Overseas Travel (1)

                                            OVERSEAS   TRAVEL

Many people travel overseas these days at a very early age.  I mean as soon as they　finish their schooling, they are thinking of travelling overseas and seeing the rest of the world or part of it. Or should I say as soon as they have enough money, their one ambition is to get on a plane, and travel overseas.

I left school in 1947, and I never thought of going out of Australia until a couple of fellows from McKinlay district decided to go overseas. This was Frank Banning and Graham McKerrow. They did a trip to Europe and U.S.A in 1958, and in 1959, Brian Fegan and I decided to make some enquiries about taking a trip, after hearing all about it from them. Arranging a overseas trip from of all places McKinlay was not easy as we didn’t have computers in those days, where you can just jump on line and book a trip to anywhere. The nearest Travel Agent to McKinlay would have been in Mt Isa which was a long way in those days, and an absolute rotten road .No one went to Mt Isa in those days but now it’s only  a bit over 2 hours away .From  what I can remember the Bank of N.S.W, in Julia Creek , where Brian banked I think, made all the bookings. My bank in Winton the NA B may have done some of the bookings on my behalf.

I was working at Glenbede for my father at this time, and on a pretty  low wage, and I wasn’t too flushed with money. But a month or two before deciding to go on this trip, I was in having a drink  in the McKinlay Hotel ,with Graham Fysh of Answer Downs, and he said he had a mob of old ewes (sheep) for sale. I asked him how much he wanted for them and he said 20 cents, and as there was 1700 in the mob it made the whole mob worth only $340, which was nothing. He made one condition that I if I took them, he wanted them shifted the following morning. I had a talk with my Dad, and he said I could put them on Glenbede, even though there wasn’t grass for them there either but it could still rain. I sprang into action got Blondy Hall, to help me  to drove them ,which would take 2 weeks, and picked up Mick Allen to drive the truck ,and do the cooking, and rig the “break” (yard) every night, and I was there the following morning to count them, take delivery and then we set off with them. After 2 weeks, we were getting near Glenbede, and  I could see all this cloud coming up, so I said to “Blondy” “We better push this mob along a bit quicker today ,as it looks like rain coming ”

We got them home that day, the rain did come, and the whole district got about 6 ins of rain which then made these sheep, valuable ,and I was able to sell them for $2.40 a month or two later which resulted  in me making $3500 after droving expenses and this was the money I used  to go on my first overseas trip!!!!!!!! No one ever travelled by plane in those days ,and anyone that travelled overseas went by boat, so we were booked on the Australia which was of the Lloyd Trestino Line, an Italian Company, and we booked a 2 berth cabin ,which was a bit extravagant ???

We flew to Sydney, and eventually the departure date arrived and any of my relatives and Brian’s relatives that were in Sydney at the time, came to see us off, and by the time we left we were drunk and all our relatives also. No “booze  buses” in those days. As soon as we got going, the first place we went to was the bar and have a bit more grog, as we couldn’t believe how cheap it was on the boat, so for the next month we spent a fair bit of time in the bar and met a few guys there, that we went on trips with at the various ports we called at along the way, which were many.
We called at Melbourne and saw our Uncle and Aunt and Joan and Anne who were 1^st. cousins to both Brian and I.  The next stop was Perth where we had a couple of days then we headed for  Ceylon ,which is now Sri Lanka, where I remember ,we were dining out and  I ordered Curry and, I said  I like hot curries .It was that hot I could hardly eat it ??  The next stop was Cochin in India where we weren’t allowed off the boat, but watched about 50 women unloading gravel from Railway trucks with baskets they carried on their heads. All unbelievable to us ????

The crew on the boat were most Italians, and I think on this boat, was where we learnt to drink wine, as you  were served wine  with lunch and dinner at night, and we used to con the waiter, to get wine off the tables where people didn’t drink it and bring it to our table, so we were half drunk by the time we finished our meals .The signs on the boat were written in Italian,  and we used to see signs saying Senora  and Signore, all over the place, and didn’t know that they were  Men and Ladies Toilets, until we were a week out from Sydney as we had a Toilet in our Cabin ,and used to go back down all these stairs ,every time we felt the urge.

After India the next place was Suez, but we didn’t go through the Suez Canal but went on a trip to the Pyramids, which was fantastic to see. The bus dropped you at a point, about 2 or 3 kms .from the Pyramids and the method of transport to get up to them was to ride a horse or a camel ? I remember I chose a horse but what a horse!!! I kicked it in the ribs, but it wouldn’t move, but then an Arab kid got behind it and  hit it with a whip, all the way up to the Pyramids .I knew a fair bit about horses ,but his one was the laziest I’d ever ridden. We went inside one pyramid but not much to see only a tomb I think, but what a feat in building them just by manpower ,no mechanical aids or even horses.
Next stop was Messina in Sicily ,and what I remember most about Messina, it was the first stop we came to near Italy .Now most of the passengers on the boat ,were Italians and even though, as I have said before, we got plenty of wine on the boat, the Italians thought it was rubbish ,as it was Australian  made, so all the Italians went ashore and came back with 3 or 4 bottles of good Italian wine. As far as wine went we didn’t know the difference, as we never drank  wine before we got on this boat---no one drank wine in McKinlay---- only beer or rum!!!!!

We went from here to Genoa, and here we got off the boat, after being on it for a month. We had become friendly with a guy called Rolly on the boat trip, as well as a few other drinkers we met at the bar every day and night, and he  wanted to go to Stockholm in Sweden where his parents lived. He’d driven trucks in both Aust. and all over Europe.

Brian and I decided to buy a car ,make our way up through Europe  and take Rolly with us, to help us with the driving, or rather teach us a bit about driving in Europe, which to us was something very  new  as we’d only driven in places like McKinlay and Julia Creek, and now we even had to drive on the wrong side of the road, and try to read signs written in foreign language ,and we couldn’t  read a word of any foreign language ,only English or should I say, Aussie slang, which was mostly spoken around McKinlay. And so the journey began!!! I can’t remember all the places we stayed at in Europe.

In Holland

We headed for Venice and left the car outside somewhere, and it was strange to see a city on the water, and we had a ride on a Gondola. Of course Rolly was driving at this stage but slowly both Brian and I took a turn at driving. We had to, as we only had Rolly, until we got to Stockholm, as his parents live there, and that was to be the end of the trip for him, but we had a while to go before this happened.

From here we went into Switzerland and I remember we stayed a night there. We stayed at Hotels all the time we were over there and could always find someone in the office that could speak English, but mostly only one person. We went from here to Berlin, and the wall between East and West Berlin was still up then, and the only way we could get into the East side was to go by taxi but we weren’t allowed to get out of the taxi and walk about, but it was noticeable that you could still see the results of the war on the East side, and the whole city was very drab and not many trees, whereas the West side was all modern, and had all been rebuilt, since the war.

From here we headed over to the other side of Germany to Hamburg, and the first place we visited was the Reeperbahn , which we had been  told about, by the two bush fellows that went before us. Was unbelievable to see all these girls all dressed up and sitting behind glass windows looking like models. Of course they were all prostitutes, or “hookers “and there must have been 100 of them all waiting for business. There were also nightclubs in this area and we met and talked to guy that was outside one of these clubs trying to persuade people to go in to the club. As people came up to him on the street he could pick  which country they came from and talk to them in their particular language, and was seldom wrong ,and could speak many languages.

From here we went into Denmark, and I think we had a short ferry ride over to Sweden and I remember on our way up to Stockholm, 2 things happened?? Firstly we were pulled up by the police, and they put the breathalyzer on whoever was driving. We were amazed, as nothing like this ever happened in Australia in those years and I remember on trips to Townsville, we used to stop at every pub and have a session. The second thing that happened was that the Fiat car broke down. We done a cylinder head gasket  and after maybe a day loss, we got it fixed, thanks to Rolly, as he could speak the language. We would have had a lot more trouble had Rolly not been with us, as Brian or I couldn’t speak a word of any other language.

We eventually arrived in Stockholm, and met Rolly’s parents who were very nice, and apparently a lot of people in Stockholm live in Units or Flats, in the city,  and they have these holiday houses out in the country where they spend weekends, and Rolly’s parents had one of these, which they kindly let  Brian and I stay at, and also Rolly with us  for the two weeks we stayed  in Sweden. We had a good time there and had lots of parties .One of the strange things about this holiday house is that they had an outside shower and it was supposed to be healthy to strip off and have a shower out in the snow. I remember I tried it once but once only? I didn’t want to be healthy any more!! Rolly gathered  up a few girls and brought them out to some of the parties They were good fun and could speak  good English, but we never found Sweden to be “the land of free love” that  everyone had told  us it was? We were introduced to  a drink there called Ackrovit, and it was a lot more powerful than OP Rum. It was clear in colour but boy was she powerful.

Out of our trip around Europe, I think the time we spent in Sweden was the best time we had but we had to move on, and we were on our own from here on, and Brian and I took turns in driving, which we handled alright. We knew we had to change to the other side of the road when we got into Norway, but what we didn’t know was where Norway started, and when to change sides, but Brian was driving, and suddenly I saw a bloke wheeling  a wheel barrow, by the side of the road. As we went passed him he dropped the wheel barrow, and looked  at our car in amazement and scratched his head, and I said to Brian “we must be driving on the wrong side of the road by the actions of this bloke with wheelbarrow” so we pulled over to the side of the road, until a car passed, and sure enough we were driving on the wrong side of the road .It was hilly country and winding roads, so we could have had a “head on” had I not seen the man with the wheelbarrow.

We continued down through Denmark, and then into the north of France, where we put the car on a ferry across to Southampton, drove up to London, where we stayed for a couple of weeks. We liked London and found it easy to drive around the city mainly because we were driving on the right side of the road for us. We saw all the sights in London, that every other tourist sees there, in the two weeks we were there, and one strange thing happened? We went to a pub one night where they sold Aussie beer, and blow me down, if I didn’t meet a guy called Shane Ryan who, not only went to Downlands Boarding school with me for four years, but was in the same class. This was 13 years after we both had left school? One of Noel’s mates, Henry Laurence, who went through dentistry with him, was in London at the time too so we visited him and his “pommy” wife, Pam a few times. They were good fun.

From London we went up through the north of England up through Scotland, then put the car on a ferry ,over to Ireland. We saw the place where our grandmother came from Armagh. We went from there down to the south of Ireland .We put the car on  a ferry back to England down to Southampton ,on the ferry again back to France , down to Paris where we spent some time going to all the “girlie places, such as the “Follies Bergier” and the  Moulin Rougue. We had some trouble reading the signs from the policemen on point duty in the traffic—they seemed to have hands and arms going everywhere, none of which we could follow, so we didn’t drive much around Paris, and went everywhere  in taxis.

Travelled down to Madrid in Spain and the big event there was going to the Bullfights, as we’d never seen anything like that in Australia, and it was pretty cruel to watch, but spectacular. From here we went to the French Riviera, where all the film stars went but we weren’t impressed with the beaches there, and couldn’t be compared with the beaches at the Gold Coast  or Sydney Beaches ,and we didn’t see many film stars either, and Brian was disappointed .Went up to Marseilles where our Grand-father “Frenchie “ Olive came from and came to Aust. and became a shearer, and later ,had a Cordial Factory, in Kynuna, and eventually 2 sheep properties. Olive Grove and Mayfield near McKinlay. We went on to Genoa from here sold the car back to the bloke we bought it off for $100 which was half what we paid for it which wasn’t too bad seeing we had been travelling in it for 6 months.

We travelled from here to Rome by train, and visited the Vatican and any other tourist places, then got a train back to England, caught a boat - the Mauretania to New York in USA. We stayed there a week and saw all the sights, and then we went on buses, from one side of USA to San Francisco. We stayed at various places enroute, the best being Las Vegas where we done a bit of gambling at the Casinos. We never saw a silver dollar in all our travels across USA until we got here, only paper dollars, but there were millions of them here to play the “pokies” with. There were no Casinos in Aust. at this time, so all this was new to us, and what an “eye-opener” Las Vegas was. The other impressive place on our travels across USA was the Grand Canyon .and we saw a Rodeo there at Flagstaff and was very impressed. It was an all Indian Rodeo, and these Indians were very good at roping.

From here we went to Los Angeles, and saw Hollywood and the sets where all the films were made .Even saw a film being made. .After having a couple of weeks around San Francisco and Los Angeles, we got aboard the Orinsay, and sailed back to Australia via Hawaii, having a couple of days there, and here we did think the beaches compared favorably with  Australian Beaches, but this was the only place in the world they did compare?? From here we continued on stopping at Fiji, and then back to Sydney, and then back to McKinlay and the “bush.”

What I have neglected to mention was that Brian suffered from terrible back pain for the whole time we were on this trip, and some mornings he couldn’t put his socks on .He had been to specialists in Sydney, and I recall he spent something like 3 months in plaster in hospital in a Townsville Hospital. He was diagnosed as having “spondolitis” which meant the cartilage between a few of his vertebrae was being eaten away. He took the opportunity of this trip to go to a specialist in Stockholm in Sweden and another in New York, and they confirmed the diagnosis of the Sydney doctors that at this time there was no cure for it and he put up with it for the rest of his life, and wore corsets most of the time. I must say though, that this complaint didn’t stop him from doing anything, as he could ride a rough horse, play a good game of tennis, and he had 9 kids as well   !!!!!                             

We’d been away 7 months from the time we left Sydney, and had plenty of stories to tell in the pub once we got back to McKinlay. Lance McDermott was the publican at the time and he enjoyed all these stories. Dad and a guy called Tom Bennett, looked after Glenbede while I was away, but by the time I got back I don’t think Dad and Tom were getting on too well, so Dad was pleased to see me back home. I have been for many trips to different countries since, but this was the “TRIP OF A LIFETIME “