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Signs of the Times Australia / NZ edition — lifestyle, health, relationships, culture, spirituality, people — published since 1886 |
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Signs of the Times Australia / NZ edition — lifestyle, health, relationships, culture, spirituality, people — published since 1886 |
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How do you get from Melbourne to Sydney? In the 1960s, the quickest but most expensive way was to fly. I never did it as a commuter. Planes are convenient for those in a hurry and who care little for seeing the detail of the landscape.
Those with money made the journey in a sleeper aboard the “ Southern Aurora.” I was never among them either. The Aurorans arrived refreshed and ready for a day’s work. The best I could do in the 1960s was 12 hours in economy on the “Spirit of Progress.” This was a sit-up ride on a train with few comforts. Its buffet car rocked and rolled, turning your hot drink into a health hazard.
More often, my Sydney rail trip was aboard a train that had the efficient-sounding title of “Inter-capital Express.” It was for travellers who hadn’t booked. Inter-capital it was, but express, no. Its carriages were “red rattlers,” with com partments we called dogboxes. This express took 15 hours and, if you were lucky, you got half the box to yourself. That meant you could stretch out on the bench seat and sleep your way. Dogboxes were shared with stony-faced strangers, kissing and cuddling couples, chain-smokers, three-chord guitarists and drunk soldiers.
If I did it once, I did it a dozen times— “thumbing” a ride along the Hume Highway.
In those pre-Ivan Milat days, there was a lot of it; you had to be fearless and have faith. People took you as far as they could. Or dropped you at the nearest junction.
They gave you tips. Some fed you.
But there were dangers and surprises. I had rides with truckies speeding on speed.
And with truck drivers and drivers just speeding. I once got into a car load of bikie–gangster types who were getting drunker by the mile, but who worried for me that I may not get another lift at such late hour. One got me to help unload his truck then left me lost; another tried to seduce me! The trick to hitching was to travel light and alone, and to stand on well-lit road shoulders where traffic necessarily had to slow down. In one’s bag, one carried a cardboard sign (“ Melbourne”on one side; on the other, “ Sydney”), a duffle coat, a raincoat and a rug.
That was the 1960s. I now make the journey by plane and occasionally by a sleek, overnight XPT. (Motion sickness aboard a bus always prevented me from that mode, if you’re wondering.) Occasionally, I drive, but that’s neither a pleasure nor a challenge. Where Highway 31 once twisted and turned into narrow, doublelined dangers that required concentration and skill, it is now a straightened, flattened, and safe as it is sleep-inducing.
Worse, familiar and historical points along the way have vanished beneath a string of bypasses and overpasses. Australian rural towns and their people have been side-stepped by freeways that can deliver from one urban door to another.
No need to be touched or slowed by what lies in between the capitals. And that’s a pity. The journey is poorer for it.
Going from Melbourne to Sydney (or vice versa) is a metaphor for life entailing risk and challenge. But what if one were to go through life’s journey without really experiencing what lies in between? What kind of life does an “aerial view” of the journey provide? We need to stand back and above sometimes, but what if that’s our only perspective? A train carriage throws us around and together with disparate others, but we often appreciate terra firma better for it.
Hitching reacquaints us with groundlevel reality: we meet others by necessity, we learn to depend on others, and surviving our trips makes us grateful.
Jesus, I’m told, spent most of His life on foot. Australians during the Great Depression often walked from Melbourne to Sydney seeking work. In B lue Highways, William Least Heat-Moon tells of his admiration for the idiosyncratic hitchhiking evangelist Arthur O Bakke.
As 21st-century life speeds up, I can only imagine what wisdom we miss by overlooking the “slower” experiences of human contact. A footpath from Melbourne to Sydney through as many country towns as possible could overcome that trend. But would you walk it?
Extract from Signs of the Times, October 2002.
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