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?
CK: Naah. It’ll be alright bro
He seemed to not worry at all about it, but it did concern me. I had driven my girlfriend’s dad’s car for a few minutes after the exclamation mark light came on and ended up with a cracked head gasket (on the car, not on me). So, I was pretty insistent with Kiv. He cracked.
CK: Alright yer bug worry wart. You keep drivung and I wull fux utt up.
With that, Crazy got something from under his seat and then leaned over towards me. He stuck his head up under the dash. He was fiddling around there for a while (this made me a little Uncomfortable), and then with a final click, something happened and the light went off. He came out with a little globe in his hand.
CK: There utt is. No worries now. Won’t bother you a but.
This was indeed a novel strategy and one that didn’t sit too comfortably with me. I drove on and, funnily enough, forgot about it. That is until we passed the turn off into Narrandera, at which point we headed south toward Deniliquin and the Mallee country. This time a big P illuminated on the left of the dash, just above where the exclamation mark had been.
LM: Hey Kiv, what does P mean, on the dash?
CK: Stuffed uf I know bro’. Panic? Ho ho fruggin ho?
LM: Thunk we should stop Kiv? Take a look under the bonnet perhaps?
CK: Naah – I’ll fux utt up – I know cars
Again he leaned over and fiddled behind the dash, emerging with another little globe and a look of satisfaction. The most amazing thing was how easily I tended to forget about the two little lights. We went another hundred miles or so when a third light came on. This one looked like a water jug.
Again, Crazy just leaned over and emerged a few minutes later with the globe. He was positively chuffed with his little haul of globes and began tossing them back and forth in his hands. The thing was, I began to think that this was truly avoiding the problem – the ute was running well, it didn’t seem sick in any way, and Kiv seemed to know exactly what he was doing. The last light to come on had a picture of what looked vaguely like a foot on a brake pedal. I told Kiv and this time he lent right across me and pulled a fuse out of the little black box