Well I'm now stuck at home on the couch for a few weeks, with no decent exercise allowed for around 4 weeks I'll be fat as a pig by the time I get out on my next decent walk. So what am I going to do with all this downtime, well....I've been sitting on these photos for a few years, yeah around 30 years actually. With the photos slowly turning to dust in the old photo album I thought this might be a good time to break out the scanner and digitise them before they fade away totally. This is the trip that started to turn the Feral Kid into the Feral Man. I spent half of 1986 touring around the country living and sleeping in an old XB Panelvan, yes it hasn't always been flash hotels and business class flights on my feral adventures. I did this trip with my mate Leigh, we both quit our jobs and had an open ended timeline, so it was freedom on the wallaby for as long as we could afford it.
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As I said our vehicle of choice was a Ford XB Panelvan, a vehicle chosen because it had enough room for us to both sleep in, it was a reliable car and if and when it did break down it should be fairly easy to fix. With both of us having grown up working on cars we were both reasonably competent on the tools, Leigh in particular was a good spanner man, I was better behind the wheel. We bought the blue beast for a couple of grand a couple of weeks before leaving, the panel van had been fitted with a 4 speed gearbox which helped seal the deal, although we had to put a new clutch in it before we left, done one afternoon in my front driveway for a couple of hundred bucks...try that now days!
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| Our mighty XB Panelvan, putting a new clutch in before we left in my driveway. |
The way I look at things is that is if everything turned to shit in my life I could always afford to do this. It might sound rough as guts but it was a great adventure, waking up and going wherever you like had a certain freedom about it. Now days the Grey Nomads have caught the bug and there are a few of them touring around Australia in old vans, the panel van/station wagon/van is also the back packers preferred mode of transport too, it would appear, well when they're not in Wicked vans. This was a massive trip so I'm going to have to break it up into at least 4 parts, I'll link the posts up when I finish. This post will also be more self indulgent than even my normal waffle, the photos were taken on old camera's and there appears to be a lot of photos of both Leigh and myself as well as a fair number of the blue beast. While the posts on this trip are mainly for family, possibly friends may get a laugh out of it too. The posts of this trip will be very photo centric, I'll use text to link things up occasionally but I'll mainly tell the story from the captions on the photos, interestingly I must have had a premonition about the blog (and the internet for that matter) because I'd written basic notes on the back of the photos. One other thing, I was a product of the time and circumstances that I grew up in. I'd dropped out of school years earlier and gone straight into blue collar work, society in general wasn't as aware of certain social issues that it is now and I certainly wasn't very socially aware, although looking back now I can see glimmers of the person that I'd turn into.
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| Leaving Melbourne we headed down towards the Great Ocean Road, this was our first stop at Point Lonsdale. |
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| Looking out to Bass Strait from Point Lonsdale. |
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| Our first breakdown, still on day 1, a screw fell out of the number plate! |
Our first day saw us motoring down the Great Ocean Road, passing the Twelve Apostles we eventually made our way to a caravan park in Warrnambool. Our night in Warrnambool was spent at the Lady Bay Hotel having a couple of beers and watching a local band, before we retired to the van, for us to both sleep in the back we had to stash all our gear in a small two person tent a routine that we would get used to in the coming months.
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| Day 1 and we were motoring down the Great Ocean Road, a spot that we would revisit a lot over the following years. |
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| My first visit to the Port Campbell area provided plenty of opportunities to use our camera's. |
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| We spent our first night in a caravan park in Warrnambool, there was no where near as many people travelling around as there is now, we never had trouble finding a spot to stop for the night. |
After cruising along the wild west coastline of Victoria we crossed over the border and headed up the South Australian coast to Adelaide. Once in Adelaide we set up base at the Levi Caravan Park in Vale Park, a couple of kilometres from the CBD, interestingly the Levi Caravan Park is still around and thriving. We spent some time in Adelaide checking out the sights and catching up with some friends, this generally involved heading to a pub to drink lots of beer and check out a band, I remember a particularly boozy night watching The Angles, I'm not 100% sure where but it could of been at The Arkaba, another place that is still going strong.
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| Blue Lake in Mount Gambier. |
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| I've been back to Blue Lake again over the years, there's a good walk around the crater of Blue Lake and the adjoining Valley Lake. |
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| Valley Lake, Mt Gambier. |
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| Hey, hey our second breakdown, a stone rattling around in the brake drum! |
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| On an excursion into the Adelaide CBD, it looks like I had a bit of a denim fetish happening. |
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| We actually stayed in on sight vans if we were hanging around for awhile, this was our Adelaide home in the Levi Caravan Park. |
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| As you can see we were very well organised and everything had its place, check out our collection of music cassettes on the left of the photo along with our boom box, how times have changed! |
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| The Adelaide O-Bahn Busway had just opened in 1986 and ran right behind our caravan park. |
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| The Torrens River also ran right behind the caravan park, nowadays the Torrens River is part of a linear park that stretches from the CBD to the hills. |
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| Being a couple of card carrying bogans we went to check out the Australian Touring Car Championship at the Adelaide International Raceway, yeah they didn't always race around the city. |
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| Back in town, it looks like I need a feed...and a haircut. |
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| I've got this as being in Black Hills Conservation Park on the back of my photos, but it looks a little like Morialta to me looking at the photos now, anyone know? |
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| Err, I probably wouldn't Leigh. |
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| We decided to jump on a bus tour to the Barossa Valley, wine tourism was still in its infancy back in 86. |
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| Up the back of the bus at Menglers Hill Lookout. |
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| I think this is the sight of the old Hills Homestead in Wilpena Pound. |
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| Some idiot on a tree on the walk into Wilpena Pound along Wilpena Creek. |
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| Mt Ohlssen-Bagge (I think) from the old camp ground at Wilpena Pound. |
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| We checked out the Moralana Scenic Drive. |
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| Before heading to Arkaroo Rock and its indigenous art, this is the view from the cave. |
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| Arkaroo Rock in the Flinders Ranges National park. |
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| The native pines in the Flinders Ranges provided a little shade, this was at the car park for the short walk to Arkaroo Rock. |
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We then pointed the panel van north and headed into some even more remote country, this is on the old road up to Blinman, way before it was sealed.
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These grids were knocking around the front end on the XB.
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| Heading towards Arkaroola we checked out Chambers Gorge on the way. |
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| Leigh got to try out his brand new Rambo knife, the knife came with a compass in its handle and a needle and thread to sew up any wounds, perfect for us hardcore suburban adventurers! Relax the feral goat was already cactus way before Leigh got near it. |
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| Walking up Chambers Creek in Chambers Gorge. |
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| Chambers Gorge. |
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| Arkaroola had only just recently started to open up to large scale tourism when we visited, it was a long way off the sealed roads in those days and not a lot of people had 4wd vehicles. This is the camping area at Arkaroola Resort in 1986. |
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| The mountains around Arkaroola at sunset. |
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| And some of the Arkaroola locals. |
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| The old Shingle Back looks a little cranky with us. |
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| We made an attempt on the Birdsville Track but contrary to the photo it wasn't the dust that stopped us but the mud, we managed to get about 200 kilometres up the track before the mud got to bad. |
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Back in Leigh Creek the day after our Birdsville attempt, the blue beast is looking a bit the worse for wear.
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Leigh, chilling out in Leigh Creek.
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| There was a bit of weather around Leigh Creek, back in the day most of the roads around the Flinders Ranges were made of red dirt...or mud if they were wet. |
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| So after retreating from the Birdsville Track we started out drive back to Adelaide, stopping at the Yourambilla Caves near Hawker we checked out some more indigenous art, this is the view from the caves. |
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| Although Leigh didn't look so keen on the climb up to the caves. |
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| Some of the indigenous art at Yourambulla Caves. |
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| On our way down to Mambray Creek in Mt Remarkable National Park we stopped off to check out the extensive view from Horrocks Pass Lookout. That's Spencer Gulf in the distance. |
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| Our camp at Mambary Creek. |
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| Doing the dishes at Mambary Creek, Leigh looks impressed. |
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| The emus were particularly friendly (and still are from what I've heard) at Mambary Creek. |
The Dirt.
On this section of our road trip we probably covered around 5000 kilometres, our XB Falcon was still going fairly well with only some minor gremlins that we could easily fix ourselves. Living out of the back of the car was going alright too, although it was a luxury to check into an on-sight van every now and again and spread out. Some of the places that we travelled to back in 86 I've revisited and written up on the blog, here's the links;
Chambers Gorge
Wilpena Pound
Arkaroola
Adelaide here and
here.
Mt Remarkable
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| We returned to Adelaide so I could have my day at the races, notice that I had my best clothes on. |
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