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By Gavin Tyte
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After deciding to follow Jesus, the first thing I started to do was pray. Later on in my journey, as I grew in my relationship with God and learned to hear Him, I would ask when and when not to hitchhike. But for now, it was enough for me to pray that God would keep me safe on the road, and to lead me to people he wanted me to meet.
It is quite a trek from the east coast to the centre of Australia and as I waited by the edge of the road another hitchhiker walked towards me. He was an American chap who had been on the road for more than seven years, although this was his first time down under. He said he was going to walk to the next town, Balfes Creek, just 31.5 miles or a day-and-a-halves walk away, and for some reason I decided to join him. We figured we might well be picked up on the way. You may think it was quite a strain walking in thirty to forty degree heat with loaded backpacks but it was quite pleasant. As we walked we chatted and we shared backpacking stories. I only had a few weeks worth so they were exhausted after five minutes but he had had one or two interesting experiences in seven years.
He recounted how he had been through the windscreen of a car three times, rescued from the sea twice and how on one occasion in Florida, he had seen a nice lake behind a couple of fences, climbed over and pitched his tent. It was only the next morning that as he walked along the road he realised he had spent the night in a crocodile farm! He told me never to ride with someone drinking. One time he had hitched in a truck with a man who was drunk and the drunk driver swung onto the wrong side of the road on a collision course with an oncoming car. The hitchhiker had grabbed the wheel to avoid a crash and had turned the truck over. Luckily no one was injured but the drunk started to make out that it was the hitchhikers fault and so he legged it.
We pitched our tent in a clearing by the edge of the road and built a small fire. The American pulled a Bible from his backpack and I enquired as to whether he was a Christian. He looked at me as if I had asked a very stupid question and said "Gavin, don’t you think someone has been looking out for me?"
That night as I slept in the middle of nowhere I was woken by a low rumbling sound that was getting louder and louder very quickly. It wasn’t like the sound of anything I had heard before and I bolted upright in the complete darkness of my tent. Something was coming nearer. I had never heard such a frightening sound - like the world was caving in. A crashing, rumbling sound and it felt like my head was between the blades of a combined harvester. I began to sweat all over. It was almost on top of us. I ran out of the tent into the darkness to meet my doom and met the American doing the same thing. The air was filled with the sound as it came nearer and nearer, and then, only yards away I made out the hulking silhouette of a large freight train as it passed. We had pitched our tents right next to the railway tracks and hadn’t even noticed. For such a simple thing, it left me pretty shaken, I can tell you.
The next day, we made it to Balfes Creek, and it consisted of a roadhouse and campground. We decided to wait here for a lift and we ate one meal a day at the roadhouse. Why only one meal a day? The portions in this place were so large that on one occasion a long distance lorry driver had his plate delivered to his table and told the cook to take it back and take off some of the food!
After three-and-a-half days of waiting a local farmer picked us up. He invited us to stay the night at his ranch near a town called Prairie. We agreed. The farmer and his wife had a 40,000-acre property that was apparently quite small compared to their last farm in the Northern Territory that was 250,000 acres! They lived in a beautiful homestead surrounded by lush green trees and lawns - an oasis in the brown countryside. When we got there the farmer had discovered that his freezer had been left open and all the food had defrosted, so for dinner we feasted on prawns and other delicacies. That evening a roo-shooter came to the door. His ute had a frame on the back with dozens of hooks on which to hang the dead kangaroos. Roo-shooters sell the meat and skins to make a living. Since the farmers began to pump groundwater into water holes for the cattle, the number of kangaroos the land could support had risen and the kangaroos required culling.
The next day, the American and I helped the rancher on his farm. We chased a bull across country in a jeep to drive it back into the pen from which it had escaped. The jeep had tyres strapped to the front bumper so that the rancher could ram bulls when they needed to be caught. Thankfully we didn’t need them on this occasion. As we raced over the terrain chasing the bull, startled Emus scattered and ran into the undergrowth. It was quite an experience. After rounding up the bull we cleaned out water troughs and in one waterhole, a drowned kangaroo needed removing. I remember the stench from the bloated carcass and all the skin slipping off the tail as the rancher tried to pull it from the water. It was enough to make you yack.
After leaving Prairie, the American and I parted ways as I secured a lift with a large oil truck. At the next town I decided to disembark, forgoing a lift to the mining town of Coober Pedy, to see the skeleton of a local legend - the mutabutasaurus dinosaur. My guidebook assured me it was the thing to see and I wandered into the museum, wandered around the dinosaur skeleton, and then wandered out again. The dinosaur skeleton was the museum’s only exhibit! To boost the local economy I bought a postcard of the large, unexciting, brown beast. The whole visit had taken 10 minutes and so I made my way back onto the road to catch another lift.
In the space of a few days I had experienced such a range of emotions. The fear of strange sounds in the dark, the thrill of feasting on prawns and steak, the excitement of chasing bulls in a jeep, the disgust of disposing of dead kangaroos, the disappointment of a museum with a single brown exhibit. Yet, this journey had led me to meet a wandering hobo, a rugged farmer, a roo-shooter, and a long-distance lorry driver – a pretty rugged and down-to-earth bunch. Could there be anyone less spiritual? Yet, when Jesus chose his disciples, he didn’t pick a lawyer, a teacher, a councillor and a vicar, no, he picked labourers, fishermen and tax collectors – a pretty rugged and down-to-earth bunch. Makes you think doesn’t it?
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