Jonathan Nicholas - Oz: A Hitchhikers Australian Anthology

Hospital Beat

Kibbutz Virgin

The Tragic Romance of Africa

I spent a very odd year in Australia when I was twenty-two years old. It was a very eventful, challenging, dangerous and wonderful year and one that, as you will see, was totally unforgettable. I was young, adventurous and very determined, but at times I was also unbelievably stupid and nave. Quite often I involved myself in things which perhaps I should be too embarrassed or ashamed to reveal and which some people have told me should not be included in this book, but I dont regret a single moment of it as it all meshed together to create my crazy year in that wonderful country.

I lived the life of a penniless vagrant for some of the time and for a while I also drove around in my own company car, such was the way my life in Oz took some radical changes of fortune. I had already been away from home for almost two years when I left the easy and comfortable life on Kibbutz Beeri in Israel for a risky and uncertain existence in Australia. So what happened to me when I crossed the world and arrived down under?

After arriving in Sydney I lived underneath some stairs like Harry Potter in a strange house for weeks with a woman who sat knitting and smoking dope all night, every night. When I left there I started renting a room in a cockroach infested tenement close to the world famous Bondi beach. The house in Bondi was also occupied by some very unconventional people, who I tried my best to avoid while I spent many long carefree sunny afternoons body surfing and sleeping on the beach. In the evenings I worked in a very strange job selling acrylic paintings door to door. I moved north to sub-tropical Brisbane and rented a flat with a gay New Zealander whose brother was a cannabis dealer on the nearby Gold Coast. I then discovered what a bong was and a mull bowl and spent the next few months quite detached from reality as a result.

I didnt plan my trip very well because, during most of my time in Australia, I was an illegal over-stayer on a six week tourist visa. I couldnt claim state benefits and I had no official work permit, and so I had to take any casual work I could find in order to survive. Quite often I had little or no money in my pockets and at the end of it all I weighed less than ten stone (or 140 pounds) having lost almost a quarter of my body weight. In fact, within days of my arrival in Australia I remember walking across Sydney Harbour Bridge with empty pockets and an even emptier stomach. How on earth did I manage to survive for a further twelve months?

As usual I kept detailed diaries of my adventures, writing regularly of the events, the people, the sights, and more importantly some of my inner-most thoughts of the time. The undoubted highlight of this astonishing experience and perhaps the main reason for my visit was my wonderful hitchhiking adventure across the vast sunburnt continent. From Brisbane up to Townsville, across Queensland to Mount Isa, up to Darwin in the tropical Northern Territory, through the desert wilderness to Alice Springs, across the Woomera Prohibited Area to Adelaide, then to Melbourne, on to Sydney, and back up to Brisbane. I crossed Australia travelling more than 6,000 miles (10,000 kilometres) using nothing more than my thumb and some quiet determination.

At some point during my year there I fell hopelessly in love with Australia. Maybe it happened in the back of the Holden Ute at midnight when looking up at the stars as I crossed the spectacular emptiness of central Queensland. It could have been during my lift with Rod and Ritchie from Darwin to Katherine while we smoked Sinsemilla, drank ice-cold beer and listened to The Rolling Stones. I think it was probably when I woke up in my little tent at Julia Creek and saw remote central Queensland in daylight for the first time. One thing is for certain; when I eventually left Australia this fabulous continent had left a permanent impression and changed me forever.

Jonathan Nicholas

March 2014