Thread: Mal Leyland and his last trip

Man, I grew up with them. "Hey Mike, where are we going today? Well Mal, I thought we'd take off across the xxxx". When Mike died, it was like a piece of my childhood went with him. A bit like when Jim Henson died, but probably not as bad.

I met them on the edge of the Simpson in 1966 - and make a cameo appearance in the book about the crossing.

Were they as easy going as they appeared on TV when the cameras weren't rolling?

Originally Posted by BradC

Were they as easy going as they appeared on TV when the cameras weren't rolling?

Bit hard to say. It was 0545 on winter morning and me and my brother had just woken them up. I knew they were there - they had camped at Old Andado, probably Mac Clark had told us on the radio. I don't think they were very happy when I told them that based on my eighteen month's experience working in the Simpson, they were overloaded, and towing a trailer was a bit silly. It was cold - I can remember we were wearing overcoats.

We were just setting off on a non-stop (taking turns driving) trip to Sydney in a Landrover 2a diesel (no heater), so did not talk to them for more than a few minutes. I think it only took us about thirty hours.

Must have impressed them, seeing we got about a page in their book. They ended up making extensive repairs in my camp (which just had a couple of caretakers in it while we were taking a two week break). Our caretakers included the mechanic, and we had a pretty good workshop.

I reached out to the 60th Anniversary trip organisers to offer to get my landy club involved in a send off at Steep Point, or otherwise meet up with them with some period landys to celebrate the trip. I was told in no uncertain terms that the trip was a paid tag along trip and to a set itinary and they were not interested in any interaction. Apparently several landy clubs across Australia have made similar approaches, but all have been rebuffed. Oh well, an opportunity lost in my opinion...