» AUSTRALIA ON A SHOESTRING - For those who have shut out an Australian holiday as too expensive and miles away from home or backpacking as only for the young should stop and read this article submitted kindly by Victor Cherubim and perhaps reconsider or modify the backpacking experience to suit their holiday idea of the future.
The thought of Down Under, for a month of adventure
conjures up visions of the outback, the rainforests, the Uluru Red Rock
and of course, the blue green sea and the white silicon sands of Bondi beach.
But none is more enticiting than to venture out in the summer of the Southern
Hemisphere, with the guarantee of Christmas without snow. To size up Down
Under as a backpacker, is a challenge.
To be a backpacker is to
redefine a lifestyle. Many a student on a year abroad considers this experience
as an education in itself. There is an aura of the uncertain and the unexpected.
To travel abroad on a shoestring, without planned travel, escorted tours,
at ones own leisure with only a rough itinerary, is invigorating. Why? With
much of today's living sometimes preordained, the buzz, the suspense, the
drama and the thrill of a challenge beckon many young people. However, this
mode of travel has yet to attract the old as the ultimate holiday experience.
The licence of a backpacker is the rucksack where every whim and fancy
is accommodated, with minimum weight and maximum security and safety. There
is nothing calculated or cultivated than to live out of a backpack, sharing
a dorm room with little or no privacy among 4 to 6 other unfamiliar people.
In fact, this lifestyle is the opposite of comfort afforded in a hotel.
In some dormitories or hostels, there are as many as 28 persons sharing
a room and who says it has to be unisex, as mixed dorms are the norm of
living. But, there are no freebees, other than a cultural and a social mix
of people.
As I criss-crossed the Outback, the Inner and Outer cities
of Australia, visiting over 20 towns and cities from Alice Springs through
Adelaide, to Coffs Harbour to Cairns, a distance of 4200 kilometres on a
Greyhound Coach, over three time zones and on a few occasions by “Virgin
Blue” Air to ease the exhaustion, I asked myself time and again: Why opt
for this mode of travel at nearly three score and ten?
Was I taking
on somewhat of a gruelling task to test my powers of endurance and stamina
or my mental agility or to run away from the bleak wintry weather back in
U.K.? I had only myself to blame as I willingly opted for this type
of holiday.
It was not until I set foot on Australian soil in Sydney
airport, that I realised the enormity of my task and the no turning back
sign that lit up boldly in my mind's eye. Every day of this month long adventure
was different in some way or other. No amount of pre- planning could help
me to adjust to the varied lifestyle and the diversity of living of this
lifestyle to the full in the immediate present.
The way I can best
describe my challenge is that it was an experience of a world within a world,
which I had not witnessed in Europe, a re-learning of sorts.
We
tend to think of Australians as the settlers from Britain some 250 years
ago. We think of Australia as the land with the prison colony from Britain.
We think of Australia within the past fifty years, with the “assisted migrants'
passage,” from Britain and the Commonwealth. We are told that the population
of Australia today is 20 million, with an expected increase of only 5 more
million by 2030. We are also informed that to sustain a larger population
in the wide-open lands of the Australian hinterland would mean having to
either import water, or to conserve existing meagre water resources.
Australia is a vast continent (bigger than U.S.A.), rich in animal,
mineral and vegetable wealth. The environment is conducive to human resource
development as well. Everywhere I visited, I saw Australians turning their
attention to the Pacific rather than to Europe for their future wellbeing.
I was told of the anticipated development of a pipeline from Northern Territory
in Central Australia to export oil under the seas to China and possibly
to import water. Every third car on the road is of Japanese origin, or manufactured
in Australia under licence.
Once the yardstick of currency exchange,
the Pound is hardly quoted today. But everyone speaks of the “Greenback”
dollar. The U.S. is courting Australia in a very big way, but hardly is
their presence noticeable even in the outback territories, where space exploration
technology solutions are being undertaken with consent.
Even the
indigenous people – the Aborigines –are also reaching out across the seas
in friendship with their Pacific Island neighbours, to preserve the balance
of nature, which aboriginal myths, legends and customs have encouraged them
to cherish over millennia.
One sees a sea change taking place around
Australia. There is a lifestyle different in many respects from the Northern
Hemisphere. A relearning of values becomes necessary due to the laid back
approach by Australians. What I encountered was the discovery of diverse
pleasures in experiencing the unknown and the untried. The thrills of sky
diving, white water rafting, sea kayak, whale watching, crocodile hunting,
bush walking, outback quad adventure, marine wilderness scuba diving and
snorkelling are exciting both the young and the old. Everywhere I travelled
I noticed a diversity of escapes from ordinary to extraordinary.
The urge to escape from the beaches to the lush rainforests and the wide-open
expanses on the one side, contrasts vividly with the mindset of nature lovers,
environmentalists and explorers of bush foods, medicines and cuisine on
the other. It was also novel to experience five different standards of accommodation
ranging from Lava and Wilderness Lodges to Swag and Safari tents.
Whilst all this is visible, what is unseen, is the quiet revolution
taking place in space exploration research in the wiles of the Outback.
This is the new dimension of Australia, preparing for 2030 today, so that
it can take its place among the explorers to Mars and the Outer planets.
With Sydney over 22 hours away and 11 hours ahead of London time, satellite
communication makes a mockery of this distance. A telephone link up from
Sydney to U.K. costs less than a local call connection within U.K. Regardless
of this ease of communication, Australia happens to maintain a distance
from U.K. in its trade links with Pacific rim countries, including the West
coast U.S. Trade with China has exceeded all expectations. A feature
of this trade link is that Australian subsidiaries are manufacturing goods
in China, price competitive specifically for the Australian market.
I found the people and their thinking, although culturally linked to
U.K., are diversified in every other way, possibly due to their new vision
for the future, where trade takes preference. This policy is making Australia
a “big player” within the Pacific rim countries, preparing to lead this
third group into competition with the E.U. and U.S.
I found experience
came second to performance in Australia. The trend is ability to perform
in every walk of life, not excluding the capacity to climb in and out of
the top bunk of the available bedsteads in a backpackers' hostel, irrespective
of one's age or sex. The opportunity of living on a shoestring both in terms
of my trainers and my living expense on food, was also no exception. With
variety on offer, the choice of international dishes at unbelievable prices
in one location catering for Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Malaysian,
Indian and South Pacific is a tempting offer. Full English breakfast
with all trimmings is available at half cost but dinner menus of crocodile,
emu, and kangaroo steaks are treble normal dinners.
My search for
an Australian identity, was somewhat of a” voyage of discovery”. It was
both a mood and an experience. It was a mood, which is laid back, less stressful
than I had thought and an experience, which was exciting to say the least.
As opportunities for a backpacker are few and far between locations,
one has to be prepared for all weather, political and otherwise or accept
the unexpected at all times. What is common between Tony Blair, the politician
and a backpacker is that both grab every opportunity as it comes. The link
is this diversity in existence, is to relish the challenge and variety of
today's living.
I am no authority on backpacking because there are
no authorities I know. There are just those who love it and have had luck
with it and those who have not had it. Whether backpacking or living on
a shoestring, is an acquired knowledge is anybody's guess.
My experience
in Australia was valuable and worthwhile in many ways. But, for those who
have shut out an Australian holiday as too expensive and miles away from
home, could reconsider and modify the backpacking experience to suit their
holiday idea of the future.
Age is no barrier to backpacking, or
to sharpen one's wit and agility. But, age I feel, is wasted on the old
in U.K and thrives among both young and old in Australia.
Submitted
by Victor Cherubim (Freelance Journalist)-
Kind thanks to him for allowing this site to share his insight.
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