Hitching the Australian outback

Driving through the middle of nowhere.

I could still feel the humidity in the air when I arrived at 4am in Darwin, Australia, reminding me that Asia had only been a short flight away. I knew I had to escape further to the south. In Bishkek I had met a travel writer, Jamie Maslin, who was hitching his way from Tasmania to England and his tales inspired me to attempt at least part of his journey in reverse. And so it was I went straight out on to the Stuart Highway, the only road heading south through the centre of this huge, empty country.

A little bit of Indonesia

The ash cloud from Krakatoa.

I knew that Indonesia is big and has a lot of islands, but I hadn’t realised quite how long it would take me to traverse just a few of those islands, and how long I would be sitting on hot buses chugging their way through mounds of volcanic ash.