Hitchin a ride

Don't think I've ever hitched to the coast for a surf (in the classical sense anyway, thumb out on the highway etc). But it was a daily routine living in a small Canadian town to get up the mountain from the village. Some days, easy - other days bloody painful!  

I use to hitch hike heaps as a grom, the bus to school went along the coast a half hour ride, if there was good waves once i got to school id walk out onto the road and hitch home often with a mate, get our board and ride or hitch out to the reefs.

Yeah some days you would get a lift straight up other days you could go an hour or more.

Haha good topic. We used to wag school and catch the train/ferry to north straddie then hitch a ride up to the point & surf all day. One time Bede Durbidge picked us up. I had no idea who he was cause his shots were only starting to get into mags at the time, but when we got dropped off up at the point my mate was frothing that 'Durbo' gave us a lift up to the point hahaha.

Haha yes Shaunio,

I will always pick up hitchers and give them a good ride.

A week ago travelling home from Wanaka to Q town then to Brissy, borrowed my mates car to drop off at the airport and came across a beautiful 21 year old lady, well that was funny.

Had a couple of smirnoffs in the car, just for the journey after my journey to get to the end of my journey, she was keen as for something to wet her whistle with and all hell broke loose.

Geez ;-)

That got ya going eh, you were thinking like..........! Boom boom stuff

No not at all, nothing happened what you were thinking mate, I'm married and I have respect.

She ended up telling me about her whole life, boyfriends, girlfriends, life and stuff as well about being on some kind of tinder stuff, which I had no idea about at all!

Then I realised it was a dating site...? For fuck sake I thought, I honestly thought that was for old single divorced/broken up marriages...?
Not at all for 21 year gorgeous females.! This world is weird shit I thought , how do real people meet people, hitching would probably be better?

Well in the end we both had an awesome chat driving over the range and she thanked me for the best hitch in her life. Nothing like a chat eh

More to come;)

coming back from point leo early 70's,had just stopped at clatworthy's shop and i spotted a grom,thumb out,surfboard under his arm and the pleading look on his face.ah,what the hell,pull over tell him to ditch his board in the back[i had a combi sans any seating in the back.as he opens the rear door,another 4 jump out of the bushes with their boards.had to hand it to them,probably wouldn't have stopped for 5.the ploy worked.gotta luv groms

oldest trick in the book,worse is when a hot chick is hitching and as you pull over you see the boyfriend who looks like a ice freak jump out of the bushes thats when you gun it leaving them in a cloud of dust.

@welly .... Wanaka ... man, I love that place. Certainly the highlight of 4 weeks on the south island.

Used to hitch down the coast from the time I was 15 from Melbourne to Anglsea, mid 70's. Usually from Kensington train station in summer or catch the train to Geelong in winter, if I was just going down for the day, my dad worked in Sunshine and dropped me off at 6am at brooklyn on the Geelong road, yes I was keen.
Our crew used to hitch to the surf in 2's and after a pick up there would be another 2 around the next bend and we'd try and talk them into picking up our mates, which was followed by us grommets getting the driver to take us where we wanted to go surfing for the day, sometimes as far as johanna.:-D

Used to hitch to Torquay from Melbourne or from Geelong after catching the train down there, didn't like it much so my mate and I worked out there were plenty of empty holiday houses!! We lived in the garage of a house in Fairhaven with an outside dunny for most of one summer before we got sprung by the owner. He was cool especially coz he saw we were actually looking after the place for him.

After I got my first car used to hitch way more coz it used to brake down every second week! That car kept me poor for 2 years. These days it would be worth a mint ... VW splitter kombi. Once getting a lift back to Melbourne in the back of a packed kombi I pulled out a joint to offer it around only to be told there were 2 coppers up front! It was the best day of my life when I got a reliable car.

Done a lot of hitching myself as a teenager round town...to up and down the east coast several times after leaving SA.
Always keen to pick up backpackers hitching too, ya never know what ya gonna get...the most common comment I'd get from foreign backpackers as they jumped in the front seat was that they couldn't believe how many aussies drove bare foot .
Even took some backpackers for an extra long ride over a night or two if ya know what I mean...I had a Kombi pop top so some girls really loved the extra comfort...and a bare foot aussie haha.

Had a few good rides myself but the strangest/life tip ride was getting picked up on the way to Goolwa as a 17 yr old. These two older crusty looking fellas stop, full grey beards and long hair, cool I thought, this will be interesting. So old mate driving starts telling me he's just picked up other old mate from a decent stretch for theft, big time theft.
So here's the tip they gave...if ya gonna be a thief, do grand larceny, don't fuck about with stealing off the small man, he's worked hard for what he's got and might not be insured. Instead, steal a semi, back it up to a warehouse and fill it to the brim. Oh, and don't get caught, not like old mate. I never took their advice.

Couple of years back I was on my way to waits/parsons for a midweek dawny on my own when I enthusiastically came out of the corner of the victor bypass road a little hot and blew the diff, conditions were meant to be 2-3 at dribs with not a breath of wind and with the sun just cracking i was (as sure as you can be) it was gonna be on, offering a doobie I convinced the RAA bloke to drop me up the top of the hill near the bluff so I could see some lines and make a plan.... This legend drove me all the way to parsons laughing as he dropped me off saying 'fark I hope for your sake someone else turns up today' as there was no one else around, I wrote a message on his phone to one of my mates saying it was pumping and he should get down there and this guy said he'd hit send when he was back in coverage. Turned out to be one of those rare all time 4 foot WITH banks days and just turned on for the whole day, mate rocks up around lunchtime and I get a ride home giggling all the way with a couple of long necks of sparkling ale, totally forgot about my shit heap car but f&$k I made some sweet lemonade out of lemons that day

For a fair few years the SA South Coast boys would spend the winters in the NW of WA. One year, old young mate had to get back to SA for his big shindig 21st. It was early in the season and only a couple of us boys there at that stage. There were plans to drive his old Kombi back (last resort), fly, train, bus, you name it. All a mission. Then a saviour popped up in the form of a Welsh traveller who had to get back to Vicco and then home. So it was ordained, jump in his de rigeur Ford Falcon wagon, and stop off on the way at Cactus, some Streaky and Elliston perhaps, then back to Pt Elliot. Too easy. Three drivers. Plenty of room. We're there.

Until the Welshman on his first stint behind the wheel ran straight into the biggest roo on the Nullabor in the middle of the night. It was a biggun and he hit it right in the middle of the car. No roo bar. He was going that quick the poor animal exploded! It also nearly pushed the engine into the front seat. No injuries but car completely fucked. Perhaps Taffy should have told us he was 'night-blind'. Ah well...

Next morning, convinced the car is salvageable, Taff makes the plan to hitch back to the nearest 'town' from whence we came. We're on a tight schedule, time and money-wise, so part ways and put the thumbs out, Adelaide bound. Middle of fuck-all. Heat just starting up. With two boardbags to boot.

10 minutes later, we're in a brand new 4WD, boards loaded in the space caravan being towed behind. God bless the grey nomads. They even buffed us out with tea and sangas. Pffft, this hitch-hiking malarkey is a piece of piss. We'll be home by tonight!

Except the oldsters were heading North to the centre. Ah well, no worries. Drop us off at the border village. Took us all of 10 mins to get the first lift. We're sweet.

Nup. That's all she wrote. Spent all day, begging, cajoling, pleading, all to no avail. Three hippies in a van gave us a dozen beers in commiseration, explaining they would've loved to give us a lift but they had just been busted by Eucla's finest for having someone 'unsecured' in the back of the van. A truckie had a serious, serious think about letting us hide in the back of his load, but finally couldn't do it. He did give us a bottle of Bristol Cream sherry though (he had a few spare). Finally, half-cut and demoralised, we had to bite the bullet and fork out the precious green for some tickets for the bus that was scheduled to come through in the wee, wee hours of the morning. Lucky, there were two seats remaining, but no room for the boards! We had to leave 'em at the servo, and pick 'em up on the return journey with another mate heading west in a few weeks.

A memorable trip across the Nullabor that one. Sick party too.

Great hitch then SB and you got free piss haha.

Seems to be less hitchhikers here in OZ than NZ, it's not a hassle to hitch back home, maybe not as many freaks like Ivan picking you up. Probably miles too.!

My first experience with a hitch hiker wasn't so positive. Back in the '80's as a teenager myself and a surfer workmate named Tony headed off on a surf trip to Victoria for a few weeks.

We made our first stop at the South Oz border town of Port McDonnell and surfed the local reefs for a few days. We scored some good waves before the weather turned foul as it often does in the fickle South East of my home state.

The weekend came and on the Saturday night we decided to head into the nearby city of Mount Gambier to get on the piss.
As we drove out of Port Mac a guy with a flannel shirt, mullet and goatie beard was on the side of the road with his thumb out so Tony started to slow down his tricked up HJ Holden panel van to pull over.

I had this bad feeling about the situation and tried to persuade him not to stop but Tony was older than me and scoffed at my caution. I slid across the bench seat to the centre position as this bloke got in next to me. Introducing himself he said his name was Rodney but his mates called him Prickles.

Prickles looked about 30 years old and was quite a smooth talker. We told him of our plans to go out for the night in Mount Gambier to see what action we could find.
Prickles thought it sounded like a great idea and asked if he could tag along?

So the three of us pub crawled around town for the evening before ending up at Mount Gambier's only nightclub around midnight. By then I was pretty shitfaced and was wandering around the club when I ran into Tony.

"Where's Prickles" I asked.

"Oh he said he was cold and went out to get his jumper" Tony replied.

"You gave him your keys?" I shot back incredulously as I felt myself sober up in a millisecond.

Tony gave me this puzzled look without saying a word. He may have been a little older than me but he wasn't real street wise.

"Let's go and check on the van" I said as we rushed out to the carpark.

Tony's pride and joy panel van was gone. And with it was all of my worldly possessions. Boards, wetsuits, clothes, fishing rods, gas cooker, my 80's style beatbox tape recorder stereo with my entire music collection. Basically everything I owned.
At least I had my wallet. Fucken Tony had left the $600 he had put away for the trip in the ashtray and was penniless!

After ringing the cops we wandered around the city's deserted streets for hours like lost puppies hoping to see Prickles passed out in the van somewhere but found nothing. So we waited till morning and checked into a cabin at the caravan park to rest up, clear our hangovers and decide what to do next.

I just wanted to catch the bus back to Adelaide but Tony wanted to hang around for a few days and see if his beloved panel-van would be found abandoned by the cops. It was freezing in the cabin at night so we'd turn on the oven before bed and pulled the curtains off the windows to wrap around ourselves as blankets.

Prickles had well and truly proved himself to be a real prick!

We eventually gave up and returned home to Adelaide empty handed.
Tony's van was found burnt out in a forest near Warrnambool a few weeks later and of course we never got our stuff back. I was pretty pissed off with Tony for being such a dumb ass and we drifted apart as friends after that.

And to this day I will never pick up a hitch hiker again.

Ivan probably should get royalties from all those backpacker buses going round oz, they didn't exist till a year after he got caught.
My mate who lives out west in SA advised me once never to pick up crew on the Nullabor as your stuck with them for a long time, he picked up a french guy in penong and threw him out a 100km later just said sorry mate your annoying and ya stink.

@ YS,
Absolutely don't blame ya.

I always take my phone, wallet and keys with me when stopping for a piss on the side of the road, with them in the car, like you explained theres some nasty fu$ks out there.
Great yarn tho YS.

Who hitch hikes?fucken losers..never pick em up . I've done some stupid stuff,been in all sorts of shit over the years.but always worked and had a reliable car.fuck you hitch hiking cunts

still using that word norchock? but then again self confessed doer of stupid stuff.

too much norcok there nochoock, ever heard of adventure?

I did the nullabor once, not just for surf more so a music festival bender and to cure some homesickness I guess. it must have been homesickness because I had it all in the river, a job, a cool shack, sexy girl, all except a reliable car, hence the hitching. I took off with a modest backpack, a boogie board (better than no board), some weed, and a heap of acid I'd taken across to WA buried in a peanut butter jar knowing what the border crossing was lkie.

I was living in margaret river at the time and headed off for a music festival in byron amongst others. hitched to perth no problem took a bit to get moving on the main road out but got near kalgoorlie quite easily,then got picked up by some WA blokey bloke types, you know, part miner, part fisho, part neanderthal, good guys, but no room up front for a feral hippy type in the standard issue blokey bloke land cruiser ute, "but jump in the back no problem". the back was so packed with fishing and camping gear I was riding higher than the tray sides, but felt quite comfy on top of a couple of swags. that' s until they winded the old girl out, hurtling along with nothing but the wind to contain you was a little intimidating, but I settled in, I had to, did at least 400 ks with them until they turned off to the coast , good ride, good kms. slept in a truck stop on my boogie board bed.

next car was a white ford lazer type thingy, a driver who appeared too young to be driving, his little sister, and her aboriginal boyfriend. they put me in the passenger seat, after about 100 ks or so of bonding they asked me to drive, I declined, something didn't feel right. many more requests for me to drive later, and many loose teenage driving tricks later, you know burnouts, speeding, inattentive driving etc. we'd built enough trust for them to tell me their story. they were moving to adelaide to live with the driver and sister's dad. they had aquired the car from a friend who was gonna report it stolen and claim the insurance money,hmmm at this stage I was quite happy I'd refused to drive. they kept requesting, I kept refusing, pretty sure the driver had no license.

with my newfound knowlege I tried to not be a killjoy but warn them about their teenage driving antics, told them about the border crossing and the abundance of cops. anyway they weren't gonna listen to the sagely advice of some feral hippy looking dude so they continued to do what teenagers do. filled up the car at eucla, got some food, took off out the servo spinning the wheels in the gravel, as you do, one more pointless warning from me and we speed off down the road. probably lucky to have got ten k's and sure enough the lights and sirens start, short contemplation what to do (what choice really?) pulled over, given the interrogation, the kids strung some story along for as long as they could, I pleaded ignorant. eventually the kids realise they're not getting away with it and tell the truth, cops take us all back to eucla and I'm eventually freed to go due to ignorance.

back on the road, I start walking out of eucla, yep you've gotta walk, nevermind the next town is 250 ks of desert away you've gotta show some determination to get rides ( best advice I was given!). eventually picked up by some guy heading to Adelaide, drops me at port aguuta. SA being what it is, hitchhiker hell, dunno if it's bodies in the barrel or the disproportionate high number of general serial killers, it took me ages to get to broken hill. done with all the excitement and difficulties getting rides I caught the bus to sydney, somehow made my way to the highway and started hitching again to byron. back in good hitching country I hit jackpot some byron type surf guy heading home to alstonville, sweet all the way to byron

Sypkan what a mission! That's epic

Wow, great story sykpan!

And YS - far out - what a horrid experience. 

Great stories here, keep them coming!

My hitchiking stories are few and far between. Got bogged in a canefield in FNQ trying to reach my favourite Mangrove Jack spot. Hiked about 2 k's out covered in stinky black mud and got driven past so many times trying to hitch my way into Port Douglas when this crappy old car appeared and remarkably got a lift from two smokin' Norwegian babes. Nice girls, nothing happened and I slung them a tenner for fuel.

But, years ago I was driving back down the Goldy from Brissy and stopped to pick up a bloke on the northside. Young fella about my age, solid, tatts but turned out to be a really nice guy. He'd done a bit of time but just seemed like one of those guys who'd grown up on the wrong side of the tracks.

Anyway, cruising along I asked if he smoked and of course yes so I had a joint stashed in the ash tray and lit it up. We shared that and we kept chatting and as we were approaching Virginia golf course I was telling him that every time I drive past I try and beep my horn when somebody is teeing off at the hole closest to the road that runs along it. As we're approaching said hole a middle aged bloke was on his back-swing, just as he was on the down-swing I let the horn rip and blasted it for about 5 seconds. We saw a melon sized divet leave the tee instead of his ball. The timing was perfect. I looked in the rear vision mirror and the bloke was hurling abuse at me and waving his club around as we both drove away laughing.

After that we chuckled our way over to the southside and I dropped him at Logan, gave him the other joint I had stashed and cruised on down the coast in stoned bliss giggling to myself.

Yep tripkan your the alby mangels type for sure.ive done the nullabor a few times,in my car surfed all those cant say places that you have to drive to...always an adventure out there eh....you being such an adventure junkie.funny thing is we were pulled over at eucla by the cops for no other reason than probably being in a hq wagon.fuck they striped the car apart found some weed and a cone,yet you had a jar of buds and how much acid.....tell us about the time at band camp.......

As grom's when we used to see a hitch hiker we would stop and wait for him then drive off a bit stop drive off again endless fun until this one time late at night the driver was a bit slow and the guy was quick he had the door open as my mate floored it and he wouldn't let go I swear he was sliding along like we were towing him on a skatie.Once it got to the point of no return the guy was gnarly screaming about our death and knife's he still would not let go I can still hear the noise of his shoe's grinding along at high speed.The nut ended up hanging on in a speed crouch both hands on the door like a pro boot slider in for the long run. We only had one option and that was to go faster he must of had a boot blow out or some sort of equipment malfunction because he was gone with a blood curdling final scream of" CUNT'S YOUR GONNA DIIIIEEEEEeeeeeeeeee"Every time I see a hitch hiker that noise and scream pop's into my head.

floyd wrote:

still using that word norchock? but then again self confessed doer of stupid stuff.

Parp.

So Sypkan did you get the peanut butter jar and yourself to the festival? that was the main thing eh :-)

@ Zen was wondering about the " two smokin' Norwegian babes " and nothing happened?

Then encountering a " Young fella about my age, solid, tatts but turned out to be a really nice guy "

Blowin some joints with a back swing instead of his ball.

Interesting Yarn ;)

I meant the guy looked pretty sketchy and looked like trouble. Was 50/50 picking him up but he turned out to be nice bloke. Ruining the golfers tee-off was funny especially as I'd been telling the hitcher about it not 5 minutes before.

I know Zen ;-)

Hey scored an amazing 60cms storm back in NZ on the 18th. Secret spot..............

Pretty fu$k'n good IMO for NZ, nothing like your ways tho, very very good but.

Peace and carves.

Got a message from Craig, scored some back country Guthega, bluebird day and fresh powder. Not too shabby.

60 cms is still pretty good by our standards. Sweet man!

Counting the days. Yew!!

A good mate of mine in the 80's, who was probably 17 at the time caught a ride in the country around the middle of the Pig Island, Taupo area.
Was waiting by the road at night, only hitching a few K's down the road, when along come a hardcore group of tatted up Mongrel Mob members in a beat up HK Holden. On the piss and wasted as!
His first mind thought was f_$k, this is gonna be full on, but he took the ride anyway as it was cold and raining.
Whilst he entered the back seat of the car a couple of gang members jumped out and got something out of the boot after a bit of fumbling around. They jumped back in and proceeded to drive down the country road.
My mate for some reason looked back while they drove away from his pick up point and saw two buckets still sitting on the side of the road?
A couple of K's later they dropped him off at his point of destination, thanking them heaps in such a polite way! He thought about it for awhile and said to himself fu$k it I'm gonna run back and see what is in those buckets.
He got there finally, soaking wet, puffed and overwhelmed to find 3kg , 6LBS of the finest buds you could ever smoke.!!!!
So he ended up buying a shit hot panel van and we both went on surfing road trips for years after, all around Pig Island every weekend, geez the miles we did, the waves we got and the buds we smoked.
Great journeys without a doubt.
Thanks to the Mighty Mongrel Mob eh;)

Sounds abit far fetched welly..they were the mighty mongrel mob after all....I reckon they picked ya mate up and ganged him.thats his story

yeh I got to the festival wellymon, the peanut butter jar got the recreational pharmaceuticals to WA, I brought them back over on my body. though I think I go them over to WA with good luck rather than good management. we avoided the almost mandatory police check somehow. some tense moments though, maybe it was the grey nomad looking campervan flying under the radar avoiding norchock's misfortune, the old hq wagon is a bit of a beacon for coppers.

sorry to hear about your misfortune there norchock...the cunts!! now is surf time, I'll fill you in on bandcamp later when I have a little more time, but only because I like your eloquent use of the word cunt. I know those nice boys don't like it but you make me laugh! we're reclaiming it for the sisters...germaine greer would be happy!