⛵ VOYAGE #05 — Camel Man

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⛵ VOYAGE #05 — by Nick Jaffe — November, 27, 2020


V O Y A G E
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Camel Man #05

         Welcome to edition #05 of VOYAGE: I've been happily busy with many things over the last fortnight, causing a delay in shipping #5. The purpose of this newsletter (for me) is to practice the discipline of writing, and I've failed this month. While I'm not Catholic, it has been said by others in the past I would make an excellent practitioner, because of my ability to punish myself.

A month or two ago I heard about John the Camel Man and reached out to him via Instagram. He was soon to be in Tasmania with his dog and team of five camels, leaving his (not so) normal life to trek around the country. Before I continue though, can we just for a moment appreciate the title of the above article: "‌Former Perth playboy millionaire John Elliott ditches orgies to hump his way across country" — ok, let's keep going.

John messaged, saying he was just a day away from my house while I was in the midst of preparing to leave for two days of wining, dining & photography with Stillwater Seven, Stoney Rise, Black Cow Bistro and others. I left home and soon enough there was John, his dog Bruski and the famed camel train, meandering down the main highway. Camels are a curious species, appearing gangly, top heavy and quite frankly, fragile. However they're an alarmingly robust and powerful animal, able to carry large payloads, travel long distances and of course run on limited food and water — up to 5 days without food and up to a month without water.

John walks at around 4km/h, or roughly 2kts for those who are more nautically inclined. I recall doing some napkin calculations once, realising I had sailed most of the way around the world at an average of around the same speed... In effect, I sailed at roughly the same pace as a man with five camels and a dog.

I threw John my house keys and left him to continue his walk south to my house for a rest, as I continued my drive north for work. When traveling, there is no better feeling than having a chance to enjoy small luxuries in peace for a few days — one of the greatest joys in living rough in the elements, is your baseline for luxury appreciation changes. The smallest luxuries and the smallest gestures of kindness take on new meanings. It is the classic notion that deprivation actually increases overall appreciation: a reminder that it is important to recalibrate our baselines through regular stints of self-deprivation. Life often seems to improve through subtraction rather than addition.

Upon my return home, I drove up the driveway to the sight of 5 camels tied to trees and my front porch lined with trekking equipment. If you ever wondered what a man with five camels actually carries, it includes a car battery, a fridge, beer, food, ropes, clothing, rolling tobacco, canvas tarps, chairs, a few hundred litres of water and a gun.

Walking in public with a camel train is quite a spectacle. It's very much a glitch in the matrix type event to witness: there you are, driving down the street, thinking about work, what you're going to eat or whether you should check your phone that just buzzed — and then bam, there is a man with camels taking up the entire lane, immediately pulling you out of that very ordinary moment. I love this about John's trip — perhaps even more than the adventure of it. Often these kinds of expeditions are in remote places, where access to them is via a website, Instagram or a book written about the whole thing some years later — they're often very personal trips. John's adventure gives people the opportunity to see the adventure happening in the most mundane of places, which I think is something quite special.

It's clear John loves the attention he attracts, with people gravitating towards him not only for the camels, but because of his outgoing larrikin personality — he's one of those characters who exudes a kind of outback roughness — standing tall with an Akubra hat and a rolled cigarette stuck to his upper lip as if he just walked off a cattle station in Western Australia — but don't be fooled, he's an intellect and businessman who can swiftly change the conversation from camel care to insurance deductibles, politics and Cuban cigars .

We spent time discussing how to tackle the Tasman bridge into Hobart — consisting of 5 lanes and spanning 1.3km — there would be some logistics involved. When was the best time to cross? Was it better to ask the authorities for forgiveness or for permission?

Seeking forgiveness over permission was the order of the day, as I met John at the beginning of the bridge at 6am on a Sunday morning to shoot the first ever Tasman bridge camel crossing.

The police turned up within moments... Although not for the purposes of enforcement, but rather to chaperone the camel team and take selfies: their blue and red lights blaring with a train of camels 60 metres above a river, on a 5 lane highway with the warm glow of a rising sun — a proper glitch in the matrix.

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Books

My reading habits continue to be poor, although my penchant for book collection does not seem to have wavered, with the following books for research turning up in my postbox:

  • Pacific: Silicon Chips and Surfboards, Coral Reefs and Atom Bombs, Brutal Dictators and Fading Empires by Simon Winchester
  • Rowing to Latitude: Journeys Along the Arctic's Edge by Jill Fredeston

Recent photographic outputs

Recent workshop outputs

  • I'm continuing the sale on some of my carry objects, including wallets and camera straps — a good time to get presents made by yours truly!

Recent inputs

Elsewhere

My primary Instagram / Website & work / YouTube Channel / Workshop Instagram / Airbnb / Twitter

Reach out

If there is something you'd like me to riff on in the next edition or delve into further personally — simply reply to this email.

Colophon: written in Markdown with a dash of CSS in iA Writer, captured via Squarespace + Zapier & shipped to you via Buttondown + various tubes.

Nick J