Daytrippin, roadtrippin

Mushroom hunting grounds

So it's been a long time between posts.  I was going to make some excuses or whatever but I don't really have any.  I spent a couple of weeks roadtripping down to Melbourne with two new-age types from Israel and then slowly making my way home again.  These guys loved their psytrance and psychedelics, so we got on just fine.  As I mentioned in a previous post it is goldtop season here at the moment (goldtops are a type of magic mushroom) and so we stopped before getting 20km from Lennox at a paddock that is a great hunting spot and filled up a couple of buckets.  These boys were good fun to trip with and I got endless amusement from their awesome accents (as did they from mine lol).  They also had some really kicking tunes - it seems like Israel is a nexus for great psy and electronica for whatever reason and they gave me a couple of CDs before we parted ways.  Those boys were awesome!

Our vehicle - rented by my Israeli friends from Wicked Campers

Melbourne's about 1600km from Lennox ~ 2 days driving straight through, and my newfound friends planned to stay there and work for a couple of months, so getting home was not a trivial undertaking.  But life is about the journey, and my journey was an enriching one.  I hitched a ride north from Melbourne with an awesome lady, Gail, who would have to be at least 70.  She took me all the way through to Orange, and then on learning that I had no real plan and certainly no place to stay, she offered me a foldout couch to sleep on, which I took gratefully.  I was pretty tired and crashed out pretty much as soon as my head hit the pillow, and then I woke up to the smell of bacon and eggs.  Man this woman was awesome!  Got up, had breakfast with her and her husband Bill, and then spent a few hours perusing the wonders of Bill's huge shed.  This guy likes machines and obviously spent most of his time building things and tinkering.  He was pretty excited to have somebody to show his works to.

Gail offered for me to stay another night at their place if I couldn't get a lift out of town that afternoon.  Really awesome people.  I mean, it's experiences like sharing time with Bill and Gail that really make me love life!  We're separated by about 60 years and obviously have very different interests but that doesn't mean we couldn't have a lovely time together.  And I was really touched by the fact that not only did this old lady driving on her own stop to pick up a pretty ragged looking 20-something hitchhiker, not only did she drive me 800km closer home, but she put me up for the night and cooked me breakfast in the morning!

Lovely, lovely Jameys.

One thing that surprised me was that Gail and Bill loved their irish coffee.  The night that I spent there we went through almost a whole bottle of Jameson together, and I was pretty impressed how the old girl could hold her liquor.  Bill only had about 2 drinks and me and Gail sat up drinking the rest until about 1 in the morning.  I'm pretty poor at the moment, but before I left town, I thought the least I could do was buy them a new bottle of Jameys to thank them.  Man it was a struggle just to get them to take it!  They kept telling me "no, no, you're a poor student, you can't afford that, you keep it" etc. etc. but eventually I convinced them.  Really awesome people!

The last leg of my trip from Orange back to Lennox was reasonably uneventful.  I got a lift with one guy up to Dubbo, and then within 10 mins of getting out of that car, I got another lift with a bloke headed to Tamworth.  I stopped in Tamworth for dinner (mcdonalds) and by this time it was about 6.30pm and starting to get dark.  I was a little worried because if I didn't get a lift before dark I'd be stuck in Tamworth until morning, it's very difficult to hitch a ride after dark, especially on country roads.  Again, I was very lucky and a guy on his way through to Grafton picked me up.  This was just fine with me, I've got friends in Grafton and it's only a couple hundred kms from home.  Rocked up at my mate Pete's house about 10.30, had a few drinks and a bit of a smoke and then crashed on his couch.  The next morning Pete told me he needed to go to Brisbane soon anyway, and Lennox is on the way to Brisbane, so he agreed to head up that day and drop me off on the way through.

Wow, thats a long post, sorry about the wall of text, but it was an amazing journey, and I'm so glad that I am in a position in my life at the moment where I have no commitments, so if I want to spend 2 weeks hitching to Melbourne and back again I can.  Met some really amazing people.  I will definitely make the effort to pass through Orange and catch up with Gail and Bill next time I'm in western NSW.

My route

Life is Awesome =D

I also had another "interesting" expereince in the time since my last post involving Datura, that at once wonderful and terrible little trumpet.  But that story is for another post, another day.  Anyone who has experienced Datura knows that it won't be a short post ;)

Anyway thats me done for today, hope you are all travelling well, and I promise I will endeavour to update more often.