One Life One Chance Read online

  I went first, gently easing myself into the water and taking a deep breath before dropping below the surface. The lake was only 5-feet deep and it was disgusting murky water that smelt like ducks. At the time, I thought I’d definitely get an ear infection from this swim. I had to gently break the surface three times to take another breath before diving under again and finally making it to the muddy bank on the far side. I looked back, gave Kieren the wave and it was now his turn.

  I don’t think Kieren had done any training on stealth operations or had much experience swimming under the water for any long distance. He entered the lake and dove under, returning to the surface moments later gasping for air and splashing about. I looked up at the bridge to check on the police but they hadn’t seen the commotion in the lake, they were preoccupied blocking the path. He kept swimming and doing his best, finally hauling himself out on the far side next to me. It was a miracle we hadn’t been seen! We laughed and recovered for a few minutes and then it was time for phase two.

  There was a fence to get through next but it wasn’t an issue as the clamps holding it together were not secured tightly and we managed to undo one section and slide through. Then we noticed how loud the concert had become; we were getting close and a hundred metres further on we could see it, or rather we could see the final wall separating us from it. As we got to the final wall we realised it was massive, probably 4 metres high, made from steel and seamless on the outside with no way to get through. The only option was over the top.

  I had done plenty of wall drills back in Singleton during the obstacle course so I had the process ready in my mind. I placed Kieren with his back against the wall and his hands clasped together on top of his knee. I moved back to get a run up and as I sprinted towards him I planted my foot into his hands and jumped up with all my strength. I managed to catch the top lip of the wall with one hand and then pull myself on top where I balanced myself for the catch that was coming.

  Kieren backed up to get ready for his big run at the wall, I was purchased with a solid grip on the back side of the wall and my arm reaching down as far as I could on Kieren’s side. We could hear some security guards coming around the perimeter and knew it was now or never. Kieren hit top speed and launched up the wall where we caught each other’s hand and I pulled him on top with me. It was the luckiest catch of all time considering how wet and muddy we were and how many beers we had consumed. We laughed with relief as we turned to face into the concert from the top of the wall; we were in awe.

  What we saw would stay with us forever. There were 150,000 people all massed together in front of a main stage singing and dancing along to some of the world’s best artists. The music was deafening but it was absolutely exhilarating. We had breached the wall behind the food trucks so when we dropped down to the ground we were immediately hidden by the stalls. We assessed ourselves for a moment deciding to remove our soaked shirts and then calmly walked out from behind the cover of the trucks.

  One of the vendors yelled out, ‘Don’t piss behind there lads.’ He must have assumed we were using the back as a toilet. We yelled out ‘Sorry mate’, and that was it, we were in. We entered the enormous crowd of singing humanity and for the remainder of the night we danced and sang our way to the middle of the pack. We were sopping wet and smelt like ducks but we had pulled off one of the greatest festival break-ins of all time, and it is still to this day the greatest concert I have ever witnessed.

  …

  The Kings Cross job was expanding. We were going to refurbish the adjoining St Pancras Hotel, building a massive new train deck that could host a Eurostar rail connection and the entire underground tube system was to be reworked. It was a rare glorious summer day as I worked away on the train deck when a deep rumble shook the entire site. Cries of evacuate sounded out and the supervisor ordered us all off the site as quick as possible telling us there had been an explosion in the underground.

  It was 7 July 2005 and the London suicide bombings had just occurred. We were all gathered outside of the construction site and we could see the emergency services running into the underground. We had no idea at that moment that what we were witnessing was part of a series of suicide attacks across London involving three underground trains on the central line close to Kings Cross and a double-decker public bus in Tavistock Square. What I had known and been reading about occurring in the Middle East was in front of my very eyes and it was chilling to know I could easily have been one of the people working or travelling on those trains that day.

  London was in turmoil, sirens were echoing throughout the city, everyone was hungry for information on what had happened and the phones crashed shortly after we were evacuated from work. I managed to get a quick message out to my parents letting them know I was okay before the phones went down. In the following days we would learn that four suicide bombers using homemade devices killed 52 innocent people and caused hundreds of injuries. It also left London in a state of fear that I could sense everywhere. The public were in shock and the tension could be felt wherever I went, especially on public transport.

  The bombings, to me, were a reflection of a new era of war we were entering into. Since I had discharged from the Army some western nations, including Australia, led by the United States, had invaded Iraq and Afghanistan under the pretext of weapons of mass destruction and capturing Osama bin Laden. In our wake we have left millions of civilians dead and entire cultures destroyed. I didn’t know it at the time but what I had witnessed on 7/7 was a consequence of our invasions, occupations and foreign policies as well as the terrorists’ extreme interpretations of Islam. It wouldn’t be the last attack.

  By the end of summer, as the fear eased London slowly settled back into its normal rhythm and the party scene paradise returned. It was becoming a slippery slope of intensifying chaos for me as I began to party more and experiment with drugs. I was in two minds about putting the following pages into this book, however, my past has moulded me into the man I am today. I have no regrets in life and this was part of my journey that I now call my Demon Days. It was a big turning point which would ultimately lead me to a life of adventure. Before I was consumed by that adventurous life however, I ventured to the Camden Markets on a Sunday afternoon to buy mushrooms.

  Magic mushrooms were legal in London in 2005 and Camden local markets were the bearer of such goods. I had never eaten mushrooms before and there was a large selection to choose from. Many types from various parts of the world and all carrying with them a different intensity. On a scale of one to ten with ten being out of this world strong hallucinating power. I bought a bag of the number two. The lady who sold them to me said to eat them with some yoghurt for your first time, it would help to settle the stomach. With a bag full of magic mushrooms and some dairy goodness I boarded the train for home. Once I was back at the house our small group of friends all settled in for a beer and began to eat the fungus and yogurt like they were a Doritos and salsa combination. Within twenty minutes they were all consumed and we sat back to wait for the ride.

  Not much happened for a while and I was sitting on the couch with my arm around my girlfriend chatting away happily. One minute I was having a conversation with a friend and when I looked back to my arm it was 3 metres long and stretched out like I was a member of the Fantastic Four. I thought to myself, here we go it’s show time.

  The afternoon turned into evening as everyone started to go off on their ‘trip’. I was having a great time floating around the apartment watching the walls melt and my limbs get stretched and pulled in random directions. At one stage I had a mini panic attack and had to tell myself that it was just a ride and it would all be over in a few hours. I passed two of the girls standing in the hallway lined up at the toilet door, I asked ‘What are you girls up to?’ They said, ‘We are just lining up for the nightclub, you should come in with us.’ I replied that I was fine thanks and floated on past back to the lounge room.

  The effects began to wear off after a few hours and turned
us all into giggling school children for the last hour. It was a fun experience but I’m very glad that we had started with one of the weakest varieties. It takes a solid mindset to handle hallucinations; it’s very easy to get caught in a spiralling panic attack if you’re not ready for everything the mushrooms will make your mind explore.

  Alcohol has always been the main staple of the party animal and ever since my first boozer parade in the Army, where we were forced to drink huge amounts every week as a rite of passage, I have struggled with moderation. I could never just have one beer, it always turned into an exuberant amount until my brain eventually switched off and I went into autopilot for the remainder of the night. This often led to passing out and waking up in random locations with no idea how I had gotten there.

  I once woke up in what looked like an elevator shaft. It was a bare concrete, square shaped box about 3 metres wide and there was an indent in the wall the size of a door that I assumed could be the way out. I was immediately in a panic and started to bang on the indent screaming at the top of my lungs ‘Help me, help me, I’m trapped.’ This went on for a few hysterical minutes until a small window slid open in front of me at about eye level. A man on the other side looked through at me and said, ‘You’re in jail you dickhead, now settle down.’ It was then I realised I wasn’t trapped at all, I was in the drunk cell of the local police station. I found out later this was the bare cell you get placed in first until you settle down and then they move you to a cell with a bed and toilet.

  I woke up on an underground train once after the trains had finished running and were parked up for the night. I had fallen asleep on the last train home from Shepherd’s Bush and the train staff had missed me in their final sweep. There was spew on the floor in front of me that I assumed was mine. I stepped off onto the platform and made my way through the eerily quiet station. When I made it to the front entrance the security gate was locked so I had to climb up over the gate to get out of the station and into the dark street outside. From there it was a bitterly cold walk home.

  I hadn’t seen cocaine back in North Queensland. I’m sure it was there but it had never crossed my path. In London however it seemed to be the lifeblood of the party scene; it was everywhere. I couldn’t go to a local pub without someone eventually offering me a line in a casual way as if offering to buy me a beer. Since I was constantly placing myself in this type of environment it wasn’t long before I had tried cocaine and started to use it on a weekly basis.

  Cocaine made me feel invincible and without a worry in the world. It started with a couple of small lines shared with friends on a Saturday night to kick off the party and fight back the drunken stupor brought on by all the alcohol. It then slowly progressed into me buying my own gram for a night out as I wanted a little more for myself and could spread it out to cover the entire evening. Before long I was well into the party scene and consuming 3–4 grams of coke over a weekend, also ecstasy if we were planning on attending a rave, speed on occasion, and it was all washed down with a constant flow of alcohol.

  Adding drugs into a party scene, especially when they are cheap and in abundant supply, has a tendency to lead to drug abuse. What started as a single line on a Saturday night in London was turning into weekend benders starting on Friday and not wrapping up until early Monday morning. Drugs carried me through the days, not needing sleep or food, and the alcohol was always there to lubricate the process. I knew I had hit rock bottom after one particular bender that lasted almost five days.

  I had a weekend free of work so after finishing early on a Friday I first went and purchased enough coke to carry me through another wild few days. At this stage I was consuming half-gram lines at a time and needed to plan ahead, as there was nothing worse than running out of coke and desperately searching for more when you wanted to carry on. I had arranged to catch up with different groups of friends at different clubs and parties over the next few days. With this frame of mind my weekend quickly descended into chaos. I moved from party to party, club to club and house to house. Pausing to drink a glass of water on occasion and always trying to conserve supplies of the main ingredient during daylight hours. As was my style, I entered a blackout stage late Sunday evening and went off on another adventure by myself.

  I came out of the haze as a blast of cold water hit me in the face. I was freezing and soaking wet, looking down I was naked and standing in a shower without walls and my body was covered in what looked to be my own shit. Looking around I could see three police officers standing behind me holding a fire hose with the look of disgust on their faces. I had been arrested for drunk and disorderly behaviour and drug possession while wandering the streets early Monday morning. I had soiled myself and the police were in the process of washing me down as my mind snapped harshly back to reality.

  After the hose down I was placed in a cell, given some water and told to sleep it off. It was impossible to sleep due to the chemicals pumping through my veins and after five paranoid hours I was released with a warning. I was told the drug amount in my possession was very small and as this was my first offence as long as I contacted the drug and alcohol hotline they gave me there would be no charges. I was very lucky to get off so lightly; if they had picked me up a few days before there is no doubt I would have been in jail.

  I arrived back to an empty house as all of my roommates were at work. I had one gram of cocaine in my room that I quickly procured, and sat down in the lounge room. I took a line and sat back to analyse my situation. I was sitting in a room by myself on a Monday afternoon, snorting cocaine after being released from jail for being drunk and high. This wasn’t the life I envisioned, this was so far from the life I wanted and grew up with that I struggled to figure out how I had gotten there. The disappointment in myself brought me to tears and after a few blubbering minutes I realised that I had to get out of this place and I had to do it now. I called a friend.

  Liam was one of my best friends and had been like a mentor to me during our Army service together. He was in Australia and most likely asleep but he picked up immediately and I told him about the situation I was in. I told him that I needed to go somewhere to get myself clean and refocus on my life. He told me about a place in Phuket, Thailand called Tiger Muay Thai, a Thai boxing training camp in the jungle. He had been there once himself, said it was the hardest training he had ever done and that it would be a good place for me to pull myself together. In the condition I was in it sounded perfect and after hanging up I immediately opened my laptop and booked a one-way flight to Phuket from London, leaving that day.

  I was still high while packing my bag, I was still high when the taxi turned up to take me to the airport. I finished the last of my cocaine in the car on the way to Heathrow and it wasn’t until going through customs that the drugs were wearing off and I began to feel the sickness creeping up inside me. I started to doubt my decision to leave but managed to fight off the desire to flee the airport until I had boarded the plane and the door was closed.

  I was going to go cold turkey from alcohol and drugs in a Thai boxing camp in the jungles of Phuket. I couldn’t fight, I had never been to Thailand and I was on my own. What the hell was I getting myself into?

  CHAPTER 5

  THAI MEDICINE

  …

  The flight from London to Phuket was fourteen hours and after the first two hours of paranoia about leaving I managed to close my eyes and fall asleep. Sleep while coming down from drugs isn’t a pleasant sleep, it’s restless, twitchy and for me is accompanied by nightmares. I woke up many times throughout the flight dying for food and water. I hadn’t eaten or drunk fluid that wasn’t alcohol for four days. I’m sure I looked like an absolute mess but I wasn’t concerned about my appearance at all. In my head I was thinking over and over about what the hell I was doing; I had nowhere to stay in Phuket and only had the name of a Muay Thai training camp to go off. I was disappointed, scared and feeling sick but deep down I knew this was the right decision.

  The plane touc
hed down mid-morning in the tropical paradise of Phuket, home to 600,000 Thai locals and visited by millions of tourists every year. As soon as I stepped off the plane I was enveloped by the inescapable humidity and I was already sweating while waiting in line to clear immigration. I collected my bags and made my way from the carousel to the hustle and bustle of the exit. The front sliding doors of the exit opened and I was engulfed by Thailand.

  The tropical heat mixed with vehicle exhaust and a hint of some waste-management issues overwhelmed the senses. As I stepped outside there was a wall of locals staring back at me holding signs for hotels, bungalows and taxi services. They were all in chorus trying for my business, yelling over the top of each other, creating an intimidating scene being amplified by my fragile state. Not knowing any streets, provinces or landmarks I simply said ‘Tiger Muay Thai’ to a taxi vendor and his eyes lit up. He knew exactly where I wanted to go and for 600 baht he would take me there. Grabbing my bags and ushering me into his cab we were away at rapid speed towards my destination.

  After a nerve-racking, high-speed transit along Phuket’s highway we pulled up forty minutes later at Tiger Muay Thai, a Muay Thai and mixed martial arts training camp in Chalong province, at the southern end of Phuket. Stepping out of the taxi, the first thing I was drawn to was the sound of shins kicking pads accompanied by grunts and yelling from those doing the kicking and the trainers holding the pads. I paid the driver and made my way to a small office building at the front of the camp to get some more information about training at Tiger. Kicking my shoes off and stepping inside to much needed air conditioning, I was greeted by friendly faces, one of which told me to take a seat.

  I was very tired and was not looking like I was ready to train at a Muay Thai camp but I told the lady I had an open-ended ticket, I had nowhere to stay and wanted to train. She smiled and said no problem, like she had heard it all before. I could pay for monthly all-inclusive training and have access to every class on the timetable. If I wanted private sessions with the Thai trainers that would be extra. I could stay at a place called Tony’s just down the road that had rooms available and was very cheap when staying monthly. I could buy my mouthguard, wraps and gloves from the office when I was ready to start and if I needed a scooter I could also rent one off them. This was all working out just fine. I was in need of sleep and told her I would start the next day and paid for a month of training up-front.