It’s a long way to the shop, if you want to rock and roll

But I’m not a party machine, I’m just a man in his seventh decade who wants to improve his electric guitar skills and impress everyone at the last-chance party.

I’ve known for a while this could be my last chance to play like Eric, Jimmy or Jimi.

So on Monday, I embarked on my second solo mission to Melbourne to pick up an essential tool of the trade — a 2021 American-made Fender Telecaster.

A month earlier, I had left it with a luthier for a professional “set-up”, involving lots of highly technical stuff that only fantasy-driven guitarists understand.

Of course, the fantasy is that after $300 worth of improvements to an already pretty damn good guitar, you will sound like Jimi Hendrix.

But look, I’m old enough to realise that anything worth having is worth suffering for.

But not too much.

I decided to take advantage of the Victorian Government’s offer of free travel on public transport until the end of May.

This would be so much more relaxing than the usual white-knuckle race with B-doubles and Ram drivers through Craigieburn and Reservoir.

Wouldn’t it?

So I drove to the Shepparton station to board my dreamy morning train ride to the city of dreams.

Then I hit the first pothole of my journey to rock and roll freedom.

The car park was full, and the overflow car park was full too, because it was full of sand piles and road graders.

Then I went into the station and saw a sign: No Trains Buses Only.

Outside, a big bus was waiting packed with long-faced travellers jammed into seat belts and mobile phone screens.

I found an aisle seat and tried to doze.

I got off the bus in the darkness of an underground car park and walked in circles for 10 minutes before realising I had to get to the other side of Southern Cross Station to find a Number 96 tram, which would take me to my luthier’s shop on Nicholson St, Carlton.

I did my best to follow the little blue dot on Google maps, but I was distracted by a bunch of loud schoolkids being barked at by their teacher for putting their feet on the seats.

I overshot the guitar shop by two tram stops and faced a 19-minute walk back down the crowded streets of north Carlton.

Unfamiliar city streets are always strewn with litter and paved with broken dreams.

The return journey was made more strength-sapping because of a bulky guitar case, a deadline of 2.36pm for the bus back to Shepparton and no lunch.

After a 40-minute wait at Seymour, I boarded another bus, which took us on the scenic route through Nagambie, Murchison East, Mooroopna and Shepparton.

Along the way we were entertained by the hilarious soundtrack of somebody’s mobile phone feed playing an endless loop of street fights, chipmunk laughter and AI disco medleys.

I opened the door in the dark to my north Shepparton home feeling like I’d returned from the other side of the world.

It was only 10 hours later, but I was a changed man.

I no longer wanted to get to the top of the rock and roll mountain.

I just wanted a nice cup of tea and a home-made biscuit.

John Lewis is a former journalist at The News.