1962 The Great Amphibious Expedition
Just found the photos of the great amphibious expedition in 1962.
This is the first truck I owned. 1939 British Army Morris “Desert Buggy” Pictures of me aged 14 with my mother, sister and dog Bonny.
The old man had the Holden dealership at Southport and traded this on something. He let me have it in exchange for a month’s pocket money.
A mate and I built a raft out of 44 gallon drums and towed it the two miles across the Broadwater to South Stradbroke Island with our little putt-putt boat
As you can see I was not a perfect naval architect and when we were loading the truck onto the raft it gave way. Anyhow we took the drums off the front and tied them to the back of the truck and towed her half submerged. Drained all the salt water out of the diff on arrival (just waited for the raft to bottom on the falling tide and drove off across the sand).
I got a contract with a school mate’s dad who had a tourist boat that went to Tipplers Passage from Surfers Paradise (it is now a fancy resort). Absolutely nothing there but a black sand mangrove beach and the tourists would walk through the bush to a beautiful surf beach about a mile across the island.
I would take as many mates as I wanted over with a couple of drums of fuel and a battery, recover the Morris from the bush hideout and we would work 10 hours a day. I made a track through the bush and we would back into a sand hill on the beach side, shovel 3 tons (on a 15cwt truck) of white sand and then drive to the Broadwater side and shovel it off. We did 410 loads in a 9 month period on weekends and holidays.
The other guys did it for the fun and the chance to drive the truck, I did also but got (secretly) paid 10 shillings a load which bought me a nice early Landrover. (See the story 1963 Landrover trip – Kangaroo Shooting).
The old Morris was left on the island when life moved on, wonder if the remains can be found.
Visitors think Tipplers has white sand naturally but not long ago I flew a light aircraft over our work site and you can still see an entire sand hill missing which we dug out. If we did it today I think they would bring back public executions!
Lang Kidby