Australia.............Back When Hitching Was The Way to Go, Most Of The Time

   In the mid-80's I hitched around Australia....not just all the way around the country but down to Alice Springs and to inland places like Lightening Ridge (800 kms one way, west of Brisbane). Hitching (hitch hiking)is a great way to meet new people. Most often a very sociable driver will stop to give you a ride and at times that driver can end up to be a life long friend. I hitched over 20,000 kms in Australia, my longest ride was across the Nullarbor Plain which was about 1,600 kms. If you have read any of my other blogs you might guess that I have a story to tell about my standing by the roadside with my thumb out.

   I had just left Darwin, Northern Territory and made it down to Katherine, about 300 kms south; that's where I slept. I heard of a horrific act of violence on the news. Seems that a sick guy abducted and killed a family that was travelling in their camper and he was on the lose somewhere in the Northern Territory. I got one or two rides west of Katherine (on the way to Broome) and was standing at the roadside hitching when a police car pulled up. From a distance the policeman asked me to step away from my bag. It was from the back seat of this police car that I found out that I matched the description of the German assailant that killed the family. Once I was cleared (Canadian voice eh)  I was released and told to be careful since I matched the suspects appearance. I guessed he was short, bald, and had a bad complexion.

   There was so much police presence in this otherwise barren land, the area swarmed with law enforcement, each police car stopped until they knew I was the Canadian guy. I would sit in 2 other police cars the next day and began to wonder if there was any worse time or place to hitch; Tennant Creek is particularly bad.

                   


                    


                    


     On the next day I thought I would put on my best clothes (a white shirt and light trousers) so that I might look a bit more appealing to drivers. Four army tanks were slowly approaching on the horizon, I was walking and ready to stick out my thumb IF a car approached (not many cars on this stretch of road). The army tanks were upon me and each one had a guy standing up out of the hole. The one soldier said "Hey Mate, blimey, what are you doing way out here ? Come on then get in." I hopped up on the tank, threw my pack to the guy below that was calling for it and jumped down into the tank.

                          

 I quickly sat down before I noticed how greasy the chair was, actually most all of the inside of the tank was like a mechanics workshop. About one km. down the road the tank broke down and I got out. The soldiers joked about the poor state of their tanks and set in to repairing the machine. I started walking and assessing the damage to my clothes, there was so much grease on my best duds. My legs were itchy; probably my pours were open with the extreme heat, just a sucking that grease in.

  A couple of days later the murderer was shot and killed when he had a shootout with the police in a helicopter. When a person is hitching such a long way the last thing she/he would need is to look like a suspected criminal. A day after leaving the town of Broome I got a ride from Bill who was heading part way down the coast towards Perth. He had asked me to take some photo's out of the window because when he made the drive he had never done so (it was his normal route to Aboriginal Missions). When I did get to Perth I checked the general delivery at the post office and there was an envelope from Bill with the developed photo's; very nice scenery, very nice guy.

                       


                      


                      

   I have many hitch hiking stories but I thought I would finish with a list some of the places that I slept while on the long journey like the one around Australia: friends bedroom, living room, laundry room, study, sewing room, couch, and floor. I've slept in a tent, old truck, graveyard, golf course, hostel, hotel, lodge, resort, airport, shed, hut, bush, field, water drain, cave, beach, truck, water house, demolished building, stairwell, and on my feet. When you are hitching you always know where you are starting from (obvious) but you never know where you will end up.