Kurt Johanssen: driving license at 11, driving his truck at 15 on government contract in Alice springs; at 17 he was delivering mail through an area bigger than several European countries; fixed a broken axle with a knife and a branch of a Mulga tree; gained his pilots license and invented the road train. A bloody legend
I lived in melbourne for 20 years. A friend from England came to stay with me. He rented a car to drive to Perth to visit his sister. I asked him why you not flying. Quote " its just a good days drive isn't it?" I explained to him it would take at least 3-4 days driving just to get there and then you have to get back. He couldn't understand the vast distance it was. As he said, it doesn't look that far on the map. It's 4000km each way
I had an insurance agent not understand the scale of The U.S.. I totalled a car in Idaho and live in Ohio. They said I could just rent a car and drive home then pick up the totalled car on the weekend after it was fixed. I had to hand the phone to my wife so she could explain we were 2000 miles from home and there wasn't a place to rent a car within 90 miles.
I drove from Melbourne to Perth in 2011. I took a week and a half. No need to hurry, drove across the Nullarbor plain to Eucla, then Norseman then onto Perth.
In my humble opinion it is also down to his lifelong friend Andy who has produced him for 35+ years and influences the dialogue that most people know as Clarkson's style.
They made Jeremy’s world to do what they wanted to do with top gear but the heads at the bbc didn’t want top gear to be this fun and adventurous at the time. The heads at the bbc wanted top gear to be informational but Andy and Jeremy wanted to do more fun things. That’s why Jeremy quit top gear the first time then he came back because he would be able to do what he wanted to do.
I lived in Katherine, more specifically Tindal, for the better part of a decade. I was born in the UK and moved to Perth as a young lad, always lived in the suburbs of big cities. Was quite a difference living 300km south of Darwin in the middle of the outback but it's a place I'll never forget. The storms, the weather, the smells, and the shenanigans we used to get up to were epic. Used to waterski with crocs, rescued a few snakes from work including an inland taipan, and used to go cane toad killing in the wet season as they're a real pest up there. Bought a dirt bike and used to ride the motocross track in Palmerston near Darwin, and the local track in Katherine was good for a bash after work. Used to be able to ride the dirt bikes from my house on base along the fire trails all the way to the track. There was also a great calm up there, where you could properly relax on the weekend and enjoy life. I will be retiring in the outback, far away from the hustle and bustle of big cities. The people are nicer, the land is nicer, the air is nicer, everything just seemed better when you weren't bogged down with all the BS that comes with the big smoke.
I was watching the news one night. A bloke was in court for letting his 12yo* daughter drive home while he was pissed in outback NSW. His reply to the cameras out front of court. Aussie as, dead serious. "dunno what all the drama is about, she's been driving for 3 years" NO JOKE. I laughed for a week straight 🇦🇺 EDIT* ADDED GIRLS AGE.
Tbf, I was driving since I was 9, I learnt on dads old fergy, then I was driving the landcruiser with 2 tonne of water on the back, then I got a job in heavy diesel and am driving trucks, tractors and combines everyday
Yep... I'd go out on weekend service calls with Dad on engineering jobs, often I'd have to tell the old boy he needed to sleep as he was nodding off and then I'd take over for a bit. Kept us both alive, I was many years away from legal driving age but could ride horses, bikes, drive tractors, construction equipment, oh yeah - and cars 🤣. It's not at all uncommon for Aussie kids from rural and farming areas... And I'm sure it's the same in many other parts of the world too. Outback realities.
I learnt to drive properly when i was about 7. I saw the old 75 series cruiser sitting around, decided i wanted to fix it, and he gave it to me and i learnt to drive in it and i still continue to drive it. My dad taught me the basics, then i taught myself the rest. i do regularly drive on what is technically a public road, but theres no traffic anyway. Going for my licence soon. Even when i was little, dad would sit me on his lap in the hilux and i would steer, then i started doing the gears as well. I know these comments are a year old but i felt like adding this.
I live in Alice and the Finke Desert Race brings this town alive. We take the distances out here for granted but its funny hearing Clarkson just try and get his head around it all. I worked with Paul Frahn's wife (yes they spelt his name incorrectly) for 15 years. Pauls just like this in real life. Down to earth aussie truckie.
Travelled through Alice on my way to Tindal from Wagga Wagga. Was really surprised with how good your roads are there, they're better than a lot of city roads. Wish I'd stopped off and actually had a look around but I was on a mission to get to where I was going in under 3 days.
Had a cousin from Ireland come over a few decades ago and asked if he could cruise to Banff to take some photos. Sure, it's only about 4000 kilometres drive, well be there by lunch.
Please note that the "nearest big city" that takes 18 hours to get to (Alice Springs) is actually a town with a population of under 25,000 people. (Which has significant fewer opportunities for theatre, or fine dining than New York, London, or Paris)
There's a saying: "Europeans think 100km is a long way, Australians & Americans think 100 years is a long time." This is why we (Aussies) don't think 100km is a long way 🙂.
100km is a joke. I drive 90 miles a day just for a commute to work and back. I’ve pulled 1300km in one day with a 38ft trailer loaded down here in Alaska last summer. What a trip.
Australia's cargo railways are an affront when you think of these vehicles having to do what they do. The road trains are amazing engineering mind you.
This is the weirdest thing about Strayla - where a big bloody V8 is required, they don't use it. Where a big bloody V8 is the most redundant thing imaginable, they do.
the weather's a f cu** as the locals would put it, it hasn't rained in 5 months and it's 52c Kaleb's gone and hung himself and there's a snake in my boot
The Road Train is an excellent example of how bureaucracy stifles ingenuity. That old fella had a fist full of dollars and an idea and created the road train, back when he built it you were allowed to drive things out of the ordinary. Today, something so 'modified' would be classed as dangerous and couldn't possibly be allowed to be driven, nobody would 'pass' it due to it been so different. I'm afraid Australia, once a magnificent country, has ruined it's future through grinding Gov.
@@Jay151 No, they are still legal, the point is the current road laws would never let you create anything so 'out of the ordinary' like that old fella did.
I mean the main issue with road train is that its just more inefficient than an actual train. With the distances that people need to cover in Australia it just makes more sense to build real rail lines.
@@cameron7938 something you are missiong though is the fact that in australia the heat causes the rail traks to bend so they need alot of maintenance to keep them straight.
They should have just renamed "Top Gear" to "Jeremy and Co". Love him or loathe him he is great at presenting (and all the writers that make his scripts). Thanks for sharing this with us.
Nah lad top gear/grand tour is his prime, can’t beat the trio as they all bring their own bit but fair enough jezza brings them together but they also raise him up
13,000 sq. km is about 5019 sq miles. Which is absolutely insane. For perspective, that's 10 Los Angeles', 16 New York Cities, 1 Connecticut, or 1 Jamaica. That's 2,420,000 football fields, or 775,000 Walmart parking lots. It's 1/6th of South Carolina, 1/8th of Ohio, and 1/10th of Alabama. It's a lot for one property. You can't possibly manage that much land and know what's going on everywhere. It's quite possible they've had other people live there without their knowledge.
Jeremy Clarkson should do more shows like this, proper off road Aussie 4 wheel driving up crazy steep hills in 79 series landcruisers, Nissan Patrols ect... show Jeremy what real off roading is and how to do it because us Aussies do it the best.
Ah, the Goldfields of w.a., what looked like lake lefroy (the salt flats). Then around the Alice, Katherine, top Springs. Worked around all of them back in the 70's and 80's.. great places to be before the bloody tourists came along. Miss those years. Though pushing a road train, where the boss loved 'retreads' was a pain in the arse. Some tyres only lasted a day.
Not sure on the year this was made but you can tell it was before the time of paying stupid money for commercial music. This has some big named songs in it, makes the program so much better.
I went to Alice Springs and drove all the way to Uluru last December. I got out a couple of times too just to take in the absolute silence. It's easily the most isolated region I've ever been through. The best part is, it's got the highest speed limit in Australia.
In Australia they you can out into the desert with a Land Rover, BUT IF you want to get back safely and alive take a Toyota Land Cruiser!!!!!!!!!!! Some Road Trains are bigger even than this one. Often they have a sleeper cab, very comfy sleeper cab, fridge, microwave, air con, radio, TV, some are husband and wife, or two drivers one is resting, one is driving, then they swap over. A few years flying over Australia ( i was heading to Manila ) i looked out the window ( Airbus A330, traveling at approximately 500++ kph ) absolutely NOTHING just empty land, NO trees NO animals ( that i could see ) dose for an hour or so have another look NOTHING hour after hour NOTHING just EMPTY land!!!!
Blimey. This brings me back. I think I must have watched this in the early 00s at some point because I remember the bit about the expanse of Australian farms.
I feel like watching these is almost like a pre-course to Top Gear. You genuinly learn a lot of context and basis for the jokes they make about different countries and car cultures in the later shows...
"I'm completely lost" shows the same clip as from 45 seconds before lol you gotta love how TV tries to make things more exciting which is not needed in this instance 😄 id kill to drive one of those things
The top gear race was at an iron ore mine, not gold and in the Northern Territory. The gold/nickel/uranium, which was underground, is most likely Roxy Downs in South Australia.
@@goatfiddler8384 The mine was the Super Pit at Kalgoorlie. Olympic Dam at Roxby has smallish surface workings compared to Kal now. When this was made the opencut at OD hadn't been started.
@@terryjackson4538 Does the Super Pit do, as JC says, nickel and uranium as well? As the Super Pit is in WA and there are no uranium mines in WA, I think I'll be more inclined to put money on my original guess of Roxy Downs/Olympic Dam.
@@goatfiddler8384 The surface workings were definitely the super pit. OD was all still underground at the time this was filmed. Anyone from Kal will back that up. The underground definitely wasn't OD. Could have been Kal, Kambalda or Leonora, all of which have Nickel. The mention of Uranium is probably poetic licence, there is some in the ore bodies but not mined as a targeted ore when this was made. The lakes he drives on are out near Kambalda. I worked at OD for 5 years and it definitely wasn't there. I also spent quite a bit of time around Kal and recognised it instantly.
@@terryjackson4538 I've been to Kal for 1 hour in a flight stopover, hence never left the airport, so it's not first hand knowledge on my part. It was the mention of nickel and URANIUM that said NOT WA to me. The only other mine that brought to mind was OD. As I'm writing this, I have had a recollection of working at a company, in Perth, that does mining simulators, in '07-08. Whilst there it was, if the recollection is correct, then that the pit was proposed which waaayy post dates the production of the show, which is '96. Pity the rip resolution isn't high enough, you could have read the logo on the ute going down into the mine...
I just wonder will Jeremy introduce some of these systems to his farm in the U.K. Helicopter yes motorbike NO Rolls yes cows No Lets all have a think shall we ?????????????
22:53 The bodies do indeed add up. I was pretty shocked that on some stretches of road you have literally dozens upon dozens of dead kangaroos along the side of the road. That was a pretty bewildering sight
On a bus trip across the Nullarbor one night there were two kangaroos in the middle of the road. One jumped right, the other left. They took out the bus head lights. Lucky the driver had a spare.
I have a friend in England that's never been to France, which boggles my mind. I'm flying up to meet a friend in a few days and drive with them back down to home, about 14 hrs drive. It just seems so normal, but when I did the trip a few months ago with another friend, they remarked, "How many countries in Europe do you think we've crossed?"
@@boratsagdiyev5679 It's Australian Questional Intonation. When you hear someone talk and their voice rises on the last word. I represent this by writing with a question mark ? Now I think i'll have some lasagna ?
@@FirstDan2000 fair dinkum mate. Crikey, bloody thanks you told me before I look like a total bogan, i didn't want to go troppo and attack you personally, your Sheila, your cangaroo or the size of your knife. I reckon If we ever meet we'll join together for a ripper barbie aye? G'day mate ( By the way you can totally thank aussie man reviews for this? )
@@0Acerlot0 The vast desert land supported very few animals per acre and there was no farming either. Not one of their kids had even been to college or planned tp. One was planning on being a traveling wool sorter- someone who determined what quality this fleece was versus the next fleece. One step above sheep shearer. This was back in 1987 however. Much of central Australia is all desert with scattered shrubs at best.
@@paulbriggs3072 oh dear, even if that was in the 80s, it does sound like a hopeless situation, especially with the kids not planning to go to college.
Don't aussies still have guns? As far as I know you just need a license. Brother blew up a possum with a .303 on a night hunt with some locals in Tasmania when he traveled there a few years ago and told stories about others hunting camels from helicopters since those are an invasive species and screw up the mainlands ecosystem. Everyday city folk might not be packing heat anymore but apparently guns are still used as tools fruther out. Also the government has been conservative for about a decade now. The Libs are pro-free markets and in a coalition with the Nationals, a conservative party.
@@user-hv6wb5gk8p Know plenty of people in the city with guns(legally). Sure we dont have some stupid over the top type guns, but there are still many that youd be surprised are legal here. Most the people ive talked to whining about 'we dont have guns' are people that dont own them, and have never tried to go through the process to own one, or come across as the type of person who should never be near a gun. Most of those who i know who have, or have had guns in the past i knew for years and never realised they owned guns till 5-10+ years of knowing them, they dont mention it, brag about it, post photos with it. Its not something theyre hiding, just not something they advertise. Never once heard any of them whine about not being able to have guns, or gun laws etc.
@@paraphiliac Hell I've even been to a come-and-try day at a gun club, gold coin donation for entry, shot everything from a revolver with a red dot through British WW1 rifles to a fricken musket. But I worry about how much American political BS and the gun culture that comes with it continues to infiltrate our country every year.
I recently drove from Lyon to Manchester and back in a couple of days. I thought that was a fairly long haul. For some Ozzies it’s their weekly journey to the supermarket! Insane distances.
DO you guys fucking realise that the cars being driven here are probably in part(s) still kicking around australia this is fucking nuts seeing that landcruiser and me laughing that i want one
It always makes me laugh how often people who’ve never even been to Australia don’t realise how big the place is especially when you chat to the EV fanboys who think EVs are a practical idea outside our 7 biggest cities. 7:15 😂🤣😂 As for the old Rolls Royce shooters truck I really can’t think of anything better to go paddock bashing in. 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻 8:30 Been there done that it was a shit load of fun. Has been a long time since I’ve enjoyed anything Clarkson has done but that was great. 😂🤣😂 As for neighbours that show is pure garbage.
@General Melchett 😂🤣😂 Yeah I know what you mean would love to see an EV get across the Nullarbor Plan or better still Tesla’s wonder Semi being used in a road train doing some of the runs that some of our Truckers do specially in monsoon. Tesla and EV fanboys are totally delusional alright.
@General Melchett calm down gramps! It's a relatively new industry in comparison to ICE tech and it's dealing with archaic right-wing political parties ham-stringing it at every opportunity to keep their fossil fuel stocks and lobby money.
Kurt Johanssen: driving license at 11, driving his truck at 15 on government contract in Alice springs; at 17 he was delivering mail through an area bigger than several European countries; fixed a broken axle with a knife and a branch of a Mulga tree; gained his pilots license and invented the road train.
A bloody legend
Wow what a Dude.
Real chad
Now people don't get off their arse till they're 25 and b!tch about working xD
Aussie legend.
RIP Kurt Johannsen and Tom Kruse (the Birdsville mailman). Australian outback tucking legends.
This guy seems pretty cool, he should make a show where he travels the world in different cars.
that would be a great idea i would definitely watch it if he decides to make one
@@leopold369 never heard of them
@@leopold369 nah
@@leopold369 wtf is the grand tour. Top gear? That doesn’t sound like something that exists.
and mayby a farming show he seems into the open fields
I lived in melbourne for 20 years. A friend from England came to stay with me. He rented a car to drive to Perth to visit his sister. I asked him why you not flying. Quote " its just a good days drive isn't it?" I explained to him it would take at least 3-4 days driving just to get there and then you have to get back.
He couldn't understand the vast distance it was. As he said, it doesn't look that far on the map.
It's 4000km each way
Lol-did he make the drive in the end?
I’m guessing he’s still not back yet is he.
I had an insurance agent not understand the scale of The U.S.. I totalled a car in Idaho and live in Ohio. They said I could just rent a car and drive home then pick up the totalled car on the weekend after it was fixed. I had to hand the phone to my wife so she could explain we were 2000 miles from home and there wasn't a place to rent a car within 90 miles.
I drove from Melbourne to Perth in 2011. I took a week and a half. No need to hurry, drove across the Nullarbor plain to Eucla, then Norseman then onto Perth.
@@katieandkevinsears7724 who cares? No one was talking about America. Do you lot always have to talk about yourselves? Even when it’s not needed.
There will never be another Automotive journalist that will match the fame of Clarkson. He is just the right combo of informative and funny.
You have summed it up perfectly. 👍
In my humble opinion it is also down to his lifelong friend Andy who has produced him for 35+ years and influences the dialogue that most people know as Clarkson's style.
@@silverliteway Clarkson provides a lot of the humor, Andy just helps refine it into a direction and some resemblance of a show. lol
If u say so..just another unfunny British
Clarkson is to automobiles as Attenborough is to nature
Andy Wilman ….. was the producer. Now I see why top gear was so good. They developed a bond
Andy wilman went to school with jeremy so they had known each other a while before top gear
They made Jeremy’s world to do what they wanted to do with top gear but the heads at the bbc didn’t want top gear to be this fun and adventurous at the time. The heads at the bbc wanted top gear to be informational but Andy and Jeremy wanted to do more fun things. That’s why Jeremy quit top gear the first time then he came back because he would be able to do what he wanted to do.
Dot dot dot dot dot dot
took me back to top gear. loved that show. funny how anything Japanese goes well down under.
.....James Bond.
I lived in Katherine, more specifically Tindal, for the better part of a decade. I was born in the UK and moved to Perth as a young lad, always lived in the suburbs of big cities. Was quite a difference living 300km south of Darwin in the middle of the outback but it's a place I'll never forget. The storms, the weather, the smells, and the shenanigans we used to get up to were epic. Used to waterski with crocs, rescued a few snakes from work including an inland taipan, and used to go cane toad killing in the wet season as they're a real pest up there. Bought a dirt bike and used to ride the motocross track in Palmerston near Darwin, and the local track in Katherine was good for a bash after work. Used to be able to ride the dirt bikes from my house on base along the fire trails all the way to the track. There was also a great calm up there, where you could properly relax on the weekend and enjoy life. I will be retiring in the outback, far away from the hustle and bustle of big cities. The people are nicer, the land is nicer, the air is nicer, everything just seemed better when you weren't bogged down with all the BS that comes with the big smoke.
cool comment
I'm in the UK but that does sound appealing, getting as far away from people is what a lot want these days i think.
Lol so Clarkson was just like " Right, so I'll just keep doing that for like... 40 more years? Marvelous!"
I was watching the news one night. A bloke was in court for letting his 12yo* daughter drive home while he was pissed in outback NSW. His reply to the cameras out front of court. Aussie as, dead serious. "dunno what all the drama is about, she's been driving for 3 years" NO JOKE. I laughed for a week straight 🇦🇺
EDIT* ADDED GIRLS AGE.
Tbf, I was driving since I was 9, I learnt on dads old fergy, then I was driving the landcruiser with 2 tonne of water on the back, then I got a job in heavy diesel and am driving trucks, tractors and combines everyday
Even as a city kid, I learned to drive out in the middle of nowhere before I had a license. The benefits of being raised in Australia.
Yep... I'd go out on weekend service calls with Dad on engineering jobs, often I'd have to tell the old boy he needed to sleep as he was nodding off and then I'd take over for a bit. Kept us both alive, I was many years away from legal driving age but could ride horses, bikes, drive tractors, construction equipment, oh yeah - and cars 🤣. It's not at all uncommon for Aussie kids from rural and farming areas... And I'm sure it's the same in many other parts of the world too.
Outback realities.
I lived in central Queensland and I was driving my dads XB Falcon Ute towing a car trailer at 14
I learnt to drive properly when i was about 7. I saw the old 75 series cruiser sitting around, decided i wanted to fix it, and he gave it to me and i learnt to drive in it and i still continue to drive it. My dad taught me the basics, then i taught myself the rest. i do regularly drive on what is technically a public road, but theres no traffic anyway. Going for my licence soon. Even when i was little, dad would sit me on his lap in the hilux and i would steer, then i started doing the gears as well. I know these comments are a year old but i felt like adding this.
I live in Alice and the Finke Desert Race brings this town alive. We take the distances out here for granted but its funny hearing Clarkson just try and get his head around it all. I worked with Paul Frahn's wife (yes they spelt his name incorrectly) for 15 years. Pauls just like this in real life. Down to earth aussie truckie.
Travelled through Alice on my way to Tindal from Wagga Wagga. Was really surprised with how good your roads are there, they're better than a lot of city roads. Wish I'd stopped off and actually had a look around but I was on a mission to get to where I was going in under 3 days.
When my Italian friend suggested "We drive to Darwin for a week"
We live in Victoria, that drive is about a week
Had a cousin from Ireland come over a few decades ago and asked if he could cruise to Banff to take some photos. Sure, it's only about 4000 kilometres drive, well be there by lunch.
true to form, the Land Rover is no longer registered, but the Landcruiser is
Please note that the "nearest big city" that takes 18 hours to get to (Alice Springs) is actually a town with a population of under 25,000 people. (Which has significant fewer opportunities for theatre, or fine dining than New York, London, or Paris)
Smaller than most city’s in the world but we still call it a big city as other city’s have 300 people in em lol
thats big for aus lol
I love how they used the Soundtrack from Crocodile Dundee. So nostalgic.
There's a saying: "Europeans think 100km is a long way, Australians & Americans think 100 years is a long time." This is why we (Aussies) don't think 100km is a long way 🙂.
100km is just to the next town
100km is a joke. I drive 90 miles a day just for a commute to work and back. I’ve pulled 1300km in one day with a 38ft trailer loaded down here in Alaska last summer. What a trip.
Merica is pretty big too. North America as a whole is huge.
Europeans can drive for 24hrs and go through 15 countries.
Australians can drive for 3 days and never leave the state.
A saying you made up
Omg when the woman stepped out of the car I was like holy shit 90s Jezza was flamboyant
I thought the same thing. Was like daaaamn nineties Jeremy was really out there in the 90s 🤣
He looks like Morrissey!
Australia's cargo railways are an affront when you think of these vehicles having to do what they do.
The road trains are amazing engineering mind you.
Fantastic quality for such an old show, thank you !!
This is the weirdest thing about Strayla - where a big bloody V8 is required, they don't use it. Where a big bloody V8 is the most redundant thing imaginable, they do.
Hey we need our v8 two wheel drive utes
A lot of the places they go in this special are revisited on the TG Australia special. Specifically the gold mine. They race a BMW, GTR, and a Bentley
Jeremy should do, Clarksons farm out there
the weather's a f cu** as the locals would put it, it hasn't rained in 5 months and it's 52c Kaleb's gone and hung himself and there's a snake in my boot
The mouse snaggies are ripper though.
Between drought and bushfires it would make for pretty depressing tv
He could build a restaurant
Imagine how bad it would be would be funny lol
23:32 jeez he has been working with Wilman for a long tome, also for those wondering, I think that truck is a Kenworth c509
They grew up and went to school together i believe.
The only way it could be a 509 is if this was made after 2009
Its an old C501 BRUTE
Alice Springs Offroad Club is still going strong. The Sth road is tarmac to get there nowadays.
The Road Train is an excellent example of how bureaucracy stifles ingenuity. That old fella had a fist full of dollars and an idea and created the road train, back when he built it you were allowed to drive things out of the ordinary. Today, something so 'modified' would be classed as dangerous and couldn't possibly be allowed to be driven, nobody would 'pass' it due to it been so different. I'm afraid Australia, once a magnificent country, has ruined it's future through grinding Gov.
@@Jay151 No, they are still legal, the point is the current road laws would never let you create anything so 'out of the ordinary' like that old fella did.
Yeah it's not looking good
I mean the main issue with road train is that its just more inefficient than an actual train. With the distances that people need to cover in Australia it just makes more sense to build real rail lines.
You see what they're doing to people there with the convid restrictions? It's insanity.
@@cameron7938 something you are missiong though is the fact that in australia the heat causes the rail traks to bend so they need alot of maintenance to keep them straight.
The nickel plating on that old Roller is still in great nick.
They should have just renamed "Top Gear" to "Jeremy and Co". Love him or loathe him he is great at presenting (and all the writers that make his scripts). Thanks for sharing this with us.
Nah lad top gear/grand tour is his prime, can’t beat the trio as they all bring their own bit but fair enough jezza brings them together but they also raise him up
Kurt Johanssen is still alive at age 105...amazing!
He died nearly 20 year's ago.
@@vidsinmotionchannel Yup, in 2002.
@@vidsinmotionchannel yeah, that's right...google didnt update that
I don’t see how anyone could live long in that environment. Too much dust, too much heat, things the human body doesn’t like...
@@CR-ud5qj He didn't live _that_ long.
"Let's face it - no one's going to complain, are they?"
A very British perspective you have there, Jeremy.
Episode was filmed in 1996 (MCMXCVI) in case you were wondering!
That's exactly what I was wondering. Thanks. 👌
@3:59 they used to do it for 6 hours. 3 hours down to finke and 3 hours back. This years time was 1:45:00 down there.
Thank you for uploading this I've been looking for this for a long time
13,000 sq. km is about 5019 sq miles. Which is absolutely insane.
For perspective, that's 10 Los Angeles', 16 New York Cities, 1 Connecticut, or 1 Jamaica.
That's 2,420,000 football fields, or 775,000 Walmart parking lots.
It's 1/6th of South Carolina, 1/8th of Ohio, and 1/10th of Alabama.
It's a lot for one property. You can't possibly manage that much land and know what's going on everywhere. It's quite possible they've had other people live there without their knowledge.
The final soundtrack just sounded so familiar until I figured I heard it in crocodile Dundee. What a coincidence
Jeremy Clarkson should do more shows like this, proper off road Aussie 4 wheel driving up crazy steep hills in 79 series landcruisers, Nissan Patrols ect... show Jeremy what real off roading is and how to do it because us Aussies do it the best.
79 series is so over rated and are terrible for 4wding compared to what else is offered on the market new and second hand
@@mint_au tbf compared to what a european would consider a 4wd, its pretty capable
@@razona5139 yeah its for sure better then 90% of the overpriced euro offroad cars/wagons
They dont have one
Ah, the Goldfields of w.a., what looked like lake lefroy (the salt flats). Then around the Alice, Katherine, top Springs. Worked around all of them back in the 70's and 80's.. great places to be before the bloody tourists came along. Miss those years. Though pushing a road train, where the boss loved 'retreads' was a pain in the arse. Some tyres only lasted a day.
I worked as a musterer and general hand out that way in the late 80s... I know what you mean about tourists... I blame tar roads.
Know what you mean. Some bosses will spend 20g to save a couple of hundred bucks in maintenance. Never could understand that mentality.
So glad that they interviewed Kurt Gerhardt Johanssen
that tanami c501 road train is just utterly beautiful...
"Highly tuned Toyota engines" I'm doubting that for the one that had the Honda banner and that recognizable Honda J series engine note.
This show made Australia seem like there's two towns and it takes several days to get between them
LOL
isnt it? i only remember australia for all the drunks and crazy drivers. fuck
Not sure on the year this was made but you can tell it was before the time of paying stupid money for commercial music. This has some big named songs in it, makes the program so much better.
Filmed in 1996, I read on another comment.
1995
It's just the crocodile dundee soundtrack...
I once drove from Adelaide to Queensland via the desert , it was without doubt the most boreing drive of my life .
I went to Alice Springs and drove all the way to Uluru last December. I got out a couple of times too just to take in the absolute silence. It's easily the most isolated region I've ever been through.
The best part is, it's got the highest speed limit in Australia.
Tourist in Cairns "We're just going to drive down to Melbourne to see the thing', sure thing Mate, that'll only take you a week.
Everything Clakson is good to watch, even his farm vidz😎
17:23 Mighty Kenworth C501 BRUTE of Tanami. Good gear and great truckie behind the wheel.
In Australia they you can out into the desert with a Land Rover, BUT IF you want to get back safely and alive take a Toyota Land Cruiser!!!!!!!!!!!
Some Road Trains are bigger even than this one.
Often they have a sleeper cab, very comfy sleeper cab, fridge, microwave, air con, radio, TV, some are husband and wife, or two drivers one is resting, one is driving, then they swap over.
A few years flying over Australia ( i was heading to Manila ) i looked out the window ( Airbus A330, traveling at approximately 500++ kph ) absolutely NOTHING just empty land, NO trees NO animals ( that i could see ) dose for an hour or so have another look NOTHING hour after hour NOTHING just EMPTY land!!!!
Slow flight if it took years to fly over, you were in a paper aeroplane?
@ matt niven. Or a very poor pilot/navigator. Did he ever find Manilla?
@@Surv1ve_Thrive some say he's still looking
Blimey. This brings me back.
I think I must have watched this in the early 00s at some point because I remember the bit about the expanse of Australian farms.
Came for the thumbnail, stayed for the content
I feel like watching these is almost like a pre-course to Top Gear. You genuinly learn a lot of context and basis for the jokes they make about different countries and car cultures in the later shows...
23:03 Now to that list you can add... a certain children's show about a Blue Aussie Heeler
The bloke on the back of the truck with jeremy looks like crazy Steve off Big Lez show (or Mike Nolan show)
Now that was good to watch. And the music they used did Clackson like that movie
"I'm completely lost" shows the same clip as from 45 seconds before lol you gotta love how TV tries to make things more exciting which is not needed in this instance 😄 id kill to drive one of those things
that was so they can move onto that topic in a "comedic" way. Also it is that easy to get lost out there
13:13 Has to be one of the first "In The World" moments 😂
Soo.... Every TG Specials are all emphasized version of these series
Land rovers are for British farmers.... who can see the old local town from the B-road you just broke down on.
Jeremy Clarkson's Motorworld Series 2 Episode 4 Australia On Thursday 25th January 1996 On BBC2.
I just realized. That gold mine is where they raced the M6, GTR, and HSV Maloo in the Top Gear Australian Episode
The top gear race was at an iron ore mine, not gold and in the Northern Territory. The gold/nickel/uranium, which was underground, is most likely Roxy Downs in South Australia.
@@goatfiddler8384 The mine was the Super Pit at Kalgoorlie. Olympic Dam at Roxby has smallish surface workings compared to Kal now. When this was made the opencut at OD hadn't been started.
@@terryjackson4538 Does the Super Pit do, as JC says, nickel and uranium as well? As the Super Pit is in WA and there are no uranium mines in WA, I think I'll be more inclined to put money on my original guess of Roxy Downs/Olympic Dam.
@@goatfiddler8384 The surface workings were definitely the super pit. OD was all still underground at the time this was filmed. Anyone from Kal will back that up.
The underground definitely wasn't OD. Could have been Kal, Kambalda or Leonora, all of which have Nickel. The mention of Uranium is probably poetic licence, there is some in the ore bodies but not mined as a targeted ore when this was made.
The lakes he drives on are out near Kambalda.
I worked at OD for 5 years and it definitely wasn't there. I also spent quite a bit of time around Kal and recognised it instantly.
@@terryjackson4538 I've been to Kal for 1 hour in a flight stopover, hence never left the airport, so it's not first hand knowledge on my part. It was the mention of nickel and URANIUM that said NOT WA to me. The only other mine that brought to mind was OD. As I'm writing this, I have had a recollection of working at a company, in Perth, that does mining simulators, in '07-08. Whilst there it was, if the recollection is correct, then that the pit was proposed which waaayy post dates the production of the show, which is '96. Pity the rip resolution isn't high enough, you could have read the logo on the ute going down into the mine...
8:38 who here thought it was Mark Hamill?
Damn, was going to make that joke!
Thought I best check as I was so late to the video!
It's crazy seeing him so young in a show knowing how old he is today.
Jeremy + Andy Wilman = Great TV
Love the subtle Crocodile Dundee music 😂
even by Canadian standards this is huge, and we measure travel time by hours not kms
Brilliant thanks for uploading
Clarksons lines used in this show were the same in Grand Tour episode, also they visited the same places, like this quarry
I just wonder will Jeremy introduce some of these systems to his farm in the U.K. Helicopter yes motorbike NO Rolls yes cows No
Lets all have a think shall we ?????????????
Gold mine?
Train line Adelaide to Darwin completed a few years back now
Never knew that Jeremy Clarkson came to Western Australia.. love seeing the old school WA rego plates😊
"can we have kochie"
"no we have kochie at home"
kochie at home: 3:05
"can we have kochie" said no one ever
22:53 The bodies do indeed add up. I was pretty shocked that on some stretches of road you have literally dozens upon dozens of dead kangaroos along the side of the road. That was a pretty bewildering sight
You should see it in times of long droughts, fuck me, a few years back up through the Flinders there was a dead roo every 50 bloody metres
@@IanL1 came back from cloncurry in my road train and cleaned up a couple. Some nights I see more dead animals than I do humans
On a bus trip across the Nullarbor one night there were two kangaroos in the middle of the road. One jumped right, the other left. They took out the bus head lights. Lucky the driver had a spare.
Sadly they do not make these kind of gems anymore.
I don’t think it could be made anymore. Various laws would prevent it.
The camel catcher looks like Tony Beets from gold rush.
Can’t be just me who thought that was Jeremy getting out the car in the beginning
I want to say that the end music was lifted from Crocodile Dundee, which would definitely be fitting.
And the beginning music
I have a friend in England that's never been to France, which boggles my mind. I'm flying up to meet a friend in a few days and drive with them back down to home, about 14 hrs drive. It just seems so normal, but when I did the trip a few months ago with another friend, they remarked, "How many countries in Europe do you think we've crossed?"
The intro really reminds me of the Grand Tour intro. The style is the same?
It’s the style of Jeremy Clarkson & Andy Wilman I suppose.
Same lads working together.
It might be?
Like is this a question, a statement or just a portion of steamy lasagna¿@&
@@boratsagdiyev5679 It's Australian Questional Intonation.
When you hear someone talk and their voice rises on the last word.
I represent this by writing with a question mark ?
Now I think i'll have some lasagna ?
@@FirstDan2000 fair dinkum mate. Crikey, bloody thanks you told me before I look like a total bogan, i didn't want to go troppo and attack you personally, your Sheila, your cangaroo or the size of your knife.
I reckon If we ever meet we'll join together for a ripper barbie aye?
G'day mate
( By the way you can totally thank aussie man reviews for this? )
Good ole 80 series cruiser 👌👌
I was literally about to write the same comment! 🤣
best episode of the Motorworld Programme
I met three families in Australia that owned between 350,000 acres up to 1,000,000 acres each, and I would describe them as anything but rich.
I do like to know why?
Is it because of the vastness of the land?
Or the land itself just doesn’t have value due to its location?
@@0Acerlot0 The vast desert land supported very few animals per acre and there was no farming either. Not one of their kids had even been to college or planned tp. One was planning on being a traveling wool sorter- someone who determined what quality this fleece was versus the next fleece. One step above sheep shearer. This was back in 1987 however. Much of central Australia is all desert with scattered shrubs at best.
@@paulbriggs3072 oh dear, even if that was in the 80s, it does sound like a hopeless situation, especially with the kids not planning to go to college.
@@0Acerlot0college for what? Sheep don't care about feminist poetry
This is my first time seeing that glorious intro. ahaha
back when australia had guns and were conservative
Everybody in the outback is conservative, everybody.
Don't aussies still have guns? As far as I know you just need a license. Brother blew up a possum with a .303 on a night hunt with some locals in Tasmania when he traveled there a few years ago and told stories about others hunting camels from helicopters since those are an invasive species and screw up the mainlands ecosystem.
Everyday city folk might not be packing heat anymore but apparently guns are still used as tools fruther out.
Also the government has been conservative for about a decade now. The Libs are pro-free markets and in a coalition with the Nationals, a conservative party.
@@user-hv6wb5gk8p Know plenty of people in the city with guns(legally). Sure we dont have some stupid over the top type guns, but there are still many that youd be surprised are legal here.
Most the people ive talked to whining about 'we dont have guns' are people that dont own them, and have never tried to go through the process to own one, or come across as the type of person who should never be near a gun.
Most of those who i know who have, or have had guns in the past i knew for years and never realised they owned guns till 5-10+ years of knowing them, they dont mention it, brag about it, post photos with it. Its not something theyre hiding, just not something they advertise.
Never once heard any of them whine about not being able to have guns, or gun laws etc.
@@paraphiliac Hell I've even been to a come-and-try day at a gun club, gold coin donation for entry, shot everything from a revolver with a red dot through British WW1 rifles to a fricken musket. But I worry about how much American political BS and the gun culture that comes with it continues to infiltrate our country every year.
@Yuck Foutube this was filmed in 95 and released in 96
Soundtrack is so killer
I recently drove from Lyon to Manchester and back in a couple of days. I thought that was a fairly long haul. For some Ozzies it’s their weekly journey to the supermarket! Insane distances.
As an Aussie and just got back from driving to Queensland from Victoria, idk how people can drive for so long every week
We drive 200km sometimes for a swim at a decent beach. Spend the day and drive home again. And we live in a fairly populated area!
@@terryjackson4538 must be nice, closest beach is 350k away :/
@@siriusa5298 Know that feeling. Lived in Alice for 2 years. Lucky there are waterholes.
“I’ve got a message here from Mr Willman… it says ‘you will be driving 1,900 kilometers into the bush to tackle a camel.”
This terrain is why the Emu's won the war of 1932.
1:25 - real life aussie peggy hill!
And a sexy one at that.
8:40 Mark Hamill was having fun on the back of that truck!
Give the lady's glasses a thumbs up :)
DO you guys fucking realise that the cars being driven here are probably in part(s) still kicking around australia
this is fucking nuts
seeing that landcruiser and me laughing that i want one
unreal thanks
I remember this first time around, great.
6:25. The iconic James May stripped shirt.
2:43 You're kidding, right? We have the fucking Greens, who complain about any kind of fun.
The greens wouldn't know fun if it danced naked in front of them.
6:32 "You can run, but you can't hide!" Oh, it CAN hide. And beef ... And glue ...
That intro is awesome even by today’s standards
Wow this was a long time ago. 😆
7:20 My great granddad had a rolls that went the same way 😂 wasn’t unusual for him to be carting sheep around in it
It always makes me laugh how often people who’ve never even been to Australia don’t realise how big the place is especially when you chat to the EV fanboys who think EVs are a practical idea outside our 7 biggest cities. 7:15 😂🤣😂 As for the old Rolls Royce shooters truck I really can’t think of anything better to go paddock bashing in. 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻 8:30 Been there done that it was a shit load of fun. Has been a long time since I’ve enjoyed anything Clarkson has done but that was great. 😂🤣😂 As for neighbours that show is pure garbage.
It won’t be long before an EV can tackle that kind of distance.
@@CR-ud5qj obviously you don’t live here in Australia so you don’t embarrass yourself I’ll leave it at that.
@General Melchett 😂🤣😂 Yeah I know what you mean would love to see an EV get across the Nullarbor Plan or better still Tesla’s wonder Semi being used in a road train doing some of the runs that some of our Truckers do specially in monsoon. Tesla and EV fanboys are totally delusional alright.
I am a fan of tesla but I agree outside of the city electric cars don't make sense, though hybrids would be great.
@General Melchett calm down gramps! It's a relatively new industry in comparison to ICE tech and it's dealing with archaic right-wing political parties ham-stringing it at every opportunity to keep their fossil fuel stocks and lobby money.
Between all the weird Aussie colloquialisms and Clarkson's Terrible metaphors, I was lost for the whole episode. Love the Outback though!
That title screen gave me Dr. Who flashbacks like ptsd
Intriguing as ever Clarkson