"Crocodile Safari Man"

2008, 3rd Edition – 320 pages and 230 photos.

“A Read Like No Other”

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“Crocodile Safari Man”

Starting with a short brief about my father and his children growing up in Tasmania followed by clips from various pages throughout the book.

Page 12

I reckon my Dad was twice the man I’ll ever be. We didn’t talk to each other nearly enough while he was alive and I’d like to tell about him now as a kind of tribute. Dad was born as Edward Buse Adams on the 9th May 1874 (Adams, very appropriately for our family, means ‘son of the soil’). He was the sixth child of thirteen and the grandson of John Adams who was born in 1794 and who arrived in Fremantle with his wife and three children and his brother Oliver in the 360 ton Nancy on the 9th January 1830. He was granted land on the Canning River, but after twelve months decided not to take it up and moved to Launceston in Van Dieman’s Land,” where my father was born.

The children of Charles and Elizabeth Adams – Elizabeth died in 1888 while pregnant with her fourteenth - 1908 photo

On the outbreak of the South African Boer War in 1899, my father joined up as Private No. 121 in the First Imperial Bushman’s Brigade. This was a contingent of elite men who were tough fighters and excellent shooters and horsemen. Dad fought in Transvaal, Orange Free State, Rhodesia and the Cape Colony and was fortunate not to have been among the 1700 Australian casualties of that war. He received shrapnel wounds to his right forearm and damage to his right eye. His worst wound was an 8mm German Mauser rifle bullet that lodged in his spine. An x-ray of his spine that was pinned to his office wall when we were kids clearly showed the bullet. Ultimately he took that bullet to his grave.

My dad with medal from the Boer War. 1899-1900

According to the Tasmanian Mail (09.05.1901) Dad received his commission to the rank of lieutenant and was subsequently mentioned in dispatches by General Lord Kitchener. When Dad returned to Tasmania after the Boer War, he paid 5000 Pounds for several large parcels of flooded virgin land in the Bridport area, known as Jerusalem Plains, Umtali and Wonder Valley. He subsequently drained and cleared these properties to grow vegetables and farm sheep and cattle.

On the 9th May 1916, at the age of 42, he signed up for WW1, joining the 8th Field Artillery Brigade and was wounded. After his recovery he served with the 25th battalion of the 7th Field Artillery Brigade and received shrapnel wounds to his right leg. The latest wound resulted.........

Down on the Farm in the Great Depression

For many years my parents lived on their property called Umtali. All of us kids were born while at Umtali. First was Edward, born 1920, who at14lbs and forceps delivery, died an hour later. Next was Edward, Then the twins, Margaret and Helen, followed by Keith and Lesley ...................

The Adams children – the way it was in the 1920/30s

..................We all had mother’s maiden name of Flexmore for second names. And so it was that Umtali became a bit overcrowded. Dad sold the property and we moved to another house about a mile east of the Brid River and right on the banks of the Great Forester River. We all moved in and he called this property Malmani. All of us kids grew up here until we got to our teens when we moved out to lead lives of our own...................

....................On the Malmani property there were thousands of sheep and hundreds of cattle (mostly Black Angus). In addition we had horses, bullocks, ducks, chooks, turkeys and a large collection of animal pets. The pets were swans, possums, guinea pigs, birds, sugar gliders, kangaroos, wallabies, wombats, pigs and dogs....................

Brother Edward - Dad taught us boxing early

...................We all grew up on horseback and were pretty reasonable riders. Ted, a farmhand, and I did most of the mustering for ear-marking, branding and dipping. Dad’s farm embraced considerable timber and thick scrub country which he required to be burnt each year. He would give Ted and me boxes of wax matches that we could strike and throw from our horses into dry fuel areas for supposed controlled burning. This was great stuff watching the raging onslaught and the flames that rapidly climbed huge Stringy Bark trees to the top, dislodging burning cinders that were carried by the wind for great distances, lighting additional fires as they fell. These fires were so rapid and fierce in places that they drove out wombats, rabbits, wallabies and especially kangaroos, which in turn would be pursued by Ted and me on horseback.

Some of the horses got to love the chase, especially a really smart animal called Jimmy who used to be a harness pacer when younger. Jimmy could catch up to the fleeing kangaroo and knock it silly with his front legs, allowing a quick dismount to catch it. Sometimes I would be too slow and the frightened roo would get mobile again. If this was the case and my feet touched stirrups...................

....................The worst of all the mustering catastrophes happened on the day when the farmhand and I had rounded up a big herd of cattle and were driving them in for branding and ear-marking. There were about 250 beasts and they had to be driven through another farmer’s property and kept separate from his herd. We had to cross over Tucker’s Creek, an area consisting of several streams that flooded separately through swampy ti-tree ground about 200 yards wide.

There were a number of bridges that crossed these creeks, and all had no side rails. A boundary fence with a gate ran parallel close to the last and most dangerous creek. By the time we reached this area, it was midday and Dad’s farmhand suggested that we stop and have lunch before allowing the cattle to proceed through the adjoining property. So we had lunch and then I was sent on to open the gate. But this turned out to be a very difficult task because the cattle had milled as far forward as possible and were so tightly packed on the bridges that there was no space left for my horse. I was frightened and I slowly edged my horse along the narrow track with swamp on either side. The cattle became alarmed and began to surge. They pushed each other off the bridges and down into the cold water. My horse was getting pushed too and at one stage it had one leg over the side of the bridge and I nearly fell in. Now I was really terrified.

Fifteen beasts had fallen into water and the mud before I could get to the gate and open it. Some of the poor creatures had no chance......................

..............Some days later Dad began the job of branding, ear-marking, de-horning and castrating the yearling calves and also a prime scrub bull. Dad insisted that Ted and I watch while he carried out the operation on the scrub bull. He had locked the bull in the crush where it was held securely by the neck ready for castrating. Dad said that this scrub bull was already several years old and was interfering with the bloodline of his stock and had to be stopped.

A pole was placed behind the bull’s legs to prevent it kicking. Dad used his sharp knife to cut a long slit in the scrotum and a set of clamps squeezed the tubes holding the balls. Dad then cut off the balls and tossed them to the dogs who eagerly sank their teeth into this unexpected warm meal. Oddly enough, the loss of these hefty testes seemed to have little effect on the bull. Dad then put a nostril clamp on the bull and pulled it tight with a rope to one side so that he could get at the first horn. A massive pair of shears with opposing twin V-shaped blades that worked a bit like a guillotine was placed over the horn close to the skull. Ted and I brought great pressure to bear on the handles; we had to squeeze simultaneously because the horn was so tough. As the pressure mounted..................

....................Around this time the horrible and highly infectious disease of poliomyelitis came to Tasmania. We kids were all lucky enough to escape it, thanks largely to Mum. In the early stages of the epidemic, our school was closed. Mum told us to take our clothes off and swim and play in the river and stay away from all people. It was pretty cold and windy down there on the waterfront, but we were tough kids and I think our Mum’s remedy worked well. We certainly got suntanned and sun-burnt too, all over..................

Lesley, Margaret, Ted, Helen, Keith - during the Poliomyelitis years.

..................Mum was a bit of a home doctor. She had a cure for everything. If we had a belly ache, she would dose us with Epsom salts. With ear aches, it was a clean out with peroxide. When we got boils, she would examine them from time to time and be quite sympathetic, but when ready to burst she would grab hold of us and squeeze like hell. It didn’t matter how loud we yelled, she didn’t stop until all the puss was out. When we got hair lice, which we got almost every year from the other kids at school, Dad practically shaved our heads and then Mum would go to town on our scalps with kerosene and a stiff brush. We felt that our scalps were practically on fire.

Mum had a happy nature and loved to play tricks on her progeny. On one occasion she came up to us when we were very young holding her hand and telling us that she had cut off her middle finger. And there it was, the middle finger, displayed on blood-soaked cotton wool in a square tobacco tin. It looked ghastly and frightened all of us, especially Helen. Having succeeded in frightening the hell out of all of us, Mother explained that it was all a joke. She had cut a hole through the bottom..................

....................Our lifestyle was pretty much routine, going to school, milking cows, chopping firewood, lighting the fire in the morning and getting breakfast ready. We hauled in logs with our bullock team and sledge. On some weekends and holidays we were allowed a change from farm work to shooting wild game for skins and tucker. We also netted and speared fish in the river. There wasn’t any money to celebrate birthdays and Christmas the way we do now. We’d get a few pennies for lollies, a Christmas stocking stuffed with some hand-me-down clothes and new clothes only if it were absolutely necessary.................

.................When we played, we invented our own games. Some were funny and some were cruel, depending on how you looked at it. For example, after Dad had killed and gutted a sheep, I would take a knife and cut off about five feet of the strongest gut. I tied a large knot at both ends and then fed each end to two of our household ducks. The intestine was so tough that the ducks were unable to bite or break through it. Well, those knots took quite a bit of swallowing, but once the two ducks had achieved that feat, they kept right on gobbling until they came face to face. Then one duck would gain the advantage by pulling hardest on the gut, dragging it from its opponent’s stomach and quickly consuming its tug-of-war win. This tug-of-war could be reversed several times before an ultimate winner stood there with a.......................

.......................Dad’s bullock team consisted of twelve big animals which Ted and I were taught to drive. Ted was better at handling them than I was. Dad gave us orders to couple the bullocks and pull over a fairly solid old tree and drag it away.

Coupling the bullocks was scary because their huge horns made it difficult to lock the U-shaped neck braces into the heavy yokes. When that was done we drove the bullocks to the big tree and attached a strong, steel cable. Everything was ready for Ted to test his expertise.

It was a tough tree and wouldn’t budge. So I suggested that we place the rope higher up the tree in order to gain leverage. Then Ted plied the whip and made the air blue with his most colourful commands. The twelve strong bullocks gave their all. The result was comical rather than brilliant. The two bullocks at the rear were almost lifted off the ground, hung by their necks because the cable was too high. The humour was vastly increased by Ted’s panicky attempts.................

.......................In order to get bush honey, we tried chopping down trees with beehives built in the tree hollows. It would sometimes take us all day to bring a tree down. We had no protective gear and we often got stung. If one of the dogs was getting in our way, we would put a live bee under its tail. It would take off like greased lightning, biting its bum as it went. When one of our beehive raids was successful, we placed the honey into a hessian bag and trod on it in order to crush the comb. Then we hung the bag by the stove to warm up so that the honey thinned and flowed through the hessian and dripped into a container.....................

Shows how the Adams Cut diverted the Great Forester River two miles from the mouth in 1921 – a major undertaking by my father

....................Dad, Ted and I slept in an extension of the veranda. It was open to the wind, had a galvanised iron roof and was pretty cold in the Winter. It was here as a baby that I graduated from my bed in a Cooper’s Sheep Dip Powder box to the family cot. Eventually I grew too long for the cot and I couldn’t stretch out. When I complained, Dad bashed out the rails at one end of the cot and he nailed on some flat boards to extend the cot base by about another twelve inches. This piece of bush carpentry allowed me years of comfortable sleep, even though on some nights the biggest mosquitoes in the world tortured all three of us. Every night before I climbed into my cot.......................

........................When I was about six, I was playing with my sister Lesley, chopping wood with one of Dad’s short-handled Kelly axes. Dad used these Kelly axes exclusively to dissect sheep carcasses for our food. Lesley and I had been arguing about who should chop off a small branch on the side of a log. Lesley said she would and I said that I would. Lesley put her hand on the log to stop me from chopping. I took a pretend swipe to scare her into pulling her hand away. This worked all right, so I did it again only this time I made a real swipe in order to get rid of the branch. But this time Lesley didn’t take her hand away and to our horror, off came the thumb on her right hand.

The blood shot up in the air like a rainbow. We were both shocked and Lesley started to scream her head off. I was in a panic and not knowing what to do. I threw the thumb in the bush. Mum heard Lesley’s screams and came running. She scooped up Lesley and yelled at me:”You rotten kid! You wait till your father sees this. He’ll kill you.”

Dad was away in the Dort somewhere. Helen, Margaret and Ted were still at school. Mum was on her own. She phoned Mr. Suter the local bus driver to take Lesley to the Scottsdale Hospital twelve miles away. She then phoned the local doctor in Scottsdale, who said to be sure to bring the severed thumb. Mum rushed back to me with Lesley still in her arms and Lesley’s hand all wrapped up in a bed sheet soaked through with blood. Mum said, “The doctor wants the thumb.” I found the thumb in the bushes and wrapped it in newspaper and gave it to her. Mum was in full panic mode by now and again told me what Dad was going to do to me when he found out. I thought about that a lot. I felt pretty certain that he would do something drastic and I was really afraid.

It was getting on towards late afternoon and I knew that Dad would be back shortly, so I took off for the bush, more frightened than ever. About a mile away I came to a massive, old charred hollow log and I figured this would be as good a place as any to hole up. It was almost dark by the time that Dad got home and was told about all the trouble I had caused. He sent my brother and sisters out to find me and bring me back to the house. I could hear them in the distance as they..........................

...................I was a bit naive as a child. Once I was in hospital having my tonsils and adenoids removed and a cyst cut from inside my right eyelid. After two days the nurses kept on asking me if I’d had my bowels opened. I didn’t know what bowels were, so I said no. I was aghast when the nurses tipped me over on my side and poked a hose up my behind with a funnel attached. They filled me up with some kind of liquid and shortly afterwards I went through one hell of an embarrassment when I had to explode into a bed pan, especially when other people were still in the room. Well, I certainly knew then what bowels were all about. The worst thing about..................

...................Often the whole family would go hunting and pile into Dad’s Dort car. We would load the car up with greyhounds, sheep dogs, spaniels, terriers and mixed breeds. The big dogs would stand on the running boards with smaller ones crammed under their bellies, others would be jammed inside the car where dog fights sometimes occurred. Such combat drew a few smelly dog farts, bloody rippers that caused such descriptive comments from mother, we’d all laugh. We‘d leave early in the morning and walk all day without................

..................While I was 12 and with a broken arm in a sling, Dad asked me to go and rouse out sheep from the slippery banks of the Forester River. I said I‘ll take my double-barrelled shotgun in case I saw a duck, but Dad said: “Don’t be silly. You can’t shoot with one arm.” After about two miles of walking I was preparing to cross a creek when I slipped and dropped my loaded and cocked 12 guage shotgun in the water. As luck would have it, the gun landed just out of reach with about three inches of the barrels protruding from the water and aimed straight at me. My arm was hurting like hell as I leant down at full stretch to try and reach it. But the best I could do was to get my little finger into one of the barrels, jam it sideways and gently pulled towards me. Bang! Well, I guess that it just wasn’t my turn to die. The trigger on the other barrel caught on a snag and exploded. My arm and my head were almost in direct line of fire and it was almost inconceivable that I had escaped injury. The noise of the gun blast almost blew out my eardrums. I thought it wiser......................

....................I left home when I turned 14 in 1940 and got a job in Launceston. My starting wage was ten shillings for seven hours, five days a week, with two evenings per week night school. I was very nervous at first as some of the new trainees were much older than me.

The older students insisted on an initiation ceremony in which they smothered the new boys’ private parts with timber glue, feathers and sawdust. Most new kids submitted without a fight; those who resisted were wrestled to the ground by several of the older students and got the full treatment. I figured that I wasn’t going to get covered with that muck and I spread the word that I had been taught how to box and fight. I also said that if they ganged up on me, I would carefully note who they were and later on I would get them all one by one and punch the hell out of them.

These tactics held the gang of older kids off for a month or two. Eventually, however, it was my turn and I was thrown to the ground before I knew what had happened. There was a tall ginger haired fellow trying to open my trousers, so I rammed my knee in his face. The bang I gave him shattered the top plate of his false teeth and that put him out of action. Well, this yobbo was one of the ringleaders and when he backed off, they all backed off with him. For the next couple of days I confronted some of the older students and threatened to punch the living daylights out of them, but none of them................

..................My wage at the time was ten shillings a week and I had to pay that amount for full board, it was tough going. I later did a five year apprenticeship 44 hours a week at Jacksons Garage learning to be a mechanic as well as oxy and electric welding, servicing cars, trucks and crawler tractors that were used in Tasmania’s rugged timber country..................

..................When my wages improved I was able to purchase an old Indian Scout motor bike for 13 Pounds and it enabled me to tour much of Tassie...........

.................In 1948 I got a job in New Guinea, servicing and maintaining the Australasian Petroleum company’s Port Moresby fleet of vehicles and boats. I had ten local Papuans on my staff and I had to learn Pidgin very quickly in order to have any communication at all. The pay was good but the heat and humidity, especially in my tin shed workshop, was terrible. I sweated as never before. Native wash-wash boys did our laundry, but as they couldn’t read our name tags, we rarely got our own clothes back. The Papuans were called Fuzzy Wuzzys because of their massive crop of black curly hair. They were the happiest folk I had ever seen, perhaps partly because they chewed beetle nut which tended to make their teeth red and themselves a little drunk. Port Moresby was a man’s town. The native girls wore grass skirts and were very pretty, but it was greatly frowned upon for Australian men to mix with them.

There was an extreme shortage of white girls and you needed to have the qualities of Clark Gable in order to get a girl on your arm...................

New Guineans from Port Moresby

..................Returning from New Guinea in 1949 I joined up with a team of would be crocodile hunters from Brisbane, who were undertaking hunting in the Gulf of Carpentaria. The venture turned out to be a classic failure, blokes were scared, fighting each other, worried about girl friends and wives and were not suitable to the task. However for me it was one of the most thrilling adventures I’d had to that time............................

Croc hunting team that was doomed to failure – most were not suited for a tough bush life style='font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>

...............After the hunting failure I worked in Darwin for six months for John Stubbs & Co and left on the 18th May 1950. I teamed up with a bloke from Sydney called Laurie and we shared expenses in driving my 1935 Studebaker down the West Australian coast to Perth.

After we left Katherine the road deteriorated until really there was no road. Just a rough boulder-strewn two wheel track over some very rugged creek beds. The Studebaker was too low to the ground and not suited for this mighty 3,000 mile slog.

It soon became clear that we were making such slow progress that we were going to run out of food. We couldn’t buy any more food until we got to Halls Creek and that was 500 miles away. But we both had guns and plenty of ammunition to shoot wild duck, pigeons and kangaroo. We also had a large container of water that could be refilled from the occasional billabong, or the Victoria River that wound hundreds of miles to Wave Hill Station.................

....................It was dark when we got there and every time we tried to find the main route south we finished up at one of the many windmills, so we decided to enquire at the Police Station. The sergeant on duty gave us directions but he was very concerned that we were attempting the journey in such an unsuitable vehicle. Anyway he documented us thoroughly and then checked on our meagre food supplies which he said were grossly insufficient. He asked us to wait while he went inside his house and then he came back with cabbages, potatoes, watermelons, bread and tins of food, saying that this should ensure us a safer passage. So off we went on our southern safari..................

..................From Wave Hill the track wound around and over flat boulders and then traversed seemingly endless plains of cracked clay which almost shook the car to pieces until we finally got to Inverway and Nicholson Stations. We bought fuel at Nicholson and the manager offered me £300 for my Studebaker plus a similar year........................

Studebaker on the Roebuck Plain near Broome in 1950

.....................After Nicholson the track entered very hilly country with hundreds of creek crossings that continued and greatly slowed our progress all the way to Halls Creek. I had to change gears so many times that my left leg ached from repeatedly engaging the Studebaker`s stiff clutch pedal. Interesting sightings were the many wild donkeys, feral pigs, dingoes, emus, eagles and millions of large termite mounds which had been an impressive feature all the way from Darwin..............

.............The original town of Halls Creek had been abandoned and the only landmark was the decaying walls of the old Post Office. It was built from termite mounds and stood bare and stark on the parched earth. We continued past Broome, Port Hedland and on to Roeburne and checked out the old Roeburne jail where many of our indigenous people endured...................

The way it was - Horrible treatment of Aborigines near Roeburne jail – Courtesy Battye Library

......................By the time I arrived in Perth it was late evening. I couldn’t find accommodation so I drove around town and finally settled on a nice grassy area below the steep bank of King’s Park. I knew that West Australia had some pretty stiff gun laws, so I hid my 303 rifle, my 12 gauge shotgun and my revolver along the top of the engine. Luckily the motor was a straight eight, so they all fitted with the hood closed. However, about 2 or 3am I was rudely awakened from my canvas sleeping bag by two coppers with a bright torch.

They fired the usual questions at me: Why was I illegally camped? Did I have a licence? Was the car registered? They then checked the inside of the Studebaker with the torch....................

.....................During the 1950’s in Perth, I built a fleet of heavy lift cranes which were a major success and were readily hired by all types of industries. However the exciting 1949 crocodile safari trip in the Gulf of Carpentaria still lingered in my mind and as the crane business was bringing in the dollars.....................

My 2^nd Goliath crane, which I built in James Street Perth

...................I decided to return to the Gulf with my wife Audrey, sister Margaret and fox terrier Tiger, to hunt crocodiles and try and make a home movie to show people the variety of wildlife, fishing and the magnitude of the country itself. Folk in Australia had little knowledge of the inland desert country and the Northern Territory. So in 1954 we loaded our 1948 Buick and trailer carrying an upturned home-made plywood dinghy....................

...................With mile after mile of hard yakka we were very glad to see the Rawlinson Ranges appear above the dunes. They were a joyful indication that we were on course and would provide a good place to camp for a couple of days.

I then climbed the mountain, secretly hoping that I would get lucky and trip over some of Lasseter’s gold. Well, I didn’t find any gold, but I did get a good look over to the other side and saw the vast expanses of the Gibson Desert stretching into the distance and disappearing into the Great Sandy Desert. At the base of the Rawlinsons the track followed the mountain slopes and of course was no longer of sand. It changed to rocky gravel with lots of deep ruts caused by water runoff. The ruts were so deep in places that the front bumper struck the road many times, consequently further slowing our progress...................

....................Ten or more miles along this track we passed a series of small burnt areas about half a mile apart, these became more frequent as we progressed with some areas still burning. At the last fire we were stopped by an emaciated young black woman and two piccaninnies who were waving frantically while holding a billy can. The fires we noticed earlier were apparently used by the three to warm themselves and to cook their survival tucker, probably small reptiles. The girl seemed to have come to the end of her tether. She was a most pathetic sight as she waved her large billy can signalling for water. This girl, no more than 18 or 19 years of age, was just skin and bone with a huge facial growth that horribly distorted her appearance. In her neck just below the tumour, was a dirty inflamed hole that secreted a runny white puss. It flowed down her flattened breast to a putrid cloth wrapped around her waist. The smell of this poor soul was unbelievable...................

...................We readily supplied her with water along with a loaf of bread, apples, potatoes and several cans of food. This meant we would have to tighten our own belts, but there was clearly no choice. It was easy to understand the girl’s predicament. She was exhausted, she had no food or water and she was bloody miles from anywhere, trying to survive on goodness knows what. She was still attempting to feed her two swollen-bellied young boys through her collapsed breasts, but it looked as though the milk had ceased to flow months past. Our inability to understand each other in such circumstances was quite distressing and any help we could give was certainly limited. Accompanying the trio was a half-breed dingo pup, a bag of bones if ever there was. With sign language and limited pidgin we achieved some understanding. It appeared she was.....................

........................On the Robinson River in the Gulf, both Audrey and Margaret turned out to be fantastic rowers, capable of quietly rowing the dinghy for hours and often within two or three feet of crocodiles.

From time to time there were exciting challenges like the one that produced the greatest adrenalin rush of our lives. We sighted a massive seventeen foot reptile in the beam of the spotlight as it slowly slithered from the bank into the water.

We were directly in its path and it was about four feet underwater by the time the harpoon was aimed and fired, striking the crocodile mid-section in the back. As a result it speedily towed the boat several times around a fifty yard wide section of the river before resting about ten feet under. It was evidently fearful to cross the shallow sand bars at each end.......................

..................Because this monster was nearly as large as the twenty foot crocodile we had caught earlier, I decided on a different approach. I resolved not to wait for the crocodile to rise. I planned to jab a long hand-held harpoon into the reptile and so pull it to the surface where it could be shot.

We were able to assess the position of the crocodile by the angle of the gun’s harpoon cord. Consequently we placed the dinghy directly above it. That achieved, I thrust the hand harpoon into the water, striking but not penetrating the crocodile’s back, probably hitting one of its horned scales. This of course stirred the creature into violent action. It swam around and around half a dozen more times before again coming to rest. We cautiously waited a few minutes before I made another attempt. However before that materialised, the huge reptile rose from the river bed and clamped his powerful jaws on the bow, crunching through the thin plywood shell and locked on to the metal frame.........................

......................Fishing in the Gulf and its rivers was unbelievable. There were many species that we caught, some of which were queen fish, tuna, barracuda, mackerel, groper, threadfin salmon, barramundi, red emperor, coral trout, mangrove jack, bream, mullet, lobsters, mud crabs, groper, hammer head and tiger sharks. Such abundance of fish and wildlife in this region made it worthy of being a marine sanctuary............................

After returning from our Gulf trip it was time to put film together and test its potential

Sydney was my greatest Australian challenge and it was helped by Peter Bowers of the Sydney Morning Herald who wrote this editorial...............

Do-it-yourself Film is Box Office

An Australian Film, and a home movie at that, is about to revive a Sydney Theatre that Hollywood with all its slick professionalism, could not save. Hoyts Ashfield, closed since late last year through lack of patronage, re-opens on Friday to show Northern Safari, a film that has everything. Everything, it would seem, to make it an instant flop. Northern Safari is essentially a family show, A one - Family show. It was made by Keith F. Adams. Edited by Keith F. Adams and is narrated by Keith F. Adams. He recorded the sound track in the lounge room of his home in Burniston Street, Scarborough, a Perth suburb. It stars the Adams family, Keith, his wife Audrey, his sister Margaret and Tiger, the Adams fox terrier.

It records the adventures of the Adams family on a 7,000 mile expedition from Perth to the Gulf country and back, and Northern Safari is not a foot under two and a half hours long. Alfred Hitchcock himself would not dare to make a documentary of that length. Being an amateur and knowing no better, Keith F. Adams has dared so brazenly that he has produced the classic of home movies - a sort of do-it-yourself ‘Gone with the Wind’.....................

..................When the curtain goes up on Friday night on the Adams epic, who do you think will be operating the 16mm projector? Who else but Keith F. Adams.

My first major test at the Ashfield Cinema in Sydney in 1966

Chris Greenwood wrote a Review in Australia’s Pix Magazine in 1966:

Keith’s Home Movie Laid ‘Em in the Croco-Aisles!

The American film executives were astounded – almost incredulous. There was this Australian guy who had gone out with his home movie outfit and shot single-handed a documentary nearly three hours long that should have needed a technical crew of at least thirty.

Recently out of interest Keith persuaded Hoyts to hire him the old closed down Ashfield cinema in Sydney’s western suburbs. Then one Friday evening, with the minimum of fuss or advertising beforehand, he opened his doors to the public. Over 1,800 people filed in, paying $1.00 or $1.50 for their tickets and took their seats in the musty, dusty old theatre.

Keith started up his 16mm projector, balanced on a table in the middle of the vast auditorium, and Northern Safari splashed in brilliant colour across the screen. At half time the audience clapped heartily. But when the film finally finished - they sprang to their feet cheering and stamping.................

1970 London Cinema Review by Joe St. John:

The Stark, Vast Life on Safari in Northern Australia

When it comes to documentaries about life in the raw - in any part of the world - I fall for the sucker punch, and when readers of this page brought to my notice an advertisement in an evening newspaper and asked me what the film was all about, I was stumped and intrigued.

Northern Safari, with a U-certificate, and showing exclusively at the New Gallery Theatre, 123 Regent street, London, W. 1. is a two and three quarter hour documentary in colour about the Australian outback and wildlife. It is simply an adventure story which shows the vast Australian continent as it really is - beautiful, ancient, cruel, horribly stark and never ending. All this has been caught in a professional way by Keith Adams. We in Britain, and even most Australians in Australia, should feel lucky indeed to have had the dangers and the excitement of a hazardous safari brought to the comfort of our cinemas.

Thanks to Mr. Adams, we can sit in safety and see what the primitive world was like through the remarkable two hour programme offered by this young Australian.

I was shocked to learn about the apathy and the snubs Mr. Adams met with when trying to “book” his brilliant film into London cinemas. I am also appalled at the way fellow film critics from the national papers ignored an invitation to see the film.

To them I say....................

.....................In 1972 I was in Crewe in Cheshire, England to help my mate Tom to launch Northern Safari and after completing a few shows I booked my airfare to Johannesburg..................

....................In South Africa I had to fly to Cape Town to obtain censorship-clearance for Northern Safari. The censor board of South Africa was particularly tough on films which showed black and white people together. But in my case six censors (three men and three women) unanimously approved the film for general exhibition and issued an A-class certificate. They told me that they had thoroughly enjoyed the screening and felt Northern Safari was going to be a real winner in their country. I was cautioned  that under no  circumstances could I  screen to a combined audience of black and white folk. But it was OK to admit either Chinese or Japanese as they were classified as honorary whites.

With the film being approved by the censor, we were free to exhibit and as Johannesburg City Hall was the main entertainment venue, we hired it for the South African premiere.

The hall was a twin floored building seating close to two thousand. Our accommodationin  the city was  a  large two  bedroom unit in a newly completed block of flats in Hillbrow, some 6000 feet above sea level. It was there I had to convert the two American 60 cycle 115 volt Bell & Howell projectors to suit Johannesburg’s power supply of 50 cycle 240-250 voltage. This operation required a transformer and considerable trial and error machining of the drive pulleys to maintain the correct speed.

I then ran the film through the projectors several times to ensure they could do the job. A slight overheating seemed to be the only outcome. However, as that was not a major problem, the stage was set for screening Northern Safari in South Africa. Opening night saw a capacity crowd attend the Johannesburg City Hall. But our pleasure and excitement were unfortunately short-lived. Fifteen minutes into the show, the lamp faded to a deep purple, making the image dull and horrible. I quickly changed machines and all ran smoothly for a further half hour before its lamp also lost its brilliance. I changed back to the first projector and managed perhaps another twenty minutes before a final change that lasted only ten minutes. By this time the projectors had got so hot that they ceased to function. What could I do? I was locked into a horribly embarrassing predicament. I had no way of continuing.

We had now screened a little over half the film in an absolutely deplorable manner. The worst thing was that it was a premiere showing in the biggest city in South Africa. I went up on stage with my South African colleague Clyde Sussens and sincerely apologised for the breakdown and the awful presentation. I announced that all patrons could get a total refund or a free ticket for any of the following performances. At that point my South African mate grabbed the microphone and unbelievably told the audience that “South Africans were wonderful people and as such fully understood the collapse of my presentation.”

Those words to my astonishment persuaded a large proportion of our patrons to clap and cheer with great enthusiasm. This was fair dinkum amazing stuff. Here were people applauding a broken down show and many not even bothering to collect a refund or a replacement ticket...................

Gem of a Travel Film

I had certain reservations about being assigned to review this Australian travel film the other night. But less than ten minutes after settling in to my seat, all those reservations had been dispelled.

Northern Safari features an intrepid Australian by the name of Keith Adams and his equally intrepid wife and sister, on a seven thousand mile round trip, through the Australian outback.

The two and three-quarter hour colour documentary captures all the character, vastness, fascination, beauty and even the ugliness which makes Australia the unique country it is. For an amateur photographer, you have to admit Adams has done an amazing job, primitive Aborigines, breathtaking scenery and spectacular action shots of just about every animal, reptile, mammal, insect and bird under the sun. It’s all there, and of course there’s always Tiger Adams the undoubted scene-stealer of the film. Tiger, a little Fox Terrier who is as game as Ned Kelly himself, features prominently in the film’s highlights as he does battle with emus, snakes, dingoes and even crocodiles and sharks.................

...........The City Hall venue was really too large and in any case it wasn’t frequently available for hire, so we moved next door to the smaller Selbourne Hall which used the same entrance. It was during the Selbourne run that I allowed my ticket box to be used for a City Hall wrestling match and when that evening came there was a massive crowed clamouring for tickets. They were mainly there for the wrestling but a few were for Northern Safari. I was running a bit late that evening and when I tried to enter City Hall to open my venue, I was prevented from doing so by two burly arrogant Afrikaaner bouncers who were controlling the crowd. I argued my case but I got nowhere. The only response was a huge fist waved threateningly in my face and me being told to get lost.

Okay, I was quickly out of there to try a different approach. I banged on the glass-panelled doors of City Hall to attract the attention of a police sergeant seated in the foyer. However this effort was futile because the officer refused to get off his behind to investigate. I started to get very annoyed and I subsequently smashed the glass window, which speedily got him into gear. I requested he let me in to open my show in Selbourne Hall but that was ignored. I suggested he hold my hand and take me to the hall manager, but that too was refused. I got so mad that I felt like punching the hell out of all of them. I had made a simple and reasonable request and I was entitled to a response, yet this no-hoper of a police sergeant wouldn’t assist. Finally after half an hour the hall manager appeared and..................

.......................After screenings in Pretoria were completed, My secretary and I hired a car and took a lovely drive through the Kruger National Park to Windhoek in Namibia, South West Africa. The journey was absolutely wonderful. We saw a great variety of wildlife and stayed overnight in the thatch-roofed shelters of the park’s compounds. At one compound, an intriguing display.................   

......................After the Kruger Park, we did a leisurely four day drive to Windhoek in South West Africa. There we hired a lovely theatre seating about 900. After completing about a week’s publicity, we enjoyed several choc-a-bloc full houses................

..................The black people there were of the Herero tribe and differed considerably in dress from those in the east. Their women wore very wide billowing skirts and large, triangular-shaped headdresses. They seemed to be a proud race.

After a couple of days at Walvis Bay I drove back to Johannesburg fringing the vast Namib Desert where huge shifting red sand dunes (the highest on earth) were an amazing sight. This was where we sighted our first Long Horned Oryx. When we got back to Johannesburg, my secretary boarded a plane for England....................

....................At this period in time South Africa was a very prosperous country with the Rand worth 20 cents more than the Australian dollar. I had no trouble whatsoever obtaining Reserve Bank approval for remitting funds to my company in the Channel Islands. My Standard Bank in Eloff Street Johannesburg always arranged that task.

Taxation in South Africa was comparatively light and once all book work was complete, I then enjoyed the companionship of my popular friend Clyde Sussens. Clyde had stayed with me in Australia for several weeks during 1960. He was a fearless character, who operated game-hunting safaris into the wilds of Africa and on a couple of occasions had been attacked and mauled by lions, luckily living to tell the tale.

At times he enjoyed testing my resolve. He tried to scare the pants off me by not taking guns during a walk through a lion-inhabited area of his game farm. I was pretty concerned about it too, but being an Aussie battler, I just couldn’t afford to show any signs of being scared. Anyway luckily we didn’t meet any lions. If we had been attacked, the drill was to stand one’s ground and definitely not run. That would have been a big ask, I reckon.....................

.....................Clyde had his own aircraft, a single engine four seater Cessna which he frequently used to visit his game farm on the Lowveld. He and I had left Pretoria and had been flying for a short time towards his farm when thick clouds prevented any view of land. Clyde knew the geography of the area well and roughly where his farm was but nevertheless was fearful of penetrating the thick clouds covering the 6000 feet Drakgensberg Escarpment. This Escarpment was a great inland plateau that covered almost three quarters of South Africa, falling thousands of feet to the Lowveld.

We circled for half an hour at about 9000 feet hoping for a break in the clouds.

A misty gap appeared for about three minutes, sufficient time for Clyde to recognise a railway line. With our fingers crossed, Clyde dived the plane towards the gap which had closed by the time we reached it. We continued through the thick clouds until the rail line was again in view. It was scary stuff, not only because of the Escarpment but the possibility of flying into flocks of circling vultures......................

......................Another worrying time was when Clyde, his black worker, and I sighted elephants while driving in an open jeep. There were four large animals and a young calf feeding near a ridge where a steep bank fell sharply to one side. They were about thirty to forty yards from where we stopped the car. Clyde said, “Come on, old Keith, we’ll give these elephants a fright.” This was something I hadn’t wished to hear. Especially when he told his assistant to take the driver’s seat and keep the engine running ready for a quick getaway.

Two of the elephants had big tusks; one, a large female was closest and this was the animal Clyde said to throw a lump of wood at. I had no idea of how they would react, but as Clyde carried far too much weight, I knew I could beat him if a run to the vehicle was necessary. Being very cautious I made sure I stayed close to Clyde’s side as we approached. Making a quick run at the cow elephant we simultaneously hurled our wood and then made a hurried departure. Neither piece found its mark, but our effort just caused the animal to make a sort of mock charge at us and wave its massive ears.

Not satisfied with this result Clyde said we had to go closer and actually make a hit. So once more we ventured towards the same elephant and as we closed the gap, the enormous ears waved again. It appeared to be smelling the air with its trunk. We were now very close and I was about two strides behind my mate preparing to throw the wood when the elephant suddenly charged. I had no idea such a huge beast could run so fast. Needless to say we were quickly mobile. But when we saw our Jeep speed off without us, we jumped from the top of the steep ridge where the elephants had been feeding. We were airborne some fifteen to twenty feet before our shoes finally made contact with the slope.

The elephant, luckily for us, stopped on top of the bank, stirring up dust and fanning its ears. I figured that was enough excitement for anyone. So we went back to the jeep where Clyde blasted hell out of his worker. However, I think if I had been the driver, I would have done the same.

Though Clyde did some very reckless things, he was nevertheless a fair dinkum corker bloke and a fun guy to be with. We were the same age and during his stay in Australia I took him around the islands in the Gulf of Carpentaria, a trip which he greatly enjoyed.

Reciprocating in South Africa, Clyde took me in a light aircraft to the Victoria Falls in Rhodesia. On the way we stayed over at his brother Lolly’s Choby River Safari Lodge, a pretty exotic place where we indulged in water skiing and viewing hippos, elephants and other wild life while we motored down the river..............

...................On another occasion Clyde invited me with five of his friends to a game farm on the Lowveld, where I was delegated to shoot a lioness that had crossed into Clyde’s property. It had been noticed by his farm hand with a trap clamped to its front leg and dragging a chain.

By the time I arrived on the scene the lioness had wandered into thick grassy scrub country behind a hill, where it was assumed to be resting. This then was the scene in which I had to end the animal’s suffering. Once again I couldn’t afford to show any sign of cowardice, especially while among Clyde’s pals who had all seen Northern Safari. So with rifle in hand, and wondering how accurate it was, I slowly walked up behind the rise with my heart pounding and eyeballs almost popping out of their sockets. Trying to locate a lioness camouflaged in bush of similar colour wasn’t all that easy.

For anyone familiar with lions in the wild, this task would probably have been a piece of cake, but it wasn’t so easy for a rookie like me. Anyway I slowly and quietly had covered about two hundred yards when I heard a deep growl. I had got within....................

......................In 1986 my daughter Joanne took time off from her job at Telecom. I got the Rambler ready and off we went.

Arriving at the Borroloola McArthur River boat ramp, police had blocked our path with a dead thirteen foot crocodile. They had cut off the croc’s head and opened its stomach to remove the mutilated arms, leg and the head of a bloke called Lee McLeod.

McLeod was not a permanent resident of Borroloola, but like most Borroloolans he loved a can or two. After a few beers he and his mate were sleeping on the bank of the McArthur River near the boat ramp during the night of September 6th 1986. By daylight McLeod was nowhere to be found. His cobber alerted police and they began a search.

Don’t get caught by a crocodile – Within 24 hours’ stomach acids had already dissolved skin and flesh.

They found one of McLeod’s legs that the crocodile had bitten off and flung onto the river bank. This crocodile had been lurking near the boat ramp area for years and had often come a little too close for comfort to where I camped during my Borroloola visits. At night I had frequently seen this crocodile waiting within five yards of the Rambler; but whenever I approached it with a torch, its dull red eyes would slowly disappear below the surface. McLeod’s death was a gruesome reminder of the crocodile’s patience and cunning as a hunter. Police in a boat with spotlight located the killer croc about a mile or so from where the victim had entered the water. They shot it, towed it to shore and removed the man’s head and limbs.

On my crocodile safaris I have seen sixteen foot reptiles lying on rocks and banks with their mouths agape. The lower portion becomes submerged in a rising tide, and the croc waits motionless for hours for a large fish that will ultimately run the gauntlet. The fish usually loses this game of Russian roulette to the power and speed of the clashing jaws. Crocodiles have excellent eyesight during both day and night and are able to distinguish a dingo or kangaroo on the river bank from great distances; they then bide their time waiting for the most likely place to attack. Crocodiles dined on these wild animals, fish and birds until man over-fished, poisoned, trapped and shot their traditional prey. Crocodiles now have to wander further afield to feed and survive, so it’s no wonder.....................

.......................For the 2003 safari, I arranged to take my daughter Joanne, son in law Dean Treacy and their two children Jarred and Mitchell for a safari to the Gulf of Carpentaria. At King Ash Bay on the McArthur River, we sheltered in the ruins of the old Jelly fish factory, a dirty but necessary place to avoid the scorching sun. The ruins also served as a staging point for scores of cane toads that originally were introduced to Queensland in 1835, but I first sighted at Borroloola in 1992....................

......................The tide was half out and wind strong as we reached the McArthur River mouth, requiring assessment of whether to proceed or stay overnight. Deciding to stay, I secured my overloaded boat with front and back anchors, facing upstream in a fast flowing current. Some hours later I did a check and to my horror discovered a dangerous level of water inside. River waves caused by current and wind had been splashing over the transom. The bilge pump was incapable of reversing water flow making it necessary to pull the rear anchor, but in doing so water entered rapidly, creating a circumstance that pretty well sealed the boat’s fate. I desperately yelled and beckoned to Dean who was testing his boat 150 yards away but he was unable to see or hear. I was hoping he could pull the anchor or kill the waves behind me until the bilge pump could do its job........ .......However I did the Captain thing, staying with the boat until it sank...........

...................The aftermath of this tragedy must have been quite comical, there were plastic bags full of bedding and clothing, water containers, cartons of food, eskies, life jackets and two 60 litre fuel tanks along with myself being rapidly carried downstream. At the time I thought Jesus, I’m too old for this caper.

Dean came to the rescue pulled me in and by the time we retrieved most of our gear we were half a mile downstream..................

................Staying overnight, all jammed into one wet tent was a tough task and sleep not a reality. It appeared at the time that Dean’s long awaited holiday was off..................

.................During attempts to salvage the boat, a rope broke causing a shackle to strike Dean’s hand fracturing a bone and mangled the flesh on.......................

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