My Seventies Hippy Trail to Europe

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I have just found all my old letters from when i did the hippy trail overland from Australia to Europe in 1974. I started out from Bali and we were just going to Bali to go surfing for a few months after finishing my indentures as a fitter at the Newcastle Steel Works. So we went to Bali and surfed and seen lots of new things. Kuta in those days was just a little village with only a few surfers going there. And it was not like the hideous obscenity that it is now. Well we met lots of travellers in Bali and found that people would go overland to Europe and that there was a definite route or path to get there that everyone did.

So off we went like naive idiots that we were. I had six hundred Australian dollars on me. I cannot believe how naive we were. I thought I might be able to work along the way and survive somehow. Oh my, the invulnerability and stupidity of youth. So, anyway the route was, Bali - Jakarta - Singapore - Bangkok - Nepal - India - Pakistan - Afganistan - Iran - Turkey - Greece - Yugoslavia - Austria - Germany - Amsterdam - London. So off we went like babes in the woods.

Reading the letters I am surprised and horrified at some of my attitudes so take it as the rantings of an immature 22 year old who has seen nothing and has just come out of bogan Newcastle. The times were different then and political correctness was yet to be invented. So if I offend anyone with my slurs then I apologise and state that I think completely differently now. My opinions were of the times and were those of a young man who really knew nothing about the world or different peoples.

So the hippy trail went something like this or me:
Sydney - Bali - Jakarta - Singapore - Malaysia - Thailand - Nepal - India - Pakistan - Afghanistan - Iran - Turkey - Greece - Yugoslavia - Austria - Germany - England - France - Spain - England - Australia.

Hippy Trail Resources

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