(Hi everyone. Today we have a very special
guest. My mum has very kindly agreed to do a little interview with me and this
way you can practise your listening skills, maybe learn some new vocabulary,
and also perhaps learn a bit more about Australia, because Mum has travelled a
lot more around Australia than I have.) And a long time ago. (Yes, when things were quite different.) (Okay, so you grew up in Sydney.
You were born and bred in Sydney.) I was. (And then when you were in your twenties,
you decided to go on a little trip.) Yes. A little trip that turned
into a very long trip. Yes, and I think it was...
Before I got back to Sydney it was um... 10, 12 years. (Oh, it was that long?)
It was that long. (Wow. Okay. And you were...
It was in the 60s, right?) It was in the 60s, yeah. (You can do the math for her age.
She looks very good. Hopefully it's...) Aren't you lucky? (Hopefully it's in the genes. But back then it was quite
a big deal as well, right? To go across the country.)
Oh yes, it was. You know, I think when you're young, you don't think it's a
big deal. You just think, "Oh well, you know, we'll book the train, we'll book the bus,
whatever. Pack our stuff and we'll go. But it was a bit of a big deal and
we had to... And... You didn't say to yourself, "Okay, when I get there, when I get to
Perth, we'll just go out and buy all new stuff, like new saucepans and new towels
and sheets." No, you didn't do that. You took it all with you. And fortunately
my girlfriend and I had two trunks and we packed all that sort of thing into
the trunks and we had a couple of suitcases. Um... (You had suitcases. 'Cos I was joking
with Mum before... about the sui-... I said, "Oh, you had trunks.
So you didn't have suitcases yet?") We had suitcases. They just weren't
on wheels. They didn't have wheels. You had to carry them. It was those sort of
suitcases. Some people still have them. But that's... it's hard going when you
have to carry your suitcases. Ah yes, so we left Sydney on a bus.
I think we left on the bus. (You went on a bus? Ah yeah...) First. ('Cos I thought you did
the whole thing by train.) No, no. We... we went by bus. (Gosh, that would've been so long.) Yeah, it was. It was... from Sydney to
Perth... is um... it's a long way. And we had to go via Melbourne, and then we intended to say in Adelaide for a while.
So we... we got that far, and that was... that was all by
bus, and then from... After we'd stayed in Adelaide for a
while we went on to Perth by train. So that was, yeah, that was easier, because we were on the train for I think three
nights. That's quite a... quite a distance across the Nullarbor. (And what did you do in Adelaide?) In Adelaide... We... Well, the first thing...
I don't remember how we got the hotel, but we ended up staying in a
cheapish hotel. And to save on money we opened the trunk and
got our little heater out. We had a little two-bar heater.
We stood it on its back so that the bars were facing up and we
cooked our toast on there, hoping that no one could smell it, because we weren't
supposed to cook in the room. And that was... we had things to put on
there for breakfast... (And that way you didn't have to pay for breakfast.) That way we didn't have to pay.
In those days they didn't actually... I don't know if they gave you
breakfast free in the hotel. I don't think they did. So that was, yeah, so
we could save a bit of money. (The type of thing I would've
done in my twenties too.) Yeah. We... But the main reason we left
Adelaide is we... It wasn't easy to get jobs, but we managed to get jobs waitressing in a... in a restaurant. It was a newly opened Italian restaurant. The trouble was it
was so far away, we... and we didn't have a car... We had to get a taxi there and a
taxi back again, and by the end of the week, we had hardly any money left.
So that didn't last very long. We didn't stay in those jobs very long. And then we
took the train. We booked the Indian Pacific, which now goes... You could get it
all the way across. In those days, I think we could only pick it up in Adelaide. And
we went from Adelaide to Perth by train. (And what was the story with the puppy?) Oh we... We were so young and stupid.
We... Oh we fell in love with this lovely little puppy. Oh we can't leave it
here, we'll have to take it with us. I don't know how we ended up... I don't
even know how we got it in the first place. But we took the puppy on the train
with us, so we had to keep it hidden in our compartment and we had to put
newspaper all over the floor, so it, you know, if it did something we could get rid of that and put
some more newspaper down. (You weren't we-... hoping that it would hold on?) No, we weren't hoping that it would...
can hold on for three days. Um, yeah, so that was... that was, yeah, one
of the sillier things... sillier things that we did. And then crossing the Nullarbor...
It's basically desert for about... What did I say about? (About three days?) Three days, and it's about five...
well, then it was about 500 miles. So that would've been... What did we say?
(About 800 kilometres, 900 kilometres?) Kilometres... Something like that. And so you... At night when you went to bed,
you'd close your curtain, but when you looked out the window, it looked...
(It was basically the same?) It was the same as when you got up
in the morning. It was no different. (That's travelling long distances in Australia.) It just was... It was... And they call it
desert, but it wasn't sand dunes like you'd imagine in the Sahara.
It was just like rock and a few bushes, and you hardly ever saw an animal. Except for one morning when
we got up, raised the blind, getting dressed... There's no reason not to
raise the blind. There's no one out there. So we thought. And in the middle of
getting dressed when we had our underwear on, the train slowed down and there were some
workmen standing out there. And we thought,
"Oh no. Close the blind very quickly." (I'm sure you made their day.) I'm sure we did. (Or their week.) Or their week. I wonder how many other
people had their blinds open. Yeah, so we eventually got to Perth, and I found a job in a bar.
That was easy for me, 'cos bar work you can pick up and drop. And my
friend found a secretarial job after about a week. And we stayed there for... I was there off and on for
about three years or more. (Off and on because you went to some other places?)
Because I went north, I went up to Derby and worked there, which was... There's a very good expression:
a one-horse town. Well, this was a two-pub town. Oh it's even
bigger than a one-horse town. We worked in one - I was with another friend
at that stage. We worked in one pub and the only place to go when you had time
off was to the other pub. There was nothing else. But if there was a party...
If somebody... I remember somebody who worked at a bank had their 21st
birthday party. So they just simply made an announcement: "Hey we're
having a party! Come on over." And everybody who wanted to go went. It was really good. (You said you got paid well, though. Sorry.) Got paid well. And everything was covered.
('Cos there was nothing to do.) No, you got... Well, they had to give you
accommodation in places like that. And they have to feed you. And we
had... We had a cook that um... Well, she had a bit of a temper, and
sometimes people in the dining room would say, "Oh, could I have um... Could you ask the
cook to make me a medium rare steak?" And the cook, in a very loud voice, would say,
"The steak will come any way I cook it!" (But you said there were quite a few
interesting characters in those small towns.) Oh, there were. There was...
And I was there in October... let me see... September, October, November.
And in No-... November was what they called suicide month. Because of the conditions -
the weather conditions. And you find a lot of men go there to work - do mine work and work on
oil rigs and things like that. And it could be very lonely
at times for people like that. And sometimes they'd just, as the
expression goes, go bush. They'd just wander off into the...
into the bush and people had to... someone had to go look for them.
And they did find... I can remember one fellow that wandered off into the
bush, and they think they found him about three days later, and he was still alive.
Still alive. They brought him back to town and he said, "The police found me after one day
and had me tied to a tree for two." I don't... I knew the police, and
I don't think they'd do things like that. (But what... With the weather conditions... Was it because it was the rainy season?
So it was grey and hot?) Well, it was what... That time of the year
is what they call the build-up to the rainy season. So almost every day it was very humid - very hot and humid -
then every afternoon you'd get grey clouds... black... And then they'd turn to black.
And you'd get thunder and lightning, and you wouldn't get any rain.
You'd just get thunder and lightning. And it was... Ohh, it was really oppressive. And that would happen day,
after day, after day. Until eventually it rained. (Okay. And then you said you
went to the Northern Territory.) Then we went to the Northern Territory. (And getting there was a bit tricky.) I was actually working with another
friend - another girlfriend - and she had a boyfriend that worked on an
oil rig. And she had moved to Derby because he was on an oil rig that was
just outside Derby. By the time she got there, they'd moved him on to
another oil rig. So she stayed there for, you know, six months, and then she moved...
followed him to another place. And by the time she got there, they'd
moved him to another oil rig. Eventually she caught up with
him in Darwin. But it was... It just happens in places like that.
You don't have much control over it. (And um... You had to drive
to Darwin? I mean, to get into the Northern Territory there weren't
any buses or trains or anything?) No, by that time I'd gone back to...
actually gone back to Perth. And then from Perth we drove.
And that was... yeah, it's... And there were places where,
once again, there's no sealed roads. You know, for... I mean hundreds of
kilometres there's no sealed roads. And places where there were just what...
what they call... They call it bulldust. It looks like sand, but it's reddish colour. And it's actually dust. And there was
one patch where it's um... (And it's not compacted, it's...) No, it's not. And they say... It was about...
I think there was about 80 kilometres of it. And they said, "Whatever you do
when you're driving across it, don't stop. 'Cos if you stop, you might
not get going again. You might end up buried in the sand." So we... You know, there
were times when it was difficult. There was... Oh yes, and then you know,
there's a lot of feral camels out in the west. (Yeah. We have a lot of camels in Australia.) Believe it or not. (More than a million feral camels.
So... wild camels.) Yeah. Not very nice sometimes.
You know, they... It could be a little bit frightening, you
know, if you're surrounded by feral camels. They were brought to Australia
in the nineteen...What did I say? (19th century.) 19th century, yeah. 19th century. The ah... A lot of Afghanis came to
Australia. They brought camels with them, and they worked as... They were traders. And they did a lot of work in outback
Australia. There were no roads, there was no railway and goods needed to be
taken for one place to another. Mail had to be delivered. They did all those sort
of things. And... But the camels from time to time, you know... They'd lose a camel.
Here and there there'd be a camel gone. And that eventually built up and built
up, until we had... now have over a million camels in Australia. And they actually
now get exported to Saudi. Yeah, so that's for breeding stock
and for meat - camel meat. But it's interesting that there's
so many of them out there. And I'll tell you the one place I met a
friendly (so-called friendly) camel, was a small place. You know, as I said
you had to wait... You had to be very careful with your petrol.
You'd fill up your car with petrol and then you'd have to know how
far away was the next place you could fill up the petrol. Because if
anything went wrong, you could be stuck out there.
(You were stuck for days!) Well, actually usually somebody
came by, but you know, you'd hope that they had extra petrol
if you didn't have it. And one thing in those days, if you did stop on the
side of the road for any reason, somebody coming by would stop to see if
you were okay. You know, do you have a problem? Are you out of water?
Have you got a flat tyre? At one point we had a flat tyre, and we had to sit
with the car. Actually the flat tyre was on the caravan and we didn't have a...
For some unknown reason we didn't have a spare for the caravan. A spare tyre. And
so somebody had to take our tyre into the next town, get it fixed and bring it
back to us. And we sat there for half a day and half a night till the very nice
people came back with the tyre. (Though you had to make sure
you had enough water, right? When you travel through the desert you
need... Even in cars you need a lot of... You need water with you.)
You had to make sure you had plenty of water. Yeah. But I was going to tell you
about the place that had the camel. It was one of these petrol stops.
You know, that people would have to stop and fill up petrol there. And there was just a pub. You know, so a place
where you could go and drink and eat and outside they had a petrol bowser. (One pump, yeah.)
One pump. But... And they also had a camel. (Was it tied up?) Um... I don't know.
I don't think... (Or did it just hang around?)
I think it just hung around. I think that's... It got fed there
and also it liked beer. And people would just come out,
leave a can of beer on the side, and he'd pick it up in his mouth,
he'd rip out the pull top of the beer, drink the beer
and then spit the can out. (He'd become very Australian.) Yes, he was very Australian.
A very Australian camel. Yes, so from... That was travelling
up the coast and then into (the) Northern Territory and to the
Ord River, which was one of the... The Ord River is in a place called Kununurra.
And there's a... They have a dam there. And it's... I've been in some hot places, but
this is one of the hottest places I've ever been in. And there was
no air-conditioning anywhere. You went into one of the pubs
there - no air-conditioning. There might be fans, but you know,
it was just hot, hot. (Was it humid or was it a dry heat?) I think was both. (It depended on the day?) I don't know. It was just hot!
(I was just hot.) Yes, so that was Kununurra.
And then on up to Darwin. And that's... It's interesting in Darwin too
because they're more like... They're very... It's very tropical, Darwin. So they have...
They basically only have the two seasons: the wet season and the dry season. That's basically what
they have. Wet and dry. (And what was Darwin like back in the 60s?) It was like the Wild West. (Really?) And they said it had one of the largest
floating populations of anywhere in Australia. (Floating, meaning people moved around a lot.) Transient people. People that
just came in and out, in and out. And ah... So the post office... The post
office was very busy because a lot of people's address was "the post office".
And so, you know, a lot of people just... And then they had all these boxes
where people's mail was kept. Then you'd just go in and collect
your mail from there, you know? (You weren't there during um... Tra-)
The cyclone? Cyclone Tracy.
(Cyclone Tracy, were you?) No, I'd left about, I think,
six months before Tracy hit. It was Christmas Eve.
I don't remember the year, but yeah, it was Christmas Eve. And it really hit...
It was a direct hit. (A really bad cyclone in Darwin.)
Yeah, really bad. Yeah. A cyclone - what we call a cyclone
is what they call hurricanes in the US. Yeah, but it really destroyed the...
destroyed the place. And then you eventually
went back to Sydney? And eventually got back to Sydney, yes.
So it was quite... It wasn't a little trip after all. (Yeah. Okay, Mum, well thank you very much for...)
Oh, you're welcome. (...for joining me in this video.
Maybe we'll do it again another time.) We might find something else to talk about. (Thanks very much for watching, guys.
If you have any questions, just put them in the comments and
I'll see you soon. Bye.) (Okay. Yeah and just be careful you don't kick that because...) Yeah, I'm trying not to. Otherwise it might shake.
