Tales From The Tar Baby "Southward Ho!"

By Lindsay Johannsen

Being recollections and observations of 1950's 60's and 70's trips between Alice Springs and Adelaide, comparisons with the journey today and tales of our more recent travels and adventures in and about Adelaide, South Australia's Riverlands and the eastern Eyre Peninsular wheat fields to as far as Port Lincoln, the latter amid the comfort and amenities of our touring coach/motor home "Tar Baby".

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lindsay Johannsen
• Release date: May 31, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311710598

Lindsay Johannsen

There's not a lot to tell really, though on reflection, looking back on it through the lens of one’s recollections and memories, the whole business seems more akin to an extended Huckleberry Finn adventure, but set in the vastness of Central Australia. Born, raised and schooled in Alice Springs; taken from the leafy glades of learning mid-way through Year-eight to work at my father's remote little copper mine; later employed for some years driving his cattle-hauling road trains – him having pioneered road trains and the cattle hauling business (see "Kurt Johannsen: A Son of the Red Centre"). Married in the fullness of time; built a bush homestead on the northern edge of the Simpson Desert and raised a family there, all while running a small tungsten mining business and provisioning the hundred or so Aboriginal people local to the area who adopted us. Sold our mine and homestead a few years after the kids had flown the coop, acquired a forty foot (12m) touring coach, converted it into a big steel-wheel mobeel Palaise-de-passion motor home and took to the roads of this great land of Oz - in the main visiting our offspring (most of whom had moved to coastal regions), our grandchildren generally and a couple of great grandies, plus various friends and associates from years gone by. So these days all I have to do is keep the missus happy – my Bride my Precious Lamb and Flower of the Early Mid Morning. 'Anywhere you wish, my darling,' I tell her. 'You just say the word and we'll be on our way.' So it's free as the breeze, we are now, out and about having wild and exciting adventures and being amazingly cool generally. Best job I ever had.

Book preview

TALES FROM THE TAR BABY

Southward Ho!

Published by Lindsay Johannsen at Smashwords

Copyright Lindsay Johannsen 2015

Smashwords Edition Licence Notes.

Tales From The Tar Baby - Southward Ho!

is presented here free of cost. I insist on maintaining my copyright, however, though until such time as I amend this notice please feel free to disseminate, reproduce, copy or distribute it to your heart’s content, provided you do this for non-commercial purposes only and the story remains complete and in its original form. My preference, however, is for you to recommend to others that they download Tales From The Tar Baby – Southward Ho! Tales From The Acacia Trees from Smashwords themselves, so enriching my life with a warm glow of satisfaction in lieu of any monetary reward.

Thank you.

National Library Of Australia Cataloguing-in-publication data:

Author: Johannsen, Lindsay Andrew

Title: Tales From The Tar Baby - Southward Ho!

Cover art by the author.

Also published at Smashwords by one’s sylph: the novels McCullock’s Gold and The Cassidy Chronicles, plus a poem and some other short story rubbish, a couple of children’s stories and a couple of Christmas yarns – among other things.

To order the McCullock’s Gold paperback version or contact the author please visit

www.vividpublishing.com.au/lajohannsen

TALES FROM THE TAR BABY

Southward Ho!

You’ll recall how in the previous episode Tish Moistly and Muffy Warm had discovered it was Saint Lascivious High’s apprentice groundsman Lance Thrusting who’d put the itching powder in the senior girls’ laundry. The two chums have now lured him out of vespers and currently have him behind the boat shed strung up by the...

OH! —I do beg your pardon. That is from my other journal.

(Ahem.) After returning from the Top End and staying a few weeks in Alice Springs, my Petal of the Purest Rose and I made preparations for our trip to Adelaide.

…From Alice Springs … to Adelaide?!!

For the greater part of my life the road south from Alice Springs was just an unmade track, which, even in fine weather, was worse than terrible. Adelaide to Port Augusta had long been sealed, but Port Augusta was where the bitumen ended.

From there it was just twelve hundred kilometres of graded and forgotten gravel with occasional patches of rocks or sand. Oh sure; they did widen and straighten it here and there over the years, but that was all.

Driving it could test one's endurance and fortitude to the limit. In