Tomorrow morning, 5 am, when the tide is right, the Kathryn Bay will slip away from Darwin Harbour towards the sunrise with two stowaways. I’m not quite sure how we did it but we have managed to get a ride on a container ship from Darwin to Dili. We have been generously welcomed aboard by the friendly Filipino crew to whom our presence brings a break in the monotony of portholes, containers and karaoke. Amazingly, there is no alcohol, drugs, or even smoking allowed on board. So much for the ‘drunken sailor’…
Hi Jon and Jack
This is the said Hitchhiker Carl here. Remembered you had a web site so I thought I’d check it out and see how your trip’s going. I have to say, it’s a bit strange having a discussion about me going on. Was there a disclosure form I was supposed to fill out….? Just jokes.
The wedding was fabulous, had about 50 people camp out in the creek bed that night after the wedding. Including the bride and groom. Swag city!
You guys were a very welcome relief from the tedious dusty wind of the highway in coober pedy. I’d had enough of throwing pebbles at the tin can on the side of the road and was keen to get moving. As tedious as it is though, waiting for such lengths of time, I think hitching does a few great things for me. It forces you to rely on the others, which we spend so much time trying to avoid - desperately wanting to be totally independent, and it allows you to get to spend a little bit of time with and get to know a bit about a total stranger, which I have to say is always rewarding. Each lift I got was with an equally unique person or people, on vastly different journeys and despite different people’s quirks, there was a generosity and willingness to have a chat that made each lift rewarding. One of those little things that is slowly diminishing unfortunately.
Thanks again guys. All the best with your travels, Maybe I’ll see you at the Katoomba skyway some time.
Carl
………….and the same day we also got this post:
I won’t pretend to be a bush kid. I’d like to be, but I’m not. I’d love to be one of those practical people who can survive in the middle of nowhere for weeks with a hair-dryer, a packet of Gummy Bears and a spork, but I’m hopeless and extremely jealous of practical peoples’ relationship with nature.
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We stopped for lunch in Katherine NT. We knew we were just a few hours from Darwin but we were starving. We circumnavigated the town and settled on the supermarket as the most likely source of fresh food. We bought some fruit, an avocado, some bread and settled down outside the Visitors Centre in the shade for a picnic lunch. A tanned fellow on a bicycle was under the next tree. How gutsy, i thought, cycling in this weather. And with all that gear he must be riding a fair distance. Was he heading from Darwin south? or to Darwin north?
Jeff James is in fact on the final leg of a 15 month journey on his bike from Barcelona to Melbourne. His website tells more www.whereonearthisjeff.com and is a most entertaining read. He loved having people to chat to, especially as we picked his brains about the ferries between indonesian islands that we will soon be visiting. If you see him on the road, make time for a chat and congratulate him on a truly epic ride.
Roadhouse schnitzel with sump oil gravy for dinner yesterday. Territory style. Everything deep fried in batter. Even the batter has batter. Salad - deep fried. Well, almost. Dinner tonight - in Tennant Creek - was thai beef sald. Thai because it tied me up for about ten minutes chewing each mouthful before i could swallow.
Cruise control sorted - a wire had been nipped, probably when the alarm was installed. An hour of dismantling the dashboard, a “Eureka” moment, a small bit of tape, $88 to the auto-electrician and off we went.
The Stuart Highway is like a giant conveyor belt. Grey nomads towing caravans one after another as far as the eye can see. Having a ball, they are, except the couple arguing in the stopover about whose turn it was to be packing the food away. Why should domestic bliss change just ‘cos you are on the road?