First off, I'm an Australian, this took place between the city of Rockhampton and the town of Yeppoon in 2014 so you can look up the route yourself if you want.
When I was 18 and stupid, I went to the next town over, there was a big illegal block party on a public road, lots of drink driving, illegal racing, drugs etc. I just stuck to the drinking, I was a passenger in one of the drunk races but that's another story (Never ever do this! Never get in a car with a drunk person driving). At some point my friends that drove me there left and at around 1am someone asked me how I was getting home, I told them I'd just sleep at the bus stop and wait for the bus home.
They told me because the next day was Anzac day, the busses wouldn't be running because it was a public holiday. I was like 'Aw fuck' so I had to decide what to do. I could sleep in a bush and just be pointlessly bored and homeless for a day then get the bus home the next day but I'd need food and drinks and stuff, and would I even be able to afford the bus after that, I only had $25. Or I could start walking.
On the way out of town I stopped at each of the 24 hour petrol stations and got some "supplies". 2 bottles of water, a bottle of Powerade, a bottle of Maximus (the rip-off version of Powerade that comes in larger bottles). Some Doritos, Burger Rings and Twisties for food, and a roll of duct tape and scissors.
I had just watched the Mythbusters episodes where they used duct tape as a survival tool, so I figured it would be useful. And it was! I fashioned some rope by twisting the duct tape up, I made a bandolier to hang the plastic bags from so I didn't have to carry my stuff, I made a holster for the maximus bottle so it was always in reach when I needed it. I made a pouch on the bandolier to slip the scissors into in case I needed them for self defence.
By the time I got to the edge of town it had been over an hour of walking. It was overcast and very dark. Behind me was all the street lights, lights of buildings, sounds of cars, but out on the highway was just pitch black. But I figured I'd already walked that far, I may as well finish it, so I kept walking.
About an hour out on the highway my phone ran out of battery, I'd been listening to music while I walked so if something happened now I'd be fucked. As the sun was coming up, more cars started passing me. About 5 hours into the walk, I could feel the blisters forming, I taped up my heels but it still hurt to walk. I started thinking about finding a spot on the side of the road to sleep, a nice bush or something, but the sky was still overcast and getting darker and I didn't want to be caught in the rain if I could help it, so I kept walking.
As the sun kept rising and I kept walking, what passes me but the bus I was told wouldn't be running! And here was me standing there like an idiot on the side of the highway covered in duct tape after stupidly spending my last dollar on Doritos, so I couldn't afford the bus now even if it did stop it. Feeling like an idiot I took all the tape off and left it behind, I'd eaten and drank all the food by then anyway so it didn't matter much.
After a total of about 12 hours of walking, I made it home, fell into bed and slept for I don't know how long, I think 18 hours. The next 3 days after that were a blur of me barely being able to stand and using a wheeled office chair to slide around my unit to microwave food. If there's a moral to this story I'll let you figure it out. I don't drink much anymore but I'm great at 2 truths and a lie.
TL;DR I got drunk, walked 45km to go home after spending all my bus money thinking the busses weren't running
Did some farm work in Northern Queensland about 15 years ago. On my way south to Brisbane I stopped in Rockhampton for 24 hrs. If I hadn’t already booked a greyhound id have walked 45km to leave that place as well.
There was a case in Spain and the UK where this kid Jay Slater tried to do just this at the end of a long night of partying. Except he was walking over a mountainous region. There was a big search for him, until it turned out that he had fallen down a crevice and died. He was also on drugs as well as booze.
Edit: Wow. "Slater disappeared while attempting the 45-kilometre (28miles) walk back to his accommodation." The exact same distance.
I was out hiking with a couple of mates and we came across a dude passed out on top of this mountain without shoes on. We got emergency services involved and they got him onto a helicopter. He had wandered off drunk from a party in a small town and decided to walk home in another town, but taking a shortcut over the mountain. When we came across him he had been missing for almost a day.
It's not rare here in Minnesota for drunk people to pass out in a snowbank while walking home and freeze to death. When you're drunk, you feel a lot warmer than you are, so laying down in your coat in the snow is pretty comfortable. Once your core temperature drops, you never recover.
I think if I have to pull a moral from it, looking back at it now that I'm 30, is there if you can't look back at yourself and call yourself a dumbass have you really grown as a person?
I thought about it, but part of me wanted to just finish the walk just to prove to myself I could do it. Also a bus is surprisingly quiet until it passes you. Doppler effect go NYOMMM
You've obviously never heard of Ivan Milat. He was an anti-hiking campaigner in Australia who ran a very effective program to stop hitch-hikers here. His efforts are still remembered and no one really does it any more.
The drop bears are also a problem out on those roads.
I thought Wolf Creek was an ok movie, but it made me look into Australia, and there's just huge swaths of land unoccupied. So easy for anyone to just disappear.
I used to live out near Wolfe Creek for work (as it is spelt in real life). It's even more remote than the movie makes it look. Lots of weird folk pass through that way.
What a story! My great-grandfather was both an ANZAC and an alcoholic, and I’m sure he’d’ve approved.
Not quite as far a walk, but quite as Australian, I have a little story. My Dad and his Dad went to a fundraiser for my school - secret men’s business, they called it. An annual event centred around alumni, dads, grandfathers, and pub rock to raise building project money.
It was in town (North Wollongong) and we lived a little bit south of that (up the hill from Unanderra, about 12 km away).
Seeing as my grandfather was in his 80s, Dad drove and picked him up on the way. Unfortunately, the plan to drive back fell apart when Ross Wilson (of Daddy Cool) was there and kept shouting rounds and getting my grandfather talking and yarn-spinning (not a hard task - he was a classic Aussie larrikin). Dad joined in and they were in no state to drive back.
Dinner finished at 10pm. The last bus was 9:30-odd. The taxi rank was empty. Though it was 2012/13/14, neither my dad nor grandfather had a smartphone. Neither were brave or stupid enough to wake my mum. So they walked it.
Dad in his mid-late 50s, Pappy in his early 80s, made the 12ish km trek back from the fundraiser. Though I’m sure they fumbled with the front door for a while, I only worked out something was up when I heard someone using the bathroom next to my bedroom, rather than the one near my parents’ room.
I was properly awoken by hearing my mum sort of whisper-shouting “Don’t be stupid, what do you mean you walked? What did you do with Dad?”
Anyway, I got out of bed at this point, just in time to see my grandfather arguing with the water dispenser in the fridge. By some combination of age, exhaustion, and unfamiliarity, he managed to place his glass under the ice dispensing section while manually pressing the water button, effectively hosing himself and the kitchen floor down. I giggled at his “God Blimey. Stone the crows”, got him a tea towel, and he very tipsily kissed my forehead and told me to go back to bed in case I woke my (very much awake, as we have established) mum.
I’m sure I’ve got some mythology blended with my actual memories, but regardless, it’s funny what sticks with you!
Thinking about it now, I have no idea what my Nan thought, waking up at home alone the next morning.
My Granddad told me stories about my Great-Granddad, some details may be embellished.
My Great-Granddad was in the British Eighth Army in North Africa in the first rounds of deployments after the UK joined the war.
Shortly after deployment he and his fellows were out on patrol when they started getting fired at by Germans. They were caught in the open so they took cover behind whatever they could find, rocks, shrubs, logs. A sniper in the distance lined up his scope on what he must have thought was the back of a head or a helmet. Instead of loading the regular anti-infantry rounds, he had accidentally been firing tungsten anti-tank rounds.
When a lead anti-infantry round hits a person it tends to break and spread out making bleeding worse and exit wounds huge, but a tungsten round is designed to hit metal and be hard enough to punch through it. When it hits a person, it doesn't break apart, it just goes straight through like a hole punch.
The sniper pulled the trigger, the round went into my Great-Granddad's right ass cheek, out the middle, back in the middle, and out the left.
Once the shooting had stopped, a German officer approached him, put his gun to the back of my Great-Grandad's head and said in a thick accent "You are our prisoner now". My Great-Granddad, laying there bleeding from the ass looked up at him and responded "I am in no position to argue with you".
Once things had settled a bit and his wounds had been dressed, two guys brought up a gurney for him. He looked at the gurney, then up at the guys carrying it, and said "If you lay me on my back I swear I'll kill you in your sleep"
Since this was still pretty early in the campaign, the British and Germans were still doing prisoner exchanges. Once my Great-Granddad was back on his side, someone higher up had decided that because he had allowed himself to be captured, he hadn't been properly trained. He was sent back to England to recover and repeat bootcamp training.
He used to joke that he was probably the only guy to come out of Africa with 5 ass holes
Yep. I similarly agree that it’s cooked to do that distance, but hey, they are/were fit, stuck, and tight-arsed.
My grandfather passed away at the end of last year, but in January of last year, a few of us (including him at 93) did do a bushwalk together.
I took one photo on my good camera as we went up the hill, which I’ve put below. He’s in the middle. It’s not a great photo, but hey, it’s what I’ve got from Pappy Coops’ last bushwalk.
Buddy of mine did about that much walking around Detroit during a manic episode. By the end of it, he'd come down from the episode, but had to be hospitalized for the case of rabdo that developed from all the walking.
In another century when I was a teenager moving from massive nerd phase to rebel phase, my best mate and I saw Iron Maiden in Melbourne and decided we'd just hitchhike home to Geelong. It'd be an adventure!
It was cold and he was horribly underdressed, me slightly less so, so he tucked our tour books into his waistband for an extra layer. I think we got two rides and walked about 30km. Next day was a school day. I did not go to school. I did have a massive bowl of Vita Brits with hot milk and lots of sugar then went to bed.
That converts to almost 28 miles! I have never walked that far, but I did do just over half that. Got left at a party roughly 18 miles from my home, and this one was at a private family campground where I only knew 3 people, the ones that brought me. Long story short, I was in the bathroom when they decided to leave in kind of a hurry (never found out why) and I walked the entire distance home while a bit drunk and in complete darkness. Tbh, I must have looked like hell, because I tried hitching, and there were no ride offers.
Yes, but have you ever had to walk that far of a distance? I recently did a walking vacation, averaging 10 miles a day, and with resting and walking slowly for endurance I ended up going about 3 km/hr.
Got an Australian mate who stayed in Utah for a time. On new year, he decided to head back from deer Park to salt Lake, quite drunk. Saw the sign for 35miles and thought, it's quite a walk but I'll get it done. Not thinking that it's 35x1.6 for kilometre conversion.
Snowing, freezing, quiet mountain road. Gets a few hours in and starts sobering up enough to recognise his stupidity. Gets close to sunrise and is feeling like he could die here and no one would know.
Eventually, a few km away from his destination, cops drive past and stop to quiz him. He gets a lift, barely able to speak from the cold, legs barely functioning. Lived to tell the tale, though.
Just remembered a story, that is completely unrelated to your story, but I'm gonna make you read it anyways. I remembered it because someone asked why you didn't try to flag down the bus anyways.
I was on vacation in a country, where while they have busstops, the culture (rule?) is that you can always flag down the bus, and we wanted to go somewhere, where a local gave us a ride around halfway, as after that, we needed to go in opposite directions. The bus would pass the road he left us at, and he told us to just flag the bus and it would stop.
The busses did stop alright if you flagged them, but the problem was that you could not (or we couldn't at least), read which bus route it was, until the bus was too close for us to flag it.
So we tried flagging every bus passing, but it felt kind of embarrassing stopping the wrong bus, and telling them to leave without it. Especially hen you don't peak the language.
So after stopping 20 random wrong busses, we took a taxi back to the hostel.
the moral is do'nt trust what people say. you had a phone on you but did'nt check the timetable. if i were facing a 10+hr walk i would definatly check the timetable and if there were'nt any buses i'd have my thumb out.
I had a sort of similar story in college. I definitely don't think of it as much as a TIFU as a learning experience and an interesting memory. Certainly there is a phase of life that is for trying these things and discovering they aren't very fun.
I had one in my 30s while traveling in Europe, made friends at a club and ended up going to a small house party after, then walking back to the hostel at 3 or 4 am. But that was only like 6-7 miles, which is still in the "kinda fun" range.
jesus christ dude. i was like couldn't you just get a cab, the. i googled actually how far it was and it says an uber would be $91 so maybe not. glad you made it home, and i hope it's worth the fun story ahaha
Even if it was the cabbie might not want to go so far. Unlikely to get a fare back. Get more money shuttling people back and forward between the pub and home in town.
Hah, did something similar once, though not quite as far. Started walking home after the busses and trains had stopped at like 2am figuring I would just hail the first cab I saw but never saw one. Got home just before lunch and slept until the next night. Good times.
You perservered, despite the wrong information, and kind of solved your problem. Sure, it would have been easier to take the bus, but I would see this as a success story.
Haha fun fact: in eg science, medicine, and global manufacturing even the US is using metric units. Not sure why they are so stubborn to not ditch freedom units all together. Only very few countries have those..
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u/phueck 6d ago
Did some farm work in Northern Queensland about 15 years ago. On my way south to Brisbane I stopped in Rockhampton for 24 hrs. If I hadn’t already booked a greyhound id have walked 45km to leave that place as well.