This is the last Sunday on which one will be able to buy a copy of “The Sun-Herald” for fifteen cents. From half past eight this morning I watched “Seven’s Big League”: a replay of yesterday’s grand final, with commentary by Rex ‘The Moose’ Mossop.
At ten o’clock, I began to vacuum in the second bedroom, however, the machine started to exhibit a distinct lack of suction. Tiki and I cleared its blocked hose by passing a curtain rod through it. Upon finishing that chore, I went outside and into the garage to start our new lawn-mower for just the second time. About ten pulls of the cord elapsed before it even dawned on me to check its tank, only to find it empty. A few more pulls ensued and then it came to my totally unperceptive mind that I had neglected to turn on the fuel.
I connected the new clip-on fittings to our new length of hose and watered the dry back lawn. At one o’clock we embarked on our walk. As we neared home, I drew clear of Tiki and made her laugh when I quipped: “The age difference is starting to tell!” She is more than eight years the younger.
“The Girls Of Paradise Island”, a motion picture from 1953, screened from two o’clock. It is about three American soldiers during the Second World War. Each falls in love with one of three sisters whilst stationed in the tropics. Tiki loved it! British actor, Leo Genn, is cast as the girls’ father.
From five, we watched the latter half of “Follow That Dream”. The film was produced in 1962 and features — the now recently deceased — Elvis Presley portraying a naive sheriff in America’s Deep South. We watched the second episode of ‘The Ugliest Dachshund’, from half past six, followed by “The Bionic Woman”, with Lindsay Wagner, at 7.30. We turned in by ten to nine, but not before I had washed the dishes.
Parramatta won its first premiership at rugby union since it joined Sydney’s competition, in 1934. The grand final was played, this afternoon, at the Sydney Cricket Ground against Parramatta’s more highly performed opposition, Randwick. The side, from western Sydney, won by seventeen points to nine.
I consumed some of the new Kellogg’s ‘Ready-Wheats’ for breakfast. Tiki’s younger sister, Wendy, finishes her schooling today. She, thereby, becomes the only sibling in her family to be uncompelled to sit for the School Certificate.
As I was writing out a cheque to pay for our contribution to the Medical Benefits’ Fund, the women behind the counter were busily filling out their Pools’ entry form. They were heard to include their respective bra measurements amongst their chosen numbers. And whilst on the subject of measurements! The one-piece bathing costume, it is predicted, will return to the beach this season.
This evening, “Willesee” has included a segment on a Melburnian model who, at forty-six years of age, is to receive monetary compensation from two doctors because it has been deemed that they caused disfigurement to her umbilicus during an operation.
Shortly after midnight, via Channel Nine, I watched the closing minutes of a replay of Chris Evert’s defeat of Australian Wendy Turnbull, in the ladies’ final at the U.S. Open. Her victory was achieved in straight sets: 7-6 6-2.
“I Love My Wife”, a motion picture from 1970, followed from half past twelve. It stars Elliott Gould, Brenda Vaccaro and Angel Tompkins.
Light rain this morning led to it becoming torrential by lunchtime. This was accompanied by lightning and thunder by three o’clock.
“Country Road” followed “Flashez” at six o’clock. It featured Glen Campbell singing Larry Weiss’s “Rhinestone Cowboy” whilst seated upon a white horse. Linda Ronstadt was then seen to perform “The Tracks Of My Tears”, which was a hit for The Miracles — led by Smokey Robinson — in 1965. “Rhinestone Cowboy” reminds me somewhat of The Drifters’ hit, from 1963, “On Broadway”, as they are set in the same locale and appear to possess a similar theme.
“Willesee”, this evening, is presented by Paul Makin. It is followed, at half past seven, by “The Naked Vicar Show”.
I arose at 6.20 a.m. and bumped my forehead on the jamb of the toilet door as I attempted to avoid contact with the wet branch of a plant that was growing across from the fernery nearby.
Evidently the law which enforces the compulsory wearing of seat belts in motor vehicles is invalid. I remember having to have them fitted to my first car, an old VW ‘Beetle’, in 1971.
The film, “Lawrence Of Arabia”, from 1962, screens on Channel Seven at 7.30 p.m. My siblings took me to see it at the Barclay Theatre, in George Street, when it was first released in Sydney. I distinctly remember developing an almost unbearable thirst from viewing all of that sand and desolate scenery.
After work on this warm-to-hot day, Tiki drove me to her parents’. “Mum” looked ghastly, due to a painful neck. She showed us her new Simpson ‘Karumba’ electric stove. One of its knobs was found to be missing when they released it from its packaging. Tiki and I believe the stove looks old-fashioned but, of course, we did not make her parents aware of our belief!
Tiki and I left at ten past five to return home and dress for dinner, aboard the “John Cadman”. It was still twenty-three degrees Celsius at half past six as I drove along the Prince’s Highway and across the Harbour Bridge to arrive at the Jeffrey Street Wharf at Milson’s Point by seven o’clock.
We boarded the floating restaurant by a quarter past and I had a Nagrita and coke, and Tiki a gin and orange at the bar upstairs. Just before the boat stopped at Rose Bay to collect more diners, we asked to be shown to our table on the lower deck. It was next to the table, besides the stairs, at which we had sat on the eighth of March.
We both ordered the barbecued scallops as an entree, as well as the mignonette chasseur of fillet steak, which was served with delicious vegetables, for the main course. A bottle of McWilliams Cabernet Shiraz cost five dollars and fifty cents. Tiki selected the lemon pancakes for dessert, while I chose the disappointing strawberries and cream. We ordered a Galliano liqueur with our Romano coffee. Each liqueur cost us one dollar and fifty cents.
An affable septuagenarian took two photographs of us. He told us of how he fought in the Second World War and, yet, it was to be in Australia that he lost a leg. While he jogged at Ryde he was struck by a car, and the limb turned gangrenous.
Tiki and I danced on the small, crowded floor to songs that included “A Mean Pair Of Jeans” and “After The Lovin'”. I drove home by five minutes to midnight, as we listened to ‘Sam Galea Gold’ on 2UW.
A F-111 crashed today, near the coastal town of Iluka, in north-eastern New South Wales. Its crew of two did not eject. The force of the impact left a crater to a depth of three metres.
A rainy morning transformed into a sunny afternoon. Tiki collected her new dress from the shop, Belle Star.
“Wild, Wild World Of Animals”, at 6.00 p.m. on Channel Two, focuses on octopuses. Following “Willesee”, and also on Channel Seven, the first episode of the new serial, “Glenview High”, is screened. At times I felt the urge to squirm in my seat with embarrassment. It features Grigor Taylor and Elaine “Number 96” Lee.
We awoke at 6.30 a.m. and felt thoroughly frozen as it was just five degrees Celsius. We drove around to Tiki’s parents’ in order to take her father to work because his red utility is being repaired. Before we departed, I held a torch for him in order that he might have both hands free to nail down some carpet in the kennel of their Great Dane, Abigail. “Dad” joked about us both being in the “doghouse” at once. He also hung a bag over her doorway in an effort to help keep her warm. They are taking her to the veterinary surgeon, this evening, for they suspect that she has tapeworm.
At 10.20 a.m., I watched The Wheel, a programme in the series, Science All Around. A Scottish engineer by the name of Thomson invented the pneumatic tyre, which possessed nine inner tubes, in 1845. Another Scot, John Boyd Dunlop, redeveloped it in 1888 and the German, Karl Benz, used Dunlop’s tyres on his first car in that same year.
We visited “Mum”, this afternoon and she gave us an orange, plastic biscuit barrel for which she had paid four dollars and ninety-nine cents. In addition, we also received two tea-towels.
At six o’clock, a repetition of Bill Peach’s series, Holiday, examines the island of Penang, a health farm, as well as the prospect of exchanging one’s house for another’s, so as to greatly reduce the cost of accommodation. Live coverage of the Third Test from Trent Bridge, in Nottingham, is available from half past eight. Australia is 3-179 — in effect, 3-58 — at lunch, having lost the wicket of David Hookes when the left-hander was on forty-two.
Twenty years ago on the first day of August, especially in rural areas, it was customary for Australian children to wear a sprig of wattle to school to mark what was known as Wattle Day.
Nowadays, this day is more remembered for being the official birthday of racehorses.
Australia was dismissed for 309 in its second innings. The tall Rick McCosker contributed 107 to this total. England only has to score one hundred and eighty-nine runs, in its second innings, to win. At stumps it had erased seventeen of these and still has all of its ten wickets intact.
We, again, visited “Mum”. She presented us with a new, plastic dish, from which biscuits can be served, and a small blue and white horizontally striped milk jug.
“The Naked Vicar Show” screened from 7.30 p.m. on Channel Seven. The irreverent cast announced, tongue in cheek, that the magazine, Cleo, had just declared that “Big Dick” Hamer is its ‘Mate Of The Month’. Dick Hamer is the Premier of Victoria.
England won the Third Test overnight by seven wickets. The win marks Australia’s second successive loss. Such an occurrence last happened in 1956. The winning run took England’s score to 3-189, of which its captain, Mike Brearley, accumulated eighty-one. Geoff Boycott remained not out, also on eighty-one. England leads the series by two wins to nil, with just the two Tests remaining.
The motion picture, “Beneath The Planet Of The Apes”, is on television tonight. Produced in 1970, it stars Charlton Heston, James “The Naked City”/”The Investigators”/”Mr. Novak”/”Longstreet”/”Hunter” Franciscus and Linda Harrison.
On the 23rd of December, 1971 I departed from my place of lodging with the intention to ride my relatively new pushbike to Melbourne. The whole ill-conceived notion had really been based on a whim from which I then found myself unwilling to abandon.
That day, and the twenty-fourth, had a maximum of eighty-five degrees Fahrenheit. The highway became dangerously narrow and all too often undulating. The unavailability of drinking water became another concern the farther south I rode and by the time I had pushed my bike up the seemingly endless hill and into Milton, the only thing I wanted to do was to sell it.
This, I managed to do at the local newsagency for fifty dollars, which was almost a half of what I had paid for it. Nevertheless, I felt as though a weight had been lifted off my shoulders.
A lift, by chance, from an elderly couple who had just so happened to have been in the barber’s when I had enquired as to where I might find a buyer, conveyed me to nearby Ulladulla.
An approaching thunderstorm was to result in me standing in torrential rain at the top of the hill in the main street, as I attempted to hitchhike for the first time in my life.
Perhaps half of an hour passed before, in the ever increasing darkness, a young man stopped for me. He was travelling to Narooma to spend Christmas Day with his parents at the local caravan park.
That evening, he took me from caravan to caravan as we partook of Christmas drinks with people whom he knew and that night I was permitted to sleep on the grass inside the annexe of his parents’ caravan. My preceding night had literally been a sleepless one, spent in the bush beside the highway, and despite my ‘mattress’ being nothing but the grass I was to sleep like the proverbial log.
Lunch on Christmas Day consisted of six potato scallops from a fish and chip shop in Bega. The night was spent in that town, too, due to an approaching thunderstorm. It resulted in me entering reception at a motel, wringing wet, and the spending of what I thought was an exorbitant eight dollars and fifty cents to stay for the night.
At least, I woke refreshed on Boxing Day and was to soon learn that my good fortune had not deserted me, as an elderly couple from Kiama were to transport me hundreds of miles to Warragul, Victoria. There, ensued another sleepless night as I lay on a lengthy wooden seat, at one end of a goods waggon, and listened to my transistor radio.
My pulse had discernibly quickened around midnight when two men with torches inspected the railway’s premises but, perhaps fortunately for me, did not shine them in my direction.
Having seen enough of Melbourne, a few days later I embarked on the 7.30p.m. ferry bound for Devonport, Tasmania, some fifteen hours distant. New year’s Eve was spent in that state’s second city, Launceston. The highlight of my visit to Tasmania was that of being offered a lift by a Hobartian family who took me fishing for flathead on the Derwent, but not before I had spent two of three nights at their weekender, in Eaglehawk Neck, where I was fed on lobster, and strawberries and ice-cream.
The parents’ son had been shown similar hospitality when he had visited a cattle station in the Northern Territory some years previously and they had felt that such generosity should be reciprocated. Tragically, cancer had since claimed his life.
My hitchhiking actually conveyed me to Adelaide, South Australia, where a couple of friendly lads from New Zealand wanted me to travel on to Perth, Western Australia. However, they were travelling in a 1957 Holden and I was unsure as to whether it would withstand the Nullarbor Plain at the height of summer. Nor did I wish to find myself that far from home with limited funds.
In total, I travelled for nearly six thousand miles and spent nine of the fifty-four days in private accommodation.
Here are just a few of my photographs from that venture:
The coastal landform known as London Bridge is located along The Great Ocean Road in Victoria
A view along The Great Ocean Road between Warrnambool and Port Campbell, Victoria
Arthur’s Circus in Hobart, Tasmania
Cat And Fiddle Clock, Hobart
An industrial site along the polluted Derwent River, Hobart, Tasmania
“The Garry McDonald Show” followed “Peach’s Australia” on Channel Two, but as it did not impress me I turned the dial to Channel Ten, at nine o’clock, and watched the second half of “Number 96”. The movie, “How To Break Up A Happy Divorce”, from 1976, is on television tonight from half past ten until midnight. It stars Barbara Eden and Hal “Barney Miller” Linden.
