Skatey...The life of Les Skate
Biography of Les Skate edited and prepared for publication by volunteer biographer Lorraine Blythe on behalf of Eastern Palliative Care October 2019
Biography of Les Skate edited and prepared for publication by volunteer biographer
Lorraine Blythe on behalf of Eastern Palliative Care October 2019
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
<strong><strong>Skate</strong>y</strong><br />
<strong>The</strong> Life <strong>of</strong> <strong>Les</strong> <strong>Skate</strong><br />
From there we drove down to Glen Innes and the landscape became more and more like<br />
bush and forest and I thought, ‘I’ve had enough <strong>of</strong> the forest, we’ll whip back over to the<br />
coast’ <strong>The</strong> nearest road on the map was the Gwydir Highway. It was about a hundred miles<br />
long and came out at Grafton. We’d stayed at Grafton on the way up, in the one caravan<br />
park that was there. So <strong>of</strong>f we head <strong>of</strong>f along this Gwydir Highway. <strong>The</strong>re was a bit <strong>of</strong><br />
sealed road, then you got sandy road, then it ran into a dirt road! <strong>The</strong>n there was nowhere<br />
to turn except right … and that became very steep! I thought, ‘Oh well, it will only be a<br />
hundred yards or so to get down the bottom .…’ It went for a couple <strong>of</strong> miles!<br />
<strong>The</strong>re was a bit <strong>of</strong> sealed<br />
road, then you got sandy road,<br />
then it ran into a dirt road!<br />
Admittedly down the bottom it was beautiful, there<br />
was the Gwydir River trickling over the rocks. And<br />
beautiful green flat land beside it. But, going down<br />
that hill…! <strong>The</strong>re was only one cut into the mountain.<br />
You couldn’t have passed a car coming the other way and I wouldn’t have been able to<br />
back up. Whoever was coming the other way would have had to go a mile backwards!<br />
Anyway I held her going down the hills and got to the bottom, and Joan said,<br />
‘Would you have been able to stop?’<br />
‘No!’ I laughed.<br />
I was in first gear with my foot on the brake. I had to keep easing <strong>of</strong>f, otherwise I would<br />
have burned the brakes out. But I just had enough control. And when I hit the bottom …<br />
phew!<br />
At that point there were these streams coming down into the Gwydir River. No bridges. It<br />
was only shallow and I was about to drive through when we saw a couple <strong>of</strong> young blokes<br />
in an old green Land Rover on the other side <strong>of</strong> this little stream. One <strong>of</strong> them called out,<br />
‘What are you going to do?’<br />
‘I’m going to drive over!’ I yelled.<br />
‘Don’t do that yet mate, you’ll crack your brake drums, because they’re red hot! Wait for<br />
them to cool down!’<br />
Well I would have been in real trouble if that had happened.<br />
We were lucky they had been<br />
there.<br />
When we got going we wanted to get back to Grafton<br />
because we were out <strong>of</strong> gas. Gas was our only cooking<br />
facility. It was a very slow track. Once we went over<br />
the flats <strong>of</strong> the river the mountain went almost straight up. <strong>The</strong> road was cut in the side<br />
with the river below. It was beautiful really. And we followed that around and around.<br />
You’re going slow … time’s against you … you never going to get there … and then we came<br />
to this great big wire gate and I thought, ‘Oh this will be lovely if this is locked.’<br />
18
Change language