Luckiest near misses

[Reboot]

Lol

Let’s just say a full on young rooster living life on the wild side had plenty of opportunities.

[Mex]

If only you could remember all of them

[Mex]

I agree though. While I didn’t dabble in anything more than pot, being a once fit, strong single bloke with no shame in a tourist town led to many good stories. And a few bad ones caught on cctv as well.

[Mackster]

Flew from Bangkok to Jakarta to catch connecting flight to Sumatra. Girlfriend had Salmonella so ended up taking her to hospital in Jakarta. Flight to Sumatra crashed into mountain. True story.

[Preliminary_Point2]

Winner

[mcdav]

Nearly gave CJ’s stories the TLDR treatment but glad I didn’t.

[Socks_and_Sandals]

A few months ago I was on a short break in Tassie tagging along with my partner who had a couple days work over a week in Hobart and Launceston. I had some time to kill on my last day in Launnie before flying home. I sat near where the River Tamar meets the Esk and noticed a building called the Penny Royal which was a motel I’d stayed at with my family holidaying around 1988. It was around the time us kids were brainwashed with the insulting Bicentennial celebrations.

It was about 6pm on a weekend, my sister and I had been fed, Mum and Dad were keen to hit up a casino nearby for a couple hours. This was prior to the gambling laws changing in Victoria. I wasn’t keen on going as there was the highlights package replay of English Soccer from the previous week was on. Prior to the internet, you had to consume your sporting fix differently. My sister was keen to stick around the hotel room and play with Carebear while I, approaching 12 and my sister 8 would be responsible and safe there for two hours. Shortly after our parents left, there was a knock at the door. I was fixated with the telly and the rare glimpse you got at watching English Division One back then. Therefore I wasn’t going to answer the knock at the door, so my sister in earnest did so. As a kid she was naive but switched on. I’m glad she opened the door with the chain, things could’ve been different. Half a minute later she comes bounding back and asks her deadshit older brother to help her answer a question at the door. I reluctantly got up and through ajar door there’s this odd bloke in tight black Lee jeans and a yellow t-shirt who years later I reflected, looked like the lead singer from The Spin Doctors. He asks me in a gravelly voice “Do you know where to buy these jeans?” No wonder my sister was baffled, I gave him the kind of attitude kids give sometimes when they’re confused, laughed and said “Nup!”, he asked again and I gave the same reply before saying “Seeya!” and closed the door. Half a minute later there’s another knock, we were a little tense thinking he was done with and I declared we’re not answering it. I got on with watching the highlights package and there were no more knocks. Mum and Dad got home probably about 9ish.

It seemed a bit odd at the time but the occasion passed as a non event. Every now and then over the years, my sister and I bring it up, the weird, Spin Doctors looking guy. We used to laugh about it all but as we’ve gotten older we realised independently how odd it was and that we’ll never realise who that guy was or just what his intentions were. What exactly are the motives of someone who does that? My sister and I will never know how far or close we were and it’s better that way. Kids aren’t left alone as often at they were 30 odd years ago in 1988, or even 1958.

I think @Captain_Jack’s two entries above are amongst the best posts I’ve ever read in over twelve years of reading Blitz. I only hitched a ride once in the late 90’s but it was one of those things from the stories I heard by Aunties and Uncles over in the west, where sometimes people never quite knew just how close or far they were from the near miss.

[Houli_Dooli]

My Dad followed Collingwood, Mother and older sisters Carlton!

[GeoffBlethynsGlasses]

Have you had the “you’re adopted” talk yet? If not, maybe brace yourself for a little surprise.

[Allblack]

In one of my interludes between Wives, I dated a seeming very serious young police constable who looked a lot like Pepper Anderson. She was really good company and lots of fun, but probably I should have heard the alarm bells when she opened the door at her flat one even only wearing her service revolver. She also insisted on wearing it to bed; talk about performance anxiety.

I left that night never to return; she went on to have a very distinguished career with VicPol rising to very senior management. Fortunately our paths never crossed again.

Good lord. It was Christine Nixon wasn’t it?

[Bacchusfox]

Nope it was not Ms Nixon.

[OBITV]

Was she a member of the Crack Squad?

[wannabe]

Near Miss – Part 2 Nimbin continued, the trip home.

By the Saturday morning, l knew l had had enough of the Nimbin festival experience. At the age of 23 l was something of a veteran of festivals, having been to 6 already. While l didn’t know what ailed me, l just wanted to go home. l would take any route to go home, l just wanted to be out of there. The first few rides took me as far as Tamworth, where l got stuck for a few hours. Just before sundown l got a ride with a guy, who could have been a character out of Vanishing Point. An ex – Vietnam vet, l am now convinced he had something like a death with.

He had lost his left arm below the elbow and was driving a manual Valiant ute, with a three speed column shift. To change gears he had to stick his right hand through the steering wheel, and ten make the change. He had driven nonstop from Cairns, in 33 hours, or so he said, and l have no reason to doubt him. He was driving to Sydney to pick up an HQ Premier, stick it on a trailer, and stick a V8 in the back of the ute. He had to be back in Cairns by Tuesday morning, as he worked as a camera operator for the ABC and he was part of crew flying out to Ayers Rock. He had made it this far on a mixture of adrenaline and speed, a deadly combination, and he was far from finished, hell, he wasn’t even half way there. He had also kept also kept all windows and vents open to channel in cold air, to help keep himself awake. It seemed to work, l was too cold to snooze. He agreed to drop me off somewhere in Newcastle. Approaching the Cahill Expressway we agreed to swap places and l would drive us into Newcastle. I can’t recall why l didn’t decide to go all the way to Sydney with him. The steering on the ute was sloppy, it took a quarter of a turn before the front wheels began to change direction. The steering was also what l would call nervous. The least little bump sent the steering wheel into shuddering and the front wheels sliding off to one side. How he managed to get this other death trap this far, l will never know, but l was seriously concerned about his, or anyone else’s ability to get this back to Cairns in one piece. l was happy to get out, when the time came.

I don’t recall how long l waited for the next ride, probably not too long. A couple of young guys in a new Holden panel van picked me up. They were already stoned, but we stopped somewhere in the hills above Newcastle and had a joint. It was good ■■■■, and l was able to relax, almost as much as these two guys. A fog had begun to roll in from even higher in the hills as we began a climb over some pass. Visibility dropped to about 20 mt. We were going uphill when a petrol tanker crested a rise right in front of us. I was convinced we were about to have a head on smash. There was no way l could see us avoiding such an accident. I closed my eyes, ready to accept my death and waited for the sound of the crash. Only the sound never came. A few seconds later l opened my eyes and looked at the two guys. They were relaxed to the point of being serene and still wore the slightly silly, red eyed smiles of the habitually stoned. Of the petrol tanker there was no sign. Where had it gone, had it driven completely over the top of us, withot even touching us? It didn’t seem possible that there had been enough space for the truck and car to pass without incident, but apparently the drama had all been in mind. Sometime later they or someone else dropped me off at the main crossroad in Liverpool. Some people will know this intersection well, for the traffic lights which overhang the intersection.

By now it was quite late, well after midnight, but l just had to keep going. I didn’t have much money, enough for food, but not so much l could splurge on accommodation. Besides, l was far from any hotel or motel, so l just had to wait it out, there and then until l got a ride. It took me hours of waiting to get the next ride, during which it got colder and my tired mind began to play desperate tricks on my conscious self. I had to do that in order to keep going. If l could have found a place to sleep for a couple of hours, l would have, but there was nowhere, so l just had to wait it out. There was little traffic going my way. Then just as the sun began to get a ride, l got a lift, then another, and another. The best lift l got was from a guy on a bright red 1947 Indian. This thing was long, it felt like it was about 3 m. in length and there was plenty of pillion room on the thing. By now the sun was up and l had left Sydney and that horrible crossroad in Liverpool where l had been stranded for 4 – 5 hours, well behind me.

The biker was restored the bike himself, and had a red beard. The old bike ca–thunked down the Hulme at a leisurely pace, quite the most memorable motorbike and bike ride l have ever been on, all 70 or so miles of it. He was headed to the ACT and dropped me off at the turn off. l walked a few hundred metres to past where the road from Canberra to Melbourne joins the Hulme, and there l was stranded again for some 3 – 4 hours. There was no point in walking, as l was in the middle of nowhere. After about 3 hours another hitchhiker arrived. He stayed on the Sydney side of the Canberra to Melbourne road. This meant the late comer stood a better chance of getting a lift than me, as any car that stopped was more likely to only pick up one hitchhiker, than two. I silently cursed his arrival. About 2 o’clock in the afternoon, my one hitchhiker theory looked like it was going to come true, when a dark blue EJ panel van slowed down, then stopped and picked him up.

As they pulled back onto the highway, l dropped to my knees and raised my hands in mock prayer, and my prayers were answered. The panel van slowed down and picked me up also, it turned out my single hitchhiker theory was wrong after all. The van was headed to somewhere in Melbourne, l can’t recall exactly where. Staying up all night trying to get a ride out of Liverpool caught up with me. I crashed out on the floor of the back of the panel van, and slept most of the way from Canberra to Coburg. I was awoken at one stage by a nudge in the back from the couple also in the back who were coupling, and proving the ‘■■■■■■■’ wagon’, was indeed well named.

Sydney Road in Coburg never looked so good to me, as on that night. It had begun to rain, and the old EJ slipped a little on the tram tracks, but l didn’t care. After a horror week or even longer, l was almost home, and l felt better knowing that my sojourn was almost over. True to their word, they dropped me off at the bottom end of Elizabeth St, right at the station. It was after midnight on a Sunday night, and the trains had all been put to sleep for the night.

I fished around in a hole in my jeans and pulled out the last of my cash. There was nothing for it but to take a taxi home. l had hitched all l was going to on this trip, l wasn’t prepared to wait any longer for another ride. I was suddenly tired, and dirty and wanted to be home and asleep in my own bed, just as soon as l could be. I slept in late the next morning, then told mum a little of my trip. There was no way l could have told her all of the above then, and l have never retold this story in any great detail, until now. Nimbin? Pffft!

Epilogue. I hooked up with one of the girls in the car, the one who had broken her collarbone. They had endured a nightmare train trip home that had taken them almost 2 full days to endure, with plenty of delays and slow rattlers, for carriages. She and l lasted together 3 months.

TL;DR: CJ got laid.

(Seriously good post and worth reading though!)

[Preliminary_Point2]

On the one hand the art of the road trip has been lost on the other hand $200 return tickets to fly interstate is way more convenient.

[machina]

Unknowingly picked up a brown snake and put it in a wheel barrow.

[wimmera1]

Lol.
That reminds me.
In the surf at Queensland:
‘Oh, look. A plastic bag. How terrible. I’ll just grab that and take it back…oh. Oh, I do apologise Mr Enormous Jellyfish. There you go, back in the water…’

[Henry_s_Angry_Pills]

My old man met him when he was still going by Ian.
Both had something to do with some melbourne poetry magazine or something. Molly drifted more towards music and got less nerdy, my dad doubled down on the nerdiness.

[Hoffy]

In the days before mobile phones and you made arrangements days/weeks in advanced, a mate and I decided to go rock climbing in Nthn Ireland. We lived in London and caught the train and ferry to Dublin. But the crossing was really rough and we were delayed by a couple of hours and we missed our train to Belfast. We changed to a bus ticket for the next morning. We caught up with a friend of a friend in Dublin Town and got absolutely hammered on Guinness. We all went back to his place and passed out. Woke up and realised that we had missed the bus. So we changed our tickets back to the train and caught the train to Belfast.
When we got to Belfast and the caught up with the mates that we had arranged to climb with, they started yelling a lot, drunk Connor McKenna’s aren’t easy to understand…
We told the guys that we were on the morning bus and either the IRA or UDF decided to blow it up. They thought we were on it.

[coldblood]

Molly used to go down the surf at Pt Leo in the early 60’s with some guys I got to know afterwards I don’t think he was there for the surfing .They were a pretty wild bunch back then ,wouldn’t tolerate any strangers in the surf and even told to F’off in the car park.

[Klawdy]

I did a Contiki tour and we had to be on the bus at 7am after a 12hr Munich bender. About 2 hrs into the trip I had some serious abdominal pains and we weren’t allowed to use the loo on the bus (annoying!). After much pleading to the tour manager and then the bus driver they pulled over just in the nick of time. I don’t think it was the Black Forest but it was certainly brown. Ba-doom tish.