campfireledg

I recently spent a a few days on the road with frenchy to test out the hitchin way of life. A great adventure, and we managed to meet a range of interesting people.

the list

lift 1 - deb and son john-luke (donnie)
school teacher from western sydney, tuff woman. told us a few stories from teaching at one of the roughest schools in sydney.

lift 2 - matt I
brought and sold used cars, his speciality was VS commodores, the turbo ones.

lift 3 - Nas, Wolfgang, Ben and Sebastian
A group of Austrian backpackers with a campervan. Travelling along the east coast, with essential bong breaks along the way.

Pitstop - Spent the night in Albury camped out in the botanical gardens, the highlights being woken up twice by the sprinkler system and the steady flow of mosquitos.

Lift 4 - Matt II
A plasterer on his way to work, gave a short lift down the road.

Lift 5 - Simon (fittie)
A machine tester on his way to check out some equipment south of melbourne. Nice guy, had a good chat about life on the farm (his family were farmers). He gave us a lift all the way to Tullamarine.

Lift 6 - Joey
A disgruntled ex-rail worker on his way to confront his boss, his brother who was also fired followed on a motorbike.
He accused us to be rich kids on the run from our parents, and thought that wearing all white and raving on pills was awesome. we got dropped off on Collins st.

We had arrived in Melbourne, 24hours after leaving Sydney.

THE RETURN

We decided that a train ride would be the best way to escape the city center and improve our chances of getting a solid lift north, so we made our way to the start of the Hume. We had to negotiate a few on ramps, merging lanes and a bit of verbal abuse before we made it to a decent pickup spot. It didnt take long for our first ride.

Lift 7 - Antonio
We were stoked to be picked up because it was the middle of the day and we were sweating our tits off. Antonio was a hard core/metal dude and seemed nice but we only managed a lift 500m down the road. So we were bummed to be back out in the sun.

Lift 8 - Hugh
We kept moving down the highway looking for a good spot and It seemed like a while before we were picked up by hugh. He was returning home after visiting his dying mother in hospital, and was happy to have some company in the car with him and take his mind off it. He was a school teacher and also married into a family of farmers. He was nice enough to continue past his normal route to give us an extra 100kms. We got dropped at Benalla.

Lift 9 - Cameron
We got dropped off on the highway and found some shade in on overpass. This was our longest wait - 45mins. Frenchy came to the conclusion that people wouldnt stop because our faces were in shade so drivers couldnt see our faces. He was probably right but i was happy to hang out there for a bit anyway. Cameron didnt have a problem with the shade and picked us up in his company car. He was working as an engineer and travelling long distances to work in melbourne. He told us about his brother who hitched a ride on a train back from perth. Cameron dropped us at Glenrowan.

Lift 10 - Mick
It was getting late and we decided that we were going to try and make it to Albury and camp out the night there. That was until Big-Mick pulled up in his Big-Rig. He was heading straight though to sydney, so a night out in the park was quickly forgotten. We were under the impression that truckers didnt stop for hitch-hikers, but Mick reckons thats bullshit. We spent the next 8 hours riding up front, one of us in the passenger seat and the other on Micks bed directly behind. We picked his brains to find out about the trucking way of life. He was a seventh-gen trucker.

A few facts.
• In once run the week previous he hit. 2 roos, 1 crow, 1 magpie, and a budgie.
• His trucks name was Vanessa.
• Truckers that take speed are called cowboys.
• Mick was Hauling 65 tonnes of olives.
• Was cutting back on his usual 6 monster cans + 4 no doze per run.
• Mick was a part time tattoo artist.

We made a stop at a truckers lounge and had the roast washed down with an instant brew to keep us going. We rode out the time talking and listening to music. Things turned bad at about 1am when he put on Nickelback full volume, I stuck my head out the window for a bit, but saw an opportunity between songs and started up a convo about some trucking related topic and we were all good again. We arrived in western Sydney at about 3am said farewell to Mick and Vanessa, and headed towards the train and the 24 stops to bondi.

THE END