The Web Wide World of Jon Hoevenaars

The following story is a factual account that was recorded as it happened on the afternoon of Christmas Eve, 2006 in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales.

I’m sitting on Bowral train bound for Sydney at 2.24pm on Christmas Eve. Five minutes ago, some 20 intoxicated young adults boarded the train in sombreros, devil horns, viking helmets and wife beaters. How multi-cultural. Since then, the decibel level hasn’t dipped below that of the old Bay 13 on the opening day of a Boxing Day Test. Ironically, it is away from Melbourne where I’m travelling this Christmas. They’ve just begun their chants and rants again. So far we’ve had ‘Tits out for the boys’ in the style of ‘Ooh, Aah, Glen McGrath’. Hopefully, many more to come.

Now it’s 2.30pm. I was only two minutes into The Fray’s ‘Heaven Forbid’ when they boarded. It was more of an infiltration than a boarding. Two large, rowdy groups entered from either end of the carriage I am in. Unfortunately, there are only two carriages on this train so I haven’t many other places to go. They’ve just completed ‘Nuts out for the boys’ in the same original style as the aforementioned ‘Tits out for the boys’.

There is a “sheriff” up the other end of the carriage, wearing a leopard-skin cowboy hat, talking with some civilians in the third row. I now know why we are called civilians.

I loved the moment when the train driver emerged from the front cabin, strode stridently down the centre aisle and attempted to calm down the disturbance. I would have said it was like the story of David and Goliath, but it seems that “Goliath” is winning the battle at the moment. My favourite part of this story is how I still have Dad’s final words before I left ringing in my ears: “It will probably be a quiet trip,” he commented in the same way he always does. Little did he or I know, though, that this would be the noisiest train ride either of us had ever experienced.

Chants have just begun again. I think this one’s in honour of someone called ‘Dilly’. I’ve also realised that two of them have been reading over my shoulder for goodness knows how long.

Just pulled up at Bargo. Never heard of it but I’m glad it exists because it was obviously this heard’s destination. 2.45pm – they’re all gone.

The juxtaposition between the noise now and the noise a minute ago is inconceivable. I won’t even bother trying to describe it through the agency of some long-winded analogy or pseudo-effective metaphor. All I know is this will be another one of those memorable railway experiences. Probably in the same mould as the Trent Pocock Melbourne to Geelong experience of 2003. But that’s a whole other story. Time to put the phones back in and listen to some The Fray. Heaven Forbid this happening again!