The Big Hitch: Part Two (Byron to Sydney)

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I'm very sorry that I have no accompanying photos for this post but someone stole my laptop in Sydney a few nights ago and my camera is in my rucksack which Pacific Blue Airlines kindly left in Australia when they flew me to New Zealand.

I woke up that morning and decided to meet Jonas (the Belgian) in Sydney. I looked for a good spot to hitch from on the map and went to the supermarket to buy some fruit for the road. While paying I asked the lady the way to the highway and she directed me but said it was quite a walk. I brushed it off but the woman behind me, with her seven year old girl in tow, offered to take me there. She seemed a little wary but told me I didn't "look like a killer", which I took as a compliment. She drove me about ten minutes and put me in a good spot on the road south towards Ballina. From there I got a ride with a sweater-round-the-neck-wearing BMW-driving thirty-something guy who was studying film and spouted vague pretentious exultations about life and living. He was difficult to listen to but at the same time he was good enough to pick me up so I played along, and it wasn't long before we were in Ballina. He dropped me in one of my best ever hitching spots, although I waited there nearly an hour. Lucky I was in a good mood because I got very little change from the cars driving past, once even having a car pull up and then drive off. I laughed with it because I was in no rush and Howlin' Wolf was bopping my headphones. I'd also had too much good luck for one man in recent days. After a while I got picked up by a twenty-one year old student from Brisbane, Marly his name was and he was driving a trailer down to Coffs Harbour to pick up some materials for a teepee company he was temporarily working for. The contract was for Splendour in the Grass, a big festival with a plethora of talented bands on its line-up but also hugely inflated ticket prices. I'd looked into going but tickets were $500. He got them for free and because he arrives on site before the security arrives he can bring in all the booze he wants. Lucky lucky bastard! We drove for about three hours, talked about everything from school to travelling to music and got on well. I had planned to carry on hitching toward Sydney that night but a conversation about that first taste of a good beer (or cider) being one of the finest experiences this world has to offer put my mind to drinking and a night in its name. Before we rolled into Coffs we'd already made plans to hit the bars and see what they had to offer. We arrived at the house where we were staying just as the sky was darkening, met the man housing us for the night and headed straight to his local pub where the only girls there were ones being paid to serve drinks in no clothes. A bit of a shock for a quiet Wednesday night in Coffs. From there, after a few ciders back at the house, we went in search of girls and good times. The night was a long one, a good one, and we weren't asleep until 4am. The next morning the alarm rudely interrupted my sleep at 8am and I regretted my promise to help Marly out for a couple of hours loading bamboo onto his trailer. Another young lad was supposed to be coming to help us and he came by the house at 9am, after a morning surf. He was the same age as us and grew up in the area. The three of us squeezed into the front of the 4WD and took off. I'm lucky I went because we drove to a place called Bellinger, which is a little way off the highway but set in an incredibly beautiful part of the country. We drove up and around winding mountain roads to the guy's home where he'd cut the bamboo with his brother. We parked just off the road and just before the river they have to cross to drive into their 230 acre property. There lay three piles of bamboo which we somehow had to load and fasten onto the trailer. We spent a leisurely joking hour there piling it all on and working out how to tie it so that it wouldn't slide off mid-drive. When this was done we tentatively drove up the slope, watching the trailer as we did but the bamboo held firm. We drove back the way we came along the winding mountain roads and back into Bellinger. We stopped at a little delicatessen and Marly bought us some pies and pastries on company credit. We ate these on the go and after a ten minute drive we were on the edge of the highway again and there they dropped me off. We swapped numbers, said goodbye and I walked across the highway where there was a little lay-by for people to stop. A short ride with a brother and sister took me a little further down the road to a small town where the highway was reduced to 60km/ph and with plenty of space to stop. Here I waited for an hour or so before I was eventually picked up by a menacing black people carrier that looked like some kind of death mobile. I approached cautiously dreading what I'd find inside, some red neck scarf-on-the-head-wearing hells angel type character with "I hate hitchers" tattooed on his earlobe. I walked towards the car and the door swung open, I looked inside and a dark haired women in her late thirties who looked like she'd just walked out of a punk gig sat at the wheel and behind her her three young sons between three and eight were climbing about the seats among the biggest heap of toys and vegetables (they were bringing it home from Queensland, where they were driving from). She was the friendliest woman, she got out and introduced herself and had a smoke before we drove off. After her boys had had a toilet break and her cigarette was finished we were on the move and she was going all the way to Sydney. I had my ride! We drove along for a good hour before it all started to go wrong. First, she was caught speeding and fined by a copper and then a little further down the way her engine spluttered and died. We sat stuck on the side of the road for an hour or two just inches from the highway as trucks sped past and shook the car. Eventually she got through to a roadside assistance company which told her they wouldn't be able to get her on the road again today, so off I was again with my rucksack on my back and my thumb out. But this time it was raining... and raining hard. Luckily it wasn't long before someone stopped and drove me a few kilometres up the road to a service station where I sheltered from the rain and bought myself a packet of biscuits to soothe my wet weary soul. It was dark now and getting late. As I paid for the biscuits and made light conversation about "bad hitching weather" to the cashier he proceeded to tell me I wasn't welcome in his service station and wouldn't allow me to ask anyone for rides. I feebly argued my case for a minute but he told me he'd already sent one hitcher away that evening. I walked outside lost for ideas when a bearded guy with long hair and a big rucksack approached me. He was the other hitcher. He told me we could stand and shelter from the rain but not physically ask people for rides. We stood for a while and swapped stories and grumbled about the state of the world before I resolved to make a sign. That way we could still try for rides without asking for them, so I walked into the Subway next to the service station and asked for a piece of cardboard, which she happily gave me, and scribbled "SYDNEY" on it. And there we stood, in the biting cold, which was made worse by a sharp breeze and hellish rain, for four or so hours being meekly smiled at and ignored. At one point we were approached by an old lady who offered us a ride, but she was mad, totally and utterly on another planet. We guessed she may have been on acid from the fact she broke out in song mid sentence and talked about dwarfs and fairies. She was too mad to put into words. Out of desperation we agreed to go with her but because there was such a long delay we managed to find a ride with a truck driver heading straight into Sydney instead. I apologised to the old lady and thanked her, saying goodbye although not before she introduced me to the cat she travels Australia with in her car. This was about midnight. We climbed into the truck and I was asleep almost immediately. We arrived in Sydney in the early morning and after a smoke in the train station we got a bus to the city where I met Jonas in a McDonalds and said goodbye to my Polish hitching friend. I was in Sydney! And the madness hadn't even begun...

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