BIRTLES CROSSES AUSTRALIA.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18263, 23 December 1924, Page 16

BIRTLES CROSSES AUSTRALIA.

THE DARWIN TO ADELAIDE ROUTE. (raoic ocx omr coeeispoxdixt.) SYDNEY, December 10., The remarkable performance of that tireless Australian inlander, Francis Birtlea, who, on foot, on bicycles, by motorcars, and by air,- has left no part of the Continent unvisited, in motoring in nine days across Australia from Darwin to Adelaide, a distance of 2091 miles, has special interest owing to the fact that it is over the route of the great reliability contest which it is proposed to hold next year. This ambitious < project has not been promulgated without some opposition, but it has been hailed with such enthusiasm by motorists and motoring interests that there is erery prospect of its being carried out. Steffanson, during his visit to Central Australia, derived the impression that for various reasons the contest would be unwise—inland people, he. thought, wero opposed to it on the ground that the fleeting glimpse of the interior that the parties would get would be an unfair advertisement to tho districts traversed. They considered that travellers should always allow themselves to get off the beaten cattle tracks' and see the stations and talk with the dwellers there. Then he considered that from the motorists' own point of view it would be unfair, as the track would be affected for good or bad, according to the weather and the varying characters of the country traversed, by the-earlier cars in the contest, thus making the test unreliable.' Despite these objections, however, there is something in the bigness and romance of a great trans-Continental contest which has gripped the imagination ' and made it likely that it will be one of the great world l motoring events of the year. Mr Birtles. . when discussing his experiences, said that the journey in his Oldsmobile Six was bepun before the 1 beginning of the real rainy season. Thoy were unfortunate, however, as just prior to their leaving Darwin, rain fell, with the result that in three hours' time tliey were bogged. That was by no means the only occasion on which a similar experience befell them. At times the mud was so thin that it was impossible to use a shovel, with the result that the hands bad to be used to get it away from the wheels and'allow of a start. "Keeping ahead of schedule time meant traveling at Jeast twenty hours a day, and at times we were right down to a crawl," he said. "My car was the first to go over some parts of the track, and it stood the strain splendidly. Onlv onoe were spares used, and then merely to replace the brush of the generator, whir.h had been under water." In an attempt to avoid a hobbled camel near Alice Springs, the car went over a bank four feet high, and fell into wet quicksand. It was decided that the only chance of moving the car was to readjust the wheels. Working under water in the dark, Mr Muller, who accompanied Mr Birtles, scraped away the sand, withdrew the pins, and was then able to straighten the rod. A native brought an Afghan owner with a mob of camels, who supplied two strong poles. By this time some twenty or thirty aborigines arrived on the scene, and with their assistance and that of the camels, the car was dislodged, a wheel at a time, after two and a-half hours' work. Mr Muller was so pleased that he presented the chief native with a shilling and a penny, and distributed three packets of cigarettes among the remainder.