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No.42. in my series of short stories
We are still on the Nullarbor Plain in 1968 in my Mark 2 Zephyr. A photo of The Great Australian Bight and the Southern Ocean.
The road corrugation was shocking from Mundrabilla to Eucla and onwards to Ceduna. Somewhere around Iron Knob in South Australia the exhaust system gave in from all that bouncing around, some lovely young men who were working on a drilling rig gave us a hand and fixed it as much as they could but it definitely wasn't the best and still extremely noisy.
Further down the track we dropped a valve in my lovely Zephyr and we limped into Adelaide very slowly and very noisily. Broken down and parked in the main street of Adelaide a very nice gentleman came to our rescue when he connected with my Western Australian registration plates and he offered us a shower and a meal that his wife cooked up for us. We waited several days sleeping in the car and eating not very much. Some friends of a friend came from Sydney to help. When our so called saviours arrived they hooked us up and towed us towards Sydney up through the Snowy Mountains, now that was a fun trip all 1350 klms of it.
It was a long and arduous tow my greatest memory was when we were coming into Cooma in the Snowy Mountains the sign said STEEP DESCENT and that was when the tow rope pulled out a line from under the car that had something to do with our brakes so of course no brakes. As we glided past the towing vehicle, thank heaven for older bumper bars made of steel as the tow rope was cut, and we waved our towing vehicle good by. Picking up momentum down this steep hill was pretty scary. The people in the town below were going on their every day duties and I could foresee something terrible happening, luckily for them and us that I am a quick thinker and I drove off the road through a fence, frightening hundreds of sheep that were happily grazing until they saw us, finally coming to a halt in the middle of a paddock.
Then what to do, I don't remember very much of what went next though I do remember selling my poor old car to the wreckers for a mere pittance and having to sign a Statutory Declaration to say I owned the vehicle and of course I didn't. I did continue to pay all of it.
The so called friends that had towed us continued on to Sydney in their vehicle leaving us behind as we didn't like them.
My sister and I met 2 chaps that were catching the train into Sydney, so we also went by train. We had the rifle and our meagre belongings when we arrived at central station where we paid for a locker to put our stuff in until we sorted ourselves out. We moved into the Peoples Palace in Pitt Street for $1.00 a night and the whole place smelt of disinfectant and urine, the community showers were dreadful, covered in tiny white mosaic tiles floor to ceiling (now they are back in fashion and I still dislike them) it was not a very nice healthy place to stay. That is now some of my Perth to Sydney story and at a later date I will maybe mention some more escapades though at the moment I think I need to get back to some painting stuff.
I will Keep on keeping on.