A work by Kirsty Brooks and Dave Sag in 8 parts, 25 printed pages and 10,000 words.
Kirsty had an idea, to publish a book of stories by hitch-hikers. So she set of with her friend Dave in a Mercedes with a sun-roof, from Adelaide to Brisbane and back on a 17 day quest to find hitch-hikers and collect stories. A holiday of their own put to good use. This is the account of that trip that they wrote and updated underway to keep their friends informed of progress.
There are plenty of photos, the text is casual, lighthearted and frank, and it's quite entertaining. Not in the least, because they found only one hitch-hiker along the way, and while pleasant, he was pretty boring. The coup de grace for their quest to find hitchers came at the last moment when their car broke down and they had to hitch home themselves! So, while out hunting stories, Kirsty and Dave went and made one themselves. Ironically perhaps, it didn't appear in Kirsty's book once it hit the shelves.
This is one of an increasing number of as-it-happens travelogues to appear on the web. Indeed Julie Bradshaw has a corner of Suite 101 dedicated to her European holiday as it happens. Access to the web on the road is becoming increasingly possible, and for those of us with a slight streak of exhibitionism, it allows us to keep the friends and family informed and publish a book of sorts all at the same time.
I think this is a style of writing that we will see much more of as the web grows and grows, and people become empowered with the ability to publish on-line as it happens. This piece is a groundbreaker in the field as far as hitch-hiking stories go, and an entertaining piece at that.
That concludes the Seven League Books for the moment. I hope it was as interesting a journey for as it was for me. I've taken the time to introduce some of the larger pieces of literature on hitching that the web has to offer, reviewed the contents, and coloured it all with a few of my own ideas on the way. As I come across more works on the web that fit into this category, the seven may become eight, and eight become nine and ... a tradition in the making, let there be a hundred leagues before I pass ...
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