Greetings, Red Dusters. This is the 13th episode of Season Two, so I’m taking a break. But fear not, I have a dilly-bag full of tasty tales that I’ll be working up for Season Three.

Now … I have a fascinating episode for you. I’ve mentioned before, that Australian aviation rose above the dust and mud, into the cold cold cold blue, to cover mighty distances.

Many of you will remember Episodes Four, five and six, where I interviewed former World War 1 fighter pilot Sir Norman Brearley, who started Australia’s very first airline, West Australian Airways.

And Episode 9, ‘You had to overcome their fear’, When Sir Hudson Fysh, another World War 1 veteran, shared anecdotes about his years co-founding Qantas.

Both airlines were not started in the big cities, but in the regions, and the Outback.

So this time, I’ve got a real beauty for you, from someone who was not just a skillful and daring aviator, but a cracker of a yarn-spinner…

Lester Brain was one of the very first Qantas’ pilots – number three in fact, after the airline's two founders. Lester really became the backbone of the company’s flying, and later administrative team.

He was often in the middle of the action, achieving many firsts, and gaining distinguished flying awards along the way.

In this episode:

• How Lester overcame the nausea of flying with burnt castor oil flicking into his face
• Crash landing into a tree
• Searching for missing airmen in Northern Territory jungle
• The humorous tale of of an isolated cattle station desperate for news of the Melbourne Cup winner
• Piloting Australia's first overseas flight
• The glamour of the flying boats
• Being in charge of the tiny settlement of Broome in the North West, during the attacks by the Japanese
• While suffering from fever, rowing out to rescue survivors
• Evading the enemy on the longest flights in the world, across the indian Sea, in what became known as the Double Sunrise route

Red Dust Tapes rocks and rattles back into the early days of Australian rail.

You’ll hear:

A 1914 account of the flies, the dust and the mind-numbing isolation, by a man who was right there with pick and shovel for the building of the 1,710 kilometre Nullabor Railway, the Transcontinental.

We visit the tiny railway settlement of Cook, in the middle of that desolate track, in the later days of diesel. It’s deserted now, but back in 1970 when I recorded there, it had a school, post office, a lock-up, and a handful of houses.

We’ll hear of the Tea and Sugar train that would pass through these isolated settlements, with its butchers’ van and other reminders of civilization. And of the railway fettlers’ camps along the line, which featured the occasional murder.

And I record my brief encounters with steam, standing on the clatter-bang of footplates on the last smoky shunter in Perth, and then Port Pirie in South Australia, sitting in a coffee place in Port Pirie’s main shopping strip, being startled by the hiss-choof-whoof of a passing steam train.

It was in Port Pirie where I encountered the quirky level crossing that featured three separate rail gauges, a testament to the pig-headedness of our colonial transport planners.

Also, social and musical historian Warren Fahey, shares why the railways were a godsend to the shearers, prying them away from the money-hungry publicans, so they had a chance to visit their far-away families.

I’ll never forget roll-yer-own, coughing, cursing, tell it as it was, Nicholas Tallack. He was a bushman of wide experience, and with a swag of stories for every one of them.

Nick Tallack was my favourite yarn spinner, and in this episode of Red Dust Tapes Nick will wax lyrical about camels and donkey teams.

And later, we’ll chuff/clunk/whistle our way at a leisurely pace in the boiler room and wheelhouse of Murray River paddlesteamers, in the jolly good company of stokers and captains, and hear stories of the river in flood, to when the blazing sun turns the flows into mud.

Then let’s go from fresh water to salt, to the ‘mosquito fleet’, the coastal ketches of South Australia, in the company of a man who was a deck boy, and had all manner of rough and tumble humorous tales to tell.

But let’s return to those bullocky stories … ah, the romance of travel by bullock wagon, with a mob of (mostly) docile bullocks, two-abreast, 28 or 30 of them yoked up and plodding serenely along a dusty road, while you just lean back against the bales of wool piled high above you, content under the warm sun, taking the occasional sip from your canvas waterbag …

Yeah, right mate. Pull the other leg.

That well-known colonial-era song, ‘The Old Bullock Dray’ makes it sound like being a bullocky was an idyllic life. But as we’ll find out, the reality was about mud, sand dunes, broken axles, sweat and curses.

I’ll bring you all manner of stories, including of a 13 year-old bullocky who would do his homework by lantern light, and after hauling loads through the Victorian goldfields, saved all his cash and returned to give it to his dear old mum.

From there we’ll go further south, to Tasmania, to meet an old bloke who will teach us bullocky language, as he describes the muddy job of hauling logs out of those deep and dark forests.

So let’s go slow slogging, with Red Dust Tapes.