I HITCHED home from Darwin in four days. I googled the distance and found this answer:
“The road distance between Melbourne and Darwin is around 3752 kilometres. The journey would take approximately 45 hours, so would best be undertaken over a minimum of 5 days.”
I won, and without a car! Here are some other non-vital statistics…
7: different lifts
6.5: hours waiting by the road
97: roadkill carcasses (an estimate), attended by
283: contented crows (also an estimate)
13: roadhouse pitstops
18: pee breaks
1185: kilometres covered in the longest lift, from Katherine to Alice Springs
3: hours I drove the (government) car during that ride
2: other hitchhikers we picked up, including the owner of a roadhouse near
1: roadside bushfire we braved, with
5: metre flames on either side of the vehicle
1: crocodile-skin vest, borrowed from
1: itinerant tree-dweller named ‘Bushy’
20: hours in the longest driving day, from Coober Pedy to my door
1: free lunch given to me by picnickers in Port Augusta
1,3 &5: the only functioning gears in the backpackers’ bombed out Nissan Pulsar (no reverse)
1: stop by the police highway patrol, and
0: charges laid
It all adds up to…
1: happy traveller/tree-dwelling protégé