From My Notebooks In 1976: Galahs and Snowy Mountains

Sunday, January 11th

From Coonabarrabran. Very quiet on the roads and in the towns. Passed along a section of dirt road to Cudal. Stopped a while to talk and look at parrots. Beginning to realise how many there are – oddly enough there are more to be seen in the South than in the North. The grey ones with red breasts and heads are everywhere – Galahs – and another, even more gaudy, is common too. Found one by roadside and took feathers as a sample.

The Galah

Country made strong impression. Rolling pasture for hundreds of miles – seemingly in all directions. Towns, particularly Canowindra (owin = oun) have a more evolved look, the older hotels with spacious balconies of decorative ironwork and good proportions are well-kept.

Canowindra in 1976

The Garden of Roses

A weather-beaten gent. stood by the bike, waiting to talk to me. He had a mild, humble manner, said he’d done some gold-mining himself and though he’d never travelled he read about foreign places, especially where there was mining.

“How is it in Peru?” he asked. He’d heard about that. I enjoyed being with him for a while.

The Pembertons received us kindly. She has a strong, vital personality but he’s rather burned out (deaf and drinks a fair bit). Carol observes how often one or other partner is a wreck. They built the home fifteen years before – a big expensive place – she was very sensitive about the state of the lawn. We slept in the girls’ room – single beds on opposite sides of the room (“You don’t mind sharing a bedroom?”) She told us at length about Glenice’s [the daughter] surprise wedding, and Christopher [husband] didn’t get a very good press. She’s going out to visit them in Salvador.

Monday, 12th

At Clunes, on the road from Canowindra to Cowra, with family called Young. Son Ian, daughters Rebecca, Margaret, Sue, Letitia. Rode up to house along avenue lined with immature trees. House, of brick, seemed fairly new. People seen through windows stretched out in easy chairs.

Ian had just come back to garage on his Agricultural Yamaha and I rode up there to talk to him. Pleasant, almost sweet young man, sideburns, reddish hair very thick on forearms, wearing toweling shorts – his expression reminded me of John Clarke, from my childhood. Talked to us forever, while we still sat on our bikes like dummies, although it was obvious that we would be able to stay on the land. At last he fetched his father. The whole family came out and we talked for a good while in the evening light, with the Galahs swooping and screeching in the gum trees. (they kill the biggest trees by stripping their bark).

The father offered us the use of a disused cottage at the back of the property, near the sheep-shearing shed. Ian accompanied us there and we thought that would be the end of it, but then we saw headlights approaching, slowly, halting at each set of gates. The girls arrived with beer, salad, orange juice and a bottle of Coke. Very generous.

13th – 15th, Canberra, but no notes.

16th To Kosciousko Park, the Snowy Mountains

We’ve spent four days in the Southside Caravan park and it’s time to leave. The magpies are strolling around as usual – exceptionally bulky birds in their tattered black suits with flashes of white underwear showing through. They have a strangely musical chant, like squeaky machinery but at a very sophisticated level, and look very much at home among the campers. Said goodbye to the Beissmans, young Germans – he a welder/fitter/turner, she an optometrist. They’ve lived nine months in Australia, with tent and Land Rover and plan to go on working like that to buy land and build.

Weather was perfect for riding, blue sky, hot sun, cool air. Up into Snowies – above 5000 feet – bought steak and few veg at Adaminaby. Admired the wild flowers and gum forests, and the dams and switching stations. Day ended gracefully in a forest clearing, where we swept away leaves and twigs to make places for the bed and the fire – a good stone fireplace – to avoid any chance of a forest fire. Only sad note was Carol’s increasing discomfort with what later seemed to be a cyst, together with various aches and pains and glandular swelling. We also had little money and had forgotten it was Friday – so a weekend of difficulty unless Carol’s theory of easy money changing was born out.

Saturday 17th

Woke up at dawn. Aching night, but clear and cool. Carol went for a walk. Found a little beetle on helmet visor – brown with speckles and toy feet. Left a little turd and flew off. Wonderful to watch it gear itself up for flight, with the slightest movement of wing cases, pacing back and forth on the edge of the plastic (like that bizarre Southern priest we saw on TV preparing to smash bricks with his forehead.)

Set off to complete the circuit of the Snowies – the threatening dirt road climb was not as bad as it might be. Road winds up and down over creeks named after Groggin and Swiggin – a veritable Hobbit land. Filled up from stream water, took some pix, went over the top (at Leather Barrel) and came down to Lake Jindabyne where a wily Italian took 40 cents for a coffee, and Carol’s theories began to seem unfounded. On to Cooma where further efforts to change money proved futile. I kept up a sort of bloody-minded indifference for a while, letting her do the running in and out of motel offices. It had annoyed me the day before when I pointed out a bank and she had not wanted to go in. Sometimes I resent being forced into a position of having either to insist on some point or having to suffer again the consequences that I already went through on my own a year or two ago.

Decided to go on to Eden anyway, with only 90 cents. At Merimbula saw a likely motel and got $15 off the proprietor. In Eden drew up outside the Australasia for a drink – and was hailed by a tall man with one leg, and some others. They were a work camp building a house for an Aboriginal family. They asked us to join them, were very friendly, wanted us to go back with them for “tea’ but Carol really exhausted so we bought food (chicken) and ate it in the pub with wine and beer to relax. Then rode back to the school where the kids were living (right next to park where we intended to camp). They were going to sleep on the beach with a fire. Though often illegal, they thought their numbers would prevail. It was a bit of a performance getting down there, and we were a bit overtired to be much entertained by the resident “performer” singing about old ladies locked in the loo – and the foggy, foggy dew. But eventually, despite a few mosquitoes, it was a good night.

Sunday, 18th

Morning was beautiful. Beach was glorious, water was cool and heavenly. Collected shells – a film canister full – and came back to the house where most of them were packing up to leave. The house was unfinished and some of the principal people were staying behind.

In the afternoon we were taken to the swimming falls they had discovered about 20 miles inland where a river has worked its way through a great rock in a series of falls and cavities more beautiful than anything I’ve seen on that scale.

19th to 28th

We stayed with them – Tim Seale, Kevin Goode, Chris, Brian Spillsbury, Helen, Judy, etc, to help finish the house. I drew a floor plan on the inside back cover of my notebook.

In a church hall we were joined by a reinforcement from another camp. The difference in tone was quick to appear. Three men, two women, churchy over-age pranksters, not very “mellow” as Carol would say.

Had much difficulty working with flimsy materials, fibre board, asbestos, pacific maple moulding and skirting – light as balsa, all walls and ceilings out of true, doors featherweight but monstruous size to ceiling so that inhabitants dwarfed (to reduce damp in roof – lets hot air flow out) floor of fibre-board sanded down. Banks give 15 years life to these houses for mortgage purposes.

Wednesday 28th

Carol’s uneasiness continued through the night (another cancer dream) but in the morning we were able to talk it out better. She feels that I don’t value her, think her contribution is of insufficient value (intelligence, articulacy, says she was learning from me ways to discuss and question – that the “movement” language was not sufficiently broad to deal with everything) while I said it disturbed me to find myself constantly provoking her uneasiness by references in passing (as yesterday when I asked people whether they would prefer travelling through India alone or in company.)

It’s true that I am still profoundly suspicious of women, and I do anticipate that they will “pull the rug out” – and of course this suspicion breeds uneasiness in me, etc., etc. So we talked about expectations, good and bad.

Today will pursue the problem of parts for the bike, and perhaps approach “The Age” (Murdoch’s Melbourne newspaper) to see if they’ll take some stuff from me for money.

What I need for the motorcycle
Pistons, standard plus 20 LC
Spokes, Q.D. wheel, RH side
Petcock RH side
Gearbox oil change

From 30th January to 18th February we stayed in Melbourne, St Kilda, with friends. Most of those days I spent in Frank Mussett’s shop working on the bike. Described at length in the book. Here’s a note, for gearheads, of what was done:

Change – two inlet, one exhaust valve
Pistons to 7:1 Hepolite
Re-sleeve barrel to standard
Removed and inspected oil tank. New washers
Replaced original oil pump. Found other had badly worn seats
Removed rotor, expanded core and replaced with new tab washer (I’ve forgotten what this means).
Replaced wrong chain from Renold and fitted new one.
Front fork reassembly with missing seals and washers. Compressed springs using old oil seals as spacers.
Removed rear wheel, replaced missing spokes and rebuilt wheel with rim the right side round
Re-riveted speedo gear box
Washed and packed wheel bearings – added missing spacers to hub assembly and refitted

By Friday 13th the work was done, the bike was ready, and I was searching for a ship to take us from Perth to somewhere in East Asia. Meanwhile we visited museums and had lunch with a Dame.

See you next week, I hope.