We hopped on a train Saturday morning out from central to Mt Vic, of course there was trackwork and that was about our longest wait all trip. We got lifts within 15 – 30 mins in general. No wait longer than an hour and lift 7 pulled in after just a minute.
We only hitched during the day although some lifts took us for multiple days and for lift 14 we put a sign by the petrol station cash register and set off at 9pm.
It feels silly reducing these amazing people to statistics but it’s also interested to see a summary. We travelled at an average speed of 29 km/hr from getting off the train to getting on the plane.
| Day | Lift | End | Relationship | Nationality | km | Time together | ||
| 1 | Start | Mt Victoria Station | – | – | – | – | ||
| 1 | 1 | Lithgow | One Man | Australian | 20 | 0.5 | ||
| 1 | 2 | Orange | Married Couple | Australian | 130 | 1.5 | ||
| 1 | 3 | Molong | Mum and Son | Australian | 35 | 0.5 | ||
| 1 | 4 | Dubbo | One Woman | Native Australian | 115 | 2 | ||
| 2 | 5 | Narramine | One Man | Native Australian | 45 | 0.5 | ||
| 2 | 6 | Cobar | One Man | Australian | 260 | 3 | ||
| 2 | 7 | Port Pirie | One Man | Australian | 850 | 13 | ||
| 3 | 8 | Port Augusta | Old Couple | Australian | 90 | 1 | ||
| 3,4,5 | 9 | Curtin Springs via Coober Pedy and Uluru | One Man | Australian | 1450 | 50 | ||
| 5,6 | 10 | Kings Canyon via Kings Creek Station | Young Couple | Australian | 215 | 22 | ||
| 6 | 11 | Alice Springs YHA | Young Couple | Estonian | 480 | 6.5 | ||
| 7 | 12 | Alice Bunnings | One Man | Australian | 5 | 0.1 | ||
| 7 | 13 | Three Ways | Young Couple | Dutch | 530 | 6 | ||
| 7,8 | 14 | Katherine | One Man | Australian | 650 | 11 | ||
| 8 | 15 | Other Side of Katherine | Cabby* | Australian | 5 | 0.1 | ||
| 8 | 16 | Darwin airport | Married Couple | Australian | 310 | 3.5 | ||
| 8 | 17 | Darwin Wharf | One Woman | German | 15 | 0.3 | ||
| 5205 km | 121.5 hours with others | |||||||
| 180 hours total trip time | ||||||||
*Lift 14 insisted he get us a cab across town.