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No.41. in my series of short stories
The Nullarbor Plain 1968 in my
Mark II Zephyr was quite an adventurous journey I was just 19.
The Nullarbor Plain is a vast, arid region in Australia, known for its flat, treeless terrain and extreme conditions. The most common route across the Nullarbor Plain is the Eyre Highway, which connects Western Australia to South Australia. This highway is approximately 1,200 miles (1,931 kilometers) long and takes you through some of the most remote and desolate landscapes in Australia.
In 1968, the Eyre Highway was largely unsealed, and the road conditions could be quite challenging, especially in adverse weather conditions. Dust, corrugations and occasional flooding were common issues that travellers had to contend with though my sister (holding her 22 in the above picture} and I were always up for a challenge.
I advertised in the West Australian Newspaper for someone to take a seat in my Zephyr to share petrol to Sydney, we only had one reply, not much choice so I picked her up somewhere in Fremantle, then a friend decided he wanted to come. We went around to pick him up, "now I need to tell you his family were Italian". As he was coming out of his house with his bag his mother came out after him with a broom, yelling in Italian at us and then started belting my car with that broom, somehow I don't think she wanted him to leave.
Now the trip begins.
The above picture is of my sister with her rifle, a friend changing a tyre and our hitch hiker.
Not much in this story about art but it is the Nullarbor Plain and there is not a great deal to be inspired by, though it is all part of my art journey.
Around Kalgoorlie our hitch hiker decided to leave us when she got a better proposition, it was her time to pay for fuel so she got out of paying and out of my car, she hitched a ride on a road train, {cheapskate after a free ride} maybe she used a different form of payment.
Aunt Mary (my dads older sister) and her family lived at Madura on the Nullarbor Plain they went there to work as rabbit collectors for all the trappers and they purchased the Madura Hotel in 1956. The Hotel was very isolated and more than 700 klms from Kalgoorlie-Boulder, one of the few stops on the Nullarbor. The old Hotel was replaced with a new motel roadhouse in the early 1960's and that was the building that we stopped and fuelled up at on our way across the Nullarbor. Continued next week.