This article is classified "Real"
The York Jazz Festival.
Here are the experiences of two Hitch-Hikers, trying to get to the
York Jazz Festival. These notes should perhaps be taken as "How NOT to
get to the York Jazz Festival," rather than as "How to get to the
York Jazz Festival."
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We were at a party somewhere down in Cottesloe , down on good-ole
Broome Street. I can't for the life of me remember what the party
was for, but it was a Friday night, I remember that much. I don't
think the party was very much fun, and we wanted to go up to the
York Jazz Festival. So, it seeming like a good idea at the time
(and most ideas seem like good ideas while drunk at 2:00 in the
morning), Gary and I decided to hitch to York. We set off, paused
at Stanley Street to pick up a backpack full of beer, and set off.
Memories of the hitch itself are a little vague, but a few highlights
still stand out. We wound up on Riverside Drive, down below the Bridge.
There was a little old Italian man in a Purple valiant, stopped at
the traffic lights. We went up to the window, and made pretty obvious
hitching signs. He told us to "Fuck Off", and sped away from the lights.
I took this as an insult, so hurled my mostly-empty beer can after him.
I must have had a tail wind and a lucky trajectory, because the can
bounced squarely off the centre of his roof, with a lovely "bong"
noise - this was in the days of the good old steel cans - A man new
where he was with a steel can [1].
At the sound of this noise, Gary and I made a quick, strategic change
in planned routes, and ran away up a side street. By some lucky chance,
this side street just happened to lead us up to that haven of midnight
travellers, Fast Eddies. As we were expecting to see someone unexpected,
we saw no-one. We ate a couple of burgers, and then called on the helpful
advice of the entire clientele, as to which direction we should take to
hitch to York. After taking a quick statistical summary of this advice,
which would have left us sitting in Fast Eddies, we ignored them all
and headed off again into the unknown.
Next stop was the Entertainment Centre. This is the big concert hall in
the middle of Perth, which is usually quite empty at this time of the
morning. I guess that it must have been about 3:00 by now. Well, we
were quickly drawn by a large-ish crowd outside. We went and shared
a few beers with them, mostly Boguns. It took a while to find out what
they were waiting for, as they didn't seem to be making any sort of
queue. Apparently, tickets for some concert or other were going on
sale on Tuesday, so they had decided to "hang out" for a while. We
again took a quick poll on suggested directions for hitching,
completely ignored the advice, and headed off.
We then got a lift from two girls, somewhere near the Causeway. I don't
exactly remember the story in this car, but one of the two (the driver)
was nice and friendly, and so being good and responsible Hitch-hikers
that we are, we immediately tried to convince here to take us back to
her place. She was actually wavering towards a yes on this one, but
her friend (Why do the nice girls always have them?) was the "blocker,"
and so wanted nothing to do with men in general, and less to do with
us in particular. So, we waved our sad goodbyes somewhere the Perth
side of Midland.
Here the hitchhiking slowed down a little, and we walked for about
half an hour without a lift. Gary's nervous energy was running down
about this time, and he said he wanted to take a nap. I was still
fine, and the beer-backpack almost seemed to be getting lighter [2].
As chance would have it, we were passing a shopping centre at the time.
So, the foundations were laid for another "Good Idea At The Time."
I grabbed a shopping trolley, Gary climbed in to sleep, and I carried
on wheeling him in front of me.
Gary dropped off quickly, and I soon decided that the footpath was too
cracked and rough for him to sleep properly, so I headed out on to the
road. This was much easier, and Gary slept soundly. The road was a
dual carriage way, so I wasn't too worried about cars. However, the few
cars coming along were moving quite fast, it being about 4:30. I found
it incredibly amusing to see how close they would get before they would
see us and move over, and some of them were coming pretty close, to the
point of having to slam on the brakes and skid around us. Gary woke up
somewhere about this time, and I explained to him how funny I thought
this was. I'm not sure if it was this, or the half hours sleep he had
had, but he was suddenly brimming with that good old nervous energy again.
He offered to push me for a while, but stressed that it had to be on the
footpath. I wasn't really tired, and we decided that in fact the chances
of somebody stopping to pick up two hitchhikers, one of whom was in a
shopping trolley, were pretty slim.
So, we made an executive decision, and ditched the trolley. I think we
walked for about an hour and a half in all, right to the other side of
Midland, and to the bottom of Greenmount. We then managed to hitch a
lift as far as the turn off to York (a well know petrol station whose
name escapes me for the moment). It was here, with about 40km left to
travel, that the beer and my nervous energy ran out. I remember
crashing out on the hard baked-red earth, looking at the ants running
around inches from my nose, and hoping that they were still to sleepy
at this hour of the morning to bite me.
I think that Gary fell asleep too, but he had the presence of mind to
fall asleep with his thumb out. I woke up with him shaking me, as a van
had stopped and offered us a lift. They dropped us off at the little
greasy roadhouse at the entrance to York, and I think it was just
around 7:00. We went in for a snack (I was disappointed because they
had no beer). The place was quite unremarkable, and has simply left
a dark grey firmly implanted on my memory.
The only other customers, however, have left a lasting impression on
me. There were four of them, Mum, Dad, and two kids aged around seven
and nine. They were eating something, I think it must have been some
kind of soup. They were all dressed in grey, they were all looking
down at their plates, and the only noises were the occasional slurp
or scrape of bowl. The waitress had a face about 10 miles long as
well, and I quickly decided that I should get Gary out of this place
as quickly as possible. I told him to follow me, and made a break
for the door. Luckily, no-one saw us, or if they did, they didn't care.
The sun was starting to come up as we walked in to town, it was cool
and quiet, and the adrenal power of adventure-hitching was running to
a dangerous low. We made it as far as the town park, and the nice
green grass and cool shade seduced us, so it was Z time again. I
woke up a couple of hours later, to the sight of one of our Boys in
Blue, disdainfully prodding Gary with a black-booted foot. Now the
sight of a blue uniform when I wake up has a stunning effect on my
nerve centres and adrenal glands, and in seconds, I was wide awake
and full of energy, and jogged over as if I had just run three laps
of the park. I sweet talked the policeman, about how we were staying
in town, and just sat down to rest five minutes, with images of
nationwide police bulletins about dangerous fugitive hitch-hikers
in my head. So, we headed out of the park, still babbling profuse
inanities to the policeman.
The next step was simply to find the others, but in fact, we only had
pretty vague directions of where to go, as well as a pretty vague idea
of where we actually were to start with. Our first point of reference
was to find a certain furniture shop. We found this with only a little
searching, but of course, there was no-one there. Asking at a few of
the shops around soon provided us with directions, along with a few
raised eyebrows and wrinkled noses. I don't remember seeing a mirror
anywhere, but that is probably just as well.
Well, we finally made it to the meeting point at about 11:00. Quite a
few of the others had already arrived, and they were just cracking open
the first of the days beers...
I never did see any Jazz during the weekend. So much for the Jazz Festival.
[1] Unless, of course, he was lost.
[2] Beer-backpacks can be highly recommended. The have the dual magic
properties of seeming to become lighter the further you walk, and
at the same time making YOU seem lighter as well [3].
[3] Up until a certain point, know sometimes as "The Beer Event Horizon."