To Australia

After finishing up the prospecting job and finding that copper mine out east, I rode the train across the country to Alberta. By then harvest was finished and the leaves already gone from the trees, and winter coming on, so not inviting at all…..

Rode the Greyhound bus to San Francisco to get passage on the M/V Orsova, one of the last scheduled passenger liners plying the route across the Pacific. Sailed on 15 December 1966.

It was a fine way to travel, sedate, roomy and comfortable. With lots of young Aussies and Kiwis headed home after their couple of years in London and Europe, and several bars to serve them, so one big party. Christmas on board so a big feast and more parties…

Stopover in Hawaii

Stopover in Fiji

Arrived Auckland New Zealand 30 Dec, so 15 days enroute, just the right pace for civilized travel I reckon.

I got off to tour around NZ until the next time the ship came through. Was hitching around the North Island when I got a lift from a guy who asked if I was off the American seismic boat that was working off the west coast. Well, I wasn’t but that sounded like an interesting adventure so headed there to see if I could get a job on it. The same Texan who owned the Marine Diamonds job in South Africa also tried to start an oil exploration project there because the government was offering lots of money to anyone who could find some oil in SA. They imported some equipment and I got transferred to that crew. But it was a shambles, with old worn-out equipment and not complete, so they didn’t get any work done while I was there. When I interviewed for the NZ job I claimed experience in South Africa. He asked what equipment I had used, analog or digital…. I didn’t really know the difference at that time, but quoted the PT-100 label I had seen on the SA equipment. He said, “…OK, old analog stuff, we mostly run digital now but still have some of that old equipment on board, so you’re hired…” Sure proves that faking it can get you a chance at a job, then just need to prove that you can prove useful in the crew, which is exactly what I did.

That’s little United Geo 1, 21 men on board and heaps of equipment.

Once on board the ship they could see that I didn’t know one end of a PT-100 from the other, but they desperately needed someone to work the darkroom. In those days the records from each shot were traced on photo-sensitive paper and had to be developed like photographs. That meant running the paper through a developer solution then a rinse bath then into fixer. This had to be done in a tiny cubicle with only a dim red light, on a ship that was rolling and heaving so that the chemicals sloshed around and filled the stale air with chemical odours. The records kept coming at a heck of a rate, and I had to quickly write numbers on them and run them through the solutions, while bouncing off the walls with the violent motion of the ship. No one else had been able to keep their stomach down in there, but I was able to handle it so I was now an essential member of the crew…. Then I demonstrated that I could get a different piece of troublesome electronic equipment aligned and working, and got responsibility for that as well, so I now had a foot in the industry…. In this industry they don’t want to hear about qualifications or papers, they just want results, so that suited me just fine…..

 

Offshore Seismic

This is how the offshore seismic system works. The ship motoring slowly along pre-determined lines and recording those reflected pulses. In those days before the airguns they used explosives, which was very impressive! One of these blasts every couple of minutes. The explosions were set off by a shot boat following alongside. The explosions send shock waves down, which reflect off the sub-surface rock layers and the very faint echoes are picked up by the hydrophones in a mile-long cable trailed behind the ship. Then those faint reflections were recorded on some very sensitive and elaborate equipment in the recording room.

We surveyed off the Taranaki coast for several months, then I stayed as ship’s crew across to Australia, right through cyclone Glenda.….

But that’s another story……

 

The Maoris named New Zealand ‘The Land of the Long White Cloud’.

This is the way it looked from offshore a lot of the time.

 

Cyclone Glenda
I had joined the seismic survey vessel United Geo 1 in New Zealand. When we finished the seismic work there, I was invited to stay on board as ship’s crew for the passage across to Australia. I had already made myself useful for resetting the gyro compass and autopilot when it frequently failed…..

We set out on April Fools Day 1967. No traditional seafarer would set out on such a superstitious day, but this was the Texan oil business with no time for such nonsense…. Events would show that we should have been more cautious…. 

At first we had a following wind and sea so it was a good fast ride. But three days out the wind and seas were really increasing, and there was now a forecast of cyclone Glenda headed directly our way, so the captain decided to go to Lord Howe Island. There’s no real harbour on the island, but some shelter from the now howling NE winds, off the fringing reef on the west side of the island. The winds eased and a dinghy came out with several girls on board who invited us ashore for a party. I wouldn’t have thought there were that many single girls on the island, but these were tourists looking for a good time, so we nearly had a mutiny from the crew when the captain wouldn’t let anyone go ashore. And just as well, because the wind suddenly switched around and came in from the SW, so the eye of the cyclone had gone right over us.  This put us exposed, so we had to up anchor and motor around to the east side of the island. The wind was now violent and swept us away to the east. The captain kept trying to pound our way back to the island to shelter behind the cliffs, but making no progress. It was so rough that big waves were breaking over the bow and bashing against the wheelhouse windows. The radar set broke loose from its mount and ricocheted around the wheelhouse. Down in the engine room the engineer was having a desperate battle emptying the fuel filters that were constantly being blocked by crud that was being stirred up from the bottom of the fuel tanks which should have been cleaned long ago…... Then the steering mechanism started to play up, and I had to get to the steering gear by crawling down a small hatch in the back deck, to free up a sticking relay.  Just before we left NZ they had found four cracked cylinder liners in one engine. No spares available in NZ so they just bevelled the edges of the cracks and put it back together…… . Starting out with several systems that were already in marginal condition, now all failing at once in bad conditions, that’s often how disasters occur…..

The young captain was determined to punch against that SW wind to get back to the island so we were taking a bad beating….The first mate was an old Anglo-Indian sea dog with a lifetime of experience in difficult conditions in the Indian Ocean and the notorious entrance to the Red Sea. He laid out the charts and plotted the forecast track of the cyclone toward the south, and pointed out that if we turned around and ran with the wind back to the NE, the winds would soon ease and back around until we could again head for Brisbane. Turning around in those conditions was a very risky move, but the captain got it just right between those giant waves, and we were suddenly scooting along and surfing down the waves instead of punching into them. By morning the barometer had risen and the storm was gone and we were once again headed for Brisbane, much relieved…..….

We arrived in the Brisbane River during my turn at the wheel, steering the ship up the river late at night, under the Story Bridge with city lights reflected off the calm water, and tied up at some old docks right in the centre of the city, where the towering glass skyscrapers are now. Quite a thrill! The Texan supervisor was much relieved that we had made it through that storm, so met us with a case of Queensland 4X beer. I drank way too much of it so woke up next morning with a terrible hangover, and thus was my welcome to Australia, on 8 April 1967.

 

Entry to Australia
The immigration officer asked if I wanted to be a tourist or a migrant?? To be a migrant only needed a chest x-ray so I passed one and became a permanent resident. Not so easy these days…. 

The ship was going to stay in Brisbane for a couple of months to install a couple of big powerful air compressors to feed airguns instead of the explosives we used to use ,so I had time to explore around SE Queensland and decided I liked it a lot.

Anzac Day parade in Brisbane 1968.

Now just an aside of how these Texan companies work. When we arrived in Australia I was automatically put on an Australian wage of US$268 a month, which was OK by Aussie standards at that time (basic wage A$45/week). But I knew that Americans on the crew were being paid much more for the same work, so I spoke to my boss, and told him I was only making $268, and his question was, “A week or a month?....” When I said, “…a month…”, he straightaway said, “ Double that, starting now…” Boy that’s a way to get an employee’s attention!

Singapore
Then in June ’67 we sailed for Singapore to work around Indonesia. A great voyage up the Queensland coast inside the Barrier Reef, through Torres Strait, past the Indonesian Islands, and in to Singapore. Anchored off the city, along with about 30 other ships from all around the world. A very busy place.

Busy Singapore Harbor, with customs launches and bumboats.

There’s a big traffic in ‘bumboats’ supplying a taxi service for crew members of those ships to get ashore and mostly get drunk and go to the brothels. Singapore was a very clean uptight regulated place, with none of the usual wild bars and brothels of most seaports. But they were very sensible and catered to the needs of drunken sailors by having a couple of large, government-regulated brothels. We had a speedboat on board to help our crew come and go. I got the job of running it back and forth cause I was mostly sober…. The first trip in the morning was always a laugh cause there would be several hungover crewmembers from various ships who had blown all their money and couldn’t pay for a bumboat ride, so I did a free taxi service and got to meet sailors from all over the world. Couldn’t just drop Russians at their ships without being dragged on board for a shot or two of vodka early in the morning, then a struggle to get away before getting completely sloshed. It seemed that they all spent most of their time pickled, even when on watch….

When we arrived in Singapore the main Texan supervisor came on board and called everyone to the mess for a meeting. Various complaints about conditions and equipment were raised and addressed. The Australian bush mechanic who was hired as the assistant engineer said he wanted to quit because he did all the work down in the engine room (and he did), but was paid a fraction of the American Chief Engineer who knew they had to employ him for his qualifications for insurance reasons, regardless of his efforts…. The Texan drawled, “I’ve heard about your good work, so double that wage and make that retrospective to when you first signed on…”  Well that certainly did make him a loyal employee and caught everyone’s attention. But then there was another guy, who was a lazy arrogant sod who didn’t carry his share of the work, played the smart ass and  spoke up and suggested a raise, whereby the supervisor asked his name, then said, “Oh, I’ve already got an air ticket here for you, you’re going home tomorrow.” So all that was a really good lesson for everyone….

First task was to clean out those fuel tanks that had been such a problem in the cyclone. This was done by a team of Chinese women, many quite old. A hell of a job, all by hand and carrying the crud up the ladder in basins on their heads, filthy oily and stifling hot….. Supposedly they were all opium addicts because that’s the only ones who would work in such conditions, but they sure did work hard and steady…..

Seen in a temple in Singapore.

 

We did a couple of surveys off Semarang in Java, using Singapore as a base. There were 20 men on this small ship, working, 6-on 6-off around the clock. I hated living and working in this cramped chaos, and having the pressure to maintain equipment that should have been better installed in the first place, so gave notice that I wanted to leave next time in port…..

The captain heard about this and hired me on as a temporary Second Mate since the ship’s crew is a separate department. I wasn’t officially qualified for this position, but was very competent at navigation and had studied a lot of seamanship in my dream to own a yacht someday. That was a fine job, taking my watches up in the quiet wheelhouse and steering the ship.

But this was still on that crowded ship with so many men and I was restless for more freedom….. The last time coming into Singapore, the captain stayed behind me on the bridge but let me navigate right in to the anchorage. I wish he’d warned me so I could have prepared, but here we were at night in a very crowded waterway, with enormous tankers steaming along at high speed along the shipping lane, and along the edge of the shipping lane where I was trying to steer were fishing boats with no lights other than lighted cigarettes……  It was a harrowing time and my shirt was stuck to my back, but a real buzz!

Signed off and made a quick trip up into Malaysia, then flew back to Australia.

Malaysian students cycling past a rubber plantation.

 

………………………………………………………………………

 

Australia Road Trip around Australia by camper van

1968

Bought an old VW Kombi cargo van in Brisbane and fitted it out as a camper van for a road trip. It made a very cozy home, with everything I needed for a good life. Even carried a small trail bike inside. Many good bush campsites with damper cooked by the fire then lamb chops charred over the coals.

Then one day spotted a seismic boat the M/V North Seal in port. They were doing a short survey in Moreton Bay so I signed on for a month of local work.

So left Brisbane in the Kombi 15 Dec 67, headed south through New South Wales (what a strange name for a state way out here…), then through Victoria and South Australia, and across the Nullarbor to Perth. That was January, so a heck of a bad time to be on the road out there. I had a front wheel bearing collapse in South Australia when the temperature was 109°F (43°C). Soon learned how dangerous that heat can be if you don’t have plenty of water and some shade….

Opal miners’ dwellings at Andamooka.

Would you believe that the only highway from eastern to western Australia wasn’t even paved yet in those days! Across the Nullarbor it was very rough, and clouds of limestone dust….. And isolated, with only a couple of roadhouses at that time.

Starting across the Nullarbor.

This is not on the Nullarbor, but the same dust…

This is the collection of 50’s and 60’s cars that didn’t make it across the Nullarbor at the now abandoned Koonalda Roadhouse. I would have stopped there on my way across.
Photo taken in 2019 when I flew that same old road.

Finally arrived in Perth. First job was working in forestry, pruning the lower branches off pine trees. Hard work, swinging an axe overhead, all for $48/week. Other laborers thought that was reasonable, cause the basic wage was $45/week at that time. Even with the lower cost of living those days, couldn’t save any of that…. I’d heard about much higher wages at the Ord River Scheme in the far northwest that was just getting started. Sounded like a great adventure in the far north so decided to go there.

By then the Kombi needed a new differential, and needed to be in good condition before heading to the northwest which was very poorly served in those days. So worked awhile as an electrician’s helper to pay for the repairs….

At that time the iron mining industry was just starting, and the roads were still very primitive. The main highway was just a dirt track, not even a built-up gravel highway. And there was heavy rain that year, so it was all a quagmire. Big trucks plowing up the mud and stuck all over the place. Workers trying to get up there to jobs in the mines, driving 2-wheel drive cars and utes because there were very few 4-WDs then. At every big mudhole there would be a que of cars waiting for their turn to get bogged, but first they had to help push through those ahead. Wading around in that sticky mud, but all in good cooperative spirit. The Kombi had 11 inches of clearance and big lugged tires and with the weight in the back, so I could usually just blast through. And I do mean blast thro cause that little 1500cc engine didn’t have much torque so I had to get a run at it and pedal-to-the-metal keep the revs up. It made for a bronco ride in that front seat right over the wheels but that brave little van handled it just fine. All along the road were collapsed caravans (travel trailers) that workers had intended to be their accommodation, but the rough corrugations had beaten them to pieces. No ‘grey nomads’ at all in those days; Aussies just went to the beach and stayed coastal. The only real traveler I saw was an American woman pulling a shiny aluminum Airstream trailer with her Ford V8 that she’d shipped across from the USA and was headed around the world. The 4WDrivers of today would love those roads because they were such a challenge, but now it’s all paved and easy….

Finally arrived in Port Hedland, which was a very small town then. Camped by a creek right on the edge of town, catching bream every night. The mines wouldn’t hire drifters like me; they wanted contracted fly-in workers who would have to stay the contract. They were building the iron ore loading facilities right then, and my scrounging instincts lead me to their rubbish dump. It was loaded with lots of copper wire, big heavy industrial stuff. Usually electricians keep those off-cuts and sell them for a Christmas party, but no scrap dealers up there then, and the workers fly-in-fly-out so they just dumped it. So I spent a week pulling all that I could out of that jumble, then took it out into the bush and burned the insulation off it, then rammed it into old 60 litre drums, and shipped it to a scrap merchant in Perth as back-loading on all those empty trucks going back there. Cleared about $600 when the basic wage was $45/week, so it was well worthwhile. So I’d found another copper mine….

Pounded those rough roads on through the Kimberlies to Kununurra, the centre of the great Ord River irrigation project. Started work right away as an electrician’s helper for $70/week, so that felt better. Crawling around in the sweltering ceiling space in the tropics, or under the house with the snakes, pulling wires through for the electrician. The day after I left, the Kiwi electrician was killed when he made a mistake, so I was glad I was gone by then…..

Ant hill in the Northern Territory

Headed across to Darwin, then down the Stuart Highway to Alice Springs. This was the first bit of paved road I’d seen in a long time. It was paved early in WW2 when the Japanese were bombing Darwin, to allow heavy military traffic access to Darwin from the railhead at Alice Springs.

A genuine road train.

But south of Alice Springs the road was unpaved. Across the Sturt Stoney Desert was the worst ever, all loose rocks the size of softballs. Pounding over those rocks, probably with worn shock absorbers, gave that brave little van a heck of a pounding, but it survived.

This was a particularly good stretch of that highway.

 

Then while driving along the south coast of Victoria, I spotted a portable radio tower that I recognized. I had seen them used by the company that supplied the precision location signals for the boats working offshore in the oil exploration business when I was working on a seismic boat around Indonesia. I stopped to visit and got the address of the company’s office in Sydney and went to see them, Offshore Navigation Inc (ONI), based in New Orleans, Louisiana. Got hired right away, and that was the best connection I ever made. It was an excellent company to work for, good bosses, excellent pay, and lots of adventure as you will see, and lots of working alone on remote sites which suits my temperament just right.

Sold the Kombi that had been such a good mobile home for a year, and prepared for the first assignment.

I had an invite from someone with a trimaran to go sailing on Sydney Harbour to watch the start of the Sydney to Hobart yacht race. Impressive chaos!

Then got on a flight to Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, for the start of an extended adventure all over the world with Offshore Navigation Inc (ONI).

But that’s another story….

Go to next Chapter 6

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