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I've always had a soft spot for the tropics, and Magnetic Island and Townsville in particular, where I had my first encounter with domesticity at Cape Pallarenda some forty years ago. Less than a year into my domestic bliss, the Call of the Wild again, and I was off, first back to New Guinea, then Saudi Arabia, then Greece ...
Had the Call of the Wild come just a few months later, I might already have succumbed to the siren song of domesticity, or I might already have lost the edge of slipping in and out of jobs with consummate ease.
The truth is, while I've been through some wild weather, I've never been through a violent cyclone or an inundating flood, and my hankering for the tropics has always been fuelled by travel posters; you know, where the sound of gentle waves lapping on golden beaches lulls you to sleep.
Perhaps I ought to count my blessing that, while I was still dreaming of sunkissed shores, I somehow became destined to finish my days in more temperate and less tempestuous climes. Mother Nature can be a bitch!
