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.
[1]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 where I attempted to windsurf 50m in the other direction. 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 
[2]and our drummer took this picture of me leaping from a fence over Sydney harbour.
[3] No Photoshop then.
After a short time, I was as busy as I had been as a teacher with three jobs (pizza, gym and band) so I got another teaching job, made a bit of money and went to Turkey.
[4]
[5]