When I was eighteen, I just went off and travelled… I didn’t have anybody watching me, or criticising me. I didn’t really have any money, but it didn’t seem to matter. People were so helpful and generous. My family reported me as a missing person. The police saw my truck parked in the street. They were like: ‘why don’t you call your mum? She’s worried about you.”

Hitchhiking north to Queensland, Australia. 
I’m headed to Springbrook, for a hippy new year’s eve party in the bush.

(Top pic: new years eve in the forest at Springbrook.)

I get dropped off in Hexham.   I walk across the bridge over the Hunter River, and find a spot on the side of the road.  A light rain has started.

An old green LandCruiser truck pulls over and I stick my head in the window.  The young bloke at the wheel asks me where I want to go.  ‘Up to Queensland’ I tell him.  ‘OK mate’ he says.  ‘Jump in.  I’m going to Fraser Island.’

Craig is in his late twenties.  In the back of his truck is a jumble of camping gear, an esky, a guitar and a surfboard.  He is tall and blonde; an almost stereotypically handsome Aussie surfer with shaggy hair and a look of perpetual bemusement in his eyes.
“My mates drove past and saw you” Craig tells me.  “They called me on the radio.  I’ve done a bit of hitchhiking myself, so they were like, ‘there’s a bloke hitching.  You gonna pick him up?”

(Below: me, hitching north to Queensland.)

Craig’s truck is a classic.  Grass green.  Wooden flat bed.  He has only owned it a few weeks, and I can tell it is his pride and joy.
“This is the second one like this I’ve had” Craig says.  “I used to have one just the same, but orange.  I bought this one off an old farmer.  It’s an eighty-two.  The old bloke got it new, and used it as a farm truck.  It’s never been road registered until two weeks ago.  Only done ninety thousand K’s.”

We rumble down the road, talking about beaches, women, travel and music.
“I want to travel more” Craig tells me.  “Sometimes I wonder what I’m doing with my life.  I work hard, I make money, but sometimes I feel like it’s more for my family than it is for me.  I’m the black sheep.  My parents, my brothers, they are all very conservative religious people.  They can’t understand that I don’t want the same things from life that they do.  Sometimes I just disappear.  When I was eighteen, I just went off and travelled for nearly a year.  I went on my own, and I didn’t tell anybody where I was going.  It felt so good to be independent.   I didn’t have anybody watching me, or criticising me.  I didn’t really have any money, but it didn’t seem to matter.  People were so helpful and generous.   I got work here and there.  My family reported me as a missing person.  The police saw my truck parked in the street.  They were like: ‘why don’t you call your mum?  She’s worried about you.’  Truth was, I knew if I called them, they were just going to try and convince me to get a real job, and live a normal life: go to church, get married, have kids.  I felt free, and I didn’t want them trying to interfere.   I called my mum and told her to leave me alone.

Just south of Taree, there is a sharp ‘bang’ sound and something starts to rattle loudly. 
“Shit!” Craig mumbles.  “I think I’ve blown a tyre.”
He pulls over to the side of the road and we take a look at the tyres.  They are all OK.  Craig lifts the bonnet of the truck.  The water pump has broken off, and the fan has gouged a big hole in the back of the radiator.  Steam is hissing out of the water tank.    
It starts to rain again.
We sit in the truck and have a smoke.  Craig looks devastated.
“Well… looks like I’m not going to Fraser Island now.”

It’s Sunday evening, two days before new years, but Craig manages to get a tow truck to take the LandCruiser the last few kilometres into Taree.  The tow truck drops us off at a mechanical workshop.
‘Taree Radiators’ the sign over the door says. ‘The best place in town to take a leak.’  The workshop is closed, but the tow truck driver assures us that the mechanics will be back in the morning.

(Above: stranded in Taree, in the rain. At least we are at ‘the best place in town to take a leak.’)

There is a grassy parking area behind the workshop.  Craig and I stretch his tarp over the back of the truck, and make ourselves as comfortable as we can out of the rain.  We have some sausage sandwiches for tea and roll up a couple of blunts. 
Craig gets his battered nylon string guitar out.  He surprises me by playing a whimsical, complex improvisation, with flavours of Spanish, Gypsy, and jazz.  I grab my harmonica’s and we have a really fun jam.
“Nice sounds” I tell Craig.
“I really like rebetika” Craig tells me.
“rebetika?  What’s that?”
“It’s Greek jazz, basically.  It’s a blend of all kinds of eastern traditional folk.  It was outlawed under the Greek fascist regime in the thirties, so it started to be protest music, like the blues in America.”
“I like it.  It reminds me of Gypsy music and flamenco.”
We play for a bit longer and then the rain gets heavier and the drumming on the tarp drowns us out. 
We have a glass of port, and turn in for the night.

(Below: that’s me, hanging out behind the garage. We spent the night there waiting for the mechanics to show up. Thanks for the pic, Craigo!)

(Above: storm clouds over the plain outside Taree.)

In the morning, the mechanic takes a look at Craig’s motor.
“You’re in luck” he tells us. “I got a mate who’s crazy about eighties Landy’s.  He’s got a spare water pump and fan sitting in his back shed that’ll fit in here.  I’ll patch up your radiator and you should be good to go by lunchtime.
We are a bit sceptical about the mechanic’s optimistic appraisal.  Lunchtime is only a few hours away.  Maybe he means lunchtime tomorrow? 
We take a walk to get some breakfast.

We get back to the garage about twelve-fifteen.  The truck is fixed and ready to go as promised.  Somehow we have stumbled on the fastest working mechanic in Australia.
Craig is all smiles until he gets the invoice.

The truck drives beautifully again, but Craig looks less than happy as we head north.  I ask him what’s on his mind.
“This is my dilemma, mate: after fixing the truck, I don’t have enough money left to go up to Fraser Island.  My mates will be there by now.  I don’t know if I should try and hitch up there, or just pack it in and head back south.”
“Well, there is another option” I tell him.  “You could come along to the hippy new year party with me.  I have no idea what it’s going to be like, but it could be fun, and I know the forest around the Nerang River is really beautiful.
Craig looks thoughtful.
“Well, I might camp there tonight and see how it goes.  I don’t really have much experience with hippies.”

(Above: Australia’s fastest mechanic working on Craig’s Landy’.)

The new years eve party has been organised by a group of Confest people from the Southern Queensland area.  Like in twenty-thirteen, the big Confest at Moulamein has been cancelled this new year, so the gathering at Springbrook is a small scale alternative.  After my experience last new year’s eve at Bundeena, I am not sure what to expect, or even if the party will actually happen, but I have faith in the fortunes of the road.  Something good will eventuate.  My motto these days is: ‘go to it, and it will happen.’

When we arrive at the gathering site in late afternoon, there is already quite a few people there and a big marquee is set up beside the creek.
I’m glad I warned Craig that it is a clothing-optional event, because there are quite a few people getting around butt naked.
There’s about a dozen people under the marquee, where the communal kitchen is set up.  They give us a warm welcome, and lots of left over pizza.
There’s a nice jam session as the twilight deepens.  I get out my harmonicas and join in. 
It’s a colorful crowd: hippies in gaudy outfits; grizzle-bearded Gypsies; dreadlocked mums and smiling, feral kids.
There is chai bubbling on the gas cooker.  A bunch of kids and a couple of nude, blissed-out hippies are getting their dance on.  Pretty, tie-dyed girls are singing traditional Indian songs. The valley rings with the sounds of guitars, mandolins ukuleles and drums.   I glance over at Craig.  He seems to be enjoying the music, and coping reasonably well with the culture shock, but I can tell he would rather be on Fraser Island sipping a cold beer with his mates.

(Below: the gathering site.)

(Above: that’s my home: foreground; left.)

New year’s eve is glorious.  It’s a hot, sunny day.  The creek is beautiful, as if it was created by an expensive landscape designer.  The water is just slightly cooler than body temperature, and there is a swimming hole, below a waterfall, deep enough to dive into.
We spend the day lounging on the creek bank, smoking, drinking and telling stories.  The kids play blissfully in the water.  Butterflies weave through the forest canopy.  Rich smells of curry and wood smoke drift across the clearing from the kitchen marquee.
Craig starts to enjoy himself, diving off the rocks into the creek with the kids, and trading yarns with the old gypsies.
He keeps his clothes on, but I can see Craig is getting the hang of the hippy vibe.

(Above: Natural Bridge waterfall, just upstream from the camp site. You can buy a high quality print of this photo from the Raw Safari Print Shop, for just $10.80 – secure international delivery and satisfaction guaranteed.)

We cook up a feast for dinner.   Rich curry stew, fresh damper.  Fruit salad.  
After we eat, there is a spontaneous concert on a stage under the marquee.  Everyone who can play or sing does a turn.   Craig and I hang back, but in then end we get our courage up and take the stage. 
“What do you want to play?” Craig asks me.
“Let’s do some improvised rebetika, like we were playing the other night” I suggest. 
We play together for about a quarter of an hour, and it is great fun.  When he starts riffing, Craig gets lost in the complex, winding rythmns, spinning long phrases and arpegios.  Some folk singers join us on the stage and the jam grows.   The smile on my face is almost as wide as the warm, still, summer night.

Nobody is quite sure when midnight is (hippies don’t go for watches much) but when everyone is buzzing with ganja and music, we have a countdown, and there is a rousing howl of ‘HAPPY NEW YEAR’ and a lot of hugging and laughter.

Craig and I settle back and have a nip of port.
“Must be a big party on Fraser Island tonight” I comment.  “The backpackers will be whooping it up on the beach, no doubt.”
“Yeah.  I should probably message my mates and let ’em know where I am” Craig smiles.
“They might freak out if you tell them you’re lost in the forest with a bunch of feral nudists.”
Craig laughs.  “I’m glad I’m here.  I think this is exactly what I needed.  I’ve been going round and around in my head for months now, trying to figure out what I want out of my life.  I know I don’t want to be a total feral, and drop out and all that, but I like this way of life.  It’s simple, and happy, isn’t it?”
I nod.  “I love being in this culture.  I wouldn’t call myself a hippy, but I love these gatherings because they remind me I’m part of a tribe.  It’s a tribe of people who want to be free.”
“Living in the city, and working, and going out on the weekend… sometimes I just want to hit the road and get lost” Craig says, quietly.  “Talking to you about the way you live, seeing how this gathering is, everyone here is really happy with simple things.   I wish my family could see this.  At least they’d know I’m not the only one who needs to live outside the ‘normal’ world sometimes.”
“If there’s one thing I know for sure, it’s this:” I say, “no-one knows what I need to be happy better than I do.  Not my family, not my friends, not ‘god’, not the government.  Everyone knows what they need to do to be happy.  We just got to trust ourselves enough to do it, whatever that is.”
After a pause Craig smiles and refills our glasses.  “I reckon I should do some more hitchhiking in twenty-fifteen.  Cheers, Manny!”
“Cheers, Craigo!  Happy new year, mate!”

(Above: Craigo playing rebetika in the kitchen.)
(Below: Springbrook. As good a place as any to get lost.)

 

 

 

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