I have made it to Melbourne. The trip from Aledaide to Melbourne seemed almost too easy after the long haul across the nullabor, 3 rides over about 12 hours. It was almost déjà vu in Keith (friends that have read Killer at Large Vol 1, which is not online yet, may remember that I was stuck in Keith for 15 hours of Country Music last trip across).
If anyone is in Melbourne, just me a shout… I’m staying in Fitzroy with Mel, Jeff and Zoe. If anyone has contact details For Dave ‘Davros’ Leech I would love to hit him up for a beer at uni 
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I’ve decided to put the travel stories on the writing page (and keep this section for general news like it is at the moment)… there is a section in Short Stories that with start to fill up today.
These short stories will be an edited version of the notes I made while on the road… hopefully I will be able to condense these into an article soon.
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some short stats hitchhiking from Perth to Adelaide:
Distance: about 2700km
Time taken to get from Perth to Caiguna (about 1100km): 6 days
Time taken to get from Caiguna to Adelaide (about 1600km): 24 hours
Number of Lifts: 9
Drivers (Male vs Female): 7 Male, 2 Female
Longest wait for a lift: about 24 hours (Coolgardie)
Shortest wait: about an hour (leaving Perth)
also some may be interested to see what kilbot travels with…
some things to look out for
- Goon bag (for emergences, if you’re sleeping on concrete you want to be a little drunk)
- Bible (Jack Kerouac’s On The Road)
- Notebooks
- $1 US note
- a small plastic lamb shaped monkey (see close up)
It was actually hard to get a bed in Adelaide as thousands of revheads have entered the city for the Clipsal 500 (V8 motor car racing). You can tell the motorheads because they invariably are wearing peak caps and their jackets or shirts proudly bear numerous patches; Holden, NGK, Mobil, Pirtek, Dunlop et cetera… oh yeah and they all seem to be New Zealanders.
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As I was walking through Rundle Mall yesterday I stumbled into a throng of these motorheads, two lines were set up for autographs; one for ford fans another for holden fans. I passed one line and overheard a lady on her mobile phone lamenting “Skaifie’s not going to be here”.
Of course no car race would be complete without girls in swimsuits (even tough it was drizzling and cold).
… don’t get me wrong I hate South Australia, and I don’t think it would be a huge loss if Adelaide broke off the mainland and was swallowed by a skool of angry sea bass… but i am really glad to be in Adelaide after spending 6 days trying to get across the nullabor.
i got stuck at Caiguna for 24 hours* and was thinking that hitchhiking in Australia may be dead, but managed to get a lift with a 25 year old uni grad from Melbourne and soon we were rolling into S.A. at 120km/h listening to Frank Zappa and chatting about all things. We slept on the beach in Ceduna for a couple of hours and then went straight on to Adelaide. I probably could have got a lift through to Melbourne, but decided to collect some more stories and may be do some fruit picking so’s i can arrive with some big cash prizes.
i have uploaded some pictures in the gallery but will caption them later… right now i’m going to get some decent sleep.
*my average wait for a ride on this trip has been around 20 hours, in 1999 the average was around 3 hours.
hellos everyone… am spending my last $2 on the internet, $2 won’t even get you a billabong icecream out here. in Balladonia, slighty dehydrated - the last lift fed me beers all the way here. am rolling now and hopefully can get across the nullabor in the next 24… after that the hardest bit is done. all the whiles have’n fun anyways.
can’t wait till i get to … umm.. a more civilised local so i can use the net properly and tell some stories.