wheels

Neil Chesney was born into a caravan family and for as long as he can remember he always wanted to build them. His father Alex was a successful caravan salesman, establishing what grew to become “Chesney Corner” at the busy intersection of Gympie and Rode Roads in Brisbane’s Chermside. Alex Chesney initially sold kit caravans that were popular in the early 1950s and was also the Queensland manager for Carapark caravans. Neil left school at age 14 to do an engineering apprenticeship and five years later he began making parts for his father to sell. His first factory space was underneath the family’s Queenslander home, however, demand increased quickly to the point where he had to find bigger premises and moved into an old boat shed at Breakfast Creek in Brisbane. It was there Neil Chesney built the first complete Chesney caravan, which proved to be a little too ahead of its time. In 1960 production moved to a new factory at Stafford as Chesney moved away from timber construction and started building stylish lightweight aluminum caravans. In 1965 Chesney received the biggest order of his career when he was commissioned to build 500 caravans to be used as temporary housing for workers at the new aluminum smelter at Gladstone. He later bought the vans back for a fraction of the sale price, refurbished them and held one of Queensland’s biggest caravan sales of all time. Source: www.timetoroam.com.au/neil-chesneys-60-years-caravans/#:~....

History notes Between the wars rail travel and hotel accommodation were too expensive for the average Australian family. Motoring made holidays possible for a much larger percentage of the population. The 'motor gypsies', as they were called, cooked on the roadside and camped in tents. The first camping ground for traveling motorists was established at Woodend in Victoria in 1924. Permanent sleeping cabins soon began to appear on the camping grounds, to be followed by motels ("motor hotels"), caravan parks, and roadside eateries. Homemade caravans, which first appeared in the 1920s, made it possible to have touring holidays that were cheaper than staying at motels and more comfortable than in tents. With the upgrading of roads, local councils built caravan parks at beach resorts and tourist towns. The caravan industry really took off after the Don firm in Victoria began making caravans as a backyard business in 1934. By the early 1950s, many other caravan companies emerged including Viscount and Millard in New South Wales, Coronet and Franklin in Victoria, Chesney in Queensland, and Tru-Line in Western Australia. The competition was keen and the original plywood vans soon disappeared as sleek aluminum-clad models took over. Interiors became more sophisticated, with iceboxes and two-burner Shellite or kerosene stoves giving way to gas and electric refrigerators and ovens. Electric lighting quickly became standard and the caravans got larger. Local commercial production peaked in the mid-1970s. Compact caravans developed from the late 1970s with companies such as Windsor introducing the 'pop-top' to capitalize on interior space. Caravanning went through a decline for some years after that but in recent times has gained in popularity, with large numbers of 'grey nomads' (retired baby boomers) now leisurely touring the country." Source: vintagecaravans.proboards.com/thread/1991/caravan-history...

An ox-wagon or bullock wagon is a four-wheeled vehicle pulled by oxen (draught cattle). It was a traditional form of transport, especially in Southern Africa but also in New Zealand and Australia. Ox-wagons were also used in the United States. The first recorded use of an ox-wagon was around 1670,[citation needed] but they continue to be used in some areas up to modern times. Bullock wagons were important in the colonial history of Australia.[2] Olaf Ruhen, in his book Bullock Teams remarks on how bullock teams "shaped and built the colony. They carved the roads and built the rail; their tractive power made populating the interior possible; their contributions to the harvesting of timber opened the bush; they offered a start in life to the enterprising youngster". Bullocks were preferred by many explorers and teamsters because they were cheaper, quieter, tougher, and more easily maintained than horses, therefore, making them more popular for draught work.[3] Frequently comprising long trains of bullocks, yoked in pairs, they were used for hauling drays, wagon, or jinker loads of goods and lumber prior to the construction of railways and the formation of roads. In the early days the flexible two-wheeled dray, with a center pole and narrow 3-inch (8 cm) iron tires was commonly used. The four-wheeled dray or box wagon came into use after about 1860 for loads of 6 to 8 long tons (6.7 to 9.0 short tons; 6.1 to 8.1 t) and was drawn by 16 to 18 bullocks. A bullock team was led by a pair of well-trained leaders who responded to verbal commands as they did not have reins or a bridle.[4] The bullock team driver was called a bullocky, bullock puncher, or teamster. Many Australian country towns owe their origin to the bullock teams, having grown from a store or shanty where teams rested or crossed a stream. These shanties were spaced at about 12-mile (19 km) intervals, which was the usual distance for a team to travel in a day.[5] Source: www.wikiwand.com/en/Ox-wagon

Romeo Watkins Lahey (1887-1968). Founding President (1930) of NPAQ, Engineer, Businessman, Timber merchant, Veteran of WW1 and WW2, Conservationist, National Parks Advocate, Founder of the ‘Save the Trees’ campaign in 1946. ‘In October 1915, he delivered a lecture to the Royal Geographical Society of Australasia Queensland Branch titled ‘Some reasons why national parks should be established in Queensland, with special reference to Lamington National Park’, and called for other large areas to be preserved as national parks as well as an extension of the state forest system. While enlisted in WW1 with the 11th Field Company Engineers AIF, Lahey continued to steer discussion about the park’s management, protection of all species, its access, and the naming of locations (he suggested Aboriginal words be used as placenames.’This year the lecture will be delivered by NPAQ Councillor, Steve Noakes who is also Chairperson of Binna Burra Lodge and also a member of the Tourism and Protected Areas Specialist Group of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and a member of the Royal Geographical Society of Queensland. Steve’s address will comment on key issues and themes from the past half-century of expert speakers who have delivered the Romeo Lahey Memorial Lecture and some of the major current issues facing Queensland’s national parks. The Lecture this year will also reflect on the end of another Lahey legacy. It comes some two years after the central heritage lodge and pioneer cabins at Binna Burra were destroyed at the early stages of the six months of the Black Summer Australian bushfires. The original building at Binna Burra was Leighton House built in Canungra in 1902 and owned by the Lahey family. In 1934 it was transported piece by piece on horseback up the track to Mt Roberts and remained at the Binna Burra Lodge reception and lounge until it was burnt down in the bushfires on Sunday 8 September 2019. The ‘Black Summer’ bushfires across Australia saw over half of the 366,500 total hectares of the Gondwana World Heritage forests destroyed or damaged. Source: npaq.org.au/rhl/