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Troubador Publishing Ltd - Steve Deeks

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123 pages

English

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Desperate to escape the UK despite his strong dislike of travelling, a blindfolded Steve Deeks stabs a pen into a world map to decide where to head, ending up with Australia as his destination. He then bravely embarks on his adventure into the unknown - with hilarious consequences. Things hardly go to plan when he arrives in Sydney, where on entering his hostel dorm he discovers a strange man, caught in the throes of passion with himself. Things don't get much better as Deeks is subjected to numerous ordeals while struggling to make his way Down Under, where he meets various wacky individuals he cannot seem to shake-off. Events take a surprising upturn for Deeks when he lands a job as a journalist. Immediately, he is thrown into the thick of the action, speeding to shootings and massive blazes, while putting his neck on the line when hunting down gangsters, celebrities and sport legends. Deeks' voyage sees him in the line of fire once more when he is forced to endure a potentially deadly river tour, followed by a swim in a murky creek with a spider-eating tour host. Does Deeks feel enlightened and happy he left the UK after his Australian adventures? Find out in his hilarious travel confessions.

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Humour

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Publié par	Troubador Publishing Ltd
Date de parution	29 octobre 2018
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781785896606
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

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Extrait

Baring All Down Under

Hilarious Confessions of a Bewildered Backpacker

Steve Deeks
Copyright © 2016 Steve Deeks

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study,
or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents
Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in
any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the
publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with
the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries
concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events
and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination
or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons,
living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Matador®
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Tel: 0116 279 2299
Email: books@troubador.co.uk
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ISBN 9781785896606

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Matador® is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd
Acknowledgements
Sarah Deeks and Diana Groves. Pat, Darren, Rob, Mark, Sam, Simon, Ben, Fraser, Joe, Tobias, Steve and Andy.
Contents
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1 – Arriving in Sydney
Chapter 2 – Cultural assimilation
Chapter 3 – Hostel debauchery
Chapter 4 – Homeless
Chapter 5 – A new home
Chapter 6 – Room 301
Chapter 7 – Messy nights
Chapter 8 – The Aussies
Chapter 9 – Hostel tensions
Chapter 10 – Minesweeping
Chapter 11 - Labouring
Chapter 11 – Crime Fighting
Chapter 13 – In the line of fire
Chapter 14 – Liverpool Council burns down
Chapter 15 – The streets
Chapter 16 – Out with a bang
Chapter 17 – Darwin
Chapter 18 – Chasing crocodiles
Chapter 19 – Cairns
Chapter 1 – Arriving in Sydney
I hate travelling. The thought of leaving my home comforts and all that comes with it – comfy bed, heating, television, home food, electricity, deluxe toilet paper and wash facilities, as well as much needed personal space, to name but a few – and swapping this with a vastly inferior environment on the other side of the world that you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy, had never remotely appealed to me.
While having been subjected on untold occasions to all of my sisters going on about their endlessly wonderful array of travel exploits across the globe, I had always maintained a smug dismissiveness to such deeds. In fact, to be more accurate, I had often openly scoffed in their faces, questioning why any right minded human would want to go and live in a hovel having spent a fortune to go to some far flung hell-hole thousands of miles away.
All those wonderful things you took for granted in your everyday life would suddenly be replaced by a diet of exhausting daily survival that would now see you forced to deal with a variety of issues you never even knew existed. Normal things like eating food would now become a laborious and, ultimately, deeply unsatisfying experience once you realised that the piece of meat you had just eaten was not beef, as you had been led to believe, but was in fact dog, or perhaps some other local delicacy such as rat or spider.
Then, before you knew what had hit you, your intestines would be in a state of disarray, prompting you to somehow awkwardly attempt to manage your embarrassing, and no doubt rather loud, bodily predicament in your shared toilet with nothing more than tracing-style paper to help you clean up the shocking mess you had created. All this, of course, while you were not even afforded your own designated area of self-pity to recover in, as you are shamelessly forced to share a vile room with an overwhelming collection of weird social retards who don’t even speak your language.
It was such scenarios – and let’s face it, there are countless of others where things could go horrifically wrong – that had always meant undergoing such a sojourn was unthinkable for me and represented something about as favourable as shaving my scrotum with a razor sharp blade, rather than a delightfully liberating foray through some idyllic paradise far, far away.
What was the point of it all anyway? Sure you may get some good weather and see some nice places but you can achieve the same by watching television and going on holiday. I always found that a two-hour flight to Spain once a year provided more than enough culture and travelling for me. I detested such things as camping and music festivals where I had seen enough of strange people’s anatomies and excretions to put anyone off this form of supposed pleasure for a lifetime, which I strongly associated with the pursuit of travelling.
As someone hitting age 30 I very much saw travellers as predominantly part of the younger bleary-eyed generation. The kind who were still idealistic enough to believe that one day the world would be equal and that war and starvation would soon become nothing more than an unfortunate distant memory. Either that or the fraternity was merely made up of hippies and self-indulgent pacifists who had convinced themselves they owed it to humanity to explore the wonders of the world, when really all they wanted was a long holiday away from the stress of normal life where they could get as pissed as they liked without anyone caring. In any case, I had always held the belief that I was, thankfully, the polar opposite to such misguided and deranged individuals.
Yet something changed. Though, I’m not for one second saying that I suddenly turned into a person from the above demographics. That would be unthinkable. But circumstances certainly led me on a direction to try something new. Out of the blue I found myself at a crossroads. With no ties I now had the opportunity to see what else was out there. It was either that or just continue to meekly surrender to the status quo. I had suddenly fostered a bold urge to break with the norm. At least, this was what I kept telling myself. Though, perhaps it just had more to do with my burning desire to escape the UK.
Whatever the reason for my itchy feet, it just somehow felt like this maybe the time to go somewhere else and try something new. Not being a natural linguist, though, and with it often levelled at me that I exhibit an astonishing lack of common sense, I at least hoped I ended up somewhere that vaguely understood me and that was pleasant.
So, after putting a blindfold on, I took a deep breath before bravely stabbing a pen into a map to see where I would be heading. After landing on Iraq and Libya, I shrugged off these not overly appealing destinations and quickly opted for one final thrust to decide my fate. I wearily pulled the blindfold off my face and looked down. I squinted awkwardly in a bid to establish the country my pen was sticking in to. Though, in truth, I could have done with a large magnifying glass, with the country’s size not much more than the ballpoint of my pen.
With my eye now firmly pressed against the map as I struggled to see the name, I was then met with severe difficulties in pronouncing its name. “Van-u-atu…Vanuatu,” I mumbled, scratching my head. It’s fair to say I wasn’t over familiar with the country, which, as it turned out, was none other than one of the tiny pacific islands near Australia and New Zealand.
Following a short period of deliberation I decided that under the terms of my self-imposed agreement to go somewhere I could be understood, I would sadly have to forfeit Vanuatu and instead go to the nearest English speaking country – Australia.
So that was it then. I was officially heading Down Under. I felt strangely liberated, despite having absolutely no idea what was in store for me while, still, wrestling with whether I was in fact doing the right thing. After all, I had never done anything remotely like this before and I was only too aware of the endless possibilities of how things could quickly turn into a living hell. Nonetheless, I manfully did my best to banish such thoughts and figured I would just have to deal with whatever mud was inevitably thrown in my face. And, who knows, maybe even some good would come of this brave adventure I was embarking on.

Following a gruelling 24 hour journey from England which involved me nearly missing my flight, being treated like a member of the Taliban by airport security and spending half the trip sat next to a slimy obese man with arm pits so disgustingly smelly that a tramp would have been ashamed of them, I had now somehow made it against all the odds to my destination, Sydney, Australia.
Although exhausted and bewildered, I took a moment to reflect on my momentous feat of having actually arrived in the country the gods had handpicked for me – well, the nearest English speaking nation to where my pen had landed after several attempts.
After quickly scuttling away from my taxi, having accidentally smashed the door hard into a lamppost, I looked up through the dark drizzly sky at the dilapidated building I had booked into and began to wonder what on earth I was doing in such a far away land. Indeed, what had possessed me to think it was a good idea to stay in a hostel with a bunch of grubby backpackers, such as those loitering irritatingly out the front. I awkwardly picked up my dishevelled backpack I had acquired from a friend back home and summoning all my strength chucked it over my shoulders, causing me to fall back and almost stop breathing as it tight