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Adrift Down Under: Left a VB in the Sand on a Beach in Australia

We decided to leave Sydney after a day there. It had something to do with all the pretty people not sweating, doing aerobics or kickboxing, reminding us of the heights we could climb. I remember we sat in this park downtown under a tall palm tree surrounded, and so we walked two miles back to a hostel where we could see cockroaches the length of our fingers. A Parisian guy lay stretched out in a bunk bed beside us with a lady friend in tow. He said something about the opportunity to meet people of other lives, but he lay there for a lot of time, staring at her, preoccupied by his business.

Between Feb. 11 and Feb. 23, a friend and I traveled about 19,500 miles via six airplane flights (three each way); several train rides; buses; bicycles; and highway drives to and on and from the east coast of Australia. I don't really know why, other than we're both pretty young and privileged enough to throw money we've saved at something like this. My friend is this guy who likes cars -- especially drift cars -- so, for him, the trip was a way of connecting with this interest. The impetus was a drift car show called Halfway Hangs -- a four-day event where we'd meet and camp with about a dozen young Australian men, drink alcohol and talk about motors or tire brands or welded differentials or ways to keep a car too low to the ground.

It was at Valla Beach, about five hours north of Sydney, where we did the aforementioned things. We took a train from the city to the town of Tuggerah, where we met my friend's Australian contact, Kodie. We drove with him and the others the rest of the way in this pack of modified cars at times running ahead of speed limits, yet everyone involved was cautious enough to care about police presence. Over there, most all vehicle customization is illegal and heavily fined, and the process of a teenager or young adult acquiring a license is significantly complex compared to ours. They could lose a lot of money and privilege driving what they were driving -- makes and models tuned in different ways I cannot describe because I do not possess this kind of intelligence -- but their willingness to do so said something of their youth, as well as their dedication to this motorsport I do not understand or care much for and would never pursue.

It felt healthy. It felt warm and like something that should be done.

But a few days into it I sort of had enough. They talked about cars all the time. About how this one sucks or about how this has a wider turning radius. It all blurred together with the heat, the booze, the trips to gas stations for supplies, and the roll-your-own cigarettes. The day we went to the track and actually saw drifting (in which cars move through tight turns and utilize power to slam into controlled sideways movements -- something logistically taxing on a vehicle and that defies its design), it hit me this is a thing people actually do rather than discuss. It wasn't just an idea, and it could be entertaining. At least for 10 minutes or so, because as a novice, you see it and get it and move on. The rest gave attention to different drivers' styles, such as how they entered the turn or what sort of movement they made with the car (there are various techniques or tricks one can employ). At some point, I was like "OK, I gotta do something else," so I made a point to walk the beach in the evening and forget where I was.

The beach seemed similar to any other I'd seen, but it also felt essentially Australian because the surf was noticeably powerful. Valla Beach was not a tourist beach. I hardly saw more than five or six people on it at any one time. I liked this. My friend and I jumped in one morning to get the salt on us, and we soon knew it wouldn't be easy. I remember diving under to avoid waves and coming up to find more and finding it hard to secure a moment to breathe. From there, the water started to pull outward, and all the normal things you do to swim weren't bringing me in. I really felt helpless, but only briefly. One big wave came through and spread me on the shore. Sucked in some air; said something bad. Knew it was a rip current, so we abandoned swimming, went back to camp, day-drank. Came back at night with others, all drunk and stupid, and for whatever reason the party decided this one can of Victoria Bitter should be buried in the sand as a martyr to our cause. Big Shan put it down there, and the others said words, and Big Shan drew a heart with his finger in the sand as a marker and said "the fallen can." I looked up and could see the Milky Way, and I laughed a long time.

When Halfway Hangs ended, my friend and I did not know where we would go or sleep. We thought, maybe, one of the pack would take us in, lend us a couch, show us the place to get a drink on some decent happy-hour budget and forget the world, or at least show us a kangaroo. This didn't happen. They had lives to go back to. Real jobs, real problems. We'd learn about some of these in passing, such as addictions, fears and losses. This is when I felt most like a tourist. They said initially they wanted nothing to do with Americans, but we convinced them well enough we are not what the newsmen portray. On the last day I had the cliche thought: "I will never see all of these people in one place, or this place, again."

At about 5 p.m. on our final day, there were two guys at the beach pointing toward the horizon with concern, and another guy was about 15 yards away sitting in the sand with his head in his hands. A cop showed up, and an older woman, local, turned and said, "His mate's out there." Caught in a rip. "You're a fellow bloke," she said. "Go see how he is." All I could get from him was a thumbs up. I walked away and just took in the scene. A crowd came out and more police, and a drone went up over the sea for a better view, and we found out his name was Dan. We saw a young woman standing where the waves come up and cover your feet, and she wouldn't break eye contact with the water.

No one cried, not that I saw. I just saw this transition. This moment where people grasp a new thing, however quiet or violent this process may be. I wouldn't see the rest, the part where things move forward and people grow into different shapes and go on to teach others. I knew my presence was incidental.

I left and came back later, sometime after midnight, drunk with more beer and an iPod and songs I'm too embarrassed to mention, and I just stood there and stared out feeling something I couldn't really describe. I thought about Dan who came to Valla Beach with friends and family to do something he likes with people he presumably loved, and I thought about being all the way out there alone, never coming back, becoming something else in the dark. It's admirable. I crushed a can of Victoria Bitter and dug a hole. Knew the water would wash it up later, and someone, maybe the older local lady, would walk by and see it and think "how ignorant," yet I still drew a heart in the sand.

The three-hour drive back to Tuggerah took six and a half because the pack spent so much time smoking cigarettes. It drove my friend and me nuts because this lack of urgency rubbed against everything we were taught. We'd go to gas stations and buy McDonald's and Coca-Colas and sit in small spots of shade while the nicotine burned down between their fingers. We'd eventually end up in a quiet Airbnb in Umina Beach, somewhere between Valla Beach and Tuggerah. I'd buy a lot of vegetables and fish therel, and between these long bike rides would just eat and eat and never feel full.

It was there the sunburns on my neck and legs and arms would heal, and it's there I'd get a shave from a local barber, and it's there I would think about seeing the Sydney Opera House for a few minutes, knowing I was close to someplace Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds had been. But before all this, on some smoke break heading south, I asked Big Shan for a cigarette. I dragged it and wiped my eyes. It was about the size of one of those cockroaches. I thought about stomping it out.