There was huge excitement in Darwin when the HMS Manela pulled into port while Nevill and Greg were there. She was a passenger cargo ship and according to Nevill was luxurious inside, having been built for the Kaiser. Other sources say that the ship had also conveyed the King of Afghanistan and his party from Karachi to Bombay at the start of his world tour. 1.

Nevill had gotten to know a Mr May, who invited Nevill on board and showed him around. Mr May was a government inspector in the Malay States and before Nevill left he offered him a job at 40 pounds a month, rising to 50 pounds after 6 months. It would have been a tempting proposition, especially when Mr May said they were desperate for good men like Nevill. 2.

But Nevill was employed by the King of Heaven and could not be persuaded to take the job, and the HMS Manela left for Singapore the following day without him.
After taking orders for 150 pounds worth of books, Nevill and Greg caught the train back to Emungalan (Katherine), armed with a supply of second-hand Harley-Davidson, Triumph and Indian motorcycle inner tubes. To their delight the tubes and tyres all fitted and they eagerly continued their journey. 3.

Soon after leaving Emungalan they met a prospector trudging down the road, pulling all his possessions in a cart behind him. He was suffering from ptomaine poisoning and had travelled 644 km in search of a doctor! Nevill offered him a lift, but as he only had 160 km to go he firmly refused.

They passed the Elsey homestead, home of Jeannie and Aeneas Gunn, whose book We of the Never Never had catapulted them to fame.

Travel was still difficult with few tracks or roads to follow and of course few signs to help them. At one point they thought they were hopelessly lost until they stumbled onto the wreckage of a burnt-out car. It had belonged to Francis Birtles, an adventurer who completed the first west-to-east crossing of Australia in 1912 in his car. In 1921 he was again in his motor car near the Elsey homestead when the car caught fire and he was badly injured.

Nevill knew the story of Birtles and seeing the wreck affirmed they were on the right track after all. They later came across the Overland Telegraph line which linked Darwin to Adelaide, and were able to follow it to Daly Waters Station. On 29 October they crossed into Queensland through the rabbit proof fence and Bubsie could now claim the distinction of being the first car to travel from Perth to Queensland. Soft sand in creek beds was always a problem, but because the little Citroen was so light it could be dug out, pushed, pulled or lifted more easily. At Toowoomba they were met by a Mr France, an agent for Citroen, who gave them new tyres and tubes and filled their car with petrol and oil. Nevill, on his epic journey in Bubsie, was good publicity for Citroen and they were happy to cultivate his patronage. 4. Nevill began to realise that he had become something of a celebrity when he arrived in Brisbane on 6 November and found the newspapers full of articles about his trip. Reporters from the Queenslander met him and took photographs of him and Bubsie, for which they paid him to help with his travel expenses. It was 2,740km from the Northern Territory to Brisbane, yet the little Citroen had completed the journey in only 7 days. It was still a long way back to Perth, but Nevill and Greg were sure of success.

REFERENCES:

Overture 1939 – 1940. Retrieved from https://www.201squadronassociation.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/OTS-029.pdf
Letter to Mother and Sister. October 16, 1925.
Letter to Mother. November 9, 1925
Letter to Mother. November 9, 1925

The Story: Part 9

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