These days, Paul and Heather Chater travel in a 100 Series LandCruiser towing an 18’ Bushtracker caravan.
Stories about the recent devastating floods in Outback Queensland certainly brought back some frightening memories for grey nomad Paul Chater.
While these days, he and wife Heather are happy to cruise the country in their 100 Series LandCruiser and 18’ Bushtracker off-road van, back in the 1980s they were in a more modest Datsun 200B sedan when they found themselves marooned on the Kennedy Development Rd.
Paul recalls arriving at the Hamilton River between Winton and Boulia.to find it was flowing way too fast to cross.
“There were several coaches, road trains, and tourist vehicles already trapped in front of us,” he said. “More vehicles arrived from Middleton during the day, and then the creeks behind us flooded, leaving us stuck on an island of Development Road.”
Most of the 80 or so people trapped were not properly prepared for Outback travel.
“Many of the tourists and coach passengers were in panic mode and had no food,” Paul said. “We always had a box of supplies in the boot for such events, and a quick recce of the trucks – some of which carrying produce – provided enough food for dinner that night.”
The next day, the water was higher than ever and food supplies had dwindled considerably. In a scene straight from a survivalist movie, two truckies commandeered a canoe from a tourist van and paddled across the Hamilton River before returning with fresh sheep from a nearby station balanced on the vessel.
However, after two more nights of food rationing and frayed tempers, Paul – who has decades worth of experience working with 4WDs – decided to take matters into his own hands. After walking through the river to check the depth, flow rate, and the road surface, he removed the Datsun’s fan belt, tied the fan off so it could not rotate (prevents water being sprayed on the electrics), placed a plastic sheet between the grille and radiator, and sprayed the ignition with waterproof spray.
“The water was about 150 metres wide and a quarter of the way up the windscreen,” said Paul. “I certainly wouldn’t recommend doing this now, but back then a wide open throttle was the order of the day.”
And, after a nerve-wracking few minutes, Paul finally arrived on the opposite bank.
“I stopped to let water out of the cabin, put the fan belt back on, and checked the car over ready for the boring drive up to Mt Isa,” he said. “The sleep in my own bed was good that night!”
Despite the happy ending, Paul is now a firm believer in the ‘if it’s flooded, forget it’ safety message, and says it is not a mission he would have even contemplated without his extensive experience and training in driving in remote Outback locations.
• Have you ever been trapped by a flood? Comment below.
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Who remembers the old hwy Sarina to Rocky. Was always getting caught between either Funnel, Connors, Lotus and many others that I now cant remember. The cafes at Lotus and Connors done a roaring trade.
Yes we were trapped there when our eldest son was 3 mth, 1971, enroute from Cairns to Sydney, waited several hours for the flood water to drop enough to continue in our Falcon.