Going Nomad | The Birth of ‘Finchys Australia’
I have mentioned my life seems like a highlight reel where moments in time stand out for a variety of reasons some of which are quite bizarre. My first solo trip, in a lot of ways was where Finchy’s Australia really began. Sure I had been on a lot of trips before, most of them were either boozy weekenders with mates or trips to motorcycle runs such as Ponde or Broadford in Victoria. There were several hilarious trips with one of my closest mates, ‘Roderick Old Chap’, some stories there! I will in time share some of these stories with you but not now and not without legal advice.
This is the story behind how and why I went on my first solo trip, but more so, this was my first trip with no return date.
This story was the beginning of what became a lifestyle, it was when I realised that a nomadic existence was simply not an option, it was a necessity.
You could say with a great deal of confidence that I was not a good student. There are plenty of teachers, students, friends and parents who wouldn’t hesitate to confirm this. School just wasn’t my thing. So me and school parted ways, in fact I may have been asked to move on by the headmaster, oh well I didn’t like it anyway!
Skipping on a few months, probably because I don’t remember them, both my fledgling radio and live music careers were under way in the mid 80’s. I was getting regular gigs in pubs around Adelaide. Pubs like the Tivoli or Producers Hotels. These were inner city hotels and full on would be an apt description.
“Between my recreational activities and live gigs I was living a teenage dream, all be it a wild one.”
I had started doing payed radio work at 5DN and was becoming a regular cart boy at SA-FM. It was around this time I met my dearest old mate PIG. PIG is in capital letters for so many reasons and you will get to know him as you travel through the short stories of ‘Finchy’s Australia’. We were at Audio school together and I never go back to Adelaide without a catch up and PIG time. So with all this going on why would you even contemplate up and leaving?
During and after I dropped out of school I had been knocking about with a great bunch of mates for a number of years making the absolute most of our mid to late teenage years. We started at an early age and we went hard from the start. To this day the people from these amazing days are still some of my dearest and most treasured friends. Home was the Adelaide hills suburb of Blackwood, and we, for all intensive purposes, were the “Blackwood Boys”. There were as many girls as boys amongst the crew and we had an absolute ball.
So, with all this going on why would I just pack up and take off
Why? Because for the first time in my life I was truly heartbroken. Through the later part of my teenage years I had been in a relationship with a girl for quite some time, we rode the teenage years like a surfer on a thumper at Bell’s Beach. We had something special and I was too young and shitfaced to properly realise exactly what it was that we really had. So as it turned out she left me for a mate, hardly surprising when you look back at my carry on. So I completely disregarded my fledgling audio career, I wiped away a tear, got in my old HQ Holden station wagon and hit the road, the road that ended up becoming “Finchy’s Australia”
Events always seem to end up happening for a reason and although I was almost grieving from the loss of my first love there was a strong feeling of destiny. I always knew somewhere deep in my DNA that I was meant to wander, I was meant to be on the move.
“I was and still am basically a nomad.”
This first trip started as a young “rebel without a clue” taking off because in his underdeveloped and somewhat altered understanding of the world, he truly thought that the beautiful young lost love wouldn’t be able to stand his absence and would write him a letter asking him to return. Yes, I said letter, no mobile phones in those days. Not sure where she would have addressed this vital letter. Maybe to ‘Golden coloured HQ Holden station wagon care of ‘Eastern Australia’. Stranger things have happened. Actually come to think of it Golden Holden is being just a tad generous to the factory colour of the vehicle. Baby shit brown would far better described the old girls appearance.
This was truly one of the great vehicles, this was the freedom machine
This was truly one of the great vehicles, this was the freedom machine with black curtains, a mattress over the folded down back seat and it was home for months and months at a time. I so wish I had today’s technology to have been able to record the adventures, people and places this old Holden enabled me to experience. But they are stored in my memories, I do have some old photos but it is the experiences that need to be shared. ‘My First Solo Trip’ was a roller coaster of a trip, a game changer in the overall scheme of things and no return date. The freedom and the excitement of anticipating what is around the next corner? All became reasons why this became the beginning of the nomadic lifestyle that is ‘Finchy’s Australia’.
