Slice of Life - Travelling

It’s just me and Bub, on the road together. Bub is my pet dog. He’s a King Charles Cavalier Spaniel, and I think he’s great. He’s been my companion for the last year. Actually, he was a gift from one of my aunts, back when I used to live with my parents. More about that later. Oh, my name? It’s Calvin.

I walk into the roadside cafe with Bub following me in. Bub draws a few stares, and some of the staff look nervous, but I reassure them that Bub won’t cause any trouble, so they grudgingly agree to let him in. I take off my backpack and take a long look at the menu, settling on the Spanish omelette with a cup of coffee, and for Bub I order a meat patty, which the staff obligingly agree to make for him.

A lady walks up to Bub and asks if she can pat him. I tell her it’s okay. Bub loves the attention. He’s a very friendly dog, but luckily, he is loyal too. While the lady pats the dog, I take a closer look at her. She is wearing a pair of black jeans, and a blue hoodie.

“Do you have a dog of your own?” I ask her.

“No, my partner doesn’t want a pet. He had to feed and care for 5 dogs and 2 cats when he was living with his parents, and he doesn’t want to go through the same hassle again.”

“That’s a shame.” I reply.

“I haven’t seen you before, and I’m a regular at this diner. Are you new to this town?”

“As a matter of a fact I am. Me and Bub have been walking down the Hume Highway. Were on our way to Melbourne.”

She gasps. “That’s an awful long way to travel without a car.”

“Yeah well, I’m doing it for the experience of it. And anyway, the open road suits me and Bub just fine.”

“You must have some money saved up?” She smiles sheepishly. “Sorry I know its rude to talk about money, but that’s my guess.”

“That’s fine. Yeah, I was working up until the end of last year. Since I was living at my parent’s place, I was able to save a lot of money.”

The woman rubs Bub on the head, and then looks at me wistfully. “I have to say, I really admire what you’re doing. I wish I had made time to do these sorts of things myself, but now that my partner and I have a mortgage, I just can’t afford to do anything extraordinary.”

She stands up, now finished patting Bub. “Well, I wish you both the best. What was your name?”

“Calvin.” I answer.

“Calvin and Bub…” She says, as if trying on something unfamiliar. “Alright goodbye Calvin, goodbye Bub.”

She walks out of the café back to her car. I wait at the table, and luckily enough there is a power point on the wall so I can charge my phone while I eat. Before long, our food is served. The omelette comes with two pieces of toast, and Bub makes short work of his patty. Wanting to stay longer so my phone can fully charge, I pull out a book and begin to read. I’m reading The Catcher in the Rye. It’s a book that I’ve always wanted to get around to reading. I’ve got two other books with me, The Trial, and something by Yukio Mishima. I was warned about the Mishima book, but the prospect of reading something by an author who went to the trouble of committing ritual suicide has a certain morbid appeal. Bub lies on the ground at my feet beneath the table.

An hour passes, and I check my phone. It’s almost fully charged. Good enough. Time to hit the road again.

We walk out of the café and begin our walk down the road. Like I mentioned before, I used to live with my parents. My mom and my dad cared a lot for me. But I had this urge to get more life experience, which is why I saved up my money to do this. While I was working, my 25^th birthday came around and that’s when I was given Bub. He was just a puppy when I got him. He was hard to train, but persistence was key. I just kept reinforcing the good behaviour, and telling him when he’d done the wrong thing. He never liked me leaving him at home while I worked.

Eventually I decided I had enough saved, and decided I wanted to walk from Sydney to Melbourne, which is pretty crazy. It’s a nine-hour drive normally, close to 1000km. And I decided I couldn’t leave Bub behind. But things have been going well. For a Cavalier Spaniel he is exceptionally well trained, walking at my side as I trek down the road, and sleeping in my swag tent with me during the night. I just have to make sure to have enough food on me to keep him going.

At night I prefer to go a little bit off the road, in case someone see’s my tent and decides to rob me or cause trouble. This has meant that sometimes I’ve set up the tent in a field with cows or sheep, but so far it hasn’t been a problem.

I look at the evening sky and I am worried to see that a rainstorm could be brewing. I brought a raincoat, but it will still be pretty miserable walking in the rain, and I feel bad for bub. Seeing as it will be quite some time before we hit the next town, I decide to head to a hill somewhere and set up my swag tent. I jump the fence at a paddock and head towards elevated ground, with Bub tailing behind me. I see some cows in the distance, but decide to ignore them as I begin building the tent. In about 20 minutes its ready to go. I have some muesli bars and jerky in my bag. I tell myself that I already had hot food earlier in the day, so I shouldn’t complain. As for Bub, I open a can and empty a third of it into the dog bowl I brought with me.

Eventually I decide its time to go to sleep. I have a LED light for reading, but I don’t want draw attention to myself being in some unknown farmers field, and besides I don’t feel like reading. Bub settles down at my feet after licking my face. Before long I am asleep.

---

When I wake up early next morning, there is a huddle of cows standing next to the tent, seemingly curious about me. Bub walks up to one, and it reaches down its head to get a closer look at him. Soon Bub is sniffing the cow’s nose and wagging his tail. I begin to pack up the tent. The phone is down to half charge, so I hook it up to the spare battery I have, which has enough charge to fill it up at least 5 times. Hopefully that will be enough before we hit the next town.

With everything packed and ready to go, and after feeding myself and Bub, we begin our walk again following the Hume highway, as he trots along with me.

Hours pass as we trek slowly down the road, the cars and trucks passing us by. At lunch time I give Bub a bit more from the can, and eat a bit more of the jerky and muesli bars. I am hoping we will hit the next town by this evening, because my supply of food for myself and Bub won’t last forever. The last place we stopped at was the roadside café, and they didn’t sell any food I could have packed with me. I figure it is due time that we either hit a town, or perhaps a service station.

Evening comes and we still haven’t seen any towns or service stations, and I start to worry. I decide to pull out my phone and check the GPS. I see that there is a turn off to a town up ahead in 7 kilometres. It will be dark by then, but there should be a motel or hotel we can spend the night in. In 2 hours, night has fallen, but using a flashlight I see the turn off to the town. ‘Geraldine.’ We begin following the road to the town.

In an hour, we are walking through the town centre. Up ahead I see a sign that says ‘The Geraldine Hotel’. I reach down and rub Bub’s fur.

“You see that buddy? Were not going to have to sleep in a tent tonight! And I promise you I’ll order you something good.”

I walk into the reception area and see an old man behind a desk.

“Hey mate. Could I get a room for myself and my dog?”

The old man looks down at Bub. “Sorry but we don’t allow dogs in here.”

“Please, I promise he is well trained. I take him outside regularly and he never goes to the bathroom indoors.”

The old man looks at Bub sceptically, but eventually I can see that Bub is melting his heart. Bub walks up to him and stands on his back legs, putting his front paws on the old man.

“I can let him in, if you do me a favour. Were short staffed at the moment, and I need someone to help my daughter clean up at the restaurant downstairs. If you help Melinda with that, I’ll let you take him to your room.”

“Thanks a lot, no problem I’ll help with the clean up tonight.”

The man opens a wooden cabinet and pulls out our key. I swipe my phone on the card reader and pay. Soon Bub and I are walking upstairs to our room. The room has a nice soft carpet, and the neatly folded bed looks very inviting. There is a TV, but instead I lie on the bed while Bub lies on the carpet and take a nap.

---

I’m woken up by the old man knocking at the door.

“Hey, go down and help Melinda now, she’s cleaning up now.”

I open the door and see the man is already walking down the hallway. Bub gets up and follows me as I leave my room. Soon we are in the cluttered kitchen, standing next to a stout lady, who must be Melinda.

“Your dad told me I could bring my dog into my room if I helped you with the kitchen.”

She looks down and smiles at Bub, who is already running up to her. Patting him, she replies.

“Alright, could you finish off clearing the tables and putting them in the rinse.”

I start clearing the tables. Eventually it is time to put all the dishes into the large washer. While I’m working, I make small talk.

“So have you and your dad been running this place long?”

She is taking dishes out of the rinse and piling them up next to me.

“My dad started running this hotel 50 years ago, and I’ve been helping him since I was 15.”

“That’s a long time. I take it you don’t normally let animals in.”

Bub is sitting patiently and watching us do our work. I see her look at him soft heartedly.

“No, we don’t normally, but he is just too cute! And thank you by the way for agreeing to help me. One of my sisters usually helps, but she has gone on a road trip with her boyfriend.”

“Oh yeah? Where too?”

“Sydney.”

I load some more dishes on the rack. “I’m actually a Sydney-sider myself, but I’m just taking some leave from work to do some travelling. I’m in the middle of walking to Melbourne.”

“You’re walking from Sydney to Melbourne?”

“Yeah. I’ve been at it now for a week and a half.”

“Amazing. You will be so fit when you are finished!”

“Haha, I guess.”

“Here take these.”

She hands me the last stack of bowls, which I load into the dishwasher, and then she puts some cleaning tablets in the door, before shutting it and turning it on.

“So, what do your parents think of you doing this?”

I consider this for a moment. “They’re pretty supportive.”

I think to myself that I should probably call them.

“Can I get you to sweep the kitchen floors while I wipe the restaurant tables?”

We are busy for another hour before we say our goodbyes and I head back to my room with Bub trailing behind me. I plug in my phone and battery to the wall, before taking a long hard look at the bed. If I were to lie down on it, I would probably be asleep in 10 minutes, but I remember that I haven’t given my parents a call in a week. I take my phone, which has a long enough cable to still be charging, and sit on the armchair while I pick my mom’s number from the contact list.

Her phone begins to ring. Within 5 seconds, she picks it up.

“Calvin!”

“Hi mom.”

“I’m so glad you called! How is everything going?”

“Things are going well. It’s been a week and a half but were not even halfway yet.”

“That’s amazing. I still sometimes wonder, why of all the things you could do, did you decide to do this?”

I stop and think for a moment. “It’s just that work was becoming such a grind, and knew that there had to be more to life than just showing up for work and slaving away all day.”

“And how is Bub doing?”

I look at Bub, who is now curled up on the armchair.

“He’s doing really well. Wherever we go, people seem to love him.”

“Of course they love him. I’ve told you before, that dog is so beautiful he looks like he should be an illustration on a packet of shortbreads.”

“And how’s Dad?”

“Your father is doing well. He’s had to take a few sick days from work, the medication the specialist told him to take was giving him terrible side effects.”

“That’s not good. I hope he gets better.”

“You know we are both missing you terribly. When you finally make it to Melbourne, be sure to catch a flight back here straight away.”

After talking for another 5 minutes, I say my goodbyes and get underneath the covers and sleep.

---

The next day I put my backpack on and head to the reception desk to hand back my keys. The old man smiles at me as I approach him.

“Thanks for helping my daughter out last night. Actually, I’ve got something for you.”

He reaches behind the counter and pulls out a plastic container full of sandwiches.

“Melinda was grateful for your help, and she made these for you to take.”

I take the container of sandwiches gratefully. Bub licks the man’s shoes and I reach down and give my dog a big hug.

“And thanks for letting Bub stay in my room overnight.”

The old man scratches his head and smiles. “He’s a beautiful dog, and like you said he didn’t cause any trouble. You two take care now, okay?”

We walk out of the hotel and make our way down the road back to the Hume highway.