once I was homeless...
...for quite a while, living in a stolen car with a friend.

It was about 10 years ago: I was 19, I'd been in Australia (Byron Bay) for quite a while and was running low on cash, but didn't want to get a job. i remeber pissing it up on Xmas day safe in the knowledge that I was spending the last of my cash and that was a good thing, as I would no longer have to worry about getting closer and closer to being broke. I would just be broke, and it couldn't get any worse.

So on boxing day morning i moved out of the youth hostel i'd lived in for the last 4 months, and into a car we'd been occassionally "borrowing" (it was presummed dumped, it had been in the hostel car park for several months).

It was a huge 1970's Holden with bench seats (I had the front since you ask) and massive boot, so plenty of room for all the crap I'd foolishly brought travelling and enough room to sprawl out and sleep.

And so we stayed in there for about 10 weeks, until the hostel owners asked us to leave the car park... after that we drove the car around various other places near by until the police removed the plates as we had no tax, mot (green ticket or something) or insurance.

Then we slept on the beach for a couple of weeks - but everything started to get really sandy...

Finally I called up my folks and asked them to lend me £100 to go to Sydney and get a job, but really i would have happily stayed living on the beach if i could - it was getting a little colder though and starting to rain more - and tramping without a roof aint no fun in the long run!

Something amasingly invigorating about having nothing at all!

I'd get up in the morning with no cash in my pockets, no wallet to worry about, no keys to loose (and this was before everyone had mobile, so didn't have that to think about) and just do whatever I fancied.

We usually popped in to one of the various youth hostels and helped out for a bit to earn a free breakfast before hitting the beach all day, and then returning to our original hostel to help cook an evening meal they sold there.

We often seemed to find cash on the streets - enough to get some bread and honey once in a while... and usually some group of fellow travellers would ask us to join them in a box of finest Auzzy wine, so most evenings were free fun down on a beach. If you build a big enough bonfire - people will come.

Only thing i actually wanted cash for was to develop a couple of rolls of film I'd taken, but that waited.

My friend found it a little harder as he was a big smoker - and resorted to hitching to the next town to rob a store of 4 large packs of rolling tabaco. Before that he'd taken to smoking dog ends through a pipe... Desperate times for him.

---

i have some amazing memories (and photos) of that time of my life, really was a glorious time for me, being a true beach bum. I missed having a tan so much that when i came back to the UK for uni i bought a tanning bed... but that wasn't quite the same as spending all your day doing fuck all on a beautiful deserted beach...

I'd do it again in a second if i could unravel myself from modern life! The book 'diary of a supertramp' is well worth reading if you are interested in living outside! Though my ultimate dream is to live the life of Tom Neale - 'An Island to Oneself' is my bible.

(sorry, story not funny... just wanted to share!)
(crowcrow - wasting domain names since, Wed 8 Jul 2009, 20:56, 3 replies)

You've made it sound rather appealing
perhaps I'll give it a try one day... *click*
( chart cat has an itch, Thu 9 Jul 2009, 2:50, closed)

.
I lived in one of those cars in Australia too! It had a gear stick sticking out of the steering wheel.

It finally exploded near Ayers rock and we had to abandon it.
( browser still relating boring anecdotes into a void on, Thu 9 Jul 2009, 10:27, closed)

BEACH LIFE
is great. In good weather.
I had 6 weeks one hot summer in Crete living off tourists.
Wasn't lonely much either. And it was a nudist beach.

Jeez - wish I was 20 again.
( Larry Vest One day at a time, sweet Jesus, FFS., Thu 9 Jul 2009, 12:59, closed)