30 Years Ago : Jill Berry Blog

30 Years Ago

Posted on October 4, 2009 - Filed Under About me

Australia72

On Friday I received an email from my friend Bob, now Robert, who was having a birthday that day. He reminded me that 30 years ago we were in Australia celebrating his birthday. Bob and I went to Australia and New Zeland after we graduated from San Diego State University. In May, just a week after the ceremony, he went to Australia and I to Kauai, were I worked during the summer as the Arts and Crafts Director for the YMCA. In August, after he had garnered the phone numbers of half of the female population Down Under, and I had finished making sand candles on the beach, I flew out to meet him in Sydney. What followed was one of the greatest adventures of my life.

We ate thousands of clams on North West Island. Nothing else to eat!

Bob is a funny guy. I mean he is really funny. Traveling with him was a hoot, when it wasn’t infuriating: most of the time it was his way or the highway (literally, we were hitch hiking our way around), and his cooking cannot be recommended under any circumstances. Funny was stronger than all his other traits combined. I remember him marching into a pizza parlor and saying “we heard you have the best pizza in town because you put on soooo many toppings, that’s why we came here.” It was hard not to laugh out loud, and of course they would always do it, we ate very well. We had a rockin’ good time, one of those adventures that inspire movies and novels that few of us get to experience. That journey raised the bar for every trip thereafter.

Every single time we were in deep guano, someone saved us. We saw creatures that the natives never even saw, and we never ran out of food, despite our budget of less than $6 per day. We traveled up and down the Eastern Coast of Australia, from Tasmania to North West Island off the Great Barrier Reef. We flew to New Zealand in the middle, and made our way from Auckland on the north island, and out of Christchurch on the south. We hung out on a sheep ranch for a while and learned to spin wool. The ice cream and the youth hostels were unrivaled in our experience, and so were our opportunities.

We made our way around hitchhiking, as I mentioned above. I kept a journal, as I still do, and wrote the name of every single person, family, surgeon, rock star and drug addict that picked us up. In 1979, few visitors from the US made their way Down Under, and we were often treated as celebrities by the people that we met. We were picked up by families who then would invite us for tea, feed us and set us back down on the road. Once an off duty bus gave us a private ride to the road we needed to get to. A surgeon picked us up in a Jaguar in Tasmania. The majority of the time the people who picked us up gave us more than a ride: a meal, lodging, gifts, advice, and enduring, hilarious stories. It was staggering how generous they were.

In Tasmania, a guy named Lindsey Lynch was working at a bar in which we were the only patrons. He closed up the bar and hauled us to his house as a surprise for his mum for her birthday. The Lynches were a coal mining family with no running water and scant little electricity, but a party was goin’ on and we were the gifts. Mum was thrilled, and had us sign her fireplace before we left.

In Bundaberg, we slept under a bridge and ate tiny pineapples.

Bundabridge In Wagga Wagga we hitched with David and Bob, and each rode in our own semi-truck.

DavBob

In New Zealand, we had one adventure after another, not the least of which was getting stuck in the rain at the top of the Desert Road, the one place locals told us never to get stuck: a middle-of-nowhere prison town, with no amenities at all. We ended up sleeping in a filthy garage next to an empty house. Next door lived a prison warden and his wife, who took pity on us and made us dinner next to a cozy fire, and breakfast the next morning.

Me on the road In the morning the rain stopped, and so did a rock star, who was headed to perform in Wellington, which is exactly where we needed to go.

The last part of our trip we headed to the Great Barrier Reef. The season was over, so we could not get a tour of the islands, but we were introduced to a yaught captain who was headed off the coast to pick up some divers. He invited us to sleep on the yaught, cruise to the island the next morning, and get picked up a few days later when he had to return for another group, all for free. We had a really long happy hour in the harbor with the crew, slept in the bunks, then headed for seven hours off the coast to North West Island. The crew had rum with their coffee for breakfast. We, however, declined that treat.

North West Island

We hauled our own water and ate clams. The only things on Nor’ West were imbecile birds called black noddies, clams, a small group of divers, a small hut full of hats on pegs with a sign that read “Tiltin’ Hilton”. A storm came up. The captain did not arrive to pick us up. We were in the middle of the sea, with no means of communication to anyone. Fortunately, a pirate arrived to haul the other group home. He was a tattooed speed demon, a scary, scary guy that took all the money we had and offered our only choice of leaving there. He drove a Shark Cat as fast as he could. We slammed up and down the sea, and I remember thinking it was as loud as dropping a tool box off the Empire State Building. Gear flew off the boat, this guy didn’t look back. I am certain if my death grip on the sides gave way and I flew too, he would never have noticed.

Since we had an extra day on the island waiting for the no-show captain, we had to hightail it to Sydney to catch our plane home. A trucker drove us down the coast most of the way, and dropped us in downtown Sydney late at night, in a part of town that offered nothing to two sunburned backpackers who had not bathed in four days. There was a nice hotel, and we wandered in. The rate was $31, far out of our budget. Then two business men came in, having been out for a pint or two. They were happy, and happy to meet us. One of them gave us his room, and bunked with the other, and they insisted. They said they would want the Yanks to treat their stranded kids the same, and asked us to pay it forward (which I did a few months later, and that is a whole other story…)

They gave us this room, this glorious, incredible hot water clean sheets view of the harbor room, only bigger, with the first honor bar we had ever seen. We honored it alright. It was better than the attic scene with the monkey in the Little Princess.

Strathfield Hotel Happy Belated Birthday Bob! Tripping through these memories has been wonderful fun. I will make our map very soon, I am inspired, and I will post it when we are done. Love and hugs to you my friend, and thanks for the memories!