McArthur Boys – Adventurers
Well, Nicky and I were enjoying one of our camping adventures when Nicky came out with the question “Was Great Grandpa an adventurer?”
Nicky is learning to read the GPS and to plot the coordinates on a paper map, so we don't get lost in the outback.
I had to think for a bit, saying that he was an adventurer but in a different sort of a way. But first the context:
My mum, Nanna, died well before Nicky’s time, in fact, Nicky’s dad would have been about four when she died. My dad, Great Grandpa, died a couple of months ago.
Nicky had met his Great Grandpa only a couple of times; the tyranny of distance, ya know. We all, three generations of us, made the trip to Melbourne to visit my dad about a year before he died. It was great to get photos of the four generations of McArthur boys.
So that’s about the limit of Nicky’s relationship with his Great Grandpa and it’s in this context that he was inquiring whether the adventurer spirit has come down the line.
We sat by the open fire of Seven Gates Hut and had a story about Great Grandpa being an adventurer, too.
With tea out of the way, we sat by the open fire of Seven Gates Hut, for some cheery light and I relayed a story, once told to me, of an adventure that happened before I was borne.
My mum and dad did it pretty tough when they started out together in married life toward the end of the Second World War. Not only was money scarce, but many essential items were rationed.
But Mum and Dad went on a holiday. Yes, they harnessed up Robbie the horse in the jinker and went about 80 kilometres from Lower Plenty to Rosebud, on Port Phillip Bay.
On the way home, it got dark and a policeman made them buy a torch and put a red rag on it for a tail light.
As the night wore on, Robbie got tired and stopped in his tracks, asleep on his feet in the shafts. They couldn’t move him; sound asleep!
Well, that’s about all I know of the story. Nicky said “That’s a great adventure story, Granddad” which made me feel pretty good about my dad and my mum, too; real adventurers!
I guess the adventurer spirit has come down the line of the McArthur boys.
