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At 5am I board the bus in Alice Springs. I am the only person waiting. I count on one hand the number of people I’ve seen since arriving the previous afternoon. My year in Melbourne almost up, I had wanted to see the outback, to travel alone, to report home that I’d backpacked 'properly'. But weeks of big skies, Greyhounds and empty hostel dorms is tiring. I crave company, and someone to tell me where we’re going, what to look at. So, I join a group tour. Alice Springs to Adelaide, straight down the Stuart Highway, cutting Australia in half. There are ten of us, plus our guide, Sid – although we later discover this isn’t his real name. He emphasises the importance of group unity. But there is a steeliness about him, an unease. I am the last to join, and the atmosphere is tight from the outset. This won’t be the usual backpacker tour experience; there is a tension, a spring staying coiled only while we stay within civilisation. It’s not just his name, we don’t discover Sid’s age or where he grew up during introductions. He fixates on the road, the only thing to break up the red land and red sky, and warns us of desert madness. ‘It usually hits day two or three’. The tour lasts nine days. Days are bookended by incredible sights – sunset over Uluru when the rock glows molten, and mornings at Kata Tjuta that feel like waking up on Mars. But the majority is spent on the road. The longest I have ever seen, endless hours heading straight and seemingly getting nowhere. On these drives, Sid asks one of us to sit up front and make conversation. He doesn’t speak much, or ask questions. After a few false starts, I jimmy a way in. He tells me about marrying a first love, now an ex wife, about a Bali commune where he was renamed, and the intention to move to LA to act. This is his last season guiding, he says. He’s done. I get the sense of someone that has lived a lot of different lives. And hasn’t been particularly comfortable in any of them. We talk about films, he mentions Heath Ledger. Later on, when comparing front seat breakthroughs with the others, I find that, like the Joker, Sid seems to have numerous backstories. We camp under the stars most nights. The darkness has weight, it beats down on my closed eyelids, and throbs in time with the cicadas. Sid makes his own fire away from the group, and stares into it until the embers barely glow. With each night, the group seems a little more on edge. Maybe it’s just desert madness, but a divide is becoming clear. Sid’s friends and, not Sid’s friends. Despite my unease, it feels like a win to be in the first group. Even so, I find myself watching him closely, just in case. He is the only thing between us and hundreds of miles of desert. He is the thing keeping us safe. He has the keys to the bus. Things come to a head, over an evaluation someone had been confident would not be read until the tour is over, as we arrive in Adelaide. Grateful to get off the bus after nine hours of cramped conditions, and nine days of escalating tension, we arrange a farewell dinner that night. Nobody expects Sid to come, but he does. We gather to say goodbye. The bus turns left, towards the Stuart Highway. He is heading back to Alice, to do the whole thing again. There’s a lot of time to navel gaze when on a bus for the best part of a fortnight. I think about why I came to Australia – what I am looking for and maybe what I’m avoiding. I think about how Sid would answer that question. I find the outback beautifully ominous. The isolation is confronting, and somehow the expanse can feel claustrophobic. I wonder what drew Sid there, and the impact driving that endless loop really had. I leave Australia shortly after. The tour had been both unsettling and clarifying – I am ready to go home.