From My Notebooks in 1975: Leaving Brisbane, Australia

G’day, everyone.

How are you this Sunday morning? Perhaps like me you start the day looking for good news and not finding any. Us humans having pretty much obliterated one small country and decimated its population, and done a similar job on 20% of another, much larger country, it looks like the only survivors in the long run will be the cockroaches and the arms dealers – see if you can tell them apart.

I will make two astonishing predictions. Elon Musk will never get to Mars, and Trump will NOT be elected president. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean he won’t be president.

Question is: Can the rest of the world get by without America (I mean the USA)? Very doubtful. What a relief, then, to get back to 1975 in Australia, the lucky country, when the future looked bright and we were ambling up the East coast, working it out as we went.

My naked notes, continued.

Wednesday 17th December. Leaving Brisbane

After running around in the city to get two withdrawal forms from Mercantile Building Society in Queen Street, on corner of George Street, we packed and left.

38 miles out, stopped for pineapple. Met couple in Land Rover, from Townsville.

“Glass House Mountains” visible from road – one conical, one a crooked finger from a fist. Continued through heat under cumulus, among pines, to “Sunshine Coast” – a great speculative housing scheme behind coast, Kawana Homes, 3 B’rooms at $25,000 up.

Stopped at Mooloolaba to swim.

Aussie phones in 1975. Press button B to get your money back. Swagmen did it in mild expectation.

About midday thought of paying $2 for a campsite between beach and road but talked out of it. Went on along Sunshine Coast looking for motels, etc. but nothing seemed good enough. Finally at Tewantin saw the Royal Mail Hotel, which reminded me of the good colonial hotels in South Africa. Carol went to see about price and came back with two old codgers in tow, Sammy and George.

Sammy was bubbling over with bonhomie and G was nodding his head and going “Yes, yes,” as S sold him the idea of putting us up. S was a Geordie. G was a Canadian of English parents. So there we are, set up in this “flat” – slightly grubby and with a succession of increasingly aged hosts a bit overpowering – and yet G and S a lot more alive than the McDonalds of yesterday [the couple from Townsville].

Tewantin itself seems a pleasant place; big fig trees on lawns by the river. But touristy, and always things here are costly. Was sucked in by hotel in the evening and spent too much on a mediocre dinner. Could have had as much for a quarter the price in the beer garden.

Thursday 18th

Spent day in George’s house writing my Oriana diary. Not quite finished.

Friday 19th

Spent another day to get work done on bike. George seems happy. A hot day.

Saturday 20th

From Tewantin.

Aussie poem:

I eat my peas with honey,
I have done all my life,
It makes the peas taste funny,
But it keeps them on the knife.

Riding through cool, overcast day. Occasional flashes of drizzle. Reminded of country in north of South America, of Tanzania, of Swaziland – beginning to feel the world’s scenery – but wait till we see the first kangaroo. Stopped for fruit after 95 miles. Bike is doing an incredible 66 mpg today. Met couple, American dental technician, English wife who read about my departure in S.T. but assumed I’d given up because nothing more got printed.

Found space among trees at side of a small dirt road – “real bad road.” Super rice and veg dinner. Put up awning and tent. Felt physically very uncomfortable. Sweaty. Upset Carol’s mood. Finally slept under net, under awning, alongside bike, over green bag and under sheet. Very sticky and sweaty at first, but slept well later.

[The “green bag” was a bed we designed and made in San Francisco. Made in segments with foam in tent cloth it folded up to make a pillion seat for Carol.]

Sunday 21st

Woke at dawn under the net. Patches of rosy light through heavy cloud on horizon, paled to whey. No kangaroos but a chorus of crazy birdsong, cackling, tinkling, burbling and hooting. Carol made ‘doughboys’ and eggs and coffee while I put away all the furniture, most unused. All this stuff to put away, but the awning really worked. Carol got into a mild state packing the kitchen – I’m trying to learn about giving her that space. Wind blew up from opposite quarter to last night. i.e… N.E. and seemed to be driving banks of heavy wet cloud before it, but no deluge yet at 6.30. On to road, meaning to find out about [illegible] Island. Took loop to Gladstone, a bleak, empty town on Sunday at 8am. Four boys stood on launching ramp. One was particularly bright, and independent, and told us there was no boat to the island on Sunday. We talked a bit and an older boy said his uncle had written from London to say in 30 years there wouldn’t be a Londoner left there – only them darkies. He had a knowing smirk on his face and I told him it was an absolute load of shit. “Well I’ve been there myself.” Then you should know better. “And me aunt has bin too,” but the smirk was close to collapse now. Painful to hear such stuff from a child. Aussie prejudices are strong and outspoken. Gladstone abandoned, we rode on to Rockhampton, where we didn’t buy lunch at an Esso restaurant. Pump man said prices were high because of wages. His wife worked in restaurant and brought home only $3 less a week than he did. And he was a tradesman.

On to the Mackay road, long empty stretches of narrow tar through range land, a mass of dead Brigalow trees killed by the poisoned axe. Just over halfway we cross a bridge with no parapets at Lotus Creek, and stop at a roadhouse the other side.

Phil Pilgrim, Triumph dealer in Melbourne, on a run with his Vincent. He helped me a lot back in the day.

Next Week: Rump steak and beer with the Truckies.