Daniele Somenzi's First Time in Australia, '85

Australia (first time) In 1985, three years after doing my military service in the paratroopers, and the year after my first six months in London — where it always rained, and every morning I woke up demoralised by the climate — I decided to spend six months in Australia, and so I did. That winter, if I remember rightly, in April '86, there was the Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine, and luckily I absorbed no radiation at all. I landed in Melbourne with Philippine Airlines, on a DC-10, and I discovered that summer in November is simply wonderful; the first thing I noticed, besides the heat, was the scent of the eucalyptus. Three days after my arrival I started working as a waiter in an Italian restaurant in the city centre.

Shortly afterwards I bought a used bicycle to get to work, and then a motorbike too, a Suzuki 600 DR, for just 2,200 Australian dollars second-hand, but with only 140 km on it, so practically new. I didn't know English at the time, but even so, I worked on my days off too, on Lygon Street, the street of the Italians — first roasting coffee, then in a bar and then in another Italian restaurant, when mine was closed for holidays; people looked for me when they knew I was free, and I even did a few days at the famous Pellegrini's, a fast food place in the city centre. In the little free time I had, though, I also met Maria, the daughter of Italians who spoke Italian and enjoyed the motorbike rides I offered her, and even a flight over Melbourne in a small plane, and I enjoyed her kisses.

Sometimes on the Suzuki I took fabulous rides through the eucalyptus forests, with koalas and kangaroos as a backdrop; I explored the surroundings for hundreds of km around Melbourne, and even rode in two days as far as Canberra, as well as to Wilsons Promontory and Phillip Island, the Twelve Apostles, Ballarat. I fell in love with Australia even before going there, and when I finally arrived, I realised it was very, very much better than my rosiest expectations. bye