Travel from the 70's onward
By Ian Hall
The adventures of twelve people, in their own words – drivers, tour leaders and passengers – in the late seventies and early eighties around Europe and Asia in double decker buses. Everyday life. Accidents. Breakdowns. Border hassles. Riots. Being held up at gunpoint.
Crew came from different backgrounds and with varying skills but all showed professionalism, imagination, creativity, improvisation, ingenuity and audacity in getting passengers safely to their destination.
Floriade 2023 – Canberra
Well we went to Canberra and it was closed!
Well not entirely closed but hardly anyone on the streets or cafes. Floriade flower show, an annual event was nearing it’s end and even that was very quiet. Some great sisplays from what we saw and after about 2 hours walking around there it was time to go find a cafe.
Not an easy task as a lot seemed to be closed
I think the 2 days in Canberra could have been spent better somewhere other than Canberra.
River Cruise and Breakfast Creek Hotel – Brisbane
During our few days in Brisbane we did a river cruise which included a lunch at the old historic Breakfast Creek Hotel.
A bit of a walk to the ruver cruise boat, then waiting around for a long time then we were finally under way.
A very informative trip with one of the staff pointing out a lot of things on either side of the river.
We finally got to the last stop and then it was about a 2km walk to the actual Hotel.
The quaint old hotel was very good with service and gave us a demonstration of tapping an old beer barrel which resulted in beer spraying up when the cork was removed and everyone got a taste of the freshly tapped beer barrel. Lunch was quite enjoyable, an old restored part of it was a huge bar with a very high ceiling and almost every choice of drink I could ever want.
Then since we had to be back for the return river cruise trip most of us walked back and waited under the trees on the boat.
A well worthwhile trip.
Beechworth Bakery
During out few weeks we did manage to visit three of the Beechworth Bakeries.
Bendigo, Echuca and Beechworth.
At each we did have one of their specials the “Beesting” as part of our lunch.
The crowd at all of them around lunch time is staggering. A massive selection of baked goods for both eating on the premise or for taking away. It seems a lot of locals just come in for their bread which is only a very small percentage of what they offer.
I did get one of Tom’s bakery books with a heap of recipes in it and a lot of guides for making a lot of their products including the “Beesting’s”
A Vintage Truck: An Amateur Team: An Immovable Deadline
The Comic Memoir of a Crazy Idea
Awarded a Readers’ Favorite 5* Seal!
In this captivating true story, join an intrepid married couple as they take another wild leap into the world of nomadic living.
Four years previously, Jackie and Mark gave up work to embark on a permanent road trip with four dogs. However, one Friday the 13th, forces beyond their control cause them to throw caution to the wind and buy a 30-year-old army truck sight unseen from the internet.
Their goal: to create an expedition truck fit to drive overland to Mongolia.
Follow them as they dive headfirst into the daunting but thrilling task of converting this rugged vehicle into a perfect off-grid tiny house on wheels.
Yet their first ever DIY van conversion proves to be a rollercoaster ride, when they sell their house to fund the build, and Friday the 13th comes back to haunt them.
Is their confidence that, ‘there’s always a solution,’ misplaced?
With their relationship, sanity, and finances on the line, can they navigate the pitfalls of their first-ever build and avoid becoming homeless?
Filled with quirky van life friends and unexpected twists, this is an inspiring tale of perseverance, friendship, and finding the courage to conquer the challenges that face those who dare to chase their dreams.
By Steve Walker
Take a Transit Minibus, a full-sized roof-rack loaded with camping equipment, 14 passengers, plus a driver armed with road maps of Europe, Asia and Africa and you have a phenomenon that was to be a character-forming and life-changing experience for a generation of travellers. That phenomenon was “overland”. For the first time, young people had an affordable way to travel in the relative safety of a group to what, for many, had previously been inaccessible, and possibly dangerous, places. Overland brought together larger-than-life characters, involved some epic journeys and created unforgettable memories. The late 60s and early 70s was a period of Woodstock, peace, love and flower power – and a feeling of freedom was in the air. The fruits of the post-war baby boom were discovering and celebrating this new-found freedom and the time was ripe for this travel phenomenon to take off.
This is a story of how a broken relationship and the urge to break out led the author, in his early twenties and raised on an Essex council estate in the 50s/60s, to take his first trip abroad as a passenger on an overland trip to Morocco in September 1969, (he admits to being so naïve at the time that he thought Morocco was somewhere in the South of France), encountering an individual who happened to be a master at concocting a cock-and-bull story which eventually landed him a job as an overland driver.
He suddenly found himself inducted into the University of Life, spending the next four years on a hectic, challenging and adventurous journey across three continents, travelling extensively through Europe, Asia, India and Africa; watching the sunrise over Mount Everest, driving overnight through winter blizzards in the Anatolian mountains of Eastern Turkey and waking in the Sahara just before dawn in a complete sound vacuum. Along the way, he met some amazing, interesting and colourful characters and made lifelong friendships – and went ten-pin bowling with the Prince of Afghanistan!
Chambers of the Black Hand Opal Mine – Lightening Ridge
First we waited in the hot sun for another tour to finish then several of us descended down the 85 steep steps into the mine. The guide had given us all hard hats and a safety briefing prior to the descent.
The tour was very informative about how the mine was formed and all the hundreds if intriate carvings in the soft stone down below.
As expected there was a small shop down in the mine selling hand carvings and various Opals.
Royal Flying Doctor Base and Museum – Dubbo
We arrived late at the Royal Flying Doctor museum at Dubbo, NSW so did not really get enough time there.
At the time we got there after many hours of driving the cafe was closed unfornitually.
We had a couple of people showing us around, one was a retired Nurse and an ex Pilot telling us how it all worked and they showed us mock plane setups of how the planes were set up inside, the medical kits they had on board and a good video of tome of the stories of rescues that had been done in the past.
The Nurse took us up to the top of a control tower and we managed to see one of their planes coming into land and take a stretcher off the plane.
The story behind it all and the experience was fantastic.
By Ian Hall
The adventures of a Top Deck Tour leader in 1979 and 1980 travelling from Kathmandu to London on double decker buses. It’s a volatile time in Asia with the Soviets invading Afghanistan, revolution in Iran, Saddam Hussein campaigning in Iraq, Hafez al – Assad quelling rebellions in Syria and a coup d’état in Turkey. Ian’s winter overland tour, where temperatures in Iran and Turkey drop to minus 30 degrees contrasts vividly with his summer Overland – monsoons in India and temperatures in Pakistan and Iran rise to 45-50 degrees
Overland crew needed a blend of resourcefulness, initiative, audacity improvisation,problem solving and rule bending to get their passengers safely to their destination. This is a fascinating book full of keen observations, everyday people he meets, Kiwi and Aussie characters, adventures and misadventures, big and small, ordinary, extraordinary, exciting and dangerous.
A TRILOGY THAT RECORDS THE LIFE
OF ONE OF ADVENTURE TRAVEL’S PRIME PROTAGONISTS