Ahava
Member
Between the wire fence and floodlights lies freedom
March 29th, 2019 on the belly of the beast desert bound with the pot of stars overhead to direct this north bound train. Getting here felt like an intangible dream, fast and ambitious like the stars as their life pounds deeply on our windburned faces.
A week prior to this trip, I had already been desert bound from Adelaide with my dearest friend, Emilie. Taking the highway route up, counting all the dead and burnt kangaroo roadkill… I stopped counting at 87. That trip, that week, I got a call from my Dad in the states, with the news that he had been diagnosed with cancer. I wanted to vomit, to scream. It felt fitting to feel so lost, to feel so out of control in a place in the world that doesn’t surrender to human nature, a place that keeps moving and changing at its own will. Yet in the car, it felt safe, it felt trapped.
I needed to feel this landscape, this sense of loss and lack of control from a from of transport that is that as well. I wanted to see that ochre land, and sage brush colored vegetation from a closer view. I wanted to see that desert night sky so black it could swallow you whole again. I wanted to be riding through the emptiness of the Australian outback, by freight to scream into the abyss. To feel closer to how my Dad might have been feeling. Vulnerable, scared, and maybe just a bit optimistic.
When I got back to Adelaide, Emilie suggested I reach out to someone she’s seen around town who hops trains and makes art. I walked over to his home the next day to hang out, buy a zine he made, and spend that fading Australian summer heat in adventure. That day I met someone who I fell so deeply in love with. He was the one to take me on my first train.
Four days after meeting, and yet not a night apart, we decided to attempt at hopping 1,500 km from Adelaide to Alice Springs. We arrived at the yard one minute before departure. Stocked with one bottle of gifted wine, two liters of water, some gifted takeout, and dumpster bread. We ran from the road towards the gleaming metal fencing, with the moon overhead and the floodlights bright. Working our way through the thorns and high bush, a hole in the fence graced itself beside the belly of the beast, beside the perfect well. She began to air up, my heart had never beaten so fast, I wanted to vomit, again. My partner directed us towards what became our home for the next 22 hours. He climbed up and then myself behind him. She was off. We got low, embracing the cold metal like a lover as we were swung through the yard. I lain there on one side of the well, staring up at the passing of lights, as stars moved faster through the sky than I’ve ever seen. The black silhouette of trees and the buildings of industrial Adelaide almost close enough to touch.
As we pulled out of the yard, we sat up, rolled tobacco tryingly into a paper that wanted to blow with the wind, cracked open the bottle of red wine and laughed hysterically like mad men to the sound of the buzzing reefer. Every now and then, lunging our bodies back to the floor at the sight of crossings leaving town. There is not much I remember about that night, not because of the wine but because of the overwhelm of emotion and anxiety and loss and love. From what I can recall, is that confessing your love to another human, yelling it into the stars, as you move through lands where all there is, is nothingness, is freedom. I know that freedom is chasing what you fear the most, not to conquer it, but to understand it better.
Waking up that morning, deeper into isolation, the sun peaked over the red horizon, it was magic. Warmth never felt so good. We danced, hid, chain-smoked, and laughed for hours. Sitting in awe as the red earth passed by. That evening we rolled slowly into the Alice yard, gathered our dusty belongings together, lept our feet back onto earth again, drank the wine with bloody knees, and rolled out our sleeping bags on the local golf course. A day had never felt so long.
(( photos shot on Pentax K1000 35mm ))
March 29th, 2019 on the belly of the beast desert bound with the pot of stars overhead to direct this north bound train. Getting here felt like an intangible dream, fast and ambitious like the stars as their life pounds deeply on our windburned faces.
A week prior to this trip, I had already been desert bound from Adelaide with my dearest friend, Emilie. Taking the highway route up, counting all the dead and burnt kangaroo roadkill… I stopped counting at 87. That trip, that week, I got a call from my Dad in the states, with the news that he had been diagnosed with cancer. I wanted to vomit, to scream. It felt fitting to feel so lost, to feel so out of control in a place in the world that doesn’t surrender to human nature, a place that keeps moving and changing at its own will. Yet in the car, it felt safe, it felt trapped.
I needed to feel this landscape, this sense of loss and lack of control from a from of transport that is that as well. I wanted to see that ochre land, and sage brush colored vegetation from a closer view. I wanted to see that desert night sky so black it could swallow you whole again. I wanted to be riding through the emptiness of the Australian outback, by freight to scream into the abyss. To feel closer to how my Dad might have been feeling. Vulnerable, scared, and maybe just a bit optimistic.
When I got back to Adelaide, Emilie suggested I reach out to someone she’s seen around town who hops trains and makes art. I walked over to his home the next day to hang out, buy a zine he made, and spend that fading Australian summer heat in adventure. That day I met someone who I fell so deeply in love with. He was the one to take me on my first train.
Four days after meeting, and yet not a night apart, we decided to attempt at hopping 1,500 km from Adelaide to Alice Springs. We arrived at the yard one minute before departure. Stocked with one bottle of gifted wine, two liters of water, some gifted takeout, and dumpster bread. We ran from the road towards the gleaming metal fencing, with the moon overhead and the floodlights bright. Working our way through the thorns and high bush, a hole in the fence graced itself beside the belly of the beast, beside the perfect well. She began to air up, my heart had never beaten so fast, I wanted to vomit, again. My partner directed us towards what became our home for the next 22 hours. He climbed up and then myself behind him. She was off. We got low, embracing the cold metal like a lover as we were swung through the yard. I lain there on one side of the well, staring up at the passing of lights, as stars moved faster through the sky than I’ve ever seen. The black silhouette of trees and the buildings of industrial Adelaide almost close enough to touch.
As we pulled out of the yard, we sat up, rolled tobacco tryingly into a paper that wanted to blow with the wind, cracked open the bottle of red wine and laughed hysterically like mad men to the sound of the buzzing reefer. Every now and then, lunging our bodies back to the floor at the sight of crossings leaving town. There is not much I remember about that night, not because of the wine but because of the overwhelm of emotion and anxiety and loss and love. From what I can recall, is that confessing your love to another human, yelling it into the stars, as you move through lands where all there is, is nothingness, is freedom. I know that freedom is chasing what you fear the most, not to conquer it, but to understand it better.
Waking up that morning, deeper into isolation, the sun peaked over the red horizon, it was magic. Warmth never felt so good. We danced, hid, chain-smoked, and laughed for hours. Sitting in awe as the red earth passed by. That evening we rolled slowly into the Alice yard, gathered our dusty belongings together, lept our feet back onto earth again, drank the wine with bloody knees, and rolled out our sleeping bags on the local golf course. A day had never felt so long.
(( photos shot on Pentax K1000 35mm ))
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