CYCLONE PAUL

Up until a month ago we had only seen the one hitcher on the road, our friend the pig chaser, but since then the hitch hiker drought has well and truly broken. The first batch we noticed around the Byron Bay/ Mullumbimby area, an assortment of characters trudging along the gravel shoulders, subtly pointing at the road with their right index finger. Predominately young bearded guys with dark sunglasses and hippie looking woman in floral clothing, but occasionally we saw a mum with her child in a pram or an older gentleman. Having no spare seats we would have to drive past with upturned hands signalling our wish to help them out not being possible. We know what it is like to wait ages for a lift so we try to help when we can. The police breathalyser units must be on the ball around these parts, since we arrived in the Bowraville area we have picked up a few hitchers who have all lost their licences for drink driving. We were very lucky a couple of days ago, Mum and I went to town and picked up Paul on the corner of Upper Buckrabendinni Rd. who needed a lift, he wanted to go to the service station to borrow some money off a guy there, coincidentally we were going to the same place to get our puncture repaired. He was full of stories and it was hard to get a word in sideways until we dropped him off on the corner and went to find a parking spot, the smell of beer following him out thankfully. I got the wheel out of the boot and was carrying it to the service station when I noticed Paul bent over in the gutter throwing up. “Just made it”, he said. “Good timing!”, I replied. We described Paul to the hitcher we picked up the next day, brown beanie, mirror sunglasses, goatee beard, and he replied “Oh yeah, that’s Cyclone Paul, he is pretty wild”.