In 1968, nursing a bad case of teenage heartbreak, Bruce Lowery decided to pack his bags and hitchhike from Melbourne to Perth in what would become the adventure of a lifetime.
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His travels would take him to some of the remotest parts of Australia, where he met an assortment of colourful characters.
Bruce shares his incredible coming of age story in his new book Catch The Wind: From the Nullarbor to the far North West in '68.
"It's university of life stuff when you travel at that age," he said.
"I learnt so much that held me in good stead - about how to live with people of all types."
Bruce set out on his epic journey with his good mate Pete, three changes of clothes, a toothbrush, $40 in his back pocket and a very vague plan to head in the general direction of Perth.
"We got as far as Port Augusta before we ran out of money," he recalled.
Penniless, they presented themselves to Commonwealth Railways and were promptly put on a train to work the railway lines in O'Malley, a tiny town located "smack bang in the middle of the Nullarbor".
"There was no electricity, no water, no roads - the only way in or out was by train."
After five or six weeks on the railway line, working for a ganger (boss) who was a heavy alcoholic, with a complex and difficult personality, they travelled on to Kalgoorlie to collect their pay.
Then it was on to Perth, where they met some young ladies who quickly helped to "relieve" them of their "excess money".
Pete decided to settle in Perth, but Bruce still had itchy feet. so he headed north west with a colourful Aussie larrikin he had met at the boarding house called 'Big Bob'. Big Bob was looking to get out of the city after running afoul with the local lawmen.
The pair ended up at Yaringa - a remote sheep station on a massive 325,000 acres 800km north of Perth.
They spent most of their days herding sheep across vast distances and helping to mark them.
The station's manager was a hard nosed character, to say the least. One night, broiling in their own sweat after a hard day's yakka, the pair decided to take their shirts off before taking their meals. After being alerted by his wife, the manager came in and gave them an abrupt dressing down for not dressing for dinner.
He wasn't all bad, though, or at least they thought. Each night he would compliment the pair on their hard work and ask if they wanted a nice cold bottle of beer. Little did they know they were getting fleeced worse than the sheep. The manager was charging them three to four times the cost of the beer. When Bruce decided to move on, he was written a check for a grand total of $1.25 for his hard work and toil.
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Bruce said as a long haired city boy, it was a bit of a culture shock meeting all these "hard, crusty people from the outback".
"Here I was, a bit trendy, with long hair, they thought I was very strange, and I thought they were a bit strange too."
This culture clash led to some "rough encounters" that even came to blows in some cases. But Bruce said he wouldn't change his experiences for the world.
Catch the Wind (independently published) is available via Amazon, Booktopia, and various book stores around the country. For more information visit brucelowery.com.
