Cycle Hitching (or On Your Bike?)
I’d filled the year 2001 with a tour of Australia. I’d never travelled very broadly at home before, and this trip opened my eyes to all manner of new landscapes, topographic and urban. I could have gone another year and not run out of things to do, but the money was certainly drying up. The plan emerged, to migrate to Tasmania, and settle down once more. I had a gal, there was the hope of work and a liberal university that might entertain some of my research ideas (into hitching).
I had a pile of stuff holed up at my parents’ place south of Sydney though. Christmas was coming and I spent some time lingering there preparing a present of sorts – I slaved over a scanner, dismembered all of our family albums and converted the family legacy to digital format (thus preserving thousands of old fading photographs). While there I got word from my partner down south that I should bring my bicycle …
I balked. We all knew I was skint, and planning to hitch down at least to Bass Straight (Melbourne). My first instinct was not to take the bike. I thought instead to take my skates. They’d maybe keep me mobile in Hobart, and were certainly far more portable. I’d done a fair bit of roller hitching in Europe over the years and knew it was comfortable. So I asked for some advice, the bike or the skates?
"Bring both!" came the reply … I was slowly conjuring images of Tony Hawks’ hitching Irishman with the fridge. How much junk can I lug around while thumbing south?
I had hitched with bike before. Out of necessity. On tour along the New South Welsh coast in 1993 I lost 3 spokes at once and the wheel jammed in the frame. Unable to repair that in the field I hitched into the next town (bike and all) and fixed it there. Later on the same trip I was caught in a deluge and offered a ride, unsolicited, by some musicians staying in the same hostel I crashed at to escape the rain.
I thought too Yvonne, a Dutch lady I knew who in 1996 wrote me with this plaintive conundrum hoping for some advice from a different angle:"I like to cycle during my holidays, but also to hitch-hike … I’d like to visit your country and do both. So far, everyone I asked for advice warned me of the dangers of hitching in Australia. Regrettably, these people were indeed all in Australia. They said that busses are also a good idea and very cheap. But I so love to hitch. And I think too that it would present less hassle unpacking my bike. I do trust there will be enough cars that can carry me and my bike."
I wasn’t so sure myself! But I loved the idea and encouraged her to give it a go – which she did. With great success. Her longest wait on the trip was in Queensland, where she got a little fussy and only wanted a ride that went more than 200 km … she waited three hours before she had the idea to turn her bicycle over, so as to appear as if she had a problem … and got a ride in short order. "Australians are helpful people!" she writes … (scheming Dutch ladies!)
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