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no one said it would be easy

directions or some-such. I could see the soldiers all trying to look without looking, all smartly at attention, heads straight but eyes swivelling. Through the soft sand I struggled, stumbling a little, taking the decision that the man at the front was ‘my man’.

“Aqua, por favor!”

The Major hesitated, then without smiling, snaps his fingers, and a minion trots off accordingly, returning with a glass of water. This disappears down my gullet almost instantly, not slaking my thirst in the slightest.

“Mas, por favor!”

Seven times this little interplay was repeated before I was no longer parched and aching for fluids.

… but this is mid-August 1977 and we had left London on Nov 27th 1976, a thousand memories back.

Not everyone travels, or has a youthful OE (Overseas Experience) … but it can be argued that those with any spark in their persona do. It is for many Antipodeans, a right-of-passage, a throwing-off of family-imposed conventions and influences. It usually also corresponds with the end of tertiary education or the attaining of trade qualifications. It was like being set free. For nearly 20 years there had been an over-arching purpose to your life. You went to kindy, school and then polytech or university and constantly a figure of authority told you things. Finally, you were deemed to know enough to be let loose on life. Of course, for some, there would be no escape, but simply a seamless transition into marriage, home-ownership, indebtedness, parenthood etc. It is a wonderful generalisation but dullards seldom travel and travellers are seldom dullards. To the contrary, they are often interesting, inquisitive, full-of-life figures in the full bloom of youthful vigour … in their prime, physically and mentally.

My OE (with two mates) started with a wonderful 6 weeks aboard the SS Australis with 2,250 other young escapees. From New Year’s Eve 1971, my real life as an adult began, free to live, learn and love … I was least accomplished at the last.

By 1975 a pattern had established itself — play rugby in London during the winters and travel the summers. We were footloose and fancy-free, bound by no constraints or parameters other than financial ones. In 1972, the ubiquitous VW Combi had taken five of us through Central Europe’s communist-bloc to the Black Sea, down to Istanbul and home up the old Yugoslavian coast. In 1973/74, Ernie the