Six months in Surfers Paradise: Working on the pedicabs

September 8, 2015

September 9th 2015 – March 20th 2016

What an idiot this guy was. He kept running after my pedicab, laughing like a maniac, and grabbing onto the back of the seat to hitch a free ride. My three paying passengers, only slightly less intoxicated themselves, looked back at the idiot nervously. He was certainly on something more than alcohol, if the crazed look in his eyes and the way he screamed and cackled like a madman were any indication. I kept pedalling, there wasn't much else I could do, sweating and cursing under my breath at having to haul four fully grown men behind me now. But then suddenly the idiot lost his grip and fell, landing smack on his face on the tarmac. A moment of light relief, to be sure, but alas it was only a brief respite. He rose once again to his feet like the evil robot from Terminator and ran after us once more. I couldn't outrun him, not with three heavy guys in the back. Once again he jumped aboard, pulling me back. My frustrations grew. It was the middle of the night and this wasn't fun at all. I strained at the pedals until eventually we neared the destination of my three customers and I stopped abruptly. “I'm not going any further!” I said defiantly, “Not with this muppet.” The three men understood, and willingly departed to walk the final few metres, even tipping me for my troubles. Then the madman came toward me, wild pupils fully dilated, he raised his hands. In them was a crisp fifty dollar note, which he handed to me. “Let's go for a ride” he said, jumping into the back seat. “Yes sir” I said.

That fifty pushed me over five hundred bucks for the night. The previous night I'd only made one hundred and forty in twelve hours. But that was how it was, and that was why I loved pedicabbing. It was a game, and it was always an interesting one. Sometimes it was amazing, and sometimes it was sh!t, and sometimes you just got lucky, like the time that someone paid me a fifty for cycling them twenty metres to a kebab shop, and like this night, a Friday, and my birthday. It had been all go, and I'd hardly stopped all night, from six in the evening until six in the morning, when Dea and I sat in our pedicabs and watched the sunrise over the ocean, exhausted, but with another eight hundred and fifty travel points in the bank.

This was the best part of the week - time to go to the bank

We'd been in Surfers Paradise for three weeks by that point, and we'd just signed a six month lease on an apartment, which I thought was probably the maximum amount of time I was going to be able to handle living in a place with such a glaringly obvious apostrophe missing from its name. We had moved in with Matt, a strange elf-like creature who we'd both met in Mongolia. In fact I met Matt approximately ten seconds before I met Dea, and I certainly owe him one for his decision to stop the motorbike that he was riding in order to say hello to me, thus encouraging Dea to stop her motorbike in order to say hello to me, and thus being ultimately responsible for everything that followed. Having spent some time travelling as part of the same group in Mongolia and China, Matt and Dea were good friends and he'd decided to come and join us in Surfers Paradise. He'd been in Australia for a little while already, having travelled from the UK without flying, and keen to earn some more travel points himself, he also joined us working on the pedicabs. Incidentally, and much against the wishes of both character and actor, Elijah Wood was cast to play Matt, and he did so with aplomb.

Dea and I admire the view from our balcony

The three of us had soon hatched a plan to get across the Pacific without flying. It was an idea that had formulated in the bizarre world of my mind during my long cycle across Australia, and it seemed to everyone to be a brilliant one. We would just use our savings to buy a sail boat, sail it to North America, sell it again, and use the money from selling it to keep travelling. Dea and Matt were both convinced, and it was settled. It didn't really matter that our collective sailing experience was close to zero, as Matt had once lived on a boat (it wasn't entirely clear it had ever sailed anywhere, but he understood where things were) and, what was more, Dea had bought me for my birthday a book entitled 'Sailing Essentials.' I read a few pages of it, and, as I recall, even went so far as to make notes. The plan now seemed fool-proof.

A whale watching trip gave us a taste for the Pacific

This is Pablo, one of three pigeons that came to visit us on our balcony every day

We went on with this happy existence, pedicabbing by night, dreaming of sailing by day. We had a nice apartment which even had a pool, a facility that sadly put paid to my hopes of writing a book whilst in town. We found Surfers Paradise to be a very peculiar place, and not only because the surf in Surfers Paradise is particularly tame, and not many surfers are to be seen on its beaches. The name in fact came from a hotel, and was adopted by the community as a means by which to attract tourists. That certainly worked, and with its beautiful white beaches and grand watery inlets it soon became the holiday destination of choice for many from Australia and abroad. Now everything was geared up for the tourists, from the multitude of nearby theme parks to the tacky gift shops that line every street. It was a weird place, somehow a cross between Las Vegas, the French Riviera, and Blackpool. It was certainly not at all like the rest of Australia, and consequently it felt a bit like we were living in a bubble. Then in mid-November came the annual event 'Schoolies' when thousands of 17 and 18 year old high school graduates descended on Surfers Paradise for two-weeks of non-stop partying. The normal tourists stayed away and pedicabbing became a nightmare haunted by spotty youths on pills crying out “Free ride?” Dea sensibly took two weeks off, and I soon joined her. We cycled out to the nearby Springbrook national park and spent a few nights in the tent. How wonderful it was to escape the bubble for a while.

Upon our return I focused my attentions towards the sailing expedition and began my research in earnest. What I discovered was not encouraging. It seemed the prevailing winds blew consistently from east to west, so we'd have to sail into the wind the whole way. Trying to remain positive I checked my 'Sailing Essentials' book and figured out how to sail into the wind. “I've figured out how to sail into the wind, Dea, don't worry!” All was okay for a while. I even found a blog from some people who had sailed from west to east. They'd gone up to Vanuatu, Micronesia, Guam and Japan, then across to Alaska. That sounded terrific. We'd just do that. So I emailed them, and thought everything was okay. But then they wrote back.

Apparently, according to these experienced sailors that had done it, sailing this way across the Pacific was not only extremely difficult, it was also extremely dangerous. My source told me that only about a dozen boats attempt it each year and some don't make it. Given our level of experience I couldn't help but admit we might be one of those. He strongly advised us against the idea. In fact he suggested we would be much better off to fly to North America and sail back to Australia, which I admitted sounded nice, but rather defeated the object.

Then I did some more research and found a cruise ship which was leaving Sydney on April 8th, and would arrive in Vancouver on May 1st, that was very reasonably priced, and stopped in Hawaii. It was perfect. “Dea, we might die if we try and sail, do you want to just take a cruise ship? It stops in Hawa-””

“Oh God, yes please!”

And it was settled. We were all happy. Apart from Matt, who felt a bit left out, but he'd accidentally spent all the money he'd saved for the sailing boat on cigarettes and alcohol, and a brief romance with a clinically insane older woman on a skateboard, and so he didn't get a say. By this point I'd lost all faith in him as a sailing boat captain anyway.

Admiring sand sculptures on the esplanade

Christmas was a joyous occasion. Dea's sister, Barbara, came to visit for a few weeks during the holiday period, and together with Matt we had quite a lovely Christmas Day. With two of us from England and two from Denmark, we naturally chose to have a traditional Swedish Christmas dinner, and then played games for the rest of the day, until I spoilt it all by insisting on going to work. In fact for the first four months I was extremely committed to working, staying out late most nights and stacking up the travel points. But by the turn of the year I was exhausted and gave in to other temptations – we went bowling, played mini-golf, and enjoyed a trip to the Wet'n'wild water park – but mostly I dabbled in the traditional Australian pastime of lying on the sofa watching the cricket.

Celebrating with Dea and Barbara, and Swedish meatballs

At the end of January dear little Matt left us. He'd managed to find his own cruise, but, not having earned as many travel points as us, he could only afford one as far as New Zealand. During his last couple of months in Australia he'd somewhat lost focus on the pedicabbing venture and had shifted his attentions towards his artwork. He'd spend hours by himself in his room, and we'd think he was up to no good, then suddenly he'd emerge with a magnificent piece of art. He even produced one that was worth over a hundred dollars. He'd stuck a hundred dollar bill to the front of it, but still, art is art.

Matt's helmet - like much of his art it was influenced by the crazy streets of Surfers Paradise

When Matt left, his place in our home was taken by another strange little pedicabber. This one, Yuta, was from Japan, and, quite unlike Matt, was famous for his work ethic and lack of English skills. The good thing about living with Yuta was that it was a bit like having the place to ourselves, because he'd sleep until four in the afternoon, then go to work for the entire night, every night. Our conversations were limited to a nod and an “Okay?” “Okay!” every afternoon. But on his last day we did ask Yuta what he was going to do with himself when he got back to Japan. After a brief pause he replied “Eat sushi.” Fair enough, he'd certainly earned it.

Finally, gradually, our time in Surfers Paradise drew towards a close. With six weeks to go I considered quitting the pedicabbing in order to write that long-awaited book, but decided against it, and instead roused myself for a few more good weeks of hard work. Pedicabbing consistently for over six months was a tough challenge, physically and mentally, but I had to admit it had been a great way to make money. We just rented the bikes, and we could work as much or as little as we wanted each week. Being our own bosses was great, and the hardest thing was remaining disciplined enough to go out and work each night. The other pedicabbers, a mixed bag of travellers and students from countries like France, Brazil and South Korea, were for the most part a fantastic bunch who we had so much fun working with. For most of the week it was really good, because most of the business was taking families or couples on tours around Surfers Paradise. It was good fun, because they always enjoyed themselves and we got to meet so many nice people.

One of our fellow pedicabbers passing the time between rides

The late nights on the weekends were when things got messy, when the job would occasionally descend into horrifying debauchery. Around three in the morning the streets of Surfers would come to resemble a scene from a zombie movie, with drunken people staggering around left, right and centre and occasionally taking swings at one another. Every so often some drunks would flag down my pedicab, try to remember where they were staying, then tell me they had no money. But sometimes they would remember where they wanted to go, and sometimes they'd hand me a fifty, and it'd all seem worthwhile.

Then suddenly, before we knew what was happening, it was our last night on the pedicabs, and our very last night in Surfers. Around midnight Dea and I celebrated having finally reached the financial target I'd set for us right back at the start. Our perseverance had paid off, and we now had more than enough travel points for our plan to spend two years cycling through the Americas from north to south before returning across the Atlantic to Europe (no doubt on a cruise ship.) There was a surge of relief, particularly from Dea. She was celebrating a double freedom, for she had spent much of our time in Surfers Paradise incredibly and very impressively also writing her final thesis for her masters degree. She'd just finished her many years of studies, and now she was also done with work for a couple of years too. We took one last pedicab ride, a tour around with six people, meaning that Dea and I could cycle next to one another – it was a fitting end.

Celebrating after our final lift together

The next day we cleaned out our apartment and packed our things on our bikes once more. The cleaning process was a lengthy one, and by the time we were done it was dark. We rode to the hostel from which we had rented the pedicabs and took a photo with a piece of graffiti that was on the wall opposite. It had been there when we'd first arrived six months earlier, and it now held a special meaning, for written on the wall in giant letters was simply the word 'freedom'. It was something we had earned for ourselves once again. Surfers Paradise had been an incredible experience, one we had enjoyed and would certainly not forget, but now the open road was calling us once more.

Rate this entry's writing	Heart	6
Comment on this entry	Comment	0