Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Thumbs Up and Out!

I ended up staying only a week with my new friend Adam and his family, a lot less time than I had originally inteded to spend in the area. One night I checked out the website for a festival called Bushweek that I had heard about from my Rainbow familiy... good music, community, workshops, nature, creativity, friends....shit! What am I doing here?? I decided that I needed to go to this festival, eager to get back the feelings I had at Confest. The issue? I was in Byron, and the festival was North of Cairns, a good 2,200 kms away, and it started in 8 days! Hmm, how can I pull this off? I managed to arrange a ride from Surfers Paradise to Cairns... but how to get to Surfers Paradise? The answer?.................

Would have been cool to hitch a ride on this bad boy!


Hichhiking! By myself! For the first time ever! Exciting, scary, anxious, exhilirating! I was so ready for the adventure. The day after I decided to change all my plans and head up North to Bushweek, I packed all my bags and got Adam to drop me off in Cloones. I stood on the side of the road with my thumb out, all sorts of emotions bouncing around my insides. I felt a bit silly standing there as some school kids walked past me. Time was ticking by pr..et..ty.. sl..ow..ly... I started thinking this was hopeless, maybe I should call Adam and get him to pick me up? I checked my watch... Nevermind, only 5 minutes had passed. I stuck with it and only 2 minutes later a man walked up to me and asked where I was headed. I checked my gut, had no bad feelings about it, so I hopped in. He was a nice older fella on his way to work. He dropped me off at the Byron turn off where I got picked up again just like a minute later, this guy saying he stopped just because I had a nice smile! It took me 4 different rides to get to my destination, but I got there, waiting only about a total of half an hour.

Hitchiking is actually pretty cool, I had a nice adrenaline high for a little while after, it provided me with a good taste of the freedom I'd been missing, and it got me to my destination. I also reckon it's a good way to meet new people with all different outlooks on life. I definitely think I'll be doing more of this!

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