This was utterly beautiful. Sunset over the world’s loveliest coast. Flying down to that wonderful sand spit. We were on a Blue Cruise at the time. Our yacht was anchored on the landward side of that island in the top left corner of the picture.

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When I was 14, I realised that I needed to toughen up a bit. I decided that one way to get a bit more like the Marlboro Man was to get outdoors. I began a three-pronged attack:

1. Sleep for the whole year without clothes, with a thin sheet as my only cover and with no heating and with the wndow wide open. Admittedly, this was Australia, but in Adelaide winter minima of zero degrees C are not rare. Well, zero is rare but 2 isn’t.

2. Ride my bike everywhere. This was to include a ride up Mt Lofty (727m or 2385ft) at least once every weekend.

3. Swim at least some distance in the sea every day.

In practice, this meant that every school morning, I would get up early, put my shorts on and cycle to Brighton Beach (probably the world’s nicest Metropolitan beach – broad, white sand, clear water, a firm, gently sloping entry to the water – nothing like Brighton in Sussex). Then I would get into the sea. From January through to May, I was increasing my distance and improving my stroke. From then until the end of June, I was confident that my resolution would be easy to stick with. In July the water started to get unpleasantly cold. By the beginning of September, I was having difficulty getting into the sea at all. I was spending ages in thigh-deep water wincing when a wave washed into shorts territory. Then I would dive in, swim perhaps three strokes and run out and vigorously towel myself. At this stage, a magnificent tingling feeling would spread through me and I would feel warm all day. I would go into one of those old-fashioned wooden change sheds (not there any more), put my clothes on and cycle to school. I would be salty all day but my feeling of superiority over everyone made up for that.

I  learned a valuable skill that year. Even now, if I feel cold, I can slow down my breathing and concentrate on telling myself I feel warm. For some reason that I can’t figure out, it works.

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They’re not very high (1.35m) or wide (1.4m). A side-to-side jump took a few practices over the bonnet to get the run-up right, then it was plain sailing over the roof.

A more notable achievement was that I could get into the boot (trunk) of a Mini. This was particularly useful as the attendants at Adelaide drive-in movie theatres never bothered to check for stowaways in the boots of Minis. I got a few free movies from that.

I doubt that I could jump over a BMW Mini but I’m sure I could fit into the boot.

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This was in about 1993. I decided that I could not live in Istanbul without swimming the Bosphorus. I went down to Bebek and asked a man with a Zodiac whether he would take me across and stay close to me as I swam back across to make sure I didn’t get killed by the massive amount of shipping. He took me to the cove just north of the Asian side of Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge. I jumped out and swam under the bridge to Rumeli Hisarı.

Later I was in a race that went from the Kanlıca Ferry Quay to Ortaköy. That meant swimming under both bridges and, because I didn’t know the currents at all, I ended up crossing the Bosphorus several times.

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It’s a massive volcano in central Turkey. Strabo reported that from its summit, you could see both the Mediterranean and Black Seas. It’s a spectacular place to ski.

Admittedly, when I was there I was attached to the ski team of a school in Istanbul where I worked.  I spent much of my time skiing down the edges of competition slopes with armloads of jackets.

Still, I got away for a good ski sometimes. And just look at the place.

The peak

Winter on Erciyes

Looking towards the Toros Mountains

Another view from Erciyes Dağı

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