As you know quite a few people believe David Icke’s theory that many of the world’s most prominent figures belong to the Babylonian Brotherhood — a group of shapeshifting reptilian humanoids determined to control the world and establish the New World Order.
Dave told the Daily Star that the shapeshifting lizards include porn stars, presidents and Prince Philip. Nothing to argue with there. In fact, many shape shifters, including your correspondent, the world’s best BMW technician Michael McMichael, Rally School’s Mick Ryan and those Irish brothers, Alex and Andrew von Brandenstein, will be rendezvousing in Torrens Parade Ground, Adelaide, on May 27, for the start of the 2017 Shitbox Rally.
From there we drive the nearly 4000km to Cairns the back way, traversing the Oodnadatta Track and the wrongly named Plenty Highway in cars costing less than $1000 — perfect for second-hand Teslas. Oh wait. There’s not many electric sockets on the 453km to Oodnadatta. And the only things generous about the 598km Plenty Highway are the bulldust and rocks. Bulldust is a fine red dust that swallows cars whole.
Anyway, this rally a surprisingly long way away from events like the Rallye Automobile Monte-Carlo, not just in geography but in sophistication. In this years’ Monte Carlo Rally we saw the M-Sport World Rally Team take line honours from Toyota Racing, with Hyundai Motorsport and Citroen Total coming up behind.
In the 2017 Shitbox Rally likely pole places will go to Knockers N Nuts, Piston Broke, Two Dicks Outback and Bill & Ben, The Flowerpot Men.
For new readers and older ones with memory problems here are some lowlights from this paper and other multimedia platforms’ rally team in previous years.
Adelaide’s best BMW technician, Michael McMichael, made the mistake of taking his youngest daughter Libby on the 2015 rally. After smelling petrol and seeing his fuel gauge dropping faster than the Australian dollar, Michael stopped his $700 Beemer and found a large hole in the petrol tank. Naturally, being an Adelaide man and skilled mechanic, he wanted to keep driving, although he was leaking more fuel than the Exxon Valdez.
Told he was driving a ticking time bomb, he agreed that the Beemer should be repaired with chewing gum. This was after one of the more intelligent persons on our team suggested we needed to get a good look at the hole even though it was pitch black. We just managed to pull that lad out from under the car as he got the cigarette lighter out of his shirt pocket.
Then there was the breakfast at the Birdsville Bakery, which offers tasty morning treats like curried camel and claret pies, kangaroo and sav blanc pies, rabbit (caution: small bones) pies, spicy chook, broo and roo pies, and roadkill (emu, wallaby, kangaroo and crocodile) pies. Talking of emu, it was easy to see that the members of The Weekend Australian Rally Team were not exactly knowledgeable about life outside the cities. Seeing an example of Australian wildlife running for the car we discussed whether it was:
a) a kangaroo, b) a wallaby, c) a wombat or d) a platypus.
My co-driver Paul Marshall, a Seven Network TV journalist, said it reminded him of something he saw on the Australian coat of arms last time he was in court — a kangaroo. Later a local said that our photograph clearly showed it was an emu.
Last year the rally went from Mackay to Hobart. As driving across Bass Strait takes too long, Shitbox organisers decided to use the ferry and make the trip, appropriately enough, a pirate party. The 200 shitboxes gathered in the Melbourne seaside town of St Kilda (population 17,795) to board the ferry. You can get some idea of the features of this Beaulieu-sur-Mer with Luna Park from songs such as Killed her in St Kilda by Voodoo Lovecats, St Kilda Nights by Purple Dentists and Melodies of St Kilda by Master’s Apprentices.
The locals were pleased to see 400 or so of Australia’s, two of Tasmania’s, one of France’s and one of Canada’s finest, dressed to varying degrees as pirates. Not many were arrested. Then it was on to that mightiest defender of our country’s seas — the Spirit of Tasmania.
For those Greek, Tasmanian and other foreign readers the Spirit is the only transport between the two countries, Australia and Tasmania. Unlike her sister ship the Titanic, the Spirit was built in 1998 in Finland. After a series of near sinkings, engine failures, listeria and leprosy outbreaks it was decided to find some chump to buy what was then named the Marie Celeste.
Readers, you know the outcome. The same Australian government that gave the sinkers of Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior the contract to build three submarines for $60 trillion bought the daughter of the Titanic and renamed the former mothballed rusting hulk the Spirit of Tasmania. Now many of our pirates hadn’t been on any sort of ship before and by the time the waves in Bass Strait were approaching 20m there wasn’t too much Johnny Depp — much more Les Paterson talking to Bill and Bert on the big white telephone. For those Greek, Tasmanian and other foreign readers, talking to Bill and Bert is local slang for projectile vomiting due to acute seas sickness bordering on death.
Please come and see us in Adelaide on the 28th for the usual free Weekend Australian giveaways and in Cairns on June 2, to see if we still exist. Better still donate to the Cancer Council through our team: https://shitboxrallyau-2017.everydayhero.com/au/weekend-australian-motoring.
This is a shortened version of the original article – read the rest at The Australian
