LARRIKIN’S ALL ROUND

“I SHAMBLED AFTER (THEM)

… because the only people who interest me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn…”

Three months after I first read and was inspired by this quote, and the rest of Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road”, I hitchhiked from Sydney to Perth and back in 11 days for a bet. I made it with a bit under 6 hours to spare.

It was 1964, vast stretches including all the Nullabor were unsealed and I was 13 years old.

In the almost exactly 47 years since (the trip was 11 days because that’s how long the June school holidays were then) I’ve been drawn to the crazies, to the manics and the maniacs, to the passionate and obsessed, and to the class we now know and accept as ‘larrikins’.

Give me a sniff of a larrikin, no matter if it’s a living breathing one in a bar or the memories and stories of one long gone, I’m up for the shamble.

And as I turn Super Ten left off the C511 just adjacent to the confluence of the