Similar words to that utterance normally precede some type of rehabilitation or a retraction from the problem at hand. But for me at this moment the opposite is true. I am delving into the pink skinned world of a red head in foreign and inhospitable lands.

Having spent the last two and a half years inland I needed a sea change and recently managed to score a job near the ocean. However, this ocean lies perilously close to the equator in Cairns. For someone who spent his youth being branded a ‘freckle farmer’ with ‘hair of fire’, the region and the word ‘equator’ have seriously menacing undertones.

Yes, this is a tropical paradise, palm trees sway over sandy beaches, sky-blue water laps the shore and people lie stretched out like giant kittens purring their contentment.

But it is not coconut oil and tan lines for everyone.

While backpackers might begin their sunning process at nine am and are happy to soak up the rays for hours on end in rebellion to their own wintry rains and usually pasty skins, others, such as myself must take a different approach. While some stride about the city with their face upturned in deus-like devotion to the sun recanting the Irish blessing ‘may the wind always be at your back, may the sun shine warm upon your face’, others move differently.

Yes, if you flash a glance my way you are likely to see someone moving from shadow to shadow like a spy, cowering under the sun’s ferocity. If these kinds of manoeuvres weren’t so vital to my survival, this might be comical. I slide along walls, moving quickly to the shade of the next tree, take refuge for a moment, wipe my brow and then delve onward to the next darkened piece of pavement. I move as if being attacked by a murder of crows from above. When an open stretch of ground appears ahead, and devoid of shadow, I put my head down in determination and shift into a frantic trot.

From the moment I was old enough not to swallow the contents of a sun cream when bottle handed to me I was given the express order to keep myself covered from head to toe in a thick lather of sticky stinky slick. At one stage, I was even putting sun cream on cotton buds and protecting the inside of my nostrils from melanoma. Well, maybe not, but you get the picture.

And even that was under the relatively docile sun of Sydney some twenty years ago.  Up here in Cairns the sun is an angry bastard, glaring and glowering, spitting sun spot invective onto those he enjoys hurting most- the keratin-less. It has almost gotten to the point, as when VW Herbies honk one another in passing as an acknowledgement of shared trials and tribulations, that you bow your head and nod to fellow blood-nuts who cross your path.

As of yet I have escaped any kind of blister inducing burn. I have been spared those unbearable evenings of spraying aloe vera liquid from the fridge over my back and arms and then lying straight as a board begging for paralysis so as to not move a single muscle and prevent the scraping of a solitary millimetre of charred flesh over the sheets.

The next few days could be dangerous for me however, after a sun cream disaster like last weekend. Being the only person who needs sun cream protection like I need the air, I’d carried it with me when a group of us went swimming at a nearby waterfall. Unfortunately, in my rush to keep out of the sun after our visit I inadvertently left my wallet and bottle of sun cream on the roof of the car in the mad rush to get coverage under the vehicle’s welcome, shady chassis. Once we started moving, the wallet and cream or course went sprawling off the roof, breaking the bottle’s lid. When I got into the car the next day I found the recovered SPF 30+ on the floor and now empty, having haemorrhaged its entire contents onto the carpet.

I was left with no protection and panicked like I was walking into a gunfight with only a knife. I haven’t restocked my arsenal just yet, but the minute I have a chance, it will obviously be at the top of my to-do list.

But really, when all is said and done, this affliction really is a small price to pay for living in the tropics. I have been burdened with this skin since day one, and so am quite used to finding myself covered in sun cream, wearing a foreign legion dork hat and wielding a parasol without even noticing it any more.

Okay, I have always refused to wear the foreign legion caps and a parasol is not quite my kind of gear, but the lifelong battle of skin versus the sun is won on repetition. Continuity creates habit. And if an increase in hostilities from people who hate cream-soaked, dork-hat wearing men with parasols is the only price to pay for the reef and the rainforest, then I am willing to embrace my curse.

In any event, relief is on the horizon as I prepare to settle into my first-ever wet season, but that is a long and boring yarn for another occasion. Already I have been freaked out by locals who speak of weeks on end spent indoors, of clothes growing mould in closets, of cyclone season and flying coconuts, and of a mugginess and heat that is both oppressive and punishing.

For me, though, rain means cloud, and cloud is my very good friend, so bring it on I say.

Until then, you’ll find me in the shadows.