I just spent an hour writing out the story of Melbourne to Adelaide and the mother fucking thing logs me out. I'll try again later once I have a safety beer.
This will be my last news post until I hit Adelaide. I have been scrambling around all day doing things that could have and should have been done days ago… I'll be glad to get out in the afternoon sun, smoke a cigarette and relax. It will be about 5pm by the time I get out to a good position, some would say that is leaving it a bit late but when hitchhiking you can't get too caught up on time… or common sense. It is a sense of fate that governs my hitchhiking, cosmic forces have made me late and it is cosmic forces that will deliver me into a combi van of Norwegian drinkers who just happen to be doing an all night drive to Adelaide. I wouldn't trust anyone so organised that they would be on the road before 5pm anyway.
I have two little bags for the journey, no doubt you will see them in the cambot from time to time. Important things to pack have been; reading material (Benang by Kim Scott and Vanity of Dulouz by Jack Kerouac… Kim Scott is a West Australian author, and a Kerouac novel is mandatory), bottle of wine (Lindemans Cawarra… great red for $7 and necessary for sleeping on concrete), Anna'a hat (still dirty from Meredith) and a 200Gig hard drive (which contains all my music).
The first leg will be on public transport out to Melton, then a walk out to the Western Highway. From there it's thumbing a ride through Ballarat, Bendigo and Bordertown to Adelaide.
Above the shoutbot you will notice a new addition to the already cluttered front page of the Kilbot Factory. The little photos are taken on a Nokia Fun Camera PT-3 (which was my first eBay purchase at $21 + $15 postage, that is it on the right), I transfer the images to my mobile phone, then attach a message and send both via MMS to an email address. A great little script by Tony Wenzelhuemer grabs the photo and message from the email account and displays it on the page (the ancient art of moblogging).
Now for the important bit… the cambot(TM) will allow me to update from the road as I hitchhike across the country. Each post has a date and time (Perth time), but to save confusion the age of the photo is also given. I will try to update as often as possible when I am in mobile range… which may be mildly interesting to the regular viewer and at least give you an idea of my progress.
The script was jammed in at the last minute, so apologies in advance if something goes wrong.
We have been going craft crazy here at the Kilbot Factory in preparation for the Meredith Music Festival. About a week ago I had the hair-brained notion that we could sell t-shirts to fund the crazy insanity, so I have sunk all my money and a little bit of other people's money into the production of 40 shirts. It occurred to me that a much safer bet would be to invest my money in the drug market; it would have been less work, greater profit and an almost certainty of selling anything I had to offer… anyways, too late to turn back now. We have a flag (left), plenty of shirts to wear, a truck load of cheap wine and one Loafa's-New-Years-style Casino Royale play board.
One thing we are lacking is a car. Fancy and Kirsty had planned to drive but their car has suffered fatal road injuries (Fancy or Kirsty may expand on this later). That leaves us kinda in a pickle. If anyone on the eastcoast has a car we can borrow for the weekend, please give me a call… history will remember your deed kindly through a power-ballad I shall pen, tentatively entitled “The Car That Saved Christmas”.