THE WALLABY TRACK WITH LIONEL MUSSELL

There are things we did together , Murphy and me , that I choose not to tell you about . Like why I hit a kerb late one night and punctured two tyres and then left a trumpet on the nature strip after taking it out of the boot to get to the spare wheel ! And how we finished up on top of a heap of road metal with all four wheels suspended in the air at 2am one morning after a late night with Ernie Butler !

Which leads me to tell you about Ern . Those who knew him have a great assortment of stories about him and his exploits , often brought on by imbibing plenty of amber fluid but all outrageous and most of them true . I did a round-the-world trip with Ern so have a few personal stories to add to the vast collection , but one thing that always emerges when people start to talk about him is that underneath the buffoon he chose to show to the world , there was a unique , caring and highly intelligent individual . Our trip started out well , with Ern and I keeping the hostesses busy

bringing us cans of Fosters to help us through the long night as we winged our way towards Hawaii , where we found ourselves in a glorious highrise hotel apartment overlooking the famous Waikiki Beach .

When we went out for a meal , Ern kept the American couple on the next table amused and they insisted on ' shouting ' us large amounts of Budweiser , so that by the time we staggered back to our room , Ern was not fully with it . I was very asleep when he put the light on and headed for the bathroom , babbling incoherently . He babbled still more when he returned and eventually the light went off . Next morning , I awoke to cries of " who did this ?" as Ern surveyed the wreckage of the bedside lamp . It had an Americanstyle rotary on / off switch that had beaten him during the night and he had dismantled the whole thing and removed the globe !

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