While you were preparing for the onset of final examinations, I was traveling the expanse of Western Australia. It may have fooled you that my column appeared during the last two weeks, but I can assure you that I did no real work during that time. I finally verified that finishing assignments early creates free time.

This was Curtin University’s autumn break, coinciding with Easter. I took the opportunity to travel north, hunting warm weather and beaches. I found both.

Western Australia is a very sparsely populated state, with most of that population located in Perth, the capital city. Bound for Exmouth, located on the northwest cape, you pass through farmland and forest and into desert.

This desert is filled with stunted brush and flies. The flies buzz and flicker around your face and head. I kept changing my mind on whether it was better to wear a hat, shading my head from the intense sun, or leave it off, allowing me to chase off the flies with a shake of my head. I finally found a use for this mane of hair.

Hiking through Kalbarri National Park, I cut a swath of a stiff grass to swing in front of my face. Tiring of this, I eventually resigned myself to letting the insects crawl over my cheeks. I would chase them from my eyes and nose with blinks and puffs of breath.

I traveled with an interesting group; I was the only person who spoke English as a first language. With Germans, French, a Norwegian and one girl who grew up in Papua New Guinea, where they speak a pidgin English, I was made the English teacher.

I encountered questions of grammar and vocabulary in an interesting range of accents. I did my best to answer these and I was told that I would make a good English teacher.

With the French-speakers I took the opportunity to brush up on the second language with which I used to be much more comfortable. This led to some interesting conversations, me speaking in French and a native French speaker responding in English. Even with all of this, the group communicated and got along very well.

It was interesting for us to try to adjust to the fact that most of us learned to drive in countries where you drive on the right side of the road. This was only a real problem once, as a Frenchman came off of a roundabout and entered the road to the right of a concrete divider. Echoing the sign just in front of us, I shouted, “Keep left! Keep left!”

He hesitated, pulling his foot off of the accelerator, and then decided to continue on his course far enough to switch lanes. If there would have been traffic, that little adventure could have ended very badly.

So that’s why you don’t travel halfway around the world and get in a car with someone who drives on the wrong side of the road, same as you.

I had another little brush with fear, but I played a more active role than the passenger.

I had gone out snorkeling with three others, one of them a female. In this particular spot, there was a gap in the reef which created a strong offshore current. We let the current carry us along as we viewed fish and corals.

Just before the gap, we decided it was a good idea to head for shore. The other two males swam in quickly. I trailed to make sure our female companion wasn’t left alone. This turned out to be a good decision.

Prior to deciding to come in, we had already been swimming for over half an hour. The strain of fighting the current finished off this girl’s physical reserves. Naturally, being pulled out into the Indian Ocean against her will, she became quite nervous and began having difficulties with her mask and snorkel.

I’ve never been trained as a lifeguard, but now I’m seriously considering it. I would have loved to have that training. As it was, I just made it up as I went.

I alternated between pulling and pushing this girl to shore. Our progress was slow but steady, and finally I pulled her through the small breaker and left her alternately gasping for air and coughing up saltwater.

That was one adrenaline high. Physically, I was on top of the world. But the idea that this person could have been in serious danger left my mind numb.

So take the time to travel, see some of the world, but be careful.