My attempt to circumnavigate Australia in 14 days while under the influence of psilocybin (which, incidentally, helped me realise that I love my brain more than my penis) (860 hits)
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Submitted by Thor (View user info) at 2005-03-07 22:35:57 EST
Me, Grasper and Rocky were siting around the lounge room in Canberra in the middle of the night drinking beer.
We'd had a successful day hunting blue meanies in the pine forest, and there were about 50 of the sinister looking little fuckers on some newspaper on the floor. A moderate number of their brethren were already in our tummies.
I had an atlas in front of me and was 'calculating' how many kilometers would need to be driven if we were to circumnavigate Australia. Following some further calculation and 'debate', it was agreed that it could be done in two weeks if we drove non-stop, 24 hours a day for the whole 14 days.
"No fucking worries!" I exclaimed enthusiastically "Eight-hour shifts: 8 hours driving, 8 hours as co-pilot, and 8 hours sleeping in the back. We could do this. WE REALLY FUCKING COULD"
Grasper happened to have gotten hold of a ute from somewhere and had use of it for a month. It was parked out the front. I had 1000 bucks in cash which I had flung dramatically onto the floor, announcing I would contribute it to fund the trip.
My girlfriend was overseas and was due to arrive back at Sydney airport in two weeks. Somehow, after eating the mushrooms, we had conceived the idea that we should go to Sydney to meet her not via the three hour anti-clockwise drive up the coast, but via the clockwise circumnavigation of the entire continent.
Having now satisifed ourselves that it could be done in two-weeks we stomped around for a while waiving our arms and gulping beer before marching out the door and setting forth.
We agreed there wasn't a moment to lose so didn't bother with any preparation apart from the cash, the mushrooms, some whacko tobacco and the rest of the beer. I hopped into the front with Grasper, and Rocky sat in the tray. (For non-Australian readers, a 'ute' is a bit like a pick-up truck. The one we were driving only had two seats in the front and a tray at the rear).
The drive up towards Cooma was lovely. The road from Canberra to Cooma is an excellent one, long smooth stretches through open fields. It was a full moon, there was no other traffic, music played on the stereo, and we were in fine adventurious spirits.
We stopped at Cooma to check on Rocky, and discovered that up in the high country it was actually pretty fucking cold outside. I was worried that Rocky, dressed only in shirtsleeves, might try and claim a turn in the warm cabin. Fortunately he prides himself on his stoicism, and was in any case barely coherent due to the larger dose of mushrooms he had taken, so we continued on in the same formation.
All was going well until we began the steep, trecherous descent of Brown Mountain. The mushrooms, which up to this point had been benign, began to turn a little nasty. Actually, I probably shouldn't blame the mushrooms, they were just amplifying what was in fact a fully justifiable fear.
Brown Mountain was blanketed in fog. All that I could see apart from whiteness was the sickly yellow reflection of our headlights and the first one or two road markers immediately in front of us.
Despite these condtions, Grasper did not slow the vehicle and in fact did not seem to be using his brakes at all. When I screamed at him his only reply was "No brakes theory".
I couldn't believe it. The fucking "no breaks theory" had come back to haunt me. A year or so previously I had bought my first ever car for $400 dollars. Soon after purchase it started to make a squeeking noise whenever I braked. I ignored this until the noise became unbearable. The cunts in the garage told me I'd fucked something called 'the disks' and it would cost me $700 to repair, almost double the cost of the car. Fuck that. So I kept driving it for a bit longer prior to dumping it, and developed the 'no brakes theory'. This was not as drastic as it sounds, and actually involved driving rather slowly and gradually to reduce the need to brake. At that time Grasper was just learning to drive, and I let him practise in my car occassionally. He loved the whole 'no brakes theory' and saw it as some kind of art form.
As we belted down through the fog, the truck swinging from side to side, guided only by the barely visible road markers, I tried to explain that the no brakes theory did not apply to circumstances like these. Actually, when I say 'tried to explain' I really mean 'screamed hysterical threats, begged and pleaded'. Unfortunately, the more terrified I became the more absurdly overconfident he seemed to get. One of those unpleasant drug dynamics had developed. On the previous mushroom trip we'd had together Grasper had freaked out and, ignored my me, run off into the night pursued by his demons. Apparently he'd gotten lost in the bush for hours and finally ended up in bed with a poof. He blamed me for all this, due to my failed 'duty of care', so maybe this was some kind of subconscious payback.
When it became clear that he was not going to change his driving or let me drive, I realised something: if you are in a car driven at high speed by a maniac there is nothing much you can do. Obviously I couldn't get out of the car, and trying to take the wheel by force was out of the question. I was trapped and under Grasper's deluded control.
He just didn't seem to understand the ridiculous danger he was putting us all in. His demeanour was that of someone casually playing a video game. Mine was that of someone fully conscious that even though we couldn't see them, big thick tree trunks were on either side of the narrow road and we would all certainly be killed if we thumped into one.
Mushrooms have an odd effect on time perception. The pleasant moonlit drive across the open fields had probably taken two hours, but seemed to have passed in the twinkle of an eye. The mountain descent probably only took about twenty minutes, but it became timeless. The white fog created a kind of sensory deprivation chamber, taking away any context of where we were and any progress we had made. All I could do was brace myself as our metal box plummeted endlessly downwards through the whiteness, wincing each time we lurched left or right.
Grasper got quite chirpy when we emerged from the fog and the starlit Bega Valley spread before us, but I was uncommunicative. By the time we reached the coast I had made up my mind that there was no question of continuing all the way around Australia.
We stopped at a little fishing town called Eden as the dawn was breaking and stumbled around the beach. We were all rather frazzled. The drugs were wearing off and our happy mood was long gone.
No one talked very much until Rocky saw a dead fish. This triggered an anti-fish tirade. Rocky hates the taste of fish, and apparently even the sight of them dead on a beach offends him. His ranting broke the ice and we managed to agree, without too much loss of face, that we better just turn around and head back to Canberra. After all, we didn't really have any suitable clothes, it wasn't actually the Grasper's car, things to do, blah blah.
It was a beautiful morning with clear blue skies. I was now lying in the tray, looking up at the trees whooshing past. I felt wonderful. The horrors of the fog were behind me, and I was also in that lovely state when the effects of drugs and alcohol have receded but you still have not quite returned to normal consciousness. I couldn't get over how beautiful the world was. The colour of the sky, the color of the trees, the sparkling sunshine. It was such a contrast to being trapped in that fucking fog. I was like a man released after weeks of torture in a padded cell. The air was fresh and crisp and Louis Armstrong's song "What a wonderful world" was playing in my head. I was flooded with pleasant thoughts and fancies.
Then the Grasper put the brakes on a bit suddenly (so much for the No Breaks Theory) and my head bumped into the back of the cabin. It was only a little bump, but it made me realise how vulnerable I was. If we stopped really suddenly or crashed, my head would just get driven straight into the wall of metal behind it. Presumably that is why riding in the back of trucks is illegal.
The thought of this danger did no so much scare me as make me feel melancholic. I liked my brains. They allowed me to perceive all this beauty around me. They allowed me to appreciate it. My brain, my mind, was itself a thing of boundless, intricate beauty. It connected me to the world in the most magical and awesome way. I did not want my fragile brains to be smashed up.
And, thinking about this, in this vulnerable yet open state of mind, I was hit by a great revelation: I treasured my brain more than my penis.
Realising this really surprised me. I had always just sort of taken it for granted that my cock was my most important organ. But no. I was in love with my brain.
Anyway, we got home safely, brains, cocks and everthing else (except perhaps our pride) intact.
I have marked in red on the map of Australia below the extent of our journey. You can see we did not really make a huge amount of progress towards the circumnavigation:
User Reviews
Submitted by Maestro (user info) at 2007-06-27 05:24:39 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Awesome.
Submitted by Phallic_Cymbals (user info) at 2005-06-20 00:32:11 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Great.
Submitted by c1ndy (user info) at 2005-04-03 12:43:36 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
cool
Submitted by thorpe (user info) at 2005-04-03 12:28:20 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by someone (user info) at 2005-04-03 12:20:58 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Great story.
Submitted by ahrcee (user info) at 2005-04-03 12:16:55 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Great stuff! The story reminds me of my big drive one day in mid-March '98 from Sydney to the Jenolan caves and back, and how small it looked on the map when I got back to the shithole "Private Hotel" where I was staying.
Submitted by apollo88 (user info) at 2005-03-09 05:50:53 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Keep.forgetting.to.check.Thor.
Marvellous post.
Submitted by HZRD (user info) at 2005-03-08 15:44:06 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
"We'd had a successful day hunting blue meanies in the pine forest, and there were about 50 of the sinister looking little fuckers on some newspaper on the floor. A moderate number of their brethren were already in our tummies."
I had a similar experience with smurfs... I'll never look at those fuckers quite the same again. Apparently, you could hear me screaming "DIE YOU BLUE PIECES OF SHIT!" all the way across campus at 4 am. you'd be surprised how fast you can run on hard drugs when the red and blue lights of the 5-0 come on.
Submitted by LadyPlural (user info) at 2005-03-08 14:37:38 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Hahahahaha.
Bad craziness.
Submitted by TigerLilly (user info) at 2005-03-08 12:20:55 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Awko (user info) at 2005-03-08 08:11:09 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Thor (user info) at 2005-03-08 02:35:26 (#)
Ranking: 0
i'm in kaleen.
so there are three of us here in canberra, soon to be four????
good god.
i thought it was safe here.
does someone else want to tackle the 'what's canberra like?' question?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
In Canberra you can buy fireworks and hardcore pornography.
That's all you need to know.
Submitted by tragiksaint (user info) at 2005-03-08 07:31:51 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
good stuff, good stuff.
you should'a called it 'fear and loathing in australia'
Submitted by Thor (user info) at 2005-03-08 02:35:26 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
i'm in kaleen.
so there are three of us here in canberra, soon to be four????
good god.
i thought it was safe here.
does someone else want to tackle the 'what's canberra like?' question?
Submitted by Danger_Ranger (user info) at 2005-03-08 02:25:13 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
GO Brumbies!! Woooooo... what's that small island at the bottom?
Hey, look at that 5:25 - knock-off time.
Submitted by Saxon (user info) at 2005-03-08 02:00:24 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Hahahah i can relate. Bloody Aussies are a funny lot.
Submitted by Wazza (user info) at 2005-03-08 01:49:26 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Good trip,and a long way .
Submitted by Wiggles (user info) at 2005-03-08 01:49:23 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
It is a shame Bart will probably pass this over for B@W.
Submitted by Avals (user info) at 2005-03-08 01:26:11 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
There's some kind of thin red smear on your map.
Next time, clean that shit up before you post it.
Submitted by Adjomak (user info) at 2005-03-08 00:15:12 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Auto +2 for saying Canberra. Where in Canberra? I live in O'Malley.
Submitted by Gizmo (user info) at 2005-03-07 23:11:54 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Good realization
Submitted by williamson (user info) at 2005-03-07 22:56:32 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
What's Canberra like?
I'm going there in a few months when i join RMCD.
Submitted by transhuman (user info) at 2005-03-07 22:46:19 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Automatic +2 for living in my town.
Submitted by project_nessa (user info) at 2005-03-07 22:44:45 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Even Jesus laughed... + a billion for the map.
Submitted by polyamorousaj (user info) at 2005-03-07 22:40:48 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
hahaa
Long time no see, Thor.
If you get a chance, gander at my post.