Not a bad mid-life crisis. A little early. I was 29.
I was teaching in a school in Kangaroo Island, South Australia, when the guitarist of a band I had once been in called me and said, ‘What do you think of moving to Sydney and playing bass and singing in a new band?’ I went to see my Headmaster who laughed and said, ‘As if.’ So I went.
Some of our guitars
We lived in a townhouse that we couldn’t afford in the beautiful suburb of Manly. We had a surf beach 50m in one direction and a harbour beach 50m in the other direction, where I attempted to windsurf . The house was full of musical instruments and our neighbours suffered.
I busked in Manly and on Circular Quay for a while, then found jobs in a pizza shop and a gym. The band never got off the ground but I found another band fairly quickly.
Just up the road was North Head, a surprisingly pristine wilderness area with cliffs and echidnas and Eastern Water Dragons. I did a bit of rock-climbing there…
[1]North Head cliffs
…and the drummer took this picture of me leaping from a fence over Sydney harbour.
Flying over Sydney
No Photoshop back then.
After a short time, I was as busy with three jobs (pizza, gym and band) as I had been as a teacher, so I got another teaching job, made a bit of money and went to Turkey.
The Philharmonic Oysters
[2]