bonnet (hood). Sure, he could do things to conceal the signs – to ‘anaesthetise’ the noise perhaps. But in the end this was not a very sensible thing to do and the cost was, well, the cost was the SuperSport 110. Not a major cost perhaps but the point is there.
Of course, ignoring pain doesn’t always lead to destruction of the painful part alone. Check out Crazy Kivin’s experience…
crazy kivin’s brush with death
Or: Pain is what tells us to protect our body.
One of the best ways to travel around Australia is to hitchhike. Granted, it is not for everyone, but it certainly was for me. A few mates and I set up an annual hitchhiking race, whereby we would all meet for breakfast and set up a staggered start.
The agreement was that when you reached the target town, you had to get your race card stamped by the barman at a pre-designated pub. It was, therefore, a time trial. Winner got all expenses reimbursed by the other racers and then gave half of it to a charity.
If the target town was far enough away, you would often run into each other along the way. Occasionally you would fly past another racer while they waited on the side of the road for a lift. We implemented a time-exchange program, whereby if you convinced your lift to stop for a competitor, the competitor was required to donate you 30 minutes in exchange for first dibs at the next point. Most trips were for a long weekend. The longest was from Sydney to a place called Kaniva, in country Victoria. 1165 km4. This was my best performance, and possibly the best performance by anyone hitchhiking, anywhere. Ever. It was certainly the best in the 6 year history of the Annual Hitchhiking Race for Charity5.
As usual, we met for breakfast at Badde Manors, a reasonably grungy café on St John’s Road in Glebe, inner western suburbs of Sydney. Later we shifted to Digi.Kaf, the first cyber café in town, which would end up hosting me while I wrote up my doctoral thesis. They (well, Susie really – I am not sure if Paul, the owner, ever knew about it) kept me well stocked with very good coffee and panini and soups and little treats. “All for the progress of science” Susie would say. Anyway, on the Kaniva trip, we left Badde Manors in staggered fashion between 9.40 and 11.20. There were six of us. I was last.
It was tricky, as always, to get out of Sydney. Technically, we were permitted to take a bus, but it cost 30 minutes per dollar, which is pretty expensive, so no-one really did.
Trains and taxis were banned. Usually, the best plan was to head down to one of the main distributors that headed out of town and to stick a sign up. A few of the boys made their first sign over breakfast and our endeavours became the talk of the café. My signs were always a bit more melodramatic than the others. For example, Dicko might write a sign like this:
Whereas I would write a sign like this:
On the back of the signs, I always wrote a pleasant farewell, because I think everyone who considers stopping for a hitchhiker but doesn’t stop for them – you know - takes their foot off the throttle a bit but goes on anyway – has a look in the rear-view mirror to confirm the wisdom of their choice. So, I wrote this on the back:
The flipside message got me at least one lift. That was in wheat country in western NSW. A farmer reversed about 400 metres to pick me up after reading:
As it turned out, the Kaniva trip didn’t need a sign. I packed up our plates and took them into the kitchen, had a final chat to the cook, whose kiddies I was babysitting the following Friday, and picked up my bag. I was just about to step out and stroll down to the eastern distributor when a fellow on the opposite side of the café remarked:
“Did I hear thet you are going to Kaniva?”
I responded in the affirmative and then got a barrage of questions:
“Why?”
LM: Hitchhiking race
Why?
LM: Fun, primarily, and we raise money for MissionBeat or Salvo’s or someone like that
Kun yer talk?
LM: Yes
Are yer posh?
LM: I don’t reckon. What do you reckon Cook? Am I posh?
Cook: About as posh as my Rottweiler
Kun yer drive?
LM: Yes
I’ll take yer thun
LM (a little Uncomfortable): Sorry?
I’ll take yer thun. Kaniva. I’m huddin to Lullumur. Nuxt town along. Be good to huv company. Uvin uf you are un Aussie.
So there it was. A lift. From start to finish. And that is how I met Crazy Kivin. Kevin was his real name but he was a Kiwi and I can’t help talking like a Kiwi whenever I spend time with Kiwi’s (you may have picked this up already). Crazy Kiv drove a reasonably old Mazda ute6. Two seats, flat tray. He was parked (illegally) right at the front door of Badde Manors. We got in and started chatting. He was a most intriguing fellow. He was heading to Lillimur to meet a Bull Mastif that he was thinking about buying. His ute was small and the engine worked hard, especially when we got out of Sydney into the glorious southern tablelands.
Crazy and I rattled past the Dog on the Tuckerbox just outside of Gundagai, and turned off the main drag, onto the Sturt Highway and towards Wagga Wagga. That was about 5 hours in. The ute was low on fuel so we stopped in at Wagga7, which is when Crazy asked me to drive.
We were not back on the highway for more than a few minutes when the exclamation mark light came on. I have always loved the exclamation mark light. It is completely uninformative except to say “something is wrong somewhere, but I’m not going to tell you exactly where”. Crazy’s ute was manufactured when cars were just getting fitted with little computers that would tell you stuff about the car. More information than the usual temperature, oil and brake lights on the dash. The computers were sophisticated enough to tell you something was wrong, but you had to find out yourself what exactly it was (bit like psychotherapy I guess). I mentioned the recently illuminated light to Crazy –
LM: Hey Kiv – we better check thus out – your warning light is on
Crazy Kevin: Yeah I know hey bro’. It comes on a but – bin on sunce before Gundagai. Doesn’t seem to be a problem though ey?
LM: It might be Kiv. Why don’t you take a look in the manual, see what utt says?
