Our journey began at around a quarter past four in the afternoon, on my 29th birthday, August 25th, 2017.

Now this is not, one admits, the most arresting way to begin a tale. It lacks a real ‘hook’, it lacks controversy or chutzpah. Yet, young’un, it is the way we have chosen – And why? Because it provides a cast-iron, permanent starting place, back to which you can cast your mind once we [spoiler alert] finally make it down to Australia, on the morning of Sunday 27th August, 2017; and which you can, as I did, subtract from Sunday 27th August, 2017 to conclude, like me, that our voyage took a total of several million farkin’ years.

It is, my friends, a fair old poke down the antipodes, and I don’t mean maybe.

*

At this earliest point we were only two – The Eagle, companion of my youth and regular cast member within these narratives, and myself. We hustled together up the Northern Line to Leicester Square, where two rapidly became three, for there, upon the platform of the Piccadilly Line, was the noble figure of Chatham House Rules.

There was little time to chat and embrace however, as a packed tube arrived and we made ourselves instantly unpopular by bundling our large 3-week bags into the throng, wheels crushing feet and corners cracking shins.

Now, strange as it is to think, given that the journey, in its totality, took upwards of three million years, but this forty-five minute spell on the westbound Pic. Line to Heathrow Terminals 1,2&3 was probably the least pleasant of the whole lot. Thank goodness, then, that immediately upon our release from this dark blue hell we were rewarded with the beaming Welsh face of a Gay Arctic Monkey.

“Hello, Gay Arctic Monkey,” we hello-ed.

“Hello!” he replied warmly, much in the custom of the times.

The fifth and final member of our primary party – another Welshman by the name of The Associated Press – would simultaneously be leaving England after and arriving in Oz before us, so we strolled over to the check-in desk as a quartet and I prepared to work my magic.

“Four to Melbourne please…Charlotte,” I simpered, eyeing her name tag.

“It’s Charlene,” she snapped.

“Of course, but of course.”

“Passport.”

“Right here…now then…”

“What?”

“You will notice, I am sure, that today is in fact my birthday?”

“And?”

“And, I trust you are already, as they say, ‘upgrading’ me and me boys here to ‘birthday class’, yes?”

“…”

“Fine, fine, we are not proud, we shall accept business.”

“…”

“Premium econom-eeee?”

Her response was, one must relay, curt, cruel and brought shame upon herself and her noble profession. She then proceeded to place Chatham House Rules and myself in the very back row of the Boeing 777, and The Eagle and a Gay Arctic Monkey in another part of the vehicle altogether.

After this trial, having had my waxen wings melted by the heat of the Charlene sun, and as it was still very much my birthday, we went to grab a beer or two. Once ‘a-bar’, we were set upon by the least pleasant waiter yet manufactured, lowering our pre-flight spirits still further.

Fortunately, The Associated Press then manifested himself unexpectedly, and his kind, ebullient words brought some semblance of salve. Together we toasted the coming voyage and damned the eyes of airport staff everywhere.

Then it was time to bite the first bullet and take Plane #1 to Hong Kong: Eleven hours or, more accurately, two films, a snooze, then two more. The airline fare was not inedible, and the gods were good – rather than cursing Chatham HR and myself with a neighbour in our row of three, they gave us the bounty of a spare seat, onto which we stretched out our demesne with relish.

Hong Kong Airport is not the finest, yet it is far from the worst the world has to offer. I managed to get us wildly lost within its terminals, but eventually wiser heads (Chatham HR) found us a decent enough restaurant as well as a bar which sold eye-wateringly expensive Japanese beer. Outside there was, as they say, ‘a wee bit of weather around’, so we were a trifle delayed. Once finally aboard Plane #2 (to Melbourne) the captain casually informed us that as we were behind schedule we’d just chance it and fly over the, and I quote, “large typhoon currently hitting the Philippines.”

“Er…please don’t!” we replied, yet the pilot was not for turning, and a severely bumpy nine hours began.

The Eagle passed around some sleeping pills which proved ‘chocolate teapot’ levels of effective and I watched children’s movies in a steadily worsening mood. Chatham HR, playing electronic poker on his screen and forgetting the effectiveness of his noise-cancelling headphones, began to turn the air blue as his cards failed to please him, scandalising a group of nearby nuns and making adjacent infants cry – improving my humour no end…

*

Finally, with a bump, our wheels hit the golden soil of Australia. ‘Hala!’ as they say in the Levant. Hala, hala, hala!

There was a slight issue at the Aussie border as a passport official, being an unimaginative sort and noticing that Chatham House Rules was of Middle Eastern extraction, called him over for extra processing. Now our fine friend works, we believe, as some sort of James Bond/George Smiley kind of bod, and his papers are full of stamps from insalubrious places such as Syria, Iraq and Mordor. This could, we feared, ‘get bad’.

However, Chatham HR calmly whispered a choice something in the fellow’s ear – an ear affixed to a countenance which went instantly white. He handed back Chatham’s documents with shaking hands and a stammered, “Th…thank you, sir..” and we were on our way, off to face the much-vaunted ‘wrath’ of Australian custom controls. This would surely prove more taxing. These boys were infamous and tenacious, ferocious protectors of their nation’s fragile ecosystem.

“Nice one mate, straight through there, cobber, no worries!”

“Err…” This was not what I’d expected at all.

“No worries, lads, wander along!”

“Don’t you want to inspect our suitcases?”

“Yeah nah, mate, you’re alright.”

“How about a nice body cavity search on The Eagle here?”

“Oi!”

“Hahaha, I’d be so lucky mate! Now get on with yer!”

Standards, it seemed, had slipped.

In an airport coffee shop we found The Associated Press, looking exactly like a man who had endured his own vast and sleepless voyage, but without the company of old friends. His flight had gone via the Gulf rather than the Orient, and had not been delayed one jot.

“Greetings, The Associated Press!”

“Gree…tings…”

“Gosh, you look like arse.”

“Ha…arr…arse…yes…”

“Would you like to leave the airport?”

“Ye…yes, yes…yes please…I…I would like that quite…quite a lot…”

First things first, certain members of the group needed to replace the dangerously low levels of nicotine in their collective systems. Darts done, we were offered a mini-bus-cum-taxicab which spirited us to Collingwood, a ‘happening’ (read: hipster) part of town, renamed, famously, after the great Paul Collingwood MBE scored 206 in the second test of the 2006-7 Ashes Series.

It was still too early to access our AirBnb, so we wandered to a likely looking coffee joint called Twilight Terror or Terror Twilight or something alliterative like that. Here we met ‘Stephen’, a fabulously friendly, fabulously camp fellow covered head to toe in tattoos.

Now I am not, myself, a ‘coffee person’, but once the flat whites had appeared I could instantly tell from the faces of my companions that our new pal Stephen had provided them with the goods. We then broke a decent fast, wiped out another couple of rounds of hot drinks, then thoroughly outstayed our welcome as we waited for time to pass and accommodation to ready itself. Eventually our painted friend kicked us out with a final smile, and we went to drop off our bags and inspect at last our new abode.

A very fine place it was too, all light spaces, bright colours and big bedrooms. There was no time now to enjoy it properly, however, for the day was out there, very much awaiting us!

*

Bags thus dropped, we wandered the more fashionable streets down into town – noting, not for the first time, that Melbourne in August is undeniably ‘brass monkeys’. Chatham House Rules himself, who grew up in the rolling tundra of Toronto, noted that the temperatures on offer were markedly sub-optimal, and that he really should’ve packed a coat or three…

Being superbly massive lads, naturally we stopped off in a large, central park to look at the birds – sullen kookaburras and violent pink parakeets, mostly. Eventually we found our way to the 100,000 seater MCG, where we purchased tickets for the afternoon’s local AFL derby, Richmond Tigers (“Caarn you Tiges!”) versus the hapless St Kilda Saints.

We then rushed across to the Crafty Squire, a capacious city centre sports bar with thousands of TVs, to watch the surprisingly entertaining Mayweather/McGregor fight and drink unsurprisingly expensive, but very decent and very, very necessary beers.

The combination of a massive lack of sleep and our much-deserved pints tipped a few of our number into giggling insobriety, and after an ‘amusing’ cab ride back to the stadium we were relatively loud in our mockery of the curious game now playing out before us.

However, these ignorant critiques of ‘Aussie Rules’ (no relation to Chatham HR, of course) was forestalled by the arrival of a giant friend of The Associated Press – a vast, rangy fellow called Josh who, as chance would have it, I once played rugby with over a decade ago, and who was a devoted follower of the mighty ‘Tiges’. As he explained this significantly odd game to us we all got a mite more involved and enjoyment levels rose accordingly – levels not even abated by the watered-down and price-inflated ‘Carlton Draught’ available at Melbourne Cricket Ground.

That being said, we still ‘did one’ a little way before the end (Richmond had it well in the bag and no longer required our assistance) and, bidding a fond, final adieu to a sublime stadium, headed for a dinner at ‘Chin Chin’. Despite our brains now being so much watery mashed potato, we managed to pick out some truly fantastic Thai dishes (with some assistance from a patient and sympathetic waitress). Eyelids were now drooping severely, but the taste sensations continued apace, each and every dish superior to that which came before it.

Finally the inevitable happened and we all, to a man, crashed and crashed hard. With our last strength we found a cab and poured ourselves in. “Collingwood…” croaked The Eagle, and we were away. Once home we drew lots for bedrooms and, for once, my luck held. I was granted the bed of all beds, onto which I collapsed and was gifted eight, nine hours of the finest slumber yet conceived.

I wake early, pre-dawn. The house is dark and quiet and cool, and I creep downstairs to our spacious new lounge, carrying parchment, candles and quill. Summoning the addled memories of a very, very long day past, slowly, then a mite more fluently, I begin to write.