A wet day at home so looking through some old photos taken in the early 1980's. Wittenoom - we stayed at the caravan park, bought fuel at the BP. I remember streets of houses with timber uprights and roofs. The walls were all gone. How we travelled. Back then we weren't worried about falling off a cliff - nor was anyone else by the looks of it. Cheers.
Back when you could drive through Wittenoom George and all the others before the restrictions, barricades and safety signs. Not that there were too many to driveable.
This one was my Mother's. I drove it from Alice Springs to Adelaide in 1974 which was the year of the BIG wet up north. There were 4 adults and 2 kids on board.
I used a set of snow chains to get through the mud.
Hi Peter, You certainly took the Kombi to its limits. I like your pictures. Aren't pictures good memories of what risks we took, miles away from home. We wouldn't do this at home, would we? We got stuck once in Chichester National Park, in WA. Fortunately in this case, I was able to reverse out of the sandy creek crossing and picked another route before continuing on. Our Kombi was a 1975 model, we bought it from a dealer five years later. It was a Sopru conversion. We drove it for fourteen years, doing well over 100,000km. Take care. Cheers, Bazz (and Gaylehere - the better half)
-- Edited by BazzMann48 on Saturday 24th of October 2026 03:04:37 PM
Great vehicle and very capable. We did several trips in that one, but none as challenging as the trip home from Alice Springs (which took a full 8 long days of constant driving). My mother and her sister had taken it from Adelaide to Alice on the Ghan, then driven it to Darwin and back to Alice where it was already raining. We flew to Alice with the kids to drive it home rather than put it on the train again. No radios, no 'phones. Cheers, Peter
-- Edited by Peter_n_Margaret on Saturday 24th of October 2026 08:02:02 PM
In 1986, visited Wittenoom as part of the big lap, included a stay in the caravan park, where they had a lovely patch of green grass specifically for the bus camping tours. We set up on it as advised the bus was due on the day of our departure.
Toured the town and mines (got a very nice sample of blue asbestos that was tucked inside a film container and sealed up). Had swim and a snorkle around in water filled gorges (that actually had some type of medium sized fish in them) and did a flight over the area departing from the Wittenoom International Airport. Will try to find some pictures. Colour slides in those days, but all scanned to digital format a few years ago.
Would be interested in seeing your Wittenoom photos as you were there a few years after us. Were the houses still standing then? We only stayed one night, but did go for a drive up past the mine. The night we stayed, there was a big electrical storm and heavy rain. There was a couple guys on bikes and they spent at least a part of their night standing in the doorway of the toilet block.
