I had now been doing the piloting work for about seven months and covered a lot of ground. At home, Sandra had completed her time with her mother and her dog and the old lady was now in a nursing home As September ended, after a local job I was booked in to do a long job from Yatala in the Southern suburbs of Brisbane out to Mount Isa.

The load was a bulldozer and it was a single-pilot job and with over 1,100 miles to cover it should take two and a half days over roads which were becoming familiar territory to me. It also gave me the chance to deliver something I had to my friend Nigel in Mount Isa.

Well, it should have…



First problem. The flat tyre on the truck’s dolly tore off the cover over the wheels just out of Barcaldine.

…but shortly after going through Barcaldine the truck suffered a flat tyre. I gave the driver a bit of a hand to put the flexible cover back over the dolly’s tyres and then we drove on.

I was mystified about the car’s behaviour as we headed towards Longreach, the air conditioning stopped working and just before we got there the engine temperature rose alarmingly.

We pulled up and quickly learned that I had a problem which would put an end to me on this job. The plastic radiator fans…



My problem. When the brittle fan blades broke up a shard went through a radiator tube and finished my day.

…had for some reason shattered, no doubt one breaking and bits of that one breaking others, sharp plastic shards punctured a radiator tube and my coolant was leaking out quite readily. Of course, this didn’t suit the truck driver, he had to get his load on its way and another pilot was located in Barcaldine and he came and took over.

After ordering a new radiator (to come from Emerald overnight) I called Nigel and told him of my plight, he arranged for me to be able to stay and work on the car at his father-in-law’s place in Longreach and then I found a local who had the fan assembly available from a Falcon he’d stripped out in his backyard.

The next day I sorted all of this out and by early afternoon I was on my way again. I stopped off at Augathella and got a photo of their famous meat ant…



Meat ant. Meat ants occur over much of Australia but Augathella has adopted them as their local mascot.

…which is essentially the town’s mascot and also that of their local football team.

I was almost wandering aimlessly on this day and a half drive, at Muckadilla I took a photo of the rebuilt pub (I previously posted a pic of this burned to the ground on my trip back from Alice Springs), which featured the misspelling of the word ‘Pub’ as a publicity catch:



’Bup’ or ‘Pub’? Two local farmers bought the remains of the burned out pub and built a new one, using this ‘spelling error’ to get publicity.

After going through Chinchilla late in the afternoon I also took the time to stop at the Boonarga Cactoblastis Memorial Hall. This is an intriguing place…



Hall devoted to a beetle. After the Cactoblastis beetle saved the rural community this hall was built in its memory.

…and I was well aware of the story of how the cactoblastis beetle had been imported to deal with the Prickly Pear problem, the story being well told on plaques outside the hall:



Some detail. The story of how the Prickly Pear devastated the land and how the beetle devastated the Prickly Pear.

Many farmers and workers back in the twenties had lost their hair and suffered other maladies as they attempted to stem the tide of the Prickly Pear’s devastation of agricultural land using arsenic. A further connection I had with the problem was that a job I had back in the sixties involved paying the small team in NSW which was charged with dealing with small infestations of the Prickly Pear using 245T, 24D and Dioxin.

Back home for several days I got to the Men’s Shed to do some more work on the gearchange tower of the NV4500 5-speed for my B350. It was all starting to take shape now and I did a trial fit…



Gearchange tower. Replacing the broken plastic tower with this seemed to be a success.

…at the shed on my way to Gilgandra for my next job. I stopped off to see Bob Abberfield, who had just bought himself a Clubman and he was busy getting the trailer ready for its registration inspection.



Bob’s trailer. Towed by his trusty Volvo 242GT, Bob took the trailer for a successful inspection.

I spent the night there and then went on to Max’s place before heading across towards Gilgandra. I slept the (cold) night at Mendooran and in the morning was in place to watch as a huge crane lifted the grain stacker onto the truck.



Grain stacker. The crane lifted the stacker and the truck reversed under it, then we were away.

This job took me to Millmerran, close to home, so I was then in place for a much better job. The initial call for this was to take a Moxy to the new Adani coal mine, beyond Clermont, then to escort another one back. But when the job came up it was a Moxy to the familiar Cracow goldmine, then to go to Mount Coolon to return a similar machine from there.

At least I wouldn’t have to go through the Covid-19 test procedure that crossing borders required. To do this I was required to have my vaccine up to date and have passed a test within the previous two or three days. But only after I noticed this bunch of protestors at a local park:



Protest group. This group were at a local park protesting against the government mandating that some of their employees must be vaccinated against Covid-19.

Sandra, meanwhile, had started rearranging the house as her youngest son, William, was due to come in from Cambodia with his family. He’d gone over there about 20 years earlier, during the course of his stay he’d met and married and it was a family of seven which would soon be filling the house, though we didn’t know when.

This presented me with a bit of a challenge I’d have to meet after getting back from this job, as the family were only allowed into the country if they went straight to somewhere they’d remain isolated for two weeks. Anyone with whom they were staying would also have to remain isolated. I started planning to move into my shed for that period.



Meeting other wide loads. We had to pass a couple of other wide loads on this run. Sometimes finding somewhere to get off the road is difficult but Mick managed with these.

What was really different about this next job was that Mick, the BK Equipment driver, had got to know me well and after dropping the Moxy at Cracow we loaded the Territory up onto the float so I’d be riding with him, spending over 400 miles in the truck and not using any fuel for that distance. Of course, the Western Star needed fuel…



Free ride. My car was strapped on the back of the truck, saving fuel, while Mick refuelled at Duaringa.

…and we stopped at Duaringa for that.

The next day we ventured further North, then headed up the dirt road…



Dirt road. From the passenger seat of the Western Star I had a good view of the oncoming dust each time we met another vehicle.

…to Mount Coolon, where I had some time to myself as Mick sorted out things with the load. This place was a real outpost with just a few houses scattered around and temporary accommodation for miners on the other side of town:



Mount Coolon. Old homes and derelict vehicles are scattered about Mount Coolon, the local service station is one of just a couple of local business houses while a number of temporary huts provide accommodation for mine workers.

We refuelled at Nebo as we headed back, then stopped for the night at Duaringa. Here I had the terrible experience of losing my car key and spent a lot of time walking backwards and forwards everywhere I’d been before finding it in my fob pocket. I don’t know how I came to put it in there as I never use that pocket for anything!

Chinchilla was our stopover point the next night, then in the morning there was a big rush on. I was needed back in Toowoomba to pilot a chaser bin…



Prosperous. The chaser bin is unloaded at the farm near Mungindi, which has huge grain storages and much more equipment. Tens of thousands of acres were about to be harvested.

…to Mungindi. Jobs were coming thick and fast at this time and I went straight from Mungindi to Pallemallewa to greet Jeremy the next morning and pilot him with a header back to Norwin, then there was another chaser bin to the same Mungindi property – which had a huge acreage of wheat in – before getting an early start out of Dalby with a huge auger…



Large auger. Pulled up for a brief break en route, the auger is towed by a regular truck but the length of the combination requires escorting.

…going to Warialda, these jobs all requiring Covid testing to cross the border.

As I headed back home I was surprised to see a field bin apparently making its own way along the road! As I got closer I understood better, its wheels had been cranked down and a tractor was pulling it along:



Field bin in transit. I first came across this over the crest of a hill and didn’t have time to digest what was ahead of me. I’d never seen on in transit before.

So did the next job, heading down to Peak Hill in Central NSW with yet another chaser bin…



Farming innovator. The owner of this farm has tried to stay ahead of the game with machinery for years, this chaser bin became the largest in the district.

…this one having an extra bit of gear attached to the top. The owner of this farm told me he was the first in the district with most large equipment and frequently heard others tell him he was going the wrong way – only to see them emulate him within a year or two. His son runs the farm now, but the old bloke (in the yellow shirt) is still pulling some of the strings.

Heading back from this one I followed the advice of Bob Winley and pulled off the highway to have a look at Tooraweenah. From a lookout along that road I got this view of the Warrumbungles…



Warrumbungles. I got a clear view of the range from the lookout on the side road. We saw more of the Warrumbungles in Reilly’s WRX adventure earlier.

…and a quiet drive through the sleepy old town:



Main street. The sign on the shop says ‘Cash and Carry’, an old description for a supermarket. It was a quiet town indeed, though in past days some famous people came from here, one having started an airline.

Further up the highway there was an unusual cloud shape over Mount Kaputar…



Mount Kaputar. Another area where mountains have pushed up out of surrounding plains, this day they were accompanied by an unusual cloud formation.

…while when I got home I soon learned there was another John Deere header to pilot out to North Star – another trip over the border.

We were delayed somewhat (note the sharp shadows on the picture) and as it’s a fairly sparsely populated area I volunteered to go and get some burgers for the truck drivers before the shop shut.



Late arrival. It was late in the day when the header arrived at the farm, delays unloading caused further lateness.

For my part, with the same trucks going on to Spring Ridge to load a similar machine for the trip back to Toowoomba the next day, I headed down to Bob Abberfield’s place for the night and got a better look at his Nota Clubman…



Bob’s Nota. Built about 1970, the car wasn’t finished for a few years when a friend of Bob’s bought it and installed a Corolla engine.

…before making the short trip out to Spring Ridge to once again head North with yet another John Deere header:



Both trucks. The second truck didn’t need piloting but we all travelled together as we had the previous day.

The last days of October,2021, had included another Moxy going out to Cracow gold mine, on the way back I’d taken some pics of the Isla Gorge:



Isla Gorge. Having a little time on a return journey I stopped in for a quick look at this popular landform.

There are a great many of this kind of landform in various parts of Australia and this one presents some bushwalking opportunities for those who enjoy communing with nature in that way.

Finally, an aborted job taking a house section from Killarney – put off when I was almost there because rain had caused a creek crossing to become impassable – became the last job of the month.

 

November, 2021, arrived and the efforts to rearrange the house were ongoing. We still didn’t know when the family would arrive from Cambodia but we had to have everything ready. In particular, I had to be ready to take up residence in my shed at The Summit.

October had ended with another trip to the shed as I prepared to do the job of piloting a house section from Killarney to Southbrook. That was close to home and I had another day to visit the Men’s Shed and put the finishing touches to my new handles for the tap wrench:


New handles. The handle was missing from this when I picked it up, but application of skills learned at the Men’s Shed – and also the use of the machines there – enabled me to make it usable.

With the various jobs I was doing, in particular the jobs related to getting the NV4500 gearbox into the B350 van, I was finding the tap wrenches which came with my various sets of taps and dies were inadequate. I’d had this one for ages and now it was time to make it usable.

The original thread on the handle was ⅜” UNF, but it had rusted/won out so the handle was simply gone when I got the wrench. I tapped that out to 7/16” UNF and made two handles to suit. One I drilled internally to Ľ” to go over the thread of the internal moving section which locks in the taps. The other I drilled to 3/16” ready to be tapped with the left hand thread if I could acquire a tap to do that job.

I was quite choofed that I was able to get a similar fine cross-hatched knurled finish to that on the original, though my rounding of the end didn’t quite equal it.

And soon enough I was off on another job. Another chaser bin going to a place near Gilgandra in the NSW North-West. Of course I was in for another Covid test…


Covid Test queue. A recent outbreak of Covid-19 in Moree meant there were many people needing to be tested.

…for the return journey. Apart from my time in the queue I spent a lot of time waiting around at Moree as there was a delay there getting yet another John Deere header prepared for its trip to Nangwee, near Cecil Plains and not far from home.


Slow loading. A forklift approaches with extras that had to be loaded with this used header. Note the ramp from the main section of the (widened) trailer to the part over the wheels of the truck, where the extras will be going.

I did use up some of this time going around to Rick’s scrap metal yard, where a Territory was being junked by his son after being dumped on the streets of town. I was trying to convince Dylan to sell me parts from it, but it would be over a year before I managed to get the parts out of it.

This job was duly completed the next day (we had to camp at Boggabilla because it was so late) and then I went on home. Some eBay-purchase LED headlight globes had arrived for me…


LED failures. I don’t know if they don’t fit other cars, but the Territory’s headlights don’t allow that bulky part ahead of the locating tabs to go into the headlight assembly.

…but were a total failure. I went online and found some more which would fit and ordered them as the constant use of headlights while piloting must be a draw on the alternator with the regular quartz-iodine globes.

But I didn’t have a lot of time up my sleeve as I had to go out to St George that night ready for another job the next morning. Finding the place where the truck was coming from was tricky, but it would have been even trickier finding the farm from which the tractor and plough were to be loaded.

Then there was a considerable distance of dirt roads through farms, grids and gates allowing the road to pass through, but the grids were usually too narrow for the truck and its load…


Through the gates. The big Kenworth made an imposing sight as it stormed through the gates alongside the grids on this road.

…until we got to the main road to Roma. From there, through Injune, Rolleston, Springsure and Emerald we went to camp for the night at Clermont. In the morning we’d cover the remaining 170kms up the Gregory Development Road and then go onto more dirt roads for another 70kms to the farm where the plough was needed.

There was some talk that there might be another load coming back, but that didn’t transpire and so I went to drive off from the farm after meeting the old bloke who owned it. But I got a call on the radio as I started for the driveway, “The pilot driving away, do you want to come and join us for a cuppa and something to eat?” was the call and I swiftly turned back. Staking a tyre as I did so.

After I changed the wheel (and realised how vulnerable I was out there with so many miles to go before I could get another tyre) and then went into the house where I was the only one there to join the ‘old bloke’ for refreshments. We had an interesting discussion, during which it was revealed that he was a month younger than me, and he told me this farm was a million acres.

It was one of five farms he owned, including the one from which we’d picked up the machinery, and was pretty sour about the new surface he’d had laid on his airstrip as the sealing tar wouldn’t go hard. There are four planes in use at this farm, and a helicopter or two, while he uses a Cessna Citation piloted by one of his employees to travel between farms.


Signs of a wet season. Water along the road as I drove away from the farm indicated that the rain we’d seen lately in other places was widespread.

As I drove away I got a couple of pics of the water lying on the side of the road – and off into the bush. And then some birds crossed the road in front of me and had me intrigued:


The Brolga. Also known as the ‘Australian crane’, these birds crossed in front of me and quickly ran off into the standing water deep in the bush.

I had known the Brolga name from a car built in the sixties by Nick Grace, later famous for his Spitfire flying demonstrations. But I don’t think I’d seen them before.

Through Emerald I went to the tyre service and got a replacement tyre, then it was back by the same route to Roma. The day was getting away as I headed towards the Carnarvon Range, where the lowering sun was combining with the cloud cover…


Sun and cloud. I was pressing on after stopping at Emerald, but I hesitated to get this shot of the clouds lit by the lowering sun near Carnarvon Gorge.

…and seemed worth stopping for a pic. I had dinner at Roma and then pulled up at a Rest Area between there and Miles to sleep the night – after covering 1250kms (777 miles) in the day.

In the morning I drove into Miles and when I pulled up to use the facilities outside the museum and Information Centre I got this pic of yet another dump truck chassis going through the town:


More wide loads. This hefty load went by when I pulled up in Miles before breakfast.

Breakfast was at McDonalds in Chinchilla, a further 40kms down the road, and I was home before lunchtime. Again I was finding time to get some snaps of the scenery on the way.

Remembering that we’d had a lot of rain, these crops near Dalby told a story, for while the paddock on the left…


Wet crops. Often it’s a race to get the harvest in before rains come, farmers work long hours when times like these arise.

…has been stripped while the one on the right is still waiting. And with the heavy rains it quite likely would wait a long time and then would be past its best when the ground dried out enough to get the machinery in there.

I had noted that there’d been a big change in the types of loads I was piloting, putting aside the mining equipment and doing more with agricultural gear. But a phone call brought yet another change when I was asked to rush down to Brisbane to pilot a truck loaded with a luxury yacht headed for Sydney.

It was due to depart on Tuesday morning and on Monday afternoon I was rushing around getting things in order. Some new tyres and an appointment with the doctor were taken care of and then another call told me the truck driver had decided to take a chance and go without a pilot and leave that afternoon, and that he’d wait at the border for me.

This driver was, apparently, a nervous wreck after a major crash a few weeks earlier:

https://www.9news.com.au/national/qu...5-760f9a950cf4


Though he believed the occupants of the car were all high on drugs, it was still a confronting (to say the least!) experience for him and he hadn’t yet been able to see a psychiatrist and wouldn’t for months.

The upshot was that he drove on past the border and was planning to meet up with a pilot from Sydney at Coffs Harbour.

And I didn’t have a job at all.

That changed three days later, I had to be at a place called Jeebropilly, near Ipswich and not all that far out of Brisbane, at 2am for a job with a dump truck heading to Nebo. It was another dump truck, about 6m wide as its wheels draped over the sides of the truck.

And remember there’d been a lot of rain? Well, there was plenty of water in the back of the truck and that was splashing all over the pilot at the rear of the load for the early part of the trip. And the truck suffered a couple of flat tyres…


Warning the traffic. Neal holds out the warning sign for the passing cars as the driver gets on with the job of changing a tyre.

…which led to the need to put the stop/slow signs to use as there was precious little room to get off the road.

We had a lighter moment as we got nearer to Theodore, where someone had dressed up an old fencepost just off the side of the road:


Dressed up. For months we’d been driving past the post with a tutu on it, I’d photographed that some time earlier (left). Now a bikini-style top and a pink wig completed the picture.

That night we camped at Taroom, where the amount of rain we’d been having had threatened to cut the road. Indeed, it came close as the Dawson River rose as it struggled to drain its catchment area. The truck parking area on one side of the highway was well under water.

That evening gave me the opportunity to get to know Neal, who was to become a close friend in the piloting business and who has been instrumental in introducing me to further sources of work.


Flooding at Taroom. This corner of the flood plain at Taroom is normally dry, but now the bridge in the distance came close to going under while this carpark was well under.

We had come to the conclusion that the driver was a ‘bit of a cowboy’ as we watched him go about his business, his attitude being a bit of a worry.

The following afternoon we completed the delivery to Nebo, then I headed down to the coast to visit my sister. She’s near Bundaberg and I had breakfast with her before pressing on down the Bruce Highway before heading inland again to put me on a trajectory to get home fairly promptly.

I did stop briefly at Childers…


Pioneer Park. The amenities at this park were good and the park’s appearance was in keeping with this. A good little Rest Area for a stop.

…and then began the run through Biggenden, Goomeri, Nanango and Yarraman to finish up very tired after having driven most of the previous night so I’d get to my sister’s place before she had to go out for the day.

And I had another job awaiting me, agricultural gear again. A grain stacker at Talwood North on the NSW border needed to be transported to Dimboola in Victoria. I was concerned about flooding along the roads we’d be taking but they assured me we’d be okay. There were two trucks to carry the machinery, but once again there was only one wide enough to need a pilot.

Unusually, I didn’t make much use of the camera during this drive, but when they stopped at Jerilderie for fuel I noticed an interesting load on a truck parked on the other side of the road:


A truckload. This much more modern truck has a complete semi-trailer on its second trailer, a bare cabin on the front trailer.

The old semi-trailer’s prime mover is a Dodge D5N while the bare cab is a Dodge AT4, the Dodge trucks sold in Australia between 1961 and 1983. I thought it showed the advancement in trucking quite well with all of that perched up on the B-double behind the Kenworth prime mover.

We had camped at Coonabarabran the first night out, so when we pulled up at Charlton in Victoria (after pushing fairly hard and using every available minute of daylight) we’d covered 1,060kms in the day. We had barely 140kms to do the next morning to reach our destination.


Morning coffee. The drivers, Dennis Funnel (orange shirt) and Allan Clark, tuck into a coffee each after a good night’s rest while a rainbow in the background dominates the sky.

Through Donald and on to Dimboola was an easy run over roads I’d never seen before. ‘Dimboola’ to me, although I knew it was the name of a town, always meant a very funny theatre-restaurant show I enjoyed back in the early seventies. Later in the seventies it was rewritten for a movie…


…which was seemingly more ribald than the version I enjoyed in the theatre-restaurant setting. ‘Risque’ was the word my then-employer used when suggesting I take my wife along to see it. Standards do change and today it would be seen as quite mild, I guess.

Nevertheless, Dimboola this day meant a real town and just outside of the town there was a grain depot which needed the stacker to handle the coming harvest. Wheat harvest in this part of Victoria is usually up to two months later than the area from which we picked up the machine. After all, we had done a thousand miles since then!


Arriving. Dennis and Alan bring the trucks up to the area where they’ll be unloaded. After that they’d head back home to Wyalong.

And while they were unloading I got on my way. This stretch of the trip, however, saw me with the camera at the ready quite frequently as things took my notice.


Rural Victoria oddities. Abandoned buildings often capture my attention and using a driver’s cab off a header as your kids’ personal bus shelter is unusual.

The house depicted here was obviously a well-built structure and suitably equipped, featuring two chimneys for cooking and Winter heating. The ornamental trees outside stand out as different to the rest of the area as well, normally only gum trees are seen in these parts.

I became curious about the crops I was driving past as well, and I never did find out what this one was:


Mystery crop. Though I stopped in the town and asked, my description didn’t get me an answer about this crop. There are irrigation hoses just visible in the inset.

Another derelict house caught my eye, a brick house this time, also having two chimneys and this time more natural trees nearby. It had many sheets of roofing blown off since it was last occupied. Note that the pics are all a bit dull as it was overcast for the whole of the drive home.


Roof missing. Another farmhouse going to rack and ruin. Sometimes it’s hard to understand how they can go this way but they do seem to have a finite life expectancy.

The next thing to attract my attention was another crop, this one canola…


Windrowed canola. The purpose of cutting the tops off the canola plants and leaving them on the stubble is to dry the seeds for a final harvest.

…which has been ‘windrowed’ so that the pods or seeds can dry out ready to be threshed from the bulk of the remaining plant which carried the seeds.

The things I photograph, my readers will have noted already, vary greatly. Through Donald I had noticed a number of cars rusting away on one property and this one seemed to deserve my attention:


Pre-war Pontiac. There’s not much left of this 1937 Pontiac, even less when you looked under the hood and for some strange reason found the remains of a Chevrolet engine in there.

I had made up my mind to visit a number of people while I had the opportunity. The first was Ian at Elmore, but my 70km diversion to see him only revealed that he’d moved to South Australia some years before.

Next was Terry Cornelius at Corowa, but he was at a funeral. So I looked in on Matt in Wodonga and caught up with him for the first time in over fifteen years. I then headed up the Hume Highway towards Sydney, stopping briefly to see John Medley at Holbrook, and at Yass for some dinner.

I would have taken a motel room at Yass if I’d been able to find one, but I was forced to keep on driving, sleeping in the bed in the back of the Territory at a Rest Area before Goulburn. I did manage a shave in the amenities block there before going on to have breakfast at Truckstop 31 at Marulan. A visit to Dave Mawer’s workshop followed, then I called in on my former sister-in-law before going to Bob Britton’s to spend the night.

Of course the plan was to be at Bob’s for his regular Saturday afternoon with ‘the boys’, but in the morning I drove across to see Paul, who had aged terribly since I last saw him. He had, however, put up a nice shed in his backyard for his projects…


Paul’s shed. All a bloke could want, but he’s unable to use it to the full due to advancing years.

…with one of those being the Jaguar he’s put together for track days.

This is a 6-cylinder manual gearbox car and has quite a lot of go-faster stuff fitted, but he laments that he probably no longer get the best out of it. Other projects inside the shed include some older Jaguars…


Unfinished projects. Two fifties Jaguar sedans, a Range Rover, a Datsun Z-car and, under wraps, another modern Jaguar, show the optimism in Paul’s collecting of cars as projects.

Back at Bob Britton’s we had a nice afternoon. But there was a warning message from Pat Clarke which would cloud my thoughts for quite a while.

“It doesn’t sound good for condor,” he said. Or words to that effect. I had failed to see the gravity in posts from Caroline on the Paddock Club forum. She’d been a good friend to me for twenty years through that venue and I guess I was being more optimistic and Pat was more realistic.

As I drove on that night, camping along the way so I could visit Max Stahl at Scone and then Bob Abberfield, my own problems were also on my mind. I had no idea when the family were coming from Cambodia but it had to be soon. All day I was on wet roads and the constant rain was causing flooding in places.


Deep water at Deepwater. This creek is normally almost dry, but when there’s a lot of rain the flow and depth is graphic evidence of flooding to be seen elsewhere.

It was now three weeks into November, 2021 and I felt I was doing well with this line of work. The Territory was running well and the future seemed bright enough – except for the news from Caroline, who had a growth in her throat that was threatening to cut off her breathing – and my imminent need to move into the shed for two weeks – a shed which would be bleak in this kind of weather.

Would the work keep up so that I’d only be ‘at home’ in the shed for just a few days?

 

As mentioned, the focus of the work was changing so that I was seeing more agricultural machinery and the next job was – well, a bit of both. A huge Caterpillar scraper, which is definitely in the earthmoving and mining category, but it was going to a farm in South Australia to extend their feedlot area.

But in the couple of days I had at home before that I took the time to inspect the gearbox Paul had given me. This was a Peugeot 403 gearbox, but the main point about it was that it had a floorchange conversion…



Conversion. These gearchange conversions were made by Sydney Speed Shop in the early sixties and used bits from the Standard 8 and 10 models sold in the fifties.

…built into its top. It’s been lying around for many years and will take some cleaning up, but it’s something I’ve been looking to get my hands on for years.

I also had a bit of work to do on a problem with the pool’s filtration system…



Pool filter problems. Bits and pieces deranged within the outlet where the Kreepy Krauly hose hooks up to the filter system.

…The water level was too high too often due to all the wet weather we’d had and it needed a bit of attention as the hose on the Kreepy Krauly tended to float about and pull itself out of where it joined the system.

And, of course, I was watching messages on the internet from Caroline, now revealing that biopsies had shown she had cancer, and that an operation was now on the cards. Four more biopsies were taken on November 17 to determine their course of action. On November 20 she had reported:

[quote] i had a surprise home visit (it was to me anyway) by my specialist cancer nurse - who came to find out what help I needed and some steroid pills, which should reduce the throat swelling and make swallowing a possibility. I'm hoping to see an improvement in the next couple of days. Once I can swallow again that will make a massive amount of difference.

The consultant was more concerned my windpipe would get blocked as well, it is on the way as my breathing is very laboured and a tracheostomy is still a possibility in the next few days. Hoping these steroid pills will stop that likelihood happening too.

Yes, it is treatable. It is likely to be surgery (hospital stay of 10 days), recover at home for 4 weeks then a course of radiotherapy for 6 weeks followed by more home recovery.[quote]



Caroline and friends. This photo was sent to me by Don Capps, Caroline is here discussing things with Barry Boor and Allen Brown at a Silverstone Historic race meeting.

The start of the next job, an 1,835kms long drive to Geranium in South Australia was close to home and we got more than halfway on the first day. Along my favourite stretch of the Newell Highway, South of Coonabarabran and near the Warrumbungles, we went past a car carrier in a Rest Area…



Oldies in transit. Apparently headed for Victoria, both the Holden on the upper deck and the Valiant on the lower are from the late sixties.

…which had a neat-looking pair of late-sixties cars at the back, a Holden on the upper deck and a VE (1968) Valiant on the lower deck.

We ran into the almost inevitable rain that night when we camped at Tullamore…



Wet at Tullamore. Overnight the rain settled in as we slept alongside a neat park.

…and had a meal at the local hotel. It’s only a small town but friendly enough to have a decent and clean toilet in the park adjacent to where we pulled up. The following day we pressed on and,along the way we stopped at Hay to eat and refuel, I made the mistake of driving under a carport at the roadhouse with my sign erected. Worse, I reversed out again, that damaged things badly, ripping apart one of the actuators which raise the sign, we had to jury-rig it for the balance of the trip using up some of the truck driver’s supply of cable ties.

Through Mildura into Victoria we went and across to the South Australian border. More Covid-19 limitations applied here, but we were okay with our tests and were able to stop at Pinaroo for the night. In the morning we completed the journey to Geranium.

Meanwhile, the next message from Caroline had come in:

Still positive and, I feel, very brave. But a long way away as I headed into South Australia. I found our destination was a pretty bleak place with a huge area cleared for the feedlot extension. The scraper we delivered sure would have been capable of moving some soil, the front engine boasted 515hp, the rear 270.



Bleak Geranium. The scraper is unloaded from the float at the feedlot. The lower pic shows how bleak the area looks, while there’s also plenty of infrastructure there to help make it all work. Inset is a picture showing the odd tyre wear these float tyres suffer.

With that unloaded I started on my way back home, with a stop to look around at Lameroo. While there I saw four utes drive into town, each of a different brand and each bearing a similar sign on the door. Then another one arrived and they lined up for a photo.



Lamaroo ute puzzle. Just why these dual-cab utilities were lined up like this for a photo session I don’t know. From left to right there is a VW Amarok, Mazda BT50, Mitsubishi Triton, Ford Ranger and Nissan Navara.

I drove on to cross the border into Victoria and at Ouyen I got my midday meal. All the way I was watching that weather. Again it was heavily overcast and threatening, in the distance…



Rain ahead of me. The cloud cover was heavy all day and showers of rain were there to be seen ahead of me.

…I could periodically see rain falling. As the day drew to a close I decided to get into a motel, not knowing how unsatisfactory it would turn out to be. I got into one at West Wyalong and it soon showed how bad it was. It reeked of some kind of deodorising sprays (which badly affect me) and the toaster wasn't working - and I had been planning to do some chicken and cheese on toast for my dinner to use up food items I’d brought from home.



Motel worth avoiding! This is the motel where I had such a bad experience, I certainly won’t go there again.

I went to the office (I admit, I learned this problem existed quite late) and the manager didn't want to believe me. Then he came to my room, where a slice of bread was in the toaster. He started handling my bread – of which I had only two slices – and tried the toaster several times before admitting I was right. He then grudgingly got me another toaster.

I was glad to get out of there the next morning and start heading home. We still had no idea when the family would arrive from Cambodia, while I was going to be driving through country where low-lying ground was underwater on both sides of the road:



Flooding near Forbes. For miles on the approach to Forbes this was the scene, paddocks covered with water and trees standing in in it on both sides of the highway.



I pressed on, stopping for lunch at Narrabri and to put my drums of reserve fuel in at Tycannah. I did take a little time out at Boggabilla to photograph a couple of things:



Boggabilla. The Dodge Phoenix had been sitting there, well stripped out, for some months in a yard, it was about time I got a picture of it. Likewise the place below had been burned down very recently, it was to be left in its ruined state for a long time.



Yes, the weather had cleared up as I travelled North, then after a complete refuel at Inglewood I was able to take some interesting pictures of the clouds and the effects of sun on them.



Natural effects. Yet another rainbow came up as I left Inglewood, but the effect that really was different was the way the reflected afternoon sun (on my left) was lighting up gaps in the darker cloud with a shower providing yet another difference.



Nearing home, I’d made sure I had some things I knew I’d run out of in my own little ‘pantry’ and pulled up just after it had got dark.

It was only another day before Caroline posted this ominous message:

And I was having my own dramas at home, just a few hours later the word came through that the family had landed in Brisbane and would be heading our way. As they were to home-quarantine for two weeks I had to get out or I’d be stuck there with them. At least being stuck in the shed would give me the chance to catch up on some jobs I often put off because I was living 90 miles away.

I had the two 360 engines there, for instance, and one wouldn’t come apart totally because a piston was rusted up in the bore. The last time I was there I’d scraped the inside of the bore above the piston as clean as I could and then filled it with diesel. And now it had freed itself and I could turn the engine, undo the rod and pull it out.

Caroline posted this message for us on the morning of November 28:

Still there was an positive air about her attitude. In the meantime, I had been surprised to get a call to take a grain stacker from Thallon to Cunningar.

Now, I knew the name ‘Cunningar’, but initially it had me tossed. It took a little while to register, it was right near where I used to live at Harden. I went to Goondiwindi the night before, intent on making a good an early start on the way to Thallon, camping in the rain at Goondiwindi.

That night Caroline posted:

Caroline’s next message came early that morning, but I wasn’t to see it until we stopped for the night:

With the daylight I started out on the path to Thallon, heading West out of Goondiwindi. I didn’t get far before I found the road completely covered with water…



Very wet… …would be a mild way of describing conditions. I was watching the depth closely as I didn’t want to get stuck out there, fortunately there wasn’t much flow in the water.

…as the rain had kept up all night. I was really expecting to get a call to tell me the job was postponed, but no call came and I kept on going.

A few miles further on…



Traffic stopped. Well, there wasn’t much ‘traffic’, but nobody was moving. The truck had pulled up and someone in a utility had gone ahead to check the road conditions further along.

…there was a young lady in a small SUV in front of me and a semi-trailer just up the road. I was trying to call the truck driver on the UHF radio when the girl came back to me to discuss our prospects of getting through, so I told her that we’d know soon how it was up ahead of us.

Someone had gone ahead to see what the levels of standing water across the road were like, they returned and said that there was about 16” of water in some places. “Well, I won’t make it through that!” I told him, but he said I should be all right and so when the truck moved off we did too…



In the wake of the truck. By watching how far the truck’s wheels were submerged I had a good idea of the water’s depth. In the end it was okay.

…with me next behind the truck and the young lady following me. She’d told me she was going to work at the school at Talwood North, but the words printed across the front of her tee shirt were potentially to be proved on this drive.

“Don’t be a lady – be a legend!” it said.



Clearing up. Just one side of the road under here, the situation improved greatly as we got closer to Talwood North.

When we got to Talwood North I pulled up alongside her to bid her farewell, she told me she’d been on the phone to her husband and he found it hard to believe she had driven through the deep water. “I wouldn’t have done it if you hadn’t been here,” she told me. I told her I had been reluctant too, and that she’d really lived up to the message printed across her chest.

I found the grain depot where the truck was being loaded and introduced myself, then waited around…



Stacking the stacker. Once again I was there early enough to see the crane operator busy lifting the grain stacker onto the float.

…as the crane operator did his work and the chains were tightened. We knew we were in for a wet run that day and I was actually concerned that there might be somewhere that the flooding might force us to stop.

Well, the weather certainly tried…



More flooding. At Narrabri the creek was high and getting close to the underside of the bridge, parts of the town were threatened (top). Near Gilgandra we saw the results of not being cautious enough on the wet roads, this car-carrier was well and truly stuck in the mud. Water across the road was plentiful through this stretch and in the bottom pic note the ‘bow wave’ of the truck ahead as it keeps over for the oncoming wide load.

…but we managed to get through it all. Bridges nearly under, water across the road, trucks running off the road, these things came and went. We got as far as Parkes that night, which was not bad considering the conditions – it was 653kms to that point.

We camped at a Rest Area just North of town, I drove into town and got some dinner at McDonalds and used their wi-fi. There I was able to read that next message from Caroline. Her frame of mind seemed, reading what she wrote, to have changed from optimistic to hopeful.

In the morning we got going early under a much more friendly sky, through Grenfell I got the fuel topped up while the driver cooled his heels just out of town. On through Young we went and then Harden and out to Cunningar.

I left the truck with the stacker in the yard at Cunningar…



Under blue skies. After all the rain and wet roads, it was a nice day when we rolled into the yard at Cunningar.

…and began a run-around to do a few things while I was in the area. The first thing was to go to the bakery in Harden, where they make great meat pies and even ones that don’t have onion and garlic. Pies I can eat!



Good meat pies! Finding a shop with meat pies I can eat is rare thing in this day of unlimited adulteration of good food with onions and garlic. The offerings at Jackson’s Bakery are very special.

I also drove back into Young and picked up some supplies from Aldi and dropped in to see my ex-wife to discuss the welfare of our grandchildren. I’d also been in touch with Marc Schagen by phone and as I headed towards Sydney I knew he was heading South out of Sydney, so the potential was there for us to meet up along the way.

As I drove up the highway towards him I could see clouds in the distance again…

 

On the first day of December, 2021, the ease of heading up the Hume Highway was tainted by the sight ahead of me of yet more grey clouds. Marc had decided to have a shower at the roadhouse on the Southern edge of Goulburn and that was where I’d meet him.

The ‘Big Merino’, a tourist monument to the local wool industry, is now on this site after having been moved from just down the road, and there I found Marc talking to the owner of a Lotus 11 replica who’d driven up from Canberra to run at a GEAR day at Wakefield Park.


Big Merino. The back end, of course. Marc is talking with the owner of the Toyota-powered Lotus 11 replica…


Lotus replica. …which quickly attracted his attention. Marc had written a book on Lotus racing cars in Australia.

After catching up with each other I headed North and he continued his drive South, with my path unusually not taking me to visit anyone in the Sydney area. I camped at a Rest Area and pressed on in the morning, heading through to the Putty Road, pulling up briefly near Colo Heights to check out the view from there and saw something I’d not ever noticed before…


Colo Bra Tree. At some time some wag has started this, paraphrasing a line from ‘Waltzing Matilda’.

…spending a night with Bob and Elaine Abberfield.

That morning our friend Caroline had posted about her situation, which was obviously becoming dire:

I was home – that is, in the shed – by the end of Friday and found Caroline’s latest posts regarding her situation.


Caroline. From her Facebook page, this pic shows her as she was, full of life and fun, smile at the ready.

Things were now ever more ominous:

This was her final post, she did as she earlier said she would, she kept her friends on the forum abreast of her plight right to the end. It would be another three weeks before we got the confirmation that she passed away that day, first with someone finding a death notice with her name in the town in which she lived, then a couple of days later when her brother learned of us and found a way to get in touch.

While I kept up a hope that she had survived, I kept on wondering. The weather turned even nastier that night and we had hail, it was cold in the shed, I paid a visit to some of the friends with whom I’d spent time when I lived in the area and then on Monday did a trip to the laundromat. After that I started to address another problem with the Territory..

On a recent trip I’d found that the fuel pump wasn’t working properly when the fuel level was low. Replacing it was difficult because the tank had to be removed and this was a big job. Most cars have a hole in the floor above the pump to give access for replacement of the pump and I was determined that I would have the same access. I put the car on the hoist at Sue’s place to determine where I’d have to cut the hole.

But there was no time to do the job, I was off again on another job, out of Toowoomba, but the rains were playing havoc with the roads…


Closed! These signs often say ‘caution’ and you can ignore them, but this was a different matter.

…and called for different routes to be used:


Inglewood. We turned off at Millmerran and headed for the Cunningham Highway. This took us through Inglewood.

We went through Goondiwindi and the trucks were refuelled at an unmanned fuel depot at Bogabilla. I topped up there too, then we headed on to Bellatta and stopped for the night.


Bellata. This trip I learned about sandfly bites! I had some get to me at Bogabilla when I refuelled, then here at Bellata when we stopped for the night alongside the roadhouse.

We were transporting agricultural equipment to Donald in Victoria, a planter machine, each truck needed one pilot as they measured between 3.5 and 4.5 metres wide.

Down the Newell Highway, which traverses huge areas given over to grain – principally wheat – growing, with the attendant huge storage facilities in the towns along the way.


Modern storage. Unlike the older silos, tall concrete structures, bigger harvests over the years led to a rethink of how best to store the crops as they awaited rail transport to the cities and ports.

We continued following the Newell past West Wyalong, a path I’d not seen in my piloting career, but still roads I knew well. Then, at Jerilderie we left the Newell to take a more direct path to Donald via Deniliquin and Barham:



At Narrandera we went past a fifties example of expanding the size of the silos, this one being like the one behind the trucks in the Bellata picture above:


Bulk storage. Built between 1955 and 1964, these hold up to 29,000 tons of wheat behind those concrete walls.

Obviously it was well into the afternoon as we went past that silo and we came to a stop at Conargo, not far from Deniliquin. The hotel, burned down a few years ago, had been replaced, but there’s little else there. However, we were close enough to our destination to ensure we’d be there at a good time the next day and so we made camp.


Conargo conversation. Gary, the bearded pilot, and the two truck drivers discuss things as I take photos.

We carried on early the next day, approaching the Murray River bridge at Barham. This old-style bridge dates back to the days when paddle wheelers carried wool, crops and passengers along the river and thus has a lift span.


Barham bridge. A one-lane bridge but wide enough for our loads, this was our gateway to Victoria.


Good flow. After years of drought, rains upstream now had the Murray flowing well.

It didn’t take long to get from there to our destination, where a crane was on hand…


Unloading. It didn’t take long for the local crane hire crew to unload the machines. Inset shows the detail of the workings of the planter.

…to unload the machinery. My job done, and a follow-up job not eventuating, I started to head for Corowa to visit Terry Cornelius, while along the way I noted the way trees which had ‘died’ during the drought were demonstrating their will to live again:


Renewed life. The rains have caused these trees, which had looked totally dead for some time, to send out new shoots so they could start breathing in their life-giving carbon dioxide again.

Terry was happy to see me, particularly as it gave him a chance to show off his workmanship on a car left unfinished years ago by Don Lapham. Terry’s aim with this was to make it look as much like a Maserati 250F as he could…


Terry with the car. Transverse leaf springs along with the triple SU carburettors are evident as Terry introduces me to the car.

…which would have made a tough job out of making the tail section’s bodywork:


Rear view. Craftsmanship is evident, Terry has done some high class body-building jobs over the years.

From Corowa I started my trip to Sydney and Bob Britton’s Saturday afternoon get-together, I pulled up at Gundagai with a view to looking over the famous old timber bridge which crosses the flood plain between the two halves of the town. But only the short section over the Murrumbidgee River was left standing!


The remaining bridge. Just this small piece was left, the problem being that the cost of replacing the rest would be prohibitive.


Left turn only. There always was a ramp off the bridge, the road leading down to the river flats and campground.


Looking back. From the main Gundagai side the scar left by the demolition is large and obvious.

Everyone appreciates, of course, the historicity of the bridge, the nostalgia held by those millions who’d driven over it while travelling between Sydney and Melbourne. It dated back to the late 1800s and had seen its share of floods…


1900 flood. An old photo, likely taken by the local doctor who was a prolific photographer, shows the size and importance of the longer section of the bridge in flood times.

…and kept the highway open when these came. A new concrete structure replaced the original bridge in 1977 and was duplicated in 2009 as the Hume Highway became more of a freeway.

I spent a day with Bob Britton, helping to repair the Hyabusa car and having a run up and down the driveway in a couple of other examples of Britton art. Young Seth, Bob’s neighbour’s son, had been helping him with things but on this day he suffered a lot of criticism from others present and that was the end of that assistance. Mind you, the repairs to the Hyabusa car were necessitated by his lack of care driving it.

After camping up the highway I dropped in to see Max Stahl, but he was in hospital and so I headed for Bob Abberfield’s. The next day, after helping Bob with some shelving he was making for Elaine’s pottery, I pressed on towards home and got this photo as I neared the Queensland border:


Hopeful campers. Several cars, some with caravans, were camped in convenient spots awaiting a lifting of the border crossing restrictions.

Yes, the Covid restrictions were hampering a lot of movement, in fact I had to get back to Queensland on this day to avoid having to get another test done.

I spent what should have been the last night in the shed, the two weeks of ‘home quarantine’ was over and it was time to meet my Cambodian family…

 

Now we were well into December, 2021, and the work wasn’t slowing down. A free day at home, during which I met the family from Cambodia. It was a quiet meeting, William, Sandra’s youngest son, was somewhat reserved in his approach to me, I would find out later why this was.

But for now my main concern was a call to be in Rockhampton to take on a job with a railways track repair (or inspection?) machine…


Long not wide. Width wasn’t the issue with this load, rather the length. Above it’s seen clearly not taking up much more space than normal on a typical two-lane highway, below its length – with the dolly in place and the trailer extended – is clear as it turns into the yard to which we took it.


…to Grandchester, an outer suburb of Brisbane. This was on December 16 and I barely got home and I had to head out again to be at Moonie to join a crew with two large dump truck chassis which were going to the Hunter Valley.

It was an early morning start, the trucks had been stuck there for a couple of days as the road was closed to heavy loads due to the heavy recent rains. We had police on hand…


Keen to go. The drivers of the trucks were ready to go as the morning sun threw long shadows on the parking bay at Moonie.

…and the Leichhardt Highway had been declared open for heavy traffic. And our trucks weren’t the only ones using it.


Obstacles on the Leichhardt As we weren’t allowed to travel as fast as other trucks, finding somewhere to move over and let other such as this road train by was sometimes necessary. The bridge, however, shows that our load’s width was filling the road.

We had a stop at Goondiwindi, then headed down through Narrabri, where roadworks in the middle of town caused us some consternation – and close calls – before heaing through to the Muswellbrook area. There we deviated through some hilly country on secondary roads, aiming to miss the curfew at Singleton in the morning, Overnight we stopped at Murrurundi…


Murrurundi. As can be seen, it was still fairly early when we pulled up here, the long days of Summer were with us and I expected to go further on this day. It’s a roadhouse good to avoid, by the way.

…which wasn’t really in keeping with my hopes, as I’d been wanting to get back to Tamworth to be with Bob Abberfield as he had his first run in his Nota at Oakburn Park.

But things conspired well and truly against that, the police were a couple of hours late turning up and our destination, Mount Throrley was some distance down the Putty Road. I went down the road to Scone to have dinner with Max and Christine Stahl.

After completing this job I went back to Bob’s to learn that his family had joined in the fun at Oakburn, his daughter keenly taking photos of him in the car, while Bob was pretty unhappy with its performance. The next day I headed for home, making a couple of stops on the way.


Thunderbolt’s Rock. This cluster of granite boulders were used by bushranger Frederick Ward, known as ‘Captain Thunderbolt’ to ambush stage coaches in the late 1800s. It was here also that he made his last stand against the law.


Long tradition. For many years people have been painting their own messages on the rocks, which are in a Rest Area now, this one being from a postcard said to be from 1950.

Though it could be said I was young at the time, my recollection of seeing the rock in 1950 was not of advertising but of scrawled personal notes.The mercer mentioned there was in Uralla in the early thirties, the arc welder had a poem written about him (or his father?) in 1888.

On that same drive, and about 60 miles further north I stopped at Deepwater where I found a more modern form of public painting happening:


Paid graffiti. All around Australia people are painting pictures on silos, here I found this woman painting on the wall of the little toilet in the Rest Area. apparently she was paid $6,500!

A platypus was the focus of the painting and they are known to be in this area, though they are very shy and not often seen.

Also at Deepwater is a quite handsome railway station…


Station repurposed. The old railway station has been the Deepwater home of 2CBD FM for many years now, in Glen Innes they are based in an old church.

…disused for many years but now it’s another kind of station, a radio station. It’s run by a local community group and has two frequencies, 91.1FM in Deepwater and 105.9FM in the larger town.

I’ve previously shown pics of the bridge being built to straighten the highway on Bolivia Hill, it was now done:


Bolivia Hill. Not far North of Deepwater, this job was now finished. Somehow I enjoyed it more with the bends in the road.

It was Sunday afternoon by now and I was home by evening. I lay down to take a nap as the rest of the family had dinner, expecting to wake in time to cook my own, but I didn’t open my eyes until 4:30am. I rolled over and was just going back to sleep when the phone rang, I was needed at Ahrens at Goombungee to do another job at 6am!


Silos out of Ahrens. Ron, one of the other pilots, discusses the route with one of the truck drivers.

This job was to take us to Cona Creek, just out of Springsure, where they were going to a feedlot. Along the way we passed by this overturned trailer…


Upside down. A sure sign that somebody’s had a bad day, this had probably happened the previous day and would be salvaged before long.

…which is something you’re bound to see when you cover big distances. This job was almost 750kms. As we were also to transfer a couple of older silos to another property at Isla Gorge I had time to get a pic of the little Canadian-built Thrush 510G cropduster at work spraying the crops.


Crop dusting. Just to fill time while I waited for the unloading and unloading to take place I amused myself watching this bloke at work.

It was only 40 miles to the next drop…


Old silo repositioned. Once they had the new silos at the feedlot they had us take two older ones to another property.

…and then I headed home again. But not for long. The next morning I was back on the job looking for a truck dragging a dozer out of the bush at Spring Creek, just down the range from Toowoomba. It took a little finding, but it was there up a dirt track. And it was the dirt track which provided the first hazard.


Almost stuck! The truck turned the corner readily enough, but the dolly didn’t and as it slid sideways in the mud it dragged the truck in too.

It was a bit of a time-waster, but they unloaded the dozer and used it to pull the rig back out of the mud, then we were on our way to Roma. We found the place we had to take it and then I was once again headed home. It was the afternoon of December 22 and there would be no work for a couple of weeks.

I had mowing to catch up on at home, the lawn out of control due to wet weather and my absence, I had nonagenarian Roland Butler to catch up with, and I had plans to get some bargains at the Boxing Day sales.

I would also be able to head for the shed to do some jobs, one of them being the scheming of how to cut the floor for the fitment of a new fuel pump. I’d bought a second hand pump in Armidale but now I thought better of it and ordered a new one online.


Tank removal unnecessary. Having had a good look at where things fitted in a wreck, I was able to gingerly cut a hole in the floor to fit the pump. Unfortunately, I didn’t take any pictures until it was finished and I’d put a panel over it.

The panel was a piece of Valiant cut out of the side of an engine bay. Several TEK screws held it in and some sealant around the edges completed the job. Of course care was taken to ensure the screws wouldn’t be able to do any damage. The wiring look which can be seen above going into a large grommet, the hole in the floor for this was outside the hole I had to cut.


Planning for the future. While I was at it I made up a template in corflute locating the hole’s position in relation to the bolts on which the rear seat sits.

New rear brake pads also went into the Territory at this time and I made an attempt to correct the damage to the lower control arm mount only to learn that I’d have to try harder. A ‘clonking’ noise in the front end had led me to attempt this and it was cured by inserting a washer as a temporary remedy.

It was at this time that we got confirmation of the death of our forum friend Caroline had died, while another such loss was learned of in a phone call. Geoff Smedley, an absolute genius racing mechanic I’d known in the sixties, passed away at the age of 90 and his wife called to let me know.


Geoff Smedley. Though he was best known for his work with much faster cars, Geoff is seen here with a rapid Toyota Corolla he prepared.

More bad news was coming my way as a couple of jobs were offered to me as the early days of 2022 rolled around only for them to evaporate. But that did give me the chance to do more in the shed, I had been talking to someone about a 360 block I had, it badly needed cleaning out (I’d not long before been able to free the last piston from its bore after soaking it with diesel for a couple of weeks) so I made myself dirty getting this done.


Messy job. This was the state of the 360 block before I cleaned it up, it musn’t have had an oil change in many years.

I also decided to use some time pulling the brake drums off the two Dana 60 rear axles from the rusty vans. Only one of them turned free of the shoes, the rest obviously had the shoes rusted into the drums and I didn’t want to risk damaging the drums by forcing things.


Success and failure. The drum came straight off the one which had turned free, the other end saw me twisting a shoe beyond repair pulling off the drum.

I had thought it through and reckoned that only the wheel cylinder and the sprung shoe retainers could hold it the shoes to the backing plate, and that if I could get the head off the bent nail which connected to the spring all would come free. Drilling did little so I resorted to using the oxy torch.

But in this case it was all futile as I hadn’t seen a hidden nut which held a bolt which essentially retained the top end of the shoes and the handbrake actuating lever. These all pivoted on a cylindrical piece welded to the backing plate pressing and as the through bolt was both small and the nut was located within a deep part of the backing plate pressing it was easily missed. Once this was undone, along with what I’d already done, things came apart.


More success. With the nut undone, the remaining drums came out with the shoes still stuck in them. Circled in red is the cylindrical pressing on which everything pivoted while the lower pics show the details of the front and rear of the pivot point.

Fortunately I found that I could order a new set of shoes locally online, and priced reasonably too, they being common with some Fords which had been sold in Australia.

Next came a trip to the Gold Coast to get Ben to check the 360 block over and give it a proper bath, determining whether or not it needed a rebore etc, while other movements included getting another Covid test in case I needed to cross the border and humdrum stuff like going to the laundromat.


Commer lit up. Opposite Ben’s workshop there is a towing contractor an they ha this old Commer done up with the lights flashing in unison as some kind of a display piece.

More work was being promised and falling through, talk of a job to the Macarthur River mine in the Northern Territory stopped with mention of an oncoming cyclone in that area, Finally, a job came up, it was then January 13 and there were two trucks to take Moxys to Cobar in far Western NSW. We travelled through Moree and headed along the very flat road…


Expansive. It’s very flat country out to the West of Moree, populated with very large farms with very large sheds.

…to our first night stopover at Collarenebri…


Sunburned. This Mitsubishi Magna roof was indicative of, perhaps, a poor repair job. The BK trucks and their Moxy loads are parked opposite the pub here.

…where the publican had recently given up the unequal struggle and left the place abruptly. The staff had gamely taken on the job of running it themselves to keep their jobs.

It was a flat and featureless run to Cobar…


Featureless. Long straight roads over flat countryside is the common situation in this part of the state, only a few towns to break the monotony.

…refuelling at Bourke on the way through. I had not long before this replaced one of the electric actuators which lifted my roof sign and now the new one stuck, giving me a little job to do before heading home.

After all the false starts, it was good to be earning some money again…

 

Pulling out of Cobar I was a long way from home. There had been no other potential jobs mentioned so I planned my path with a view to visiting some people I knew along the way.

And I was able to stop off when things appealed to me and one of these occasions was at Gilgandra. The Castlereagh River there has a big bridge over it, but I’d never seen more than a trickle of water underneath it, usually just the sandy base, but with recent rains…


The Castlereagh. A river mentioned in early Australian poetry, it so often was a near-dry bed of sand. But now it was flowing, flooding bringing the muddy waters to a high level at times.

…it was quite different and there were signs of the vegetation in the river having been under stress from the level of the flow.

Naturally enough, as the miles rolled by the time came for darkness to begin to fall and yet another sunset was seen through the hills heading towards Coonabarabran:


Across the Warrumbungles. Not terribly colourful, but a sure sign that the hours were passing and miles were being covered.

But with Covid running rampant at the time I was to be thwarted in this. Malcolm, a former Mopar friend in Narrabri, told me shortly after I got to his place that his daughter – who worked at McDonalds – had the virus. I had recently had my booster shot and I shouldn’t have been concerned, but I put a mask on and didn’t stay long.

The next stop was at my shed, spending the afternoon there and doing an oil change on the Territory. While I was at it I fitted the transmission oil cooler I’d picked up at a wrecking yard a little while before.

And while talk of the job from Macarthur River back to Brisbane was bearing no fruit, a job almost as good came up. I had a full day at home and a trip to the Men’s Shed first where I brought a couple of small jobs to completion:


Sockets for the Dana 60. Having dismantled the brakes from these rear ends I decided to make sockets for doing that job more nicely in future. I could even use them with a conventional socket to enable me to use the tension wrench.

Not such a small job, really, the bracket to enable me to use the gearbox mount I’d sourced under the back of the NV4500 gearbox. Put together over a few sessions, it was fairly complicated:


The components. As usual, made from pieces of square tubing cut up to give sections suitable, the top pic shows the way it was designed to bolt to the gearbox mounting pad while the second pic shows how I’ve provided for socket access to bolt it together. And the lower pic shows it assembled.

The original bolts into the mounting pad didn’t impress me, so I drilled it and re-tapped it so I could enlarge from the 10mm size to 12mm. Studs from a Peugeot differential housing would, I reckoned, but a more secure fitment. In applications like this I always prefer studs and the looseness of the original bolts in their threads was evidence I was on the right track. Here’s the way it all went together:


Bolted together. Step by step assembly pics, the loose bolt in the top pic is an original that bolted into the mounting pad.

My extended spigot bush setup was also finished…


Extended bush. As the NV4500 spigot is not as long as the A833 (etc) transmissions had, this addition was necessary. The shorter normal bush is alongside.

And then it was time for me to head out for another long-distance job. A pair of trucks had been held up by rains in Western Australia and now they were making their way across the Northern Territory en route to Pirrinuan, near Dalby. As I departed Toowoomba (in the rain) I had about 2,000kms to cover to meet them, extra pilots being needed in Queensland compared to the Northern Territory requirements.

I camped the first night out at Morven, then had breakfast at Augathella, and as I covered the miles on the second day I was nearing Kynuna when I came across…


Vehicles ahead. This bunch of vehicles were blocking part of the highway, largely because there wasn’t much prospect of getting off the road here.

…this scene, police lights were flashing and there were people around. I realised there must have been some sort of accident and had the camera ready as I went by:


Mysterious damage. The people mover had obviously been loaded with overseas tourists and come to grief here. The occupants were unloading their gear as the vehicle would be taken away on the tilt-tray.

Just up the road a road train was similarly pulled up, it would seem that the people mover had come into contact with it somehow.


Road train involved. Also unable to get right off the road, this road train must have been the other vehicle involved in the collision.

It was still some distance to Cloncurry, but I was covering the miles well and again got to see a river flowing where usually it’s a dry bed or, at best, a trickle…


Another river up. The long bridge on the Western side of town rarely has much water under it, but this time the Cloncurry River was flowing well.

I spent the night at Reilly’s place in Mount Isa and together we tackled a problem he had with his Forester the next morning. It turned out to be the fuel pump and, fortunately, the local Repco store had one in stock. It was a relief to him that we could get it going so easily as it had had him stumped for some time.

Then I left him, driving the remaining hundred miles or so to Camooweal to await the arrival of the trucks, due the next morning, which was a Sunday. While there I found that the townsfolk – or some visitor in need – had added to Australian culture…


Cultural addition. It’s normal for the ‘vacant/engaged’ latch on toilet doors to be broken, this happens everywhere. In this case it was replaced with a pad bolt. But the pad bolt had disappeared, so a rock had been placed on the floor to hold the door shut for those desiring a little privacy!

…by devising this method of keeping the door shut while on the toilet.

So on the Sunday morning we (the other pilot waiting on this job and myself) kept our eyes on the Western horizon to catch the first glimpse of the trucks coming into sight. And in due course they arrived and pulled up in the large parking area adjacent to the roadhouse at the entry to the town.


Welcome arrivals. We were glad to see the trucks arrive and line up in the parking area while the drivers got something to eat.

Soon we were completing our paperwork for the trek across most of Queensland and then heading down the highway. A quick stop at Mt Isa for fuel, then we headed for Cloncurry to camp in the saleyards. It was a short run for the day, but the saleyard camping area for truckies is brilliant and we’d exceed our allotted travel time looking for anything nearly as good.

I used the barbecue to cook my dinner, the sheltered cooking and eating area being handy as it was once again raining. The balance of the crew celebrated the early end to the day by opening a few bottles.

The next day we got through to Blackall, and as the trucks planned to refuel here we had the situation arise…


Stuck. The truck I was with had a laser leveller on board together with the tractor to pull it. Getting across the gutter required some persistence.

…where the driver had to juggle the airbag-controlled ride heights to stop the rear of the trailer digging in.

The job was completed the next afternoon and I drove on home. It would be a few more days before another job came up so I took the time out to head down to the shed for a couple of days. I fitted grease nipples to the front ball joints and again visited the laundromat.

With these lower control arms now up to 55,000kms, I looked around online to find replacements. One crowd were offering them for $85 a pair (I’d paid over $200 each at Repco!) and they came with a five-year warranty which they affirmed was irrespective of mileage. I ordered them, though my ultimate plan was to change to the later front suspension when I got the chance.

Back home, I also paid Roland a visit and dropped some trucking magazines around to Paul, these being freely available from roadhouses. Then more work came my way.


All in a day’s work. Working with Jeremy and the fresh new Baartz Kenworth, we did one job from Toowoomba to Goondiwindi, then a load from the same area back to Toowoomba.


I was back to Goondiwindi again the next day, an early start at Goombungee with a house in two sections…


Early start. A used house dealer had us up early with this job, which we were only escorting to Boggabilla.

…which we were only taking that far because the rules in NSW don’t require pilots to be licensed. They had other employees in an assortment of different vehicles to take them the rest of the way to distant Gulargambone:


Changeover. Even the little silver car was pressed into service as the house dealer’s own team took over.

It was crazy watching them get that one vehicle ready, a blanket over the roof and then a frame with the sign on it lashed on with ropes through the windows of the car!

But we were more interested in a much larger section of a house coming from Moree and which we were to escort to the Sunshine Coast, where it was to become the club house for a gun club. We joined this crew at the Goondiwindi United roadhouse, just up the road.


Large. The size of this house section is obvious as the truck refuels at the United station’s pumps.

The job was not to be as straightforward as it might. During the balance of the daylight hours it wasn’t too bad and we were well up the Brisbane Valley Highway when the crew pulled up to get some sleep at 8:30pm. But it wasn’t to be for long, we were – with the benefit of lights on the building – underway again at 12:30am…


Others about. Another building on the road after midnight goes past us on the D’Aguilar Highway.

…and ultimately got into the tight confines of the area where the building had to go at about 4:30am. Then it all started to go pear-shaped:


Stuck! Trying to go wide enough to allow the 65’ long section to clear the trees on the inside, the truck’s drive wheels slipped in the mud and it all came to a stop.

Chainsaws came out and trees were cut down, the Isuzu was pressed into service to help pull on the old International and eventually the load was turned onto the narrow track leading to the destination.

But it wasn’t over yet. As the load progressed down the laneway the crew were busy…


Lopping branches. Between chainsaws and a battery reciprocating saw, the load inched forward as crew members up on the roof cut into the obstacles.

…hacking away the branches which were in the way, all the while the driver having to be sure he was able to clear obstacles on the ground as the laneway curved. Finally they broke through into a clearer area and people locked in by the truck were able to get out of their driveways and head off to work. It was now 7:30am.


Finally free! The truck emerges from the heavily treed area, the odd branch hanging off its sides and the tow-strap still in place.

Then came the next problem, how to get this rig turned into the available area of the gate to the club’s property. It was looking like a suggestion to tear down a bit of a rock wall would be a good one, but after I left a salvage truck came in and dragged the rear of the trailer around so it would get through.

And presumably they had to go through all this again when the second half of the building was to be delivered…

But I wouldn’t be involved in that and once the way was clear for me to get out of there I headed for home. I had some breakfast at Gympie and then, dog tired after the past day and a half, stopped for a while for a snooze. I reached home in the mid-afternoon.

Something different was happening that weekend, however, and while I had plans to fit the new lower control arms to the Territory I also wanted to spend some time at Morgan Park.


Bob has a run. The old Nota on the straight at Morgan Park, Bob trying to work himself up to his old standard of driving as he competed in a Sprint series held here and back at Oakburn.

…where Bob was running the Nota for the first time.

The first job to do with the lower control arms was to repair the socket into which the inner bush on the right hand side mounts. We’d brutalised this removing the arms a couple of years earlier, the bolt having rusted inside the bush and finally needing to be cut out with the angle grinder.


Damage repaired. The damage can be seen on the left. I welded a 2mm thick washer inside it, having first shaped it to fit, then used the angle grinder to get the surface right.

By the end of the weekend I would have that job all completed, including putting grease nipples into the ball joints, but I was still apprehensive about it all and looking for the bits out of a later model to eliminate the problem.

At Morgan Park, meanwhile, there was a lot to look at with a mixture of open-wheelers, sports cars and sedans, some of them professionally built, others the product of an enthusiasts’ own workshop. This one impressed me


Very neat. Based on a replica of a Lotus 27 monocoque chassis, this home-built car had a big motorcycle engine and gearbox.

I spent some time talking with the owner, he’s a real artisan working with the ‘wheel’ for forming alloy panels.

And so the weekend played out. We were now in February and there were more adventures coming my way…

 

One of the cars I’d seen at Morgan Park which impressed me was a car built to the ‘in the likeness of’ rules we have for Historic racing. These are cars which are built from a regular chassis and utilise components from production cars up to the mid-forties.

Featuring all Dodge components, with the appropriate hotting-up gear added, this was locally built and went pretty well:


Dodge Special. Using Dodge chassis, running gear and the old flathead 6 engine, this car was very neat and quite quick for its era.

My next adventure was to go down to the Gold Coast hinterland. My friends from the Men’s Shed, Peter and Nicol took a trailer down to pick up a Peugeot 403 station wagon Peter had bought from Skip Verhagen, who was thinning out his collection of old Peugeots.


Peugeot 403 wagon. Putting this on the trailer without operative brakes was a trick, but they soon had it ready to transport.

Peter had a ‘project car’ similar to this at home but had come to the realisation that it was easier to pass that on and get this one which was much more advanced in its restoration.

For my part, the reason for tagging along was that I’d never been to Skip’s before and had heard he had a lot of relics in the bush behind his place. This was where, I thought, I’d be able to find odds and ends that might be handy at some time in the future.

I did come away with a couple of gearboxes of the type, known as the C2, which came in early 403s and had an overdrive top gear. But I also had a good scour around...


Relics. The Gold Coast climate and bush like this makes short work of cars left to rot, I doubt any of these could ever be made to go again. And this isn’t all of them.

...among the wrecks and was surprised at what was there. Lots of 404s, some 203s and 403s and even a couple of old Simcas.

Meanwhile, word had come through from a very dejected Reilly that his Ford Ranger had been stolen. Youth crime is abundant in some parts of Queensland and some young blokes had broken his front door down and taken the keys to get away with this car.

The police caught up with them and they crashed it, it was (as can be seen) very comprehensively equipped for trips away, refrigerator, inverter, his swag always in the back, it had become his pride and joy among all his ‘toys’. The police sent him this photo...


Police photo. On the tilt-tray the poor Ranger’s damage is partially seen. It’s also clear that the young thieves taken to the bush in their efforts to get away.

...which, among other things, showed that it would be some months before it would be repaired properly.

I next took on a job from Narromine to Orange, all in the Central West of New South Wales. It was tied to a much more lucrative job from the same region which would take me back to Queensland, making it worthwhile to drive down there.

But ‘incidents’ on trips like this are not rare and this one was a good one...


Stuck! People told us these gates had been shut for an hour, we called up the railway people and they sent someone out who couldn’t open them!

...as we got caught at this level crossing on the bypass around the main street of Wellington. Eventually we simply drove around the gates, but we’d lost an hour.

From there I took the opportunity to pay a visit to an old Peugeot friend, Ian Robinson. He lives at a place called Avisford and it wasn’t far out of my way. It did take me, however, through some interesting driving country on roads we’d rarely see when piloting wide loads.


Narrow bridge. Typical of the kind of road on the way to Ian’s place, there wasn’t much traffic either.

Approaching his home I went in over the top of the hill and the slope before me identified I was in the right place. Ian had inherited a lot of cars, mostly non-runners, from well-known Peugeot mechanic Peter Portelli when he died unexpectedly. Here they were laid out before me...


Avisford relics. Generally newer and in better condition than those at Skip’s place there was plenty to be seen here.

After the cordial greetings and looking at Ian’s present projects, I busied myself getting 404 identification numbers for Mike Tippett’s addition to the worldwide register of these online. But my main interest was in the sunroof-equipped 404 sedan I’d sold Portelli 25 or so years earlier, which Ian had told me had been repaired after major damage was done to the front of it back in 1980.


My 404. Looking pretty sad sitting there full of parts, which is how Ian transported it up from Sydney, this was once my pride and joy. In fact, I’d say I enjoyed driving this car more than any other I’d ever owned.

It had been through a lot, even before a deflating front tyre ran me off the road in it on a downhill bend. Not long before that some drunken spectators at the Bathurst 500 race had walked all over the roof, with some of their rippling still being evident in the picture.

And Portelli had repaired the front by the ‘cut and shut’ method, cutting off the front of the body and replacing it with the front of another. Which was bewildering to both Ian and myself as we couldn’t see any sign of where he’d joined things together. We could plainly see that the front end was from a later model while the original car was a very early one, but no sign of welding or anything was evident.

I had to move along, however, as the second job wouldn’t wait for me and I had to be at Gunningbland for yet another early start. It wasn’t far and I still had time to get a picture or two of some of the scenery along the way.


Central West hills. It’s easy to think of this area as being all plains and flat land, but the afternoon sun here highlights the hills that add to the setting.

The nest morning I got a closer look than usual at this kind of on-farm grain storage. These are like very long and very large plastic bags and I have no idea how they get the grain into them. Usually when I see them I can’t stop because I’m on a job but this time I was a bit closer:


Grain storage. A modern way that’s creeping onto more and more farms, it seems. But how do they get the grain into them and how do they seal them?

The older style does have disadvantages, of course. Everything does. The farm to which I was headed to pick up the next load – more agricultural equipment – has obviously had a battering from winds and their older steel silos haven’t stood up well in that situation.

As I looked around the place while the machinery was being loaded onto the Donpon Transport truck I noted the old gear lying around too, old trucks, trailers, augers, building and fencing materials. It was a pretty normal farm for this kind of area in that regard.


Windblown. Natural forces at work, this silo is now scrap metal – should anyone ever start cleaning up and pull it down.

This load was going to Thallon in Southern Queensland and from there I’d get back home again briefly. That didn’t stop me noticing that the police radar trap operators had a new vehicle with which to snare the unwary in one town along the way.


Radar. A speed trap in a VW van, the Queensland police have a variety of different vehicles in use for this purpose.

A trip from Pirrinuan to Keytah, on the road between Moree and Collarenebri, came next. That’s a very flat area and it’s almost surprising that we were taking a laser levelling machine out there, along with a tractor to pull it along, because it’s already so flat.

I was told that the owner of the property was also the owner of a large shed retailing operation and I wouldn’t be at all surprised after seeing the machinery sheds they’ve erected on the property:


Sheds. Keeping machinery out of the elements is always a good idea, this place pretty much had the game sewn up in that regard.

Being in the Moree area I decided to drop around and see Dylan at Rick’s scrap metal yard. Previously I’d spoken to him about doing a deal to take all the remaining useful parts out of the Territory – the same model as I was driving – at some time.

Once again, he failed to commit, but I’d keep in touch as it seemed a good opportunity to get some bits I might need at some time. And while there I took the liberty of taking a photo of the vehicle.


Territory scrapped. I don’t know why it was off the road, probably stolen and damaged then dumped. Nevertheless, it would have some useful parts somewhere.

The next couple of weeks were subject to huge rains through the area. At home it became a major problem as the kitchen area of the house was dug into the slope of the land. And it wasn’t properly waterproofed, we were to learn.

Sandra and the family were up all night putting out towels to soak up the water coming through the wall, putting the towels into the spin dryer and taking them back for their next load of water. It was all made worse because earthworks on the property behind us meant that muddy water was washing down, muddying up the swimming pool as it came.

As the pool overflowed I had to find a way to pump water out of it without washing it into the back of the house. And all the while we were being subjected to threats from the landlord because the family had moved in.

Between things I paid another visit to a working day at the Car Club...


Hudson progress. The club’s 1922 Hudson was making strides as many hands contributed to the work needed to put it all together.

...and saw the progress being made with the Club’s Hudson. Also seen that day was a Cadillac V8 engine which one of the members had rebuilt and put in storage in the Club’s workshop area.

Cadillac built V8 engines from before the first World War, with some milestones as they went along. In the early twenties they devised a method of making a dual-plane crankshaft to eliminate the ‘secondary shake’ that flat plane cranks cause in these engines. Until 1935 they were built on an aluminium crankcase with iron blocks bolted to them, then in 1948 they introduced a pushrod overhead valve engine.

This one is probably from the early thirties, side-valves and the alloy crankcase being evident:


Cadillac V8. Solid-looking, as one would expect from a quality car builder, this V8 is probably around five and a half litres in capacity.

I also managed to make it to a Club Meeting, their monthly meetings being on the second Thursday of each month. When I was leaving I struck up a conversation with 92-year old member Kevin, who told me he’d gone along that night hoping to find someone to go with him in his 1948 Ford Deluxe sedan on the Club Run the following Sunday.

This was to go to the museum at Crows Nest, with a ‘morning tea’ stop at Haden along the way:



“I don’t know if I can drive it all the way,” he told me, “it doesn’t have power steering. So I arranged to join him for the drive, which was to go through some nice country on back roads with some nice scenery to be enjoyed.


Morning Tea stop. This group of the cars on the run parked at Haden shows the variety of different cars owned by club members.

Seen there is the contrast between the Corvette on the left and Kevin’s Ford on the right, while there are many different models of Holden along with a number of different British and European cars of all ages. Later I noted there was even a US-model Falcon from the early sixties.

The ‘museum’ consisted of a number of buildings, each featuring a different kind of display. Most of the things seen were accumulated from the local area over many years, while some of the rooms in the houses used the period furniture and other things to present room scenarios – bedrooms, kitchens, bathrooms etc – as they would have been a century and more ago.

Artefacts on display varied widely, from kitchen bottles, jars and boxes...


Kitchen items. Bottles and jars, boxes and packets, long-forgotten brand names were there to take in. Some cooking equipment, some laundry powders, ointments and even a fly spray on display.

...to radios and record players of all descriptions:


Radios through the years. Dating back to almost a hundred years ago, these varied greatly and showed the progress such things have made due to progress and fashion.

Radio would have been important to this locality, it was far enough from the bigger town – Toowoomba – to present access problems for people still using sulkies or hampered by post-war fuel rationing.

Important enough that there would have been someone around to repair them in those pre-transistor days. Valves like these...


Radio valves. These came in a variety of types and sizes, with multiple pin fittings and keys to ensure they went in the right way.

...would fail periodically and an expert was usually needed to work out which one needed replacing. These would have been leftover ‘stock’ from one of the experts who did the repairs.

At the end of the day I drove Kevin back home in his car. He had done as much as he felt he should driving that far and it gave me the chance to drive a 1948 Ford V8 with all its foibles. Careful gear changing was the order of the day and watching braking distances could have been necessary.

And while mentioning the performance of Fords, the Territory was starting to show signs of needing some attention. I started by changing the Iridium spark plugs...


Coil packs. I wasn’t aware until I pulled the cover off to change the plugs that the Territory engine had six separate coil packs.

...and a few days later I change the coil packs too. It was then running sweetly again.

Which was a good thing as there was more work coming on. After the wet spell we did very little as large loads were not permitted to use some roads and in many cases they were coming from or going to places where wet grounds were too difficult for the trucks.

Another problem we encountered was seen the day I joined Mick from BK Hire to go pick up one of their Moxy machines which had been on lease to complete a job along the railway line at McAlister. We got there to find that vandals had damaged it and syphoned the fuel out of the tank. BK had to send out a fitter to take care of those things, but that was now a job for someone else on some other day.

My next job was a little different in that it was the first Volvo truck I’d worked with. We were taking a bulldozer from Pirrinuan to an auction yard at Yatala...


Volvo. X-cav-8 use Volvos and they go pretty well too. It was different to the US-based trucks with which I usually worked.

…with the driver booked to go from there to Byron Bay for another job. But I couldn’t accompany him on this one as I was booked on another job out of Carole Park (near Ipswich) very early in the morning to Toowoomba. It worked out well as I was able to be home for breakfast!

Two days later I was looking at another nice long trip – out to Mount Isa.

This would be a chance for me to take this dirt bike carrier...


Bike carrier. Reilly had noticed that Aldi had these on sale one week and had me pick it up for him. Yes, he now had another ‘toy’ and this fitted up on the back of his Ranger would carry it about for him.

...out for Reilly after having it sit around at home for a few weeks.

The Mount Isa trip didn’t start well, however. I got to the despatch location on time and the truck was loaded and ready, but the driver was unhappy for a few reasons.

First, the trailer (‘his’ trailer) had been being used by another driver for a few weeks and maintenance had fallen behind, but while it was necessary to get out of there to see what repairs needed to be made, he couldn’t leave for over an hour after I got there.

The mine which had bought the Caterpillar machine had left paying the $3-million till the last and the Caterpillar agents were sitting on things until they got absolute confirmation that the money had come through to their account.

We left there and went to the truckstop at Charlton, just up the road, so the extent of necessary repairs could be investigated.


Repairs assessed. The driver went into the bowels of the trailer’s works to check out what was necessary to make for a safe and unimpeded trip to Mount Isa and back – 3,600kms.

I never expect to be waiting as long as it soon proved to take...

 

It was more than slack maintenance on the trailer…

The neglect went further than that. It was clear a wheel hadn’t been bolted up tightly enough and the damage was enough for a crew to be called up from the Gold Coast to replace damaged parts.


Mobile assistance. Teams turned up to get the trailer into a trip-worthy condition, and there was lots to be done.

And at the same time a local tyre service was called in to change a few tyres while the experts worked on the damaged parts. Several tyres were considered to be past their best and with a trip like this and a load like this tyres will cop a hiding.


Tyres changed. Here the worker is using a cylinder of high-pressure air to create a blast of air while the airline pumps through the valve. In this way the tubeless tyre pops up onto the bead and the air is sealed in.

The damage to the hub can be seen in the next picture. Studs with signs of wear caused by a loose wheel rattling around on them, two studs broken right out and others bent over.

No chances were taken, even though it was uncomfortable working under the trailer. The whole hub on its tapered bearings, the brake drum and the wheel were all replaced.


Hubs and drums. Note the state of the studs on the old assembly, some missing, all damaged and bent. The new parts were, of course, expensive.

Eventually we got on the road, out through Oakey, Jondaryan, Dalby and so on before we had to make an early stop because the driver’s early start that morning called for him to make an early finish. We pulled up just across the bridge at Miles to camp for the night.

Soon after we arrived a second truck arrived, one which had started out later but caught us due to the delays at Toowoomba. The trucks were operated by Plant Haul and from this point would travel together.

And stepping out of the pilot vehicle with the other truck was Neal, who reintroduced himself to me and reminded me we’d worked together previously. We had plenty of time that night to get better acquainted.


Early start. The moon was still evident ahead of us as we got mobile the next morning, it was officially daylight but only just.

After the delays the team wanted to get as far as possible this day. To be within striking distance of finishing the trip the next day it was thought Barcaldine would be a good destination, but we put in over 800kms and reached Ilfracombe.

Just before Barcaldine this bridge was restricted to 10kmh...


Bridge limitations. Work was under way to repair this bridge, the road off to the side being prepared to take the traffic while the work was being done.

...because one set of piers were sinking into the riverbed. I’d stop and photograph the temporary repairs on the return journey.

But for now the eagerness of the crew to get to Ilfracombe was at a high level. Dinner and drinks at the Wellshot Hotel was what they were all looking forward to and so the stops we made at Roma and Morven were brief.


Ilfracombe Van Park.[i] Lots of old vehicles and machinery are on display at Ilfracombe, this truck over the caravan park entry was just one such.[/i

There was some jubilation as we parked the trucks in a side road for the night and headed into the pub. The truck drivers were definitely looking for a bit of a good time and this was just the place for it.

They all took up their positions at the bar and some boisterous behaviour ensued. One driver, Lennie, gave Neal and I each a set of ‘Plant Haul’ hats – a beanie, a floppy hat and a baseball cap – and the beer was flowing freely.


At the bar. Neal has one of Lennie’s hats on as the noisy evening got under way.

The pub is a bit of a stand-out on this trip with its history, gags and walls covered with photos, jokes and reminders that we are in the ‘outback’ and it’s a special kind of place.


Wall Art. Some thought has gone into this ragging of the local Council, which is one of the biggest employers in the area.

Eventually everyone went to sleep. I camped across the road and fully expected that it might be a bit of a delayed start in the morning. It was.

Ilfracombe is not far from Longreach and Lennie asked me to go ahead and get a photo of the ‘convoy’ on the long viaduct on the Western side of town. Unfortunately an oncoming truck got in the way of getting a shot with Neal out in front, but I did get a couple of the two trucks with their loads:


Heading West. Across the long viaduct out of the Western side of Longreach, the two loads make progress towards ‘The Isa’.

So that didn’t go all to plan. And on a trip like this it’s wrong to expect everything to go to plan. Even with the most careful attention to detail, the sheer weight of the machinery being transported puts everything to the test.

And the most highly-tested things in this business are the tyres. One of the trucks had a tyre destroy itself and we stopped at the Crawford Creek Rest Area so that could be changed.


Tyre change. There’s always a good supply of spares on these rigs, as can be seen, and Neal (on the left with the hat on) assists the drivers with the change.

It was just a matter of covering the miles after that. Through the little whistle-stop places, Cloncurry and the twisting road through the hills to Mount Isa. We left the trucks as they went into the mine property and started thinking about heading home.

I first had to visit Reilly, of course, as I had that bike rack to deliver to him. He was late finishing work, but that didn’t matter, I wasn’t in a hurry. After seeing him I headed back down through those hills...


The hills. After travelling hundreds of miles (from either direction) over flat plains, the rocky hills between Mt Isa and Cloncurry make for a big change.

...with the intention of camping at the saleyards at Cloncurry.

These, I’ve described before, are set up as a real haven for trucks. Amenities are there, showers, toilets, kitchen area, even a washing machine when it’s working. It was a good place to sleep before an early rising.


Moon rising. I’d captured the moon coming up as I headed for Cloncurry, but after my sleep it was time to catch the sunrise. Trucks lined up everywhere in this little haven where trucks are appreciated for all they do throughout this country.


As mentioned, I took the time on the return journey to get a photo or two of the bridge repairs near Barcaldine...


Temporary fix. Heavy steel beams support the bridge as it awaits a proper repair, the piers having sunk into the riverbed at this point.

I made it to Augathella that night, where Neal joined me to camp by the little park in the main street. We cooked our meals and chatted for some hours, while just there in the park a giant ant was keeping us company.


Meat ant. The meat ant is the local football club’s mascot and this giant steel one clinging to a pole in the park looks ominous.

I pulled up for fuel and food at Morven the next day, throwing out the food as it was definitely sub-standard. I bought something else at Dulacca later. I did, however, note that cattle trucks parked across the road were set up to move cattle from one truck to another.


Cattle transfer. By reversing one truck up to another, cattle were able to be transferred from one truck to another.

Back home later I learned that one of the grandchildren had caught Covid and I had to get out again or be quarantined with them. Of course, I took a test:


RAT. The rapid antigen test became a necessary part of life, even though we were now two years on from the beginning of the pandemic.

I had been trying to get hold of my friend Malcolm Smith for several days, he was in hospital and one night I phoned and I was told I should phone the family. That was not the best of news, but not unexpected as he’d been taking some knocks.

I had a couple of conversations with Gail, his daughter, and then she asked me to do the memorial service for him. Of course I agreed and therefore a trip to Sydney was called for. I had no work on, but I went in the Territory in case a job came up on the return trip.


Malcolm and Gladys. Malcolm and Gladys, a photo from about the time I first met them. Now they were both gone.

For some years Malcolm had been presiding over funeral services for members of the local Returned Soldiers club. In the last several months he kept telling me that he’d “outlived all of them!” as he found himself to be one of the very last of his generation in the area.

We’d become good friends when we worked together in a government department, with a major attraction being that we both appreciated cars and motor racing. He often told the story of how he drove to Melbourne to see Stirling Moss win the Australian Grand Prix in 1956 and he had a lot of fun as his kids grew up buying and selling the odd racing car.

There were some interesting ones passed through his hands...


Pellandini Coupe. This little device was powered by an A-series BMC engine. I never saw it and it never saw a racing circuit. It was just Malcolm having fun.

He used to tell Gladys, who wondered where the money for these cars came from, that he’d taken a loan from the Credit Union at work. Obviously he didn’t completely confide all his financial situation with her and he never borrowed the money at all. And I think he generally made a few dollars each time he sold one of the cars.

Which, of course, went into buying the next one. The first car he bought was a very early Nota...


Gail in the Nota. The Nota Fiat, which had a Fiat 1100 engine and a fibreglass body. Gail was Malcolm’s second child.

...on which he effected some repairs to improve it somewhat. As I recall, the young man from whom he bought it was ‘doing time’ and his father told Malcolm he was in trouble for ‘playing with cars’. It was in a shed and a wall had to be knocked out to remove it!

Progressively the cars he owned became more expensive and newer, and he attempted to get is racing licence in several of them but was always knocked back for some reason or other. He even did one ‘Observed Practice’ in my car.

More to the point, we conspired on these cars, we both liked fiddling around with them and when he bought the ex-John Goss Tornado we worked together on it and I raced it twice.

But now all that was behind us and I turned out at the cemetery’s chapel to speak of his life and loves before a small crowd.


Malcolm. He was never much of a drinker, but the photos the family had given the funeral director for display included this one, which they used on the Order of Service.

His eldest daughter, Michelle, had died with breast cancer a decade earlier. She had been the brightest and most successful of the children and it was with sad thoughts that Malcolm had anticipated that his demise would see his home and other assets not going to a child with the attributes she had. Gail and Stephen had both gone down some rather less-constructive roads.

After the service we went out into the lawn cemetery area where Michelle and Gladys were buried side by side. Flowers used for Malcolm were then put beside their headstones...


Flowers re-used. After decorating the chapel for Malcolm’s service, the flowers were put on the graves of Gladys and Michelle.

...and they were remembered fondly. Probably most fondly by the one-time husband of Michelle, whom I’d not met previously.

Afterwards we went to a Club near Malcolm’s home, where a gathering had been arranged by the youngest child, Stephen. Well, I went there, but as I’m not much of a drinker either and that was all that was going on, I soon left. And discovered I’d picked up a parking fine because a sign was covered by a bush!

Unless some work came up, I then planned to spend the best part of another week in Sydney. I’d be staying at Bob Britton’s place and I had a rather special event in mind for him. Of course, keeping fuel up to the Territory demanded that I be careful to buy it where it was cheapest...


Cheapest fuel. This service station at South Granville had its fuel priced about 20c a litre lower than many around so it was worth getting in the queue to put almost 69 litres in.

...and to get the tank full in case a job came up. I had to be ready to go.

Heading across to Annangrove I stopped to get something to eat at the shopping centre at Rouse Hill, an interesting car was parked in front of me...


Stuck! Cars came and went as I waited for help, and I did get something to eat.

...and maybe that’s why I wasn’t paying attention when it was time to restart the car and drive off. It wouldn’t go!

Bob Winley was good enough to come to my aid, as he arrived he said, “It must be something in the inhibitor circuit.” I looked at the gearlever and it was in drive, there was no problem other than a bit of embarrassing brain fade.

From there I drove around to Bob’s place, where the birds were getting their regular feed:


Britto’s birds. Bob was no longer spending time in his workshop and so ‘his friends’ had learned to come to the window and knock when they wanted some seed.

Saturday afternoon, of course, was the time when Bob’s friends would arrive for a couple of hours of discussions, cups of tea and some cake. All too often I couldn’t be there, but this time I could.

And a couple of days later I had something even better planned...

 

I had made up my mind that I’d stay around Sydney for a few days. There were people I wanted to see and, in particular, I wanted to expose Bob Britton to the Zoom session I participated in whenever I had a Wednesday morning free with a good internet connection.

Ths was with people who would appreciate meeting Bob, and I knew Bob would enjoy the opportunity to talk about the cars he used to build with them. Most of the participants were in England, while there was generally one or two from Australia and a couple from America.

I had a bit of work to do getting things prepared. Bob has been in the practice of keeping ‘relics’ from his life…


BN7 wreck. On one of his first test outings in this car, Andrew Miedecke crashed it. This led to a rush to put another car together, which Bob considered easier to do than repair this damage.

...and this gave me things to have ready to display before the camera for the Zoom attendees.

As I did this, Bob fielded questions from everyone and explained how and why he did things the way he did. For some years he had done little other than build cars much the same as other builders did, effecting small improvements. But later in his building career Bob became rather more individualistic.


BN6 central bodywork. One thing which was quite different was the way Bob molded the seats in with the central bodywork of the sports cars.

We had some territory to cover as Bob built quite a few different cars in his workshops. It had only been over the previous five or so years that he’d come to appreciate the interest people had in what he’d done, this having been revealed to him when an Historic race meeting was dedicated to his cars.

A poster was produced for the occasion with artwork by Brian Caldersmith...


Bob’s cars. Some fine work has gone into this based on photos from ‘in period’ and later. The cars are: (71) the first car Bob built, as raced by Noel Hall; (5) the Mk 1 Rennmax Formula Vee, which was an outstanding success; (32) one of the Lotus 23 replicas, this one raced originally by Peter Wilson; (64) Bob built 11 or so of his last spaceframed cars, the BN3, copied from the Brabham BT23; (111) another Brabham copy, the BN2 raced by Max Stewart to his first Australian Championship; (144) much more of a unique design, the BN6 sports car; (32) Bob’s first ‘production’ racer, the BN1 which was an improved version of the Lotus 20; (9) the Mk 2 Rennmax Formula Vee incorporated improvements learned in the eight years since the Mk 1; (11) Lionel Ayers was a regular customer but called his cars ‘MRCs’, this one being a development of the Elfin 400/Matich SR3 types.

...which recorded the many and varied cars which raced with such success in the sixties and seventies. I was able, of course, to put this up for my Zoom compatriots to see.

Bob answered their questions and those on the individual areas in which he diverted from more common practice among car builders.

One area where he was quite passionate about doing something different was in wheels and we had on hand both the ‘radical’ wheels...


Rennmax wheels. Wheel solutions: The quest to make a lightweight yet wide wheel has resulted in many answers. On the right is the complex ‘monocoque’ answer Bob created in the late sixties, with aluminium spinnings rivetted together and bolted to a small centre casting, on the left is his ‘composite’ answer of the early seventies, which has no wellbase and therefore requires the outer rim section to be unbolted to change tyres.

...and the component parts to help explain how they were made.

These answers to the wheel ‘problem’ were different to the solutions of others, but so were other things which Bob created and so it was a great time for him as he answered the questions of these people from all around the globe.

From there I headed North, stopping off to see Phil Ward along the way. Phoning him first, he asked me to meet him at the Aero Club where he keeps his float ‘plane, he was there sorting out a couple of minor issues with the aircraft.

It certainly looked very light...


Phil and the Foxbat. ‘Foxbat’ is the name used here for the Ukranian-built Aeroprakt ‘plane designed by the YAK designer, Yakovlev. Its full designation is ‘Foxbat A22LS Amphibian.

...and neat, but I declined his offer of a fly in it.

Instead we went to his home on the lake, where a lot of garage space is essential as he’s kept some of his old racing machines on hand. Phil started racing in an Anglia with a twin-cam engine, then built an Escort with an FVA, which was replaced by a BDG, before graduating to a 350 Chev-powered Holden Monaro.

This had come from Bob Jane’s racing stable and the contact with Jane led to him going into a Mercedes for Bathurst races – as Jane had also done – and one of these cars is among his present toys:


Mercedes. Although production-car based, this Mercedes just bristles with lightweight and specialised bits aimed at making it faster and easier to work on.

Phil game me a good look at all the many components that the factory had devised to make the car more competitive in its era – the last couple of years before the ‘V8 Supercar’ era descended and squeezed the variety out of Australian touring car racing.


Specialised. The top pic shows the neat and accessible engine bay with the nice fabrication of the exhausts, with the stiffening of the chassis which is a continuation of the roll cage shown in the second pic. It looks a bit spartan, but everything that’s needed is there. In the lower pic Phil holds the ‘definitely for racing only’ fuel pump arrangement up for all to see.

The complexity of the Mercedes is offset by the relative simplicity of Phil’s Anglia. This is a car he’s created to remind him of the simpler days of his early racing. Or even his teenaged enjoyment of going close to the limits on the road.


Anglia. When Phil went racing in his Anglia in the late sixties it was powered by a twin-cam engine, but this car has a pushrod engine with the rare ‘Howard’ downdraught head created by Geoff Smedley. Simplicity is one of the keynotes of its very neat construction.

He readily admits that he doesn’t enjoy the fact that every time the Anglia gets used it needs to be worked on – even if it’s just to clean it. He’s painted it in the same colours as he used when racing the Escort FVA rather than black with a broad yellow stripe as he had his original Anglia.

One of Phil’s accomplishments was to create the ‘Aussie Racer’ cars and he has retained one of these even though he’s sold the business he had for over a decade.

They were brutally frank cars, owing some features to go-kart methods but having the outer body styled to look like touring cars frequently raced – but to a smaller scale.


Aussie racer. A large water-cooled motorcycle power unit nestles in the front of the car, drive is to the rear wheels.

Their size enabled them to race side by side through corners, sometimes three cars wide, and made for some spectacular racing.

From Phil’s I headed off towards home, stopping in at Bob Abberfield’s where he had his Corolla engine from his Clubman in bits ready for a rebuild. Much of this was a learning exercise for Bob as he wasn’t sure how it had been built by the previous owner. And there were some surprises.


Bits to be checked. Some things Bob found in the engine were good, others not up to the standard he wanted. The crank has been polished all over, for instance.

It was soon time for me to be on my way as I needed to be home to be able to take on more work. An early start on April 9 from the Ipswich area was to be my next job, piloting some dismantled parts from an earthmoving machine from Ipswich to Moura.

I wasn’t quite sure where we were going with it and in radio conversation with the Irish driver of the truck I was told it was going to be dropped ‘in a field’. I had to explain to him that we don’t have ‘fields’ in Australia and that they probably meant in a ‘paddock’.


Scania loaded. The Xcav8 trucks are all European, unlike the more common Kenworths with whom I was used to working.

I think the machine involved was used for levelling as the site to which it was delivered was a solar farm. It was almost 600kms to get there, so there was a bit of scenery along the way...


Scenery. Dropping onto this descent on the Leichhardt Highway shows how the country in the distance has come from volcanic beginnings. It also shows some optimism about drivers slowing because the guardrail might have taken a hit.

...and the miles passed quickly because my Irish friend didn’t mind keeping his foot down. In fact, I was back home by 8pm after this job.

With a couple of days to go before I next got a call I took the opportunity to look around for another lightweight jacket to wear in the upcoming cooler months, but I wouldn’t need it for the trip I was about to do to St George.

I found the local store at Westmar...


Westmar stop. A broadacre planting machine was on the truck going to St George and we both found what we needed in the way of lunch at Westmar.

...could quickly prepare something I could eat to keep me going into the afternoon. Like many such places, this one had a ‘backpacker’ (young person from overseas on a work visa) working behind the counter, unusually she was from Canada. It was still near 30şC at this time, she said she had come from -30ş when she left home in Williams Lake, about 500kms North of Vancouver.

The reason so many young foreigners on work visas head for country areas to find a job is because the visa is normally issued for two years. By completing three months employment in a country area they can get their allowable stay extended to three years.

Again, I was home again that night after covering about 750kms, along the way passing...


Memorial. In this line of work we see a lot of crosses on the side of the road, evidence that there are dangers out there.

...this evidence that someone didn’t get home. Note all the water lying around, there was plenty of evidence out in that flatter country that we’d been through a very wet period.

A quick job the following day from Hodgsonvale to Yarraman – only 142kms – led to a gap in the work as the long weekend was coming and a curfew on wide loads would be in force. I headed up to the Men’s Shed...


Men’s Shed. This can be a real hive of activity at times, but it’s only open two mornings a week and so was hard for me to find my opportunities to use the equipment here to get my jobs done.

...with a view to getting a few little jobs done ready for me to put in a big effort in my own shed over the long weekend.

I had a shopping list too. I’d found that I needed to replace a broken 10mm tube nut spanner, used on Peugeot brake lines, and I was on the lookout for a nice set of Torx wrenches. It was to prove to be a difficult job finding what I needed at a good price.

One tool or spare parts shop after another let me down, in the end I paid $20 for the simple tube nut spanner (I’d bought a set of three of these some years earlier for under $10) and then got a real surprise when I went to the last place on my list – the newly opened Sydney Tools.


Tools purchased. The tube nut spanner I’d got from Repco, but a handsome deal at Sydney tools left me walking out of their store smiling.

I looked at the sets of Torx keys and asked the young bloke at the counter if they could do a better price for someone as old and decrepit as me. He looked up his computer to find the lowest sell price and told me I could have them for $10 instead of the marked price of $28. He added, however, “It would look better for me if you could pick out three items from our house brands and I’d give you a good price on the lot.

Well, I had been looking for some long sockets, they were there for $19, and while I’ve always had good sets of metric Allen keys my Imperial ones weren’t so neat or so long. A set of them at $29 was added to the mix and he did the lot for $37!

So, with some new tools and many other tools I’d been using at home packed into my car, I headed off on the Saturday to my shed with some work in mind.

I had made this drilling jig...


Drilling jig. Set up on the mill at the Men’s Shed, this nice thick (16mm?) piece of steel was ideal to help me drill nice straight holes for the studs I wanted to fit to the gearbox mount pad.

...with the spacing between the three holes I needed set at the same as on the original holes on the gearbox extension housing. I’d drilled one at 10mm – the same as the original bolts – then one at 10.5mm – the size needed for tapping – and the third at 12mm, the size of the thread to be tapped. The bolt which I machined down was 10.5mm up to the thread.

By using these two pieces I was able to drill the holes nice and straight and get the threads equally straight. Two studs, originally from a Peugeot differential casing, had a little extra thread cut on them as the bracket wasn’t as thick as the flange they’d been holding on the casing.


Step by step. The bolt holes were enlarged from the original size, as shown by the old bolt, the threads cut and the studs screwed in, then ground down to the required height with the angle grinder. I’d used the hole saw to cut the holes for the insertion of the nuts, but couldn’t go big enough for the usual 19mm nuts. Fortunately those differential flanges had a similar problem and 17mm hex nuts were to be found. The lower pic shows the gearbox mount bolted in place, all of this on the gearbox while turned upside down.

The other activity while I was at the shed was disposal of the old Falcon panel van I’d bought back in 2012. Timo, the friend of Tapio who’d bought the orange Dodge pickup from me, decided he wanted the van for his son, he turned up on the Sunday with enough cash and a tow rope.

Towing cars with ropes isn’t legal, nor is towing unregistered cars, but we couldn’t do anything about registering it anyway. I let him use my (legal) bar for the tow job, this being something I’d built for towing Peugeots about twenty years earlier, it was chained to the ‘roo bar and off he went.


Timo and the Falcon. The Falcon arrives at Timo’s little farm on the end of the bar, it was loaded down with some spares I’d accumulated too.

Timo returned on Monday to pick up the rest of the bits and pieces and return my bar.

Home on Tuesday, I was soon on my way again with two quick bulldozer moving jobs, one to a quarry in the South of Brisbane, then one from Allora back to Toowoomba.

I was now looking forward to some different work, the National Drug Survey was going to be on again later in the year and I was to do some test areas to ensure that it was going to work out all right. We were to have a briefing on the Friday and so we were put into a motel right in the city of Brisbane.


Different view. The bustle of the city was all around the motel, this being the approach to the Storey Bridge as seen from the window of my room.

The traffic swarmed around in those city streets and I recall that I had difficulty finding somewhere to get a meal.


Flashing lights too. Large ever-changing signboards kept the night alive and the traffic simply never stopped flowing.

This was all just a few months after the Russians started their attacks on Ukraine and feelings obviously ran high about that in Australian circles. The bridge was lit up in the Ukrainian colours of blue and yellow.


Blue and yellow. The Storey Bridge set up to tell the story of how Australians didn’t agree with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The briefing was the usual situation, though only twelve of us were there to be reminded of how this all works. Some were new, of course, it had now been over two years since any field work was done by people from Morgan’s and some who’d counted on the work had found other jobs. But by and large this group was made up of experienced interviewers.


Briefing. We put in about five hours learning about changes and being reminded of how this was done.

Of course there was a lot of ‘question time’ as some had trouble picking up the thread, but in the end we were all given all the gear we needed to each do four sample areas and took them to our cars.

Afterwards we went to a local bar on the waterfront and found one of Morgan’s former employees, the woman who’d taken us through the briefing for this job three years earlier, was there to join us in a meal and drink. Well, I didn’t drink as I had to drive home.

And on the way I got a call..


Cotton picker. My place was behind this John Deere Machine for the 271km trip to Boomi. Note the tufts of cotton on the sides of the road.

...offering me a piloting job on Saturday morning. Well, what could I say?

So we left Charlton at about 10:15 with a traffic-laden run along the Gore Highway to Goondiwindi. We’d have an easier time once we got over the border and onto a lesser road for the final stretch.

But there was a quirk to this trip. The local football teams from Toowoomba and Goondiwindi were slogging it out in Goodiwindi this morning, and so the Toowoomba fans and followers were soon coming towards us in droves as they headed home. And they were taking no notice whatever of the two pilot cars – flashing lights and all – in front of the cotton picker!

There was plenty in the way of close shaves, and this is a road which makes for difficult passing at times. By the photo above you can see how far the machine sticks out to the right, the side on which the oncoming traffic was appearing. And if you note in this picture...


Big danger. Only a danger, really, when the oncoming cars are not taking any note of the advance warning they’re given....that there’s a nice pointed yellow plastic component of the picker which is right out at that edge.

I assure you that one oncoming little hatchback had that yellow piece go right over his door mirror! That’s pretty close to the driver’s head.

It was an interesting delivery, too, as I got to talking to some of the people there and one was the son of a woman I’d heard on the radio give her experience of coming to Australia from Italy after the war. Her father and sisters had come to this area in 1939 but the mother and other children couldn’t travel once war broke out.

I think the story is worth a 49-minute listen: https://www.abc.net.au/listen/progra...queens/7756088

So now I had two jobs to do, I’d work to fill in gaps between piloting jobs with interviewing work. Life remained interesting...