The Amazon Rainforest, South America. Photo / Getty Images
Elisabeth Easther talks to Andrea Messenger of Plateau Lodge & Tongariro Crossing Shuttles.
As a kid in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, my childhood was very desert-oriented. My dad was in the drilling industry, in mining, and mum was a nurse. I was really fortunate to do lots of travelling with
my parents. I especially loved camping on beaches and, though there were snakes and spiders, we were educated not to touch them, just to admire from afar.
In the 80s, Bali was still quite rural, and I remember walking around the markets holding my nose, breathing through the material of mum and dad's clothing. These days it's all cleaned up but back then, dogs roamed the streets, and you weren't really allowed to wander beyond the resort. There was only one resort on Nusa Dua back then, now it's thick with hotels and shops.
I left home at 18 and spent 10 years working on islands from Brisbane up to Papua New Guinea. I started at Stradbroke Island, off the coast of Brisbane, and ended up on Lizard Island. They were doing luxury eco-tourism before it became trendy and it was rated in the world's top 40 luxury resorts. There were around 80 staff for 40 guests, and it cost two grand a night per person, in the 90s. In my downtime, I'd hop in a staff dinghy and cut through the shipping channel to an isolated island for a picnic, or go fishing, or spearfishing. I'm such a water baby.
I've travelled to all seven continents and in Africa I spent a lot of time in Zimbabwe. It was 1989, when things were pretty tense politically. We hired a car and everyone said, "you're crazy, you can't do that" but we visited all the national parks in our little hire car. One day, I was trying to get a photo that looked like my hand was up an elephant's bottom (pictured). Obviously this is a park and not a zoo but you forget that and I was chased by a male elephant. I remember running in a zig-zag for what felt like an eternity. Eventually I found a tree and hugged it, looking round and thinking, "holy crap, is it still chasing me?" The wildebeest were cool. They'd just stand in the middle of the road and not move.
