< back to Terry's blogAgainst the grain - day 1

With a hundred waving people – family, friends and sponsors – we set off on three off road quads, one buggy, four motorcycles and three large bus like 4WDs, through a sightly alarmed Fremantle. The alarm shifted to panic, when we circled the city three or four times - like an invasion force staking out terrain. But we weren’t invading, we were filming – taking those most important farewell shots, pans, fades etc – that in our final film will be the important introduction. 

Fading and paning, we left Fremantle and the very first few kilometres clicked up on the GSM. Through nameless Sourthern Perth suburbs we rolled, the invasion force seeking new destinations, new people to panic. And the first new people were the Sunday diners in Dwellingup – around 125 km South/East of Perth. We stopped for coffee, fuel and scones and then moved further into the Southern forests.

Collie came into view after bouncing through a spaghetti of dirt paths and trails. We stopped at the meeting point, briefly, and then were sent swiftly through to my accident site as the sun was fast setting and a West Australian photographer was waiting for a shot for tomorrow’s paper. And more importantly, we needed to film me at the site. “My accident was there”, I said pointing to a vacant lot surrounded on two sides by old state housing homes. Not modern, compact, sterile brick state housing houses, but post-war, dollhouse like wooden state housing houses - with unkept gardens and lawns of broken down cars.

With a camera or two on me I told the very often told story of my accident – but this time was different. I was here, at the place, and it was not a “hey, how did your accident happened” but tell a deep, enquiring, “Terry, tell us about that day”. A story I have told maybe three thousand times without pause or care, suddenly seemed more than the words, but actually was the act. In telling about that afternoon long ago, the emotions suddenly felt very much “there” – “there” emotionally, to match the “there” physically. Just near that clump of grass, on a vacant block, surrounded by a very uninspiring vista of ramshackle state housing houses, my life took a turn I did not expect it to take.

We are on a boys-own adventure of quad riding through Australia. But today showed to me that we are also embarking on something other than simple adventure. We are reconnecting with something long ago, and burned deep in all four of us. I found today confronting. But I also found today fulfilling.  I am glad I came. 

Written on 07 Aug 2010
Over 29 years since incident
Tags: crash site revisited

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