Australian Tour 2015

[Brocky]

IN 2013 the ATHS started planning the "Down Under Tour" to take place in 2015. ATHS past president, John Vannata, and his daughter, Stephanie, who is a part time (hobby job) travel agent for an outfit called Cruise Planners. John, with his truck connections, and Stephanie built a two week tour that was a good mix of normal tourist activities and Antique / Historical trucks and the people that owned them. The Primary destination was the Truckies Reunion in Alice Springs, Northern Territory. This roughly 1000 truck event takes place every 5 years on the 0 and 5. Some of the tourist activities were built in so the truck people could get home from Alice Springs before we could visit their private collections. We all flew into Sydney, met at our hotel, got over jet lag, and were on our own. The next day we flew to Ayers Rock, A huge (approximately 5 mile by 10 mile) red stone monolith with an Aboriginal sacred background and had both a sunset dinner and sunrise tour. We then took a bus to Alice Springs, stopping at a self contained, general store, fuel stop, restaurant, air strip, apartment house for help, laundry, and electric generation, cattle station (Ranch) for lunch where the owner stated the had over one million acres of land to run 4000 head of beef. Then continued on to the show in Alice Springs.

[Brocky]

Looks like it will have to do this in parts!! While at Alice Springs we took a side trip thru the adjacent McDonnell mountains. The Flicker album posted my pictures in reverse order so you will have to figure some of them out. This first album is of ALL the tourist activities so you will have to refer back to it later. Click on the picture and it will open the whole album.

 

[Brocky]

We spent 3 days in Alice springs. The Truckie's Hall of Fame consists of several buildings and sheds containing trucks, pictures of the men and women with their biographies, outdoor exhibits, Kenworth museum, the Gahn railroad museum, boneyard, food court (with Beer!!) / picnic area, and show grounds. On Red Sand!! On Saturday there was a 5 hour parade on the Main road with traffic interspersed.

From Alice Springs we flew to Cairns, Took a big boat out to a rafted platform on the Great Barrier Reef snorkeled and rode in glass bottom boats. From there we took a bus down the eastern mountains and coast. We had a wonderful 50ish lady driver, who by the end of the trip had Tired Iron Fever. We visited a fig tree, a billabong (zoo), a mini sugar mill with antique equipment, A KW Dealer and had morning tea with them, and other sights. Along the way an alternator bracket broke and we had an engine compartment fire. Finally ending up at Tony Champions large Mack collection in  Rockhamapton.

[Brocky]

Tony Champion's facility!!! What a place!!! He still has a MACK dealership with a BIG Mack sign out front and smaller lettering on the front of the building saying Volvo Commercial Vehicles. Tony also used to be a Caterpillar dealer and the building adjacent to the Mack building is the old Cat shop which now his restoration shop and behind it is the gallery building with his collection.  We were scheduled to be there from 9AM to 4PM, but we never left until 9PM!! Tony went all out to welcome us including a buffet dinner with an Aboriginal dance group for entertainment. He had both the Holt and Cat running during the afternoon. The road trains parked beside the shop were the ones just back from Alice Springs and not unloaded yet. The maroon Mack tractor in the lead is Tony's personal Australian 50th anniversary "Southern Cross" edition. He also has a restored Outback service station with the Mack Jr he was working on at the time in front of it. The R-800 pictured on his back lot has now been restored and there was pictures of it recently in the ATCA Double Clutch magazine.

 

[other dog]

Great pictures, I remember that trip. 

Great looking trucks too- out of all those trucks, the one that really stood out to me, well, stood out the most I should say, was that blue and gray Diamond T.

[Brocky]

From Rockhampton we flew to Melbourne and we met by the bus which gave us a quick tour of the historical sights then headed southeast to Phillip Island Nature Park. This is where we were able to watch the Penguins come in from their ocean feeding to their nests for the night. No cameras were allowed in this facility. The next morning we were met by ATHS member David Driver, owner of the Gray Line Tours, with one of his own busses to visit 4 private collections in the state of Victoria. The first stop was at his personal collection of cars and busses, with a replica of a 1929 Pontiac 6 which his father and uncle started the business with. The 1947 Bedford is the first new bus they bought after the war. The next stop was at Ian Lee's shop and fantastic collection of EVERYTHING!!! From soup to nuts!!! A lot of his antique truck friends, with their wives, show up and served us Morning tea / lunch. From there we went to another ATHS Member's "Boneyard in a Sheep Pasture" protected by a BIG old Billy Goat. A lot of restorable and parts trucks and farm machinery. The last stop of the afternoon was at Archie Baines' facility where the ATHS Australian Chapter met us and served a BBQ style dinner. Archie also had a large boneyard (in a cow pasture) including construction equipment as well as a lot of the chapter members bringing their trucks to display. The last day we had a bus tour of the southern coast west of Melbourne where the sandstone shore line is eroding away slowly creating the 12 Apostles National Park.

Since we first started dating whenever I asked her "where do you want to go to eat" She always said "Hawaii to see Don Ho"!! Travel agent Stephanie did a great job of creating a detour for us on the way home and Nelle got her wish. All together the entire trip cost us about $25k, but it was a once in a lifetime trip. I would like to go back, rent a car, eat at pubs, stay at normal motels, and see more museums and private collections at our own pace. 

The Hume Highway runs the approximately 500 miles from Sydney to Melbourne and is very similar to old US 70 from Greensboro NC to Nashville TN, both in size and terrain. There were a 1000 trucks running it every night. Each year in April there is a convoy of trucks 1/2 way alternating years from each end. There are You Tube videos labeled Haulin or Crawlin the Hume. Should you go Down Under for one of these convoys maybe MrsMackPaul can get you a ride??

[other dog]

Some nice Internationals there, and looks like a 2 ton Toyota?

[Brocky]

13 hours ago, other dog said:

Some nice Internationals there, and looks like a 2 ton Toyota?

Yes, Toyota imported a lot of Mid and large sized trucks to Australia that never came to the States. Chrysler and International of Australia had a very close working relationship in the 50's thru the 70's. If you look close some of the 50's IH's they had the Dodge Pilot House cab, and many of the A model IH's you see are badged Dodge, with Chrysler power trains. Maybe Paul can explain it better?

[Vladislav]

Brocky, many thanks for posting the entire story of the trip. I saw the photos you posted in the past but don't remember reading the routes. Such a journey is still a desirable project for me. But looks of notably more efforts consuming deal than an avarage holiday trip.  

[cruiseliner64]

Looks a hell of a trip Brocky.I cant open that Flicker thing.Its most lightly my own fault so I'll get my son to see what Im doing wrong.Thanks for shareing...

Paul