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I first went overseas at the beginning of 1976 as 21 year old green little vegemite. I set out with two mates via the USA, Canada and then onto the UK. We bought a Kombi from outside Aussie house and headed off to Europe. We just cruised around with no real plan and ticked off the highlights. By pure arse we stayed at camping Fusenia in Venice. This was the first time we had come across a camping tour. It was a Viking tour and the driver was Ross Crook. After witnessing what went on there, I thought that's a job I could handle.
After returning to the UK I came home for 6 months to replenish the wallet. I returned to the UK in early 1977, and landed a job in Sundowners office. From there I talked Glen Wallace into letting me go on the next Training Trip - it was a Russia/Scandi trip. It set off very early in the year, so the weather wasn't the best. Kit Carr and Mother were the driver and courier,and I was lucky enough to make the grade. As a lad who had just turned 24 you had to pinch yourself that they were going to pay you to see the world. I then went on 21 day European as the 3rd man with the Vicar and a hired in Yorkshire coach and driver. I then did another 21 day trip as the courier with a hired in Capricorn coach with Sid McKinley - thats another story.On returning from this trip, Ross Ruff asked if I would like to drive, as this is what I really wanted to do, I jumped at the chance. I was sent up to Dunstable to do my PSV driving course. I was about to take my test on the Monday when Rocky suggested to me that if you get your license there is a fair chance you could be on a trip to Kathmandu on Saturday with himself and Barney. No pressure. Kit Carr told me that as soon as you knew one way or the other ring him. No Pressure. I passed and sure enough I was on a 50 Day overland with Rocky, Barney and Gay Miller,who was K D's secretary,heading home to NZ. I was lucky to have two pretty good teachers for the overland. Rocky - a great organiser who could get the best out of every buck. As for Barney, not only a good peddler as Plough would say, but was always on top of looking after his coach, Barney was also fond of the special ciggers so down time was enjoyed by all.
We had a great trip, basically trouble free, but Iran was starting to come undone. On arriving in Kathmandu we had to wait till all the tours were in, as Sundowners and Capricorn were amalgamating. Seeing we were the first tour in, we were asked by Encounter if we wanted to go white water rafting as they were trying some new spot up near the Chinese border. A great time was had by all. We all did another trip once everyone had arrived, but that is also another story.
After all tours were in, meetings had, coaches and tours allocated for the coming season, it was time to go. The coach we came out in was now mine GWE 410N. Half the boys flew back to London, some went home and some went down to Bangkok to get the sand blasted out of their ears.
After spending Christmas in London and just generally just hanging about, I got a call from Ross Ruff to say they needed me to fly to Kathmandu, pick up my coach and drive to Kabul to pick up Mike McDermott"s tour. They were the first tour to fly over Iran as it had deteriorated a lot in those few months since we had come through. To say I was a little bit apprehensive about what lay ahead - driving back the other way with noone to help with directions and only having been once before, it would be fair to say I had Klong no 1! (that is a rush of shit to the heart!) Dippy and God were in the drivers' house at the time and could probably sense the klong had hit.They got the maps out to show me the best way to go - basically reassuring me I was up for the challenge. Off to the airport 200 pound cash ticket, Bangladesh airlines then Royal Nepal and I was back in Kathmandu. I picked up the coach, did all the checks and I was on my way. I had a good run and problem free all the way to Delhi via the most direct route.
Delhi to Amritsar another story. About 40 km out of Amritsar a bus and a TATA truck were heading towards me using the whole GT road, I thought "Where to go?", also in this equation was a tractor with about 20 passengers in the trailer. As it panned out the tractor went mulga throwing half out, the bus cut off the truck and we all manage to squeeze through with the bus taking off my mirror. After all the instructions I had been given about not stopping and just keep going and report what happened at the next stop all went out the window. I wanted that mirror( dumb arse). I managed to grab the mirror and was just about back on the coach when Mr Singh ( tractor ) had me by the throat and I'm now having Klong no 2. He gave me a good clip over the ear, and by now I'm surrounded by alot of locals. This was when it all flashed before me. "Mrs Sawyer this is Mr Ruff speaking, your son has gone missing in India and that's all we can tell you." At this stage I thought " This is it, and if I'm going out I'm taking this bastard with me". I have wound one up and let go and dropped Mr Singh like a bag of shit. I didn't know who was more surprised me or the crowd. I must have got him right on the sweet spot, with this slite momentum shift I had let anyone who was interested that this boy was ready to rumble. I could see I had a small hesitation in the crowd and was on that coach and trucking. As the saying goes, it was as close as f--k is to swearing, but lady luck smiled on me that time. Once the adrenaline had subsided I looked in the mirror and saw 4 local women sitting up like jackie in the bus. I reported to Mr Singh at the hotel, unloaded the girls and was on my way.
I kept on going through the border and through Lahore and onto Pershawa, It was well into the night, I was tired and I shouldn't have been pushing so hard but I had to be in Kabul by a certain date. I think it's called the Attock bridge or something like that - that real tight one if you get on in one go it's the equivalent of joining the 80k club. Anyway I think I got on in 2 goes and I was pretty chuffed with myself. Whilst I was concentrating getting onto the bridge the cassette player must have stopped without me noticing it. So here I am trucking down the road trying to stay alert when all of a sudden Pink Floyd's " Money" comes blaring out. I think I was 3 rows back when I realised what had happened - klong no 3. I was well and truely awake then and made it to the hotel without anymore dramas.
I then headed off to Afghanistan with now time on my side. I still think how fortunate I was to be on my own, just cruising up the Kyber Pass and Kabul Gorge, with some statement music on like Bolero. It was a beautiful day - I was very lucky to experience such things. I
arrived in Kabul, cleaned the coach, fixed the mirror then collected Mike and his group. As they say "job well done"
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I remember when I was in operations Brain Powell was telling me the stories of his era and I was telling him about my encounters, but I still think Dippy and Ross Crook in Tabriz is one of the best stories I have heard.
One of the most interesting, funny, scary and unusual time, was when Kit and myself rebuilt the motor of DAR 517K (biggest lemon),and then drove it back through Iran to Istanbul. All reports were that the bridges between kandahar and Herat had all been blown up, so we were going to go via Quetta. At the last minute we saw a Bulgarian TIR come through and we got the word that the road was ok, so away we went. Now this is a story for a later date. I tell the story that Kit Carr and myself were the last westerners out of Afghanistan via Herat. We shut the gate. True or not we would have been close to being the last westerners and you never let the truth get in the way of a good story. I remember discussing with Kit that we thought about five years before overlands would be able to go back through Afghanistan. How wrong we were.
It's funny how things work out, I probably did more km in a Sundowners coach with no punters than I did with punters.
Kathmandu - Kubul by myself
Kabul - Istanbul with Kit
Side - London via Habitat - Laurie Mockler & Sid McKinley
Kathmandu - Karachi - Paul Mcsweeney (Ishowed him the way when I was in Operations)
I think Carl Capstick and Charlie Chong were the kings of the KK tours.
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Nice stuff Tom.
I managed the attock in one, and maybe the other as well :-)
I did a flyer with the Vicar, and the run we did out of Kabul.
I never managed to work out how seddon buses ever got on the overland, and I guess only Mr Dick's wallet could let us know.
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How bloody good is it to hear from you? I don't know if you ever got my emails I sent you.
It may have taken a little while for you to join our ranks but it has been well worth the wait. Thank you for taking the time to write at length. Each time a person writes it provides new information, some more memories and builds on the stories so far.
Please feel free to write again and if it takes a while then I am sure it will be worth reading, once you have posted it.
Cheers and all the best to you. Tom/Dave
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I can't let some of Tom' and Kits comments go without a reply.
On the first point of who was the last coach through Herat I have been sitting here for ten minutes trying to remember exactly where I was and I am still unsure but Steve and I brought a Christian Youth group out of Kathmandu and they flew out of Kabul, I remember Kit was in Kabul as we had the girls rolling numbers for him. English Mike and I loaded up the "Titanic" with plastic containers (filled with diesel in Iran and sold in Turkey) and went empty to Herat and it was scary as we didn't know who was incharge and we got stopped often. Mike and I headed directly for Club Habitat and spent sometime there before Kit rang looking for us and we headed to London ASAP. So now I have Kit in two places at once which seems unlikely. After all that Lawrie Mockler thinks he came along later with Bob Newton in the "budget" Seddon, so in my mind there is some confusion.
As for the Seddons being in any way related to a citrus fruit I think you have to look at this in more depth. DAR516K and DAR517K were as near as identical, they had done similar miles and looked exactly the same, I went to the yard at Armchair Coaches with Alan Maher and I believe it would not have mattered which one I drove out of the yard. No doubt they were cheap as Kit keeps pointing out and that was probably due to the miles on the clock. They looked good and the punters liked the very comfortable reclining seats and I remember Mr Dick saying something like "these coaches will upset the competition" and clearly he was right.
I remember taking Kit for a test drive out to Heathrow in the Titanic in the middle of winter and the head temperatures were extreme and still I couldn't get Kit to let me do an engine rebuild and I left a few days later for Kathmadu, I had to put up with compression rings breaking and associated overheating problems but we did get back in one piece, KD came and looked at the Titanic in the Bus Park and he said something like " this coach looks more like it is just about to go out on an trip not just returned"
The Seddons didn't have power steering only power assisted steering and you soon learned how to use judgement and expertise in tight situations and I don't recall any problems getting onto bridges with tight approaches.
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Col I have had a day to think about this and I have had all the old passports out. I have a visa for Iran being issued at Kabul on June 2nd, 1979. I entered the UK on June 15th, 1979 and embarked on June 17th on a Euroupean Special Charter and I am reasonably certain that Kit was in London at this time. I still feel there may have been some Capricorn behind me although I didn't see them in Kathmandu that I can remember. Am I right in thinking that some tours bypassed Afghanistan going directly from Pakistan into Iran?
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I don't remember who was last out. I do remember the tanks at Herat at the end of the straight on the way in, before the 90 degree left, after the trees.
I sure remember the condition of the Titanic, and Carl Capstick's buses when they got back, and was mighty impressed. Still am. I still don't rate the Seddons, but can't dispute that they were well cared for by Simon and Carl. The chassis was fine, the bodies were plaxton with decent seats but the perkins engine was never a favourite
We parked one of them in the national car park on one of the one way systems. I had to take it somewhere and drove out, and was in the right hand lane, heading for a right hand turn when a white van ran straight into the lane in front of me. Aware that power steering was not on the option list I jumped hard on to the brakes, expecting a crash. Fortunetly the brakes were seriously out of ajustment, and the left front brake grabbed, and pulled me left around the van a whole lot faster than i could ever have steered. Missed it clean. Had everything been right I would have worn it.
Col, I do remember being advised to avoid Teheran, and passing that on. A few tours had gone up and around the top with some success.
These days with GPS you would have got a message 5 kms after the turn off. Then it was a discussion days or weeks after the event.
I flew back to London from Istanbul if my memory serves me well, and hence I was in two places at once.
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Simon, there were a number of tours who went underneath Afghanistan through the baluchistan border with Iran. Most painted farsi signs on the side.
There were a number of incidents in the south of pakistan, with blow outs and accident damage.
Quetta became a regular stop for a while, and was a dodgy stop.
I'll try and find my old passports too.
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Great story Tom,sure stirred up some memories and discussion.For the record I was nowhere near the gate.I do remember being with one of the first groups to fly Kabul to Istanbul.Sid drove K-K and Peter Lightfoot was on the European side.Peter sent a message to bring truckloads of Deutchmarks,as Turkish Lira was worth squat,Turkey couldn't pay their oil bill,diesel shortages,everything had to be paid for in hard currencey .
God formerly known as Greg Marks was on the same flight,together with approx 75 punters,we put all their luggage on the plane together.After they had loaded everything ,we were given excess luggage bill for the total."No,No everyone must pay for themselves individually".Laziness won the day ,so we didn't have to pay.
It was snowing in Goreme in early March and our next stop was to be camping on a beach in Cyprus.
We loaded the punters on the ferry.The coach was Quoted at approx 150 quid.Ok.Loaded coach on ferry then told had to pay extra approx 10 quid per seat each way.Sundowners had virtually bought the ferry from Mersin to Cyprus.
Back in London ,Kit not impressed.I made sure KD got some vodka.
Rocky
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Great story Tom,sure stirred up some memories and discussion.For the record I was nowhere near the gate.I do remember being with one of the first groups to fly Kabul to Istanbul.Sid drove K-K and Peter Lightfoot was on the European side.Peter sent a message to bring truckloads of Deutchmarks,as Turkish Lira was worth squat,Turkey couldn't pay their oil bill,diesel shortages,everything had to be paid for in hard currencey .
God formerly known as Greg Marks was on the same flight,together with approx 75 punters,we put all their luggage on the plane together.After they had loaded everything ,we were given excess luggage bill for the total."No,No everyone must pay for themselves individually".Laziness won the day ,so we didn't have to pay.
It was snowing in Goreme in early March and our next stop was to be camping on a beach in Cyprus.
We loaded the punters on the ferry.The coach was Quoted at approx 150 quid.Ok.Loaded coach on ferry then told had to pay extra approx 10 quid per seat each way.Sundowners had virtually bought the ferry from Mersin to Cyprus.
Back in London ,Kit not impressed.I made sure KD got some vodka.
Rocky
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Hi Col,
BTW, thanks for that BPay link; I'll look for that book later - snowed under right now.
Tom's and your recollections about dates etc got me to remember a time when I was in Multan on a westbound. The Australian test team was there at the same time, so I found out what hotel they were in and went on over. There were lots of security guards around it, but I signalled a square cut so exquisitely that they naturally took me to be one of the test cricketers, and I got through unchallenged.
I opened a door to a big dining room, and there they were, all around a big U-shaped table, looking very solemn. I explained that I had a group going overland to London, and asked if they would like to get together. Someone asked how many girls were on the trip (this was in the days before WAGS were allowed). When I said 24, the whole place erupted! People got up and whooped and cheered, so it was on. So I went back to my group and we all went back to the cricketers' hotel. We had a very happy night, and they even gave us provisions such as cartons of canned fruit to enjoy on the rest of our journey.
I spent most of the night talking with tour officials and with Rod Marsh, who didn't drink a drop because he had to go out and bat the next day. Allan Border also abstained that night, and the next day he went out and made 178, and thereby saved the match.
I like to think that the boost we clearly gave to their morale had a bit to do with their turning the game around.
I mention this because I was able to ascertain the exact date by Googling "Allan Border" and "Multan". I found that it was a game against the Punjab Governor's XI, so that party was on the night of March 14, 1980. http://www.cricketarchive.com/Archive/Scorecards/39/39981.htmlSo I take it that all our trips with punters went south over that time. I did another eastbound after that (with Tom again, but this time all the way), and used the southern route - Nok Kundi, Quetta etc. So whoever shut the gate, it certainly wasn't me. I'm not sure, but I think that the last time I was in Herat was with Brendon Reid; we made it to Kabul just in time for the Saur Revolution in 1978, and the last time I was in Kabul was with Carl Capstick in early 1979, when we were robbed in the Khyber Pass. I have posted about both incidents elsewhere.
It’s my guess then that whoever shut the gate it had to be a crew only trip. And Colin, one of the first pix you put on this site was one of Rolf, Kit and me sunning ourselves outside the Blue Star. So Kit was there, even though he was operations manager then.
So my money's still with Tom.
Hope this helps,
Mike
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>The photo I posted with you, Kit and Rolf was In December 1979.
That fits, and it means that the trip I did before was the one where Kevin Venville drove the west side, and with his wife Gaye and the punters we joined Tom on the other side. That trip finished in Kathmandu in late 1979. So lots of us were in Kathmandu around Xmas, including you, me, Kit, Perry, Tom, Rolf, Sundance and others. That Xmas, I joined a tour run by Peter Ward, and spent Xmas night singing Xmas carols beside a campfire on the Nepalese Terai, having had come back down there from Darjeeling. After that, I went down to Australia, popped the question to Anne, and came back up to take the westbound with Perry - the one that I mentioned above as being in Multan in March 1980.
The way I read Tom's post, that trip with Kit was after his trip from Kabul with Kevin and me, so presumably Tom and Kit did that drive to Istanbul in very late 1979 or early 1980.
The trouble is, all my passports are locked away interstate, so I can't use them as a reference.
Tom and / or Kit; am I missing something here?
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My memory is not as clear as some and I don't know where this fits in with regards to the last tour through Afghanistan. Chop and I went out to Kathmandu on a flyer that took us through Afghanistan. We entered Afghanistan on 20/09/79 and left on 23/09/79 (old passport as reference). Admittedly we did not go south to Herat and Kandahar but we did get through without any trouble.
Our return trip avoided Afghanistan when we went south to Quetta and that was early November, 8/11/79.
I do recall hearing about others having messages printed on the side of their coaches.
I also recall talking with drivers from encounter Overland who were heading east that said we would be game to go into Iran via Quetta as the roads were unsealed and had very tight corners through the hills after Quetta and before the border at Kuh-I-Taftan. Knowing no better, we went this way as we had heard that the situation in Afghanistan had got worse in the few weeks since we came through. Yes the road was unsealed and the corners were tight but I think the guys with the trucks were pumping their own tyres up to think only a truck could access this route.
I'll hand back to those with better memories to decide who shut the gate either via the southern route or Afghanistan altogether but it therefore fits in between 23/09/79 and before November. Any takers for going through in October 1979?
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There you go. See I told you my memory is not so good. I cannot remember going through Herat and Kandahar but we must have at least gone through Herat and I doubt that we would have gone through Ghor, I think that would have been too rough for our coaches, more direct but more twists and turns. Having said that we must have gone via Kandahar, that would explain why it took 3 days to get through the country.
I am now starting to second guess myself if others had so much trouble, we may have done some night driving but it would not be possible to do 3 nights of it.
If Chops reads this he may remember more details. Sometimes all my overland trips blend into one.
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Col, hold onto your money as quite a bit of Vicar's story requires further confirmation.
We all "love" Vicar but we know him to be a "prankster and forger" so we need to look at this with some caution.
So Sundowners (read Kit Carr) sent a coach into Afghanistan in late September, 1979. Really???
Firstly Vicar is entering Afghanistan via somewhere other than Herat and its only after some questioning from Col that its "through Herat and Kandahar" and he adds night driving into the story. When I came out in Mid year it was very scary and there were barriers across the road on a regular basis between Kabul and Herat and it took lots of fast talking to get through each one and as well as the poles across the road there were the tanks and troops at each bridge we came across. I find it extremly hard to believe night driving was a possibility in September, 1997 in Afghanistan.
Chop where are you ???????
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we switched from Kathmandu to Kabul to Kathmandu to Karachi and in between tours ran under afghanistan, through baluchistan.
I don't remember the dates though.
When I was in Kabul fixing the Seddon it was not a good place to be, and leaving was a good thing.
A bit more discussion will reveal the exact dates I am sure.
I have a vague recollection of someone exiting Afghanistan through Khandahar to Quetta, but don't recall when that was done or who did it. It may not have been us.
More vitamin D for memory needed:-)
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