The Kilbot Factory

update from the Clipsal 500

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.
continue reading …

glad to be in South Australia

… 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.

balladonia

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.

still in kal…

…still with the shitty net access. So just some more short news with the full story to come.

Spent two full days out on the highway near Coolgardie waiting for a lift, there was an old hitchhiker when I got there and when another arrived I decided to head back into Kal. If nothing else I am starting to work up a good tan.

I think I was spoilt last time I hitched across, that was just before Christmas, just before New Years 2000, everyone was happy and travelling and generally had good thoughts of humanity. The mood isn’t so friendly out there now.

A friend from Kal (Oscar – he gave me a lift from Norseman to Adeliade in 1999) is going to give me a lift down to Kambalda at 1pm today and I’ll try from there. I washed my lucky hitchhiking clothes so I should be rolling across the Nullabor in no time.

Big G’Day to Adam Goat and Stu Badhair… you guys would have loved it in Kal last night, the pub put on Country and Western singer (cowboy hat, mic headset, strumming his guitar while his computer provided the backbeat), the pub was goin’ nuts calling out requests – ‘She’s my ute’ was a favourite.
yeeehaaaaa

in kal, talk longer when i’m in adeliade

hey everyone, i’m in kal at the moment but can’t talk long – the internet rates are kalazy ($10/hour) so i’ll wait till i get to adeliade till i update with stories and fotos from the road (i’ll go to the uni of s.a. and pretend to do some research).

mel, i posted a letter today.. now i’ll race it across to melbourne.

your only as old as the magazine you write for

According to the National Youth Week I am still a youth (under 26 years of age on 5 April 2003) and can enter their competition:

First Prize:
a computer package worth up to $3000, become staff journalists at Girlfriend Magazine for three months, including a week in Sydney to work with the editorial team.

yeehaaa..
old men like Barney can only dream of becoming a ‘journalist’ at Girlfriend Magazine.

searching for an excuse

there are a million things i should be doing. but instead i put in a search engine (below left). it doesn’t work that well on account that there is hardly anything to search on this web site, may be one day i’ll run out of distractions…

sounds like… carpet

i added some flash sound files on the writing page (down the bottom. i got a feeling these aren’t gonna work in all the different browser/computer set-ups.

the page should load with a flash play and pause button below the photo. when you press play the track should start almost immediately while the rest of the track downloads (ie: it should stream).

if you have problems getting these little toys to play please leave a comment below. i’ve got heaps more to add, but i want to make sure they’re going to work first.

cheers
k-bo

about next

i haven’t posted a newsy thing for a while, i guess i haven’t had much to say.

i have nearly finished working for my parents, they’re training someone else now. i will spend the next couple of weeks cleaning my bedroom and finishing this web page and then slowly hitchhike across to melbourne (ie: i’ll take a bit more time than my 5 day dash in 1999).

bits and pieces will be hastily added to this site before i go… if you’ve got the time feel free to play with, add to and spell check as much as possible. i’m trying to get most of the bugs out before i go.

this page is complete, and i think the links pages and guestbot are finished. the next section to be uploaded will be the about pages.

not many people know that …

Hitchhiking was originally a technique in which two people rode one horse. One would ride the horse a short distance, tie it to a tree, then start walking. The other person would arrive at the horse on foot and then ride it past the first rider (now walking), then tie it up and start walking. Soon the first person would get to ride the horse again, etc.