter took a risk when he stepped off a boat to try and walk on the water, and a man suffering from leprosy took a risk when he hurled himself at the feet of Jesus, asking to be healed. The God of the Bible is himself a God of risks. Throughout the Bible God risks using flawed people to carry out his plans – and some of the things he asks them to do are pretty risky too! Sometimes they fail and sometimes they succeed. God took the ultimate risk in sending his son Jesus. Would we accept him and follow him or would we have him flogged and crucified?

7. Bounce

We continued on our journey and just after a place called Rossville we noticed a sign for Home Rule backpackers hostel. As it was starting to get dark we turned off the road down a narrow track. The track seemed to go on forever until we emerged in a green valley by the ocean surrounded on each side by steep wooded hills. This was the most beautiful location for a hostel I had ever seen. The proprietor was a friendly old man who was wrinkled brown from years of baking in the sun. He showed us to our room and we bedded down for the night.

The next day the old man asked us if we’d like to go horse trekking. Without hesitation we agreed and set off on horseback, following the old man into the hills. I had never ridden a horse before and it was magical. However, half way up the woodland trail, my horse stopped. The others continued and I called to them that my horse would not move. The horse was starting to get edgy and it was looking at a pile of rocks next to the trail. It started swinging its head around and shifting on its feet. I had time to hear someone tell met that it was spooked when it bolted up the trail. I slipped off the back of the horse with one foot still caught in a stirrup as the horse dragged me fifty yards up the trail. Thankfully I was not hurt. I climbed back onto its back and we continued on. It was a glorious sunny day and we emerged from the woods by a small sun-filled gorge cut by a waterfall. This place was beautiful beyond words. We stripped off and dived into the clear water. The old man took us up the edge of the waterfall to a natural water slide and we spent the next hour sliding and swimming and having a great time. After getting dressed we got back on our horses and the old man turned and said, “last one home’s a sissy.” All four horses pricked up their ears and started galloping down the track towards home. There was nothing I could do but use all my strength to cling on for dear life, ducking under branches as we whizzed underneath.

Like the old man at Home Rule, Jesus invites us on a journey and asks us to follow him. Sometimes in life we cannot see what is round the corner. Sometimes the trail we follow is easy and at other times it is difficult. Sometimes the pace is slow, we feel the breeze in our hair, and we are enjoying the ride, yet at other times we bounce along on our backsides, being dragged by circumstances beyond our control. Jesus tells us that the journey, although sometimes narrow and difficult, will be worth it – that our final destination will be a place of rest, beauty and fun. How is your journey right now? Ask God to keep guiding you and keep leading you that you might persevere right to the end and come to your final destination full of His peace and love.

8. Goliath

When we arrived at Cooktown it was another hot sunny day and I walked to the end of the jetty. The sea was a brilliant blue. About 20 yards out to sea, two large silver fish called Trevally leaped out of the water, closely followed by a chasing porpoise. The scene started to attract a small crowd and as the fish leaped into the air a sea eagle also gave chase, swooping down, trying to catch the fish. At one moment, all four were in the air at the same time – two fish, one porpoise and one sea eagle. It was one of those magical moments in nature. None of the onlookers had a camera and perhaps it was meant to be that it should not be filmed but remain a remarkable memory.

I decided to stay in Cooktown for a day or two and left my companions to drive the hired jeep back to Port Douglas. I found a bed at the Cooktown youth hostel and the next day I visited the Captain Cook museum. Cooktown was originally established in 1873 as a port for the Palmer River gold fields. It was named after Captain James Cook who repaired his boat there in 1770. During the gold rush, Cooktown had a population of 60,000 people and boasted 94 hotels. Today it is a pleasantly quiet town with a population not much over 2000 people. In the evening I fished of the jetty and caught a small Trevally that I took back to the hostel and fried in butter for my tea – delicious.

The following evening, I, along with a couple of other pommie tourists ventured into the local pub. I’m not sure how it happened but the evening gradually turned into an international competition – England versus Australia. The games? Pool and darts. First up was the pool. We (the poms) were slaughtered. I don’t think we won a single game. Then it was time to try our hand at darts. I had played a bit of darts on the back of my bedroom door but I wouldn’t call myself a darts player. However, this night I could do no wrong. We were playing the standard 501 where each player takes their score from 501. The winner is the first player to reach zero by ending on a double. I’m not sure if it was the Aussie lager or the weight of the darts but I played like I have never played before. I soon worked my way through every darts player in the pub. Finally the crowd started to get edgy. Surely they couldn’t let this pommie beat them?
“Wait ‘til Jimmy finishes behind the bar,” they jeered.

Jimmy was the barman and the best darts player in the area. He could beat anyone. I nervously sipped my lager. I was going to have to play him. After last orders had been taken and the last drinks had been poured, the owner locked the door of the pub and the crowd surrounded the darts board. I took my darts and waited. Jimmy emerged. He wore a black sleeveless shirt, the type worn by professional darts players. He didn’t say a word as the crowds parted like the Red Sea to let him through. He was about six-foot three inches tall and nearly as wide. He pulled from his pocket a box and removed a set of custom-made darts. I felt like David as Goliath drew his sword. Without a word he nodded and we each threw a dart nearest the bull’s-eye to see who would start. It was I to play first. The crowds pressed in on each side and for the next few minutes time stood still. It was me playing for England, the Empire, hope-and-glory. With my first three darts I scored 140; two treble twenties and a single twenty. I don’t think I had ever scored 140 in my life! The match lasted only a few rounds. I didn’t score less than 100 on each turn and finished the game off with a direct dart straight into the required double. I couldn’t believe it. The crowd couldn’t believe it. Jimmy couldn’t believe it. He stared at me, quietly put his darts back in his box and left the pub. I exploded. David had beaten Goliath. My companions cheered and people clapped me on the back. No one would believe that I was not a professional darts player however much I protested my innocence. Of course, the next time I played darts I could barely hit the board.

To this day I cannot explain the happenings in that pub. Even Moulder and Scully would have a difficult time explaining it and I half expect to see myself on an episode of the X-files. However, in life we all have to face tough adversaries. Sometimes they will be people, but often they will be more subtle but no less deadly – illness, bereavement, the pain caused by broken relationships with friends or family, loneliness – the list goes on. One of the most remarkable things about the God of Jesus is that He knows what it is to suffer. We have a suffering God. Now I don’t know why there is so much pain and difficulty in the world, but I do know that God understands and promises to be there with us. With God on our side, we will get through – we will win – no matter what the outcome.

9. Orange

Whilst staying in the Cooktown youth hostel a friend told me of some Aboriginal drawings that were worth seeing at the village of Laura, so the next morning, I walked to the road that led west to Laura, sat on the verge and waited for a lift. I waited for a long while and eventually secured a lift in a Toyota Hi-Ace to a place called Annon River. Even just a few miles inland it was significantly hotter than by the coast. I waited a further two hours at Annon River. The road was dusty, the landscape baked brown in the summer sun, and I was starting to look like a well-done lobster and wishing I’d brought with me a can of industrial strength deodorant. A car approached and I stuck out my red thumb. The car skidded to a stop in front of me. Through the complimentary cloud of dust I could make out a yellow ute. The sound of reggae came from the open window. (A ute, for those of you not up on Aussie lingo, is a utility van with an open back, good for hauling animals, machinery and hitchhikers over the rugged terrain.) I peered through the cab window and inside sat five very big Aboriginal Rastafarians.

“Eh man, you want leeft?” came a sort of hissed whisper from the open window.
“Erm, yes please,” I replied somewhat hesitantly.

I was not sure if I had made the right decision as the other four chaps were staring at me and making me feel rather uneasy. The biggest Rastafarian, who was driving, got out of the ute. He was tall with a pit-marked face and dreadlocks that nearly covered his eyes. All he wore was a tatty lumberjack shirt and a pair of faded jeans that were too small for him. “You get in back maan,” he hissed.

The Rasta unhooked the PVC cover that was spread across the back of the ute giving me just enough room to squeeze in with my backpack. Once I was safely wedged, the ute pulled away.

Riding in the back of any open truck is fun, with the wind in your hair and the sun on your back, who could want for more? The ride was a little uncomfortable as the back of the ute was fully loaded and I was sitting on some large lumpy sacks. From the cab could be heard a mixture of laughter and loud reggae. I was disturbed only once from my daydreaming by a tap on the back of the cab window. One of the Rastas held an orange out of the open window. It tasted pretty good and the orange juice teamed up with the sun and wind to make my face and hands sticky.

After about an hour’s bumpy drive, I felt a wet patch on my behind. I looked down and it seemed to be coming from the sack directly beneath me. I opened it up. It was full of what had been whole oranges, but now they were all squashed and pretty uneatable. Besides, who’d want to eat anything that had been under my sweaty bottom? A sudden wave of horror swept through my body. I’d squashed the Rastafarian’s oranges! My mind readily remembered how every time I had turned around and glanced through the back cab window the Rastas had been enjoying their oranges, and now I’d squashed their last bag full. What could I do? I didn’t know how much oranges meant to five very large Aboriginal Rastafarians. How could I tell them I’d squashed their last bag? I decided not to mention it and hoped they wouldn’t find out while I was around.

For the next half an hour I couldn’t stop thinking about what I’d done. They might do me over leaving me on the side of the road to be dinner for the hawks? Suddenly the ute pulled over. We were in the middle of nowhere. Oh no!! Maybe they know I’ve squashed the oranges or perhaps they’ll ask for one? The biggest Rastafarian stepped out of the car. This is it, I’m done for. Just goin’ for a pee man,” hissed the Rastafarian. The Rasta walked over to the side of the road to do his business. Thank goodness. I remained in the back of the ute breathing slightly easier. The Rasta finished up and returned to the ute.

“Eh maan, can you pass me an orange from de sack there?” he asked.

My face turned barley white (white with a hint of summer barley). This was it. Goodbye world, goodbye Gavin, goodbye backpack, goodbye trees, goodbye flowers…

“I said can you pass me an orange man?”

I could hardly speak.

“Erm, well, I’m afraid I’ve kind of sat on them,” I quaked.

The Rasta went silent. He just looked at me for what seemed an eternity. The reggae music stopped. The other Rastas (who hadn’t bothered to get out to stretch their legs) turned and looked at me. I could feel sweat trickling down my forehead. The Rasta’s face changed. Gulp.

“Eeh, not a problem man. We can get some more in de next town,” he beamed.

The Rasta got into the ute, started it up and we pulled away. I breathed a very long sigh of relief.

The five very large Rastafarians were turning off the main road. That’s where I left them, not before buying them some more oranges. Money well spent as far as I was concerned! Those Aboriginal Rastafarians turned out to be pretty nice people, I thought, as I watched the yellow ute trundle away down the dusty road. It was especially nice of them to give me an orange. I tucked the fruit in my backpack to save for later. I’d had enough of oranges just for now.

Isn’t it easy to judge people by their appearance – what they wear , what they smoke, what music they listen to? I remembered stories of Jesus. He didn’t seem to let outward appearances dictate how he treated people. He touched lepers, spoke with people who were considered outcasts, and ate and drank with criminals. I remember reading in the Bible the story of when a woman accused of adultery fell at Jesus’ feet. A crowd were ready to stone her to death. Jesus looked at the crowd and invited the person who had never done anything wrong to throw the first rock. When the crowd left, he turned to the woman and said that if no one else was going to condemn her then he wouldn’t either. He urged her to get up and go and start living in a new way – His way. Because he accepted her as a real person, she went away changed. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if people went away from encounters with us as changed people?

10. Contrast

The town of Laura wasn’t exactly a big place and I ventured in the only pub for a cold beer and a burger. There was no youth hostel so I decided to spend the night at the campsite in a barn with an abundance of flies and mosquitos. I was charged $3 for this privilege but it did include use of the showers. The next morning I bought a carton of milk for breakfast and hitched a ride to Split Rock. Split Rock is a large escarpment, home to Aboriginal drawings of Quinkans, ancient spirits that were once thought to cause all sorts of mischief. I walked for two hours up the escarpment looking at the drawings. Eventually, I reached the top and sat on the hot brown rock looking out over the plain of the Australian outback. It was tranquil and I was alone. The view probably hadn’t changed for thousands of years. In the distance far below me I could see the dirt road and a small cloud of dust from a vehicle. It was beautifully peaceful sitting there in the warm sun.

I hitched in the back of another ute to a place called Lakeland and then via a cattle truck to the larger town of Mareeba. Cattle trucks in Australia are huge and can be two or three truck lengths long. In the outback they are called road trains. This one was a double length road train and was about 100ft long. I sat in the cab next to the driver as he told me 38

about his life in the outback. The truck crawled up hills and every so often the driver would stop to check his cattle. This usually meant electrocuting them with a long stick when they fainted from heat exhaustion. The electrocutions made them stand up and prevented them from lying down in case they got damaged. I couldn’t help feeling sorry for the poor cows, as they stood packed like sardines. It was no way for an animal to travel to its death, even a cow.

The contrast between the beauty of the landscape and the ride in the cattle truck reminded me of God’s charge to humans to ‘subdue’ the earth and all that is in it. The Aborigines lived in harmony with nature – sadly, something lost when humans interpreted God’s charge to mean that we can trash it, abuse it and exhaust it. The Aborigines feared that the Quinkans would come to destroy their lives. However, this is not God’s ideal for us at all. One of my daughters, when she was a toddler, asked me why God created the world. In response, I asked her why she painted a picture – then she understood. She wanted to create something beautiful. To be creative is to be human because we are made in the image of a creative God. We are called by God to be ‘co-creators’ with God – to steward and care for his world. So let us use our creativity for good and let us uphold the beauty of God’s creation – his world.

11. Unique

After spending a fly-ridden and mosquito-bitten night in the open on a campground in a town called Mareeba, I decided to hitch west to see some limestone caves at a place called Chillagoe. After several hitches, plus one with schoolteacher and another in the back of a ute belonging to an elderly couple, I reached the end of the unmade road and arrived in the small village of Chillagoe. Chillagoe boasted a petrol station that doubled as a cafe and campsite, a bakery, a laundrette that doubled as a souvenir shop, a museum, a hotel, a motel, a post-office and a ranger station. For the first night I decided to sleep again in the great outdoors. I found a barn and spent the night sweltering under my waterproof coat trying to avoid the mosquitoes that whined in my ears. There is nothing worse than that high-pitched whistle that appears to be right inside your ear as you try to sleep. After that night I decided to spend the next two nights in the Chillagoe hotel, an old style rough wooden building with a large amount of rustic character and charm. You may think that $7.50 per night is extremely cheap, but to me, it was a small fortune and a great luxury. The Post Office Hotel was run by a friendly couple called Arthur and Sari Marorvary, and they and the locals loved having a pommie to have a sporting prod at. My room, number 11, was small, just a bed and a bedside table. The door was a pair of large shutters that opened onto the wooden veranda.

Each morning I was woken by the squawks of pink galahs flocking past. In the evening the hotel filled with cattle hands dressed in Stetson hats, singlets (vests), shorts and muddy boots. As they gradually got more drunk they tussled and joked and one of them asked me, “I suppose you thought it would be like it is in Crocodile Dundee out here? What a load of rubbish that was.” I didn’t say anything but the scene couldn’t have been more like the outback pub scene from the movie if it tried. I kept expecting Paul Hogan to walk through the door any minute and slap a large dead crocodile on the bar.

Chillagoe is surrounded by a barren, rocky landscape interspersed with large rocky outcrops called bluffs. These bluffs are made from limestone and many contain large limestone caves. At the time of writing 431 different cave systems have been discovered and sketched. I booked in on a local tour of four large bluffs; Donna, Royal Arch, Pompeii and Bohemia. The ranger led a small group of us inside the bluffs and we were greeted with amazing galleries of stalagmites, columns and stalactites. It was amazing to think that we were in cave systems that were not below ground level. The thought of discovering my own limestone cave carried me away, and I bought a torch from the local store and decided to go exploring. I selected a bluff on the horizon, perhaps a mile from the town, and set off. It was an amazing feeling to think I could be treading where no person had been before. After searching all over the bluff, I found the entrance to a cave. I flashed my torch into the darkness and entered the small opening. The entrance was so small that little of the bright sunshine filtered inside. The cave was about 12ft across and 12ft high. It appeared to be a dead end and I was just about to turn and leave when my torch flashed into a dark area low to the ground. There was a passageway leading off into the darkness. The passageway was only a couple of feet high and perhaps three feet wide; just enough for me to crawl through on my belly. With my torch pushed in front of me, I squeezed through the small passage and emerged into another chamber of similar size. It was an amazing feeling to be exploring a secret cave that had never been explored before, and I was filled with excitement and a sense of achievement. I swung the torch on the walls and ceiling. This hidden chamber was a dead end and there were no special limestone features – just rock and dangling roots. It was enough for me though. I turned to leave and there on the wall was some writing. Perhaps it was Aboriginal, maybe 40,000 years old? I moved closer and the light from the torch illuminated the writing. It said, “Bazza woz Ere.”

Life is a journey and everyone’s journey is different. So I wasn’t the first to discover that cave – big deal. I could have let the moment I discovered Bazza’s writing diminish all the sense of excitement that I had felt just moments before, but I didn’t. My achievement wasn’t negated because others had gone before me. In his letter to the Christians living in Philippi that can be found in the Bible, Paul describes life as a kind of race that we are to run, and that we stand before a great ‘cloud of witnesses’ – those who have gone before us. These witnesses give us an example for what can be achieved if we live the lives that God intends us to live. These witnesses should encourage us. Although other people’s journeys are important, our journey is unique. No one can run the race marked out for us, accept us.

12. Heart

On my way west to see the limestone caves at Chillagoe, and before getting very far on the unmade dusty roads of the Australian outback, just past a small village, a rugged looking woman picked me up in her worn out ute. She was driving home after dropping her alcoholic spouse off at the pub in the nearest small town. We trundled along in her car through the empty outback and every so often she would swerve to squash a cane toad. She opened the conversation. “Yer not gonna mug me are yer?” she asked.

“I won’t mug you if you if you won’t mug me!” I replied.

She laughed and we instantly warmed to each other. It is strange how people are afraid of hitchhikers, most of whom are people just like you and me in need of a lift somewhere. Perhaps it is something to do with the culture of fear in which we live? I told her about my trip and where I was heading. Out of the blue she offered me a job.

“D’ya wanna a job?” she asked boldly.
“Well, yes, what kind of job?”
“A building job.”
“Well I don’t know how to…” I stammered.
“Look, if I can do it then you can!”

We agreed to meet up after I had visited the limestone caves at Chillagoe, another 96km to the west. After visiting the caves, I managed to hitch east from Chillagoe – with one of the park rangers for North Queensland – back to where she lived. This ranger was responsible for four million acres of terrain including several islands. I thought it sounded like he needed a helicopter rather than a ute, but there you go. I arrived at the village where the lady lived and called her from a phone box. She came in her car and collected me.

The lady was a short woman and sixty-nine years of Australian sun had weathered and wrinkled her skin to give it a leathery appearance. Despite this, her eyes sparkled with the healthy youthfulness that only a hard, outdoor life can give. She was like a much loved, old leather boot that would still keep going for a good many years to come. She was used to hard work and didn’t beat around the bush when it came to anything. I agreed to work for her for two weeks.

In her spare time, the lady was building a second house on her 183-acre property. She wanted a place to escape to when her spouse got violent after drinking heavily. They used to be very wealthy and owned a great deal of land and many assets including racehorses, but when her husband began drinking he lost their money through gambling and giving it away. The wife was holding the fort by single-handedly running a small mango farm, and, when she wasn’t doing this, by working in her shed upholstering furniture. She also had to manage small duties such as removing tiger snakes from the chook (chicken) house. I was impressed by her hard work, commitment and patience.

The house she was building was nothing like a house you would build in England. North Queensland rarely falls below 24°C all year round so there is no need for central heating or double-glazing. The house had four rooms made from breezeblocks, wood and corrugated iron. Two small solar panels were installed on top of the corrugated iron roof to supply electricity. Outside the house, at a cost of $80 per year, a nearby irrigation channel fed an immense metal water tank on large wooden stilts. Trees scattered the property and you could hardly move for stepping on stick insects. It was a beautifully tranquil setting, however, the lady had a problem.

A family of squatters had moved into the house. The lady had allowed them to live in the house in return for helping finish the building of it and other work that needed doing around the property. Unfortunately the squatters did no work and spent most of their time cultivating marijuana plants. The lady couldn’t get rid of them. She didn’t want to involve the police because she was fearful of reprisal and also the fact that they were growing drugs. However, she had come up with a plan to get rid of them.

The plan was very simple. She pretended that she had sold the house to a family and I was to pretend to be a member of this family. As an outsider to the local community I was ideal for the job. I was to walk around the house with her talking about when the new family would move in and making it sound imminent. The plan worked. Within three days the squatters had packed up taking all their marijuana plants with them.

In the mean time I helped the husband put up the posts for a water tank and bury a water pipe. After helping the lady get rid of the squatters I spent one and a half weeks helping her build a wall in the kitchen of her new house. As payment, I slept in her work shed, she cooked me breakfast and dinner, and also allowed me to use her car to visit the nearby tablelands. She also gave me $100 for the work. Their dog followed me everywhere and insisted on sleeping on the end of my sleeping bag every night. To the couple he was just a dog and the poor mutt had never been shown much affection. I became very fond of him and I’m not sure which of us was sadder when it was time for me to leave. The husband was very pleasant when he wasn’t drunk. Although he never said more than two words, the wife assured me that he was fond of me. When the day came for me to leave, after I had inadvertently sunk the wheel of her jeep in quicksand, she asked me if I would like to take over the running of the mango farm. She offered me all the profits from it and even five acres of land on which to build my own house! When you meet people like her you realise why people consider Australia to be a land of opportunity. For months after visiting them the couple were constantly on my mind and I felt prompted to pray for them almost every day. I asked God to remember them and to look after them in the same way that they had looked after me.

Here was a woman who had stood by her husband although he squandered their wealth. Despite being almost seventy years old, instead of enjoying her retirement, she worked in the fields every day to bring in an income for her family. If anyone had an excuse to be bitter or to have a hard heart, it was her.

Yet she had a softness of heart and generosity of spirit that touched me deeply. Jesus tells us that our actions are a direct result of the condition of our hearts. It is our hearts that matter before God, and our hearts that determine who we are and what we do. Let us pray that our hearts will not become hard, and that we too will love others like that old lady of the Australian outback.

13. Path

The lady I stayed with kindly allowed me to borrow her car for two weekends to visit the Atherton tablelands. The Atherton tablelands are an area of outstanding natural beauty containing ten or more national parks. The tablelands were uplifted by volcanic action and the elevation reduces the heat and humidity of the surrounding rainforest. The climate and rich volcanic soil have allowed an abundance of flora and fauna as well as providing ideal land for dairy farming and growing everything from exotic fruits to tobacco, peanuts, tea, maize, coffee and rice.

To irrigate the surrounding farmlands the Barron River was dammed at Tinaroo to form Lake Tinaroo. The dam cost $12,666,000 to build and flooded one small town in the process. The dam is impressive and stands 45 metres tall and 546 metres long. After walking along the dam I drove around the lake on the picturesque Danbulla Forest Drive. In one weekend I visited some of the larger natural attractions including the Cathedral Fig Tree, Lake Barrine National Park and Emerald Falls.

Lake Barrine was beautiful. It is 61 metres deep at its deepest point and is crystal clear. The water and surrounding rainforest are teeming with wildlife. I was fortunate to spot a pair of the smallest species of kangaroo in the undergrowth and the water was teeming with fish and large eels.

Waterfall No. 1

Emerald Falls was a wide cascade over rocks and I couldn’t resist trying to cross. I set off, hopping from rock to rock keeping perfect balance until I stepped into a pool of water, slipped over onto my bottom and started sliding down towards the edge of the waterfall. It all happened so quickly. One minute I was standing, the next I was hurtling towards the edge unable to stop myself. The water was only inches deep but I was on a dangerous water slide. I wailed (a very manly thing to do) and prepared for the worst. As I hit the edge of the waterfall I stopped. There was a lip right on the edge that saved me. I breathed a sigh of relief and pulled myself out of harms way. As I stood on the bank, dripping wet, I chuckled to myself – that had been a close one, things can’t possibly get worse. I looked down at my wet body only to discover I was covered from head to toe in leeches! I spent the next ten minutes hopping around scraping the little worms off my arms, legs and other more private appendages!

I spent the night in the back of the car near Lake Eacham. I woke in the morning to see the face of a park ranger pressed up against the window. He informed me that it was illegal to camp in National Parks but, with a wag of his finger, he would let me off. I felt a little cheated that spending the night in the back of a Toyota was considered camping but apologised and thanked him. I had a refreshing morning walk around the lake and saw turtles, perch, rifle fish and a pelican.

During the second weekend visit to the Tablelands I drove to the town of Ravenshoe and toured what is known as the Waterfall Circuit. This takes in Millae Millae, Souita, Ellinjaa, Zillie, and Mungalli Falls. I then drove to Millstream Falls National Park and took in Millstream and Little Millstream Falls. After this I visited Palmerston National Park and took in Tchupala Falls then drove to Innisfail via Josephine and Boulders Falls.

Waterfall No. 2

At one of the more remote waterfalls, the trail ran along the bank of a small river. I noticed that a small animal was swimming and diving in the current. I crouched next to the river for a closer look and was fortunate to see two platypuses feeding. I had never seen a platypus before, not even on television, and was surprised to find out they were smaller than an otter and not the size of a seal that I had envisioned in my head. I watched the animals for about half-an-hour and then proceeded on my way.

Whenever you see people hacking their way through tropical rainforests on the television it always looks so easy. A few swipes of a machete and they are away. After an hour of doing this myself (without the aid of a machete) I discovered the reality. For some insane reason I had decided to take a short cut, from where I parked the car, to the Tchupala Falls. This took me straight through the rainforest. At first the going was good but soon my legs were being ripped to shreds by the winding brambles that were strewn across the forest floor.

These plants, I discovered, had thousands of hooks along their stems, and unfortunately for me, they were everywhere. I was only spurred on by the thought of having to go back through them, and that it couldn’t be that far to the waterfall. Eventually I came to a clearing and stood at the top of the waterfall wondering how on earth I was going to get to the bottom where the path I was supposed to have taken ended. There were two options. Firstly, I could go back through the rainforest and end up looking like grated mozzarella, or I could risk climbing down the cliff to the bottom of the waterfall. I couldn’t face going back so I decided to climb down.

It was a long way down. A vertical drop followed by a steep slope. The cliff was made from damp crumbly shale covered with a generous sprinkling of slippery wet moss but there were enough ledges to be able to climb down. It didn’t look so bad so I decided to give it a go. I made my way out onto the first ledge and looked down. This was my second mistake (the first was deciding to walk out onto the ledge in the first place). I looked down, gasped and quickly edged my way back to safety again where I could breathe more easily.

I wiped my brow and told myself I could do it. For the second time I edged my way out onto the ledge, with my body pressed hard against the rock and my fingers finding solid handles of rock on which to hold. At this point I wondered if the ledge was unsafe. It didn’t take long for that thought to stick in my mind so I quickly edged my way back to safety again.

This was silly. Either I could do it or I could not. I spent a minute plucking up enough courage before finding myself out on the ledge again. I could do it. I went further out this time. The vertical cracks in the rock really didn’t look safe. Before I had time to think about it, the ledge I was standing on gave way. Not a huge amount of rock went but it was enough to make me lose my foothold and there I hung for my life, my fingers gripping to the moss-ridden, damp rock. I couldn’t get back so I would have to find a way down. My fingers were getting tired and I was scared. My feet swung from left to right, trying to find a foothold. I didn’t dare try to pull myself up with my hands, as I did not want to put too much weight on the rocks. Finally my feet found a foothold and I could at last relax my fingers.

I was still a long way up and the fear of falling over-powered the panic that was trying to take hold of me. Slowly but surely I made my way down the cliff. As I got lower down the cliff I felt less tense. With a final explosive sigh of relief, I reached the bottom. I sat on a mossy rock looking up at where I had been. My heart was still racing and I was shaking. I had to sit there for a while until I had calmed down a bit. Thank you God, I prayed. I had done a stupid thing. Next time, I’d take the path.

Waterfall No. 3

At the next waterfall, I started at the bottom and for some reason felt compelled to climb to the top. It was a long way, perhaps a hundred feet or more. The climb was pretty easy as there were lots of tree roots and footholds to use. Half way up I slipped and grabbed hold of the nearest branch. Being an impulsive reaction I didn’t look at the branch I was grabbing and I plunged my hand into a nest of giant green ants. The ants swarmed up my arm and proceeded to have lunch at my expense. I must have been a sight, wailing and waving my arm around as I tried to shake the large ants off my body.

Among the many animals and birds I spotted in the Atherton tablelands I counted over 9 species of ant including my friend the green ant. Green ants are edible and Aborigines are supposed to have used them for flavouring. On one occasion I couldn’t resist putting this to the test. I found a column of ants marching up the trunk of a tree and plucked one between my thumb and first finger. I held its head and thorax firmly and bit off the green abdomen. It was true. The ant had a distinctive lime flavour that wasn’t unpleasant. As well as the ants the tablelands are home to over forty species of bat, the most notable being the giant fruit bat. I also saw wallabies, possums, snakes, turtles, parrots, cockatoos, honeyeaters, toads, rats, fish and insects galore including cockroaches and a praying mantis. It was incredible.

Despite all the beauty of the Atherton Tablelands, you would be quite within your rights to observe that I lacked a little common sense. The paths are there for a reason. Not following the path could have got me killed or seriously injured on three occasions. One might have thought that I would have learned my lesson the first time. Still, I’m in good company. It seems that some people need reminding over and over again of their folly. This is certainly true of the nation of Israel. Much of the Old Testament part of the Bible is the story of how God guides them, then they go their own way, then they get into trouble, so God guides them, then they go their own way, and so on. The Old Testament is certainly a testimony to the enduring patience and faithfulness of God! One of the images used in the Bible is that of God being a shepherd and we being the sheep. In biblical times, and in the desert in Israel today, shepherds tend flocks of sheep. The shepherds lead the sheep from one area to another – to food and water. If a sheep wanders off, then the shepherd leaves the flock to go and find the lost sheep. Why? Because it’s dangerous for the sheep if they wander off – there are cliffs and steep valleys that flood with water when it rains. There’s a poem (called a Psalm) in the Bible that says:

The Lord is my shepherd,
so there is nothing I will lack.
He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside quiet waters.
He shall refresh my soul.
He leads me along the right paths for his names sake.

Wandering off the path is a dangerous business and the only way we can stay on the right path is to follow the shepherd. Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd.” I think he is trying to tell us something.

14. Pillow

Iwas fortunate to have prearranged a lift with a schoolteacher with whom I hitched on the way to see the limestone caves at Chillagoe. She picked me up from the house of the old couple for whom I’d being doing some work. We set of and by lunchtime arrived at her home at a place called Mission Beach. She gave me a bed for the night and the next day she agreed to take me with her to Townsville, one of the larger towns on the North Queensland coast. From Townsville I could hitch west to the centre of Australia. During the previous weeks I had spent most nights in backpackers hostels or in cheap hotels costing between $5 and $15 dollars a night. This was getting expensive as I had only limited funds, and I might have to return home, or worse still, I might have to get a job! On the occasions that I could not find a backpackers or hotel I had spent the night in the open with only my sleeping bag for shelter. My sleeping bag could keep me warm down to -10°c which was all very well but in the sub-tropics I might as well have slept in a sauna. However, the sleeping bag was the only barrier between the mosquitoes and me. The sensible long-term cheap solution was to buy a tent. The schoolteacher had a friend who owned a camping shop and I purchased a Microlight tent for $312 along with a better map of Australia. The tent only weighed 1.8kg and I strapped it to the outside of my 30-litre backpack. You may think it odd that I should choose a map of the whole country with a scale of 1:5,000,000 but due to the vast distances between towns in the outback, even towns with a single pub are clearly visible on the map. Before I could put my new tent to the test I decided to spend a couple more nights in a backpackers hostel in the centre of Townsville and explore the town.

I spent three days in Townsville, which turned out to be a great deal less touristy than Cairns. During this time I visited the Great Barrier Reef Aquarium. The aquarium is part of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and is the largest coral reef aquarium in the world. It is the next best thing to diving on the reef but has the advantage of a wide range of creatures in close proximity. The coral reef tank is immense measuring 38 metres long and 17 metres wide. It holds 2,500,000 litres of water and as the coral is living, unlike other aquariums, the animals are not artificially fed. After visiting the aquarium I wandered aimlessly around the town, up Castle Hill and pootled around the shops. I took the opportunity to invest in a pair of sandals to complete the hippy new age traveller look I had adopted.

On my first night in the Townsville hostel I shared a dormitory of three bunk beds, occupied by five other people. By midnight, the noise was quickly becoming unbearable. The heat, the smell and the faint hum of crickets outside the open window I could stand, but not the snoring. You see, lying on bunk number six, directly beneath me was a German bloke who was snoring. Now snoring wouldn’t be so bad on its own if it wasn’t joined by a chorus of tree frogs singing in the toilet, the bowl of the toilet acting as a primitive reverberation unit.

I stared at the ceiling. Twice I’d nearly fallen asleep but it seemed that as I started to drift away the snoring would suddenly get louder or the frogs would start another song. I had tried all the usual tricks to induce sleep, like trying to convince myself that snoring wasn’t an annoying noise and that the buzzing noise, probably caused by a dry bogey in the German’s nose, was actually intriguing. It didn’t work. The more I tried not to listen, the louder the sounds seemed to get. This called for action.

First I coughed quietly. Perhaps the German would wake up slightly and roll over thus stopping his nasal growls. There was no change. I coughed a bit louder. Still no change. I then tried a chain cough, sniff and a groan. Still no change. I leaned over the top bunk, looked at my tormentor and coughed again. Still no change. I gave up and lay back in my bed. My throat was rather sore and I dared not look around in case I had woken anyone else up with all my coughing. The snoring continued, as did the tree frogs. I tried again to get to sleep. It was no use. I would have to do something.

Carefully leaning over the bed, making sure no one in the room was watching (after all I didn’t want to be caught looking like I was going to murder someone), I lowered the pillow down. I tapped the German on the head then quickly withdrew the pillow and lay still on my bed. The plan was that the German would wake, find everything normal and think he’d just had a bad dream and finally stop snoring. It hadn’t worked. I leaned over the top bunk, lowered the pillow and this time gave the German a slightly harder tap on the head before quickly returning to my previous position. Still no change. I tried again. This time I hit the German a bit harder. There was still no change so I took another swipe, then another until I was repeatedly hitting the German on the head with my pillow. Finally I had to give up. I was working up a sweat and my arms were starting to ache. I lay back on the bed and once again stared at the ceiling. Surely the German should have woken? Perhaps I was on candid camera? I chuckled to myself but still the snoring went on. Finally I flipped, and in a half crazed state I jumped out of the bed. With pillow in hand I raised it above my head and slammed it down on the German’s head. At last the German snorted, rolled over and stopped snoring. To my surprise no-one had woken and to my even greater surprise the tree frogs had stopped singing. I climbed back into my bunk, closed my eyes and started to calm down. Suddenly the frogs all started singing in chorus. It was too much for me. I jumped out of bed, ran into the en-suite bathroom, leaned over the toilet bowl and shouted.

“SHHHHUUUUUTTTTTTUUUUUUUPPPPP!!!!!”

The croaking stopped. I stood for a second feeling quite dizzy, not even noticing the wetness on the bathroom floor seeping between my toes. I turned and entered the bedroom. Through the dim moonlight coming from the window I could just about see everyone sat up in bed staring at me.

Anger and contempt are at the root of many of the problems in our world. It is not surprising that Jesus begins his sermon on the hill, recognised as some of the most profound teaching in the history of humanity, by addressing this problem of anger and contempt at fellow human beings. Anger in itself is not a bad emotion. It is a natural reaction to an injustice or more specifically to something contrary to our will. Like pain, anger warns us of something we need to be aware about. If only it stopped there! Anger embraced becomes something evil – that leads to the harm of others and ultimately ourselves. Anger can lead to contempt for others, and if we hold others in contempt then we can justify our anger and abuse of others because, let’s face it, ‘they deserve it’. Imagine a world in which uncontrolled anger and contempt for others did not exist. Really, imagine it. This is the world that Jesus seeks to bring about and it is part of the package that he called the Kingdom of God. However, Jesus didn’t just tell us to stop harbouring anger and stop holding others in contempt. He didn’t just give us a new set of rules that we had to follow. Trying to obey a set of commands is no better than seeking to address the symptoms rather than the cause. No, more than that, Jesus said that we need to get our heart right, then, and only then, will we be a changed people – a people who do not harbour anger and treat others with contempt. Anger and contempt flow out of our hearts and Jesus has the ability to change hearts. That is the key.

15. Roadhouse

Part 1: Heat

After a good days hitching west from Townsville towards the heart of Australia, I decided to pitch my tent early in the evening as I had had enough travelling for one day. I parked my new home behind some bushes about 50 yards from the road and about 200 or so yards from a roadhouse. Roadhouses are petrol stations/food stops between destinations, the distances in the outback being so large.

Now tent ceilings are not the most appealing of sights. Even the country landscape posters that dentists pin above unsuspecting victims who lay in dental chairs are more interesting than tent ceilings. In fact, on a scale of one to ten, tent ceilings rate pretty low down. But to me, a tent ceiling was more than just a line of double stitching holding together ‘waterproofed rip-stop nylon’ splashed with seam-sealant (that, incidentally was put on two minutes after the start of a rainstorm and not the ‘two hours before use’ recommended on the side of the bottle). To me, the tent ceiling was an important part of my home; a barrier against the monsters, hungry mosquitoes and nosy people who think that if they sneak a peek through the zipper they might catch a couple in the throws of passion. However, at this moment in time, my tent ceiling was teaming up with the harsh late afternoon Australian sun to cause a mini greenhouse effect. Within seconds of going inside the tent I was wet through and the heat was beginning to addle my brain. Could my sweat hold a cure for bottie rash? I could collect it and send it to laboratories all over the world and I’d be famous (after all, everybody wants to be famous). And I’d be known as the ‘Sweaty pit kid’ and deodorant manufacturers would sign me up to do adverts, promotions…. Aaaghh!!! Finally, I snapped. I could take the heat, the sweat and the smell of my armpits no longer. I had to have a shower. Bottie rash could wait.

Now there are two major problems attached to the overpowering desire to have a shower in the middle of the dry Australian outback. First, you have to find a shower. This didn’t pose too much of a problem as there was a roadhouse about two hundred yards away, and roadhouses invariably had a shower as one of their facilities. The second problem is the flies because Australian flies are not like British flies. In England, your average bluebottle has inherited some British decency and common sense. In England, if a fly lands on you it thinks, “Hmmm, you’re bigger than me, okay you win,” and then it buzzes off to find another unsavoury morsel. However, in Australia, when a fly lands on you it thinks “Ha! Maybe if I crawl around a bit he’ll try to swot me (that’ll really annoy him), then I’ll fly onto his face to crawl on his lip, then onto his lower eyelid, then I’ll fly by his ears with extra buzz, then onto that sore on his knee for a drink, and to finish off with I’ll do a grand finale of a nostril nibble followed by an earwax hunt and then a final fly-by.” That might just be bearable when one fly does it, but when about two hundred of the little monsters attack, it becomes enough to drive you mildly insane. This is why I was lying in this mini greenhouse thinking of uses for armpit sweat rather than being outside in the fresh air. To keep the flies away, I had considered one of those hats with the corks dangling around the rim but what is worse, the flies, or the corks that permanently bob up and down in front of your eyes? Besides, I’d have looked like the total tourist that I was.

I put on my straw hat and boots, grabbed the plastic bag containing my wash bag and towel and unzipped the tent. Immediately, five-dozen flies flew in and started to annoy. “Oh go away,” I muttered. I quickly grabbed a couple of dollars and made for the roadhouse. The roadhouse was a quiet, solitary place stuck on a lonely highway surrounded by a flat, red, sandy landscape dotted with bristly dead looking bushes; an oasis to the weary traveller, a gold mine to its owner. I often wondered what inspired people to live out here in this rugged country of sun and bull dust (a red dust that refuses to be washed out of clothes). The main highway was a single lane (bordered by bull dust) that sailed off as far as the eye could see to the east and west. A car or truck would pass every twenty minutes or so bringing with it a cloud of dust. Usually the cars would stop for petrol and a cold drink at extortionate prices. Sometimes the drivers would get a cold drink too. A budget traveller like me would have to go into a daze when handing over the several dollars it cost in such a place for a can of Coke, and talking of Coke, I couldn’t resist grabbing one before obtaining the shower key. Small as my brain was, this would use one of the dollars I had on me and would inevitably result in a trip back to the tent afterwards.

The roadhouse consisted of a bar, a petrol station, a campground and a café. The café had a deli counter and a couple of fridges. Because it would only cost a dollar for a glass of Coke in the bar as opposed two the two dollars for a can in the roadhouse, I made for the bar. Drinks in Australian outback bars are served in little glasses that are kept in fridges, and cans and stubbies (bottles) are always served in stubby holders to prevent hands from warming the drink up. All the beer is on ice and it is just as well because at least that way it’s so cold you can’t taste it. You wouldn’t want to. Australians often refer to beer using a common slang term for wee beginning with ‘p’ and ending in ‘s’ and this is rather an apt term for it. Also, every drinking Australian male asks the same question to an Englishman when he meets one. The chap to pose the question on this occasion was wearing the traditional Australian costume of a dirty blue singlet (vest), brown shorts and thongs (flip-flops).

“I heard all you pommies drink ya beer warm in England?” he asked. I was so used to this question that I had my automatic response ready, “No, we don’t drink it warm, we keep it in cellars. No it isn’t kept on ice, it’s too good for that. Yes we do have local breweries. No we don’t refrigerate our glasses and no we don’t have stubbie holders as we don’t leave our beer standing around long enough to let it get warm.” And with that reply, I promptly downed the drink and left the chuckling barman to serving a long distance lorry driver gallon-sized mugs of coffee. Even though I felt a bit guilty about being rude, Australians love it, especially from tourists (especially pommie tourists). The five seconds spent drinking the glass of ice-cold coke were magic and well worth the dollar. Yes of course it was worth a dollar. A dollar. A whole dollar. You see to me, a budget traveller, a dollar is money that when saved with other dollars buys you nights in Youth Hostels and nice luxuries like that. Okay, okay, so I was a stingy person who hated spending money. Anyway, that dollar was gone and that meant the hot sweaty walk back to the tent. The flies (as usual) did their best to annoy and succeeded. This time I grabbed five dollars and before heading back towards the roadhouse, I removed all the dead and dying flies from inside the tent. I’m not sure if they died from heat exhaustion or intoxication from the smell. The walk between the tent and roadhouse wasn’t particularly far but in forty-degrees centigrade it’s hot, very hot, and it feels like a long way. This time, I had five dollars, enough for a drink and a shower. I went straight to the fridge, grabbed a coke and then to the counter.

“May I have the shower key please?” I asked.
“That’s three dollars for the shower, ten dollars for the key deposit and two dollars for the coke,” the lady replied. This was a great deal more money than I anticipated.
“Oh, I forgot my wallet,” I stumbled. The thought of another trip back to the tent didn’t exactly enthral me.
“Oooh, you shouldn’t forget your wallet,” she remarked.
“Thanks,” I said, “for that astounding observation,” I thought.

By this time I was a getting very bad tempered. I paid for the drink and headed back for the tent. I wasn’t half way there and the drink was finished; the Australian sun does that to you. Two dollars for a coke, three dollars for a shower – boy did I hate spending money. Back at the tent, I grabbed my wallet containing all of twenty dollars. Once again I removed the dead flies from the tent and headed back to the roadhouse. I was extremely hot, sweaty and dusty. My Bob Marley singlet was ringing wet from having my forehead wiped on it over and over again. I entered the café, grabbed a can of Coke and went to the deli counter.

“May I have the shower key please?” I asked.
“That’s three dollars for the shower, ten dollars for the key deposit and two dollars for the cola,” she replied.
I kept my witty but thoroughly rude reply to myself. “There you go”, I said, handing over my crisp twenty dollar note.
“That’s three dollars for the shower, ten dollars for the key deposit and two dollars for the cola,” she repeated as she rang it up, “and there’s your five dollars change and the key.”
“Thank-you,” I said, relieved at last to be able to get my shower. I turned and left with the key tied by a chain to a big cork.
“Even the shower key hates flies!” I mused to myself.

Part 2: Shower

The shower was located in the toilet block at the side of the main building. The key (attached to a pink dangling cork) fitted the padlock that I removed. Armed with a can of Coke, my towel (in a plastic bag) and my toiletries in an old sponge bag, I went in.

Now public toilets are not usually the nicest of places. This particular toilet was gross – no, it was grosser than gross. In this toilet, you could only tell the difference between the shower cubicle and the toilet bowl by the height from which the water came out. The walls of the cubicle were bare concrete and some of the tiles that once covered the walls had broken off and were lying in the shower basin itself. There was no shower curtain but there was a rusty pipe sticking out of the wall that served as a towel rail. Unfortunately, my towel was still damp and a little smelly from my last shower (I guess two weeks in a plastic bag is not conducive to drying). The lock on the shower door itself was missing (presumably stolen by a desperate thief) and to save the possibility of displaying my wares to the world, I kept the door shut by wedging the stick of my toothbrush between the door and the frame.

I undressed and sensibly piled my clothes in the farthest corner away from the spray of the shower. I would have put the clothes in the plastic bag if it hadn’t been so damp and smelly, and I was too thick to think of turning the bag inside out and then putting the clothes inside (I only just thought of that). On opening my sponge-bag, I groaned, because I hadn’t noticed when removing my toothbrush that both my toothpaste and shampoo, having been squashed inside my backpack, had leaked over everything.

The cold tap squeaked as I turned it on and I proceeded to wash my razor, soap dish and hairbrush, taking the odd swig from the can of Coke I’d brought with me. I was so involved in this that I failed to notice that the plug-hole wasn’t draining and that soapy, bubbly water had spilled across the floor of the cubicle and out under the door into the toilet. The creeping tide had drenched my clothes and also my towel which, feeling lonely on its pipe and had decided to slip off and join the others in their dip. I quickly shoved the dripping clothes and towel back into the plastic bag and hung it from the rusty broken pipe. I would have hung the items over the door if it hadn’t had several green and black slimy things living on its upper edge.

The plug-hole still needed unblocking. My eyes glanced around for a long thin object – my toothbrush. I unwedged the toothbrush, got on my hands and knees and whilst holding the door shut with one foot, started to wiggle the toothbrush (not the bristly end) in the mass of matted hairs and used soap. This is not the nicest thing to do and the operation lasted some ten uncomfortable minutes before finally the water started to drain – albeit somewhat slowly. The toothbrush was re-wedged in the door and finally I could have my shower. Unfortunately, my soap dish was empty which meant washing with what was left of the shampoo – at least my armpits wouldn’t have dandruff for a while.

I turned on both taps. The hot tap didn’t work. At least it was a hot day so having a cold shower wouldn’t be so bad. The water was cold, but I decided to be a man and I jumped under the spray and took a large mouth full of water. Salt water! Of course, out in the Australian outback water’s a rare commodity and this water was either being pumped the some thirty-to-forty miles from the coast or from a borehole in an extremely saline water table. A salty shower sort of defeats the object of a shower. Salty water leaves you clammy and results in hair that is extremely difficult and painful to run your fingers through, but at least I’d be clean (and totally dandruff free).

After I had washed, I decided to have a shave. Now under normal circumstances this might be okay but with shampoo for shaving cream, a blunt razor and salt water this occasion proved to be a rather painful experience. My face was a carpet of nicks and missed bits (due to the lack of a mirror). The salt water performed its natural duty and disinfected the blood filled nicks which proved extremely painful. However, when the shower was over, I did feel better because I was no longer hot and sweaty. As I was dabbing myself with the damp towel in an attempt to dry myself, I heard voices – female voices – and I was filled with a horrible notion – I was in the Ladies toilet and not the Gents! Now most chaps would have sneaked a peak at the girls or at least marvelled at the knowledge of being one of the few males in history to discover what women talk about when they go to the Ladies together, but not me – to me, being in the Ladies was serious. It was more embarrassing than the time I took off my tracksuit at the local running track not realising I had forgotten to put any shorts on underneath. Anyway, it was a huge risk. Australians don’t think kindly of perverts so I had to escape without being seen. The plan was this. I’d sneak out, lock the door, unlock the gents door and take that padlock back (as is customary at roadhouses – you take the padlock back to get your ten dollars deposit and to stop you stealing the padlock). That way the lady behind the counter would never know.

I dressed and emerged from the shower with my bag of gear without being seen, locked the padlock on the toilet block and then went to the Gents. It was then that I noticed that the Gents padlock was green and that the Ladies padlock was pink and the key didn’t fit the Gents padlock. A wave of horror passed through my body. The only chance to save total embarrassment (and get my deposit back) was to return the pink padlock acting as if I knew nothing and this I duly did. I returned to my tent triumphant! However, after twenty minutes back under the Australian sun, I was hot and sweaty again.

Sometimes things just don’t go to plan. We get fixated on an idea or course of action and, no matter what the consequences, we are determined to get our own way. We use phrases like ‘come hell or high water’ or ‘over my dead body’ – language that invokes the idea that we would rather die than give up.

Some people make the mistake in thinking that Jesus, being in very nature God, found it easy to do the right thing. Not so. In the hours before he was taken to his mock trial – a trial that he knew would end in the death penalty – Jesus prayed, “Lord, if it is possible, get me out of this, yet not what I want but what you want.” In other words, he didn’t want to go through with it, yet he wanted what his Father wanted. It was only through walking the path that God called him to walk – i.e. it was only through going through with it – that proved that he was who he claimed he was – The Messiah, God’s chosen one, The Son of God.

We have two choices in life – to submit to our will or submit to God’s will. God’s will is to establish his kingdom in the world, and when we have a life decision to make, the correct course of action will be the one in which God’s kingdom is established. It should come as no surprise to us that the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples to pray to God has in it the line, “Your kingdom come, your will be done.” However, discerning and following God’s will isn’t always going to be easy. It may take time and prayer. However, God loves us along with all his creation, and his ways are the best ways for us and for all creation. Imagine the consequences if Jesus had not followed God’s will?

So my prayer is that when you are presented with a decision and you are not sure the right direction to go in, seek first God’s kingdom and do your best to discern His will and purpose for you. Following your own will may bring you temporary relief, but like my shower, it will ultimately only lead you to being hot and sweaty again.

16. Termite

I had pitched my tent about 100 yards off the road, just outside the town of Charter’s Towers. The ground was hard and dry, and I had strategically placed small pieces of Rich Tea biscuit several yards from the tent to divert the long columns of ants. The only sound that could be heard in the still, warm night air was the crackling of my small campfire. The sky was free from light pollution and I had never seen so many stars. The Milky Way spread from horizon to horizon and was more beautiful than any view I had ever seen. There was no one for miles around, nothing to disturb me, and for the first time my thoughts were free to reflect on my life. My mind drifted back over the events of the previous few weeks. I had been to Cairns and snorkelled and dived on the Great Barrier Reef. I had danced in nightclubs until I couldn’t stand up any more. I had had a great time, one of the best I had ever had, but my mind wasn’t focused on all the exciting things that had happened. I was thinking about the first time that I had tried hitchhiking.

Within a few minutes of waving my thumb in the air a car that looked brand new, although it was made in the 1970s, rolled up. The car was driven by an elderly gentleman accompanied by his wife. I jumped in the back and we cruised off down the road. The man spoke. He didn’t mention the weather and he didn’t try to mug me. Instead, he asked an odd sort of question.

“Do you know Jesus?” he asked.
“Oh, yes, I know all about Christianity” was my reply.

The man didn’t say another word. It didn’t occur to me at the time that I hadn’t answered his question. The five miles were up very quickly and I jumped out of the car. I was relieved that my first experience of hitchhiking had been so pleasant and that none of the dreadful things I feared had happened.

As I sat by the fire, under those stars, miles from anywhere, I pondered the question; “Do I know Jesus?” Certainly I knew of him. I had even been confirmed in the Anglican Church, some two years before. However, since that time, I had been drifting further away from any sort of belief system and I couldn’t honestly admit to having a definite belief in God. Was there a God? It would be nice to believe in a God, to believe life means something, but which God? Should I believe in the god of Buddha, the god of Mohammed or the god of Jesus? After an hour of thought, I decided. I chose to believe in the God of Jesus, seeing as I already knew something about him, and I stood up, looked up at the heavens and said a prayer out loud.

“God of Jesus…if you’re there…I have chosen to believe in you, but it won’t last unless you show me you exist. Thanks. Amen.”

I waited. The silence was overwhelming and I felt a bit self- conscious about speaking out. There was no voice from the heavens, no burning bush, no audible choirs of angels singing, “Hallelujah, Gavin has chosen to believe in God.” However, I did feel better inside. I suppose now I’d call it peace, but at the time it was just something that felt good. I threw another dry log on the fire, not realising it was the home of several hundred termites that, having an aversion to heat, decided to crawl out of the log and attack the person who had burned their home. As I painfully plucked termites from my legs, I looked up into the starry sky and smiled at my new God. “Thanks,” I said.

17. Rugged

After deciding to follow Jesus, the first thing I started to do was pray. Later on in my journey, as I grew in my relationship with God and learned to hear Him, I would ask when, and when not, to hitchhike. But for now, it was enough for me to pray that God would keep me safe on the road, and to lead me to people he wanted me to meet.

It is quite a trek from the east coast to the centre of Australia and as I waited by the edge of the road another hitchhiker walked towards me. He was an American chap who had been on the road for more than seven years, although this was his first time down under. He said he was going to walk to the next town, Balfes Creek, just 31.5 miles or a day-and-a-half walk away, and for some reason I decided to join him. We figured we might well be picked up on the way. You may think it was quite a strain walking in thirty to forty degree heat with loaded backpacks but it was quite pleasant. As we walked we chatted and we shared backpacking stories. I only had a few weeks worth so they were exhausted after five minutes but he had had one or two interesting experiences in seven years.

He recounted how he had been through the windscreen of a car three times, rescued from the sea twice and how on one occasion in Florida, he had seen a nice lake behind a couple of fences, climbed over and pitched his tent. It was only the next morning that as he walked along the road he realised he had spent the night in a crocodile farm! He told me never to ride with someone drinking. One time he had hitched in a truck with a man who was drunk and the drunk driver swung onto the wrong side of the road on a collision course with an oncoming car. The hitchhiker had grabbed the wheel to avoid a crash and had turned the truck over. Luckily no one was injured but the drunk started to make out that it was the hitchhikers fault and so he legged it.

We pitched our tent in a clearing by the edge of the road and built a small fire. The American pulled a Bible from his backpack and I enquired as to whether he was a Christian. He looked at me as if I had asked a very stupid question and said “Gavin, don’t you think someone has been looking out for me?”

That night as I slept in the middle of nowhere I was woken by a low rumbling sound that was getting louder and louder very quickly. It wasn’t like the sound of anything I had heard before and I bolted upright in the complete darkness of my tent. Something was coming nearer. I had never heard such a frightening sound – like the world was caving in. A crashing, rumbling sound and it felt like my head was between the blades of a combined harvester. I began to sweat all over. It was almost on top of us. I ran out of the tent into the darkness to meet my doom and met the American doing the same thing. The air was filled with the sound as it came nearer and nearer, and then, only yards away I made out the hulking silhouette of a large freight train as it passed. We had pitched our tents right next to the railway tracks and hadn’t even noticed. For such a simple thing, it left me pretty shaken, I can tell you.

The next day, we made it to Balfes Creek, and it consisted of a roadhouse and campground. We decided to wait here for a lift and we ate one meal a day at the roadhouse. Why only one meal a day? The portions in this place were so large that on one occasion a long distance lorry driver had his plate delivered to his table and told the cook to take it back and take off some of the food!

After three-and-a-half days of waiting a local farmer picked us up. He invited us to stay the night at his ranch near a town called Prairie. We agreed. The farmer and his wife had a 40,000-acre property that was apparently quite small compared to their last farm in the Northern Territory that was 250,000 acres! They lived in a beautiful homestead surrounded by lush green trees and lawns – an oasis in the brown countryside. When we got there the farmer had discovered that his freezer had been left open and all the food had defrosted, so for dinner we feasted on prawns and other delicacies. That evening a roo-shooter came to the door. His ute had a frame on the back with dozens of hooks on which to hang the dead kangaroos. Roo-shooters sell the meat and skins to make a living. Since the farmers began to pump groundwater into water holes for the cattle, the number of kangaroos the land could support had risen and the kangaroos required culling.

The next day, the American and I helped the rancher on his farm. We chased a bull across country in a jeep to drive it back into the pen from which it had escaped. The jeep had tyres strapped to the front bumper so that the rancher could ram bulls when they needed to be caught. Thankfully we didn’t need them on this occasion. As we raced over the terrain chasing the bull, startled Emus scattered and ran into the undergrowth. It was quite an experience. After rounding up the bull we cleaned out water troughs and in one waterhole, a drowned kangaroo needed removing. I remember the stench from the bloated carcass and all the skin slipping off the tail as the rancher tried to pull it from the water. It was enough to make you yack.

After leaving Prairie, the American and I parted ways as I secured a lift with a large oil truck. At the next town I decided to disembark, forgoing a lift to the mining town of Coober Pedy, to see the skeleton of a local legend – the mutabutasaurus dinosaur. My guidebook assured me it was the thing to see and I wandered into the museum, wandered around the dinosaur skeleton, and then wandered out again. The dinosaur skeleton was the museum’s only exhibit! To boost the local economy I bought a postcard of the large, unexciting, brown beast. The whole visit had taken 10 minutes and so I made my way back onto the road to catch another lift.

In the space of a few days I had experienced such a range of emotions. The fear of strange sounds in the dark, the thrill of feasting on prawns and steak, the excitement of chasing bulls in a jeep, the disgust of disposing of dead kangaroos, the disappointment of a museum with a single brown exhibit. Yet, this journey had led me to meet a wandering hobo, a rugged farmer, a roo-shooter, and a long-distance lorry driver – a pretty rugged and down-to-earth bunch – people who some would not consider to be spiritual types. Yet, when Jesus chose his disciples, he didn’t pick a lawyer, a teacher, a councillor and a vicar, no, he picked labourers, fishermen and tax collectors – a pretty rugged and down-to-earth bunch. Makes you think doesn’t it?

18. Wait

Sitting on a rucksack by the edge of the road, in forty degree heat, waiting for cars that drive past once every twenty minutes, calls for a certain kind of insanity. I must have been totally insane, for despite the boredom, heat, and inescapable flies, I enjoyed having time alone. I had time to ponder many things such as God, the meaning of life, and how the contestants managed to float above each other in University Challenge.

When I wasn’t deep in thought, I whiled away the time by playing games such as ‘How many pieces of broken glass can I find in the one square yard next to my rucksack,’ and sometimes I would play noughts and crosses with myself, but the grit made my fingers dirty and I never won a game. An old favourite pastime was to see if I could land three stones on the white line in the centre of the road, but this had the undesirable effect of turning the road into a shooting gallery every time a car whistled past. The last resort was to see how many stones and pieces of grit I could prize from the soles of my boots with the mysterious, long, spiky attachment found on Swiss Army knives, and when this ceased to amuse me, I became vulnerable to an unstoppable onslaught of ‘hitchers juggle’.

Hitchers juggle is a progressive and addictive complaint common only to hitchhikers. It starts with the picking up of three stones, throwing them up in the air and watching them fall to the ground between splayed hands. The hitchhiker then repeats this process over and over again, often forgetting to hail cars with his or her total mental involvement and concentration. It is even possible to tell how long a hitchhiker has been hitchhiking by how well his or her juggling has developed. Indeed, some of the more experienced hitchhikers even obtain lifts by their roadside performance. However, I was useless. My juggling couldn’t even get the attention of a cute six-year-old girl trying to be polite for three seconds. Perhaps that is why I sat waiting for so long.

Hitchhikers use many different techniques to persuade car drivers to stop and pick them up. Some limp, juggle, do cartwheels, and even hold up bunches of flowers. I tried my own methods of entertainment but few car drivers seemed interested in my card tricks. However, it is true to say, that on occasion, even though this must sound unbelievable, I missed a car because I was so engrossed in waiting.

Sometimes in life we are forced to wait. We live in a culture that hates to wait. How many times have you been in a queue in a shop or supermarket, exchanging looks with people in other checkout lanes – glancing at their lanes to see if they are moving quicker or slower than the lane you chose? We don’t like it if we drive into a petrol station and all the pumps are being used. It means we will have to wait. Waiting on an individual level is bad enough, but what if you are part of a whole nation who is waiting? Two thousand years ago, the Jewish nation was waiting. They were waiting for someone to pitch up who would lead them out of the iron grip of the Romans, and someone who would be a great prophet from God – who would teach with great wisdom and accompany his teaching with miraculous signs. In the meantime, as they waited, they did their best to follow the religious law. In fact some of them became so engrossed in obeying the religious law that when the Messiah or Christ – God’s ‘anointed one’ came, they missed him altogether. Sounds unbelievable doesn’t it?

19. Leap

Icontinued to hitch west, getting a ride with a tool salesman to Julia Creek. By the time I got there it was dark and I ended up camping in a field of small thorny plants – ouch! The next morning, I managed to hitch a lift in a station wagon with a couple of Swiss girls to the chimney-dominated mining town of Mt. Isa.

In 1923, a gold prospector called John Cambell Miles discovered one of the world’s largest deposits of copper, silver, lead and zinc in this arid part of northwest Queensland. He named the place Mt. Isa, and today, the Mt. Isa mine is still Australia’s biggest producer of copper ore. The two girls and I decided to have a mooch around the mining museum before continuing west. After a long drive, we eventually made it to Three Ways, the junction of the road going north and south through the centre and the road from the east.

Three ways is a mecca for hitchhikers and there is a clear pecking-order, with the person who has been there the longest, taking up the first place on the edge of the road, and so on. After waiting for a couple of days, I managed to get a lift north from Three Ways to a place called Mataranka with some German tourists in their orange VW camper van.

About 10km east of the town of Mataranka lies the Mataranka Resort. This is built around a thermal pool and is surrounded by green cabbage tree palms. The thermal pool is fed by an underground hot spring that has formed a warm, clear, blue lagoon with sandy bottom. We plunged into the water and swam. Beautiful. I hardly noticed the small scratch on my knee, something I would regret not dealing with at the time. This scratch developed into a tropical sore – an open, oozing wound about the size of a milk bottle lid that refused to heal. Flies would land on it trying to take a drink, and I ended up having to find a medical centre and dowse the wound in iodine every day until it eventually healed. How icky is that?

From Mataranka, I hitched north to Katherine and then on to Katherine Gorge. Katherine Gorge, known also by the Aboriginal name Nitmiluk, winds for 12km with walls that tower over 70 metres high. It is a wonderful place to walk and swim. I decided to embark on a two-day walk along one of the many winding trails. I loaded my rucksack up with supplies of canned food and set off. After an hour or three, I realised that a dozen cans of food were very, very heavy, and so I sat down and ate the lot in one go, making myself feel thoroughly ill. However, my rucksack was now much lighter. I found a small watering hole in one of the gorges and decided to stay put for a day or two. Besides, it was a beautiful place and too hot for walking.

The amount of wildlife was astonishing. I swam in the waterhole but kept on having to shoo away the fish that would swarm around me and kept on pecking at my legs, arms and other appendages. During one afternoon, I went quietly exploring up a side stream in the hope of seeing a fresh-water crocodile. I was surprised when a creature charged out of the undergrowth and plunged into the water. It was just a blur, but I’m pretty sure it was a crocodile. In the early morning, I opened my tent to see a dingo trotting past, and two large red kangaroos hopping away.

I hitched from Katherine Gorge back to Katherine with two old ladies and decided to wash my dusty clothes in the laundrette. I wanted to wash all my clothes in one go and I received one or two stares as I sat in the laundrette in my boxer shorts.

I began hitching north and before long got a lift with some lads who were on a road-trip themselves. On our way we stopped at Edith Falls, a pretty spot with a waterfall and pools for swimming. It was a hotspot for travellers and there were quite a few of us spending a day or two there. At one edge of the main pool was a cliff face. As we lounged and splashed, one of the girls told us that yesterday, a French guy had jumped into the pool from the top of the cliff. We looked up. It sure did look a long way. Now I don’t know if it was a mixture of trying to impress my fellow travellers, English pride at being beaten by the French, or plain stupidity, but before I knew it, the words spilled out of my mouth, “I’ll do it.”

I climbed out of the pool and made my way to the top of the cliff. I’m not sure how high the cliff was as I’m not good at judging distances but it was high enough for no one else to be having a go – perhaps 100ft? I made it to the top and peered over the edge. Far below, everyone was watching. Adrenaline must have been pumping through my veins as without thinking I launched myself into the air. The fall was quick and then I hit the water. Water shot up through my nostrils and my feet actually stung from the impact. I emerged triumphant to the sound of cheers from my companions. I was a hero. England was victorious! Why, oh why didn’t I leave it there? I challenged the other lads to have a go but they all chickened out. I declared that it was easy, and to prove it, I would do it again. Dearie me.

I began to climb the cliff again. I would show them how brave I was. I was Gavin Tyte, adventurer and cliff jumper. I made it to the top and peered over the edge. However, this time my head began to swim. It was an awfully long way down. Somehow it seemed higher than before. Memories of being a kid quavering at the edge of the high diving board at my local swimming pool filled my mind. Rather than feeling a rush of adrenaline, I felt a rush of fear. My heart hammered in my rib cage and my feet wouldn’t move an inch. I was paralysed to the spot. I backed away from the edge, sat down on the rock and slowly picked my way down the cliff again. What on earth was I thinking? I felt a surge of relief when I was once again at the bottom and the shaking finally subsided. Everyone was looking at me.

It’s amazing how brave you feel when you’re with other people isn’t it? There’s a bit in the Bible that I always failed to understand. Jesus has this disciple called Peter, and all the way through the story, it is Peter who is the most confident and brave. It is Peter who speaks first, volunteers first, and has a go first. In the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus is arrested and it is Peter who draws a sword to defend him – having previously sworn to die with him. Yet, just a short time later, after Jesus has been arrested, it is Peter who three times denies he knows Jesus. What is all that about? How come this confident follower of Jesus suddenly loses all confidence? The answer is, that he was no longer in the presence of the one who made him strong. Circumstances simply overwhelmed him. It is my prayer that when we find ourselves facing situations beyond our control, when we feel alone or afraid, that we will be brave enough to look beyond ourselves for strength and depend on the one who promises never to leave us or forsake us.

20. Clash

From Edith Falls, I continued to hitch north, and just before dark, I hitched a ride with a guy driving an old, beaten-up, brown station wagon. He said he was driving over night because he wanted to get to Darwin to see a Midnight Oil concert. I jumped in and off we cruised. As we sped along the empty road, he lit up a bong made out of an empty coke can and began to smoke marijuana. At each bend the car would swerve onto the dusty verge and I prayed that there would be no cattle on the road. However, the next morning we arrived in Darwin safe and unharmed.

Darwin is the capital city of the Northern Territory, originally a pioneer outpost, it is now a large town and home to over 100,000 people. I toured around the city centre, visiting various attractions including ‘Aquascene’, a fish feeding where visitors watch three feet long ocean milkfish being fed. Despite the temptation to whip out my fishing rod, I took heed of the sign warning of the $1000 penalty for fishing! I’m not a big fan of cities and so I left Darwin and headed for Kakadu National Park. I hitched as far as AnnaBurroo and went for a swim in the croc-free Annaburroo Billabong. I camped the night by the billabong and the next day hitched to Kakadu.

Kakadu National Park is an enormous state park some 200km long and about 100km wide. It is owned by the Aboriginal people and leased to the Australian government to be used as a national park. It is a major tourist attraction in Australia, but it is possible to get off the beaten track, especially if you hitchhike. On entering the park I purchased a visitor guide and a local newspaper and read them from start to finish. I was particularly intrigued with a line in the Visitor Guide that advised me not to harass the saltwater crocodiles. Good idea.

Whilst in Kakadu, I managed to hitch a ride with one of the park rangers to Ubirr Rock to see some more cave drawings. The ranger was responsible for all the oil-fired electricity generators across the park. He was checking on a generator in an Aboriginal settlement called Cannon Hill. We arrived in the settlement and it was pretty basic – the accommodation being comprised of three tin sheds. There were a few guys mooching around and I saw a goat and a few pigs. Then, I noticed that on top of one of the sheds was a satellite dish. I asked the ranger what it was for and he told me it was so they could watch satellite television. They also got crates of beer delivered. Apparently this was how they spent the money given to them by the government for leasing the land. We went out of the park and into Arnhem Land, the Aboriginal land that is off-limits to tourists. The border between Kakadu and Arnhem Land is defined by an immense escarpment full of gorges. The ranger showed me the spot where a fisherman was snatched by a crocodile in front of a bus load of tourists.

Here was a clash of cultures. Perhaps the Aborigines had the best of both worlds; the privacy and beauty of their own land, with the best of Western culture, namely television and alcohol? However, I couldn’t help but think that they were being grossly short-changed. I left the village with a very unsettled feeling. This wasn’t another group of animals to be fed and watered, but a people who deserved love and respect. It reminded me of how we have impressed our culture on other cultures over the years and the native Australians are no exception. It was quite permissible to shoot a native Australian who ventured onto ‘white’ land until relatively recently. What is that all about? Thankfully, today, all Australians – both black and white – are taking very seriously the heritage and ongoing care of the native people. I hope it is not too late.

21. Crocodile

Northern Australia is home to the saltwater crocodile or ‘saltie’. An average male saltie is between 4 and 5 metres long and is potentially a very dangerous animal. Increased tourism in the Northern Territory is putting more humans in close proximity to these reptilian monsters. Although attacks are rare, they do happen.

I picked up a copy of the Northern Territory News and that very week there had been two saltwater crocodile attacks. In the first incident, a woman had been snatched from her tent by a 4.5 metre long crocodile. Her husband chased it, poked it in the eyes and it let go of her. Amazingly, she survived the attack. In the second attack, a crocodile had snatched a man from the side of a river. Again, he managed to escape. Reading about these attacks freaked me out so much that I decided I needed to take precautions, and so I made a mental note not to read any more newspapers.

Despite being home to over 10,000 crocodiles, Kakadu is a great place to explore. There are stunning vistas, billabongs, waterfalls and walks. I had a great time visiting the sites and watching the wildlife. On one afternoon I managed to view the landscape from the co-pilot’s seat of a Cessna airplane.

There is good fishing in the park too with the mighty barramundi being the prized quarry. One man I hitched with was on his way to a ranger station to report being chased by a crocodile. He was fishing in one of the billabongs and his lure got snagged on a fallen tree trunk that was leaning down into the water. He climbed down the trunk to retrieve his lure and was chased back up it by a crocodile. I couldn’t imagine that the rangers would be impressed. The visitor guide warned visitors not to harass the crocodiles and this definitely sounded like crocodile harassment to me.

I was in Kakadu at the end of the dry season. At that time of year, water is scarce and all the wildlife gathers at the permanent water holes. I took a boat trip on Yellow Water and I have never seen so much wildlife in one place. The water teamed with huge catfish, barramundi and smaller fish. Snakes and monitor lizards roamed the banks. Innumerable crocodiles sank slowly as the boat approached. The bird life was incredible. We saw jabirus, cranes, sea eagles, herons, kingfishers, magpie geese, and flocks of budgies, shags, and snakebirds. We even saw a sea eagle trying to steal snake from jabiru.

On one of the nights in the park, I camped by the edge of a billabong. Two rangers stopped by at dusk with flashlights. I asked them what they were doing and they told me that they were counting the crocodiles in this particular billabong. They told me that despite there being a couple of crocodiles that were just four metres long, they re-assured me that I was quite safe due to the steep bank. I’m not sure if they were having me on, but that night was quite possibly the worst nights sleep I experienced in Australia. In the quiet of the night, I could hear loud splashes in the water and I half expected to end up as a secret midnight snack at a reptilian pyjama party.

Spending time in the Northern Territory gave me a new respect for the pecking order in God’s creation. With all our technology and civilisation, it is easy for us to become complacent and think that human beings are somehow superior and untouchable. The fact is that our soft, pink bodies are vulnerable – not just to crocodiles, but to disease, accidents and other forces of nature. We live in a world where chaos exists – the chaos of suffering and pain. God’s plan, since the very beginning, has been to bring order out of chaos and we are to be part of that plan. I’m not sure about the wisdom of trying to bring order to a large, toothy saltwater crocodile, but it’s a good reminder that the process is not yet complete!

22. Private

As I hitchhiked through Kakadu National Park I managed to get a lift with some guys in their four-wheel drive. They were looking for Aboriginal artwork and were going bushwalking from a place called Graveside. Graveside was a 21⁄2 hour off-road drive from the main road (then a dirt road) through the park. The track was rough going as we made our way through the bush, passing giant termite mounds that stood like miniature mountains against the flat dusty ground.

Eventually we made our way to the trailhead and parked under a canopy of trees next to a quiet billabong filled with exotic looking fish. The walkers were setting off in one direction but informed me that if I followed the stream for a day or two, I would eventually come to some Aboriginal drawings. You might think it a bit mad of me to set off on my own, but I did tell them where I was going and assured them I wasn’t going to wander from the trail. Saying that, if anything did happen, it would be unlikely that anyone would find me. Okay, okay, in retrospect, it was a daft thing to do. Oh yes, did I mention that I had no food? There was plenty of water though as I was following the stream.

So, off I set, up the stream, keeping a watchful eye-out for water buffalo. Their enormous pats littered the trail, and I half expected to meet a large horned beastie at any moment. As I walked I had the companionship of a few dozen flies that continually buzzed my head. The trail wound slowly upwards through the rocky terrain as it followed the stream. It was beautifully still, warm and sunny and much of the trail was in the shade of bushes, trees and rocky outcrops.

After several hours of walking I came to a large open area with a series of cascades and waterfalls. Each waterfall emptied into huge pools wide enough to swim in. I cannot do justice to the beauty of this place. I have never seen such clear water. At the bottom of the pools were large round pebbles, so deep down that there was no way I could dive and reach the bottom. It was stunning. One pool even fed another from underground. It was the largest set of swimming pools I have ever seen and not a soul in sight. I immediately stripped off and dived in, taking large gulps of sweet cool water as I swam. Here was a little bit of heaven.

After a swim, I donned my clothes and backpack and began to climb up the cliff around the waterfall. I was about 20ft up when suddenly I was falling backwards and I splashed into the water below with my backpack breaking the fall. I managed to swim back to the edge unharmed. I don’t remember what happened. I just lost my grip. The short fall sobered me up and I chastised myself for not being more careful. I re-climbed the cliff and continued to make my way along the trail by the stream.

I camped in the bush for the night and the next day I walked a few more kilometres and came to some largish caves, more like rocky overhangs. I made my way into the largest cave and there above me were Aboriginal drawings, lots of Aboriginal drawings. The artwork was reddish-brown against the rock. I sat down, feeling a deep sense of awe that these drawings were thousands of years old. However, as I looked at them, I could not make out what they were. There were two predominant symbols. Something that looked like an elongated ‘n’ and something that looked like an ‘o’ with a vertical line through the middle. They covered the walls in all sorts of shapes and sizes. I sat and stared, trying to make out what they were. Were they some kind of animal, or perhaps some sort of ancient spirit? Surely they must be drawings imbued with significant meaning. An hour or so passed and then it dawned on me what I was looking at. Genitals. Yes, I was looking at 30,000-year-old drawings of willies and foo-foos. Dozens of them.

I smiled and chuckled to myself. Here was I, someone who had travelled for a day through rough terrain, braving wild animals and waterfalls, to see ancient artwork and I was looking at Aboriginal privates. I imagined a couple of guys sitting under this overhang whilst it rained outside, drawing on the walls, one saying, “No mate, mine is this big,” and his mate saying, “Yeah, well mine is this big.”

That night, I pitched my tent on a flat rock near the cave. The night was very dark, pitch black even, and in the dead of night I was awakened by what sounded like a cough and the sound of bare footsteps pattering on the rock outside my tent. Who would be here in the dead of night, miles and miles from anywhere? After feeling a little freaked out, I eventually drifted back to sleep.

In the morning, I emerged from my tent. There was no one around and no sign that anyone had been there. I packed up my belongings and set off back down the trail. I was a little disappointed that I hadn’t seen any more spectacular artwork, and for some reason a small side canyon caught my eye. I decided to explore and ventured up the canyon, scrabbling over rocks and through the undergrowth. It didn’t look promising until I noticed a small cave up on the canyon wall – just large enough for one person to shelter in. I made my way up to it, peered inside and looked upwards. There, on the roof of this small overhang was painted a white kangaroo. It was beautiful, and on that day, at that time, it was my discovery. I was thrilled. I made my way back to the trailhead and after a couple of days of relaxing by the billabong, I hitched back out with a couple of travellers.

We like to think we’re so cultured don’t we, that somehow we are more civilised than people living 30,000 years ago? Where I live back in England, the walls have graffiti too. I guess people don’t change much do they?

23. Food

Jesus said, “I am the bread of life.”

From Graveside, I hitched to Katherine with a guy driving an impressive looking Toyota Landcruiser. He was also driving up to Darwin and he offered me a lift. It was nearing dusk and he said he knew a great spot to camp, and so before nightfall we veered off the main road and found a quiet place by a river to pitch our tents. He built a small fire and asked me if I liked Thai food. I nodded but looked at him quizzically – it wasn’t as if we were near any takeaways. He laughed and produced a huge cooler containing plastic cartons stuffed full of all sorts of delicious dishes, and a few cans of ice-cold beer. He explained that his wife was Thai, a beautiful lady, and a great cook. As we sat by the fire, stuffing our faces, I had to agree, she was a most excellent cook! I had certainly landed on my feet with this lift.

In the glow of the fire, we chatted about life and I discovered that my host was the manager of the Darwin Casino. I was intrigued to find out more about the inner workings of the casino and so I plied him with questions. He explained how the casino would fly in rich Japanese businessmen who would play the tables. The businessmen would typically spend a million or two dollars, and if they won, they would ‘clear out’ the casino. “How do you make money then?” I asked.

“Slot machines. We make all our money on the slots,” he replied.

After the good meal, we retired to our tents, not before using a long stick to flick away an oversized hairy spider from the side of my tent! I slept well, until in the early hours of the morning I woke to a loud noise and headlights shining into the tent. The driver of a huge water tanker had chosen this place to refill his tank with water. The noise was horrendous and it took hours. So much for this being an idyllic place to camp.

Early the next morning, Mr. Manager went for a swim in the river .

“Aren’t there crocodiles in there?” I asked. “Yep,” he replied as he dived in.
I guess he was a gambler too.

A friend of mine recently told me, “I don’t care what my friends get up to, as long as they don’t hurt anyone and they’re happy.” It seems the pursuit of happiness is the goal for many people. Yet, many of the poorest in our Western society are so much better off than their African counterparts. Are they any happier? It appears that human beings crave happiness, and we cram things into our life to fill the emptiness we feel. Some of us pursue money, others pursue sex, others alcohol, marriage, work, the environment, kids, and so on. But do these things really, if we are brutally honest with ourselves, give us long-lasting happiness and satisfy the total inner contentment that we crave?

The casino in Darwin is full of people losing their money to slot machines, in the hope that one-day they will strike lucky and get rich. The lottery slogan, ‘It could be you’ is an empty promise. A friend of mine made his first million by the age of 30 and by 35 was a multi-millionaire. That was his goal, his aim in life. Later that year, he had an affair and broke his wife’s heart. The money didn’t satisfy and he looked for something else to fill the gap.

Jesus said something outrageous. He said, “I am the bread of life.” What could he mean?

24. Vomit

Ihitched all the way from Katherine to Broome with an ex- policeman in a white VW combo van. The van had been christened ‘Bush Pig’ in large black letters on the side. The policeman had served in Northern Ireland and had left the force after his name had been found on an IRA hit list. He met up with some other British friends in Broome and I tagged along in search of fun.

Broome is a strange place. Isolated on the northwest corner of Australia it is a stopping ground for all travellers making their way around the west coast. It is also the base-camp for tourists wanting to explore the Kimberley’s – an area of outstanding natural beauty. On one occasion I had in my possession (can’t think why) a copy of the Beano comic. Rather than throwing it away, I decided to give it to a young boy who was sitting next to his mother on a park bench. The boy politely said, “no thank-you’” and the mother said, “ooh, yes please”, grabbed the comic from me and started reading.

Broome is notorious for sucking money and time from unsuspecting victims. I met with one chap who called his wife to tell her he was passing through Broome and that he, ‘might be some time’. The wife apparently accepted this excuse as perfectly normal. The locals call this phenomenon ‘Broome- Time’. I was no exception. In one week I managed to spend $300 of my precious cash, be involved in a bar brawl and degrade myself publicly. Want to know more? Alright then…

Life in Broome seemed to slip into an all-too-easy pattern. I would pitch my tent on the beach, wake when the sun rose, laze around on the beach drinking Coca-Cola and eating ice- creams. By midday, when the sun was at it’s hottest, I would retire to the resort (opposite the beach) and soak myself in the resort pool, drinking cans of VB (Victoria Bitter). When evening came, I and my companions would visit the Roebuck Inn, a notorious establishment where the furniture was either missing or nailed down to prevent its use in bar fights. Every night the pub would have drinking competitions and these were free to enter because usually they couldn’t find anyone fool enough to participate. The winnings were usually bottles of alcohol. After the pub had closed I would find my way back to the beach and ‘crash out’.

After several days of this life-style the crunch point came. During the afternoon I had been asked back to an Aussie girls house – she assured me that her husband was away. What kind of people was I hanging around with? I refused and decided to head down to the pub with my companions. That evening at the Roebuck Inn I participated in one particularly nasty drinking game. Two contestants had to drink a can of lager, eat a large burger with the lot (egg, bacon, pineapple, cheese, beetroot and salad) and then drink a whole jug of lager in the fastest time possible. Of course I came second. My adversary brought his burger up twice as fast as it went down thus being able to have room for the jug of beer. Anyway, I got some free beer and a free feed. After a couple less demanding games our team of Brits entered the last competition, a ‘boat race’ where we had to down cans of beer one at a time. Our team came first and we won a bottle of rum. The whole team by this time was feeling a little worse for wear. The pub closed and we stumbled out of the pub. As we did this, a group of Aboriginal women decided that they wanted our rum and started yelling at us. One of them threw a rock and clocked one of our chaps just above the eye. Blood started to pour out and the only option was to pile into ‘Bush Pig’ and drive to the hospital. Apparently I was voted the most sober person to drive so I took the wheel. The others all fell unconscious in the back of the van. Broome is a small town and I figured that if I drove around long enough I would eventually find the hospital. I’m not sure how long I drove for, but this was an emergency. I didn’t even stop when I expelled a burger-with-the-lot out of the van window. Finally, I saw the hospital and we pulled over. The gang piled out and collapsed on the lawn in front of the entrance. A nurse came and took our injured man inside. As she did this the police arrived. They asked who was the owner of the vehicle and we pointed to my policeman friend who was unconscious on the floor. We explained what had happened and for some reason they let me drive us all back to the beach once we had collected our man, who now had stitches above his eye.

That evening I decided not to pitch my tent on the beach but pitched it on the green lawn of the park next to the beach. I fell into a deep slumber until about 5am when the sprinklers came on to water the lawn. A jet of water squirted right into my tent and hit me in the face. This was my wake-up call. I decided to leave Broome that very day.

There’s a saying in the Bible that “a dog returns to it’s own vomit”. I think this is the most disgusting saying but it accurately captures something of the degrading behaviour to which some of us stoop. Here was I, someone who had chosen to give his life to Jesus, getting into drunken fights and driving under the influence of alcohol. I had slipped back into old habits – and it had only taken a couple of weeks. Like a dog, I had returned to my own vomit. It wasn’t the first, and it wouldn’t be the last time this would happen. I had also spent several hundred dollars in the process. I felt like a fraud. Perhaps I was a lost cause? Would God give up on me? Only time would tell.

25. Spine

On the way back from Broome on the west coast, hitching east, I visited the largest permanent lake in Australia. Being a keen fisherman I wanted to try my hand at the large Lake Argyll catfish. To cater for my habit, I carried a two-piece fishing rod around with me that was strapped to my backpack. I also carried a reel and a small selection of end tackle.

I walked from the small hotel through the barren, rocky landscape down to the waters edge. The water level in the lake rises and falls a huge distance depending on the rains and there was no permanent jetty although a floating jetty was moored at the end of a long, steep and winding driveway. When I reached the bottom of the driveway there were people swimming in the lake and a couple of people fishing off a solitary moored boat. I begged some bacon fat from a fellow angler and cast my baited line from the end of the jetty. It was nearing evening and one by one the people departed leaving me to fish alone. I decided to stay after dark in the hope of catching a bigger fish.

It was a beautiful scene. The lake was illuminated by the stars and I had already caught a couple of small fish. The end of my rod twitched and I was into another fish. After a minute or two I had landed a good sized catfish. Okay, I admit it was only a couple of pounds in weight. Lake Argyll catfish have been known to reach 90lbs or more! I held the catfish carefully 106

but it struggled and one of the needle-sharp, poisonous, barbed spines at the tip of its gills plunged deep into the flesh between the thumb and first finger of my left hand. It was impossible to get the spine out due to the barb. It had gone in deep and the fish was still attached. I had to remove the hook from the mouth of the fish whilst it continued to send the spine in deeper. After much pulling, the spine came out but the end had snapped off and was deeply embedded. I tossed the fish back and to keep the hook out of harms way, still with a bit of bacon fat attached, I dangled it over the edge of the jetty. The pain was excruciating as the poison started to spread. Blood was pouring out of the wound. I washed my hand in the water and dug around in my rucksack for a T-shirt I could use as a bandage. Blood was dripping from the wound and I had to wash the wound again before I could tightly wrap the bandage around it. Just as I was about to tie the knot I heard a scraping sound and turned to see my rod being dragged off the jetty and into the water. I jumped off the jetty into the 15ft deep, pitch-black water with my right hand outstretched to grab the rod butt. Somehow I managed to grab hold of the rod complete with fish tugging on the line. I swam back to the jetty and climbed out. Totally drenched, I wound the catfish in and successfully unhooked it. My left hand was screaming with pain. As I tossed the fish back into the water I saw my hat in the water and it slowly began to sink. There was no way I was diving in after an old straw hat.

I decided to leave my hook well out of the water. I’d had enough fishing for one night. I pulled my sodden wallet from the pocket of my soaking shorts. All the dollar bills were wet and I laid them out on the jetty to dry. Blood still poured from my left hand and I wrapped the bandage tighter. It was now late at night and the hotel was a good half-an-hour walk from the jetty. I would have to camp for the night. As I packed up my rod and money a large cloud of mosquitoes descended from nowhere and started to whine and bite my head, neck and arms. By this time I was starting to feel pretty miserable with the pain, the wetness, losing my hat and now the mozzies who had decided to eat me for dinner. I picked up my backpack with my right arm and squelched my way back up the steep driveway.

I pitched my tent on a flat area at the top of a small hill overlooking the lake. The site was rocky so I pinned my tent down with large stones. My hand was hurting so much it was starting to worry me. I hung my wet clothes over the top of the tent and climbed inside. There was no way I was going to sleep and I sat clutching my wrist. My fingers were going numb and the pain was getting worse. I could feel the poison spreading throughout my hand and the excruciating pain was complemented by a throbbing ache. I was getting really worried. How far would the poison go? Would I be able to summon help at midnight? It was the worst pain I had ever felt and no amount of praying seemed to help. At 1am the pain had stopped getting any worse and by 3am the pain had subsided enough for me to start contemplating sleep. The bleeding had also stopped and I managed to sleep between stabs of pain.

I woke at about 8.30am and I had to pack up quickly as I was in clear view of anyone passing. I had camped on private land. The pain had subsided but my hand continued to ache. I was feeling miserable and ravenously hungry. I removed the bandage and cleaned the area of dried blood with saliva. The wound hurt to touch as there was a small amount of catfish spine still inside. I couldn’t see anything and it was too deep to dig or prise out so it would have to stay. I figured it would eventually dissolve (actually if I squeeze the skin between my thumb and forefinger I can still feel that same aching pain today). I made my way down the hill and walked to the hotel in search of breakfast. I sat down in the empty dining hall and ordered a cooked breakfast. I satisfied my hunger on a measly portion padded out with a couple of rounds of toast. The bill came and I was told I could pay for it at the reception. The bill was enormous. It was more than I would ever pay for breakfast. It came to $11.75. I walked to the reception area. There was no one around. A couple were just leaving and without thinking I asked them for a lift. They agreed and I went out with them, got in the back of their car and we drove off.

I hadn’t paid for breakfast. I had had such a bad night that I felt entitled to it. But I wasn’t. It wasn’t until were a couple of hours down the road that I remembered I was supposed to be a Christian. I felt very guilty. I had stolen something. I prayed for forgiveness and admitted my sin. Why did I do it?

It’s easy to let circumstances give us an excuse to behave in a certain way. We often say we are sorry but we excuse our actions by beginning sentences with, “But I…” But I was stressed, but I was in pain, but I was on my own, but I had been waiting, but I was worried, but I… The key word that should get our alarm bells ringing is the word ‘I’. To a Christian, sin is putting ourselves first – before God. There is no excuse for doing or saying wrong things. We have no one else to blame but ourselves. I had had a terrible night. I stole food.

“I’m sorry God, but… but… but nothing. I’m sorry.”

26. Sign

When someone mentions ‘good’ and ‘fishing spot’ in the same sentence, my ears, like two satellite dishes, immediately swivel round and home in on the conversation. After my experience at Lake Argyll, I bought some bacon to use as bait and hitched directly to Ivanhoe Crossing to have a go at catching Northern Australia’s most famous fish – the barramundi.

Ivanhoe Crossing is on the old Kununurra and Wyndham road where it fords the Ord River. When the river is not in flood, four-wheel drive vehicles can cross on a concrete causeway. The causeway acts a little like a dam, and on one side, the river is deep and smooth, and on the other, it cascades down over the edge of the causeway in a froth of white water. Pillars along the edge of the causeway make for some nice seats to fish from.

In my eagerness to fish, I didn’t bother reading any of the signs but it looked like a great spot to fish and then camp for the night. I waded out to join several other people fishing along the causeway. Barramundi get very large, and so I decided to spin with a lump of bacon. Throughout the day I caught a few small fish and as dusk approached, the locals started to pack up and go home, leaving me and one other person fishing from the causeway.

Before packing up, I decided cut my losses and go big, and so I put on my largest hook and all the remaining bacon and fat. I lobbed the meat feast into the slow moving river and started to slowly retrieve. When only a few yards of line were left to wind onto my reel, a large fish took the bait. My rod bent double and stuck fast. This fish was big, very big. I struggled to hold onto it for a second and then my line snapped or was bitten through. My first large fish and I had lost it. I turned to the man fishing next to me and told him what had happened.

“What were ya using as bait?” he asked.
“Oh, a large lump of meat,” I replied.
The smile drained from his face and he said, “Get out. Get out now”.
We quickly waded along the causeway and out of the river. He eyed my backpack with tent and enquired, “Where are you staying tonight?”
I told him that I was planning to stay right here on the bank of the river.
“You’re coming with me to the camp site and then later on we’ll drive back and I’ll show you why you’re not staying here by shining my headlights around. You will see pairs of red eyes staring back at you.”
It was then that I noticed the large, unmissable sign by the edge of the road that read ‘WARNING! CROCODILES INHABIT THESE WATERS’ along with a no swimming logo, some pictures of the dangers of fishing here, along with some detail about

Estuarine (Saltwater) Crocodiles. I glanced back to the river and reflected on the wisdom of standing waist-deep in a river, at dusk, casting a large lump of meat into the water, and then winding it towards myself. Without a word, and with not a little haste, I picked up my backpack and followed the man to his car .

It is so easy to be arrogant or so consumed with enjoying life that we ignore the advice of others. That evening, on the banks of the Ord River, I was spared what might have been a very eventful night. I nearly became the star of my own ‘Travel Nightmares’ tv show, complete with reptilian cast. In my eagerness to enjoy the river, I had failed to read the signs.

The Bible is a book that contains a bunch of letters, poems, historical documents, prophetic writings and songs. Some people treat the Bible as if it is a perfect instruction manual for life – sort of like a car manual for humans. Got a problem with your exhaust? Simply turn to page 342. But the Bible is not like that. It’s the collective writings of a people and their ongoing relationship with God – a story that spans thousands of years. However, the Bible is a gift to us from God and from the people who have carefully and painstakingly preserved it -– sometimes with their own lives – for us. It is full of signs, directions, and indications on how we should live our life. When we read it, it has this way of soaking into us.

Sometimes, I wonder if it is only by the grace of God that we don’t get into more trouble when we fail to heed the signs that have been given to us.

27. Chore

From Broome, I hitched back east and then down the middle making for Alice Springs. I arrived at Alice Springs youth hostel ready to meet my sister Helen. It was great to see her and she was sharing a room with two other girls.

I approached the office to book into the youth hostel. The young man behind the desk looked up from his book. He was a dead-ringer for Rolfe, the member of the Hitler youth out of the Sound of Music, and he hardly disguised his annoyance at being interrupted.

“Hello, I’d like to book a room in a dorm for a couple of nights,” I said, giving him my biggest cheesy smile. Without speaking, he sniffed and passed me the form I had to fill in. He eyed me suspiciously as I filled out my name and address. I handed over the money including the returnable deposit, and he gave me a key to the dorm before settling back to his tome – a large volume – probably a training manual for prison guards. I was just about to leave when, without looking up, he said, “Don’t forget to report for your chores between 8am and 10am.” (The chores in youth hostels were a way for the hostel to keep the place clean and the overheads low. Typically each guest would be required to clean a floor or vacuum some rooms.) Why did I feel as if I had just passed through a checkpoint in a war-torn eastern block country rather than at a youth hostel in one of the sunniest places on earth? Why was I feeling guilty? I hadn’t done anything!

The youth hostel was pleasant enough – it was clean and had a nice pool as well as a recreation room. There was hardly anyone about. I dumped my rucksack in my room – I was the only inhabitant – and set off to explore Alice Springs. Alice Springs is the second largest town in the Northern Territory. I imagined a huge metropolis, but Alice is really a small town with only 27,000 inhabitants. Being almost in the dead centre of Australia, Alice Springs is 1200km from the nearest ocean and 1500km from the nearest major city!

The next day, Saturday, I met up with my sister and we spent the day mooching around by the pool. In the afternoon we decided to have a game of pool in the recreation room. It was quite a nice table, however, after a few games we were beginning to feel the dent in our wallets. And then I had a brain wave. Surely, if we could stop the balls going down the pockets then we could save them and keep playing without paying? I ran back to my room, grabbed a few pairs of socks and some underpants, ran back to the pool table and stuffed a pair of socks or pants in each pocket of the table. It worked like a charm. We continued to play, free of charge. Then the prison guard entered the room.

Rolfe stood in the doorway and eyed us suspiciously. It was as if he had caught the scent of a crime and the trail had led him into this room – to us. We stopped playing the game and stood where we were. It was clear that this was an inspection.

Rolfe walked into the room and began to look around. My sister and I exchanged nervous glances. I was Steve McQueen in the Great Escape. Would the guard discover the tunnel? Rolfe walked around the room glancing around, looking for evidence of the crime his intuition had told him was taking place. He passed the pool table. Phew, it looked like we were going to get away with it. Then turning quickly he slammed his hand down on the green felt. “Remove them,” he commanded. I slowly moved to each pocket, pulling out a pair of my socks or underpants. My cheeks blushed the colour of Ayers Rock at sunset. We had been sprung. Then, without a word, he turned and walked from the room.

I knew I was in trouble. The next morning, what chore would Rolfe give me? I had a whole night to sweat it out. It was going to be bad, very bad.

My sister Helen was sharing her dorm with two other girls, Helene from Denmark and Laura from Seattle. We chatted about our experiences of travelling around Australia and I shared how I had decided to become a Christian. Laura looked thrilled. She was a Christian too. She suggested that I buy a Bible, and I told her that I would – when I got to Adelaide. She then asked me if I had heard any Christian music. I replied that I hadn’t and she gave me a cassette to play in my walkman. That night, as I lay in my bed, I listened to the cassette. The music was beautiful – nothing amazing – but somehow the words spoke to me. I played the tape over and over again. Somehow, the music was affecting me deeply and profoundly, and I found that I was echoing the words of the singer in my heart. Somehow, the music on that cassette was connecting me to God. I felt overwhelmed with emotion. All at once I felt love, peace, warmth, and joy – and it made me cry. I had discovered worship.

I woke up in the morning knowing that the previous night something had happened. I couldn’t articulate it – but it was something special and magical – and I was thirsty for more.

Helen, Laura, and Helene agreed to meet with me at 10am the next morning at the office to stand with me as I received whatever punishment the manager decided to dish out. He gave each of the girls their chores and left me until last. This was it. Would it be cleaning the toilets with a toothbrush or perhaps licking the windows clean? I wondered if dropping to my knees and sobbing uncontrollably would help my plea for mercy? Finally, he looked at me and said, “You. You can wipe the tables in the recreation room.”

That was it?

This wasn’t a bad chore at all. I humbly accepted my task and went off to wipe the tables without complaining. When I finished, the manager smiled and returned my deposit. I was stunned. How could I have got away without being punished for my infringing underwear?

Some people have a view of God as some kind of malicious Hitleresque prison guard – a God, ready to smite us as soon as we do anything wrong; God the disciplinarian whose subjects live in a constant state of fear. Yes, we have a God who is perfectly good and that perfect goodness insists on absolute justice, yet that same perfect goodness also insists on endless mercy. We call this the balance between perfect love and perfect justice. Something or someone makes it possible to keep both sides of the scale balanced. Thank God for Jesus.

28. Team

From Alice Springs, I joined my sister on an interestingly named ‘Sahara’ tour. This was a three-day camping trip to the 1000ft high Ayres rock, Kings Canyon and the Olgas. The trip cost the mighty sum of $190.50. Certainly this kind of tourist camping was not something I was used to and I felt a little annoyed at having to shell out to do something I could do for free. However, the trip was fun and a gentle introduction to outback life for the canvas-challenged city folk.

After the trip, I said goodbye to my sister and from Alice Springs I hitched south. As I stood by the edge of the road, once, every half hour or so, a strange looking car would trundle past. The cars – each driven by a single driver – were odd shapes, angular and covered with what looked like mirrors. These were solar powered cars and what I was witnessing was the Solar Challenge, a 3000km race from Darwin in the north to Adelaide in the south. Each car had a support crew that followed in a Land Rover.

As I stood waiting for a lift, over a period of a few hours, I watched the cars go by. Then, at a junction about 500 metres away, I saw one of the cars go the wrong way. There was nothing I could do to alert the driver and the car trundled down the wrong road. I kept my eyes open for the support crew, and about five minutes later a Land Rover approached with the Star Electronics Solar Challenge Team logo painted on the side.

I stood in the road and hailed it down. “Your car has gone the wrong way!” I called out, and I pointed to where the car had gone. The driver of the Land Rover quickly turned around and sped off following the side road that the solar powered car had taken. About twenty minutes later the solar powered car returned to the main highway and drove past. The support car drew up. “Thanks mate, can we give you a lift?” I agreed.

I hopped into the back of the Land Rover and we followed the solar powered car. It was then that I realised my mistake. Solar powered cars go about 30 miles per hour. This was going to be a long journey. The support crew were monitoring the solar powered car using laptops. Despite the fact that they must have been on the road for days, there was a general air of excitement. This was a race and a serious business. After about an hour of painstakingly slow progress, both cars pulled over. When I asked why we had stopped, the team told me that it was so they could re-charge the solar powered car’s batteries before sunset. We piled out of the Land Rover and the team went to work setting up camp. The solar powered car’s panels were lifted up and angled towards the sun to maximise the sunlight. I thanked the team for the lift and then stood on the edge of the road waiting for my next ride.

To be a member of a Solar Challenge team, you have to be of a certain character. You have to be committed to the whole race and be willing to see it through. You have to be patient as the progress is sometimes painstakingly slow. You have to be equipped and have technical expertise and be ready to make repairs or do what ever is needed to keep the car on the road. You also have to be able to work as part of a team. Each member has a job to do. The success of the mission depends on each person fulfilling his or her role.

The apostle Paul in the Bible describes the Christian life as if we are running a race. He talks about the kind of character we are going to need if we are to win this race – we are to be loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle, and self-controlled. He also talks extensively about how we are to work together as a team, and that each person in a church is like part of a body, vital to the functioning of the whole. Does this sound like church to you? When I thought of church, I thought of old ladies sitting in pews and Songs of Praise. Yet, the apostle Paul talks very little about church buildings or services. What he describes sounds far more exciting – and is much more like what I saw in the Solar Challenge team – a team with a purpose and a job to do.

Are churches groups of people committed to the whole race and willing to see it through? Are the people patient when the progress is painstakingly slow? Are the people in church equipped and do they have the technical expertise to make repairs or do whatever is needed to keep the show on the road? Are the members working together as part of a team? If so, this sounds like the kind of church I could be part of.

29. Bible

Imanaged to hitch a ride to Erlunda Roadhouse (the junction with the road that leads west to Ayers rock) with a couple of guys, and then with a German couple to Coober Pedy.

Coober Pedy is a small town made rich from mining opals. Because of the high temperatures, many of the residents prefer to live in houses underground or cut into the rock. Despite the surrounding area being a popular backdrop for film-makers, the town itself isn’t much to look at, and it has that get-rich, dirty, money-making, precious-stone, gold-rush, mining town feel about it. We didn’t spend long in Coober Pedy, but even in the midst of this money-making-mecca we managed to find a bargain in an $5 all-you-can-eat continental breakfast at the best hotel.

From Coober Pedy, I hitched with a young British couple who were touring Australia in an old station wagon. They kindly invited me to join them on their trip through the Flinder’s Ranges, Australia’s largest mountain range. On the way to the national park we passed a large sign pointing down a side road. The sign read ‘historic site’ so we followed it. A little way off the road we discovered a dilapidated old building. The sign in front of the building said ‘old homestead circa 1900’. We chuckled to ourselves. This building was old by Australian standards.

The Flinders Ranges were beautiful and we drove through forests full of winding streams and dirt tracks. Unfortunately the car we were driving didn’t quite manage to ford one of the streams and we spent about half-an-hour pushing it out. During our tour through the national park, we took a walk around part of Wilpena Pound, a large natural amphitheatre. All very picturesque.

I hitchhiked from the Flinder’s Ranges to about 170km outside Adelaide. It was late in the day so I camped on the edge of the road. The next day, I hitched with a guy in a blue Ford Falcon van to Salisbury, about 25km outside Adelaide. From Salisbury I caught a train into the town centre.

I arrived in Adelaide at about 2pm and went straight to the bus station to book the 7pm coach back to Melbourne. I didn’t have to be at the bus station until 6pm so I went for a walk around the city. I bought an ice cream and began wandering around the well-kept parks. After a few hours I was getting a bit bored. The buildings and shops of a large town didn’t interest me as much as the beautiful countryside I had experienced during the previous few weeks. At 5.25pm I finally remembered my mission. I was supposed to be buying a Bible! When I was in Alice Springs, Laura, a Christian girl from Seattle, had suggested that I buy a Bible and I had made up my mind to buy a Bible when I got to Adelaide as that was the next large town on my way back to Melbourne. However, buying a Bible had completely slipped my mind.

The shops closed at 5.30pm and with only five minutes to find a Bible I quickly muttered a prayer under my breath, something along the lines of, “Sorry God, forgot to get a Bible, will you help me find one?” I had a look around. The street where I was standing was at least five minutes walk from the centre of town. I was just about to give up my quest when a sign caught my eye. It was protruding from a building some thirty yards down the street and had ‘The Open Book’ written in large red writing on a white background. A bookshop.

The window was filled with a display of children’s books which all appeared to be on the topic of Christmas and various Bible stories. I went in and boldly strode up to the counter. “Hello. Can you tell me if you sell Bibles?” I asked.

The lady at the counter gave me a strange look and said, “Yes of course we do. The Bible room is through there.”
Bible room? What kind of shop was this?
“I hope you find what you’re looking for”, she said as she left me staring in astonishment at the shelves lining the walls. Every single book was a Bible; from floor to ceiling on three walls. Big Bibles, little Bibles, thin Bibles, fat Bibles; not only had I found a bookshop but I had walked into the biggest Christian bookshop I had ever seen. I prayed to God to show me which Bible to buy, as I needed one small enough to carry around in my rucksack. I finally chose a small paperback New Testament and Psalms, enough to find out what Jesus had to say, and also to give me a taster of the Old Testament.

I think it a bit strange that sometimes God seems to answer the prayers of Christians who ask him to help them find their car keys or a parking space in multi-story car parks, yet doesn’t seem to do much for children who are dying of cancer. I don’t have an answer for that one, and I don’t know if my finding a Bible was divine guidance or not, but it seemed like a jolly big coincidence to me. It felt like God was honouring my desire to try and follow him. Either way, the Bible I bought lasted for the rest of my journey and proved to be a great guide and comfort. I read it several times a day – sometimes for several hours a day – at the edge of roads, in the back of trucks and in my tent. I read the whole of the New Testament at least once. It gave me a good knowledge about the character of God and also about His Holy Spirit who was soon to become a close friend and counsellor.

30. Bus

“This is a Bus Australia announcement. Will passengers on the overnight bus to Melbourne please check in all luggage. Your bus will leave from bay six.”

Whilst the message was endlessly repeated, I surveyed my fellow passengers as they left their seats to make for the bay. I queued up with the late arrivals to hand over last minute luggage at the Bus Australia desk. I removed from my backpack my travel pouch containing my Walkman, insurance, international drivers licence, passport and other valuables.

After all the luggage and passengers had boarded, the driver picked up a small microphone and began to speak, “G’day. I’m your driva, Bill, and the other driva is Des. Between us we’ll be gettin ya ta Melbun by eida’clock tomorra mornin’. The trip’ll last about twelve hours so get ta know the bloke sittin nextaya. Go on, say G’day to ‘im then.” The passengers, a mixture of excited tourists and bored students awkwardly greeted their immediate neighbour. I turned to say hello to the large lady sitting next to me. Her babe in arms, who was in fact a medium-sized boy, stared at me as he continued to kick the seat in front. She was busy trying to get something out of her handbag below the seat whilst balancing the boy in her right hand. The boy stuck his tongue out at me and I immediately returned the gesture just as the lady looked up. She tutted, thinking that I was sticking my tongue out at her! Well, it’s important to make a good first impression.

As the bus manoeuvred out of Adelaide, the co-driver continued to talk about litter, the toilet, the water dispenser, stops (the next one being in three hours), films to be shown on the way, and the alcohol not allowed. I wasn’t feeling in the mood to listen and as soon as the lights were out I decided to get some sleep. I soon discovered that sitting opposite the on- board loo was not a good idea. Firstly it seemed that there was always someone who needed it. The door would open, light on, shut, flush, open, light on, shut, open, light on, shut, and when the door was shut, it rattled with every cats-eye and road-kill. The driver drove extremely fast and when I looked out at the blur of streetlights I wondered if I was safe. The boy-child next to me started to prod me as his mother snored. I felt like grabbing the kid and flushing him down the toilet but decided to give him one of my scariest ‘Paddington Bear meets the Grim Reaper’ stares. Of course the mother opened her eyes just as I did this and all I could do was smile and wink at her to try and look unthreatening. In retrospect I can think of few things more unnerving than a wide-eyed, winking, smiling stranger sitting next to you on a bus.

The whole sleep thing wasn’t working and the film looked like something from the Seventies so I tried listening to my Walkman. It really did feel like we were travelling very fast. As I began to nod off, through the window, my eye caught sight of a blue flashing light and the bus began to slow. Sure enough, we’d been caught speeding. We sat on the roadside for an hour or more as the drivers spoke with the police and the police spoke with the drivers. The rest of the journey was a breeze, especially as the lady next to me had turned on her fan to maximum. After many hours we finally rolled into Melbourne bus station.

Sometimes it can feel like we’re out of control of our lives, being propelled forward by something or someone. Often, we don’t get to choose our travel companions either – especially if they are dependent on us. Perhaps you are a student, on the journey to complete your course and your companions are your fellow classmates? Perhaps you are a parent looking after children or a child looking after an aged parent? Perhaps you work in an office and your companions are your work colleagues? Perhaps you are old and feel like life itself is propelling you towards your final destiny? Wherever you are, something is driving you forward and you are stuck with the people around you. What are you going to do about it? When I think about that long bus journey, I wanted to ignore everyone and everything. But what if on that day, at that time, in that place, I had missed out on meeting someone who would change my life? Or, what if that lady sitting next to me needed me – perhaps even just to say an encouraging word. What if God placed me next to her because he had a reason?

31. Bug

Australia is full of all sorts of bugs. There are dozens of species of march or horse fly that will circle you and eventually land on you, ramming their huge proboscis into your flesh. There are leeches and mosquitoes and all flavours of ants – even ones that chase you – yes, chase you! Scary huh? There are praying mantises, stick insects, and there are even strange critters – the like of which I have never seen and will perhaps never see again. On one occasion in the Northern Territory, at a picnic site at dusk, I saw a creature – that looked like a cross between a giant mosquito and a grasshopper – crawl out of a hole in the ground. I and a couple of other people looked at it and said things like, “Eeeeeugh! What on earth is that?” It then hopped across the ground, onto a girl’s bare leg and bit her. She screamed and the thing hopped off her leg and back down its hole. To this day I have no idea what it was – I think it was some kind of assassin bug.

However, the creepy crawlies that Australia is known for is its spiders. I have to confess that I have never been a fan of spiders. I know that they are on-the-whole a misrepresented and much maligned class of God’s creation, but let’s face it – they’re hairy and have far too many legs! If you suffer from arachnophobia, please put down the book now – I don’t want to be responsible for you checking under your pillow for the next ten years.

Huntsman Spiders, known also as Wood Spiders, are hairy and large – often mistaken for tarantulas – with a leg span of up to 10 inches. They are long-legged and fast movers who have a nasty habit of cropping up just about everywhere you wouldn’t want to find a large, long-legged, fast-moving, hairy spider! They also exhibit a cling reflex that means if one drops on you, it is hard to shake off. Huntsman spiders are notorious for entering cars and scuttling across dashboards or dropping from behind sun visors onto the laps of drivers. Although they can bite, they are not poisonous and the bite results in nothing more than a little pain and swelling. However, despite being called a hunts…man, they eat insects and are considered by most Australians as a friendly creature.

My first encounter with the huntsman spider – the largest spider in Australia – was when my sister and I were driving at night on a lonely lane. We were sat in the front of a small van when our headlights picked out an animal crossing the road ahead of us. Thinking it was some kind of large rodent we slowed down. To our horror, it turned out to be a spider – singly the biggest spider I have ever seen. It was enormous. We stopped the van and jumped out to take a closer look. The animal sauntered off the edge of the road and into the bushes. We suddenly felt very vulnerable stood out in the middle of nowhere. We looked at each other, simultaneously both said ‘Eeeeeugh!’ and jumped back in the van as quickly as possible.

During my time in Australia I saw many huntsman spiders. Mostly they were just large and hairy, but I had one other encounter with a true monster. I was staying in a log cabin with a group of my sister’s friends. Four of the other guys and I were sat in the living room when a spider crawled out from under the sofa that was so big that every man took his feet off the floor and one of the guys ended up killing it with a spade. A spade! Eeeeeugh!

Now, like I said, I’m not a fan of spiders but my sister is completely paranoid about them and for some reason, they seem to know this and follow her around. She once pulled the letters out of her mailbox and as she walked back to the house, looked at the mail to see a tarantula-sized spider on her hand that had dropped onto her from the inside of the mailbox. This is a girl who, on a camping trip found one in her shoe, then joked that there was probably one under her pillow too – she looked and sure enough, there was! Unbelievable. On one occasion we had been to her friend’s house for a party and we came out of the house in the early hours of the morning. When my sister saw that I had left the window of the car open, she gave me a good telling off, reminding me that huntsman spiders like to climb into warm cars in the night. She got in the front seat of the car and I got in the back seat sitting directly behind her. Just before we set off I said, “Get out of the car.” “Why?” she asked. I repeated. “Get out of the car.” My sister got the gist of what I was saying and immediately looked around. Then she slowly looked up. There, above her head, was a large hairy spider. I think she woke the entire neighbourhood with her scream – poor lass.

Huntsman spiders are perfectly harmless, however there ar one or two species of spider that are notorious for being poisonous. I was fortunate enough to go camping and do some rock climbing with my brother-in-law. At the base of the rock were all these mouse-sized holes going into the ground. I wondered what was in them and so I took a long piece of grass and stuck it in the hole. Nothing happened. I wiggled the grass. Still nothing happened. I was about to pull out the stem when a large spider suddenly lunged and grabbed the piece of grass, dragging it back into the hole. I jumped up in surprise, letting out a little yelp. Okay, okay, so it was a big yelp. My brother-in-law who was watching from the rocks above shouted to me, “Hey, Gavin! Stop playing with the funnelwebs.” Funnelwebs? The bite of a funnel web spider can cause serious illness or even death – particularly in humans. Although anti-venom is available, we were a long drive away from any medical help. I decided to respect nature – and my brother-in-law. Eeeeugh!

32. Flight

From Melbourne I was to board a flight to Perth on the West coast. This was a free flight that I had pre-booked from England and was to be a luxury after weeks of hot sweaty hitch-hiking.

My brother-in-law had kindly given me lift to Melbourne airport (a two hour drive) and I arrived at the departure terminal a full hour before my flight was due to depart. Once inside the terminal I searched for my flight on one of the electronic display boards. Flight QA301 to Perth was not listed. I scanned the board again – the flight was missing. I checked the date, time and flight number on the ticket, then the display board, then the ticket, and then the display board again. In fact there were no flights to Perth listed at all. Perhaps Quantas had cancelled the flight at the last minute? I made my way hastily to a Quantas Information Desk and explained my quandary to a female assistant.

“Excuse me, but my flight to Perth does not appear to be on the display board?”
“Do you have your ticket sir?”
“Yes, here it is.”

She flicked over the pages, scanned the text, looked up at me, and without batting an eyelid unravelled the mystery of the missing flight.

“This ticket is for a flight from Sydney to Perth, not Melbourne to Perth. Would you like me to cancel the reservation and book you on a flight tomorrow to give you time to get to Sydney airport?”

To this day I declare my undying love for this woman. Never have I met a person with such compassion and restraint. She could easily have said…
“Sir appears to be completely stupid. Sir has arrived on the right day, at the right time, but at the wrong airport. Sydney is a twelve-hour drive away and in a different State. It’s the equivalent of you turning up to an airport in Paris instead of one in London. Would sir just mind waiting while I tell all my friends and announce this hilarious mistake over the airport tannoy system…?

(Ping) WOULD THE MOTHER OF A MR GAVIN TYTE PLEASE COLLECT HER SON FROM THE INFORMATION DESK. HE APPEARS TO HAVE MISSED HIS FLIGHT BECAUSE HE IS AT THE WRONG AIRPORT. THANK-YOU. (Ping)”

I turned a bright shade of red and I’m sure my ears looked like the rear fog lights of a Volvo estate on a clear dark night. I said that it would be very kind of her to cancel my current reservation and book me on a flight leaving from Sydney the following day. When she had finished tapping at her computer and sticking stickers all over my ticket, I thanked her and made my retreat. I half expected to hear the laughter exploding behind me as I quickly made my way to the train station to catch the overnighter to Sydney.

The word buffoon springs to mind. I don’t think I have ever felt so stupid – apart from the time I put my contact lenses in a glass of water next to my bed to discover the next morning that I had drunk them during the night. I suppose I could launch into a metaphor about how we each need to check our final destination; how, when we come to Jesus, like the airline, he pays the cost and freely stamps our ticket to heaven. But I won’t. That would be cheesy wouldn’t it?

33. Peter

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Jesus Christ.” [Philippians 4 Verses 6-7]

Ispent the night in a backpackers hostel in the centre of Perth, and then after visiting some ancient relatives, I began hitchhiking north along the coast. I had heard of a place called Monkey Mia where people could swim with dolphins. Monkey Mia derives its name from the Chinese Pearlers, who were rather derogatorily called monkeys, and Mia, an Aboriginal word for home.

I was fortunate to hitch a ride the whole 300-miles with a man called Peter. He and his wife were from Switzerland and were touring Australia. Peter was originally born in England and spoke English but his wife spoke none. The conversation soon petered out due to the long distance and travelling time. The scenery changed little and so I had ample opportunity to do some reading. I pulled out my pocket Bible and started to read. Peter noticed.

“What is that you’re reading?” he asked, glancing at the back seat through the rear view mirror.
“Oh, my Bible,” I replied.

For some reason I always felt nervous of peoples’ response when they caught me reading the Bible. The portrayal of Christians in the media always seems to be as bumbling old vicars or religious fanatics and I didn’t want to be thought of as either. Peter didn’t respond straight away but when he did he told me some very disturbing things.

His conversation was confusing and he jumped from one topic to the next then back to a previous topic. He talked fast and with the voice of one deeply troubled – the way a child might talk when telling of another who bullied him. He told me he didn’t trust his wife and even said that he thought she was a witch. He told me he felt possessed and as if everything was eating away at him. He continually asked me if he was making any sense and also assured me that his wife couldn’t understand a word. He told me he’d been unfaithful although he didn’t trust his wife because he thought she’d been unfaithful. All the while she sat staring out of the window – perhaps she understood, perhaps she didn’t – I’ll never know. Peter kept on talking. He talked nervously as if terrified, scared of her, and he would shiver every so often.

Peter was a man with deep emotional and spiritual problems and I was unequipped to deal with any of them. However, for some reason he had opened up to me, and it would have been wrong of me to say or do nothing. I uttered words of encouragement and listened, continually praying in my mind and asking the Lord to give me the right words to say. Before long we approached Monkey Mia and Peter asked in a desperate voice, “Will you pray for me?”

I agreed and decided it would be better to pray for him when we got to the destination rather than on the road. He wanted to stop the car and pray right there and then, but to be honest I was a little frightened and needed time to prepare. I stuck with the plan of praying at our destination.

The sun scorched down as we pulled up in a sandy car park. Peter and I left the car and walked over to the edge of the car park to pray. I felt pressured and was shaking. What should I pray? I went by what I thought I should pray and by what I’d heard others say when praying. I prayed in my mind that God would give me strength and then I brought his problems before the Lord asking Jesus to minister to the situation. The prayer was short and I fumbled many of the words. Afterwards, Peter thanked me but I felt as if the situation remained unresolved. I felt almost queasy with worry.

All three of us walked to the beach. Peter’s wife spoke very little. I left them alone to see the dolphins and I turned to see her talking sternly to him, pushing him away. She walked away from him and he followed her. I still felt a deep dread in my heart. My rucksack was in their car and this meant that I would have to disturb them again. I felt helpless. There was nothing I could do but pray. After an hour or so of watching dolphins, wandering the beach, and watching a film in the visitor centre I found Peter sitting on the sand alone.

“You’d better get your rucksack out of the car,” he said.
I knew by the tone of his voice that I’d better leave them both alone and that the situation was unresolved. He sounded deeply troubled and worried. We retrieved my backpack and then we said goodbye. I decided I didn’t want to spend any more time in Monkey Mia and started to hitch south back to Perth.

For a long period afterwards I felt a tremendous burden for Peter and he was on my mind and heart. For weeks afterwards I prayed for him every night. No doubt one day the Lord will show me why.

34. Dark

Just south of Perth is the town of Freemantle. Freemantle is the sailing capital of Western Australia and so I booked myself on a sailing trip. The trip promised stunning views of the coastline, a visit to deserted island beaches, and a delicious lunch on board – all for about £12. How could I resist? A husband and wife skippered the boat, and there were about six guests on board.

The scenery really was stunning, and this was my first trip on a sailing boat. The sound of the wind in the sails and the ripple as we cut through the blue water was – how can I describe this – a massage for the soul. You couldn’t help but relax and smile.

It wasn’t long before a gust of wind blew my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle cap off my head and into the water. We circled but it was too late for the ultimate fashion accessory. No one seemed to be too concerned, however that hat and I had been through quite a lot together! I said a short prayer. It seemed a little ironic that it should receive a burial at sea after all the adventures we had had in the hot centre of the continent.

As I looked at the waves, I was stunned to see what looked like a medium-sized fish with wings hovering above the water. It seemed to hang there for ages before disappearing beneath the waves. “Did you see that?” I asked? No one else had seen anything. I felt a little embarrassed but decided to be bold and 140

tell the others that I had seen a fish with wings flying, or rather, hovering in the air next to the boat. I was quite relieved when the skipper explained that I had seen a flying fish. Of course, I had heard of flying fish as a boy, but I thought it was just one of those stories parents and teachers tell you – sort of like Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy.

Eventually we anchored up by a deserted beach and we all jumped into the water for a swim. The water was terribly murky and I was rather disappointed. I strained to see under the water – hoping to catch site of some fish or other marine life – but it was no use. I could hardly see my hand in front of my face. I swam back to the boat and pulled myself out onto the deck. The skipper commented that I looked a bit sad. I explained that the water was a bit murky and hoped that we would pull anchor and try a spot where the water was clearer. The skipper looked at me as if I was completely bonkers and suggested I try taking my sunglasses off next time I go for a swim. He chuckled, shaking his head as he disappeared down into the galley to finish preparing the lunch. I pulled of my sunglasses and peered over the edge of the boat. The water was crystal clear.

We all look at the world through the sunglasses of our culture. These glasses – our culture – shapes the way we look at and understand the world around us. The current Western way of understanding the world is influenced by what the people with big brains call modernity. This means that we have a scientific view of the world where we understand something by breaking it down into smaller parts. We decide whether something is true or false by analysing it and putting it into a category. This is no less true when we approach the Bible.

When a scientific Western mind approaches the Bible, we understand it by asking whether it is literally true or not. If it is not literally true then it is purely a myth or a legend. However, if the Bible was written by people who had a different world- view, is it fair then to interpret it scientifically? For example, take the beginning of the book of Genesis in the Bible. It’s the bit where God makes the world in six days. If I am a Christian, the temptation is to read it literally. God literally made the world in six days. If I am not a Christian, the temptation is to say that it is just a story and not true at all and it is therefore a myth or a legend. I wonder of this is the equivalent of swimming with sunglasses on? Isn’t it possible that there is a third way of interpreting the story of creation? What if we need to remove the lens of our culture, and try and put on the lens of the culture in which the Bible was written? Is this even possible?

35. Gatecrash

“…I was a stranger and you invited me in…”
[Matthew 25 Verse 35]

From Freemantle, I hitched south to Margaret River, a beautiful town on the west coast of Australia. From Margaret River I hitched to Pemberton and spent the night in a farmer’s field. On the way, a guy showed me around the giant Karrie tree forests. From Pemberton, an elderly couple gave me lift to Denmark, another very pretty town. From Denmark, I hitched to Albany with a couple who were Seventh Day Adventists. They invited me home for a vegetarian lunch and then showed me some of the local sights, including ‘The Gap’ – a narrow channel joining the harbour with the sea.

A Christian couple picked me up as I hitchhiked south from Albany. As evening closed the couple offered to drop me at their friend’s house where I could be accommodated for the night. I asked them if they were sure their friends wouldn’t mind being burdened with a smelly traveller but they insisted everything would be fine.

The friend’s house turned out to be a sheep farm and the family happily put me up in their spare bedroom. That evening the family were attending an engagement party at a neighbouring farm and they invited me along. I asked if they were sure that the newly engaged couple wouldn’t mind being burdened with a smelly traveller but they also insisted that everything would be fine. I ironed my cleanest tie-dyed T-shirt and off we set. The engagement party was in full swing when we got there. The farmhouse kitchen table was spread with a delicious country buffet and people were milling around, glasses in hand. I felt a bit like a gatecrasher until the mother of the newly engaged girl approached me wearing a large smile. “Welcome to the party,” she said, “I’m so glad that people know my house is open.”

I had never met such friendly and loving people. The newly engaged couple welcomed me as if I was their long lost brother! It seemed the whole farming community belonged to a non-denominational church in the town and they asked if I would like to stay for a few days. How could I say no?

Various young people from the church showed me the local sights and on Sunday I attended a morning service. The church was buzzing with excitement. People were actually smiling – in church! There was a preacher who spoke with a love and passion for Jesus – the same Jesus I had been reading about in my Bible – and they sang happy songs about God and seemed to be enjoying the church service. My previous experience of church was of a cold stone building with a preacher who was locally renowned as being a cure for insomnia.

Before I left this idyllic place I rose at 5am to help the farmer gather in the sheep. The sheep were to be sold to the local dog food factory for 50 cents (25 pence) each. The bottom had fallen out of the meat market as there was a huge surplus of mutton. Some farmers had to slaughter their herds and bury them because they couldn’t afford to keep them any more. The farmer I was staying with was lucky to find a buyer at all. The family were broke. They were uncertain of the future and it looked as if they would have to sell up and leave their home. Yet they were happy and secure because they had a hope in God that no one could take away.

36. Trust

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me [Jesus].” [John 14 Verse 1]

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” [Romans 15 Verse 13]

From Albany, I hitched to Esperance on the south coast and spent the night in the youth hostel there. I was to head east to travel across the Nullabor desert. I offered up a prayer to God and waited for my lift – I was sure he’d do His bit to help me out. I stood by the edge of the road on the outskirts of the town for an hour before it started to rain. Another hour passed and still no cars stopped. I decided to walk on, passing various small houses and commercial buildings. I stopped and once again extended my thumb. There seemed to be even fewer cars on the road and those that were just sped past. A dead snake lay in the middle of the wet road as a testimony to the cars’ unwillingness to stop. I muttered a grumble under my breath and decided to walk on a bit further. After a whole morning of thumbing for a lift I had only progressed about half a mile. I could probably have walked further in that time. Yet another hour passed and by this time my mood had deteriorated despite the fact that the rain had finally stopped. “Where’s my lift God?” I complained, angry that God hadn’t provided for me.

After brooding silently for a good while, it occurred to me that I wasn’t actually trusting in God. I believed in him and his ability to provide for me, but rather than trusting him to look after me I was expectant and demanding of Him. I suddenly felt ashamed and quickly prayed, “Lord I’m sorry for not trusting in you. You are in control of my life and whatever will happen is your will. I place my life in your hands and trust in You. I’m sorry for not being patient and for getting angry. Amen.”

The prayer had put me back on track and I immediately felt better. My mood had lifted and I felt closer to God again. I sat on my rucksack and waited. Within the next few minutes two cars zipped passed without stopping and I kept calm knowing that God had it in hand. I couldn’t help feeling a little bit let down when a third car passed. My eyes followed the car as it started to disappear down the road, then it slowed and stopped. I felt my heart lift up again as the car reversed back up the empty road to where I sat. As it did so, I caught sight of a Christian sticker on the back window. “Thank-you God!” I prayed.

There was hardly any room in the car for me, as a family – father, mother and two teenage daughters – occupied it. I squeezed onto the back seat with my rucksack on my lap. We exchanged pleasantries and the car pulled away. After a few minutes, the father spoke. He looked and sounded nervous.

“This might sound a little odd, but… but God told me to pick you up. I’ve never picked up a hitchhiker before but I saw you sitting there and as I went past God just said ‘go back and pick him up’.”

I explained that I was a Christian and not five minutes before, I had made my peace with God and put my trust in Him! The family looked visibly relieved and offered me a lift all the way across the desert, putting me up in motels along the way. They insisted on paying for all my meals and even put me up at a friend’s house when we arrived in Adelaide. I couldn’t thank them or God enough. I had learned a big lesson about trust. There is a difference between relying on God and expecting Him to provide, and really putting your life and trust in His hands.

37. Brainwash

From Adelaide in Australia, I hitched with Christian guy who took me to a place called Klanagadoo near Mount Gambier. His family put me up for the night and fed me. The next day his son showed me around Blue Lake – an extinct volcano. The water is pure but goes a brilliant, almost unnatural blue due to the rock underneath. From Mount Gambier, I hitched back to Melbourne, and from Melbourne I caught a flight to Auckland in New Zealand.

I arrived in Auckland and stayed for a week with a good friend of mine from England. On one of the days while I was exploring the town I bumped into a guy in the street. He was well dressed, polite and very friendly. He introduced himself, shook my hand and gave me a piece of paper.

THE JESUS CENTRE OF AUCKLAND INVITES YOU TO A BIBLE STUDY. FOR A FREE LIFT CALL THE FOLLOWING NUMBER.

I said thank-you and went on my way. Being a new convert to Christianity and always eager to discover new friends and please God I decided to go. What harm could a Bible study do to one’s faith?

The date of the bible study arrived and the home where it was to be held was not far from where I was staying. I149

decided to make use of the free lift offered on the paper. I dialled the number and spoke to another extremely friendly chap who said it was not a problem to pick me up. It felt good to talk to other Christians and to have the chance to learn more.

I entered the house and went into the living room where the study was being held. In the room were about fifteen young people, most with Bibles. I sat next to a guy who had just become a Christian and who seemed as full of joy and excited as I was. He told me of the things he had done such as praying on top of a hill and praying with different friends from the church.

The study began as Bible studies usually do, with everyone saying their name and where they were from. The topic of the Bible study was ‘churches’ and in particular ‘the ideal church’. First we looked at the churches described in the beginning of the book of Revelation in the Bible. I used my own Bible to read from. The leader of the group asked someone to read about each church out loud, and then he asked us about that church. He asked if we thought that the church was God’s right church. It was plain that the churches had made mistakes in some ways and that they were not as a church should be. The leader then read about the early church found in the book of Acts in the Bible and about how possessions were sold to provide for those in need. Yes, this was the right church and I was eager to discuss matters, point out facts and learn.

When the study came to a close, one of the guys asked me to stay behind for a chat. He then went and made a phone call. I felt I should get back to my friend’s house as it was late but decided to stay. I loved to discuss the Bible. After about fifteen minutes all the other people had gone and I was left with the five guys who shared the house. Whilst we were chatting another young man arrived and I was immediately introduced. From the tone of voice and their conversation I gathered that he was the product of the phone call. I could not explain it at the time but there was something strange about the guy, something that made me feel slightly uneasy.

He took me into one of the bedrooms and we sat at a desk. The following hour’s worth of conversation was somewhat confusing and I will try and describe it as best I can. We started talking about what I was doing, my travelling, my plans and he kept emphasising the need for a church such as the one we had previously discussed in the Bible study. He told me how he was like me before he got settled in his church. He whizzed through his Bible pointing out phrases and passages that supported all he was saying and indeed all he was saying made sense. He then told me that it was God’s will for me to stay and participate in an induction course at his church for two weeks and that nearly every town in New Zealand had a Jesus Centre church in it. He told me it was very important for me to stay and that I must. I told him that I planned to hitch up north for a week and that I’d think about it and then come back and give him my answer, but no, my salvation depended on me staying there right now and that if I went travelling I would decide not to stay. He continuously told me what I should do and cleverly backed up everything he said with passages from the Bible. Everything he said made sense but staying in Auckland was not what I’d been led to believe I was to do from my own previous prayer. He said I could stay in the house with them from the next day and every argument I put up he pulled down with seemingly good reason. Eventually, feeling tired, confused and hounded, I said yes, that I would stay for the two weeks. It all made sense but why did I feel sick inside?

One of the guys dropped me back at my friend’s house. On the way he told me that it was unlikely I would stay. He’d seen many people say they were going to stay and then they’d backed out. He put me in a position where I was defending myself convincing him I would stay.

That night I told my friend I was staying in Auckland for two weeks with the people I’d met and then I went to my room. The sick feeling was getting worse as my stomach tied itself up in knots. I felt spiritually weak and tired. Something was wrong, terribly wrong. I went to bed and started to cry, pray, and read my Bible. Something didn’t add up and I couldn’t put my finger on it. I remember reading one passage in the Bible that contradicted something they’d said. I felt confused. What did God want me to do? That night I slept for about three hours. I read most of the New Testament searching for an answer and I prayed hard to the God that I had talked to for the previous months. I read this passage:

“Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.” [1 John 4 Verse 1]

In my gut I knew it was wrong to stay with them but what could I do? The next day they were coming to pick me up! I decided that in the morning I would call a pastor from another church to discuss it. It was this idea that gave me the comfort to sleep for a few hours.

In the morning I read my Bible and prayed some more. The more I did the more I became scared of them coming for me. The more I became scared the more I knew it was God telling me not to go with them although I couldn’t see any logical reason not to. At the earliest reasonable time to call anyone, I looked up the local Assembly of God church and called the pastor. During my travels I had visited these churches before and had always felt at home there. I talked with the pastor in a confused and worried state. He told me that he’d seen many people coming from the Jesus Centre in a similar state to me. He said he couldn’t say they were ‘bad’ but he asked me if I found peace? I answered ‘no’. He suggested that perhaps this was my answer. I thanked him for his help and decided not to go with the people when they came for me.

I left a note on the porch quoting the scripture I had found that contradicted what they had told me and saying that I was not coming. Then I waited. When the time was close for them to arrive I hid. Eventually I heard two pairs of steps on the wooden porch. I froze. They knocked on the door and called for me through the letterbox – then there was silence. It seemed to go on forever then I heard the footsteps leave. I was shaking. I didn’t come out of my hiding place for another five minutes.

I decided to leave Auckland within the next couple of days. Before I left I received two phone calls from the guys at the Jesus Centre. Both times my friend’s father answered the phone and thankfully said I was not there.

Two days after my ordeal I was still very confused and worried. I had been brainwashed as far as I could see and I still questioned my decision. I wanted to feel as I did before, but it was difficult to be happy and worshipping God whilst feeling so spiritually drained. My faith felt as if it was in tatters. That morning I decided to hitch north to the ‘top’ of New Zealand and did so. In one day I covered a good distance, walked only about 25km, and arrived just outside a town called Opua, in the Bay of Islands, on the northeast coast. It was to be my last hitch of the day as it was starting to get dark and I had to find somewhere to pitch my tent. I prayed, “Father, please let me be picked up by a Christian. My faith needs building up. Please let me meet someone with whom I can stay for the night who can build up my faith. I place my trust in you. If it is not your will then that’s okay but if you could do it then that would be so good. Thank-you. Amen.”

I stuck my thumb out for the last time that day. It was a small road but it was not long before a small car pulled up, driven by a middle-aged lady. I got inside and as we drove along the lady asked me if I knew Jesus. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Once again, God had heard my prayer. After feeling drained from my encounter with the Jesus Centre and a whole day of hitch-hiking, the last hitch of the day was with a Christian. However, not only were she and her husband Christians, they were amazing. After offering to put me up for the night, they placed a huge plate of food before me and watched me eat – they were fasting. The husband had been miraculously healed whilst in hospital with a stress related illness and subsequently given his life to Jesus. These guys didn’t even have any house insurance. The way they saw it, God could protect them. They and all their belongings belonged to God. They prayed with me and gave me verses of the Bible to carry with me. After one night with these guys, I was well on the way to being charged up again and my faith restored.

There are many churches and denominations that teach things contrary to a mainstream understanding of the Bible and Christianity. We call them sects. Later on, I did find out why the Holy Spirit rescued me from getting involved with the Jesus Centre. Although much of their theology is bang on, they have one fatal flaw. They believe that to be a real Christian you must belong to their particular church. Another feature of the sect is that they actively send members to infiltrate other Christian churches and organisations in order to try and win converts to their church. By doing this, they do a great deal of damage to lives by disrupting and confusing.

Perhaps it should come as no surprise that Jesus taught that we should be, “as gentle as doves but as wise as serpents”. This passage from the Bible also comes to mind:

“I urge you brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from them. For such people are not serving our Lord Christ, but their own appetites. By smooth talk and flattery they deceive the minds of naïve people.” [Romans 16 Verses 17-18]

38. Can

From Opua, I hitched right up to the top of the North Island, to Tapotupautu near Cape Reinga. The name Cape Reinga comes from the Maori word for underworld. The cape is where the western Tasman Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean meet and the two seas clash together forming a tidal race of unsettled water. I spent a couple of days camping near the beach and swimming in the huge waves. I made friends with a German girl called Anna and we walked up to the cape to see where the two seas meet.

I hitched back down to Auckland along the west coast, through Omapere, Wellsford and Helensville. I then hitched from Auckland down the west coast of the North Island, spending a night with a member of the Raglan surf rescue team, then a night camping at Tihroa. I hitched around Mt. Egmont to Wanganui where a family gave me food and put me up for the night. Before I got to New Plymouth I tried fishing in one of the rivers and got bullied up a tree by a herd of bulls. Eventually, I made it to Wellington and caught the ferry to Picton at the top of the South Island.

On the ferry from Picton I met a girl called Justine and she was hitching back to her hometown of Dunedin. We ended up camping on the beach at Kaikoura. I gave her my tent to sleep in and I slept outside – in the rain! Who says chivalry is dead?

The next day we didn’t get very far hitching but a guy called Dennis (known locally as ‘Mush’) picked us up and he put us up for the night. We spent the evening playing a card game called UKA. The next day, to make hitching easier, we split up. I hitched to the pretty village of Akaroa, east of Christchurch, did some fishing off the jetty and then spent the night in the youth hostel there. I then hitched to Cromwell and on to Dunedin where I spent four days with Justine and her family.

Hitching out of Dunedin, four guys in a four-wheel-drive towing a boat picked me up. There were two sheep farmers and two American geologists. The geologists were travellers like me who had been employed by the farmers to help with some crop spraying. It turned out that the farmers had been waiting for two weeks for the right weather to do the spraying, then when the weather was perfect, the farmer’s had said, “Stuff it, let’s go fishing!” They were on their way to Lake Manapouri and they invited me along.

We launched the boat into the crystal clear waters of Lake Manapouri, a lake surrounded by beautiful trees and mountains in perfect picture-postcard scenery. The farmers loaded on the supplies – 12 crates (144 cans) of DB Draught beer and enough mutton steak and sausages to feed about twenty people – oh, and a couple of guns. I asked how long they were going for. “Just a couple of nights.”

We were just about the only boat on the lake and there were plenty of fish – not that we caught any. We could see the large brown trout in the shallows but we were just too noisy with the boat and the banter to have any real chance of success. At one point one of the farmers pulled out his rifle and tried shooting the fish. I have to say that this made me slightly nervous!

We spent the nights in a walkers cabin, eating delicious barbecued mutton steaks and drinking beer. For the duration of the trip the farmers went from beer can to beer can and as we trolled through the centre of the lake, when they finished a can, they simply lobbed it over the side of the boat. As I looked behind us at the still water, I could see a row of three or four cans bobbing behind us. It broke my heart. The geologists and I wanted to say something, but for some reason we didn’t have the guts to face two drunk, gun-toting farmers in the middle of nowhere.

The contrast between the stunning pristine scenery and the farmer’s blatant disregard for the environment appalled me. When God created the world he said it was good – very good. God so loved the world (his creation) that he sent his only son to save it. I once heard a Christian say that the world doesn’t matter because God is going to create a new one anyway. Also, some Christians think that material things are bad and that spiritual things are good – the body is bad but the spirit is good. This kind of theology sucks because it becomes an excuse to trash our world – a world that God created and loves. Every part of our world is precious to God – every river, stone, tree and person. God even thinks that it is special enough to die for. The question is, do we?

39. Awesome

The farmers dropped me off at a picturesque town called Te Anau. Te Anau is on the edge of Lake Te Anau, the largest lake in the South Island of New Zealand, and it is the gateway to an area of outstanding beauty called Fiordland. I decided to walk one of the many picturesque hiking trails in this part of the world. Some of these trails get so busy in the summer that you have to book them in advance, or hope that there is space on the day you wish to walk. I chose to walk the Routeburn track – a three-day walk through the Southern Alps.

On the way to the trailhead, I hitchhiked with a couple of Englishmen called Rich and Guy and Guy decided to walk the track with me. On the first evening we walked for just an hour and spent the night in the Howden Hut, one of the huts provided for walkers. The next day we walked for about three and a half hours to Lake Mackenzie. The sun was still warm and we were hot from our walk. The water in Lake Mackenzie looked clear and inviting. I stripped off my clothes, walked out onto a rock on the edge of the lake and dived in. Immediately it felt as if someone had put a clamp on my head as well as other, more sensitive parts of my anatomy. To say the water was cold would be an understatement. It was absolutely freezing. I could hardly breathe as I swam quickly to the edge. I looked up into the nearby mountains and could clearly see that the lake was being fed by a stream coming from a small 160

field of ice and snow! The following day we walked for most of the day through the mountains to Routeburn Flats and the last day we walked to the end of the trail. From there I caught a bus to Queenstown.

Queenstown is the adventure capital of the South Island. From here you could book one of any number of extreme sports and activities. As my time was short, I decided to pack as many extreme activities into one day as I could and I booked a place on the Awesome Foursome. The Awesome Foursome was a six and a half hour trip costing $240. First up was a helicopter ride. We banked from side to side down a rocky canyon. The helicopter landed by the edge of the Shotover River. Next up was a jet boat ride up the river. These extremely fast powerboats can do 90-degree turns and we would drive towards rocks and then turn at the last minute. As we jetted up the river, Skippers canyon loomed into view – a 229 ft bridge above the raging river. We piled out of the jet boat into a Land Rover and drove up a steep track to the top of the canyon. Next up was the bunjy jump. We took it in turns to make our jumps and I was one of the last of our group to jump. When my turn came, I climbed through railings and onto the jumping platform. The two guys were deep in conversation as they tied together my ankles – I felt like interrupting their chat and asking them to concentrate on what they were doing as this was kind of important to me. They then clipped on the bunjy and I hopped out onto the plank surrounded by emptiness. I put my toes over the edge. I was really scared. The guys counted down, “5…4…3…” I jumped.

Holding my breath and not even able to squeeze out a scream, I plunged towards the ground. I could hear the wind rushing past and see the ground getting closer and closer. Want to know what you do if you are falling uncontrollably towards the ground? You hold your breath and put your hands out to stop yourself – well, at least that’s what I did! I felt the bunjy tighten and I slowed down, then sprang back up to within 30ft of the bridge, then down again. After I had finished bouncing, I was lowered headfirst into a boat, unclipped and taken to the shore. Then it was back into the jet boat again, to race back down the river. We jumped out at the rafting station, put on helmets and buoyancy aids, had a quick 5 minutes instruction on rafting, and then rafted down the river for one and a half hours. The day finished back at base with a hot tub and pie and chips. Was it awesome? Yes!

From Queenstown I began hitching up the west coast of South Island. My first hitch was with a married couple who were going to become the franchise owners of the first Queenstown McDonalds. I’m afraid to say that I didn’t share their enthusiasm at the prospect of another McDonald’s being built in such a picturesque setting.

As I hitched up the west coast, I stopped at Lake Matheson and the Fox Glacier. The Fox Glacier is two miles long moving at about one metre per day. The front of the glacier looks like a massive iceberg. I went for walk up the edge of the glacier and as I was walking back down, some distance away, at the dangerous front of the melting glacier, a huge part collapsed.

The sound of the ice crashing was thunderous and everybody stopped in their tracks, in awe of such an incredible spectacle of nature.

At the top of the South Island I hitched to Abel Tasman National Park. I decided to do another 4-day hike along the coast. However, I only walked a few miles before I trod on the edge of a hole and badly sprained my ankle. I had torn some of the ligaments and could hardly walk. As I was on my own, I had to make a makeshift crutch out of a stick of wood and I hobbled back to the nearest town where I holed up in a youth hostel for a few days to recover.

40. Seed

I caught the ferry back from Picton to Wellington, then hitchhiked up the east side of North Island, and through the middle, taking in Rotorua, Taupo, and then up to the northeast Coromandel Penninsula, before returning back to Auckland to catch a plane back to Melbourne and then home to England.

Over a period of several months I had drawn very close to God. I read my Bible every day (sometimes all day). I constantly prayed and praised him. As I relied on him for everything, he provided for me. On my travels I met all sorts of people. I hitchhiked with guys who had flick-knives sticking out of the dashboard, people drinking alcohol and people smoking drugs as they drove at night – skidding off the edge of the road at every bend – but I never once felt out of my depth. God was with me. Not that I would jump in any car. On one occasion in the Australian outback I refused to get in a utility truck. Something inside me just said ‘don’t do it’, so I didn’t, but it wasn’t me preventing me from doing this, it was God’s Holy Spirit. I cannot remember the first time I heard the Holy Spirit speak to me because he spoke so very gently, but I do remember the first time he spoke to me in a very clear and direct manner.

One hot morning I was walking out of a town in the North Island of New Zealand. The town sprawled out along the road and I was planning to stick my thumb out after I had walked beyond the last house. Doing this helped me not to waste time on local traffic. The last house was quite a long walk and the weight of my backpack was starting to make my back ache. As I walked I prayed and worshipped God who had looked after me so well. I passed a typical assortment of small shops, one being named ‘The Mad Butcher of Panganui’. Painted above the shop was the name along with a picture of the butcher holding a bloodied cleaver. Kiwi’s have a great sense of humour! Finally, I walked past the last house on the outskirts of town and was just about to put my thumb out when a voice said, “Don’t put your thumb out yet.”

It is difficult for me to describe the voice. It wasn’t audible but was like a gut-feeling put into words. I heard the sentence in my own thoughts but had not placed the thoughts there myself. I wasn’t completely sure that I hadn’t imagined the words but just in case it was God speaking to me, I decided to obey the words. I walked on for some twenty or thirty yards and was just about to put my thumb out when the voice spoke again, “Don’t put your thumb out yet Gavin.”

The voice used my name and this made me feel slightly uneasy. Either I had walked just a bit too far in the sun or God was speaking to me. You may ask how I knew it was God’s voice? I didn’t. All I know is that I was trusting God and I had been praying to him. I continued to walk and every so often I tried to put my thumb out but was told not to. This continued for a mile or so and I was getting pretty hot and tired. Maybe God would show his reason, maybe he wouldn’t. It was up to him. After a mile I once again decided to try and put out my thumb. This time the voice said something different and something rather odd, “Put out your thumb and a small red car will pull up. There is a man inside and there is something funny about him but I will not tell you what it is.”

The voice was so quick and so strange that I decided it must be me. Just out of curiosity I turned my head secretly hoping any kind of red car would pull up – that would be exiting, but there was no red car, just a white one followed by a blue one. Then, in the distance, a car appeared. Could it be? No. It was yellow. Oh well, I thought, and I carried on walking with my thumb extended. Over the next few minutes several cars passed and then a small car pulled up next to me. It was red. All of a sudden I remembered the words that had entered my head. I had brushed them aside and now I could recall them clearly. Before I had time to dwell on the coincidence, the voice spoke again. It methodically repeated the same phrase over and over again quite clearly, “Sow the seed. Gavin, sow the seed. Just sow the seed.”

Being a Christian I understood what these words meant. I was to tell the person in the car about Jesus. I leant through the window and told the driver where I was going. He said he could take me so I hopped in. Still the voice repeated the words to me, “Sow the seed.”

The driver was a large, round man in his early to mid thirties. The car was very small for him and he bulged over the seat and almost had to dip his head to see out of the windscreen. We exchanged pleasantries and chatted about where I’d travelled amongst other small talk. After about five minutes our conversation had dwindled but the voice was still going in my head, “Sow the seed. Gavin, just sow the seed.”

“Okay God, create an opportunity for me to talk about you,” I prayed in my mind. As I prayed the man turned to me. “Hitching must be pretty dangerous. What do you put your trust in then?”

I didn’t think the question strange as it had been asked time upon time although not usually so directly. The man had asked what I put my trust in and it was an answer to my prayer and my cue to drop God into the conversation.

“Oh, I trust in God,” was my simple reply.
The man turned to look at me. His face changed and he almost spat as he asked, “You’re not a Christian are you?”
I nodded, taken aback at his instant change in manner and the venom with which he spoke. “I hate Christians,” he snarled, and for the next few minutes I couldn’t get a word in edgeways as he got more and more angry, ranting and blaspheming about my faith.
“Your God couldn’t protect you. I could kill you right now and Your God wouldn’t save you,” he spat.
I edged in an answer, unafraid and undaunted by his language. “You couldn’t kill me. Not unless it is God’s will.”
“I could kill you right now.”
“Only if it is God’s will for my life,” I insisted.

The conversation stopped. I was becoming upset for him and he sat not even wanting to look at me. For the moment he was containing his rage. After a few long seconds he stopped the car. “Get out here. I’m turning right,” he said flatly. Just before he drove away I looked through the open window and said, “I hope you change your mind. It’s worth it.” He mumbled something inaudible and drove away taking the right turn that was just up ahead.

I stood by the edge of the road feeling shattered. I felt totally drained for the next half a day. In the silence there was no voice, no nothing. The driver’s words only echoed in my mind. I started off up the road with my thumb out waiting for the next lift. Had I done what God had wanted me to do?

Postamble

Well, there you have it. You have read a bit of my story – the beginning of my journey into the Christian faith – a journey I am still on today. During the eight months in which I hitchhiked solo around Australia and New Zealand, I met an incredible number of people from all sorts of religious and social backgrounds. I dined with Hare Krishna’s and listened to the teaching of Seventh Day Adventists. I hitched with old ladies and tough guys. I had conversations with drunk drivers who I thought were going to kill me with their driving, and sober people who could drive straight but said they could kill me. All in all, I suppose it was quite an adventure.

Thanks for taking the time to read this book. My prayer is that you too might get to know Jesus and have loads of fun in the process. He’s all right you know.

Heaps of Peace.

Gavin Tyte

Fabbed 0 times.

Rev Gav

Hitch

Contents

Preamble

1. Bump

2. Surprise

3. Danger

4. Scythe

5. Shark

6. Jeep

7. Bounce

8. Goliath

9. Orange

10. Contrast

11. Unique

12. Heart

13. Path

Waterfall No. 1

Waterfall No. 2

Waterfall No. 3

14. Pillow

15. Roadhouse

Part 1: Heat

Part 2: Shower

16. Termite

17. Rugged

18. Wait

19. Leap

20. Clash

21. Crocodile

22. Private

23. Food

24. Vomit

25. Spine

26. Sign

27. Chore

28. Team

29. Bible

30. Bus

31. Bug

32. Flight

33. Peter

34. Dark

35. Gatecrash

36. Trust

37. Brainwash

38. Can

39. Awesome

40. Seed

Postamble

Welcome