Travels with George

by Vivien Fallows

  Travels with George

  The diary of a mum on a mission

  Vivien Fallows

  First published in Great Britain in 2017 by

  The Book Guild Ltd

  9 Priory Business Park

  Wistow Road, Kibworth

  Leicestershire, LE8 0RX

  Freephone: 0800 999 2982

  www.bookguild.co.uk

  Email: info@bookguild.co.uk

  Twitter: @bookguild

  Copyright © 2017 Vivien Fallows

  The right of Vivien Fallows to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with theCopyright, Design and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system, in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  ISBN 978 1912362 769

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  This book is dedicated to the legions of empty-nesters, whose children have packed their bags and headed off to explore life in far-flung towns, cities or countries.

  Now is the time to pack your bags and set out to enjoy your own adventure – whether you journey near or far, just do something different, push boundaries, scoop up some memories and have fun

  Bon Voyage.

  Contents

  Preface

  Where to begin?

  Twenty-four hours in California

  The Cook Islands

  North Island, New Zealand

  Sydney and a family reunion

  Melbourne in double-quick time

  Off to Adelaide via the Great Ocean Road

  Sydney and Canberra: from Blue to Snowy Mountains

  Uluru: the Red Centre

  Perth and North

  Further Travels with George

  Kuala Lumpur

  Darwin and the Top End

  Perth: Welcome Back

  Heading east from Perth

  Broome and Derby

  Journey’s End

  Acknowledgements

  Web Addresses

  Preface

  A quick explanation about the people, places and facts mentioned in this book, to ensure that I am not making inadvertent or inappropriate misrepresentations. The named characters exist and only on one occasion have I changed an individual’s name, as I did not want to incur the wrath of a Western Australian policeman for a second time.

  Although the places I visited are well recognised and well documented some of the facts might seem a little obscure. I have endeavoured to double-check that my original jottings were correct but if errors have been made, then I take full responsibility and will amend as and when identified, on the rather presumptuous assumption that this book might run to a re-print.

  I should perhaps point out that my travels took place approximately fourteen years before I finally converted my handwritten scrawl into something more legible. In the intervening years, hotels have been given face-lifts and the smaller museums have embraced the 21st-century technology of their larger cousins, so my occasional disparaging remarks no longer apply. I am also certain that it is possible to do what I did on a more nutritious diet than the beer and muffin fest which fuelled my adventures and expanded my girth.

  Finally, and weirdly, I must thank people who may never be aware that I have written about them, which is such a pity as without their conversations this publication would be merely pamphlet sized.

  Where to begin?

  I am not someone normally given to scribbling down life’s events, as keeping a diary requires a discipline I sadly lack. Instead, I airily commit moments to memory where they tumble around, resurfacing unbidden in a day-dream inducing fog. Well, that was the norm until a few years ago when this random approach to memory recall changed out of necessity.

  In 2000, buoyed up by the enthusiastic global welcome given to the new millennium, my son Matt decided that a belated gap year would be a good idea. Before I could mumble parental words of pecuniary caution, both he and his girlfriend, Alice, had quit their jobs to set off on an around-the-world trip. As two sets of teary parents bid farewell to their offspring, Alice’s fatalistic father muttered, “They won’t be back.” Strangely I hadn’t considered that option, so my adamant, “Yes, they will,” probably sounded a little naïve.

  Six months later the back-packing duo arrived in Sydney where, predictably, they ran out of money and, unpredictably, they found work. Friends were made, a lifestyle enjoyed and then marriage, Australian citizenship, three gorgeous daughters and a mortgage swiftly followed. Alice’s father was right. Sydney had become home and I miss them with a maternal and grand-maternal ache. To add to my woes, at about the same time that Matt flew off to the unknown his sister, Kate, a primary school teacher, decided to work overseas. Another teary farewell at Heathrow followed. Sadly, the nest had emptied all too swiftly.

  And then to compound this strange feeling of loss, in 2002 the disability charity I had been working for ceased to exist. Suddenly, I was minus a job and minus motivation. Trying to shift me out of this lumpen inertia my husband, Kevin, suggested that a trip to Sydney might cheer me up. What a boost! I think possibly he had a three-week visit in mind, but I started chatting to a friendly chap at Trailfinders and my itinerary just got longer and longer. The planning was fun and I ignored friends’ questions about how many home-cooked frozen meals I was going to leave for my beloved: none as it turned out.

  Finally, with preparations over and bag neatly packed, I was gleefully on my way, off on my first solo adventure. In a little under seven weeks I hopped from London to Los Angeles, down to the Cook Islands, further down to North Island, New Zealand before heading across the Tasman Sea to Australia. As adventures go, it wasn’t the most intrepid of expeditions for, without giving the game away, there were no Shirley Valentine moments and nothing went wrong.

  Eighteen months after my return, with a barely resuscitated piggybank cowering nervously in the corner, I decided upon a further frenzied shake of its rattling innards. The travel bug had bitten deep but further excuses of inertia seemed implausible, so I focussed on the fact that there were still dots on the Australian landscape waiting to be joined up. Once again, aided and abetted by the helpful staff at Trailfinders, my itinerary grew and grew.

  On both of these trips, the only obligation I was placed under by my patient husband, was that I should not rely on my jumbled memory to regale him with my antics, but instead write a daily travel journal, which I duly did – albeit in a 50 pence lined exercise book.

  Oh, and by the way, George was my green wheelie suitcase.

  I was on my way

  Twenty-four hours in California

  Friday 22nd March: Ready for the off – did I wave goodbye at London Heathrow?

  There was no last embrace. No entreaty to keep safe – from either party. Perhaps I waved? I couldn’t be sure. I was too busy inhaling fumes. Glassy-eyed I drew in that wonderful heady cocktail of aircraft fuel. Forget fresh-baked bread, for me it’s the whiff of kerosene which guarantees a satisfied aah will escape my lips. Excitement bubbled with each breath. Childhood tales of pilots who, with derring-do, re-lived their RAF days bouncing passenger planes safely onto grassy runways, had obviously nurtured this olfactory addiction. Inhaling happily, I hefted my bag and hopefully waved a cheery goodb
ye to my nearest and dearest. Skipping off, I mused that anything forgotten could be acquired as and when – I wasn’t exactly heading into a wilderness. A final “Don’t forget to write” drifted across the buzz of airline activity, acknowledged by my barely considered, “Yeah – byee.” I was on my way.

  But before I had made it through passport control, I was halted in my tracks by revised stringent security measures and my little bubble of excitement went ‘pop’. With an unwelcome feeling of fluster, I felt the impact of the searches before being allowed to weigh George, my pristine suitcase. For some random reason, together with half a dozen other bods, all blokes, I was singled out for special treatment. Trying not to look crestfallen, I surreptitiously surveyed the aged twenty-something backpackers beside me and silently questioned: Why middle-aged me?

  Fluster upon fluster, the extra screening involved quickly unpacking the carefully packed contents of George, to display underwear and toiletries to all and sundry. With horror, I watched as individual tampons skittered across the heavily peopled floor, adding an extra challenge to the peripatetic navigations of bemused passengers. For some unknown reason I had thought it clever to take the offending items from their box and stuff handfuls into the nooks and crannies of the case: daft idea, never again. Grovelling on my knees, I scooped up the escapees and re-stashed everything clumsily and hurriedly. Red-faced I plonked the case on the scales, refusing to engage in eye contact with anyone in a uniform. This fraught pantomime and unexpected exercise cut short the pre-flight waiting time, which meant that my duty-free spree was reduced to a quick sprint for a bottle of Dior perfume, my one luxury item, plus an attractive flesh-coloured money belt: Whose flesh I wonder?

  Arriving at the departure gate we the marked few, and I do mean that literally as a quick squint at the passenger manifest revealed that the naughty names had been marked in bright pink highlighter with a couple of yellow asterisks alongside, again received special treatment. This time our shoes had to be thoroughly inspected, requiring a certain amount of grunting on my part as I struggled with the stiff laces of my new trainers. Strangely, I had never possessed a pair of trainers before setting off on this trip. By now I was getting sweatier by the minute. I’m a seasoned traveller but had never experienced such heat-inducing scrutiny.

  Returning from a pre-adventure shoe-shopping expedition, my husband had queried my (for me) odd choice of footwear in a way which signalled a possible wobble in case his wife’s mid-life crisis might extend to more radical departures than just shoe choice. Looking down at my now sock-clad feet I wondered if he had been right, should I have kept to my sensible Mary Jane’s? Had my feet singled me out?

  The only reason for going on about this at any length is because of the frosty raised eyebrow (a single eyebrow being more humiliating) reception I received when I eventually sauntered on board, admittedly appearing a little more bedraggled than I had three hours previously. It might have been my imagination working overtime or pure paranoia at play, but I am sure that the silent message conveyed by the pink highlight and brace of yellow stars had preceded me onto the flight. Magically the first gin and tonic thawed my rictus jaw but alas no crew member reciprocated with growing warmth.

  Had my feet singled me out?

  Happily, apart from one minor blip, the flight was uneventful which, as we landed, I hoped the remaining twelve would likewise be. The blip occurred when the only air turbulence we hit was timed to coincide with my decision to disturb 19B to get to the loo. Having woken him once, as I climbed out from my window seat, becoming entangled in his hair-raising static-crackling blanket, I then had to turn and clamber back over him when, on cue, the ‘fasten seat belt’ sign was illuminated. He didn’t budge, only grunting in a non-committal sort of way. It’s weirdly unsettling engaging in such close physical contact with an inert unknown individual. Inevitably, I had to wake him for a second time when, twenty minutes later, stratospheric calm was restored. Apologetically scrambling over his bulk to resume my progress towards the loo, his grunts were now of a more annoyed kind. Earlier I had become acquainted with19B by attaching half of his seat belt to half of mine. When he pointed out my error, it explained the lump pressing into my right buttock, the unused portion of my seat belt. Did I say I was a seasoned traveller?

  Touchdown in Los Angeles came punctually and smoothly and my welcome in the city of the angels by airport officials was warm and friendly. No longer was I a travelling pariah. Reunited with George, I soon found myself in a taxi lurching towards Santa Monica. From memory, the roads in New England, my only other experience of American roads, couldn’t compete with these racetracks: scary stuff. After much lane changing and Spanish invective, we arrived at Four Points, a rather weary looking Sheraton Hotel but ideally situated just ten minutes walk from the famous Santa Monica Boulevard and Muscle Beach.

  During the madcap taxi ride, I admit to a certain feeling of flatness. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but the chosen route from the airport to Santa Monica was lined with tired, shabby buildings and it seemed that most of the population was equally tired and shabby and in need of a hot meal and a hot bath. I don’t recall seeing so many supermarket trolley homes in a comparable distance in London. En route from the airport, the roseate hue that had quivered over the California of my dreams looked a little tarnished in the tawdry reality of four in the afternoon.

  Having arrived at my first destination, dragging the unexpected excess baggage of feeling jaded, my bed beckoned only to be swiftly rebuffed; this was no time for being a wimp. With just a day in the US of A prior to catching the next flight, I opted for a quick wash and brush-up before stepping out onto Pico Boulevard and then heading down the hill in search of the sea. And when I found it… Wow. What a view. Fabulous!

  The sea seemingly merged into the sky creating a magical wrap-around feel and a truly fantastic palm-framed vista opened up in front of me. Beaming happily whilst standing on the edge of the sand, digging in my shoe-clad toes, I watched as the Pacific rolled gently out towards the setting sun. The sea absorbed and mirrored the sun’s golden glow as it gently spread over the clouds that were sitting puffed and fluffy on the distant horizon. It was difficult to tell the point at which the golden sea became the golden sky. Any remnants of the jaded traveller swiftly vanished at this point. The adventure had truly begun.

  All the things I had been expecting to find along the boulevard, I now found. Skateboarders, cyclists and roller bladers scrunched rhythmically on the sand encrusted path. One energetic male, not very muscle-bound, and several less energetic females, not overly clad, showed off their varying degrees of athletic prowess on the rings, parallel bars and more besides, which appear to grow up out of the sand. So this was the famed Muscle Beach. But where were the six-pack hunks?

  Just behind, on the other side of the path and under the shade of the palms, were the permanent chess board tables I’d seen in glossy magazines. Assorted characters sat in deep contemplation, possibly over the next move, but in the mellow light of the dusk it could have been over anything. This was sunset on, what seemed to me, a watery sandy haven. Strolling back up the hill to the hotel, redistributing particles of Muscle Beach with each stride, I was again struck by the alien feel of the environment and realised that it was not a place for walkers. Crossing roads was a challenge. Where were the pedestrian lights? If and when they did exist they lured you confidently out into the road where, at the midway point, they suddenly favoured the motorist and you knew you should have sprinted… ’cos you’re suddenly an unwitting participant in a heart-pumping game of chicken played by some very big cars.

  By now it was about six in the evening and my body clock was beginning to protest, but, deciding to delay bedtime a little longer, I stopped at the hotel bar for a cold beer. Refreshing though the bevy was, it soon induced a greater feeling of tiredness. Fearful of sleeping now and then waking up raring to go at two in the morning, I struggled on, yawning attractively, wonder
ing who had designed the hotel décor and what overall effect they had been trying to achieve. A rather strange mock-coal fire, complete with classical over mantel, might have added a homely touch, but for its position. Marooned in a terrazzo sea it looked surreal with its truncated chimneybreast pointing up into nothingness. It was as if someone had cleaved it from the wall of a mansion and plonked it at a jaunty angle in the hotel lobby, whilst deciding where to give it a permanent home. Perhaps the house wrecker was one of my drinking companions?

  Anyway, done with being picky about my surroundings, I ambled off to find my room which was, as ever when I’m on my own, located a route march from anywhere. Possibly the biggest bug-bear of being a lone female traveller is the room allocation lottery: I rarely win. In the UK I used to think I was indelibly marked with the stamp of charity worker (pauper) or leper (unclean) by the way the least attractive and most secluded rooms were always reserved for me. Had my reputation preceded me across the Atlantic? Perhaps there was more to that pink highlighter and those yellow asterisks? Here I was, on the ninth of nine floors at the furthest point from the lift, down a twisty corridor with bingo a service-lift-shaft to keep me company.

  After a bit of pottering and conversing with home to get my mobile phone operational, I ordered room service – burger and fries – well, this was America. The food arrived promptly and cheerily, the service lift proving to be an unexpected bonus. Greedily I tucked into a delicious burger with piping hot chips and another cold beer as Frasier hit the screen. Total bliss. No sooner than I’d licked the last dribble of grease from my fingers when curtains fell.

  I slept soundly, undisturbed by buzzing brain or garrulous guests, and awoke at a sensible time with the Getty Center as my mission.