Tuesday, April 6th, 2010
Somewhere in northern France, 2/4/2010, 4:27am
Je suis content. There are lots of thoughts going through my head but that is perhaps the most important: I am happy.
Strings of thought, half-dreams and memories are coming together in my brain tonight: A group of young performers from Brisbane; traditional travelling values, preparations, behaviours and perceptions, and the meshing of contemporary technologies.
Maybe I should set the scene? Today is Friday, early early morning, about 4:30am. It is very cold, probably around freezing and I am 
somewhere in Northern France – I lost my way to some extent in the dark last night and parked up in a small village. There are some quaint farmhouses and tall plastered town-houses with dark, wooden shutters sheltering my little hiding place in a dark, enclosed courtyard, which is scattered with a handful of other vehicles.
I am wrapped in blankets, coats, jumpers and a sleeping bag in the boot of my car, but there is no longer enough heat for me to stay asleep. Déjà vu. Last Saturday at about 4:30am I was huddled in cardboard high up 
on a fire-escape stairwell in Melbourne’s Chinatown, (that’s in Australia if you’re a pleb), huddled like penguins with the Hoopla Clique boys, (some beautiful young travelling performers from Brisbane)… it wasn’t long before I had lost too much heat that evening too. But thankfully we could soon jump a tram to find comfort in the form of fire and blankets in a friends’ back garden. My sleep deprived mind keeps telling me the boys are here with me in my car, and well I have to laugh as I slowly awaken to myself chatting to a rucksack and cuddling up to a loaf of crusty bread and smelly French cheese (I knew I should have put those outside… mmm I’m gonna smell fresh tomorrow).
The modern traveller is so often unequipped to deal with sleeping rough. It makes me think of what travellers of an older time used to do – light fires, set up camp, and bring enough supplies to keep warm. That and have a damn hardy constitution! Anyone need a can of harden the fuck up right now?
Another scenario pops into my head. Just the very thought of it warms me again and makes me smile… Not so many days before the Chinatown excursion, the Hoopla Clique boys and myself had fled the city for a night. We found an amazing outcrop of rocks to climb on and watch the sunset, before lighting a fire and spending a warm and happy evening singing and laughing (so much laughter!!), and simply being playful and creative. That night we had enough provisions to be comfortable – the boys have been something of an inspiration to me in this way and many others. They epitomise the traditional values of a troupe of travelling performers, from the style of show they create and perform, to the manner of travelling they undertake. They are skilled clowns: playful, intelligent, inventive 
improvisers, innocently charming, physically talented, and eminently captivating to watch. They travel together by truck and van, sometimes a large group, sometimes just the core few, picking up artists and bidding farewell again at various points on their journey. Sometimes they just disappear for weeks on end to the road and the bush or the desert. Sometimes they call upon the hospitality of friends or family in houses or warehouses – and always they give back in food, entertainment and uplifting good company.
These values for me are the essence of the traditional traveller, whose arsenal of skills and provisions are of charm, friendliness, entertainment and improvisation as much as they are a compass, water, comfort and flame.
That night on the rocks we couldn’t help but feel in touch with the older generation of traveller. We were alone on a rocky hilltop, wrapped in blankets, around a fire, with the music of a guitar and the wind – in many ways it felt timeless and natural, but the conversation also turned towards the convergence of old and new technologies. Our pack-horses are now 
motorised vehicles, our music is not only acoustic, but also recorded from all over the world and played through car stereos, food is bought out of season and wrapped in plastic in supermarkets…
There are too many confounding and fascinating issues to touch on from these comparisons – what I really want to say is that the modern traveller has all sorts of things at their fingertips that make some of the older necessities obsolete, however, the behaviours and values of the traditional traveller seem to have also been forgotten. In my opinion, we rely too heavily on money to get us out of tricky situations, and is it disconnecting us or reducing occasions for human interactions?
Take tonight for example, I haven’t got the money to stay in a hostel, so I chose to simply sleep in my car. There are two interesting points to draw from this decision; one, I didn’t have the foresight to pack enough warmth and comfort to be able to sleep the night through (doh!); two, I didn’t even consider the other traditional action of a traveller – to meet the locals and call on our hospitable human nature. Sure there are always risks involved, but it wasn’t something I even thought of… but I know that if the tables were turned and I was approached one night by a respectable-looking person (I mean if someone turned up covered in eyeballs and scratching their bum with a human rib-bone I wouldn’t immediately warm to them), but a respectable traveller, who is lost and cold and needing shelter, sure, I would offer them at least a floor. Each side takes a risk on a stranger… but anyway, I didn’t do it. Maybe I will some other time.
For now, I’m cold, I’m kinda jet-lagged and mildly delirious, my car-boot is not the comfiest of beds… but I can’t help but smile. Je suis content.