Life + with Fiona Della-Sale: Thrillseeking, war-toughened past led Paul Dodson to sunny life in Geraldton

On a sunny Geraldton day, Paul Dodson can be spotted cruising along the coast on his e-bike, heading for a round of croquet. One could mistake him for having slipped gradually into retirement from a more sedate working life. However, such genteel pastimes belie the thrillseeking, war-toughened, body-scarred man of several continents. From the plains of Africa to the jungle of Papua New Guinea and across Australia, Paul’s resume diversity extends to farming, factory worker, fast-food franchisee, infantrymen and more. For his parents though in England in the 1940s, their tiny baby born “four pounds, four ounces” wasn’t expected to live. It was the immediate post-war era with severe food rationing, and it was hard for many to thrive. Paul was quickly baptised as was the custom to ensure a heavenly pathway should he not live, however, a tenacious will, starting back then, kicked in and Paul did survive, assisted in part by the family moving to County Kerry, Ireland where they found a wet nurse. Like many young boys of well-to-do families, Paul found himself being sent off to a British school, at the tender age of seven. Only it was boarding school, with all the staples found in English children’s literature of bullies and floggings. A small, slightly built boy, Paul had no wand like Harry Potter and endured until 14 years of age, with the institution’s typical hallmark of a “stiff upper lip”. Whether it was resiliency knocked into him or surging puberty hormones, he gratefully transformed into a bigger, stronger six-foot young man ready to take on the world. And so, at 16, when he marched out of school it was straight into work the next day. His father organised a bank job through a friend. Two years later as chief cashier, backed by diligent study and exam taking, ironically Paul explains: “Despite being surrounded in money, I was paid a pittance. It barely covered a boarding room and food.” It was time for a change. In what is a far cry from an informational and digital age, a set of Britannica encyclopaedias adorning a home bookcase was considered every middle-class family’s aspiration in the 1970s, albeit in collecting dust and often unopened for decades. Paul landed a job selling them for a printing company. He thought he’d struck gold when he ventured into selling them on US army bases in England. The printing company assisted in providing fictitious entry passes allowing Paul to hawk his wares and convince buyers of “giving their kids the best start in life, for just five pence a day”. There’s only so many encyclopaedias you can sell and so on yet another grim, rainy day in London, in 1968, Paul ventured into Australia House. Like many before him, the light-coloured Australian sandstone embassy entrance promised much of those distant sun-drenched plains. Ironically, less than a week later, a young, chipper Paul with his life stored in his rucksack, arrived in Melbourne to a dreary, cold and wet spring day and if not for the Aussie drawl he heard, it was like he hadn’t departed his mother country at all. “It was a Sunday, so aside from the appalling weather, the streets were deserted,” he recalled. The panacea came soon, in the form of sunny outdoor work in Mildura, harvesting grapes. Only Paul fainted from heat stroke soon after arriving. The heat hasn’t seen to bother him since, which is intriguing given his next life chapters living in Papua New Guinea and Africa. Landing a job with Trans Australia Airlines he was told he was being posted to PNG with his boss checking: “you do know where that is, don’t you son?” Paul had no idea, but was up for a new adventure. Working for the airline company in mountainous and remote jungle regions came with the travel risks well-documented in television reality shows now. Too-short runways, low dense cloud, tropical downpours and minimal navigational technology provided a perfect adrenaline mix for Paul, personally, when seated on board, but also in working in crash recoveries. Despite being employed initially in the travel sales branch, he became handy with loading and refuelling of DC 3s and Twin Otter planes. His base, a town named Raboul, no longer exists as it became a modern-day Pompeii, covered in volcanic ash after an eruption. There was much to explore in PNG, and despite many other dangers, it was the humble mosquito that killed most. Paul survived a bad bout of malaria, recovered and soon after set off on a jungle trek. With little more than a day pack, drinking water along the way and staying with locals, he and some mates completed what became the Kokoda Trail. Heading off on hiking challenges has been highlights of Paul’s life since, having completed the Cape to Cape Trail and Bibbulmun Track, end to end in 26 days. But that’s getting too far ahead, as a relationship break-up and a horse, determined his next life course. The girlfriend he met through work in PNG broke his heart, so he quit the job and returned to Melbourne. A down-on-his-luck mood found him racetrack side and betting on a horse that came up trumps, enough to buy him a plane ticket home to England. Paul’s winning streak continued in him meeting a lovely new young woman from Zimbabwe (Rhodesia at the time). They were married in 1976 and moved to her country. Unfortunately, with the country in civil war, living there meant recruitment to the Rhodesian Army. Paul quickly volunteered before conscription so he could have a choice in deployment jobs. For six long years, on six-week rotations his life became that of a soldier. Among warfare, landmines, causalities and war horrors, there was also amazing beauty in his new home country. Paul recalls the majestic Victoria Falls, mist rising across the plains, as water thundered from the Zambezi River over the falls, hippos lazing about in the still pools and “being taken on a boat trip, only the driver loved racing around the river above, getting as close to the spilling edge as possible.” Another memory was that of elephants, like being on a train from Bulawayo to Victoria Falls that derailed due a grazing one crossing the line at an untimely moment. Another discovery came in the form of a popular snack food but who would’ve considered elephant biltong? However, it was widely accepted back then as the animals were culled due to overpopulation and some meat used in consumption. The animal Paul most feared though was no big game animal, but was tiny in comparison, and it wasn’t the mosquito that threatened him like earlier in his PNG days. It was ticks. And they nearly killed him. An infestation led to a bacterial infection called tick bite fever and by the time it was diagnosed Paul was very sick. However, it was being threatened at gun point later when working in a travel agency and a marriage breakdown that proved the final impetus to leave the country. Salt was rubbed into emotional scars, as no money could be taken on departure from Zimbabwe. So, Paul restarted life in Australia, eventually meeting his second wife and having two children. In Geraldton, Paul competed in triathlons and was a long-time member of the local club. In fact, he raced in seven long course triathlons, events mainly held on Rottnest Island in the 1990s. One summer day in 2008, he became “fed up with riding the same local roads and with not too much forethought, I decided to challenge myself” — a personal phenomenon fast becoming a familiar trait. And a challenge it was — a lap of Australia by bike. That hardened mind of boarding school days and tough working life in PNG and Africa served a 60-year-old Paul well in cycle touring over 15,000km in just five months. He laughs at “being attacked by every animal in Oz.” In one roadside camp, he woke to find a plague of mice devouring his food supplies, creating “like a waterfall of rodents” as he chased them away. He had to retrace his route to the nearest town to replenish food stocks. Later, it was possums probing his bags and flying foxes raining faeces on to his tent. And said tent was nearly lost altogether, when a curious cow became caught up in the taut guy ropes, startling it and Paul inside, as it tried to run away, dragging all and sundry with her. Paul’s final, big adventure by bike, was in Tibet. Under the soaring peaks of the Himalayas, for two weeks he traversed from rhododendron forests and villages, then up through clouds. With an extra insulated sleeping bag, he braved the camping option with his bottle of water freezing at night. He arrived exhilarated at Everest Base Camp, at more than 5000m in altitude. Paul also arrived with severe symptoms of altitude sickness. Only, the seriousness hit him as loud as the treating doctor’s voice yelling at him “you’re going to die.” Not quite ready to abort his trip, Paul sought a second opinion who concurred with first doctor. “I very quickly commenced taking the 14 pills a day they prescribed but have no idea what they were!” Needless to say, they worked and Paul survived yet another brush of death. “I’m not counting though,” he says, as he rattles off other incidences of near drowning as a child, a car accident in PNG and being hit by a car while on his scooter in more recent years, locally. He’s lost count of broken bones, scrapes and stitches. Fortunately now, rounds on the croquet ground keeps septuagenarian Paul active, challenged and misadventure free. That’s of course if you ignore his sometimes too speedy travel by e-bike around treacherous corners. “Oh”, and he finishes, “I have found a new sport, Piggleball.” To an inquisitive look he replies: “Fastest growing new sport, look it up!”