This is part 3 in a 3 part story.

If you want to read part 1 click here.

If you want the read part 2 click here

With the constant chatter of machine-gun fire in the background, we waited for the ammunition truck in the only small copse of trees in what was basically a couple of hectares of rice paddies out in the open.  With the aid of the Cambodian reporter, the Space Cadet and I made casual small talk with the boy soldiers.  It was completely surreal, and everybody seemed quite relaxed, as they enjoyed a few moments of impromptu socialising.  Every now and again the Space Cadet would punctuate the conversation with his mantra of “Wow this is all so real!  This ain’t no movie!”
 
When the ammunition truck arrived, the soldiers that we had been chatting with, explained to the driver that he was to take us to the front.  The back of the truck was fully loaded with ammunition of all kinds so all three of us (the Cambodian reporter, the Space Cadet and myself) piled into the cab with the driver. It was a bit cramped, but no one could ride in the back. Talk about getting into the most dangerous ride in the world. Being close to battlefront was bad enough, but getting into a truck loaded with explosives that might get detonated by a lucky shot, was probably the stupidest decision I’ve ever made in my life.
 
The dirt road was raised at about a metre higher than the surrounding rice paddy fields so the driver just put his foot to the floor and drove as though his life literally depended upon it.  A full ammunition truck raised above all the surrounding landscape would have been the target of choice.  About 1 km from where we got on the truck we sped past a dead burnt body by the side of the road.  In the split-second that it took to pass the body, I could see that it was on its back with its arms and legs in the air as though it were some insect that had been sprayed with insecticide. His clothes had been almost totally burnt off, revealing shiny vitreous blackened skin.  There was no one else around and the body was there all by itself like a pathetic discarded shop mannequin.  It all happened so fast that I almost didn’t feel anything other than regret that I couldn’t stop and take a photograph.  It makes me shudder when I think about how unfeeling and uncaring I was back then.  So childishly selfish, hardly better than a hungry animal.
 
We sped down the road for about another kilometre or two until we got to a small village of battle damaged grass huts, which was our destination. 

Our ride skidded to a halt, and we all jumped out as fast as we could and ran for cover behind coconut trees to wait for the commander.  It took me a few seconds to realise that there were Cambodian government soldiers dotted around the village behind whatever cover they could find. 

The sound of machine-gun fire was no longer a background noise.  When I was in high school, I used to be in the army cadets and that involved training with rifles (Enfield 303) and machine guns (Bren guns).  When we used to go down for rifle practice we all had to take turns in the bunker at the end of the rifle range to keep track of how well the other kids were shooting at the targets.  It was during these times at the rifle range I became familiar with the different sounds bullets make.  When one shoots a rifle and the bullet is moving away from you the sound is very similar to what one hears in the movies but of course much louder.  When a bullet is travelling towards you it makes a cracking sound that is similar to a bullwhip.  As we waited for the commander I could hear both types of bullets sounds.  Incoming and outgoing.
 
Waiting behind the coconut tree in the company of soldiers who were similar in age to me, with the sound of gunfire all around, was the most scared I’d ever been in my life.  I’m talking real fear that borders on panic, and not some milder type of fear like the type caused by someone threatening to punch you in the face.  The fear that I experienced during that time has become a benchmark in my life that I use to compare how scary something is.  I wasn’t the only one that was scared and as I looked around everybody I could see was hunched over in silent contemplation over how close they were to shitting themselves. 

I found myself thinking about how I put myself voluntarily into such a situation, and then comparing how stupid I was in comparison to the poor Cambodian soldiers who had been drafted into the army and who were there, through no desire of their own.
 
Fear is a physical response to hazardous stimulus, and I’m pretty sure it serves the very important function of keeping us out of harm’s way. It was at this moment, I found myself thinking about how young men can be trained up to do very unnatural things like ignoring the very natural instinct to remove oneself from danger.  In a flash, it became very obvious to me that it was this very fact that one could train up young men anywhere in the world to ignore their fear and the desire for self-preservation that was causing so much trouble in the world. 
 
It would seem that there is always a group of young men, that you can train and give weapons to, who are willing without much informed thought to go and kill other people for whatever foggy reason.  It’s happening in Iraq right now.  Young Americans have been told that they are in Iraq fighting for some noble cause, when in fact; they are just helping the oil companies maintain their supply and profits.
 
In amongst all the noise and fear, the commander and his sergeant wandered casually into view like they were taking a stroll in the park.  When the commander, who spoke English, saw us hiding behind the trees he laughed and waved his hand in a motion to get us to stand up and come out in the open like him.

 The commander was saying it’s okay, it’s okay, the Khmer Rouge are about 200 m away and they can’t see us.  The commander’s confidence eased our fear considerably, so we got up and made our introductions. 

The Cambodian grunts stayed put, they weren’t stupid. The commander then called out to a few of the soldiers to unload the truck, and invited us to come to his command post and have a few beers.
 
The command post was a grass hut with a paved brick floor that had some of the walls and the roof blown off by a mortar round.  There was so little of the structure left that it was almost like sitting out in the open.  In the middle of the floor was a small folding card table, with a few ammunition boxes for seats around it.  We were invited to sit down with the commander as the Sergeant yelled at one of the soldiers to get us some beers. Off to one side of the floor was a set of stairs down into a bunker.
 
So there we sat, in the open, making small talk and drinking warm beer, with the sounds of bullets coming and going, whilst the rest of the soldiers stayed under cover.  The commander said that they had captured some Khmer Rouge soldiers, and that if I stick around, I can get some pictures of them.  This would have been quite the coup as there weren’t very many photographs ever taken of Khmer Rouge fighters as the government soldiers rarely took them alive. 
 
I guess the commander wanted to inspire his troops with his cavalier disregard of the danger.  As for me, I was just going with the flow.  I was so childlike in my trust and confidence in the commander’s ability to interpret the state of affairs. The way that I had it figured was that the commander was used to that sort of situation and was better able to evaluate how to behave under such circumstances, so I just did as he said. 
 
We had been sitting for about 15 minutes, shooting the breeze and knocking back the beers when all of a sudden, BAMM!!  A 105 (as I was told later) mortar round nearly blew me out of my chair. The pressure wave of the explosion was like getting smacked in the face with a plank.  As the dirt from the explosion was coming back down and landing on us, all us noncombatants just looked at each other and as one, made a dash for the bunker.  The commander grabbed me by the arm and said not to worry because the Khmer Rouge only shoot one mortar round and then move to another position, because they knew that the government forces could hear where the rounds were coming from and would go after them.
 
No sooner had the commander finished his re-assurances, when another round came in with a loud BAMM!! Another smack in the face with a plank, and this time, I just bolted down into the bunker, followed closely by the reporter and Space Cadet, so fast that the dirt from the explosion didn’t land on me.  The commander and sergeant ambled in casually, like it was all no big deal.  Which I guess for them it wasn’t but for the Space Cadet and I, things were getting a little bit too real. The Space Cadet was right, “it was all so real!  It wasn’t no movie!”
 
The bunker was basically a square hole 4 m by 4 m (about 12ft by 12ft) in the ground with two army cots in it.  The roof of the bunker was made of coconut tree trunks that had been piled up about three or four trunks thick.  The height of the room was about 2 m (about 6’6”) and near where the wall meets the ceiling, there were two slots for each wall about 20 cm high (about 8”), and a metre (about 3’) long to shoot out of.
 
Just as we got into the bunker, another mortar round scored a direct hit on the top of the bunker and dirt from between the tree trunks fell to the floor, and just in case I wasn’t already terrified enough, two more mortar rounds came in very close to the bunker for good measure.  In total, five rounds had come in. So much for only firing one round and running.  That smug arsehole nearly got all of us killed.
 
The commander sat on his cot and waved to us to sit down and told us to relax as we were now quite safe.  Next to his bed was an ammunition case that was serving as a bedside table and on it was a little tubular personal defence weapon for officers. It was a little bigger than a cigarette, fitting in the palm of the hand and it was loaded with a single small shotgun shell.  I picked it up and cocked it (It cocks like one of those small toy cannons that fire matchsticks) and held it in my hand as I looked up at the slots thinking about what to do if a hand grenade got thrown in.  I was totally freaked out, because I had been thinking that perhaps the mortar fire had been a prelude to an attack. 
 
I sat in a corner with my back against the walls looking up at the slots thinking to myself about grenades, and how I should just pick it up and throw it out; pick it up and throw it out; pick it up and throw it out. The reporter and commander were deep in conversation and  I can’t even remember what the Space Cadet was up to as I was in total self-preservation mode.
 
After what seemed like an eternity of me thinking, pick it up and throw it out; pick it up and throw it out; pick it up and throw it out, a soldier came into the bunker to let us know that the ammunition truck had been unloaded and that we could now go back.  I didn’t give dam about that taking photographs of the Khmer Rouge prisoners, and I couldn’t get in the truck quick enough.  I’m pretty sure the driver had the same idea because no sooner had we shut the doors of the cab, he put his foot flat down on the accelerator and we raced back down the road to where we came from. 
 
As we were hurtling along as fast as the potholed dirt road would allow, small groups of panicked government troops came running out from their positions and tried to jump on the truck.  Amazingly, one guy, was actually able to jump up on the running board on the driver’s side and was holding onto the open window frame.  The driver started screaming at the terrified soldier and smacked him in the face with his elbow and knocked him loose from the door.  More soldiers came running out, and the driver was yelling at them as he sped past them.  The reporter told me that he was telling them to stay and fight and that they were a bunch of cowards.  Pretty easy for him to say considering that he was leaving at high speed.
 
When we got to the T intersection where we met the two soldiers before, they were nowhere to be seen, so we took a left turn and headed back to the Army checkpoint were all the weapons had been piled up.  As we are driving back to the Army checkpoint the Cambodian reporter had told us that the commander had informed him that his soldiers hadn’t been paid for months, and that he was pretty sure that some of his fellow officers had been stealing the payroll and wanted the Americans to know who they were.
 
We were dropped off at the checkpoint, so that the truck could be loaded with more ammunition.  There were quite a few wounded soldiers being carried back, and we noticed one guy who had shrapnel wound to the face and upper leg and had no one to help him, struggling along barely able to limp, so we offered to give him a hand.  At first, two of us each took an arm and placed it around our shoulders, to help him walk but he was in so much pain he just couldn’t bear it. We finally figured out the best way to carry him was for one person at a time to straddle him on their shoulder and walk with him up there until they got tired.  The poor guy was so thin and light that carrying him was not that much trouble for the Space Cadet, reporter and I. The wounded soldier was in so much pain that each step we took caused him agony. When we changed him from one of our shoulders to the other person we could see how much pain it was causing him, but there was nothing we could do and we knew we had to get him back.

When we got to the ferry we handed him over to some other soldiers, and they took care of him from that point onwards.  We were so numb that our ferry ride back over the Mekong passed without much conversation.  I was so caught up in my thoughts about what had just happened that I hardly even noticed the battle sounds receding.  Even the Space Cadet was quiet.  It was a hell of a job that that Cambodian reporter had to do, day after day, and I feel ashamed that I can’t remember his name.
 
Everybody’s mood changed instantly as soon as we got off the ferry.  As the wounded soldiers were disembarking, one could almost feel a palpable sense of their relief. It was like a weight being lifted off everybody shoulders. We knew all was right with the world, when the Space Cadet started off on his mantra once again, “Wow this is all so real!  This ain’t no movie!”

This is part 2 of a 3 part story. If you want to read part 1, click here

Back in January 1975, when I was 18 years old and living in Cambodia I decided in my naive young mind that I wanted to take some photographs of bomb-damaged buildings.  Phnom Penh used to get regularly hit by small short-range rockets, but they never left very much damage other than a few cracked bricks. They were more of a terror weapon.  I guess I was so interested in taking photographs of war-damaged buildings because of photographs that I had seen from the first and second world wars. 
 
It never occurred to me that a bomb-damaged building doesn’t look that different from a building that has been demolished by conventional means. It also didn’t cross my tiny little mind that things that make a big mess out of buildings can turn clueless idiots like me into pink mist.
 
At the time, Phnom Penh was completely surrounded by the Khmer Rouge, who were only kept at bay by an almost continuous barrage of artillery fire.  I later found out at an Australian consulate party that Cambodia had become a brass exporter during the war because of all the American artillery shell casings that were left over from the months of continuous firing.  Because the countryside was in the hands of the Khmer Rouge I hadn’t been able to see very much of Cambodia, other than what I could through hitchhiking by air, which would only take me to landing strips (quite often dirt roads) in the middle of nowhere or towns.
 
I had heard from some journalists that I knew, that there were a few bomb-damaged buildings, just over the river on the outskirts of Phnom Penh.  Phnom Penh is situated on the west bank of the Tonlé Sap River where it meets the Mekong River.  To get to the other side of the Mekong River, one had to first cross the Tonlé Sap to a thin finger of land between the two rivers to then catch a small ferry to the other side.  During the war, the bridge that used to go to the other side of the Tonlé Sap River (which was only about 200 or 300 m away from where I used to live) had been blown up, which meant that ferries had to be used to cross both rivers.

The first ferry seemed fairly normal in that it mainly had people from the countryside heading into town with goods for sale at the markets but as we crossed the thin finger of land between the two rivers on foot, it became obvious that we were heading closer to a war zone.  I could hear quite clearly the shooting and explosions coming from across the river, and there was a steady stream of very worried looking people and wounded soldiers heading back towards Phnom Penh.  When I got to the second ferry on the banks of the Mekong I met an American with a Cambodian. 

While we waited for the ferry to come back to our side of the river, the Cambodian guy explained to me that he was a reporter and his job was to go out to the battlefront and speak to commanders to find out what the situation was and then bring back the information to the Military attaché at the American Embassy. 

The American guy who was tagging along with the reporter had a huge shit eating grin on his face and the demeanor of a totally spaced out acid casualty, who only seemed to have a loose grip on reality (now that I’m older and I look back on that situation, I suspect that he was high). When the ferry finally arrived it offloaded refugees and wounded soldiers, the sight of which set the American Space Cadet (SC) spinning slowly around and off on what was going to be his mantra of the day, “ Wow this is all so real!  This ain’t no movie!”
 
The only people who got on the ferry were a few soldiers and us.  The other side of the Mekong was a place that people who had a choice were leaving in droves.  When we got to the other side of the river the staccato sounds of the nearby battlefront had become much louder.  Further downstream, smoke was rising from the general direction of the shooting.

During our half a kilometer walk along a dirt road to the first army checkpoint, the Cambodian reporter explained that we should all walk about 20 m apart so that we didn’t present too tempting a grouped target for a mortar round or machine gunfire.  As we walked along the dirt road, I began to contemplate the seriousness of the situation I’d so brainlessly walked into.  There was a constant silent stream of terrified and exhausted people in a sort of half run, half walk, bolt towards the ferry that we were unwisely walking away from.  I still had not seen any battle damaged buildings. Although there was a constant backdrop of noise from machine gunfire and explosions off in the distance, everything seemed eerily quiet and nobody spoke with the exception of the SC who repeated his mantra of “ Wow this is all so real!  This ain’t no movie!” every couple of minutes. 
 
When we got to the military checkpoint, I was greeted with one of the strangest sights I’ve ever seen. Along the side of the road there was a pile of weapons (some on table and others on the ground) about 100 m long.

As we passed by the weapons the Cambodian reporter explained that they were weapons that had been captured by government forces from the Khmer Rouge.  It just blew my mind at how many weapons there were and what a variety there was. 

There were M-79 grenade launchers, M-16s, AK-47s, Chinese pistols, grenades, landmines, large calibre machine guns, rockets, mortars and box after box of ammunition. 

As I was looking at the weapons and photographing them, a smiling soldier from the checkpoint came up to me and asked me if I wanted some.  Grenades were $.50 and M-16s and Chinese pistols were $3, AK-47s were $5 (they were considered to be a better weapon than the M-16) and the M-79 grenade launchers were about $7.  It is no wonder, that there is so much piracy nowadays in the Gulf of Siam and the South China Sea with so many small arms in circulation.  A friend of mine also got busted in Japan and put in Jail for three years for trying to smuggle a bunch of guns from Cambodia for the Yakuza, but that’s a story for another time. 

The reporter also explained to me that many of the government soldiers had swapped their M-16s for AK-47s, because they felt that the M-16’s were too fragile and they used to jam too often, whereas the AK-47s would still fire even if they were covered in mud.  He then went on to say that the only drawback that he could see that the AK-47 had was that at night time, a muzzle flash could be seen when the gun was fired and that might give away your position. When I asked why there were so many American weapons in the pile, I was told that some were captured from government forces and then used against them by the Khmere Rouge, but most of them were sold by corrupt government officers to the enemy (sounds like what’s happening in Iraq at the moment). Whether any of this is true or not, I wouldn’t know.
 
After the checkpoint, we walked about another kilometre until we came to a T junction in the dirt road, where we met, two young Cambodian soldiers with a walkie-talkie, who told us that it was too dangerous to proceed any further. 

Apparently we were in the middle of a flanking manoeuvre as the stronger government forces were moving towards the south and the Khmer Rouge had melted away to the east and then headed north to come around behind them.  We were told that the intersection that we were at would likely be in Khmer Rouge hands by the end of the day.  The Cambodian reporter told the soldiers (in Khmer) whom he worked for and what he was doing out there, then he told them that the SC and I were journalists (I did have a camera after all) and we had to get to the front.  The solider with the walkie-talkie got on the mike and started talking about us to whomever was on the other end. The two soldiers then explained that they had spoken to their commander and he told them there was an ammunition truck heading our way very soon and we could get a ride to the front in it. The commander also said he had some important information for the reporter.

As we waited for the truck to arrive, the constant sound of machine-gun fire was occasionally punctuated with the sound of mortar explosions.  Every now and again, an artillery shell would whistle overhead, followed a few seconds later by a distant whoomp. The SC passed the time by turning around in slow circles as he looked up into the treetops with a blissed out rictus on his face, repeating his mantra, “ Wow this is all so real!  This ain’t no movie!”
 
Part 3

In 1978, Conklin Amusements, which used to be the largest carnival company in North America, decided that for their 50th anniversary of being in business they would have an antique carnival section on their midway at the Calgary stampede that year.
 
At the time I was living in Toronto when I heard from a friend of my sister’s who used to work in the costume is department of CBC (Canadian Broadcast Company) that Conklin’s were looking for people to work at the Calgary Stampede that year.  I wasn’t enjoying my time in Toronto, so I just hitch hiked out there and got a job.
 
The antique carnival was set up about three weeks before the stampede to iron out any bugs there might be with some of the old games and rides. All the workers were dressed up in period costume from 1928, and all the games and rides were also from that period.  All of us guys even had our hair cut in 1920s style, and treated with hot oil conditioner so it would stay greasy for about two months. 

When I first got to Calgary, I made friends with one of the maintenance guys from the rides called Barry and I shared a company paid hotel with him for the first couple of weeks I was there for free.  Barry was a hard drinking party animal, who told me once that he chugged a whole bottle of tequila in one go, for a $10 bet and went into a coma for two weeks. 

My memories of the time that I spent with Barry in his hotel room are a bit of a blur as it was just one long dope, LSD and alcohol fueled party, night after night.  We were young, indestructible and indefatigable. “Ten feet tall and bulletproof” as they say here in Australia. It was all very rock ‘n’ roll, complete with Barry throwing a carton of beer out through the closed window.  The management was pretty cool about that as long as the damage was paid for, they didn’t even hint that they were going to throw us out. The Calgary stampede, at that time, was a fun place for a young single guy like myself.  The other carnies and myself found the people of Calgary to be very hospitable and friendly and it was not uncommon to just gatecrash parties and to be actually welcomed in as a guest.  Everybody was young and looking for a good time, and we had a blast.
 
After a couple of weeks in Calgary, Barry had found himself a girlfriend, so I couldn’t share his hotel room with him any more.  In the meantime I had met a local called Rick. 

Rick was an ex-con, who stood about 190cm (6 foot three) and weighed about 115kg (250 pounds) and he used to be a professional boxer.  I had seen Rick punch out a few people at parties for no real reason and I was in no doubt about his skills or his willingness to use them.  Rick seemed to like me and we got along, so when he invited me to come and stay at his house for a small fee, I jumped at the chance because it was so easy.
 
Unfortunately, Rick shared his house with a shrew of a girlfriend, whose name I can’t remember, but for convenience, I will call her Kate (as in Shakespeare’s “Taming the Shrew”).

Kate was slovenly, lazy and irritable, and for the life of me I can’t understand what Rick saw in her.  Maybe she could suck a golf ball through fifty feet of garden hose. I guess there are people reading this who probably can’t understand what she saw in Rick.  Rick said that the money I paid him for rent included food, but I soon gave up on eating there as Kate only ever heated up pre-made perogies for dinner. I guess that was the secret to her beautiful skin and svelte figure.
 
After I’d been staying with Rick and Kate for about a week and a half Rick told me they were going to get married and asked me if I would be his best man.  I couldn’t believe that somebody who knew me for such a short time would ask me to be his best man.  To be honest, as I got to know Rick I realised he was a bit of a unpredictable, violent lunatic and I didn’t really want to have anything to do with his wedding.  So at the risk of a beating, I begged off with the excuse that I didn’t want to wear a suit and be responsible and sober on the day.  Fortunately for my health and face, Rick wasn’t insulted and he got Barry to be his best man.
 
The workers at the carnival fall into two groups, the real carnies and the blow-ins like myself.  The real carnies were either born into the business or had been working in it for a very long time and they had their traditions.  One of their traditions is the carney wedding, in which the marriage ceremony is performed on a ferris wheel.  Since Rick had been in the carnival for about two weeks, he saw himself as a Carney so he approached Conklin’s management and asked them for a carney wedding on their ferris wheel.  Surprisingly, they said yes. I guess the PR department felt they’d get some good press and free advertising from the event.  The wedding was held a few days later.

By the time Rick’s wedding came around, I’d been in Calgary for over a month and had made quite a few acquaintances which I used to hang out with.  One of these guys is the fellow in the picture below, whose name I also don’t remember but for convenience, I will call him Tim.

Tim worked in the hammer joint where people used to pay money to see if they could hit a whole nail into a piece of wood with one blow, and if they did so they got a coupon that they could exchange for a prize.  Tim was not very tall and he was a quiet guy. I enjoyed his company because he always had something interesting and thoughtful to say.  Tim seemed a bit damaged and I spoke to him about this and he had said that he had only recently got out of jail in Texas. When I asked him why he been in jail in Texas he told me a horror story about hitch hiking with his girlfriend there.
 
Apparently Tim and his girlfriend were hitchhiking down near Brownsville at night when some police in a police car pulled up to question them.  Tim said that they separated him from his girlfriend and when one of them was questioning him he heard his girlfriend cry out as the other policeman slapped her in the face, so he ran to her aid.  And as Tom Waites would say, “push turned into shove and then biff turned into bam”. 
 
Tim was beaten up on the spot and dragged off into the police car and his girlfriend was left by herself on the highway. Tim never saw her again.  When Tim and the police got to the police station, they beat him up again and threw him into a cell with other prisoners.  Tim said he was kept in a cell for 10 days without charge and he never was before a judge in the whole time he was there. Tim also told me that at nighttime, the police used to come into the cells and force the prisoners to fight each other (in pairs like boxing matches) until one of them couldn’t stand.  I asked him what happened if he if they refused, and he said that the police used to get out their batons and beat them until they did.  After the 10 days, the police drove Tim the edge of town and told him not to come back.
 
I’ve had a few unjustified run-ins with the Texas police as well, and I know how they can be, so I didn’t doubt what Tim had to say for a moment.
 
On the day of Rick and Kate’s wedding, Tim, Rick’s future brother-in-law and I had been out shopping for their wedding present at a shopping mall while we were tripping on LSD. 

We bought Rick, a pair of Donald Duck scissors as a joke and a very nice German chef’s knife as the real present. After we bought our presents we spent the rest of the afternoon sitting outside of the department store beauty parlour laughing our asses off at what we saw as a chemically induced grotesque freak show.  We thought it was hilarious to see the blue-rinse set come out of the salon after their make-overs. They just looked ridiculous. We laughed so much that there were tears running down and our faces and our sides hurt.
 
Needless to say we were running late and we missed the wedding, but we did make it to the reception.  We were told that the press had been at the wedding and lots of photographs had been taken and the story would be in the newspaper the next day. The reception of about 250 guests was held in a public hall with a small stage at one end. Tim and I sat at a table off to one side with a few of the women that we knew. The girls knew instantly that we were both off our faces but they didn’t seem to mind though, because we were both in such good moods that our laughter was infectious and before long we were all laughing our heads off, telling jokes and having a generally great time. One of the women at the table was a biker chick and she had a very wicked sense of humour. I remember her telling Kate who was yelling and carrying on about something she had just said, that “if you can’t take a joke, don’t get married”. The wedding was turning out better than I thought it would be.
 
After a few drinks, Rick got up on the stage and then opened the wedding presents in public. He would open up the card, read out who it was from, open the present and then show it to everybody while thanking the person who had given it to them.  Rick looked very happy until he got to the Donald Duck scissors.  He didn’t think it was very funny at all and his smile turned to a scowl as he threw the scissors over his shoulder, shaking his head as he glared at me.  Rick’s mood quickly changed when he saw his real present and his glare turned into a radiant loving smile. I knew he’d like the knife. It’s a guy thing.
 
After the present unwrapping, Rick went back to his table, the music was turned up and every body started dancing.  Everything was going really well until a guy called Spade snuck up, unseen, behind Rick as he was relaxing at the table and dropped a blob of ice cream into the back of one of Rick’s loafers that was hanging off his heel.  As a Rick stood up later to have a dance his heel went back into the loafer and he stood on the ice cream. 
 
That was it, Rick went ballistic, and as quick as a flash there was a riot. Everybody just seemed to go nuts and started to try and kill each other with what ever they could lay their hands on. It was just like in one of those old westerns where everyone in the saloon was smashing each other over the head with chairs. That is everybody except us, in that I mean, Tim and I and the girls. Tim and I were just too happy and full of love.  It was all so surreal and all so full on with violence everywhere we looked. The amazing thing was, that most of these people knew each other and until the wedding I would’ve said that we were all friends. One of the women I was with said I should go over to Rick and try calming him down. 

Tim came with me as we ducked and weaved our way through the brawlers towards the centre of the the storm called Rick. As we approached Rick, he looked like a bear trying to shake off a pack of small dogs.  Barry, with tears streaming down his face came rushing past us with a chair in the air to smash somebody, to our right.  

I pulled a bunch a guys off Rick, who was also in tears and screaming out what a bunch of bastards everybody was and how they had ruined his wedding. I tried to get him to calm down, but he was in a hysterical (and I don’t mean funny) state. In between his hyperventilating blubbering he kept raving on about “that fucking Spade, he put ice cream in my shoe, I’ll kill him!” Rick then turned on Tim and tried to hit him, but Tim was too fast and jumped backwards out of his reach.
 
Rick was about twice Tim’s size.  Tim was amazingly fearless, he stepped back and he lifted his hands into a boxing stance standing his ground as Rick advanced.  Rick took another swing at Tim, but Tim just ducked, stepped back and then kicked him in the balls.  As Rick hit the ground like a sack of potatoes I grabbed Tim by the arm, dragging him out of the hall and we made a run for it.
 
I spoke to Rick the next day and he was full of admiration for how gutsy Tim had been. We also heard about a carney-wedding riot at a public hall on the radio. 

I bet that’s not the sort of publicity that Conklin’s was expecting.

I was just reading a blog from the States, and it was about a diner in Oregon that serves ridiculously large pancakes.  The image in the post, reminded me of the many times that I have been to America and how I am usually disappointed with the food that I get served at restaurants over there.  Of course there are some great restaurants in America, but the trouble is, there are so many more that aren’t.  One gets the impression that some marketing genius has decided volume surpasses quality.  It reminds me of that old joke from the rag trade, “never mind the quality feel the width”.

I took this picture of a meal that my wife and I ordered at a restaurant in Page Arizona, because it reminded me of a humorous little book called “Never eat anything bigger than your head”.

On a more serious note, we had ordered some margaritas and you can see the size of the drinks that we received and they were strong.  

As in most small towns, Page has very poor public transport infrastructure, and it strikes me as irresponsible that such large drinks are served to people who have no other way of getting home other than their own transport.  In my minds eye, I can imagine getting pulled over by the police, and being booked after a breath test and protesting that I’d only had one drink as I’m taken away!

As Ludwig Mies van der Rohe once said “less is more”.

When I was in Madrid back in 1982, I went to the Post Office near the Atocha station to mail some postcards.  Near the Post Office, in one of the side streets there was a large informal market on the sidewalks. 

When I came out of the Post Office, I noticed there was a disturbance, as two police were trying to arrest a rather large woman.  Now this woman wasn’t large as in fat and soft, she was large as in robust and sturdy.  As a matter of fact she had the body of someone who looked like they did hard manual labour on a farm or something similar, all their life and the two police looked like a couple of pathetic little city weeds in comparison. 

One of the policemen had her by the arm as she resisted and he pushed her up against their Land Rover, whilst the other policeman had his hand on his holster ready to get out his gun.  There was a large angry crowd of a couple of hundred people pressing in close to the police, shaking their fists and yelling abuse. 

The Spanish aren’t a very tall race of people and being about 6 foot tall (183cm) I could see over the crowd quite well, so I took out my camera and started taking pictures from about 50m away (about 50 yards).  I had taken about 10 photographs of the two weedy little police trying to subdue a force of nature when one of the police turned in my direction to see me taking photographs.  He instantly raised his hand and pointed a finger at me in an aggressive manner.  So I stopped taking photographs and let the camera hang from my neck, while I raised one of my hands in a placating way to show my acquiescence, then I turned around and walked away quickly. 

I thought that, that would be the end of it, but I was wrong, because after I had gone about 100 m (about 100 yards) I was suddenly grabbed by one of my arms very forcefully and spun around to be confronted by the very agitated policeman who had been pointing at me.  He made it very clear to me, even though I didn’t speak very much Spanish at the time that I was to go with him back to the Land Rover. 

It flashed through my mind that it would be an easy matter for me to release myself from his grip and make a run for it.  Strangely enough, common sense, overcame my usual stupidity as I realised that as a brightly red haired and bearded, 6 ft tall (183 cm) freckled and pasty foreigner I would be very easy to spot amongst the smaller and swarthier Spanish.  I also figured that being alone with some annoyed Spanish police in a police station would be character building, in the bad kind of way. 

By the time we got back to the Land Rover, the crowd had grown and the lone policeman, had his hands full with the fired up Amazon. The cop who had me by the arm roughly shoved me into the front of the Land Rover, on the passenger side, and made it clear that I was to sit there and wait.  Meanwhile, just outside my window (which was open) the police were still trying to subdue the woman. She was tossing them around and yelling out blue murder.

As the woman being arrested was raising hell, a younger male version of herself, rushed from the crowd to her defence. I can only presume that the man who was built like a bull was her son.

The young minotaur charged straight into the policeman holding the woman and body checked him against the car with a sound that I usually associate with ice hockey. The policemen who had grabbed me then pulled out his gun and swung the man against the Land Rover, hitting his head against the door pillar near my head with loud smacking sound.   Then, quick as a flash the policeman, shoved his gun up the man’s nostril so hard that I thought he was going to tear it right open.  I instinctively pulled my head away, as I expected to be splattered with brain in any moment.  

Even with the gun up his nose the young man made it clear with loud bellowing and much muscular thrashing about, that he was a force to be reckoned with, and the police should let them go.  One didn’t need to speak the language to understand what was going on.  All I had to do was look around and see the faces of the crowd, who were definitely on the side of the man and the woman being arrested, to know that something unjust was happening. 

Only about 30 cm (about a foot) away from my head I could see the fierce determination of the young man and a panicky look on the policeman’s sweaty face as the situation escalated.  I had the feeling that things were spiraling out of control and there was going to be a death, in seconds.  It is no exaggeration to say that the atmosphere was explosive.  I know it sounds trite, but that’s the only way to describe it.

The Land Rover was being rocked back and forth as the man and woman struggled with the police, and then all of a sudden the woman broke free and ran up the street.  The crowd parted to let her past and instantly closed after her making it very difficult for the policeman pursuing her.  In the confusion, the young man threw his policeman to the ground and ran in the other direction.  The policeman instantly got to his feet and went in pursuit. 

So there I was sitting by myself in the Land Rover and instantly the mob crowded around the Land Rover to give me cover and made motions for me to leg it. 

It was amazing how the crowd reacted in such an overtly anti-authoritarian way.  Up until that point, I had preconceptions that the Spanish were still crypto-fascists.  Franco hadn’t been dead for that long and I suspected that his spirit still lived on. Of course I was wrong, the Spanish are just like everyone else in that they don’t like to see what they think is injustice.

I raised my hand and waved the crowd off, letting them know that I wasn’t going to run.  Like I said before, I knew I’d be too easy to pick up later and it would bode badly for me if I ended up in jail.  I had a suspicion that I’d get that crap beaten out of me if I took off.  I’d already had an experience in Houston, Texas in the US that gave me some insight into how quickly one can lose their liberty.

While I was waiting for the police to come back, it did occur to me that I should replace my film in the camera, but to be honest, I was just too scared and a little freaked out.

Sure enough, both the police came back with their quarry and threw them, handcuffed into the back of the Land Rover and locked them up.  Then they came around to the front of the Land Rover to deal with me. 

Even though they were little guys I could tell they weren’t in the mood for any more fun and games.  They roughly dragged me out the front of the Land Rover and threw me up against its side.  Their blood was up and they were yelling stuff at me in Spanish while they shoved me around a bit. 

They grabbed my camera out of my bag (it was an old gas mask bag) and started clawing at the various knobs trying to open it to get the film.  It was an old Nikon F2 with a motor drive, and they are not that easy to open for those who don’t know how to do it.  With calming gestures, I got them to allow me to take the film out so they wouldn’t damage my camera.  I took the film out and handed it to them, and with a smirk, one of them pulled all film out to expose it to the light and threw it in my face.  They then shoved to me one more time away from the Land Rover and got into it and drove away.

There was a young man in the crowd wearing a blue shirt that I had noticed before, who came up to me and wanted to know if I had substituted the film.  When I said no, I hadn’t, he looked genuinely disappointed.  He then told me that there was money to be made with such photographs, as the tabloids apparently love to publish images like the ones that I had been taking.  I was then asked if I was a journalist, and when I explained that I wasn’t the young man looked even more crest fallen.  I guess in his eyes it was all very exciting, and I think he would’ve thought it was very cool to meet a genuine photojournalist.

Nobody I asked was able to explain to me why the woman had been arrested in the first place and few minutes later, the crowd dispersed and I went on my way minus a beating and one roll of film.  I was starting to think that I was getting better at dealing with the police now.

But then I went to Morocco….  and that’s another story for another time.

Nearly every time I mention the French to people, I get a negative reaction.  I’ve been to France twice and I can’t understand why this is the case. 

I guess the French have been getting some bad press from the Americans, because the French want to maintain political independence and don’t just want to be lickspittle, sycophants like us Australians.  It really gets my back up, when people (particularly in the American mass media that influences so much of the rest of the world) automatically bad mouth, the French with comments like “cheese eating surrender the monkeys”.  It would seem that some people have forgotten the help the French gave the Americas during the war of independence, and the statue of liberty. 

Australia sucks up to America in gratitude, because of what happened to us during the Second World War, when the British cut us loose, after the fall of Singapore and the Americans saved our bacon in the Pacific.  Here in Australia, we feel vulnerable, because we are an under populated country with densely populated countries to our north who have demonstrated a certain amount of antipathy towards us.  Our Prime Minister John Howard, who seems hellbent on strutting on the world stage, rattling his tiny little sabre, doesn’t help this situation. 

The French much to their credit, have taken responsibility to a large extent for their own security after WWII and have tried to distance themselves from the current debacle in Iraq.  With hindsight, the French decision to remain aloof from the American oil grab disguised as a hunt for weapons of mass destruction and the toppling of a tyrant seems quite prescient and wise.

Sure enough, the French, the British and us Australians for that matter, owe a deep debt of gratitude for the sacrifices made by Americans on our behalf. Having said this, I still feel that our countries shouldn’t just jump into bed with the Americans when they are led by such a deluded and dangerous idiot as George Bush, who insists on doing the wrong thing for the wrong reasons.

It’s true that if Paris is the only place in France that someone visits, they will see the busy and uncaring side of the French personality, just as one would see the same behaviour in any other world-famous large city, crawling with tourists.  I think that what many people don’t realise when they are travelling is that they tend to only meet people who they engage in commerce with and not with local people they may have met on another basis.  I’ve found that most people in the many places of the world that I have visited, who deal with the public are sick and tired of the public and can be quite jaded and offhand because of it.

The two occasions that I visited France were back in 1982.  On both occasions, I travelled by hitchhiking.  I’ve done a lot of hitchhiking, and one of the things that I really like about hitchhiking is that one gets to meet the generous and gregarious section of the population of the area one is travelling through. 

What really struck me about hitchhiking in France, was how a genuinely hospitable, generous and warm the French are.  Whilst in France, I came across the concept of the “bon homme” (good man).  I constantly met French people, who automatically went out of their way to do more tham the right thing by me. 

To illustrate what I mean about the French I will describe to you in a few hitchhiking anecdotes, my experiences with them and how good they were to me.

The first time I went to France was by “The Magic Bus” from London and it turned out to be a bit of a nightmare. The Magic Bus Company was a budget bus company aimed at younger travellers, and I was under the impression that it would be a very friendly party type of experience.  Actually it was just a cheap bus company, and of course, as with cheap bus companies all over the world, the bus broke down.  It was about two o’clock in the morning, not long after we had left the ferry, when the Magic Bus “failed to proceed”.

Most of the people got out of the bus and started hitchhiking in the night to Paris.  I guess they had jobs to get to. I wasn’t too worried because I thought that at least I’d save a night’s accommodation costs by sleeping on the bus.  The same thought occurred to about five other young people, and we all introduced ourselves to each other and got stuck into some duty-free alcohol.  So there we were, a small group in the back of the bus, power drinking straight from the bottle, alternating between Scotch whisky and Pernod.  It was a quick succession of one swig of Scotch whisky and then a swig of Pernod. 

The last thing I remember was trying to take a picture of the sunrise in the morning.  When I woke up I was lying sprawled upside down in a very deep farm ditch, with my camera complete with attached tripod, still around my neck, attached by the camera strap.  I had a killer hangover, and I was covered in my own vomit and splashes of mud. To add insult to injury, my backpack had been thrown off the bus and the bus was nowhere in sight. 

Yep, I’m a class act. 

It was a Sunday morning and it was stinking hot, as I gathered up my strewn belongings and walked about 5 km to the next village.  It was a very small town, and luckily it had a fountain in the main square, where I could clean myself up a little.  Unfortunately, because it was Sunday, no banks or businesses were open, and I was unable to change money anywhere, and I had no local currency.  At the time my French language skills were nonexistent, and strangely enough, I couldn’t make myself understood.

The only thing left was to hitch hike to Paris with my hangover and stench.  After a short time by the side of the road I got a lift with a French truck driver.  Like many French people, he didn’t speak English, and of course my French was nonexistent so we weren’t able to communicate and I wasn’t able to explain why I stank.  In the afternoon, he stopped for lunch, and we went into a cafe.  When he saw that I only had travellers cheques and I couldn’t cash them he bought me lunch complete with a beer.  After lunch he took me all the way into the centre of Paris and dropped me off at a youth hostel.

After a few days in Paris, I caught a train out of the city, south to Chateaudun to avoid having to hitch hike through the city.  It wasn’t very long before an old Renault 4CV stopped, and a door releasing Indian music was flung open and a French hippy with long hair and granny glasses, invited me in.  Once again communication was difficult but with some effort, I found out that my ride had just come back from Pakistan that day and was driving back home to La Rochelle on the Atlantic coast.  I was heading south to Spain via  Bayonne so I was happy to get a ride part of the way. 

As we travelled on, the fellow who picked me up suggested that I should stay with his friends in La Rochelle.  I explained to him as best I could that it would take me about 200 km out of my way. Plus, what was he doing offering me a place to stay with his friends when he hadn’t even spoken to them first?  His answer to me is typical of why I love the French.  With a withering look of pity, that the French are masters of, he said to me that they were his friends and he felt free to offer to their hospitality and also what was my rush?  Didn’t I know how to relax and live a little? 

So I took a chance and accepted his invitation.  I’m so glad I did.  I was taken to a very nice house, built so that its backyard, complete with a few wind surfer boards, opened onto the beach.  My new hosts had the good manners to treat me as though they had known me all my life.  I was told I could stay as long as I liked. 

They were a very interesting group of people, who made their living by buying old Peugeot, 404s and driving them through the Sahara desert down to Benin, where they sold them for more than 4 or 5 times more what they paid for them.  I was given my own room, fed, and shown around the local area.  I am absolutely certain that I saw a side of French life that most people who visit France would never get to see. 

In the mornings, one of my hosts would go out to buy fresh warm croissants.  We would all have a French style breakfast, dipping our fresh croissants into a large bowls of coffee.  One of their friends owned a bar that was inside the walls that made up the fortifications built by Cardinal Richelieu back in the 17th century. We spent an afternoon there drinking, and nobody would take my money.  Again communication was very difficult, but my hosts didn’t seem to mind, and I found their lifestyle and attitudes a revelation. As a matter of fact they took me to dinner at various other friends places as well and I was treated like one of the family each time.

After about four days, I was starting to feel a bit guilty, so I borrowed an English to French dictionary to ask them what they were getting out of having me staying with them.  After all, we couldn’t communicate very well and I was eating their food, plus they wouldn’t let me help pay for anything.  Not to mention the fact that overstaying one’s welcome is the height of bad manners. 

Once again, I was exposed to the Gallic withering look of pity, as they questioned me about why I was unable to just accept their hospitality.  They just didn’t seem to be able to understand why I couldn’t just relax and enjoy what they had to give.  I tried to explain that I should eventually get going on my travels. To which they replied, that they were planning on heading 250 km south along the coast to buy another Peugeot in another three days, and that if I liked, I could stay until then and they would give me a lift.  I have to admit I was enjoying my time with those wonderful people, and they didn’t have to argue their case with any great force to convince me that their logic was sound.  So I spent another three days, lounging around the La Rochelle beach house, dividing my days between socialising and windsurfing.  It was all very idyllic.

Finally, a week after my arrival, five of us squeezed into a car and headed south.  When we came to where they had to turn off the main highway, and I was getting out of the car, I was presented with six beers and given a big hug by everybody, slapped on the back and wished “bonne chance” (good luck)!

Within half an hour, another car with two French punks playing revolutionary Nigerian separatist music by Fela Kuti, stopped and I was given a ride to Biarritz, which is a beautiful old resort town just north of the Spanish border on the Atlantic coast.  Once again, I was asked if I wanted to stay with the couple who had picked me up. They were going to stay at the woman’s parent’s vacant holiday house.  I was expecting a small, modest little house, but much to my surprise the two punks I was riding with took me to a huge and luxurious mansion, tastefully decorated with 19th-century furniture.  We had a very entertaining night drinking, eating merguez sausages and listening to punk music.  As they both spoke a fair bit of English the communication was much easier and we all had a good laugh telling each other funny stories.

In the morning, after a fantastic breakfast of more merguez sausages, they drove me to the nearest bus stop to catch a bus to the Spanish border.  Once again, I was given hugs as my new friends left.  I was finding the French to be very warm and sincere in their hospitality. 

I continued down through Spain and I spent a couple of months in Morocco where I met more amazing French people.  I’ll be writing some stories about my experiences in Morocco, at a later date.

When I was in Tarrazout in the south of Morocco, I met a French couple, who invited me to come and stay with them in Rouen, Normandy, when I was passing through France again on my way back home.  So on my way back, whilst I was hitchhiking in Spain, a Frenchman in a Volkswagon picked me up. 

Once again my lack of French made it difficult for me to communicate.  Another problem I had, was with French pronunciation and when I was asked where I was going, I said in my mangled French (which I had been picking up since I been in France in Morocco) that I wanted to go to Rouen.  The Frenchman’s face lit up as he explained to me that that’s where he was heading.  By nightfall, we had reached what I thought was my destination, only to find out that I had ended up in Rennes in Brittany, which was about 200 km southwest of Rouen. 

It just goes to show how bad my French pronunciation is.  I’ve even had a guy in Paris say “no, no don’t speak French, we’ll speak English”.  Usually the French encourage foreigners to speak French but I must’ve been hurting his refined sensibilities. Quelle horreur! (What a horror!)

Once again, I was invited back to stay with my lift.  It turned out that the guy who picked me up in Spain was a mathematics professor at a nearby university, and he invited me to stay with him a few days if I wanted to.  Since I wasn’t in a hurry, I thought why not? I was starting to get the hang of going with the flow.  So I hung out with the maths professor for three days in the beautiful and very quaint town of Rennes and had a great time.  When it came time for me to leave, the maths professor drove me to the edge of town and dropped me off by the side of the road with the now obligatory hug and pat on the back, complete with “bonne chance”.  I was beginning to think that the French really took the “fraternity” part of their national motto “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité”, seriously.

When I got to Rouen, I met up with my friends from Morocco who I stayed with for three days.  Once again, I was shown great hospitality, and I had a very social time as they shared their friends and good times with me.

I found that most people I’ve come across, in the many places of the world that I have been to, are nice people.  There seems to be a commonality of decent behaviour around the world.  Most people I’ve met have tried to be good people, but the French I found to be the most decent of them all.

And that’s saying something, considering that I’ve been to Japan several times and the Japanese are amazing.

Back in the middle of summer in 1979, at the age of 23, I had some time off from my job as a laser light show operator in the carnival, so I visited the Grand Canyon by myself.

I literally had my breath taken away, when I first saw the Grand Canyon.  As I stood at Bright Angel point and looked over the edge, I was so awestruck that I could hardly breathe.  I was also overcome by a feeling that I would be sucked into the chasm, and I had to push myself from the barrier and turn my head away from the vista, just so I could breathe and stop myself from fainting. I always thought such things were the stuff of purple prose, and never in my wildest dreams did I think, that one could have their breath taken away by natural beauty.  I was gobsmacked.

When I got my breath back I turned around and drank in the view for at least an hour.  It was my intention to hike to the bottom of the canyon the next day, so I went to the National Parks office to put myself on the permit list, only to be told that I would have to wait three days, because only 75 people are allowed to stay in the canyon overnight to preserve the fragile desert environment.  I had a week off from work, so I didn’t mind that much.  I just was a bit concerned about how I was going to spend my time, in the interim.

Back in those days I used to think that sleeping on camping mats was for softies, and I also thought that staying at hotels was a total waste of money.  So I used to just camp out in the bush in my sleeping bag without a tent or mat and that’s just what I did at the Grand Canyon.  In the morning I would just pack up all my stuff, put it into my backpack and leave it with the concierge at the Bright Angel Lodge for a small fee.

As I waited the three days for my hiking permit, I sat at the cliff edge and boggled on what I saw. 

 While I was staring into the chasm for hours on end, I couldn’t help but think about how much time had passed as the multitude of geological strata had built up.  The bottom layers of the Grand Canyon were so much older than the beginning of life on Earth.  I found myself thinking about entropy, while contemplating the erosion.  It seemed to me that solidity was a manifestation of time and given enough time, everything was basically liquid as entropy caused matter to succumb to gravity and flow to the lowest point.

As I had this revelation I reached out my hand to get the attention of whoever was next to me and tell them about what I’d thought.  But I was alone, and as my arm swung through the vacant air, I realised that there was no one there.  I felt bereft.  It occurred to me that all my life, up until that moment, I had never really felt lonely, in the sense of needing to have the company of other people for company’s sake.  The reason why I felt bereft was because I had wanted to share the moment and my thoughts with someone who mattered to me.  It came to me in a flash that this was the first time in my life I realised why people formed relationships for other reasons besides money or amusement.  Up until that point I thought that couples were in relationships just because they found each other attractive and wanted to have sex with each other rather than share their lives.  No wonder I wasn’t in any long-term relationship at that time. I was too young anyway.

The three days eventually passed and I got my permit to hike to the bottom of the canyon, and stay overnight at Phantom Ranch.  At the beginning of the hike I met two other travellers, and we hiked down to the bottom and stayed at Phantom Ranch overnight.

The next morning we left fairly early and started on the long hike back up out of the canyon.  We left early, because in the morning, it was still a bit cool and at the bottom of the canyon temperatures can get up to about 50°C (about 120°F) as the day wears on.  At the same time that we left, a little old lady from Austria, who was about 70 years old, also set off. 

Being a couple of young guys, we tore off up the track, until the going got steep, and we had to stop and rest at frequent intervals.  As we were standing around in the shade getting back our breath, the little old lady from Austria would catch up to us and we would take off again.  This tortoise and hare race happened about 4 or 5 times, until the little old lady said to us “boys, boys, boys, you’re doing it all wrong!” Then she said to us, “ walk with me and I’ll show you how to walk up steep hills”.  So off we started again, and before we knew it, we almost left her in the dust again, but as we noticed we were leaving her behind we slowed down, until she caught up with us again.  Our Austrian hiking coach explained to us that if we walked in very slowly we wouldn’t get tired.  So for the rest of the day we walked with her at her slow pace.  Sure enough, we didn’t take a break for the rest of the day and made it up to the top without a stop. 

Thanks to what that little old lady from Austria taught me on that day, I have been able to enjoy walking up long steep hills without being constantly out of breath.

This was written 1993 for a club magazine.

Ever since I saw the video, “BASE Climb“ (where a couple of guys jumped off the Great Trango Tower in Pakistan), by Leo Dickinson, back in 1993, I had wanted to climb Cornerstone Rib in the Warrumbungles. In the video there was footage of the base jumpers training on Cornerstone Rib.  At first the climbing shots didn’t look so hot, but when the camera just kept on pulling back on the zoom, and the climbers were reduced to little specks on this amazing looking volcanic plug, it just looked so utterly spectacular. 

The Warrumbungles are a series of volcanic remnants in a national park near Coonabarabran, which is about 8 hours drive, N.-west of Sydney.

The BASE Climb, video was much discussed by those I know, who climb.  A friend, Colin Skinner, had on various times in the past tried to climb at the Warrumbungles but had been rained out on each occasion over the October long weekend and felt that he was cursed.  Obviously it was not a power place for him, but he said he’d like to try one more time to overcome this spot on earth where he felt the dark forces of nature held sway over him. Another climbing friend of mine at the time, Peter Butler, with the physique of a greyhound knew he wanted to thrash himself on such a massive block of stone.  The pain!  The agony!  The ecstasy!  Pete was just chomping at the bit to give Cornerstone Rib a try.

My regular climbing partner at the time was Tim Allen.  Tim’s father is Bryden Allen, one of the heroes from the dark ages of Australian climbing, back in the 60s, and who was the first to climb Cornerstone Rib 30 years previously. The Warrumbungles had piqued Tim’s curiosity, as he knew his father had been one of the people to open up many of the climbs in the area.  One of the first guys to climb in the Warrumbungles was called Dr Dark; great name eh?

I knew that the climb would be a great place to use all my shiny bits of pro (the temporary pieces of protection that one places as one is climbing) and thereby justifying their purchase! 

 
This picture taken about a year before this story shows a typical “protection rack”.

I’ve always been a bit of the gadget freak.  Plus there was the added of attraction of doing what I consider to be a “real” climb. A climb with multiple pitches, and exposure (great height), that is.

The October long weekend (Labour Day), is an opportunity for many families to go camping and as a consequence, the main camp grounds at the Warrumbungles were fully infested with families in caravans and 10 room mansion’s disguised tents with the ubiquitous early rising and screaming children (It’s no wonder why my mother hated me in the mornings when I was a child).  After the long drive in, we were so tired and we were disappointed that we didn’t get the chance to sleep in.

The walk-in up to the top where the climbs are was up a well-maintained track and it would have been an easy walk if we didn’t have to take all the climbing gear plus camping gear as well as extra water.    There was no water to be had at the designated campsites inside the park.. Our packs were very heavy, and this brought to my attention the amount of fitness, one would need to do mountaineering.  Our walk-in was only about 4 km and not much above sea level and on firm ground, never mind being at 8000m (26,000ft) trudging through snow during a blizzard with frostbite and lugging heavy pack!

Colin and Peter had managed to arrive a day earlier than us, and had arranged to meet us at the smaller camp ground at the top (known as Grand High Tops).  When we reached the campground, we set up our tents next to our friend’s tents, and then we went looking for them.  We found some high ground and looked across at Cornerstone Rib with binoculars, to see two little specks, which were Colin and Peter.  They seemed to be having a bit of trouble figuring out which way to go and were spending a lot of time in one place.  They were on about the fourth pitch. Each pitch is about 25 m long, and the climb up on Cornerstone Rib was about 8 pitches.

Cornerstone Rib is part of a volcanic dyke that makes up the “Butter Knife” which goes across from Grand High Tops down a valley to “Crater Bluff”, an old volcanic plug.  When you look at Crater Bluff, Cornerstone Rib looks like the most obvious route to climb.

I didn’t take this photograph but I’m using it to show the
“Cornerstone Rib” climbing route up Crater Bluff.

About 2 1/2 hours later, when it was quite dark, our friends turned up at the campground.  Of course, we were very keen to hear how the climb went and what we heard was a bit disturbing.  The guys said that they would never do it again as it was on loose rock and the protection (protection is were one places various safety devices in cracks in the rock, and then attach their rope to) was insecure and the long and short of it, was that it was a scary, windy and exposed climb, even if it was only a grade 14 (US 5.8, UK 4b, French 5b+).  Whenever I had been climbing with Peter and Colin in the past and I had seen them having trouble with a climb, I knew that I was going to have a lot of trouble and probably wouldn’t be able to do it, so I was quite concerned.

I had seen Colin lead climb (leading is where you are climbing up past your last place of protection and place protection as you climb), grade 23 (US 5.11d, UK 5b E2, French 7a) and I also knew people who had seen him in Thailand on grade 27  (US 5.12d, UK 6c, French 7c) sports climbs. Peter Butler was also a much better climber than me, and the best I could manage at the time was to grovel and fall up grade 21  (US 5.11b, UK 5b E2, French 6 c) leads.  So naturally I respected what they had to say about climbing, I must admit though, that I was shocked by their shaken state and I found it hard to understand why these guys at such a time with a lowly grade 14  climb (US 5.8, UK 4b, French 5b+), which they should have found easy to do.  When I asked Colin for advice about the climb, he said, put in as much pro as possible and make sure you don’t fall on it. Peter nodded in agreement.  Usually after a climb there is an air of exhilaration, but on this night there was a pall of doubt hanging over the rest of us.

The next morning, Tim Allen and I got an early start and on the way to the climb we saw a koala, which is pretty rare because they are so quiet and keep still.  The first two pitches of the climb were quite easy and we quickly soloed (climbed without protection) them.  It was more scrambling than climbing.  The third pitch was also not so bad, but of course, we definitely felt the need to use our safety gear.  Tim and I had been arguing the day before about whether or not we should use single rope or double rope.  I was for single and Tim was for double.  Double is considered safer, but I was concerned with the weight.  I eventually capitulated, and we used two 11 mm ropes instead of the normal 9 mm ropes that are customarily used in tandem.  Double rope technique also requires a fair bit more communication between the lead in the second, which is hampered by strong winds.Another unpleasantness about climbing in strong winds is that one tends to brace against the wind to prevent being blown off, but of course, winds usually come in gusts and when one is bracing against the wind and it suddenly stops, there is a tendency to suddenly fall in the direction that the wind was coming from.  It is very disconcerting!

As we headed up the climb, the conditions got worse, as the wind picked up.  It was at this stage that I was thinking about what mountaineers have to go through again.  By the time we got to the fourth pitch it was easy to see why Colin and Peter had taken so long.  About 8 m (26ft) from the belay point there is a bulge in the rock that requires a committing move to get over.  Normally that sort of move is not so bad, but the height (exposure) was starting to get unnerving and stuff that is easy to do on one pitch climbs, take on a different hue when they are attempted a few pitches up.

While I was messing around looking to for a way up over the bulge, there was another two guys climbing off to the right of us up a manky looking corner.  They were only about 10 m away (about 32 ft), and we were able to talk to each other.  They said they were climbing up that route, to keep out of the wind.  They had long beards, and looked as though they’ve been climbing for years, and their choice to climb on the corner showed the experience they had.  It was fascinating to watch them climb.  They only had one piece of protection and it was a large hex about the size of a fist attached to a sling about a metre long (about a yard).  They just raced up the climb, and quite often they didn’t even use their one piece of protection, and they were climbing the full-length and 50 m of rope at a time.  They were amazing, and absolutely fearless.

I finally overcame the bulge by going around it to the left into the wind.  The fifth pitch looked much harder and is seemed to be to be ever so slightly overhanging with milk crate to refrigerator sized blocks of loose rock.  All the angles on the rock were sloping down and it was impossible to mantle over them.  Every time I put in the protection, it didn’t feel positive.  I could hear the words of Colin ringing in my ears, “put in plenty of pro-make sure you don’t fall”.  He wasn’t kidding!

To add to the drama, the wind was really starting to pick up and the gusts were constantly pushing me off balance.  The first couple of pitches were relatively easy and I couldn’t understand why Colin and Peter were so shook up the day before.  Now, I understood!  Things were at that stage where I started asking myself how far I want to take this climbing lark.

Whenever I’m in “a predicament”, I find it helpful to tell myself to calm down and concentrate and it was this aspect of climbing that was one of its main attractions for me.  It is very satisfying to delve into oneself and find those hidden reserves that we hoped might be there.  It is even more satisfying to overcome a daunting situation through relaxation and concentration.  I find that climbing has put a lot of things into perspective for me, especially when it comes to what is to be feared or not.

All that remained to do after that fifth pitch navel gazing was to marshal my forces and “just do it”!  And so I continued placing dodgy pro after dodgy pro. I guess I was concentrating on the task at hand so much that I missed the start of the sixth pitch, and I continued to climb off route and onto the sheer face of the wall, away from the arête (the corner ridge).  As I climbed, I noticed that the rope was not coming after me so easily and I started to yell down to Tim to give me some more slack.  The wind was blowing so hard that all I could hear was a muffled unintelligible reply.  The ropes still seemed tight, so I yelled for more slack!!  Muffled reply.

F#$&ing SLACK!!!

Not so muffled reply.

IT’S F#$&ing ROPE F#$&ing DRAG!!!
(translation: the tension was caused by the weight of the two 50m lengths of 11mm rope dragging over the rock).

It was not the place to be having to struggle up, with trying to hang on; placing pro and having to drag out what felt like a dead body on the end of the rope, moving over loose overhanging rock, while being buffeted by the wind and placing dodgy pro on what is an awesome wall of stone, 140 m up (about 450 ft)!

Through the gusts of wind, I could hear a thin voice of Tim calling out for me to look out for a belay point as I was running out of rope (I’d never done that before)!  At this point I was beginning to wonder if I’d been wrong in doubting the existence of God.  As I looked around, I couldn’t see any place to belay from so I just kept on climbing hoping that there was enough rope left.  There was one other problem, I was running out a quick draws (clips that connect the protection to the rope) and pro.  Just when things were bleakest I managed to get over yet another bit of manky loose rock to a point I could belay from.

Ask anyone who has been climbing with me and they will take you how paranoid I am about setting up belays.  I usually put in at least three to five bits of pro-making sure everything is mega safe.  Since I had so little pro-left and the rope wasn’t long enough to reach a better belay point, I had to content myself with a sling around a boulder that in fact probably weighed about the same as myself and placed a nut (a small piece of protection) in a movable crack as a belay.  The area I had to sit on was loose and in no way did I feel good about things.  Anyhow, in the circumstances, I had no choice.

Luckily, Tim didn’t fall and we didn’t have to test the belay.  When Tim, who is a bit of a Luddite, saw the belay his face lit up with glee to see how shonky the belay point was that I had set up.  It gave Tim, a warm inner feeling to see how uncomfortable I had been, having to belay off so little gear.

All that remained was for one more pitch and then the descent.  Tim led the last pitch in fine form (we found out later that we just could’ve walked to the side to get to the top).  Just as I got to the top, I said to Tim “scary, wasn’t it?” and he agreed.

At the top we savoured the moment and flicked through the notebook that was left at the top, under a cairn of stones to help people get over the need to spray paint their initials with “I was here” all over the rock.  As we were looking through the book we came across quite a few names of friends and people who we recognized and of course we had to leave our little scribbles of drivel to prove that we too had climbed up Cornerstone Rib.

We descended down a route called the “Green Glacier” sharing our ropes, with the old hippies who we had been climbing next to.  They were nice guys and we made good time down.

We got back to our camp before dark, and as we walked into camp, I said to Colin and Peter with mock bravado.  “What was all a fuss about it was a piece of piss”.  “Oh yeah!” They replied in chorus, “how come you said to Tim that it was scary”?  Apparently they could hear everything that was said between Tim and I, quite clearly across the valley. The valley acted as an amphitheatre, amplifying and carrying the sound with great efficiency.  They had watched throughout the day and heard little bleat and profane curse we made.

From the end of 1974 until the beginning of 1975, when I was 18, I lived in Cambodia for about six months during the war against the Khmer Rouge.  During my stay in Cambodia, I tried to make a living teaching English as a second language.  The first couple of months were quite difficult as I didn’t have very many students and I almost didn’t have enough money, to feed myself.  In a two-month period, due to a bout of malaria and lack of food I lost 10 kg (about 22 lbs).  During this lean time I had made the acquaintance of the first secretary of the Australian consulate, a Mr Dixon.  Mr Dixon (unfortunately I can’t remember his first name) could see the straits that I was in.  I guess he felt a bit sorry for me, and since he had a government supplied house complete with a gardener, chauffeur, security guard and cook, he would invite me around the dinner, and also to the occasional consulate do.

On one occasion I was invited to a barbecue at the consulate for Australia Day (26th of January) in 1975 .  On the invitation, it said come dressed casually.  In my minds eye, I had envisaged a bunch of the egalitarian Australians standing around a fire with steaks on the end of sticks, barbecuing their own meat with a beer in the other hand, dressed in T-shirt, shorts and thongs (also known as flip-flops or jandles). Just like back home.

It came as quite a surprise to me as I turned up at the consulate dressed in a tattered old T-shirt and frayed jeans to be sat at a long, linen covered table, set with heavy silverware, next to the uniformed militarily attaché.  There were about 40 of us seated at the table, which was outside next to a large swimming pool.  When the food was served it was brought to us by uniformed staff, who dished out the French style food with silver service.  All the other men who were at the “barbecue”, with the exception of the military attaché, were dressed in polyester safari suits.  I guess in diplomatic circles, safari suits are considered casual, and barbecue was code for alfresco dining.  Opposite me at the table were my friend Mr Dixon and his secretary.  I was later told that Mr Dixon had made sure I was sitting next to the military attaché because he knew I would provide some entertainment, as I drove him crazy with anti-Vietnam-war talk.  As a matter of fact, the military attaché was quite annoyed that I’d managed to dodge conscription by being out of the country traveling.  He also opined that it would probably do somebody like me a bit of good to be under some military discipline for a couple of years.  I was definitely the youngest, scruffiest, noisiest thing at the table, and I’m sure the military attaché would have liked to punch my empty head in.

I felt that I had infiltrated an alternative world.  Making a living wasn’t difficult for these people, as they all had profitable diplomatic jobs or positions in non-government aid organizations.  The life of well-paid expats in Third World countries is redolent of the life led by the British Raj, as they all had servants and chauffeurs to smooth the way through the ubiquitous soirees and heat.  I envied them.

The conversation around the table was fascinating to someone like me. One fellow, from the British Embassy was telling us about one of the new guys at his work, who had scandalized Phnom Penh diplomatic circles by making the great faux pas of turning up to a diplomatic event drunk and in the company of two hookers.  Another guest at the table was telling us how Cambodia had become a brass exporter, because Lon Nol’s wife had arranged for much of the artillery ammunition supplied by the Americans to be fired, just outside of the city, so they could get the brass casings and sell them.  There was also talk, about an Australian persona non-grata who had worked as a mercenary for the Cambodian government forces. 

I had met the guy who they were talking about and I asked him why he had worked as a mercenary. He told me that he met the owner of a plantation that was now under Khmer Rouge control. The mercenary (I can’t remember his name) said that he had been promised a job as a supervisor, after the war if the government forces won, if he could help the plantation owner train his personal squad of men to fight.  I asked him how it went and he said it was a total shambles.  Apparently there was absolutely no discipline, and all the Cambodian soldiers under his command were conscripts who didn’t really understand why they were there and they were impossible to control.  He told me one time that when he was out on patrol in a rice paddy that a Khmer Rouge soldier broke from his position and ran across the field in front of them, only about a hundred meters away, and that all his soldiers opened fire, and that all 20 or 30 of them missed as they sprayed bullets in every direction until their magazines were empty.

I’ve seen evidence of this sort of thing when I was in Phnom Penh myself.  One day when I was in my hotel room, not far from the central market, I heard a series of rifle shots.  About 5 shots in quick succession were fired, so I ran out on my balcony to see a group of about three soldiers shooting at a man fleeing from them.  The fleeing man went around the corner and then down a lane that I knew was very narrow, and I felt the sure they would get him as I heard about another 10 shots being fired.  I quickly grabbed my camera and ran downstairs and then to the lane, fully expecting to see some triumphant soldiers standing around a body in the lane.  But no, every single shot had missed.  As somebody who’s been in the army cadets and been trained to shoot, I couldn’t believe that so many shots would have missed, particularly in the narrow lane.  On reflection, I’m even more amazed that none of the bystanders in the streets were shot.

Over the years often thought of the kindness that Mr Dixon showed me and I’ve tried to track him down, without any luck, to thank him.