WOMAN’S CAR TRIP.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 2 December 1925, Page 12

WOMAN’S CAR TRIP.

AROUND AUSTRALIA. THE QUESTION OE RISK. SYDNEY, Nov. 13. Motoring around Australia or across the continent has lost much of its novelty during the past two or three years, and the awe and wonder with which we were wont to regard the lonely trips of Francis Birtles in a dilapidated Ford car are now beyond recall. Many parties have made long journeys in the continent without more adventure than a few punctures, broken springs or delay in crossing boggy or sandy country, but a journey now in progress gains novelty in the fact that the chief figure in it is a. woman. Punctures, smashed parts and a bogged car are simple adventures for a man, but sceptic males believe that they are not a woman’s work. Mrs Marion Bell, unaccompanied except for her 11-year-old daughter, is now attempting to prove the sceptics wrong. Mrs Bell, who lives in Fremantle, had occasion to visit the eastern States, and conceived the idea of travelling hither by motor car through the north of the continent and thence southwards from Darwin. There was considerable opposition to Mrs Bell’s proposal when it was first mooted, and the Minister of Justice in Western Australia (Mr J. C. Willcocks) even went so far as to see whether he had any power to prevent it. He found he had hot, and had to content himself with issuing a solemn warning that he thought “the dangers should he brought under the person’s notice in due time.” He described the task as foolhardy, hut apparently Mrs Bell had implicit faith in her car, the preparations she had made to secure supplies en route, her ability to surmount any unforeseen obstacle, and tbe spirit of adventure which urged her originally to undertake what must he admitted is a hazardous task for any woman. Asked by an interviewer before she left Perth if she were afraid of the long journey through the far north. Mrs Bell is reported to have replied that she came from a family of explorers and was closely related to Air Ben Chaffey (owner of a number of Australian stations as well as the champion three-vear-old racehorse, Manfred), her father being Mr Justice Chaffey, of New Zealand. Mrs Bell added that she personally had experienced travelling in unsettled country, and although she carried revolvers and rifles, she did not anticipate trouble with the natives.

That was the spirit in which Mrs. Bell left civilisation for the outback. She was seen off by large crowds on October 14, and the news that has come from settlements on the route has been eagerly awaited. Great interest has been aroused in her progress, especially among the womenfolk. Airs. Bell overtook another motor-car party travelling more or less in their company. That, of course, might mean that she is a day or two either in front or behind them in this land of distances. Airs. Bell decided to take a route through Broome, Derby, and Darwin. Ten days ago she passed through Broome, and this week word came through from her at Hall’s Creek, which can be described as the real heart of Australia. Her route from there will lav north-east to Darwin, and thence she will travel south-west through Queensland to Brisbane. Mrs. Bell’s hardest task will he to leave the tropical and sub-tropical regions behind before the rainy season sets in about eight weeks hence.