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In Reply to: Daughter on a road trip........ posted by double28 on July 30, 2012 at 11:50:01:
Back in 1977 my best-man to be and I drove across Australia to Perth and back, to attend a mate's wedding. * the car we took?As Australia is about as big as the largest bit of the USA (sans Alaska), so you will appreciate that this was a fair distance. At the time the entire highway had recently been moved closer to the southern shores, and sealed.
Australia is a lot older geologically than the USA so there are fewer spectacular bits, past the Great Dividing Range which we actually live in. But there were plenty of sights. Among the most spectacular are the huge drops straight into the sea along several hundred miles of the Great Australian Bight. The sheer size and flatness of Aussie is itself spectacular.
Our first day we drove 840 miles in 14 hrs. From Canberra to Port Pirie on Spencer's Gulf in South Australia. Including stops at Mildura on the Murray River for lunch, and at one small town where we were ominously flagged down by policemen from a flashing car beside the road.
They wanted us to catch up a coach full of school kids and return a boy who'd been left behind, they then radioed ahead that we were on the way. Licensed to push it!!!!!!!! We caught up the bus at Nuriootpa.
Including ~ 2 hrs for stops for lunch, and dinner at Nuri, and getting lost in the Clare region (great Reisling wines), that makes an average speed of 70 mph! We managed to maintain that average for most of the trip.
I also recall that in Perth we went to see 'Midway', starring Chuck, and the theatre had the Cerwin Vega? bass tube - cannons? Woomp!
The bride's sister (they were both Sicilian!!!!) was studying medicine then and is now the head of our own AMA. We liked each other and even wrote for a bit, but I never went back.
*The car was a police-pack quick big-six Holden Torana, based on the Vauxhall Viva but with a 2.8litre OHV six, twin-choke carb with auto-choke, headers, ported head and cammed, big valves etc. A less hot version than Brock's GTR-XU1 'production racer' used at Bathurst. Looked dead stock, even the wider wheels looked standard, height and exhaust note the only give-aways, and the tacho on the column.
Bathurst and the GTR-XU1 are worth a google, see if you can get some video of the race say at Forest Elbow. This was the beginning of the super-car production sedan era down here. Big OHV sixes and V8s from GM(H), Ford, and Chrysler. At one time the Ford Falcon GTHO Phase-IV was the fastest 4-door sedan in the world, until the Mercedes 300SEL 6.3 came along.
The GTHO Phase IV ran a 351 ci Cleveland-head V8 with about 400bhp at the flywheel, much less in the stated specs - to keep the wowsers happy. IIRC it still had finned drum brakes on the rear, with sintered iron shoes and two power brake boosters!!!!
Iffens any of youse are ever able to pony up the greens to afford the trip down under (I'm still waiting), I will happily take you up to Bathurst and drive you _slowly_ around the public road up Mt Panorama that forms the race track each October (Spring). Scares the pants off me!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TolbXa-N_Eshttp://www.motorsportretro.com/2009/10/bathurst-1000-hardies-heroes-1981/
and to put those time into perspective here's Button in 2011 in an F1 car.
http://vimeo.com/21472262
NASCAR? WGAS eh?!
It's a single day trip including lunch, if we drive quick but legal on back roads.
End of Timbo-rave.
Warmest
Tim Bailey
Skeptical Measurer & Audio Scrounger
Edits: 07/31/12 07/31/12 07/31/12 07/31/12 07/31/12 07/31/12
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Follow Ups
- I'm jealous, and reminiscing too! get out your Atlas or Globe folks! - Timbo in Oz 17:37:51 07/31/12 (2)
- RE: I'm jealous, and reminiscing too! get out your Atlas or Globe folks! - double28 11:21:15 08/01/12 (1)
- Plenty of it in Perth. And a bottle with dinner on the road. - Timbo in Oz 14:37:33 08/01/12 (0)
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