When Andy met Albert, little did he know their partnership would last through the decades and across the miles … and miles … and miles.
Theirs is no ordinary story back in the sixties Andy Stewart was a young Scottish lad with a wanderlust to see the world. And Albert, at a mere 21, had already been put out to pasture.
But forget Cliff Richard and his Summer Holiday this is the real story of Andy and Albert, otherwise known as Albion 2004, a 64-year-old Glasgow-built double-decker bus which plied the roads around Sydney.
Now Andy, in a real labour of love and with the help of willing volunteers and bus enthusiasts, is restoring Albert to his former glory ready to take to the roads for one more really big adventure.
The story starts back in the 1960s. Andy, then living in England, had always wanted to go to Australia but a real fear of flying after he had experienced an accident left him with one thought of how he could get there ‘overland’.
After placing an advert in the paper for fellow travellers, five young adventurers set off by van, sharing the duties behind the wheel to drive round the clock.More information on how to become involved in the restoration project can be obtained from www.highroadforoz.info.”Once we left Europe there were virtually no roads, but we got there,” he said.
Andy was to spend the next two years in Australia and then in 1968 news of the London to Sydney car rally broke.
With his then flatmate deciding to do it in reverse from Sydney to London rather than in non-forwards gears Andy opted for another mode of transport to complete the epic journey: bus!
“Yes, I decided I wanted to buy a bus and there was an ad in a Sydney paper when the bus company was putting up its older vehicles for tender. The 2004 was the cheapest on the list and that’s how I came to get Albert.”
Bought for 400 Australian dollars when Andy was earning around 40 dollars a week it was a large undertaking for the young Scot.
Another ad went in to find like-minded travellers prepared to come from a land down under, and soon 14 were on board the now-converted bus for Albert’s inaugural trip, across thousands of miles of the Asian Highway between Australia, India and Britain.
That first trip took a long time starting out in October 1968 and arriving in the middle of the following February, although again they were driving almost constantly. Not to mention coping with demands of the odd earthquake, getting lost, frozen diesel and the etiquette of overtaking oxen and carts.
Now back in Tunbridge Wells, where he took to driving taxis, Andy thought, “That wasn’t a bad trip”, and did it again.
And again Albert eventually completed 15 journeys back and forth, through the likes of Afghanistan and Iran, with a variety of passengers on board.
Continued…
The bus returned to Sydney in 1969, departing from bay one at Victoria Coach Station, and the third journey, Sydney to London, went via the Khyber Pass and Afghanistan. After that a year-round timetable was drawn up for a regular service between London and Calcutta with additional trips running right through to Sydney.
However, the world’s longest bus route ground to a halt in the mid-1970s when serious political unrest erupted in Iran and the route was considered unsafe for tourists.
By then with a young family, Andy decided it was time to end the trail.
And Albert was effectively marooned in Britain, languishing for the next three-and-a-half decades between hippie ownership, preservationists and the scrapyard, said Andy.
Now working in the travel agency business, Andy could never quite forget his faithful Albert and tried to track him back down and eventually the road, at the start of the new millennium, led him to Sussex.
“And at the very end of the day, I found it. I had given up and was heading back home when I came across a dilapidated old cement works.
“Through the trees I saw coaches parked it was where National Express buses were stored in the winter and did a u-turn and came bumper to bumper with the bus. This is how life goes, isn’t it?”
A potential sale back to Andy fell through and it was to be another seven years, during which time Albert went completely off the radar, before the pair were to be reunited.
And so, in 2009, Albert, with more miles on the clock than anyone cares to guess, was Andy’s once more.
Now sitting proudly on farmland near Fife, Albert is undergoing a complete overhaul with the help of a gang of volunteers before the irrepressible duo gear up for one more trip to Australia.
This time the trek will be undertaken via central Asia and China, where Albert will be shipped to western Australia for the Nullarbor crossing to Sydney. And, with a glint in his eye, Andy cannot wait.