Chapter Two

My First Hitchhiking trip

Waiting for a ride at Eden while singing Riders of the Storm

The next day was not as smooth as it was the day before.  We walked up the hill from the beach, I tell ya, it was a hike! Still so glad my bag was light. As soon as we got to the top, we put down our bags and took turns sticking our thumbs out while singing "Riders of the Storm", probably not the best song to sing while hitch hiking. We waited and waited and waited. After 3.5 hours we finally got a ride. We had 2 rides all together that day and ended up spending the afternoon at Lakes Entrance. 

We nested ourselves for the night amongst shrubs beside the lake. Jumped in the water, freshened up and of course, froze. It was far south then, it was my first furthest south and it was autumn. We had a nice night there, no weird frog sounds this time, just fishermen who's been practicing maneuvering their small boat off the big boat, so a few times we heard a 'BANG' sound here and there. It reduced as they got better and dissapeared after they finally got the boat in the lake.

Lake Entrance, Victoria. Our campsite for the night. With the big boat 'entertainment of the night'

Hike up to find a good spot to hitch

In the morning we had to do another hike up the hill to get out of town. It appears that sticking your thumb out is more effective done at the outskirts of town. As we reached the top of the hill, we stopped to enjoy the view. It was a pretty pretty view, really did take my breath away. We continued walking and I stuck my thumb out in front of a place that Emmanuel would refer as a flea pit. Not long, we got a ride and had a few interesting rides from 3 different blokes. The forth ride was from a farmer name Bruiser. He was a trooper. He took us to his farm and gave a personal farm tour. It was so exciting for me because that was the first time I went to an Aussie farm. We ended the tour by having the end result of the milk from tea that he made for us and also offered us to stay over when we pass again. Gee, I was overwhelmed by his generosity. 

View of Lake Entrance from the top of the hill

He then dropped us off in town where we had lunch. We then walked out of town and had a ride to Melbourne where we slept on a bed at our friend's place. We started hitching again after going through the city by train. Our first ride was with a truckie! 'Yeah! First truck ride! Awesome!' I thought to myself. After the sixth ride, we got picked up by Brian who also invited us for lunch at his house. It was the best spaghetti bolognaise that I ever had. After Brian dropped us off in the outskirts of Barnham, we stuck our thumbs out for a few hours. It was getting dark, yet we were so close to our main destination, Moulamein. I looked around and couldn't imagine finding a nice place to camp the night. Then a campervan drove closer and stopped! YAAAAAY! Noosi, the driver was going exactly where we were going as well! It was perfect timing. 

From then on, we were at Confest in Moulamein NSW for a week. Now, I won't go into too much detail about Confest, but I can only say one thing about it. It really did change my life and that is the truth. On the next blog I'll write the story of our trip back home. So tune in for the next chapter.

Map of Eden NSW to Moulamein NSW through Victoria

tuturutututuuuuuut turutuuuutut dum durum dum duuuummm..

Good night ladies and gentleman, until the next blog..