Yeah I decided last minute to just start walking towards Ayers Rock in the center of Australia via the Great Ocean Road and the Stuart HIghway. Here is a rough log of the events that took place. I would jot these down on my map as I went along:
Day 1&2:
I took a little bus ride over to Geelong to start my trip. I was sleeping at the bus station when some guy woke me up and said "Hey, you wanna go to Torquay? I said of course and he ends up taking me to Torquay AND letting me pitch my tent on his property overlooking the coast. It is so nice here I decide to stay for 2 days just walking around the beach. Torquay was a nice little surf town with not so many tourists compared to further up the east coast. This is the start of the Great Ocean Road
Day 3:
This guy picked me up outside of town. His name was Mike from New Zealand and he was a laundry delivery guy. He told me all about how he used to hitchhike up and down NZ growin' up. He drops me off at Lorne. Lorne wasn't really a happening place for me, very expensive as well. The weather was not so great either so I didn't really enjoy the beach too much. I decide to continue on and I get picked up by this dude Mason and his girlfriend. He was going down the Great Ocean Road lookin' for waves. I spent the whole day with these guys just driving around and having fun. We end up at this little beach called Johanna and he catches a few waves while I set up camp. I learn a valuable lesson about setting up your rain fly on your tent: ALWAYS DO IT RIGHT! I got rained on :/
Day 4:
After some brekky (Tuna) I get dropped off outside of Johanna on the B100 (Great Ocean Road) and it takes me about 1 hour but this guy picks me up and I have a very uninteresting chat and he drops me off at the 12 apostles. This is so sick. After a while of takin pics I decide to move on and I get a ride from these 2 girls, one English and one Aussie. They only drive me to the next town but I am very grateful. The English girl met an Aussie woman in Thailand a fewe months back and was invited to stay at the Aussies house while she found a job and a place to stay, typical traveler hospitality :) After this I walked to the edge of town where 5 minutes later a van pulls up and I catch a ride with some big f*ckin Maoris. Very nice guys and we have a bunch of laughs and they take me a long way. These guys work in some kind of a refinery or something. They take me all the way to Warrnambool. I begin to get worried about my time and slow pace so I catch a bus over to Mount Gambier. I sleep on a volacano that night which was pretty cool. Mount Gambier is home to Blue Lake, which, unsurprisingly is a really blue lake. Not exciting. I couldn't really see very well that night so I accidentaly put up my tent near a jogging path, a couple of dogs woke me up. :/
Day 5&6:
Coming out of Mount Gambier was easier said than done. This place was big and it is pretty hard to hitch through a city so I started to walk. And walk. And walk some more. Finally I got out of town to a long windy country road. For sure I will get picked up. I put on my sad pathetic face and sure enoug 2 German chicks and this Belgium dude picked me up! It turns out they are going ALL the way to Adelaide-CHING CHING! We arrive in Adelaide after a few stops and I suggest we park right outside the caravan park and use the facilities. No problem, I set up my tent on the sand and I sleep oh so well.
Day 7:
Times are starting to get a little tough, my left foot is killing me. I think it is because I chose to wear flip flops with a heavy pack, my fault. I put on the boots again. I hang out in Adelaide and I start to walk to the edge of town. Now things are getting tricky. I am starting to slow down beacause of my foot. I finally make it to the edge of town, but traffic isnt picking me up. I found a bus that would take me even further away and I met this dude who used to live in some refugee camp in Africa. Anyways, I get dropped off and I start to limp away. A Merecedez Benz pulls up and I hop in. He is a real nice Asian guy and he starts to talk to me about Jesus. Yeap, one of those-it's all good though, he has a good heart. He takes me to his house where I can shower, eat his food and sit on his couch and watch TV. He then tells me he cn take me a bit further up the road. As we are drivingwe see this other guy, maybe about 45, beard, tattoos, and not very friendly looking. We pick him up too! After brief intro's I learn that this guy, Barry, was desperate to get to Snow town to save his sister from drinking herself to death. He had been hitching all day. I felt bad for the bloke and we both got dropped off together on the same highway, near nothing. The Asian dude tries to give me 50 bux but I decline, I feel like he was generous enough you know? We try hitching together and we decide its better if we part ways, so beacause of my bad foot he decides to walk 500 meters up the road. I eat Tuna and contemplate life.
A car comes by and says "Hey bro you goin to Snow Town?" This is a situation. Yes, I would love the ride but I know my homeboy up the road who looks super shady needs to get to Snow Town. I ask the guys to pick him up instead because he has an emergency. I regret this decision after about 30 minutes of me still waiting for another ride. Oh well, maybe Karma will come back around for the good deed!
Two young Aussie carpenters pick me up in a tricked out Holden. This is a good time, we talk so much shit about everything and then the police pull us over. All of a sudden these dudes are shoving drugs down their pants, great. The driver got done for speeding and lost his liscense but they were happy to not get caught with the weed. They drop me off at the turn off of Crystal Brooke where they were going to a party. They were very generouse with me when we parted ways. I decide Im lovin' life right about now and I am starting to hit some long empty roads. I hop a farmers fence and I pitch a tent in a field. This was a beautiful night for me, I had some more tuna and just relaxed 50m off the highway.
Day 8:
I wake up to the beautiful sunrise and walk out to the highway. 10 minutes later a van pulls up and when I swing open the door--It's BARRY! The same Barry who I gave away my lift to. And he had his really drunk sister in the passenger side. She was drinking whiskey and water. Yeah. Welh she was yelling at him saying "How dare you pick up a hitch hiker in MY car" and he just said something like "If it weren't for him I would have never gotten to you in time." This goes on for an hour. When I get dropped off further down the road this fella was still defending his decision when he said, and I will never forget it, "Besides, I didn't pick up a hitch hiker, I picked up a friend." Wow. No homo, but this was very touching, he gave me a hug and that was that, they drove off.
Some French backpackers picked me up and took me to the turn off point of Fliders Ranges and this happened to be about 4k before port Augusta. This is a very important checkpoint for me because this is where the Stuart Highway begins-the road that cuts across Australia. But then it happens. I somehow manage to hurt my balls. And fellas know that sometimes a shot to the sack has a lingering effect and this was really bad. I am now limping because of my left foot and limping because of my balls. I am now traveling at about 20% speed. This is now the hardest day of my travels in a long time. It takes me hours to make it into town, I needed several breaks and things were about to get worse. I had to stock up for the ride through the outback. I finally make it to the supermarket and stock up on Tuna, Tuna, Tuna, Oats, Tuna, and 6liters of water ust in case. I had to make a tough decision but I had to leave a lot of my clothes behind to accomodate my supplies. I was down to 2 shirts 1 jeans 1 shorts. And a lot of tuna. I continue to limp for hours until I make it out of town. I am so sick of Port Augusta I deicde to hitch hike at sunset, something I don't do for safety reasons.
These 2 miners (NZ & AUS) pick me up. They work at Roxby Downs and they said I looked so bad when I was on the side of the road they thought I was drunk. They end up taking me all the way to Roxby Downs. And they gave me a cheesburger. We talk a bunch of shit and I get dropped at a road house where I pitch my tent for the night, on the way out of the car they hand me a bag of burgers, some fruit and 50 $. They said they were inspired and they hope they could travel like this one day as well. Sweet as. The 50 bux bought me more Tuna and a hot shower. And more Tuna. And bread. And more Tuna.
Day 9:
I woke up to some deliciously cold cheeseburgers! I walked out to the Stuart highway again and within 5 minutes I got a ride from an older retired couple. They had a nice caravan and they took me all the way to Cooper Pedy. Coober Pedy is a mining town (Opal) and people live underground because it is so hot. Actually the place is as boring as you think. I walked around the souvenir shops and one of the owners of an Opal store started telling me about how there is a conspiracy in Cooper Pedy. He tells me the tour guides who bring the droves of tourists to the town only recommend they go to ONE pizza shop and ONE Opal store and ONE museum because it is dangerous to walk around because of the Aboriginals. The tour guides then get a kickback from these businesses and they leave all the other shops shit out of luck. damn. Later, I decided to head back to the RV camp where I was fed very well! Later that night I slept outside the park in my tent and all was good.
Day 10:
I got picked up on the road by Lorenza and Davide from Italy. they offered to drive me all the way to Uluru. Jackpot. All is good and we are getting along fine. After a few hours we take a break at the turn off and we meet an Irish guy, Kearon, that the Italians had picked up before. So there we are the 4 of us crammed into this little red Hyundai on the way to Uluru. We finally make it and we realize it is 25 bux per person to get in. 25?! You cant even sleep there. I mean I know someone has to pay for the maintenance but 25? Some things in life should be free. So, Ireland and I jump out and we decide its a good idea to hike through the dessert bush in a wide arc around the gates and sneak in. The only problem is we lost each other half way and it took us about 30 minutes in the dark to find each other. We finally do and we make it to Uluru safely-and free! Uluru is amazing, it is a huge rock that is sacred to the Aboriginal people. We end up hangin out for sunset and it happens to be Davide's birthday so we drink and party until all the other backpackers leave. And then some more. And then the park rangers kicked us out despite my efforts to bribe her with rice. We simply rode out about 5k's and camped in the bush.
Day 11:
lorenza was leaving Davide and going north while he was going south. She was going to pay all kinds of absurd monies to travel by bus so I convinced her to go hitch hiking. I told her I would help her out. Well, funny enough the minute we put our thumbs up 2 big backpacker vans pullover but then say they don't have enough space. But immediately afterwards, Marcos (Argentina) and Anja(Germany) pick us up and we all cram into another small Hyundai. They were headed to Kings Canyon and so were we! We all get on great from the start and it is great to practice my Spanish again. When we get to Kings Canyon we go for a 4 hour hike, stopping in the middle for a small fire to heat up some water to drink Matte (spelling?) the Argentinian tea. We had a great time together and feeling pretty hungry and sick of tuna I suggets we check out some local restaurants. We all discover that we are all more broke than the next person so we scheme and plot and enter the all-you-can-eat restaurant that serves lamb and roast beef and cheesecake. The young fella at the door sizes me up in my dirty boots and after showing me the food says, that's 52$ per person. I cringe. Thats my budget for 2 weeks in food. He sees my dissapointment and says, "Hey bro just gimme 50 bux cash and its all good." SCORE. This guy kept the money for himself and we binged. And he brought us a free bottle of wine! After filling up some take-aways we retreated into the desert where I made another fire and we all slept with full stomachs.
At around 3 am a freaking Dingo woke us all up. He was about 6 ft from the tent howling for left overs. The Argentinian guy was ready to go with a knife, lol. Anyways, we all go back to sleep
Day 12
We wake up and decide to take an offroad course to Alice Springs. Sounds good except we are in a small hyundai coupe. It takes us about 7 hours. Along the way we did see some wild horses and some pretty interesting landscapes though. When we finally make it into town I meet this older Aboriginal woman and after a chat she invites us back to her house to party. Oh boy. Sadly, this just included us sitting around in a circle watching an aboriginal family drinking themselves and smoking themselves into an oblivion in front of their children. They were all friendly and offered us great advice but it was sad to see such a negative stereotype in front of me. Later that night we had to change our sleeping locations due to huge fucking spiders surrounding us while we cooked.
Day 13:
This was a day of driving. Just the 4 of us listening to the same CD we found on the side of the road. A whole lot of nothing. But then we found Matarankas, the location of some naturally heated thermal pools. We arrive at 1 am and we think there is crocs. I strip down and jump in anyways and quickly hurry out to safety. On our short hike back I find a wallaby with a broken leg. I give it some food and water and place it somewhere a ranger can see it the next morning.
Day 14:
We are finally making it out of the bush. Still lots of driving. I get sick this day. I dunno, must have been the water. 3/4 of us get sick so it must have been something we shared. I try to sleep the entire time and when I finally do wake up I am in the parking lot of a bar by myself. I get down and find my new friends at a table havin' some sandwhiches. This bar also has a couple of rooms and the manager obviously likes the Italian girl. We semi pimp her out for a room but then the guy gets really touchy feely creepy in the dessert so we decide to pull a runner when he goes back inside. He was all like "You guys can stay in my room, I mean there is only one bed but you know-haha- we can figure it out." Yeah, we dipped. Slept in the bush-again. More Tuna.
Day 15:
We hit this place called Litchfield National Park and check out some great little waterfalls. One of my favorite past times is cliff jumping and there was plenty of that! After loads of pics and some more walking and waterfalls we decide to wrap it up and hit Darwin. We arrive late at night-FINALLY, and I suggest we sleep in the garden of a church. They wouldn't call the cops, right? Haha, we get way with it and I finally make it.
15 days of hith hiking through Australia and I was surprised that only 2 sets of backpackers picked me up. Australians are such friendly people and they love to just have a chat. I found that most people that picked me up at one point or another hitc hiked themselves and they were just repaying good Karma that they had received. I am very happy that I used my last weeks in Australia to hitch, I really feel I would have regretted leaving this country without touching Ayers Rock.
-i am trying desperately to upload pics.-
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