The beach’s name comes from an aboriginal word that translates to “the sound of water breaking over rock.” The title certainly fit. Even as we walked, I could hear the waves crashing against the shoreline, filling huge saltwater lap pools built directly into the cliffs. They also provided just the right amount of curl for surfers trying to catch a break all the way back to the shore.
I knew that Holly loved this walk. She’d told me that she felt revived by the sun warming her face, uplifted by the sight of young families spreading picnic blankets along grassy spaces in the public parks. She even got a kick out of the small tent city some hippie had built along the shoreline back in the 1970s, which lives on to this day. Due to a weird government-zoning technicality, the guy couldn’t actually be kicked off the rocks. “Maybe we should ask to stay with him instead of paying rent at Simone’s,” Jen had joked the first day we’d all done the walk together. “He’s got a stellar waterfront view and zero overhead.”
Holly had been in great spirits then but was introspective now as we diverted from the path to check out the black-and-white photographs of lifeguards hanging in the Bondi Surf Bathers’ Life Saving Club.
Swimming and surfing along Australia’s 25,700 miles of coastline can be a risky endeavor—if strong currents or riptides don’t drag you out sea, you could get an excruciatingly painful hug or a deadly kiss from a box jellyfish—so the formation of lifesaving clubs became absolutely essential here. Many of the techniques still used to prevent drownings today spring from those developed by the men—and later women—who served in Australia’s lifesaving clubs.
As we walked past the turn-of-the-century portraits of cross-armed, serious-looking men in black-and-white candy-striped suits and matching skullcaps, I turned to Holly and casually mentioned that I thought she’d seemed a little distant lately. Was she doing okay?
Holly paused for several seconds to stare at one of the photos.
“Isn’t it weird how in all of the old portraits, the lifesavers look really stern, almost pissed off?” she said. “But in all of the modern ones, they look over-the-top happy, like they don’t have a care in the world?”
I peered at the photos and saw that Holly was right. The suntanned, red-and-canary-clad men and women from the current years looked as if they’d been splitting bottles of Prozac before every practice.
Simone had once told me that Australians adored the fact that outsiders viewed them as the happiest, best-adjusted people on Earth. Life down under, the world believed, was all about sunshine, surfing, shrimp on the barbie, and pursuing the endless summer. Nothing bad could happen in the magical land of Oz. “In reality, we have the exact same disappointments and heartbreaks that most people do,” she’d said. “We’re just better at hiding them than everyone else.”
That was the closest Simone had ever come to alluding to how devastated she’d been over her breakup with Jeff. It was only after arriving in Sydney and watching the vivacious woman I’d come to know close off as she drank red wine by herself on the porch every night that I started to understand the depth of her hurt. Whenever I went outside to talk with her about it, her entire facial expression and demeanor would change. She’d perk up immediately and insist that everything was “just gorgeous, darling! Really!” and explain that she was just exhausted from a long day at work.
I never really pressed Simone about her feelings—I felt that it might be too intrusive for someone I was still getting to know—but I knew I needed to try again with Holly. Her nonanswer told me that there was more going on underneath the surface than I’d originally guessed.
I waited until we’d hiked up the stairs that rose above the Bondi Icebergs Winter Swimming Club and made our way along the path to the sandstone cliffs at Mackenzie’s Point. From there we could take in the full sweeping curve of Bondi and catch our first glimpse of Bronte, a calmer spot a kilometer or so in the distance. This time Holly quietly confirmed that everything was okay—she’d just been feeling a little lonely lately, which, she hastened to explain, “has nothing to do with you or Jen.”
I knew I could be treading on awkward ground, but I took the conversation one step further and asked her about things back home—and had she talked with Elan lately? Jen and I had noticed that since she’d returned from Boston after the New Year, Holly had brought up his name in conversation less and less, other than to report the headlines about his latest audition or the movie he’d just started filming in Chicago.
“It’s just so tough with him on location and me not being able reach him on Skype,” Holly explained, saying that she got little more than static when she tried to call him using our laptop. “And with the time difference between Sydney and the States—we just haven’t had a really good, long conversation in a while.”
During the past few weeks—maybe even the last few months, she admitted—Holly had been wondering if she and Elan would ever really reconnect in the same way as they had when they’d first met. At times she’d felt more in sync with him than she’d ever thought it was possible to be with one person. Lately, though, they couldn’t even agree on a time to schedule a phone conversation.
I thought back to the morning before our initiation into the Maasai tribe in Kenya, when Holly had shyly admitted that she’d thought Elan might actually be the man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. It was a powerful realization for her—she’d kind of assumed that she’d be one of those independent girls who might not get married until later in life—but after nearly four years together, they’d never had a solid conversation about marriage and kids.
That had shocked Jen and me (again, not an emotional stone was ever left unturned with the two of us), but I also understood Holly’s rationale. As a closet traditionalist, she wanted Elan to pursue her, to pin her down, to be the one to convince her to settle into adulthood at last. But thus far—he hadn’t. Like Holly had been at twenty-seven, he was focused primarily on achieving his own dreams and creative ambitions.
From what I knew of Elan, he was truly in love with Holly, so much so that he’d given her his full support when she’d decided to travel. I remembered when he’d proudly showed me the full-color map he’d purchased and mounted on tackboard in order to follow Holly’s route around the world. I’d told Holly just before we’d arrived in Sydney that I yearned for what she had: a loving, evolved relationship, a snug apartment, and a shared vision of the future.
Except that now, from what Holly was telling me, she wasn’t sure the last element in the equation was still in place anymore.
“Don’t worry, Hol,” I said, hugging her just before we walked down the steps to Bronte Beach. “Once you’re back in New York and under the same roof, you’ll get to know each other again. And you’ll fall in love all over again.”
I hoped that she’d agree or at least confirm that that’s what she wanted, but she fell silent again as we descended to sea level. Finally she turned and gave me one of her winning Holly smiles, the kind that usually convinced our friends that she was doing fine and, in fact, on top of the world. Except that by now, I’d gotten to know Holly a whole lot better than that.
Within a week of picking up the World Nomads van, we’d broken all three of Chris Ford’s rules. We hadn’t topped off the oil or coolant (none of us remembered how to). Because the front seat was built for two and an insanely tight fit with three, we all took turns hanging out on the couch in the back (“If we’re just driving on side streets, maybe it’s not a big deal?”). And we’d just slowed down to pick up a hitchhiker on the side of the road during our first out-of-town excursion to the Blue Mountains.
Okay, Adam didn’t exactly qualify as a hitchhiker. Holly had met the tall, brawny firefighter in the airport on the way to Sydney, and he’d offered to give the three of us a tour of the national park just outside his hometown of Katoomba. Since he didn’t have a cell phone and insisted that it would be complicated to give us directions to his house, he’d made us agree to pick him up right on the side of the highw
ay.
“Maybe this is how they save time in Australia?” Holly remarked as she slowed down near the drifter in washed-out cargo pants and a tight black tee who was waiting near one of the exits.
“Or he’s got a live-in girlfriend,” Jen said slyly.
“You were right—it’s absolutely impossible to miss this thing,” Adam said, laughing as he jumped in the back of our rolling billboard. As we got closer to our destination, he gave us the backstory on what we were about to see.
In 1788, a group of eleven ships nicknamed the First Fleet sailed from Great Britain to Australia with 1,400 people aboard, more than half of whom were convicts. A penal colony was established in what is now downtown Sydney. In order to deter the prisoners from trying to escape west through the Blue Mountains, a rumor was planted that the range encircling the settlement was completely impenetrable. For at least ten years, the story stuck—until a freed convict named John Wilson returned to Sydney to report that he’d found a way through the supposedly impassable mountains. Over the next decade or so, the government conducted several expeditions to confirm the best route through the mountains and on to the more fertile lands on the opposite side. Incredibly, just twenty-six years after the First Fleet landed in Sydney, convicts constructed a road that cut through the foothills in the same general direction we were headed now.
As Adam shared the history of the country where he’d grown up, I listened with the intensity of a kindergartner sitting in the front row at story hour. I’d always loved learning the backstory of the places that we visited, but there was something about Oz’s inauspicious beginnings that I found really compelling. So much about this young, rough-and-tumble country reminded me of my own.
Both the United States and Australia started out as British colonies that were still relatively unexplored at the time they were founded (at least by the settlers). They’re also staggeringly large, and the same pioneering, self-reliant spirit that drove American settlers to spread west all the way from Plymouth Rock to the Pacific was the same one that led Australians to throw down stakes in desolate, critter-infested outposts where no sane person should dare to tread. The early Aussie and American settlers had both pushed the boundaries of what was possible, taking a leap of faith—and oftentimes huge risks—in the hope of realizing some unknown reward. And though the journey that Jen, Holly, and I had just taken could hardly compare, I understood the mentality that had caused them to hit the trail in the first place.
I wasn’t ready for that journey to be over.
After our first few strategy sessions in Sydney, I’d learned that both of my friends were planning to return home in early June, just less than a year after our original start date. I knew that it probably made sense to book a plane ticket at the same time. But something told me that I needed to stay in Australia, for a few weeks at least, on my own.
It wasn’t that I craved solitude or wanted to be here without my friends. Exactly the opposite was true. I couldn’t bear the thought of saying good-bye to them, helping them hoist their backpacks one last time before watching them disappear into the terminal. It’s just that I felt that the personal journey I’d taken this year wouldn’t truly be finished, and the lessons of the trip fully realized, until I’d handed off the laptop to Jen and Holly and struck out on the road alone.
Did the idea of being as far away from home as possible with no assignments to frame my day and no professional mission to accomplish still scare me? Not nearly as much as it would have the year before we left. Actually, a part of me couldn’t wait to see what happened when I traveled without an itinerary, a goal, or a backup plan. Once that happened, it would be just me and me, kid—no distractions.
When Jen and I had traveled to Europe after college, my father had tried convincing me to stick around the continent as long as my budget would hold out. I refused, 100 percent sure that “all the good jobs would be gone” if I didn’t scramble to New York by the time summer got under way. Now, seven years later, I didn’t want to make that same mistake again.
We left the van behind and followed Adam’s lead to Echo Point, a viewing platform perched several thousand feet above the floor of the Jamison Valley. The three of us had taken in some pretty stunning landscapes during our trip, but something about this one rendered all three of us silent—for a few minutes anyway. I started to reach for my camera and then thought better of it as I stepped toward the railing to soak in the scene. Capturing the full scope of the panorama—the velvety ripples of forest tumbling across hundreds of thousands of acres of low mountain foothills—would have been impossible anyway.
Approaching the edge, I thought of the first time my mom and her longtime boyfriend Bruce had taken my sister and me to see the Grand Canyon. They’d helped us climb up onto a railing just like this one and held us tightly from behind as we stared out into the gap carved in the earth by the flow of water over millions of years. I remember as a nine-year-old kid feeling overwhelmed by the sheer scope of it all, as if realizing for the first time just how vast the world truly is and how very tiny I was within it. Standing here now, pressed along the railing with Jen and Holly at my side, I experienced a similar feeling of humility and a sense of connectedness with the earth.
Adam pointed to a rock formation I’d noticed to our left, three limestone towers that rose dramatically from the ground and narrowed to a point like spires on a church.
“That’s known as the Three Sisters,” he said, leaning out over the rail. “According to an Aboriginal dreamtime legend, they were once real maidens from the Katoomba tribe who’d fallen in love with three brothers from the neighboring Nepean tribe.”
Tribal law wouldn’t allow any of them to get married, he explained, but the brothers wouldn’t take no for an answer. They decided to capture their brides, which sparked a major battle between the two sides. Because the lives of the women were in danger, a witch doctor took it upon himself to turn the three sisters into stone to protect them from harm. Unfortunately, the doctor was killed in battle before he could reverse the spell and return the women to their former beauty.
“And so here they are to this day. Even though they’re stone, they’re still pretty beautiful, I’d say.” Adam smiled, almost to himself. “I always liked that story as a kid—I figured if I used magic, or at least wished hard enough, I’d be able to turn them real again.”
We laughed and teased him a little about that, and he shrugged, eager to change the subject. “Why don’t we take a little hike and see them up close?”
The four of us walked as a group to the archway fronting the Giant Stairway, a series of eight hundred steps and runways that led to the valley floor, right past the Three Sisters. Adam motioned for us to go ahead. As we got closer, I could see that the individual formations were so tall—nearly a thousand feet each—that there was no way they should be able to stand on their own. But somehow, they must have supported one another, keeping the group upright while the rest of the rock around them had eroded away.
Jen and Holly, who’d already bounded down the narrow set of stone steps etched into the rock, paused, waiting for me to join them. I walked the last few steps to where they were standing. Once again in our own formation, we walked the rest of the way together.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Holly
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA
APRIL
Despite its distance from home, Australia felt unexpectedly familiar. Well, “same same but different,” as they say in Thailand. It was “same same” because everyone spoke English. People lived in houses and mowed their lawns and walked their babies in strollers rather than carrying them on their backs. Amanda, Jen, and I joined our newfound circle of friends at happy hour. We were strangely enthralled when we walked through the automatic doors of air-conditioned grocery stores to find refrigerated eggs for sale. We drank the tap water again without getting sick. And by renting a room at Simone’s apartment, we technically weren’t backpackers anymore. We had a home base.
; Australia was “different” because the stars were upside down. The seasons were reversed. Cars drove on the opposite side of the road. People said “heaps” instead of “a lot.” They preferred to have their toast with Vegemite (a salty, malty-flavored paste) as opposed to jam. The cities had funny-sounding names such as Katoomba and Maroochydore. The animals also had funny-sounding names, as if they belonged in a Muppets performance: wombat, platypus, wallaby.
Differences aside, Australians’ lives seemed very much like Americans’: people went to work, took their families to the beach on weekends, and used holidays as a time to get together with friends and loved ones. Though we’d be missing Memorial Day back home, we were able to celebrate an Australian national holiday, ANZAC Day.
“Is it named after a type of cookie?” Amanda asked Simone when she first heard of it, her eyes glistening at the prospect of a day reserved for eating the confectionary creation of rolled oats and granulated sugar.
“Dah-ling, don’t be silly. It stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps,” Simone said, explaining that the holiday honored soldiers who lost their lives in World War I. Australians turn the day of remembrance into a festivity that goes beyond Americans’ typical backyard barbecues or picnics at the beach. Gambling is a mainstay in Australian pop culture, with casinos, racing, and “pokies” (electronic slot machines) as common as Starbucks in New York. In fact, Aussies lose more money to gambling than any other country in the world. So it’s only fitting that to celebrate, a lot—I mean heaps—of Aussies head to their local bar to drink beer and play an addictive game called two-up.
And that’s why Amanda, Jen, and I arrived in the middle of mayhem at Bondi’s Beach Road Hotel at noon on a Wednesday. Our plan had been to beat the crowd, but the madness was already well under way. Pushing open the doors, we were accosted by the yeasty scent of draft beer and the sound of rising cheers. The hub of activity wasn’t at the bar but rather among a circle of people that swelled around empty space.
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