If there’s one place you need a car, it’s gotta be Australia. It’s just such an unfeasibly large place. A Dutch friend of mine and I decided to get a car and drive down from Cairns to Sydney. We bought the car in Cairns: it wasn’t exactly a Roll Royce, it wasn’t even a used Honda – it was a 1978 Nissan Skyline (not the one pictured). It didn’t have many special features, but it was orange and it did have a green plastic frog glued to the bonnet.

I should say at this point that my friend paid for the car, I was only in the car to prevent him driving on the wrong side (Dutch eh?).

We toyed with the idea of heading into the desert, but after careful consideration we felt that dying in that orange hulk alone in the outback would be a crap way to go. Instead we drove slowly down the east coast, working on farms and generally getting messed up at every available opportunity. We stopped at all the famous spots, including Byron Bay with all its various temptations.

Me and my Dutch friend parted company in a tomato farm, I can’t remember why, but I think he had a wedge of money whereas I need more tomato dollars. He took the car, of course. As a final goodbye present he drove off the campsite we were living in without paying his rent, which resulted in the furious landlord confiscating my passport until I coughed up. Never trust a Dutchman in an orange car with plastic frog stuck to it.