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"The World's most colossal,
flipping home movie show"
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Recent review by
Danny Mortison, Townsville Bulletin:
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When
Keith Adams loaded his wife, sister and dog into his Buick in 1955 for
an expedition from Perth to the Gulf, the film he took of his travels was
the first real Australian nature film. And, as he tells DANNY MORTISON,
it made him a millionaire
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The ORIGINAL CROCODILE HUNTER
Keith Adams with a
crocodile that took six hours to land
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Many
people take for granted a trip to the Top End, but to do a trip back in
1955 in an old car from Perth across the Gibson Desert and north to the
Gulf may well have been considered lunacy.
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However
such a journey made by Keith Adams with his wife Audrey, sister
Margaret, and a crazy fox terrier named Tiger which he caught on a home
movie camera changed his life forever.
They travelled
in a 1948 Buick without backup or radio and followed the old camel
trails that wound across Central Australia to The Gulf of Carpentaria
and returned down the West Coast.
The
journey turned unknown diesel engineer Keith Adams, into a millionaire as
he later travelled Australia and then the world showing the film from
the wilds of Australia’s north. He called his film “Northern Safari”.
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Margaret
& Audrey with
jaws of Tiger
Shark
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He also wanted
to prove to people in his home town of Perth that what he talked about
from his trips to the Gulf were true.“I used to tell people about my
adventures in the outback and they just wouldn’t believe me, so I decided
to take the movie along on this trip just to show them what it was like.
I never knew it would be so popular,” Keith said this week from his home
base.
Now “Northern Safari”
is on DVD and he has written his life story in a ripper book Titled “Crocodile Safari Man”. It shows how human ingenuity can get you through
the rough patches.
Keith
still likes an annual pilgrimage to the Gulf where he travels across to
North Island in the Edward Pellew Group.
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Colleagues
at the Townsville Bulletin remember lining up at the picture shows in
Brisbane in the late ‘60s with their dads to see what was then unique
footage of snakes and crocodiles twice the size of his boat, sharks
that would normally eat you, mammals, scorpions and a multitude of our
exotic Australian birdlife, make this an adventure to live over and
over again.
The
film is as rough as the tracks Keith had to cross, as beautiful as a
western sunset and as dirty as the millions of flies which descended on
their base camp in the Gulf country when they were cooking, but it’s
the stuff pure adventure is made of.
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Something
as cheap as a washer on a main drive shaft had them stranded in the
heat of the Gibson Desert, forcing Keith to pull the gearbox down and manufacture
another part out of a piece of tin en route.
On the
way out of the Gulf country his vehicle and trailer get stuck in a
creek up to the axle. In 1955 power winches were yet to be invented and
the method used to extricate the vehicle has you cheering for the
science of invention.
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Gould's
Goanna
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For 30
years Keith and his team screened the film in every state in Australia,
and then in the US, Canada, England, Holland, Germany, South Africa,
Rhodesia and New Zealand. It broke hundreds of town hall box office
records and in some cinemas he did better than The Sound of Music and
Jesus Christ Superstar.
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Paul
Hogan wasn’t even an apprentice rigger on the Harbour Bridge when this
guy showed how the real Crocodile Dundee got out there in
adventureland.
Keith
paid for his original trips to the Gulf by snaring a few crocs, in the
days before the saurians were “protected”.
The way
he catches stuff is nothing less than amazing, but that’s just how it
was in those days. Chance encounters with the Aborigines of Central and
Northern Australia and film of how they collected and cooked food is an
education in itself.
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The home made eleven feet dingy is made of 3/16"
marine ply rivited to an aluminium frame. It did a marvellous job
coping with the ardious crossing of Australia's Deserts and savage
attacks by monster crocodiles.
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The film
has only recently been put onto DVD and is worth a place in any home if
only to show the younger people of Australia there is something bigger
and better away from the video games.
Keith has
also transcribed his rags to riches life in a book "Crocodile Safari
Man" in which he tells not only of the sharks in the ocean but those
ashore, the doubting Thomas’s who reckoned he should pack up his swag and
go home when he wanted to show his film. Perseverance is a wonderful
thing, in hindsight, especially after you have done the hard yards, as
Keith and his companions have done.
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The
women did a great job at the camp site, allowing Keith to gather the
food.
Tiger
was a terror and has you gasping every time he escapes from the vehicle
to attack snakes, emus, crocodiles, fish, scorpions, goannas – anything
that moves.
Keith
was no “newbie” to the Gulf Country having made a living out of
part-time hunting away from his regular job as a mechanic, a skill
which kept him mobile through some pretty dire straits in the north.
Here is
the original Aussie Battler who made a film, which is now the only
movie in the world that shows the rugged crossing of the Gibson Desert
and the way of life in the Outback during the 1950’s.
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Tiger, the Fox Terrier and scene stealer
in the film.
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Their
remarkable journey was recorded by Bill Harney, then caretaker of Uluru
(Ayers Rock) who wrote in his book "To Ayers Rock and Beyond";
"Wonders
never cease, for only a week before Peter and I with Loridja went west, a
black heavy sedan with a trailer carrying an upturned dinghy came over
the desert land. From the sea shores near Perth they had come, a man and
two women, their destination Borroloola on the McArthur River which flows
into the Gulf of Carpentaria - a run of over 2500 miles across Australia
on a hunting and fishing holiday. Not since Charles Sturt's day has a
craft been transported over such waterless land. Such then was our
westward run, a bush track somewhere in the direction of the doggers and
camel trails in the years gone by.
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Our
destination, the scenic Robinson River
that flows into the Gulf
of Carpentaria.
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This
family was sighted while we were crossing the Gibson Dessert.
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Hammerhead shark
It pulled down
the tree
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Enjoying a snack using
whale
vertibrae for table and chairs.
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Majestic
termite mound.
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My mate George Riley, proudly displaying
his initiation scars. They were carved into the flesh with a sharp
piece of stone.
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Typical dwelling of Australia's Desert
Aborigines.
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...If you enjoy “Northern Safari”- then check out his book... "Crocodile Safari Man"
To contact Keith
personally:
Phone 08 9341 1944
email : keith.adams@bigpond.com
Click here to Read what the World Press says of
"Northern Safari".
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