Читать книгу The Firefighter Blues - Alan Bruce - Страница 17

The year was 1966 and the Bruce family were going on their first road trip/holiday since arriving in Australia. Now, my parents were both clever people in their own right; Mum was quite well educated and Dad was worldly and experienced, so for the life of me I can’t comprehend why they didn’t realise that a mile is the same length in Scotland as it is in Australia.

We were about to drive to the centre of Queensland to a place called Anakie and go fossicking for sapphires. A friend of Mum’s had recently returned from a similar trip with a bunch of stories and a pocketful of sapphires. The plan was to travel north up the east coast of NSW and Queensland to Rockhampton then head west through the town of Emerald until we reached the gem fields, where we would all have a great time scratching around in the dirt like silly Scottish chooks. Who knows, maybe we would find our fortune and live happily ever after. This was all to happen in two and a half weeks during the heat of an Australian summer. Mad Dogs and Englishmen had nothing on the Bruce family.

Oh, one other point that my parents didn’t think through: our car was way too small for our Leyland Brotherish adventure. Months earlier, Dad had purchased a shiny new Morris 1100. No doubt a terrific car but it wasn’t much bigger than a Mini Minor, had no off-road capabilities, and a family of four leprechauns would struggle to squeeze into it with all the camping gear we were to carry. The sticker on the rear window said, ‘It floats on fluid’ (which meant, it was equipped with the latest hydraulic suspension). I think Dad was floating on fluid when he decided it would be suitable for our long trek north. Nonetheless, I remember how excited I was that we, the Bruce family, working-class migrants from Letham, were actually having a real vacation. I thought, wow, how good is Australia?

A few weeks before our departure, my parents were busy buying, borrowing or, in Dad’s case, ‘acquiring’, any camping gear they could get their hands on. Now this was 1966, so everything was made from timber, steel and canvas. Pop-up nylon tents and reinforced plastic camp beds were years away. We ended up with a twelve-by-twelve canvas tent and its associated timber tent poles, steel pegs, guy lines, ropes and springs. A twelve-by-twelve canvas ground sheet. Four canvas and timber camp beds, a couple of tilley lamps, a portable gas stove, a folding table and chair set, a steel esky and enough plates, cutlery and pots for the four of us. On top of this, we needed to find room for the collapsible army shovel, small spade and two sieves for sapphire fossicking. We also needed enough clothing and personal items for two and a half weeks. Now, if you’re not familiar with the Morris 1100, it was a very small vehicle with a very small (1100cc) engine. To be able to squeeze all this equipment and a family of four into its tiny interior was next to impossible. The obvious solution? Fit some roof racks. Dad obtained a second-hand set and modified them to fit our pocket rocket.

We were good to go; time for the practice pack. We spent hours (or at least Dad did) finding the quickest and easiest way to pack the car and still be able to squeeze the four of us into the seats. It was done, there was a place for everything. Jenny and I shared the back seat with the esky, the sieves, tent pegs, ropes and some clothing bags. Jenny and I chuckled, ‘Leg room is overrated anyway.’

Everything else went up on the roof or into the tiny rear boot. The final chore was to get the maps from the local NRMA and we were ready for our first real Australian adventure.

Finally, the time had arrived and, after a very early start, we managed to make Port Macquarie on our first day. Then a strange thing happened; as we pulled into the camping area we were given a sign from God. I’m sure it was a warning to turn back to Sydney, unpack and spend the rest of our holiday at the local public swimming pool at Bankstown. Within seconds of pulling up, an almighty gale came from nowhere. It blew off the water like the exhaust from a jumbo jet. Now, in practice, the four of us were each allocated a job to do and, like a well-oiled machine, we could erect the old canvas tent in about twenty minutes. On our first night, in the howling wind, adjacent to the break wall at Port Macquarie, I’m sure we would’ve broken the record and for the slowest time. I can’t be sure of the actual figures; possibly an hour or more. As Mum, Jenny and I were constantly letting the side down by dropping our tent corner, losing a rope or chasing seagulls, we were all introduced to some brand-new Scottish swear words. Mum may have been familiar with Dad’s colourful brogue but to Jenny and I, it was an ear bashing that we never wanted to hear again. From that day on we never deserted our post when it came to camp duties. We were so exhausted by the time our monstrosity was up, we all just fell into our camp beds for a ‘wee lie doon’.

The trip North to Queensland went fairly smoothly, although setting up the tent and campsite every night, just to pull it all down again in the morning, was nothing but damn hard work. I felt like we were working on the Burma Railway, not taking the holiday of a lifetime. The grumblings from the troops finally filtered up to Sergeant Bruce and he decided we would spend a little less time at the sapphire fields. This would allow us to at least spend two days at some of the towns along the way.

Dad didn’t know it at the time but that decision was a life changer for him and Mum. We spent a night at the coastal town of Ballina on our way north and Mum and Dad really liked the look of the place so they planned to spend two days around Ballina and Lennox Head on our way home. We did stay the two days and that region became our go-to holiday destination for years to come. My parents eventually retired to Lennox Head and lived out their lives in and around the north coast of New South Wales.

Inching a little further north each day also meant that the temperature was creeping up, not to mention the humidity. Sadly, the brand-new Morris was equipped with old-fashioned air conditioning – four windows that you could wind up or down as you pleased.

I still remember Dad’s cheeky comment about the heat: ‘Ahh luxury,’ he’d say as he wound the window down.

We finally made it to Rockhampton, Queensland, the town where our route would change to a westerly direction as we headed out along the Capricorn Highway, through Blackwater and Emerald towards our destination, the gem fields of Anakie.

After an overnighter in Rockhampton, we stopped for lunch in a bush clearing, somewhere near Blackwater. Mum was making a‘cuppa’ on the gas stove while Jenny and I were trying to follow a huge goanna, which had just scurried up a nearby tree. It was a beautiful day, cotton-ball clouds hung motionless in the Queensland air while the midday sun flickered like disco strobes through the leaves and branches of the eucalyptus trees that surrounded our campsite. Surprisingly, I don’t remember the heat or humidity being too oppressive. The chirping of invisible bird life echoed through the tree tops and, apart from the occasional smack from Mum swatting blowies, it seemed like a serene, peaceful spot for lunch.

Suddenly the serenity was shattered by the loudest ‘bang’ I had ever heard – it boomed through the nearby hills and seemed to reverberate for ages before it eventually petered out.

‘What was that,’ I screamed; Jenny and I were startled.

We turned to see our Dad reloading what was obviously a rifle. He had just fired a shot, apparently, at a tin can he had set up on a tree branch. His aim was true and he was setting up for another. He was wearing the same cheeky smirk he always had when up to no good. Not a 'Wolf Creek' smirk, just an everyday mischievous Dad smirk. The rifle, an old 303, with a worn grainy stock and blackened barrel, was the best kept secret of our trip. Not even Mum knew he had packed it in the car. Dad had wrapped it in a small blanket and buried it deep in the boot, underneath our clothing. The story goes that one of his workmates told him, ‘You’re crazy if you head off into central Queensland without a gun.’

Dad knew that Mum would object, so he had hidden the weapon and only brought it out once he knew there was no getting rid of it and no chance of turning back. Needless to say, Mum was ropeable, but to say Jenny and I were excited would be an understatement.

We spent the next half an hour, under Dad’s guidance and Mum’s evil eye, shooting tin cans. The combination of anger and panic on Mum’s face caused the session to end early. The gun was carefully packed away and never seen again.

The final part of our trip saw us travel through some pretty rugged countryside and, in 1966, towns, amenities and people were thin on the ground. The roads that cut through outback Queensland were always a surprise. Hour after hour, not a dimple or pimple would appear on the featureless bitumen skin, then without warning, our little Morris 1100 would shudder like an unbalanced washing machine as waves of pockmarked and potholed track crunched under our exhausted, tiny tyres.

Mum had obtained a fossicking licence from one of the gem field settlements and after a very slow, arse-numbing drive, we finally selected a spot to set up camp. We made it at last – the gem fields of Anakie.

This was unlike anywhere else we had been. There were no campgrounds, no water views, no shops, no toilets and no neighbours. The land was panting, it was as if the entire world had dried up. Thirsty trees drooped like parched prisoners in a chain gang. In between the brown tufts of weed, the ground, hard as mahogany, was covered in a thin layer of dust; its only purpose – to piss us off.

It didn’t take too long to find out just how inexperienced we were. Once our tent was set up, Mum and Dad decided to make a cup of tea.

‘Woops, we’re out of water;’ I heard Mum say

Mum had just used the last of the water.

‘Now where is the tap?’ she joked, but not for long.

This was the real outback and water was more expensive than the sapphires buried beneath our feet. Before it got too dark, Dad decided he would have a look around for some sort of fresh water supply. He and I hopped back into the car. It was so invigorating for me to sit in the front after a week in the cramped back seat. I had been looking at the world from the rear seat of our little car for so long that I had forgotten it was possible to see the horizon through the front windscreen. Everything seemed brighter and clearer from the adult seats. I felt so grown-up to be sitting in the front next to Dad.

At the time, there were no real roads around the gem fields and Dad and I found ourselves driving up a very dry creek bed for about fifteen minutes. Finally, we came across a small messy, cluttered campsite.

Dad called out to a very dirty, dishevelled looking miner, ‘Hello there, do you have any water to spare, or do you know where I can get some?’

He just completely ignored Dad and kept scratching and scraping in the dirt. It looked like this bloke had been there for years and hadn’t washed in all that time. His foot-long beard released small puffs of dust every time his half-sized army shovel struck the hardened ground.

Dad moved a little closer and then asked the bloke again, ‘Any water, mate?’

Well, the tirade that followed is one that, if dissected, wasn’t that imaginative. I’d heard all those dirty swear words before, just not in one single sentence. It was ugly yet eloquent and very, very Australian. Anyway, Dad got the message and, feeling a little like the stupid Pommy bastard that he was just called, slunk away to explore another option. After driving about the trackless gem fields for thirty minutes, Dad was finally able to buy enough fresh water from a prospector. It wasn’t much, but enough for breakfast at least.

That night was a whole new experience for us. We had pitched our tent adjacent to a huge gum tree for shade, which was fine during the day, but as soon as we lit our small lamps at night all hell broke loose – like something from an evil nursery rhyme:

Down came the spiders.

Some of the biggest huntsman spiders I have ever seen decided to call our tent home. They were bigger than a lumberjack’s hand, very hairy and when spreadeagled, could cover a human face with ease. In the light of our little tilley lamp, Mum was trying to keep us calm by reading stories from our one and only children’s book, but every second sentence was interrupted by one of us screaming, ‘There’s another one, look over there!’ or ‘Quick, kill it!

I’m not sure how long it took for us to get to sleep but the morning sun was truly a welcome sight. Interestingly, the hairy freeloaders had crawled back up into the tree before the daylight arrived. At least that’s what we hoped, but as we couldn’t be sure our sleeping bags were checked time and again before being rolled up for the day.

We were advised by the people in the mining office to pick a site in or around an existing, abandoned, dig site. This meant less work and made it easier for the novice to find decent gems. We all set about scraping, scratching and digging in and around our site and, to our surprise, we actually started to unearth a few sapphires; nothing huge, but enough to keep us interested. Maybe? Now this was our first full day of fossicking. And it would also be our last.

We had driven over 1,700 kilometres to spend one full day in the gem fields of Anakie. The lack of water, the heat, the terrain and the bloody huge spiders were enough for us lily-white, under-prepared and overambitious Scottish adventurers to handle. The biggest gems we found were by the side of the gravel road as we were leaving Anakie.

Although we didn’t strike it rich, we did have a few tales to tell. So, with his tail tucked between his bowed, sunburnt, Scottish legs, Dad put the little Morris into gear, and we were out of there. We were convinced that the best thing to be found in the Anakie dust was the road home. We headed off on the long journey south, buoyed by the fact that the small amount of time we spent scraping around in the gem fields meant more time at the coastal camp grounds dotted along our route home.

As they say, the destination isn’t important; it’s the journey that counts.

We all survived the great sapphire hunt of 1966. Well, nearly all of us. The poor, ‘brand-new’Morris 1100 found the distance and the excessive load a little too much and she was eventually put out to pasture somewhere in the car yards of Parramatta Road. She was traded for a second-hand beast, but her memory lives on in the Bruce family.

Goodbye DNJ 208. Lest We Forget.