Baackpacccck

Having spent Friday and much of Saturday feeling all rubbish n that, I decided to sort myself out. Tomorrow I am meeting a bus at 7am in the city centre, which will deliver me to various locations up Australia's west coast.

I quickly realised that a 7am meeting means a pre-6am start, and most importantly, the maiden voyage of The Backpack. See, the Boyfriend carried it to check in at Heathrow. I then took it off the baggage belt and onto a trolley in Perth. Someone else picked it up, put it in a car, drove it to a house and brought it into my room, where it has laid open mouthed on the floor in various states of disarray ever since. Backpacking so far has been really rather easy on the back. In fact, all I've done, really, is packing.

Well, that's about to change. Tonight I zipped everything up and put a 70 litre virtual landmass the size of China on my back. Checking my reflection was a mistake really; I could have done without knowing that I'll resemble a knackered, grumpy, hot (someone flicked the switch from 25 degree spring to 35 degree summer today), sweaty obese hunchback tortoise when I walk to the station tomorrow morning.

And ah, yes...tonight's other point of contention. The walking bit. I tried to get away with the alternative until the Boyfriend set me straight. Apparently getting a $26 taxi to the meeting point instead of a $1 train, does not constitute backpacking or sit pretty with my favourite B word: "Budget".

Bloody backpacking. I emailed, minutes after cancelling the taxi. I'll be sending you my massage bill.

I wondered lonely as a, well...duck, actually.

I've always found staying as a guest in someone elses house for any length of time quite hard. In many ways it should be the easiest thing in the world; you get a free bed, free nightly meals, local advice, suggestions, a living room and all manner of other home comforts.

Aside from saving money, staying in a house means that you can ease yourself into your first couple of weeks in a new country. I found adjusting to the time difference particularly hard and was grateful for my own quiet space when I was waking up throughout the night, as anyone on my Twitter at 4am Australian time would have discovered last week. The family I'm staying with are nothing short of lovely; extremely laid back and very much of the "help yourself to anything" school of hosting. The best kind, in my opinion.

However, no matter how many times you're told to make yourself at home, it's always difficult to relax completely. You find yourself hoping for a little bit of time to yourself, where you don't have to watch your manners, talk about your day or worry that you're eating the wrong thing from the fridge.

Today I took myself into the city and found myself in Perth's Kings Park with a book and a curious duck for company, purposefully staying out until the evening in the hope that everyone might be out when I got back to the house. As antisocial as it sounds, I didn't want to be invited out. I've spent the day with myself, talking to no one, watching couples canoodling in the park and soaking up whatever rays get through Factor 30 suncream. I've wondered around, written in my diary and walked off last night's excesses. But after a couple of weeks of wanting just that, here I am on my own, feeling quite lonely.

It's times like this when I wonder if I've done the right thing, if travelling on my own was something that suited me when I was single and 18, and not an attached 25 year old. I'm finding myself wanting company - but not just randoms - when I've been so adamant that it's not what I want at all.

I know this is a sign that it's time to move from the comfort of the house into the discomfort of hostels. I need to meet people and start travelling, find my way. But I suppose tonight, sitting on my own in my room, in a quiet house, in a country where I don't really know anyone, I'm finding the prospect all a little bit daunting.

Forgive me, but I'm a little overawed by technological advances tonight.

The last time I went travelling to Australia was 2003. Hardly worthy of 'back in the day' or 'when I was a nipper' status, but it's mad how much things have changed in six years.

I don't mean the country itself, and I'm not referring to me and my rapidly evolving brain. I'm on about technology, my little warthogs. Technology.

Last time I set foot into the realm of the Bunk Beds, I didn't have internet banking. It was probably available, vaguely, but I didn't have it set up. This meant I had to keep track of whatever money I spent in a little notebook, something I was largely and repeatedly unsuccessful at doing (I do English, not maths).

Digital cameras were big clunky, rubbish things, so all my photos were taken on rolls of kodak film, developed and stuffed in a backpack as I went along. There was no Wifi. No netbooks. No facebook to share photos or keep track of newly made friends. No Skype. Webcams were primitive, fuzzy things used by paedophiles in chat rooms. Blogs were only just on the radar.

A relationship I was in at the time failed, partly due to the temptations an 18 year old backpacker faces, but mostly due to a severe lack of communication. Months would pass without a word from either of us. This time around, while I'm not so brave as to call it easy, my relationship certainly stands a better chance. This morning I woke up at 7am and chatted face to face with the Boyfriend whilst lying down in bed, using the crystal clear webcam of my netbook, hooked up to the wireless internet in the house I'm staying in, and transmitted through the vastly improved, telephone quality of a Skype-to-Skype call. All for free.

It's difficult, we miss each other and are counting down the days, weeks, months until I meet him in Sydney airport next April. Technology isn't the be all and end all, but it's a reassurance; a treat after you've spent the day making the effort to talk to people you don't know.

To be able to take a little 1.35kg machine out of your bag, switch it on and see a familiar face grinning back from the other side of the world - when you think about it, that's a little bit amazing really, isn't it?

Beached

I arrived back in Perth on Monday after an altogether successful stay in the hostel. You know, minus the copulating Koreans.

In fact, I'd coerced enough people into talking to me over the weekend that on Sunday I was part of a group trip to the nearest beach. A convoy of us set off, including me in a huge Toyota 4x4 borrowed from the family I'm staying with, looking utterly pea-like and ridiculous behind the wheel.

Mention you're off to Australia and everyone goes nuts about the fact you'll be spending the whole time on a beach. I have to admit, the beaches here - particularly on the west coast - are nothing short of stunning. It's the vast expanses of white sand tickling the edges of topaz blue water, and the way the water can be calm and barely moving in one spot...



Then a few miles up the coast, that same water will be a surfer's sexytime...



The two things these places have in common? Firstly, there's no one on either of them; they are deserted. Secondly? Well, I can appreciate a good beach. Look at them both, they're amazing. But you don't go near these ones without factor 30 sunscreen. And sunscreen means lotion. Lotion is sticky. Sand loves sticky lotion. Plus it was windy, so you still can't tell if you're getting burned or not.

The wind caused another problem: the minute I left the house on Thursday, I knew I'd forgotten a couple of beach essentials. Razors and my hairbrush. I was doing alright until Sunday when I discovered the 'sexy beach hair' look promoted by all women's magazines was actually a massive lie, probably invented when Worzel Gummage was editor of Vogue. Bright white skin, covered, COVERED in sand, with stubbly legs and a head of matted hair? Believe me. I didn't look sexy.



I looked like the bloody Samiad.

“Ah yea, we’ve got a bed. You’re sharing with a lovely Korean couple”

Lovely?! I thought, as I opened the locked dorm room door in time to see two figures immediately recoil from each other under the bottom bunk covers. Wonderful. Two minutes into my first hostel stay and I’ve already interrupted a couple mid-shag. Things are really going well. As I sat on the opposite bunk and unpacked my things, an embarrassed silence ensued. Them, still under the covers – not talking. Not moving. Me, cursing the fact that out of all the rooms in this bloody hostel, the only one with any vacancies, I get the gooseberry card. Two’s company...three’s just really sodding awkward.

I quickly excused myself, opting for a hot shower in a cold cubicle and braced myself for the next challenge. It was Friday night, and my half baked idea that I would spend it in my room, shying away from making the social effort required by all lone travellers, was now not an option. Plus, I had to eat. There was no other option: I had to go to the Communal Area. “Are you going to go out?” asked the Boyfriend from his office in Farringdon. “With WHO?” I replied exasperated, panic bubbling in my stomach. “I don’t KNOW anyone.”

There is truly nothing more intimidating than cooking pasta and pesto in a kitchen surrounded by people who are already laughing and chatting together, sitting eating together in groups, and knowing that if you aren’t going to spend Friday night listening to Korean porn, that you have to talk to someone. Anyone. You have to push against every bone in your tired brain which is saying “Cross your arms! Look down! Don’t...say...a...WORD!” and start a conversation which you hope they will continue.

I looked at the pan next to mine, filled with green things (I think they’re vegetables) and eventually, their owner returned. I caught her eye. Smiled. I said those eternal words “Blimey. Well, your meal puts my pasta and pesto to shame. Vegetables and everything. Good work”. I waited. Then she smiled back. Laughed! “Haha! You can’t beat pasta and pesto. Did you just get here?” Yep, I’m just in Margaret River for a few days, down from Perth. “Cool. Well, we’re all sitting outside having some drinks if you want to join us, there’s wine for $10 at reception”.

And at 2:30am, I stumbled into my room after a night swapping stories with people who aren’t ashamed to ask “What’s the cheapest drink you serve?” before ordering at the local bar. The Koreans were still up...well, I say up. They were in bed of course, but awake and chatty. Apparently I am the first English girl they’ve seen have a wash.

I bedded down under the supplied linen and fell asleep on my netbook case.

It’s been a night of firsts, it seems.