Sass' diary

Day One
Thursday 2nd July 1998

Projected time of departure 8am
Actual time of departure 3:30pm
But we got together many of the extra bits that we needed – inverters, stereos and such…
now we are sitting at a Goulburn servo after the newly christened Percy Peace’s alternator failed to charge and we ended up powerless half in the driveway. woops! This is our first crisis (all batteries – bus, mobile and video failed together.. hmmm) – hopefully we get it out of our system now.

We slept outside the Goulburn Auto Electrician’s to wake up to cold and frost (so silent in the night when I awoke, legs cold, to hear not even the sounds of slumberous breathing from my bus mates) outside the tip top bakery shed – “the white stuff”. So, finding that our alternator wasn’t working and that our $1000 ‘service’ had indeed fucked us over, we had our batteries charged and off we went – trying to make it to Melbourne for our 6pm ferry. Because our alternator wasn’t charging we couldn’t use our indicator, lights or start our engine.

We were chugging along until I saw a truck driver .. passing by.. motion to us, pointing down. Andrew checked our rear view mirrors and saw black smoke coming from the engine. we freaked! chugging into Gundagi (Dog on the tucker box) to stop again – once more immobile at the servo! Back on the phone chastising our Sydney mechanics, delaying ferry bookings, making contact with new mechanics nearby…
and making camp, by the tucker box, as sun sets – twirling fire, swapping tricks, cooking pumpkin soup, stereo and juicer plugged into the electricity box .. discussions about reclaim the night : inclusion and separatism, safety, violence and television…