Satire: Adventure by flip-flops under the Southern Cross

Adventure by flip-flops under the Southern Cross

The huge nothingness of the Australia's Nullabor Plain seems an unlikely destination for adventure tourists, but try telling that to Major Jeremy Billycock-Smythe who arrived in Sydney yesterday after a failed venture in Chechnya.

He is banking on deadly spiders, killer snakes, burning temperatures, lack
of water and day on day of trekking without seeing a trace of civilisation
being bonuses for thrill-seekers, not deterrents.

"Being British, I am very excited about this," Major Billycock-Smythe said
at Sydney Airport.

He admitted he had not planned to reveal his plans so soon but seized on
the chance when he was met by a media throng as soon as he had cleared customs.

A matter of months ago, Major Billycock-Smythe, a principal in Trojan Horse Tours, made a foray into the previously untested war-zone tourist market.

For a hefty price, he was offering two-week guided tank tours to battlefields around the world, starting with the former Soviet republic of Chechnya.

"I can think of no plausible reason why it won't take off," he said then.
"Do you know how many people, by accident of birth, are born into long-term peaceful countries and will never have the opportunity to experience the
horrors of war?
"We can give them that experience."

Unfortunately for the first intake of war-zone tourists, they were all captured and put into prisoner-of-war camps.

Major Billycock-Smythe escaped, testimony perhaps to his British SAS
training, his experience as a mercenary in six wars on three continents and time in nine prisoner-of-war camps.

On his return to safer ground, according to news agency reports, he was immediately deported after being denounced as a pest by foreign aide
workers and military officials.

"That's not true," Major Billycock-Smythe said yesterday.
"I deny most emphatically that I was ordered to leave the country.
"In fact, there had been a suggestion that I be recruited as a mercenary
for my tactical knowledge.
"I simply decided to make a strategic withdrawal from the country."

But wasn't it true than 11 civilians were now prisoners of war after
entrusting their lives and hard-earned cash to Trojan Horse Tours?

"Er, well, that's one way of looking at the situation, I suppose," Major
Billycock-Smythe said, his handle-bar moustache bristling with obvious
indignation.

"Being British, I prefer a much more positive perspective.

"We have clearly delivered MORE than we promised.

"Not only have we given 11 civilians a glimpse of life in war, we have also
ensured a FREE holiday extension for them - in an ALL-EXPENSES-PAID prison camp. It's not an opportunity that falls into everyone's lap."

So what now?

"Well, there's not a lot more we can do for them - so we must press on with
a stiff upper lip, what.
"But, as I said, I am very excited about this new adventure project.

"We are offering the chance of a lifetime.

"We're not going to take four-wheel-drive vehicles, or camels. That's been
done. We're going to walk them across the desert in flip-flops.

"We will sleep under the stars, just like the early explorers. We will show
them how to catch their own food and how to be at one with nature with the
land, just like the original inhabitants of this land, the Aborigines, the
people who named the Nullabor.

Actually, said one of the assembled reporters, Nullabor was a Latin word
meaning No Tree.

"Is that right?" said a startled Major Billycock-Smythe.

"Er, well, if we meet any Latin people, of course we'll teach our clients
how to be one with nature just like them, too."

NB: I called this site Dunno because I kept drawing a blank when I had to put a name to it