Birtles and the Bean: NT’s wet season an electrifying time journey

The recreation of Francis Birtles’ epic 1927 drive from London to Melbourne has had some hair-raising moments across the globe — but Australia’s Top End topped the lot.

The electric pink lightning bolt speared through the driving rain and hit the side of the road just 200 metres ahead of us — driving an open-topped vintage car through the Northern Territory wet season is not for the faint-hearted.

“Frankly, that is terrifying,” said soaked co-driver Warren Brown from the passenger seat as another pair of purple bolts flashed down to the left. “Keep going.”

The recreation of Francis Birtles epic 1927 drive from London to Melbourne in the same model Bean roadster has had some hair-raising moments across the globe from London, across Europe, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and on to Singapore — but Australia’s Top End topped the lot.

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The forecast for crossing the Barkly Tableland from Tennant Creek to Camooweal just over the Queensland border was a blistering 45C. We were braced for another day roasting in the fan forced heat of the Australian summer.

Instead the ominous black sky produced shotgun pellets of rain that stung the skin, fogged the goggles and left every item of clothing soaking wet for hours.

Warren Brown (left) and Matthew Benns with their Bean roadster at Daly Waters in the Northern Territory. Picture: Nigel Wright

Through it all the 100-year-old Bean roadster did not miss a beat. This is a car that scaled the Austrian alps, circumnavigated the Egyptian pyramids, pounded across the Saudi Arabian sands and carved through Singapore’s cloying humidity without complaint.

Even more importantly, it has nursed its drivers over thousands of kilometres in noisy discomfort and put up with the demands of their ridiculous flights of fancy such as the detour to the abandoned Gorrie Airfield off the Stuart Highway in the NT.

Our intrepid travellers sporting some fetching red mud. Picture: Nigel Wright

Once the largest World War II aircraft service and repair base in the Northern Territory, it is now just a perfectly smooth red runway found at the end of a winding, giant mud puddle-filled track.

Perfect, then, for putting a 100-year-old red roadster through its paces while singing the theme from The Dam Busters and pretending to be taking off in a Liberator bomber.

Good times.

More importantly, the trip is raising money for the Royal Flying Doctor Service and has touched the hearts of people along the way.

At the Daly Waters Highway Inn servo, local Kim Harries took the team’s breath away.

“I shouted your fuel for you guys because you are raising money for the Royal Flying Doctor Service and, being in a remote area, we know they are a vital part of being in The Outback,” she said.

So far the drive has raised more than $110,000, with Australians stopping the car along the way to put money in the RFDS collecting tins.

Linda Cartman, cook at the Ampol servo in Tennant Creek, came out to take a photograph of the car on the forecourt.

“I have never seen anything like it,” she said.

“It is even better that you are raising money for the Royal Flying Doctor Service because we are in a remote area and we know how important they are.”

To donate go to: Royal Flying Doctor Service – Birtles and the Bean fundraising for the Flying Doctor (doyourthing.org.au)