Australia

When I first arrived in Australia I weighed in at only 125 pounds. I was very thin but very fit. I got a lot of exercise because I was very active. Every chance I got I went swimming or skin diving. I played football, rugby and cricket but could not get into the pace or lack there of for cricket. I walked a lot and ran for exercise. I have always loved just running. Some of my friends and I had regular wrestling matches which I still loved to do. I also got lots of sexercise.

I wanted to gain weight so I started to eat. Breakfast was always huge. Steak and eggs with potatoes and toast with promite on it was a typical daily meal. I threw in some bacon or sausages sometimes along with french toast or four egg omelets with the kitchen sink thrown in them. For lunch I ate sandwiches stacked up with lots of meats and cheeses from a nearby deli most days or Chinese food. I baked bread often, usually whole wheat using Adelle Davis's recipe. Dinner was my favorite meal of the day. I cooked Mexican food like chili and burritos or some other taco or enchilada dish a couple times a week but we went out for dinner more often then we ate in. I also snacked relentlessly. I drank a lot of beer and hard cider too. My caloric intake must have been close to 8000 a day and it still took me a year to get my weight up to a trim 140 pounds. After almost two years of eating like this I approached 160 pounds and I slowed down my eating. I was still very thin and fit at 160 pounds.

Men seem to lose weight when they travel and women seem to gain weight. I don't know why that is but it sure seems to be the case from everybody I knew that did a lot of traveling. I tried to maintain my weight as I traveled but after my fifty pound drop in weight when I got so sick from malaria in Ethiopia it was very tough for me to just maintain to say nothing about gaining weight. I did not get back up to the weight I was before I got sick in Ethiopia until over six years later. Today I am a tad overweight but only about 10 pounds. Compared to most Americans I am down right skinny.

I did have a malaria relapse when I was living in Sydney. I just suddenly got a very high fever and started to shake and sweat with diarrhea to make sure I really felt like crap. I went to the hospital and they told me I had malaria. I did not know that malaria stays in your system for around five years and can relapse anytime your general health gets weak. They gave me chloroquine or some other antimalaria drug and I recovered in a few days. I was always careful to stay healthy after that attack.

After we sold the bikini business we went back up to Sydney for a short while. I had to finish my divorce with Kirsten before I left. That went without a hitch. The only problem was that Kirsten turned against me big time as we were splitting up. I did not understand her animosity. I wanted to be friends with her and she just wanted to hate me for some reason. When she burned up all my pictures of our travels I was extremely depressed by her behavior. I just don't get why people can't split up and still be friends. I know the system forces animosity the way it is so cold but people should be able to get over that. I ended up losing contact with her over the years which still disappoints me. I would still like to find her again and see if we could be friends again. We were best friends for so long I still miss her.

Finally all the loose ends were cleared up, like a visa to the U.S. for Sue, and we bought tickets from Sydney to San Francisco via New Zealand. We were going to stop off in New Zealand and see Sue's family and travel around the country for a bit before flying on to the States.