Part III will consist of Hitch HIking Adventures..and then maybe a seperate one about the people who picked us up.
One of the basics of hitch hiking is to one, of course, be outside of town, on a highway. Two, start early. It was nearing 3 by the time we finished saying bye to Levi, which lasted a few hours. We jsut kept sitting there saying bye and starting a new conversation, then group hugs, good byes, a new conversation. On top of that, we hadn’t any supplies, so we had to wait for the hostel bus that goes into town, then shop, then take a bus to the outskirts of town to start hitching. It was 4 oclock. The worst time to get anywhere. People just get off work and want to go home, no time for travelers, trafficky, and not a good place to camp right out of town in the suburbs where we got dropped. We stood there for over an hour with no luck. I made up a song and a sign that read “anywhere but here”. Here’s my song: “Party people…..give us a ride, party people…let us inside, Party peoplel, everything’ll be fine, party people…we’re gonna have a great time!” each day I made a new verse, but can’t remember the rest. Anyways..after an hour of waiting, an older man, in his fifties but whose youth shone past his age pulled over. He was accostumed to picking up hitch hikers and although he didnt’ take us more than 40k’s outside Cairns, dropped us off to a camp site on the river right on the highway. Perfect! We had prime real estate..mountain view right over the river! We were so wiped out from waiting in the sun the night before and also the previous night’s going away party that we didnt’ get to the highway until noon! We ended up meeting a German couple also hitching south. We were there first so had the right of way (hitchin ettiquette states that they had to wait hidden so that we could get picked up first) Anyways, took about 30-45 minutes before we got picked up, maybe even an hour. A painter on the way to a job picked us up. Made room for us and said he could only take us to Innisfail, which is about an hour away. So it seemed that the first day was like that, short lifts. It’s tiring. You have to wait in the Australian heat and sun and then just drive a short way to do it all over again… but then you get the rides that make it worth it, which is the only things worth sharing. My favorite rides, not to say that some of the people weren’t cool enough, just for my patience in typing, I’ll only type the best ones. Let’s see…Im losing the order of people and places…it happened a while ago…Let’s see…I’ll just say, we finally started to get really great rides, going a few hundres K’s..got dropped off in Makay (Mack-eye). We went to Maccas (McyD’s) for free wifi to look at a map of the city and find a place to camp. We had so much gear that we decided to borrow the Cole’s shopping cart (pictured) and carted our loot around town. We were starting to feel homeless at this point…”bathing” in pools, living in a tent, making breakfast by the side of the road with utensils taken from 7-11’s…begging for rides…lol. true nomads and loving it! Anyways, we were strolling our shopping cart of our only possessions through town towards dusk when an old man, his wife, and small child stopped us. They were asking us where we were going, why, and if we knew the dangers of Makay! They were so convinced that if we put our tent somewhere in a park that I would be raped and Louma stabbed by the aboriginal people. (Racism is atrocious here)They were adament about even paying for us to stay in a hostel, which was very generous, because they themselves said they “knew what it was like to be like this” (meaning, homeless like we were) we tried to tell them that we were travelers, wanting to camp, would be safe, and Makay is not like a huge city with crazy gangs… But I was getting scared ,thinking of the trouble I had in Cairns, so we walked to the hostel. Upon arrival, we spoke with the owner who said Makay was completely safe and showed us where we could pitch our tent, just about a twenty minute walk from where we were. So, even though it was dark, I felt much safer and we went to a camper park off the highway. We didn’t want to pay to put our tent in a feild, so we had to wake up at sunrise again. I think the next was Townsville where as soon as we got into town it began pouring. Oh, another thing about hitch hiking…if at all possible..try not to in the “wet” which is the rainy season, lol. It rained all afternoon by the time we got there so decided to go to a hostel, where we stood outside a Lowes type place and got a ride to the YHA. It was nice to finally have a shower, real meal (not tuna) and a real bed. The next day we needed to get out to the high way but had missed the bus, because exhasuted as we were, we weren’t going to get up at 5:45 to get a ride just “close” to the highway. We saw a man packing his car and asked for a ride to a hitch hiking spot. He said he’d move things around and wait for his wife. They were about 40 something and so awesome. They were traveling for three months around the country visiting friends before they were to move to England. Louma and I were squished holding our huge bags on out laps, we had no room to move our toes even…but even though we were just supposed to get dropped at the high way, we had such great converstations, the wrife and I, about art, racism, traveling, life, everything, that they drove us all the way to Gimpie, which is a few hours away. They dropped us off and from there we just for a few short rides, one after til this kid dropped us off, late, in the middle of nowhere, in front of a farm..dusk approaching…nowhere to camp. We kept trying, (another rule to hitch hiking is just as you are about to give up, make food, or set up camp, you’ll get a ride). So as, we were about to do one of the above, I was sitting back makign a sign and Louma was in front a few yards, a tiny red car pulled over. An old man gets out of the car and he was exactly how an old Aussie man should look. Tough as nails yet friendly, like your neighborhood grandpa watering the lawn in knee socks, bushy white eye brows, and a youthfulness that suggests he doesn’t realize he’s eighty instead of 25. Ian was quite a character, the first thing he says to us was how he wouldn’t have stopped had he known there was two of us, that he just thought it was the one “ugly bloke, wink at me” but let’s find room anyways. Side note, an aussie saying, is “G’day, Where yous goin?” There version of yall is yous. So we heard that a million times a day, kinda like it. Anyways. we get in the car and Ian tells me he picks up hitch hikers often, he doesn’t smoke and that if we try anything dangerous, the car is going to run into traffic, killing more than just him. Then he got on with how nice it was to have a pretty lady to talk to and he told me his life story. He’s a really interesting person, someone I could see Dad talking to for hours, although, it might’ve been hard, because I think Ian would give Dad a run for his money as far as who can have the longest running monologe..
He said at teh age of 18 in 1948 he brought a duffle bag a 1/3 full of rice, one pair of shorts, two tshirts, and no shoes, “because I never did like to wear shoes” (so Aussie!) and stowed away on a ship heading to England. His father was from Scottland and he said he’d take him one day, but never did, so he stowed away. He told me of how he hid for two days and then decided to give himself up, how they delayed the ship for hours looking for him but he switched the lightbulb from 40 watt to 100 or soemthing so that when they can in from the dimmness they couldn’t adjust their eyes enough to look thoughrouly in the room where he hid in between a table and two chairs. He was taken to the captain and told not to get in his way, because he called him Skipper instead of Captain, which in oz is respectful, but the captain was English and that was insulting…so he worked 7-5 on deck and at night, just because he liked it he took over a shift for one who was steering the ship. He also worked as a chef, took over amonth to get to south america because something was broken, and they could only reach so many knots. He remembered so many details I can’t write them all down..I could write a book out of it. But anyways, he’s a really interesting person and I was completely captivated by the stories of his adventures. I will write more later…I’m over it for now…
