WOW WOW WOW Not only did I get a personal private tour of the famous amphibious jeep Half Safe at the uber-posh Guildford Grammar School in Perth, but the archivist LET ME SIT INSIDE !!!!!!!!!! So I got to sit at the wheel of Half Safe in the SAME SEAT where Ben and Elsinore Carlin sat as they battled gigantic hurricane waves on the Atlantic over fifty years ago!
This was mega-awesome as no one ever gets in Half Safe - but Rosemary the archivist said I was one of the few women who'd ever come to look at it and she had never met anyone so excited about it (and that includes crazed international amphibious jeep enthusiasts who come specially to view it).
So, the first thing you notice is that Half Safe is TINY. Everything about it makes you think, "They must have been crazy!" You cannot imagine it even getting across a pond, let alone the Atlantic and then the Sahara. It would have been unbelievably cramped, not to mention deadly hot in the desert - it's basically just a metal box covered in layers of marine goop. And it would have wallowed like a sea cow, they must have heaved their guts out every minute of the way. I sat in the driver's seat and tried to imagine Elsinore looking out at the massive seas - she must have been incredibly brave.
If you haven't read the story yet, watch the You Tube ABC show download. Seeing the real thing and the homemade modifications that Ben made to it, you're just overwhelmed with how insane and adventurous it is. One of the things I like about the story is it's one of those examples of people just deciding what they want to do & going out & doing it, no matter how crazy others think it is. It was also amazing to compare it to the "grey nomad" motorhomes & "must have" equipment lists & mod cons we have in our rigs now - Half Safe's radio was in a cardboard box on a shelf, and they towed their fuel cans on ropes from the back. Nowadays you wouldn't get safety permission to even drive it in a paddock.
At the camel farm, Rebecca said they sometimes get people who come & train there for months and then go off travelling Australia by camel on their own, and today I came across Woody, a bloke about my age with his dog Spot, also travelling & living in an old decrepit Mazda bus for years & happy as anything. So seeing Half Safe today added to my discoveries of people who just decide to take that first step out the front door. Inspiring!
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| The front bow is actually a fuel tank welded on |
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| At the wheel! |
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| The tiny entrance hatch |
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| I want one! |
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| The teeny weeny propeller & rudder |
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| Thank you Rosemary! |
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