Ok Mate.
It was 1987 in the January and we lived south of Logan City QLD. My uncle (now deceased) had managed to total his landcruiser (new to him) and get himself disqualified drink driving. Come to think of it, it was a pissed mate who had totalled the 4x4 but I digress. Anyway, he tells me that he would still be able to drive in the NT but he needed to get back there with the boat he had bought (15" tinny with outboard). You see he had come into a legacy and being Uncle D he basically pissed it away.
So I agreed to drive him to the NT border. With what money he had left he bought an Ford Falcon XB stationwagon (estate) and after some very curory preparation we hitched the boat and set off. I had my cloths, a sleepingbag, a cheepo camp stretcher, and some insect repellent. Now for the anorak moment - Falcons of that vintage used to have the towbar fitted to the bumper and the bumper was then bracketed to the rest of the car. This was in the days of chrome metal bumpers.
Now uncle D didn't have a lot of cash left and the car was in all honesty a rusty *******box but hey it went OK and roof wasn't stoved in. So we set off and had got as far as Withcott, a little nowhere place below Toowoomba, at the foot of the Great Dividing Range. Withcott was famous locally for having two huge fruit and veg barns, one on either side of the road, they used to sell bananas for $00.11/Kg as a come on. Withcott also had a zebra crossing and on spying a old boy stepping off I came to gentle halt in the middle of the Warrego highway. There was a squeal and a bang and we all shuffled forward as some knob in a Celica ploughs into the back of the boat. Anway his car looked far worse than the small crease in the back of the boat so we bid him farewell and went on our way. Dalby, Chinchilla, Miles, Roma, Mitchell, all passed without incident and as the sun had set Uncle D had decided that under the cover of darkness he was safe to do some driving - I was not happy - but then I was wound pretty tight as a youngster.
Suddenly there was a crash followed by a dreadful metallic scrapping and sparks few up the drivers side of the car. We pulled in off the road to find the right hand side of the bumper hanging on the ground. The shunt and broken the already rusted bracket, which had given way and we were jiggered. So we camped, well I camped and uncle D and his common law aborginal wife, shagged away in the back of the car, within earshot but mercifully out of sight.
Next morning we unhitched the boat and I set off into Morven to see what could be done. Now to this day I cannot tell you what I think of Morven as the city fathers would undoubtedly take legal action and there is a limit to the profanity permitted on a public forum. Anway I located the RACQ man who was painting his office. He had a look sucked his teeth and began an extended diatribe about how crap Fords were and how they rust and if it had been a Holden (General Motors) then at least he could have done something. "I cannot weld rust!" Second anorak moment - in Australia of my childhood the whole nation was divided (or so it seemed) into Ford or Holden supporters. But in this hour of need I did not need the my nose rubbed, after all it wasn't even my car!
TBC
