A few people have commented to me that I haven’t been updating my blog that much. That’s true, my update rate has been dismal, but there’s a good reason, honest there is.

When I began ‘North,’ my road trip from Melbourne up the east coast of Australia, I had every intention of blogging along the way, and posting regular updates and pictures from the road. However, it turns out that doing that was more difficult than I had anticipated.

My trusty Toyota van is great as a camper, but because it doesn’t have any kind of table inside, it turns out that it’s a disaster for writing. Everytime I sit down to do any writing after dark, I am essentially sat on my bed, and in that situation with nothing but darkness outside, my brain seems to begin shutting down for the day and I quickly give up the struggle to stay awake.

The upside is that I get up early, or at least I get up earlier than I am known for getting up. This means longer days full of fun stuff to do; stuff that I photograph and fully intend to write about. But then the night draws in and if I’m not out with people, I’m again battling to stay focused and awake.

I’m wildly behind with my road trip blog now. In fact, since the Brisbane post I’ve made it all the way up the east coast to Cape Tribulation and the Great Barrier Reef. I drove for seven days across the outback to Darwin, then visited Bali for a quick vacation before nipping over to Singapore to watch the Formula One Grand Prix.

And now, after nearly five months on the road, I am half way back to Melbourne, driving right through the middle of the country, slicing my way through the so-called ‘Red Centre.’ This massive road trip is drawing to an end.

So here’s my plan. I really want to write about my travels, not only to share with all of you, but to document the journey for myself. It takes a long time to sort through the mass of photographs I take, then prepare them for the blog, but I do want to share those pictures and the stories from my travels.

If you forgive me for my lacklustre blogging performance these last few months, I promise you that you’ll be treated to some great pictures and some pretty good road stories. Among them will be the hitch hiker who was just released from jail, or the one who told me about her brief experience as a balloon porn star (I didn’t know what that was either). I’ll tell you about crewing a racing yacht at the Whitsunday Islands Regatta, getting bitten by a spider in Queensland, and swimming with crocodiles in Darwin.

If that sounds like your cup-of-tea, then stay tuned, subscribe if you haven’t already, and I’ll share with you the highlights and pictures from my life on the road.

—

Steve Jobs, the charismatic founder and CEO of Apple has died. That’s old news now though, he died on Wednesday, but I’ve been in the Australian outback and I only found out yesterday when I saw an email from a friend with the title ‘Jobsy.’ I immediately knew what the email would tell me, that Steve Jobs had succumbed to the rare form of pancreatic cancer he had been fighting.

I didn’t know Steve Jobs, or rather I didn’t know him much more than other people who use and enjoy Apple products. I’d heard stories of his tight control on product design and his outlandish behaviour in the early days of Apple.

My favorite of those stories is when, in 1983, Jobs lured the CEO of Pepsi, John Sculley, away from the soft drinks manufacturer with the question, “Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life, or do you want to come with me and change the world?”

He was famous for being a fierce micro-manager, a CEO who spent a great deal of his time involved in the smallest of details that most CEOs would leave to others. I had an experience of that myself back in 2001 when Steve Jobs himself ordered that a website I was running should be closed down.

Mac Cards was essentially a Apple fan site that used pictures of Apple products in ecards that people could send to one another. The site was a quick success and became very popular in the Mac community. However, Steve Jobs sent another Apple executive a ‘Mac Card’ that read “How can anyone represent us in this way?!!” It was an ominous forewarning to the legal intervention that followed soon after.

Mac Cards was forced to close amid a storm of negative publicity. The company was widely criticised for using heavy handed tactics. Even Apple’s own co-founder Steve Wozniak publicly commented that the company had overreacted, and in an email to me Wozniak wrote, “The Apple that you love is the people that use Apple products and the community that they represent. This ‘Apple’ supports you.”

In the end Apple sought to smooth things over with myself and my friend Will (who was also named in their UK high court injunction), though I have little doubt that decision didn’t come from Mr Jobs.

It’s sad that he’s died so young. At 56 years old he was still very much ahead of the game in the technology world. His ability to drive innovation and market desire was the envy of every company in the world. And while Apple didn’t necessarily invent a raft of new technologies (as my angry friend Darryl would often point out), it put them together in a way that the world wanted to use them.

As I said, I didn’t know Steve Jobs, and already many blogs and column inches have been devoted to his passing. But in true Jobs style I’ll add just ‘one more thing‘ and leave you with the words of Jobs himself that he said to students in a commencement speech at Stanford University in 2005.

Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice.

Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.

—

The famous look of Steve Jobs
What made Steve Jobs unique
5 industries Jobs helped change forever
[Video] The Crazy Ones
[Video] One more thing

On this road trip greetings and goodbyes are the punctuation. I’m constantly meeting new people and seeing new places, then after a few days I say my goodbyes and I leave them to continue north. If there are any moments of this ongoing adventure that I don’t like, I suppose it would be the string of goodbyes that fade in my wake. But then, just a few minutes later as the road stretches before me, I get that buzz that only the road ahead can give you.

There is a romance in a life spent on the road, a life that’s been simplified down to the essentials with little need or accommodation for the spoils and complications of a bricks and mortar day-to-day. Tomorrow could be anywhere and next week could easily be as far away in miles as it is in hours.

As I drive north on the Pacific Highway consuming distance and time like candy at the movies, I feel less like the driver and more like a passenger. I’m looking at the scenery passing me by with the kind of interest that routine gleefully smothers, but unlike the traffic around me, I’m in no rush. Instead I’m content to let the suits scurry by, jockeying for positions in their race to get home for dinner.

I’m on my way to Brisbane and I’ll get there soon enough. 6 o’clock, 9 o’clock, it doesn’t really matter. I’m just driving, listening to music and the hum of the road beneath me as the sun beats a familiar path to the horizon.

For the first time since Sydney I’m greeted by a somewhat familiar face, Vanessa, one of the people I met in Byron Bay. As a fellow couchsurfer she’s kindly offered to let me stay at her shared house for a few days. It’s a young house, full of students in their twenties, mismatched furniture, and washing up piled in the kitchen sink like a work of modern art.

Looking around takes me back to the myriad of such places I’ve called home in years gone by, back when my hair was longer and my most important possessions were records and CD’s. It’s hectic but welcoming, no airs or graces, just somewhere to come as you are, somewhere to be. When you’re home is a van and your address is the road, the offer of a couch, a warm shower, and a fews days to stop is always welcome.

The pair of us head out for something to eat then Vanessa takes me to Mount Coot-tha to see a spectacular panoramic view of Brisbane and it’s surroundings. The mass of lights spreads before us like a carpet of fairy lights under the fluorescent glow of a dazzling full moon.

It’s a warm evening, mellow like a warm bath or time lost in your favorite armchair. A group of japanese tourists are posing for pictures. They’re excited and chattering away amid a shower of camera flashes that freeze their smiles in time as they give the obligatory V sign with their fingers that all Japanese people seem to do.

The next day as Vanessa went to work I went exploring. Brisbane isn’t a huge city, it’s significant, but manageable. As Queensland’s capital a few tall buildings climb to the clouds, but they fall short as if conscious that no other buildings around them are being so ambitious or outlandish. It’s an unassuming city that doesn’t scream or shout about itself, happy not to fight for the limelight but quietly confident that people will find there way here and discover a city that is relaxed about it’s place in the world.

I wandered around the tree lined streets in Paddington and Latrobe Terrace with it’s eclectic mix of antique stores, cafe’s, bars and boutiques. The Paddington Antique centre was a fascinating bazar. Small stall holders occupy the old Plaza Theatre that was opened in the 1930′s. Today the ornate stage surroundings are still in place along with the deep blue painted ceiling. Traders sell furniture and trinkets from old telephones and televisions, to old books their pages musty and browned with the passing of time.

The city takes a big breath of fresh air with its botanical gardens that house some beautiful lush plants and trees. Vanessa laughed at me when we visited there because I was so excited about the awesome spreading Banyan trees, one of which was home to a family of possums that peered out at us as if they were the tourists and we were the attraction.

I’m not really one for diving into a city and consuming it’s poster tourist attractions. Museums and galleries are fine, cruises and tours are okay too, and I’ll do them if they take my fancy. But generally I just like to wander into a city and allow it to introduce itself to me without the aid of a glossy brochure or map.

I enjoy getting a little lost in order to see what I can find, and what finds me. I suppose this tactic means I miss some of the ‘essentials’ but I don’t mind that. I’m not trying to be alternative, I just like allowing a place to unfold before me without the pressure of a timetable of glossy expectations.

I like melting into a city, like slowly walking into a swimming pool allowing your skin to adjust to the temperature of the water. I find cafe’s here and there, order a cappuccino and watch the world go by while maybe catching up with work (or my blog) on my laptop. I actually find this activity very relaxing, and I was pleased to find that Brisbane is an easy city to melt into.

On Saturday I wandered around the West End market in Davies Park where farmers bring their fruit and vegetables to sell as they shout the prices to wandering shoppers. Locally made crafts were being poured over by tourists and locals alike, while massage therapists treated people in tents and musicians played on the grass by the river. Such markets are common and very popular in Australia. It’s still winter here, but sunny and warm, a perfect summers day by my British standards.

A couple of hipsters were selling coffee from a beautifully restored VW Kombi van. Called the Coffee Koffien the Kombi van had been lovingly converted into a travelling cafe that tours around the Brisbane area selling fine coffee at various events. I admired their Kombi for a while, took some pictures, then walked along the river sipping my cappuccino and watching jet skiers jumping small waves made by passing boats.

As with everywhere else I’ve travelled to on this road trip, I could have happily stayed in Brisbane. I would have liked to get to know the city like I know Melbourne, to spend a few weeks finding its soul and discovering its hideaways. But after nearly a week, again longer than I had planned to stay, I had to one again take to the road leaving another city, another friend, and another goodbye in my wake. Such is life on the road.

As I crossed the state line from New South Wales into Queensland I was welcomed to the ‘sunshine state’ by the Gold Coast. Sitting in traffic amid the towering hotels and apartment blocks all trying to catch a glimpse of the sea, I found myself feeling penned in by the concrete that seemed to be swallowing me like it had surely swallowed the very things that once earned this place such an alluring name.

People had told me that the Gold Coast was something of a soulless place. “It’s like a little bit of America got marooned on the southern beaches of Queensland,” said one Australian I met, and in some respects I can see why they came to that conclusion. With names like Palm Beach, and Miami strung together at the end of the Pacific Coast Highway, the place does indeed seem a little like America, or at least the scene of a collision between the two countries.

It’s not pretty. It feels fake, like the girls who adorn the billboards for local tattoo parlours. Like a film set upon which at any moment a tire screeching car chase might come careering around the next corner with bandits hanging out of car windows shooting back at police cars in hot pursuit, their sirens wailing.

The city of Surfers Paradise reaches into the sky and claws at the clouds like any American city you can think of. It’s a bland city, that stands undistinguished like a glass of water at a cocktail bar. If shopping at stores you can find anywhere is your kind of thing then I’m told Surfers Paradise is great.

Nobody outside Australia knows about this city. It lacks the international charisma a city needs to stand on the world stage and be noticed. Instead Surfers Paradise seems to be gorging on concrete and steel as if comfort eating to offset the pain of watching its siblings, like Sydney and Melbourne, get all the attention.

In theory the Gold Coast is wonderful. In reality though it seems to be a mess. A blend of ordinary beaches with buildings that stand like headstones in tribute to the dead dreams of commercially minded planners who thought they could find their way to the bottom of our pockets by giving an ugly place an attractive name.

I wish I could tell you something positive about the Gold Coast. I’m sure there is something, but perhaps unfairly, I didn’t hang around long enough to unearth it. As soon as I got to the Gold Coast I found myself looking for the exit. I stayed as long as I thought was polite, then I left.

It could be that my impressions were colored by the fact that I found these concrete caves as I emerged from the mellowed out haze of the tree houses and Byron Bay. Perhaps if I had descended into Surfers Paradise from a jet plane, transported from one mass of concrete to another, my first impressions would have been kinder. Maybe the Gold Coast is an acquired taste, but I can’t imagine that I’ll be going back anytime soon to find out.

—

I don’t know who it was, but someone told me that I would love Byron Bay because it was “full of hippies and tie-dye T-shirts.” I’m pretty sure that was a sideways jab at Byron Bay and myself, but it was enough to tweak my curiosity about the place. Not having done the slightest bit of research or even read even the merest of descriptions about the place, all I really knew about it was that it was a backpacker hot-spot with an alternative vibe, located in the far-northeastern corner of the state of New South Wales.

I saw two VW Kombi vans for sale as I rolled into town. Both were road weary battle beaten wrecks that had been decorated by their former owners, and both were typically over-priced. I slowed down to look at them then tapped the steering wheel of my old Toyota. “I only have eyes for you Vicky,” I said to van which the previous owners had named on account of the fact it’s registered in the State of Victoria. I laughed to myself. I’m talking to a van for heavens sake!

A cute girl in a small denim skirt walked along the street wearing a bikini top and a towel around her neck. She waved at me, or at least she appeared to. I waved back. She had probably mistaken me for someone else she knows who own a beat up old Toyota van. Though, I prefer to think this is just how Byron Bay welcomes it’s late winter visitors, with a wave from a pretty girl wearing bright smile and not a whole lot else.

As the low sun flickered through trees flashing across my dusty windscreen my stereo played ‘Let’s Get Together‘ by The Youngbloods. I smiled and shook my head at my iPods random selection of this track which I have no recollection of ever downloading.

Leaning forward across the wheel I looked up at the sky and the clouds. This was another one of those times that I call a ‘soundtrack moment,’ where the music playing seems to to fit the scene so well that you’re not so much living your life as you are watching it.

I found my way to the beach. But not the main beach where all the Wicked and Jucy camper vans were parked in front of skateboarders whooping at one anothers stunts and tumbles. That’s not really where I was in my head, I was looking for something a little more mellow, a bit more chilled out, something that would suit the pace of the slowly sinking sun as it made its way to the mountains across the bay.

I found Clarkes beach, just a couple of minutes away and closer to a rock perch called ‘The Pass’ that looks down upon the most popular surf break on the northeast coast.

Walking out onto the beach my feet sank into the sand as I strolled towards the low rocks around The Pass. They were too jagged to find a good place to sit, so I stood there looking out across the water at the surfers, and listening to the sound of the waves that mixed in the air with the strains of distant music and the muffled shrieks of children playing in shallow water not far away. “Nice to meet you Byron Bay,” I said out loud as the sun disappeared behind the mountains.

There might have been things I should have seen at Byron Bay, some tourist essential that I missed. But as touristy as the place is, it doesn’t really feel that touristy. Or at least it didn’t then, at the end of winter, when the evenings were still chilly enough to require a coat or at least something more than just a tie-dye T-shirt.

I cruised around the small town, perusing the shops at speeds that would have frustrated a pensioner, and sampling the various cafe’s where strangers chatted with one another with the familiarity of old friends.

As my first full day there came to a close I had diner in a cafe listening to live music performed by Garrett Kato, a Canadian with a swirling husky voice. By day he’s a clerk in the store next door and by night he’s a singer songwriter in this town that feels like maybe everybody is a nighttime singer songwriter, if only in their heads.

While Garrett sang I struck up a conversation with some young people who were also visiting Byron Bay. One of them, Vanessa, was keen to do a dawn walk up the lighthouse in the morning. Her friends seemed less psyched about the plan, but they were going along with it. Being a fellow ‘couch surfer‘ and embracing the spirit of Byron Bay openness, Vanessa invited me along.

I don’t much like mornings, and the only time I ever see dawn is when the conclusion of the night before is running late. That or when I have a perilously early flight. But Vanessa’s youthful enthusiasm and excitement at the prospect of watching the sun climb over the horizon was enough to convince me to join them. “Great!” She said with a big smile “We’ll see you at the YMCA in the morning then.”

A few hours later my phone alarm was chirping at me like a baby bird begging its mother for food. Snooze… My other alarm started to beep. I sat up in the back of my van, tweaked the curtain and cursed the darkness. Doing this was a good idea in the beer hours, but it was now hangover o’clock, maybe not for me, but you get the point.

It was early, in fact it was even too early for last nights drunks to be hiding their heads in an effort to evade the inevitable hangover that’s contracted by reality to make them pay for their excesses.

I rub my eyes and step out of the van, my bare feet dancing on the cold ground as I look for my shoes. I get myself a quick bowl of cereal and sit in the van boiling water for warmth and a cup of tea to give me the pick up thats essential for these still dark hours.

Everywhere is motionless, as if time itself is on pause. But the quiet is interrupted as my phone beeps again. A text message. I didn’t even need to look, I knew what it would say. Youthful enthusiasm is the better looking sibling of incorrigible unreliability.

“We’re still in bed,” Read the text message. “Of course you are,” I said to myself shaking my head. I’d gone to the effort of battling early morning gravity so I decided to go anyway, only I would drive. The walking part would be easier on four wheels I concluded.

After the sunrise Vanessa called me. She told me about how they had found another bar after meeting me. The others were still tired and maybe a little fragile, but she was keen to do the walk, so we walked along Wattage beach and the coastal path. We chatted as we strolled, stopping to take pictures and point out dolphins and whales to one another.

Eventually she left to meet up with her friends and go for a canoe tour or something. I went off in search of sushi and a good place to sit and drink something refreshing while I watched the world pass by.

Byron Bay is a friendly town, even by Australian standards it’s unusually friendly. I only spent the first night there sleeping in my van. The next evening, back at that cafe, a local shop keeper called Jason was chatting with me and the cafe owner as the staff began stacking the chairs and closing the place for the night.

“So where are you staying?” Jason asked me. I pointed at my van parked out front and explained that I would probably drive to Wattage beach and sleep there. “No dude, forget that. I’ve got a spare room at home and you’re welcome to crash that if you like.” And so I did. I mean why not? I’m a couch surfer, and I’ve come to learn that strangers are never as strange as you might think.

Another evening I met a woman called Zen. That wasn’t her actual name, it was her “Byron Bay name” she told me. “The young people like to call me Zen. Maybe because it’s short. We’ll have to give you a Byron Bay name darling.”

So I met ‘Zen,’ a lady unaware of how outlandish her behaviour was when she corralled the entire cafe to clap along to the live music as the cafe’s owner looked on with a nervous smile upon his face. “I love her. She spends loads of money,” he told me. “But you never know what she’s going to do next, you know. And not everyone is into that.”

We both looked over to her as she hugged a complete stranger she’d spent the last few minutes chatting to. “You’re divine,” she told them while clapping little opera claps. And it seemed to me that the stranger, her best friend at that moment, lapped it up. They even posed for her while she took a picture of them. “I’ll find you on facebook,” she said as they walked away.

Zen called everything and everyone “divine” and after chatting with me she told me I “had to” stay at her place that night. “Darling, you can couch surf with me,” she said after I had explained the concept of couch surfing to her. Again I accepted the kindness of a stranger.

“I should tell you, I’m not a vegan, but darling I don’t do dairy,” she said with a serious tone in her voice, as if that fact would somehow change my mind. I looked over the cafe owner who smiled and raised his eyebrows. “I can go dairy free for a night I’m sure,” I assured her, and that news was apparently worthy of more little opera claps.

The live music, the friendly locals and colourful characters made Byron Bay unforgettable. Its ‘cruisy’ laid back vibe born out of a hippie history gives this place a truly unique flavour. I’m told that in the summer it’s a far crazier place, and I suspect that I wouldn’t have been so taken if I had visited the place then. But for me Byron Bay was a true road trip landmark, and a landmark in time too.

My takeaway moment came one evening when I was sat at Clarkes beach again. As I watched surfers bobbing up and down in the water waiting for the perfect wave, the clouds above them began to change color as the sun made its way toward the someone else’s dawn. First pinks, then yellows, then fire oranges and reds. Pretty soon the entire sky was engulfed in a magnificent blanket of fire so awesome it seemed that, for a few moments at least, everyone just stood there silent and awestruck at this majestic and spectacular moment of wonder.

So I don’t know who it was that told me that I would love Byron Bay because it was “full of hippies and tie-dye T-shirts.” But whoever it was, they were at least right about one thing. I did indeed love Byron Bay.

—

It’s quite strange sitting here in Australia reading the BBC news website and seeing the disturbing images of riots that have swept across the UK, alongside an ad (yes ads appear on BBC outside the UK) encouraging me to visit the country. The ad reads ‘Britain. You’re invited.’ As my eyes look back at a picture of some looter walking out of an electrical store with his arms full, I think to myself, No you’re okay Britain, I think I’ll stay here.

This kind of violence could happen anywhere, of course. However, seeing video footage and images of masked ‘hoodies’ kicking in storefronts, setting vehicles and building ablaze, and looting shops, makes me wonder how such a situation has occurred.

Is Britain broken? I think in some respects it is. That was my opinion long before I got on a one-way flight to Australia. I had become increasingly alarmed by the nanny state, the breakdown of community, the widespread erosion of privacy rights, and the steadily growing reputation Britain seemed to earning across the world of being a nation of unruly drunks.

These riots will only add to that unpleasant and largely inaccurate generalisation, but do they tell a story beyond the headlines? Is there something fundamentally wrong with the UK, and if so can it be fixed?

On the BBC news website I listened to two girls talking about the riots, calling them fun. “It’s the government’s fault,” said one. “Yeah, conservatives, whatever, who it is, I don’t know,” agreed the other as she drank from a stolen bottle of wine at 9:30am.

On Australian TV news a reporter in the UK talked about how every shop in one shopping centre had been looted, apart from one, a bookshop.

Oddly enough, as I continued to look through the BBC news website, the Visit Britain ad dissapeared. Maybe it came to the end of its run, or perhaps someone in charge of the campaign realised that the timing was unfortunate, after all, it’s hard to sell the world on England’s green and pleasant land when its cities are on fire.