MONTHLY CHALLENGE|ROAD TRIPS

A Road Trip I’ll Never Forget

…and it was 50 years ago!

When I first started teaching way back in the dark ages, I lived in Townsville — 1350 kilometres from Brisbane, the capital city of Queensland. Two or three times a year, my husband and I drove to Brisbane to visit my grandmother and to attend educational workshops, or “summer schools”. I really enjoyed keeping up to date with new teaching techniques, but there was a perk to attendance as well. The cost of petrol to and from Brisbane was reimbursed by the Education Department and we stayed with my grandmother so didn’t have accommodation expenses apart from one night each way.

I really only remember in detail one of these road trips. It was December 1972 — summer — and we were travelling to Brisbane as usual. Blair was 22 months old. Our Austin Kimberley was slightly younger at 21 months. My husband was so proud of that car — it was his first new car — but he’d been having problems with the oil filter. He’d had it serviced so the problem had been fixed, but he packed a spare oil filter and spare radiator hoses anyway.

Day one

The first day driving from Townsville to Rockhampton passed uneventfully. Blair slept most of the way. On the first day, we managed to get the “horror stretch” from Sarina to Marlborough under our belt — it’s the most boring stretch of road in the world — with nothing to see but brigalow bush the entire way. It’s the worst part of the whole road trip.

Day two

After an overnight stop in a little motel in Rocky, we set off for Brisbane the next day. It was a fine, hot day but we were comfortable as our car was air-conditioned. Our previous car — a 1955 Hillman Minx was not — so we thought we were driving in luxury. That was until 17 kilometres south of a little place called Tiaro, when the oil filter blew. And every drop of oil in the sump drained onto the road. Bugger.

We weren’t particularly perturbed. My husband decided he’d hitch back into Tiaro and buy oil, and I’d wait in the car with the baby. I waited and waited and waited. The car got hotter. I opened the doors. I was wearing jeans and a T- shirt. I took the jeans off and waited in my T-shirt and undies. (The T-shirt was quite long.)

Eventually, a car pulled over a little way past in front of our car. A man who looked like my husband was sitting in the back. I ran up to the car only to realise it wasn’t my husband at all but strangers. Worse still, they were all drinking vodka straight from the bottle. There were two women and three men. I was scared shitless but put on a brave front.

“Oh, I thought you were bringing back my husband. He’ll be back any minute.”

I thanked them for stopping, assured them I was fine and that my husband would return very soon., and I scurried back to the car. Blair was still in the back seat. A couple of hours later, Geoff returned in the back of a police car.

He hadn’t been able to get oil in Tiaro — nothing was open as it was a Sunday — and had to hitch all the way back to Maryborough. He had managed to get a jerry can of oil and was walking out of Maryborough when he was spotted by the police. When questioned, he said he had left his wife and baby in the car on the side of the road south of Tiaro, and the police picked him up. They lectured him about the dangers of leaving me and the baby and sped back to us.

I was so relieved to see him and I think after the police’s lecture, he was pleased to see me and the baby! He jumped out of their car, thanked them profusely and waved them goodbye.

Another calamity

“Where’s the oil?”

“Oh, shit! I must have left it in the back of the police car!”

I may have said a few choice words here, but all I said was I’m not staying here again. I’ll hitch into Maryborough and you can stay here with the baby.

And a Good Samaritan

I walked to the opposite side of the road and thumbed a lift. The first car that drove past stopped. ( I still just had the T-shirt on and I had pretty good legs back then.) It was an older style LandRover.

When I explained our predicament, the driver went round to the back of the car and pulled out a jerry can of oil! Geoff fitted the filter and filled the sump with the oil. The good Samaritan wouldn’t let us pay him for it.

I was so relieved I didn’t have to hitchhike back into Maryborough. We managed to make it to my grandmother’s without further incident a few hours later than we expected.

The next day

Monday was the first day of summer school. The plan was Geoff would drop me off and pick me up in the afternoon so we set off to drive the half-hour to university college. We had driven about a kilometre down the road when the oil filter blew out — again!

I wasn’t going to wait again so I left Geoff there with the car and hitchhiked to summer school. My grandmother was babysitting Blair.

Luckily, I was picked up by a lovely med student named Brid Walker who picked me up and took me to Uni every day that week. He wouldn’t accept any payment either. Were people just kinder way back then?