Fear and Loathing on the Campervan Trail, '11

Years before I’d ever met a single Australian, I wondered why the hell anybody would travel all that damn way just to see another bunch of Caucasian Westerners with funny accents, and then I started making friends with Australians in London and wondered why the hell they wanted to travel all the way here. Given their leathery saddlebag skin and all their bitching about the English weather I didn’t expect the Australian sky to look like a used grey dishcloth being wrung out when I touched down on the Gold Coast. And arriving at the hostel to find they’d just been robbed. An inside job. Standing there watching the new arrivals waiting for check-in, watching the cops talk to the dishevelled manager, watching everyone watching replays of the CCTV footage, watching two hooded and masked guys case the joint, head straight for the safe. Some proper fear and loathing on everyone’s faces and so I just turned around and went to make some toast.