Sketching the Murray

During a crossing of Australia on a skateboard back in 2006 I received a note from the illustrator Jules Faber. He included a little cartoon he’d made about my journey and I thought it was the coolest thing ever.

A couple of years later Jules took it upon himself to join me for another journey, this time along the Murray River. Jules wasn’t actually there but every week he took the stories he’d seen me posting and sketched out a new cartoon.

Every so often I find the folder with these sketches and they make me laugh, smile and desperately want to learn that skill for myself. So here they all are, with a little back story to each….

Jules with me, in spirit and with pencil, paddling along the Murray River.

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The first section of this journey was in the Snowy Mountains, on foot. I managed to get myself caught in a snowstorm and suffice it to say, those few days up top were uncomfortable and fairly cold. I was rescued by a wild horse, but let’s save that story for another day.

Once in the kayak the weather was fairly damp for a couple of weeks. That combined with river life and a basic lack of outdoorsy skills meant my feet had a life of their own.

I was joined at the start of the journey by Queenslander Peter Dowling, who I’d met a year earlier on my book tour around Australia. We developed a habit of getting caught in thunderstorms and only afterwards did Peter notice that his paddle was made of a conductive material.

Let’s just say, the Murray flows through some remote spots…

I was still a green adventurer and packed far more than I needed.

What a treat to see Playpus in the wild, the only place where this is possible. They’re so playful, jumping clear out of the water right alongside the boat.

The reason for shoes dangling from power lines will differ depending on who you ask. Whether they signal a nearby drug den or the outcome of the actions of a random dreamer, we’ll never know. But for sure, there are lots of shoes dangling around in Australia.

I’m a child. Place names make me laugh and gladly Jules feels the same.

One day I was paddling along minding my own business and saw this neck and head rising up from the Murray. It was utterly terrifying and could only be one thing, my fatigued mind told me. A serpent! The truth was possibly even more random, it was an emu going for a swim! When she ran up the opposite bank her fluffy body was saturated. Just wonderful.

The biggest challenge of the journey: speed boats towing waters-kiers. Weekends were spent watching out for the water hoons who sometimes would actively try to capsize me.

There were plenty of fine moments on the river though, including my 30th birthday, which I celebrated with a group of strangers who became friends on Lake Mulwala upstream of Yarrawonga.

It wasn’t rare to see a skinny dipper or proud nudist on the banks.

And to be fair, sometimes that was me at the end of a long, hot day.

I paddled through a couple of bushfires, both times just in time to make it through before that section of the river was closed for a couple of days. Both spectacular and deeply sad to witness, these fires regularly taunted a river valley that had been in drought for a decade.

I mentioned the speedboats and water-skis earlier. Well, one of the boats sped by within touching distance of me so I aimed my camera at them. I mean, it was about the only weapon I had. A couple of minutes later he same boat came back, this time towing a jet-skier who reached out and tried to grab the camera at high speed. I was quite angry.

There were lots of spiders…

Every few kilometres these blue and white signs signalled how many kilometres remained.

So much kindness showed along the river. Surely one of the best nights was when Customs Houseboats let me stay. Sheer luxury! I slept well.

It was Australia. It was hot. And as a side note, the drought meant that in most parts of the river I could have climbed out of the kayak and walked.

Finally I made it to the Southern Ocean and had one more challenge, get over the first set of breakers to finally say hello to open water!

The Murray was the beginning of a love affair with rivers that continues to this day. A couple of years later I’d be standing for a descent of the Mississippi, not on a raft but a paddleboard.

An image tells so many stories but in addition, the fact that Jules took time out from his own life to tell someone else’s story made a big impact on me. I know for sure that the kindness Jules and hundreds of others showed me as I snailed my way around our world led to my own little efforts like SayYesMore , @theyestribe , @theyesbus and other bits and bobs.

Just the smallest thoughtful act of kindness could make the world of difference for so many others. Be a pebble that creates some ripples. The world needs those little waves of change.

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If you enjoy my stories and fancy saying thanks a really easy way is to Buy Me a Coffee.

I also have a membership where I send little treats, offer early access to content and generally get motivated to create more stuff that keeps people thinking and acting adventurously.

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Neil Gaiman: Make good art

Neil Gaiman’s 2012 Commencement speech at the University of the Arts is priceless. He tells the story of a freelancer making his way in the world, working out what’s right and wrong, following the wind and a hunch and opportunity and making up the rules that contradict what all the others are telling him.

I’ve copied my favourite quotes and lines from the lecture below the video, a collection of timeless wisdom from the world of doing life, your way.

My favourite lines from the speech

When you start out on a career in the arts you don’t know what you’re doing

If you don’t know it’s impossible it’s easier to do. And because nobody has done it before they haven’t yet made up rules to stop it being done again

If you have an idea of what you want to do and want you want to make then just go and do that. That’s much harder than it sounds and also sometimes much easier than you can imagine.

You have to balance your goals and hopes with feeding yourself, finding work, getting where you want to go

Decide on the mountain you want to walk towards and keep walking towards it. Take work that moves you towards your mountain.

I learned to write by writing. 

If you do what you love then even if you don’t have the money at least you have the work. If you do it for the money and the money doesn’t come you won’t have anything. Every now and then I forget that rule and every time the universe kicks me hard and reminds me.

Anything I did just for the money was rewarded by nothing but bitter experience.

The things I did because I was existed and wanted to see in reality have never let me down.

The problems with failure are hard. The problems of success can be harder. The first problem of any kind of even limited success is the unshakable conviction that you’re getting away with something, and that at some point someone will discover you. Imposter syndrome.

At some point, you have to stop saying yes to everything because not the bottles you threw in the ocean are all coming back. And you have to learnt os ay no.

I watched my peers and my friends and the ones who were older than me and I’d watch how miserable how some of them were, telling me how they couldn’t envisage a world where they did what they always wanted to do, anymore, because now they had to earn. Certain amount every month to keep where they were. They couldn’t do the things that mattered or that they’d always wanted to do and that, seemed as big a tragedy as any problem of failure.

The biggest problem of success is that the world conspires to stop you doing the thing that you do because you’re successful.

When things get tough, this is what you should do. Make good art. Eventually time will take the sting away. Make it on the bad days, make it on the good days too.

The urge starting out is to copy, and that’s not a bad thing. Most of us only find our own voices after we’ve sounded like a lot of other people. The one thing that we have that nobody else have, is you. Your story, your vision.

The things I’d done that worked the best were the things I was the most uncertain about. People look back and explain how they were inevitable successes, and I had no idea.

It’s not lying if you say you’ve done something and then seek to ensure that your future makes good on what was once a lie. It’s chronologically challenged.

You get work however you get work, but people keep working because their work is good and they deliver on time. People will tolerate how unpleasant you are if your work is good and you deliver on time. 

This is really great, you should enjoy it. The best advice I ever got that I ignored.

Stop, look around and say “this is really fun.” 

The harder you work and the more wisely you work, the luckier you’ll get. But there is luck, and it helps.