Chapter One
On the Easter
weekend, 1965, when I was living at Muloorina in South Australia, I travelled
on the Ghan train from Marree to Adelaide, the main purpose being to pick up a
brand-new white Volkswagen 1200 Custom sedan which I had ordered, to be paid
for with hire purchase and my Vespa scooter as a trade-in. The price was £990 give or take a quid or
two. (The only hiccup was that because
I was under 21, I discovered that I had to get Dad to act as guarantor for the
hire purchase agreement, and he wasn't very happy about it, probably due to the
lack of notice or any prior request.)
Thus began my
direct association with Volkswagens.
I was influenced,
I think, by three factors. I was well
aware of the reputation that the VW had as a bush car. They had won some of the round-Australia
reliability trials conducted by Redex and Ampol in the early 1950s and were
highly praised for abilities on rough roads.
Second, in about 1957, my Mum's sister, Auntie Hazel, and her husband,
Uncle Mick, had driven from Perth to Adelaide, when the road was still
corrugated dirt from Kalgoorlie to Port Augusta, in an early model Beetle in a
bit over 48 hours, if memory serves me well.
They had driven virtually
non-stop! I was very impressed, and can
still picture the dark-blue, oval-window, Beetle parked alongside our side
fence, where they parked on arrival.
Third, when we
moved from Woodville to Glenelg in 1959, I continued to commute to Woodville
High School for a couple of months, facilitated by one of my teachers,
"Bodge" Narroway, who lived nearby in Glenelg and could give me a
lift in his blue VW, a mid-fifties oval-window. When he was unable to do this, I was passed on to the famous
Gerry Phillips, my latin teacher and hockey coach, who had a brand-new black
Beetle, very shiny and swish by comparison.
I was impressed by the slick floor gear change, the seating position at
the front of the car with no bonnet to speak of, and of course the
"chaff-cutter" noise of the motor.
During the teachers' college years, I drove to Renmark
with another student and was allowed to test-drive his grey Beetle. A very easy car to drive (I could only
compare it to Dad's Ford Consul) and could reach its top speed in third gear!
* * * *
Back at Muloorina,
I did a lot of driving on weekends and learnt to love my car. I drove it from the station to Marree and
return many times, a round trip of 130km on the station track, graded but very
rough. When not used the car was parked
in one corner of the Cessna's hangar, out of the weather.
This photo taken in the bed of the Frome River near Marree.
In those days,
there were no Toyota Landcruisers in northern South Australia! The stations had Land Rovers for station
work, and most private bush driving was still done in two-wheel-drive vehicles,
albeit much larger than a Beetle. The boss at Muloorina had a Dodge Phoenix, his son a current model
Ford Fairlane, and the two sons-in-law had earlier Fairlanes. My teacher predecessor had a Chrysler
Royal. So long wheelbase V8s were the
popular choice for long distances and corrugations.
Nevertheless, I
was soon driving everywhere on the station in the Beetle, soaking up the bush
life, learning to handle varying driving conditions, sandy stretches,
corrugations (fast enough to ride on top of them), and stretches of water after
rain. Muloorina was a hundred miles
from the western boundary to the eastern, with Lake Eyre in the north, so
plenty of opportunity for adventure and different driving conditions. The weight distribution of the VW, with
engine over the back driven wheels, and the solid pan under the car, made it
ideal in most conditions
One Saturday
afternoon, I was out in one of the western paddocks with Harry, the
sixteen-year-old jackeroo, following the fence line, when the track crossed a
small gully that had washed out severely.
Instead of detouring around (I was probably "dared" not to) we
got stuck in the middle, with the nearside front wheel and the offside rear
wheel dangling in the air! We thought
we would be there until rescued, probably no earlier than Sunday morning. However, after we lifted and manhandled the
front of the car sideways into a more suitable position, and put a small mallee
trunk under the elevated rear wheel, there was enough traction to get it out,
no worse for wear. We were immensely
relieved, but also proud of our effort, which meant avoiding the embarrassment
of a search party finding our silly predicament.
At the beginning
of one of the school holidays, I was driving south to Adelaide, a distance of
700km (400km unsealed), with two of the teachers from Marree as
passengers. It was after dark when we
stopped at the Parachilna pub for a break.
A while and a few miles later, travelling at 80kph, the car gave a lurch
which was almost imperceptible given the background of corrugation vibration
and bounce. Then Bob, the rear
passenger called out frantically that he could see a wheel spinning along
beside us! I nursed the car to a stop. It handled remarkably well on three wheels
and only sunk onto the rear hub when we were almost stopped, so no damage
there. With one torch we set out to
find the wheel, expecting a long search in the otherwise pitch black. The wheel was fifty metres behind us in the
middle of the road! What's more four of
the five wheel bolts were in the hubcap which was still on the wheel. Thanks to the deep design and wide lip of
the Beetle hubcap, we progressed to Adelaide that night! (I'd changed a flat tyre in the hangar before
the start of the trip -- normal practice was to let the car down off the jack
before the final tightening of the wheel bolts, but somehow I was distracted
from that last, crucial step).
During a weekend in 1966, I made a trip with the same two
Marree teachers to Birdsville. In the
wheeltracks of famed mailman Tom Kruse (still living in Marree at the time), we
were on the Birdsville Track in a Beetle!
We had a minimum of gear, but essentially, a guitar case on the roof
rack which was added for the trip. (The
best thing about the roof rack was that schoolkids could sit on it with their
legs dangling in front of the windscreen).
We knew all the station people on the southern half of the Track, so
called in at Mulka, Mungaranie, Clayton, Dulkaninna and Etadunna on the way to
say hullo, relay or collect messages, and get a cup of tea. In those days before the bores were capped,
we were able to stop on the roadside at a bore where the water came out at near
boiling point, and walk down the bore drain testing the temperature until we
found the perfect hot bath! In
Birdsville, we camped in the bed of the Diamantina, spent the evening at the
pub, and next day retraced our route to Marree. Except for one flat tyre, the Beetle was faultless.
Going north on the Birdsville Track. (Photo lifted from my 8mm movie)
I had two minor
prangs in that car, both caused by over-exuberant driving. Once driving north near Farina at night, I
foolishly tried to overtake a roadtrain, when visibility immediately behind and
alongside the trailer was nil, due to the billowing, blasting bulldust lit up
by the headlights. During the
manoeuvre, the road curved left and I hit large rocks on the right-hand
windrow, over-corrected and came to rest against the left-side windrow. Only superficial damage to the mudguard and
a bent bumper bar.
In 1967 after I'd
moved to Hesso near Port Augusta, I returned for a visit to Marree and
Muloorina at the Easter break. Late one
evening in Marree, I missed the left-hand bend at the northern crossing of the
railway line, turned in too late, and hit the blue metal bed of the line which
stood a metre high at that point. The front bumper bar was damaged, and the
chassis cracked through so that the front torsion bars were no longer
supporting the front of the car. This task was taken over by the fuel tank,
resting on the steering column! I drove
back to Hesso (400km) on Easter Monday at about 40kph and had great difficulty
turning corners -- I can still remember every corrugation (and corner)!
* * * *
After I moved to
Hesso in 1967, I had access to the skills of the engineer, engine drivers and
fitters at the Pumping Station, which boosted the flow of piped water from
Morgan to Whyalla and Woomera. These
were fathers of some of the kids I taught.
They spent little time on the hourly instrument checks and a lot of time
on personal projects, aka "foreignies". They were extremely happy to strip down the front of the white
Beetle, weld up the chassis, take out a few dings, and assemble it as good as
new. Nevertheless, the recommendation
was to trade it in on a new one.
In the next
school holidays, I drove to Adelaide and took delivery of a 1967 pale blue 1300
Deluxe Beetle with pale blue seats and door trims and complete with optional
radio. (In the white Beetle I had a
battery-operated kitchen radio on the passenger seat, with a wire antenna
strung about the place, wherever it would work at the time.) Unlike the earlier Custom, this car had
external chrome trim, chrome hubcaps, a glovebox lid and fuel gauge, and I
added optional chrome wheel trims and a sun visor.
Very few shots of the blue Beetle exist. This from an 8mm movie, driving along the banks of the Darling river near Menindie on a trip to Broken Hill.
I was so
solicitous of my new Beetle's welfare that I built a carport for it! Accommodation at Hesso was a "silver
bullet" next to the school, that is a caravan clad with silver metal and
curved edges, ubiquitous in the bush in those days, more so in the NT. Next to the silver bullet, I built a carport
with railway sleepers as uprights, and an old corrugated water tank split in
halves as the self-supporting roof. It
kept the car out of the sun and rain but was too narrow due to the tank
diameter, requiring contortions to get in and out the car.
During 1967 the
blue Beetle took me to Andamooka, Broken Hill, and at the end of the year, to
Tasmania.
The road north
from Port Augusta had heavy traffic (weight rather than numbers) and was always
in poor condition. Hesso was 60km north
of Port Augusta. Although the railway
siding and the pump station are both now gone, there is still the railway
crossing and pipeline across the Stuart Highway to mark where the siding
was. The pump station was a few
kilometres west. The road was unsealed
from Port Augusta to Kalgoorlie in the west and to Roe Creek just south of
Alice Springs in the north.
During 1967 I
made a weekend trip to Andamooka opal field and another time I gave a lift home
to a railway worker and his partner, who'd been dropped off at Hesso. They lived at Wirraminna siding, out west
between Pimba and Tarcoola, a mere 350km round trip from Hesso. Normally, their only contact with the
outside world was the Tea and Sugar train, so I was happy to oblige and learn
stuff from other bushies. My eyes were
probably hanging out on the return trip in the small hours. The Beetle showed on trips like this that it
was truly reliable, never giving me any grief beyond flat tyres. By this time I had learned on the back roads around Hesso that the VW
could travel on any bush track, no matter how rudimentary, provided I drove
gently. The car drove through lots of
boggy ground just by letting the rear tyres down a bit, and not spinning the
wheels. The only time anything broke
was when the bottom eye sheared off a shock absorber after much hammering from
rocks. Another time that the car
stopped I simply had to clear the gunk out of the fuel filter (much of our fuel
came out of 44-gallon drums with sludge in the bottom).
Before I left the
Port Augusta region, I bought a miniature trailer from a friend. Hitherto I had few enough possessions that
they easily fitted into the Beetle with the rear seat folded forward. But I expected to travel to the Northern
Territory and carry fuel, water, camping gear, as well as my growing collection
of books and records. The trailer had
10 inch wheels and a tray much narrower than the Beetle. It had the advantage that I hardly knew it
was being towed.
In December, I
went with my parents and siblings to Tasmania, in Dad's Valiant and my
Beetle. One brother and I spent the
whole time camping in, beside or under the Beetle. It was only necessary to crawl under the car if the rain began
while sleeping beside it. The clearance
between sump and the ground was not sufficient to roll over! During the trip the windscreen was broken by
a stone, and there was a photo taken of my brother, Lester, standing fully
upright in front of the passenger seat with most of his body protruding through
the windscreen frame as we descended the windy road from Poatina. When we reached Hobart, he stood up through
the windscreen aperture at every intersection to direct traffic!
This shot shows me climbing out where the windscreen used to be.
* * * *
In 1968 I was
appointed Head Teacher of Moline School, NT.
With my girlfriend from Marree along for the ride, we set off in late
January for Alice Springs and points north, towing the trailer with all my
worldly goods. In those days, after
turning west from Pimba, the Stuart Highway still went through Kingoonya and
Tarcoola, and then north to Coober Pedy.
On this trip, there had been rain over Christmas/New Year and there was
plenty of green grass and mosquitoes.
The first night we camped on the side of the road between Tarcoola and
Coober Pedy and were smothered by mosquitoes and slept little.
The next day we
had to cope with a road cut up by semi-trailers. There were lots of detours around water or road turned to
quagmire. The Beetle couldn't ride in
the truck wheeltracks; at best one wheel would be in a wheel track with the car
belly scraping the dirt. Needless to
say, the trailer was being dragged along with no help from its wheels! Several times we had to disconnect the
trailer to get the car through and then manhandle the trailer through the bush
on a detour. But eventually the country
turned dry again and we got to Coober Pedy.
The next day we
were in good spirits when we headed north.
After 100km we swapped drivers and I promptly fell asleep. The next thing I knew was that we were
stopped -- on a perfectly smooth piece of road, and my companion needing
help. The red oil light on the
dashboard was on. It transpired that on
that smooth road we had driven over the lone large rock right in the middle,
about 300mm in diameter, and I was woken by the clunk. The oil light was on because the two halves
of the crankcase were separated by the knock and all the oil lost.
A passing
motorist going south raised the alarm for us in Coober Pedy, and we spent most of the day waiting for a towtruck to eventually arrive and pull us back there. We stayed underground that night with kind
locals. I transferred any valuables
from the trailer to the car, left it locked at a garage awaiting transport to
Adelaide, and then caught the bus to Alice Springs and Moline via Pine Creek,
to my new job.
In May, Dad
consigned the repaired car to Alice Springs by train and I hitched a ride down
from the Top End to pick it up. The
trailer was bequeathed to my brother - not worth the hassle in the bush. Reunited with my beloved VW, I headed back
to Moline.
* * * *
The challenge for
the car in the Top End was water. Moline
was a mining community and crushing plant out east of Pine Creek, on the
southern edge of what is now Kakadu National Park. There were plenty of creek crossings on the gravel road between
Pine Creek and Moline. The Edith River
and Ferguson River between Pine Creek and Katherine were always impassable
after flooding rain in the wet season, the crossings being causeways rather
than bridges. I remember crossing Green
Ant Creek on the Stuart Highway north of Pine Creek when the water depth was
enough to test the Beetle. Of course it
never faltered -- it was a test of driver rather than vehicle.
The country
around Moline had plenty of bush tracks bordered on either side by high grass,
which we called "elephant grass".
In some places it was difficult to see over the grass on horseback, let
alone through the windscreen of the Beetle, so bends needed to be taken
cautiously. On weekends we would drive
to the Mary River for fishing, or to UDP Falls for swimming (now called Gunlom
Falls), on tracks that were only known to and used by locals. I even joined in a buffalo hunt, driving
cross-country on plains after a burn-off and trying to avoid thousands of
anthills and small gullies.
I remember that
the Stuart Highway from Darwin to Alice Springs, although bitumen, was single
lane all the way and had plenty of potholes.
On a trip south with a friend from Pine Creek, we stopped on a jump-up
just north of Renner Springs, to admire the view in the moonlight (some time after
midnight). Apart from the view, I can
still recall standing among the potholes!
At the end of
1968 I moved to Darwin to work in a town school. Memories include Saturday mornings in the wet season, with the
car facing away from the sun and both doors open to dry out the door cards - the
window seals couldn't cope with the driving rain. At the Nighcliff weather station in the school yard, 330mm of
rain were recorded in February!
As at Moline, I
spent weekends "down the track", fishing for barramundi at Yellow
Waters, which was across the Marrakai plain on the Mary River (and no longer
accessible), or hunting for pig in the bush west of Berry Springs. Access was always via bush tracks. Once we killed a black pig that was too big
to transport easily, so we lashed it across the bonnet of the Beetle and thus
conveyed it back to Darwin. (We hung it on the clothes hoist to butcher it and
then fill the freezer).
At the end of the
school year, I drove down to Adelaide the long way, that is via Mt Isa,
Townsville, Sydney, round the coast to Melbourne, and on to Adelaide, a total
of 6700km! A friend with wife and two
daughters in a Honda 360 started the trip with me but we parted company at
Katherine because they couldn't keep up!
I abandoned the roof rack on the side of the road before reaching
Tennant Creek, because the wind resistance was too great, affecting top speed
and fuel economy.
After the Queensland border, the road west of
Camooweal was single lane bitumen which necessitated slowing right down and
abandoning the road when a roadtrain came along, to avoid the worst impacts of
a shower of rocks. Unfortunately, I encountered one on a blind bend with no
time to take evasive action and the windscreen was smashed. I drove all the way to Melbourne without
one, although I eventually covered the space with plastic film and masking
tape. My recollection is that I was in
too much of a hurry to spend the time to repair it until the lack of windscreen
wipers and poor visibility in the Victorian weather forced me to do something
about it! I have no idea why I was in a
hurry!
My bachelor days
with a Beetle ended at the beginning of 1970 when I flew to New Guinea, didn't
need a car, and met my future wife. My
Dad had kindly agreed to arrange a panel beater to remove the stone chips from
the front of the car, detail it generally (clean out the dust) and find a buyer
for it, since I expected to be away for two years. The end of a decade, but nowhere near the end of an era.
* * * *
