Trips
From their earliest days, June and Les enjoyed being on the road. The earliest trips were to Mill Creek, off the Heathcote Road or Georges River near Long Point, west of the Sutherland Shire, where they would construct tents by throwing canvas sheets over poles cut from local timber and set up a camp sites. This was before national parks but a break from the constraints of suburban life in the working class suburbs of the St George district, where young married couples could only dream of home ownership in their usually small rented premises or the spare room in their parents house. Camping and setting up their own "patch" made them feel like kings. These trips continued after first born Lesley arrived and were most often in the company of Les' uncle and best mate, Alan Byrne and his wife Nancy or another lifelong mate, Ted Lattimer and his wife June.
Once kids came along, the traveling was curtailed until mid 1961, when Les hired a small caravan and piled June and the five kids into the black FE Holden and headed up the NSW coast to Surfers Paradise. Art used to ride in June's arms on the front seat and Peter sat between them and Les, who took long hours at the wheel. The three teenage girls shared the back seat - all in the days of no seat belts. At night, there wasn't enough room in the van for everyone to sleep, so two of the three girls had to take turns sleeping in the car. Art's nappies had to be washed every day, regardless of weather, so June had to sneak to the laundry in the caravan parks and try and "borrow" some hot water. On a memorable occasion, on the inland trip back south to Sydney, the washed nappies were frozen solid sheets of iced cloth in Armidale, where the council caravan park was right on the coldest part of town, along the Dumaresq Creek in the centre of town.
Despite this horror start to family holidays, all but one of the children went on to introduce camping and the road lifestyle to their own children after making disciples of their spouses.
In 1968 and '69, Les and June with only Peter and Art left as travelling companions, went to Warrumbungles NP during the Spring school holidays. The park was very much in its infancy, with many of the tracks only newly formed or in some cases, hardly formed. In those days, park rangers weren't in their offices checking on track usage and planning activities, they were out on the track and they were the only source of information. Maps and guides were some time away! Over the space of ten days, every peak was climbed, every track walked. Accommodation was in half of an old Sydney tram and the only showers were cold water. These trips had an enormous impact on the two boys and established their green credentials and their love of the Australian bush.
During the middle 1960's, a change of job took Les back to his auto-electrical roots as he became a sales manager for Email and in particular the division that made alternators for motor vehciles. This led to trips to remote parts of Australia promoting the product right down to the individual businesses at point of sale. In his work vehicle - a Morris 1100 - he drove to all points of the eastern states of Australia, most of them well off the beaten track. At about this time, Les purchased his first good camera, a Yashica that was still taking good 35mm film photographs when son Peter replaced the hand-me-down it in 2004. Photography would become a great aid in providing a permanent record of his trips and allowed him to bring the wonders of Australia back home to his family. The family slide night was born.
In the early 1970's, another change of jobs within the same company, led to Les being offered the chance to visit the USA for six weeks and develop new skills as the guest of the American Meter Company. To that stage of their marriage, Les and June had never been apart for that length of time and they never would be again. For Les, still excited by flying and anxious at the same time, this was an exotic adventure and although June tried very hard to share his enthusiasm and support his new direction, it was far from a picnic at home. Les would fly more than three hundred times in his working life but the romance of being 14 and standing with his bike at Mascot areodrome and watching Smithy take off, had left him by the end.
Post retirement, Les started keeping a written record of their travels, complete with itineraries, fuel logs and long, mostly interesting journal entries. These he would later form up into comprehensive reports of each trip. June was given her own camera and the record took on a fuller status and one from a different perspective. Les added several video cameras to his touring equipment in the 1990's and there are hundreds of hours of video tape in their physical memory collection.
In the days before email and social media and phones in your pocket, Les and June were prolific letter writers and no matter how tired, they always found time to send a letter to loved ones to update them on their progress. June had a system of four carbon copies which she would make so that the one letter could go to all five children. Out of fairness, she kept a note of who was allocated each copy and rotated the children around so that the dim fourth copy did always end up with the same child!
The touring from the mid 1980's on was done in caravans, mostly made in Melbourne to Les' designs. For fifteen years, they experienced the halcyon days of their travelling, going right around Australia and Tasmania and then all points in between and experiencing the freedom that their combined hard work had purchased for them. They were probably never happier.
By the early 2000's, the van was gone and they tried a few shorter trips, staying with people or in units but their heart was no longer on the road with them. After June passed, Les had one last adventure, flying to Lord Howe Island for a week that whilst enjoyable, was full of longing for his travelling companion. For the next ten years, he mostly visited family, often sharing Christmas in Canberra with son Art or in Tamworth with son Peter.
Right to the end, Les would love to compare notes with you if you had been on the road. In some ways, feedback about your trips still put him out there and allowed the memories a fresh set of wheels. Their legacy was the great love for the roads which take you to new places, new people, new experiences. It’s a legacy which has been sown in their children and their children’s children and most likely, in their children. The records below will perhaps help that process along. Trips have been listed, as best can be remembered, in chonological order and links provided to the travel logs Les wrote. Where possible, June's views have been included, mostly by way of letters written to loved ones. Links to their photos have also been included.
1968 Warrumbungles NP
1970 Murray Region 25th Wedding Anniversay Trip
1972 Ballina Holiday
1973 Queensland (Les - work)
1973 Western Australia (Les - work)
1974 - New Zealand
1974 USA (Les - work)
1976 New Zealand 30thWedding Anniversary Trip
1977-79 Assorted Australian Trip (Les - work)
1980 NSW/Victoria Road Trip 35th Wedding Anniversary
1985 - Great Ocean Road (with Art)
1986 Last New Zealand Trip (Les -work)
1986 - Murray River Trip
1987-88 Round Australia Tour 
(ongoing transcribing)
1993 Birdsville Bash (with Sue & Lindsay)
1993 Narooma
1994 Bedourie Bash (with Sue & Lindsay)
1994 Touring Tassie
1995 Crocodile Country (Qld)
1996 Central Slopes (NSW)
1996 A Winter Odyssey (NSW/SA/Vic)
1997 Exploring The Other Side of the Great Dividing Range
1997 South Coast Break
1998 Gravitating To Gippsland
1998 Spring Tour
2000 Barrington Tops Holiday
2003 Hastings Point Holiday
2008 Lord Howe Island Adventure