waves crashing against the Australian coast
This North of Sydney stuff (endless forests and beaches) is really amazing - in the true sense of the word - reminds me of Northern Northern California forests. I thought there was nothing but cities and subrubs along the coast, but it is open bush as far as the eye can see, birds (weird colored parrots) shouting madly from the treetops, and even bush turkeys wandering throughout the rest stops. We woke up yesterday morning, Anna lethargic because packing would "only take 40 minutes".
Five hours later, we emerge from our dwelling and say goodbye to Redfern and Chalmers St. It has been a good home, even if it makes everyone's eyebrows raise when we tell them we live here. "Redfern" is enough to send shudders down the backs of some. The landlord tells us of a good hitching spot, and James gives a warm goodbye through his two black eyes. He was mugged a few houses down from our house the other night, lost everything while receiving five direct punches to the face, his nostils becoming two tributaries of the Mississippi and the ground the Gulf of Mexico. His blood is still imprinted on the pavement. Anna and I fought a fair bit getting ready, That typical bickering that usually ends up in hysterical laughters or frustration at the others' stubbornness.
We pack and leave the house excited, full packs and raised hopes that today promises us something new: nothing at all.
We expect nothing, hope for nothing, and don't know where we're going or what we'll find. The only thing we know is that 7 days from now I have to be in Brisbane (700 miles away). Our sign says "North" in big black block letters and a few stars and flowers coated around to express how harmless we are. We're going North. North to find warmer weather, North to seek out Australia and all it holds, North to re-kindle our faith in humanity at a time perhaps its needed most. We're constantly told that doing this isn't safe, that trusting others is foolish (maybe it was safe in the 70's, but not now!) We're not ignorant of its dangers but there is something iunside me syaing its just like the useless warnings on the back of boxes that replace the use of commong sense and a way to, once more, narrow the ability to engage with others, which I perceive as a major crisis of this day and age. Everyone in their own house, afraid to go outside, encounter someone on the street, that black-hooded vagrant wandering the streets, simply afraid to connect with others. That loss of community is what I've felt through my whole life, and this is a brief attempt to go beyond this and force interaction with those who are willing to take it.
As I sit on a mattress in a land previously unimaginable to me, warm sun hitting me & drying out the dew on the grass in the fieldlike plateau of a hill where we pitched our tent, these risks seem worthwhile.
No vacation package could be better, because none of it could discover this. Outside the confines of hotels and motels, bed and breakfasts, parking lots and cash registers and a never-ending series of monetary transcations that allow me to gauge how much fun I'm having. It's about seeing things from new angles. It allows you to see things as an insider, realize the scale and depth of these lives along this coast. Instead of taking a tour bus and simply checking it off as an "I've been here, on to some place else", a memory instead of a conquest. its getting into the gritty messy car in someone's everyday life, them pulling you into their world for a few hours. I can't remember too many places that don't have any stories attached. Like driving up with my parents and getting lost on the Bay Area freeways, and dad getting lost in the 80, 280, 480, 580,, 680, 880, and 980 freeways, swearing madly in Hungarian while mom patiently reads out, "Now we want the 580 North to the 880 West", and Dad yelling out, "Why don't they call it one and two!". That the purpose of this trip.
We take the train to the edge of Sydney, our bags lay up in the foyer of the traincar and we watch the landscapes moving by. We get off and after a mile of senseless walking, we find a shoopping trolley and put our bags in it to rest our backs. Anna can't manage the trolley by herself, and so when a car comes towards us while we cross the street and I bolt across, she gets swept downroad, entirely at the mercy of a broken shopping trolley. We ask an elderly British couple the way to the freeway where we might hitch, and after a few minutes, the woman asks her husband "You going to give them a ride?", and there we go. They drop us off a good 5 miles away in perfect onramp with a forest next to it in case we don't get a ride this afternoon and have to camp. After five minutes a Red, beatup toyota comes along and opens the door: "Where you going?"
"Gosford"
"Where's that?"
"An hours drive."
"Great".
We pack up everything, shower him with gratitude for his offer, and begin to talk - Stuart works in a lighting factory and has hitched everywhere i n the world and, like all aging hippies of the 70s and 80s, needs to pay it back. We end up at a rest stop that has running water, toilets, and even a playground for leisure activities. We climb a hill nest to the freeway and make camp. Dinner is exquisite: cold spaghetti and brocolli by candlelight, listening to the rumble of trucks go by while we relax in our luxurious dome. We go to bed and discover that we are not near Brisbane yet, and you can see you breth quite clearly at night. That brings me to the morning, with puffing clouds in the distance towards Queensland, warm sun on my back and an itch in my fingertips to get back on the road again.
We're 250 k's farther up the coast, sleeping in a nice suburban town named Port MacQuarie, an absolute 180 in our accomodations thanks to the kindness of one Barry Tattersall. The first man to pick us up was a country fella after we waited smiling by the side of the road for 45 minutes. He dropped us off next to the main freeway, where Anna proceeded to "sit down" in the bushes next to traffic. I haven't even finished complaining about how bad a placen this is when a nice man in a nice car pulls up and tells us he's going a good 200 k's. Port Mac becomes our new destination. He's a 40 yr old from the country, married to a charming Irish woman, just moved out to the coast a month ago for a change, packing up the wife and kids in a week and making the change just like that. The coast is a far cry from his previous home in the outback. And, having been on the road for 10 hours, he picked us up, eager for a change. We jaw back and forth, and after 30 minutrse, he offers us a place for the night. We arrive at five, find ourselves in a magnificent town along the coast, warm nights and warm days, koalas sleeping in the trees of their back yard, the Great Dividing Range in the backdrop making a staggering profile while the sun sets on this small coastal city. We go home and meet the family: Sam, his wife with a wonderful Irish accent, Kiera, a shy blonde darling of two years who runs around in her new ice cream cone nappies even though she's potty ytained, and Cian who has the cute five year old smile and loves showing it off. We talk a bit and then Anna and I head off towards the beach, palm trees and heat everywhere around in the dark in this quiet little beach neighborhood. We meet an older lady on the way who has just lost her mother, "The best woman in the world", and needs consolation. We speak with her for a while about her mom and her family while I pet the dog and then when she's thoroughly refreshed, we move on towards the beach. The air is warm and the water matches it, so we both plunge in in the dark screaming and shouting at the freedom and beauty of this unanticipated moment. Who would know what twenty four hours would bring? We walk get our bodies entirely soaked then head back, our blood running violently through our bodies, eager to see what is next, unable to understand it all. We come "home" and have a sumptuous meal of tuna and veggies and breads,
We talk to after dinner over Bushell's Tea watching Kiera run triumphantly around in her nappies. Tonight, we thank Barry and Sam and Kiera and Cian, tomrrow, what next? Jail? The Hilton? This is everything I wanted and set off to find, and I can't believe I'm finding it. The world is full of kind people beneath this skin of fear, and I'm out to tear it off.
Sadly, we head off towards Byron the next day.
Let us be ever so thankful:
for these people whose floor I've graced tonight, for the driver who picked us up tihs morning in his little 4WD, for those who shook their heads and laughed as we smiled at them, for those who yelled advice out the window as they sped by but we never heard it, to those whose path we haven't crossed & soon will, for those who can believe in something, maybe a shaggy 21 year old blonde and a 26 yr old Swede on the side of the road. There is possibly no greater way to show compassion than offering a service to strangers. Tomorrow, up from a mattress in a warm house and off: as Anna's sign says, "North!".
The spaghetti and vegetables have gone rancid in the heat, evident to us by the acid taste as we try to eat them on the side of HWY 1 in the shade.
After 20 minutes of thumbing, a big rig veers across the highway and onto the shoudler, backing up over the side reflective markers and sits there, idling, waiting for us to come up. "should've seen me smile when I heard them airbrakes come on". We ran along HWY 1, dwarfed by the size of this semi, unable to open the door. Bob - a thin fella with a big belly and unshaven look opened the rig and stored a bag or two in the side compartments while we climb aboard and tossed our packs into the back of the cab. I noticed the chip bags on the floor, pack of Peter Jacksons on the dash which he smoked profusely, a picture of his Missus, a pair of work boots at my feet and a few stashed "magazines" in the back of the cab.
We spark a converastion but it dies quickly. He is perfectly content with sharing his rig with us and their are no obligations. He's a real Aussie bloke: few words and just stares ahead. He's been driving for 47 years, going to Brisbane then up to Cairns (Pronounced Cans). There's something about this ride, p[erched high above the road in the seat of 22 wheeler with Bob. At a rest stop he silently removed the work boots and cleans up the passenger side so I have more foot room, but says nothing. He talks to the other truckers on the road, all of them swearing madly at the cars holding them up. We only take his ride 150 k's, and knock out at Coff's Harbour for the night. It's now far enough North that the nights and warm and the days border on unpleasantly hot, not bad for the middle of winter. At Coffs he pulls over in a good spot, smiles, hands down our stuff, gives a handshake and climbs back up into his rig and drives off.
We strike out towards the beach while I munch mint slices (Anna keeps telling me the Saturated Fat is clogging my arteries) and a man pulls over in front of us to OFFER us a ride without us even asking. There is something to be noted in that. He is balding on his head but wears a long grey beard and smiles while he puts our stuff in the car, "Careful, it's my Missus' birthday and I've got a cake". He, like the others, complains that nobody hitches nowadays, and drops us off at the beach and shows us the best place to camp and we head in. We eat a salad that Anna has prepared and sleep under the cover off a tree, listening to the waves crash against the Australia coast. We wake up toa brightening sky and I take a walk down the beach and watch the sunrise over the water. The sky is reddening over the ocean, and I play with the dogs that pass by on the beach. This is our third morning, and we're doing fine. Anna and I sleep on the beach in the warm winter sun after a early swim. This life isn't all that bad. And we've spent about $15 between the two of us. There are some things money can't buy, and those are the most pleaurable ones.
I'll continue writing this on Monday when I have another offday, OARS has me working the next 4 days straight. I have a house pretty much settled in Berkeley, and I will be living with Cory and Kevy and Dararith. The pleasure is all mine.
I'll catch you all soon,
Teddy
Five hours later, we emerge from our dwelling and say goodbye to Redfern and Chalmers St. It has been a good home, even if it makes everyone's eyebrows raise when we tell them we live here. "Redfern" is enough to send shudders down the backs of some. The landlord tells us of a good hitching spot, and James gives a warm goodbye through his two black eyes. He was mugged a few houses down from our house the other night, lost everything while receiving five direct punches to the face, his nostils becoming two tributaries of the Mississippi and the ground the Gulf of Mexico. His blood is still imprinted on the pavement. Anna and I fought a fair bit getting ready, That typical bickering that usually ends up in hysterical laughters or frustration at the others' stubbornness.
We pack and leave the house excited, full packs and raised hopes that today promises us something new: nothing at all.
We expect nothing, hope for nothing, and don't know where we're going or what we'll find. The only thing we know is that 7 days from now I have to be in Brisbane (700 miles away). Our sign says "North" in big black block letters and a few stars and flowers coated around to express how harmless we are. We're going North. North to find warmer weather, North to seek out Australia and all it holds, North to re-kindle our faith in humanity at a time perhaps its needed most. We're constantly told that doing this isn't safe, that trusting others is foolish (maybe it was safe in the 70's, but not now!) We're not ignorant of its dangers but there is something iunside me syaing its just like the useless warnings on the back of boxes that replace the use of commong sense and a way to, once more, narrow the ability to engage with others, which I perceive as a major crisis of this day and age. Everyone in their own house, afraid to go outside, encounter someone on the street, that black-hooded vagrant wandering the streets, simply afraid to connect with others. That loss of community is what I've felt through my whole life, and this is a brief attempt to go beyond this and force interaction with those who are willing to take it.
As I sit on a mattress in a land previously unimaginable to me, warm sun hitting me & drying out the dew on the grass in the fieldlike plateau of a hill where we pitched our tent, these risks seem worthwhile.
No vacation package could be better, because none of it could discover this. Outside the confines of hotels and motels, bed and breakfasts, parking lots and cash registers and a never-ending series of monetary transcations that allow me to gauge how much fun I'm having. It's about seeing things from new angles. It allows you to see things as an insider, realize the scale and depth of these lives along this coast. Instead of taking a tour bus and simply checking it off as an "I've been here, on to some place else", a memory instead of a conquest. its getting into the gritty messy car in someone's everyday life, them pulling you into their world for a few hours. I can't remember too many places that don't have any stories attached. Like driving up with my parents and getting lost on the Bay Area freeways, and dad getting lost in the 80, 280, 480, 580,, 680, 880, and 980 freeways, swearing madly in Hungarian while mom patiently reads out, "Now we want the 580 North to the 880 West", and Dad yelling out, "Why don't they call it one and two!". That the purpose of this trip.
We take the train to the edge of Sydney, our bags lay up in the foyer of the traincar and we watch the landscapes moving by. We get off and after a mile of senseless walking, we find a shoopping trolley and put our bags in it to rest our backs. Anna can't manage the trolley by herself, and so when a car comes towards us while we cross the street and I bolt across, she gets swept downroad, entirely at the mercy of a broken shopping trolley. We ask an elderly British couple the way to the freeway where we might hitch, and after a few minutes, the woman asks her husband "You going to give them a ride?", and there we go. They drop us off a good 5 miles away in perfect onramp with a forest next to it in case we don't get a ride this afternoon and have to camp. After five minutes a Red, beatup toyota comes along and opens the door: "Where you going?"
"Gosford"
"Where's that?"
"An hours drive."
"Great".
We pack up everything, shower him with gratitude for his offer, and begin to talk - Stuart works in a lighting factory and has hitched everywhere i n the world and, like all aging hippies of the 70s and 80s, needs to pay it back. We end up at a rest stop that has running water, toilets, and even a playground for leisure activities. We climb a hill nest to the freeway and make camp. Dinner is exquisite: cold spaghetti and brocolli by candlelight, listening to the rumble of trucks go by while we relax in our luxurious dome. We go to bed and discover that we are not near Brisbane yet, and you can see you breth quite clearly at night. That brings me to the morning, with puffing clouds in the distance towards Queensland, warm sun on my back and an itch in my fingertips to get back on the road again.
We're 250 k's farther up the coast, sleeping in a nice suburban town named Port MacQuarie, an absolute 180 in our accomodations thanks to the kindness of one Barry Tattersall. The first man to pick us up was a country fella after we waited smiling by the side of the road for 45 minutes. He dropped us off next to the main freeway, where Anna proceeded to "sit down" in the bushes next to traffic. I haven't even finished complaining about how bad a placen this is when a nice man in a nice car pulls up and tells us he's going a good 200 k's. Port Mac becomes our new destination. He's a 40 yr old from the country, married to a charming Irish woman, just moved out to the coast a month ago for a change, packing up the wife and kids in a week and making the change just like that. The coast is a far cry from his previous home in the outback. And, having been on the road for 10 hours, he picked us up, eager for a change. We jaw back and forth, and after 30 minutrse, he offers us a place for the night. We arrive at five, find ourselves in a magnificent town along the coast, warm nights and warm days, koalas sleeping in the trees of their back yard, the Great Dividing Range in the backdrop making a staggering profile while the sun sets on this small coastal city. We go home and meet the family: Sam, his wife with a wonderful Irish accent, Kiera, a shy blonde darling of two years who runs around in her new ice cream cone nappies even though she's potty ytained, and Cian who has the cute five year old smile and loves showing it off. We talk a bit and then Anna and I head off towards the beach, palm trees and heat everywhere around in the dark in this quiet little beach neighborhood. We meet an older lady on the way who has just lost her mother, "The best woman in the world", and needs consolation. We speak with her for a while about her mom and her family while I pet the dog and then when she's thoroughly refreshed, we move on towards the beach. The air is warm and the water matches it, so we both plunge in in the dark screaming and shouting at the freedom and beauty of this unanticipated moment. Who would know what twenty four hours would bring? We walk get our bodies entirely soaked then head back, our blood running violently through our bodies, eager to see what is next, unable to understand it all. We come "home" and have a sumptuous meal of tuna and veggies and breads,
We talk to after dinner over Bushell's Tea watching Kiera run triumphantly around in her nappies. Tonight, we thank Barry and Sam and Kiera and Cian, tomrrow, what next? Jail? The Hilton? This is everything I wanted and set off to find, and I can't believe I'm finding it. The world is full of kind people beneath this skin of fear, and I'm out to tear it off.
Sadly, we head off towards Byron the next day.
Let us be ever so thankful:
for these people whose floor I've graced tonight, for the driver who picked us up tihs morning in his little 4WD, for those who shook their heads and laughed as we smiled at them, for those who yelled advice out the window as they sped by but we never heard it, to those whose path we haven't crossed & soon will, for those who can believe in something, maybe a shaggy 21 year old blonde and a 26 yr old Swede on the side of the road. There is possibly no greater way to show compassion than offering a service to strangers. Tomorrow, up from a mattress in a warm house and off: as Anna's sign says, "North!".
The spaghetti and vegetables have gone rancid in the heat, evident to us by the acid taste as we try to eat them on the side of HWY 1 in the shade.
After 20 minutes of thumbing, a big rig veers across the highway and onto the shoudler, backing up over the side reflective markers and sits there, idling, waiting for us to come up. "should've seen me smile when I heard them airbrakes come on". We ran along HWY 1, dwarfed by the size of this semi, unable to open the door. Bob - a thin fella with a big belly and unshaven look opened the rig and stored a bag or two in the side compartments while we climb aboard and tossed our packs into the back of the cab. I noticed the chip bags on the floor, pack of Peter Jacksons on the dash which he smoked profusely, a picture of his Missus, a pair of work boots at my feet and a few stashed "magazines" in the back of the cab.
We spark a converastion but it dies quickly. He is perfectly content with sharing his rig with us and their are no obligations. He's a real Aussie bloke: few words and just stares ahead. He's been driving for 47 years, going to Brisbane then up to Cairns (Pronounced Cans). There's something about this ride, p[erched high above the road in the seat of 22 wheeler with Bob. At a rest stop he silently removed the work boots and cleans up the passenger side so I have more foot room, but says nothing. He talks to the other truckers on the road, all of them swearing madly at the cars holding them up. We only take his ride 150 k's, and knock out at Coff's Harbour for the night. It's now far enough North that the nights and warm and the days border on unpleasantly hot, not bad for the middle of winter. At Coffs he pulls over in a good spot, smiles, hands down our stuff, gives a handshake and climbs back up into his rig and drives off.
We strike out towards the beach while I munch mint slices (Anna keeps telling me the Saturated Fat is clogging my arteries) and a man pulls over in front of us to OFFER us a ride without us even asking. There is something to be noted in that. He is balding on his head but wears a long grey beard and smiles while he puts our stuff in the car, "Careful, it's my Missus' birthday and I've got a cake". He, like the others, complains that nobody hitches nowadays, and drops us off at the beach and shows us the best place to camp and we head in. We eat a salad that Anna has prepared and sleep under the cover off a tree, listening to the waves crash against the Australia coast. We wake up toa brightening sky and I take a walk down the beach and watch the sunrise over the water. The sky is reddening over the ocean, and I play with the dogs that pass by on the beach. This is our third morning, and we're doing fine. Anna and I sleep on the beach in the warm winter sun after a early swim. This life isn't all that bad. And we've spent about $15 between the two of us. There are some things money can't buy, and those are the most pleaurable ones.
I'll continue writing this on Monday when I have another offday, OARS has me working the next 4 days straight. I have a house pretty much settled in Berkeley, and I will be living with Cory and Kevy and Dararith. The pleasure is all mine.
I'll catch you all soon,
Teddy