building a prime mover

Waiting here at Larimah for the train to come down from Darwin with the Southbound mail, I always took the drivers door off in the summer to let the heat out and a breeze in, don't know what the safety Police would have thought of that! This was around '56 when len Tuit had sold his freight shares in the TTA and just consentrated on passengers and mail, we had 3 semi's, 2 Gardners and this KS6 petrol engined, Mechanic Billie Jeffery would get whichever one he thought would make the trip, the 2 Gardners eventually died and I just used the K6 which I prefered anyway.
I would leave Alice Saturday evening with a full trailer load of mail to link up with the Mt Isa bus at Tennant Sunday morning, needless to say I often didn't make it! I would load the mail on the Bud car at Larimah and wait 4 days until the train came back from Darwin with the southbound mail, oddly enough just like Kurt Johannsen did before the war, I used to stay in one of the unused railway cottages, there were only about 12-15 bags of mail from Darwin, guess they didn't write much. I used to carry a large tucker box with me, mates knew of this and would hit me up for a meal when we met on the road as meals were only available at hotel's at proper hours, no cafes on the road. One night I really fancied a mess of fried onions, terrified that someone would come along and I would have to share it, I drove off the road about half a mile to a bore I knew of , thought I was getting a bit paranoid! George Skinner, who drove a B61 for Ted Stiles once pulled his semi across the road to make sure I stopped to feed him, complained of a bad back and needed a couple of tyres repaired, came in like the tide of course but didn't work the next time! One evening at Larimah some blacks came over to me and asked me if I could take about a dozen 20 miles up the road to another tribe, I did this, turned around and boiled the billie for tea, about an hour later they came belting out of the bush shouting "go go" so I took them back. Next morning the Hotel and Post office were buzzing about a big fight up the road with some badly injured, they wanted to know how they got in and out so quick, I kept quiet and the blacks said nothing so it remained a mystery!

Old mate Bob Foster also wited for the trian to load heavy oil for the tennant Creek mines

Bert Bond had joined with len Tuit calling it Alice Springs Darwin motor services, but two headstrong men didn't last long and Bond left the Territory, his son died in a plane crash and I think it took the fire out of him, so we had his old buses for the Alice/Darwin/Mt Isa runs. This is one of his, a KB7 Inter, we took the sides off the bonnet and made a scoop to channel more air through the radiator as the coach loaded was fairly heavy, it was driven by old freind Merv Farrell, standing alongside.

This was our first "proper" bus in 1948, Bedford with a Gardner 4LW, named after the movie "The Overlanders" being made there with Chips Rafferty and Daphne Cambell

Kurt Johannsen bringing rolling stock from the Northern railway to make room for new equiptment, I was driving the Overlander in the background at Wachope Hotel.

Keep the pics coming Ron, amazing that you had the foresight to capture pictures of your life on the road back then...........probably quite rare that anyone kept a camera with them, and probably not many places to get film developed I would imagine.

Thanks cam, I also wonder how these pictures not only were taken but survived!a Kodak 620 Brownie!
This picture is of when my brother and I, after 3 years of beating up and down the road, decided we needed a vacation to go down to our Mother's for Christmas and some good tucker as she was head cook at Barmera hotel at the time. End of 1951, My brother had built this 3 ton heavy Chevy out of bit's including an Inter K5 front, nothing unusual there. Big party in a creek before we left with wishes from everybody to make it, felt like bloody Burke and Wills!!! they wrote stuff all over the truck (rude!) next morning we took off loaded with baked beans and spagetti, I was not very imaginative! We got about 100 miles or so down the road and broke a stub axle, nobody used this road at that time, all went by train or people between stations. We sat there for 5 days waiting for some one to come along, no shade so we laid our swags about 30 feet West of the truck in the shade of it, then gradually followed the shade until we ended up about 30 feet West of the truck, sometime a sand storm would come up and we would sit in the cab as you could not see a foot in front of you, the sand used to trickle down from the gaps in the doors, last for about an hour then suddenly stop, had a can of peaches for Christmas dinner, not what we expected, nobody came through so as we had an old motorbike on the truck I elected to go back to Alice and get a new part which I did, on the way back at night I hit a watercourse and flipped the bike burning a hole in my leg, pushed the bike off the track and lay down on the ground and went to sleep, amazing when you are young. Started walking back to a station about 20 miles back, got very hot and thirsty when along came Ossie Andrew who owned Curtin Springs station, I hadn't seen Ossie since we went out to Ayers rock together, he stopped and I picked up his waterbag and drank half of it before I said G'day, we loaded my bike into his ute and went on to where my brother was, he was pleased to see us!, we fixed the truck, thought about the 800 miles to Pt Augusta, did a uee and hauled back to Alice back on the job, next time we went by train with motorbike, my bro had an Ariel square 4 and I a BSA gold flash, learned our lesson well!!

These are great, Ron. My father-in-law spent a bit of time in Alice Springs when he was a boy and knew Kurt J and other pioneers and probably remembers the Overlanders. He'll get a kick out of seeing these.

Ron,the photos of the yard in Alice have me stumped,was it in the high north yard or round where co-ords yard used to be,the power pole in the background just brings back memories of when I lived in Alice 15-20 years ago :

Hey Ron, I like those awnings on the side of the bus, look the go for keeping your arm out of the sun, the passengers must have thought them "comfort plus".Don't think you'd have got wawy with having them Queensland, might have burred up on the width issue.

This was our first "proper" bus in 1948, Bedford with a Gardner 4LW, named after the movie "The Overlanders" being made there with Chips Rafferty and Daphne Cambell