GO OUT BACKK GO

A few days ago, a staff member at the KADOYA Nagoya store sent an email to the factory asking for repair advice, and the following was written at the end of the email.

``The other day, an old acquaintance of Sewing Manager Ichijima came to our store. His name was Mr. H, who lives in Mie Prefecture.''

``I heard that you met the director in Australia.We heard a lot of stories from back then.''






About 20 years ago, I was traveling around the Australian continent.


Due to various influences, I became obsessed with the idea of ​​``I wanted to ride my motorcycle across the Australian continent,'' and with the military funds I had saved up through dedicated work, I set out for Japan.

“I like traveling as randomly and without a plan as possible.”

With this in mind, I landed at Sydney Airport without having decided on a place to stay for the first day.






Somehow, we arrived at a pastel colored building.
This is a so-called backpacker's hotel, a cheap hotel.
The room I was given was a gloomy 6-person room with bunk beds, with no sunlight shining through it, and it cost about 1,500 yen per night at the time.

Naturally, most of the guests staying here were travelers, but some were just sightseeing around Sydney, others were planning to go around Australia, and others were in the middle of doing so. There are many different races, genders, and ages of people who spend their time doing nothing.
The means of travel vary, with some people taking trains and buses, others sharing cars, and others riding motorcycles.
I'm someone who wants to ride a bike, but I haven't decided how or where to go yet.

There were several Japanese guests at the inn, and the ``newcomers'' who had just arrived here a few days ago, like me, were somewhat formal, while the ones who had ``finished'' seemed to have done something about it. Or, for better or worse, it gives off the feeling that something has worn out.

Will this happen to me too?

Anyway, our trip started from this cheap hotel.






This is my chosen travel companion.
HONDA CT110 Hunter Cub.

This was also a chance encounter, or perhaps it was inevitable.
I wanted to be unplanned and did almost no research on Australia.
The market price of used motorcycles was one of them, and without any basis in fact, I had assumed that it would be much cheaper than in Japan, but when I went to a used motorcycle shop in the suburbs of Sydney, I saw the reality.

It's almost the same as the Japanese market price that I was looking at until a few days ago.
There are variations depending on the car model, but all of them are about three times my budget.

The cheapest one in the store was this Hunter Cub.

As a result, this bike's off-road performance and sturdiness have helped me many times along the way.
Even now, in my mind, the Hunter Cub is a special bike, the strongest and invincible.






After leaving Sydney, I decided to proceed counterclockwise, heading north along the east coast to Cairns.
If you make a map, it goes from bottom right to top right.

To put it very roughly, you can go around the Australian continent all the way around it.
If you want to visit the famous Ayers Rock, which is located almost in the middle of the continent, you will need to take the Stuart Highway, which cuts through the center of the continent, and venture inland.
Therefore, in most cases, a "figure 8" route is used instead of "circling around the outside."

However, you can also take advantage of unpaved dirt roads called stock routes, take diagonal shortcuts, and run around in all directions.
A shortcut literally means shortening the distance, but whether it's faster or not is of course a different matter, and depending on the route it takes, it can mean the difference between life and death.

"Off-road junkies" who have ridden forest roads all over Japan arrive in Australia in search of this stock route, accept the risks, and take on the desert.

During my travels, I encountered these kinds of creatures everywhere, and I was fascinated and passionate about them.

Let's go as far as we can.

My partner is a hunter and a cub.

























When they find a precious shade, they always hide and take a break.
In desert areas where there is not even the shade of trees, you may set up a tent to take a break.
The turnips are okay, but I can't stand them.






Cruel signs like this are common when driving on paved roads.
Honestly, I'm tired of having my four-digit number shown to me.







I always carried 20 liters of spare gasoline and 2 liters of water with me in my Cub.
This sign really makes me nervous.








Halfway through my wandering trip, I was already running low on my balance.

It was finally time to work and earn money, and I decided to work harvesting crops in a place called Caernarfon in the west.
I moved into an inn called Caernarfon Backpackers and went to the fields every morning to harvest tomatoes and bananas.

As I got used to the life of working in the fields, I negotiated with the owner to get more money for the accommodation, and I was given jobs such as cleaning the accommodation and taking out the garbage.After that, I took a nap, and in the middle of the night I took a long-distance bus. They also worked as touts, such as driving a wagon to the departure point and arranging lodging for the homeless travelers who had arrived.

In this way, they increase their military funds and depart for their next destination.







There are always cheap accommodations such as backpackers hotels in major cities such as Sydney, Cairns, Darwin, Perth, and Adelaide.

When you enter the city, you can use them to relieve the fatigue of your journey and prepare for the next one.
Generally, people who travel by motorcycle come and go from such hotels, and most of them are Japanese.

Australians used to tell me that the only people who like traveling like that are Japanese people.


The scorching hot roads that connect urban areas can be exhausting for both you and your bike.
For this reason, once you check in to the hotel, you may end up postponing your departure and staying the night for several nights.
Everyone called this state "rotten" or "rotten."
Perhaps the biggest reason for it to rot was the feeling of longing.

This isn't just me; many travelers continue their journeys while maintaining a balance between moving and stopping.







After that, I continued to move, work, rot, and move around repeatedly, meeting and parting with many wanderers, and around the time I became insensitive to traveling.
I ended my trip by having a nostalgic Sydney bike shop pick up my battered Hunter Cub.






A few days after exchanging emails with KADOYA Nagoya store

By chance, some of my travel companions from the time got together for a year-end party.

A small Italian restaurant in Komazawa run by one of his friends.

Reunion for the first time in exactly one year.


“By the way, do you know anyone named H who lives in Mie?”

"rider?"

"I think that"

"What's your round name?"

That's the expected reaction.

At that time, backpackers called people who rode motorcycles ``riders'' and people who rode bicycles ``charriders,'' and they called each other nicknames such as ``rounds'' when traveling around Australia, and ``round names'' during rounds. were calling each other.

After returning to Japan, even those who continue to be in a relationship may not remember their real names.

"That's right, I don't know the round name."

"So, what's your real name?"

It's something like this.




When, where, and how did you meet Mr. H, who must have been wandering the red earth back then?



[Ichijima]