Well, what a trip it was, it wasn't a passenger liner, it was a troop carrier in the war. So there were just big dormitories. No air conditioning, nothing. So we went on Delmenhorst, Bremerhaven. We left Bremerhaven, and went through the English channel, was a bit rough, was not too bad, then down Atlantic, into Gibraltar, through into Mediterranean, through the Suez. In Suez we stopped for about five or six hours, and then into, through the canal to the Red Sea, and through the Red Sea we came to Aden. And from Aden, out into the Indian Ocean. Boy! A storm hit us there! Everybody was sick. There wasn't a single person in the dining room. Ohh! I'll never forget that. And from there, about two days after, sort of eased up and getting better. And then down to, we stopped in Perth. And there was already some of them already came before us. I remember a Polish bloke brought a pineapple and peeled it and gave us a slice to taste what a pineapple tastes like. I'd never even seen a pineapple before.

So, I think I better stop now and wait till we get the next one, its getting too late, and tired….

....Ok, I'm moving on, I think I can make another twenty minutes.

In Melbourne, in Perth, we stayed about half a day. And from there, we were continuing our journey to Melbourne. We were just about outside Melbourne, going towards the wharf. I thought there's going to be a big brass band waiting for us, when we come up ashore. To our big surprise, there were about four wharfies going up and down and down on the wharf, that was it. The train pulled in next to the ship, and all of us, they loaded all of us onto that train. And the train was on the way to Bonegilla, that's on the border of Victoria and New South Wales. And about half way up there the train stopped, and we were out in the country, and we were allowed to get out, and there was security blokes watching us that we don't run away. Where would you run anyhow?

So we finally arrive in Bonegilla. We got into our camps, like barracks. They must have been army barracks there, and we sort of settled in Bonegilla, and we got our beds, the meals, everything was done nicely, the mess halls. The meals were cooked, we were just going in and you get your tray and you walk along and they would dish it out for you, and they started the schools, to learn English, and I was in Bonegilla for about four weeks. In the meantime, I made a lot of friends on the ship, and, so, they were telling us, about four or five blokes can stay together as a group if they want to, but not more. So, we got together with a couple of Yugoslav blokes, Henry, and Augi, and there was one Hungarian, Paul, and we are going to go, if its possible to the same company to work. Now we were under two years contract, so we would have to take whatever they offer us. Anyhow, I remember the first day that we got into the mess hall, into the big dining rooms, and we got our meals, and we went to the tables and sat down, there was about up to six to eight blokes sitting at a table, and there were two big cylinders, like stainless steel cylinders, and there was tea in that cylinders. You got a cup, and you just turned the tap on and let the tea in there and moved on. And there was one was a black tea, and the other cylinder was a tea with milk. But I have never ever heard of tea with milk, or have even seen one. And, anyhow, I just looked at that bloke in the front of me, he was getting tea, just the normal tea, and the other one took the other one with milk, and I thought that was coffee, because of the milk, because of the color. And I got, oh, I'll have coffee I thought to myself, and I filled the cup up, and went to the table, and had my meal, and then I sugared the coffee, as I thought, and I tasted it. And the taste! I said to the bloke sitting the opposite side of me, "Gee, even the coffee tastes different in this country!" <chuckle> And there was a Czechoslovakian bloke, he was from the university in Czechoslovakia already, and he said to me, "You idiot! It's a bloody tea!" <laugh>   Oh gosh, that's what it is, alright, I'll settle for the tea with milk.

And, so we were there for four weeks. And after four weeks the people used to come around who would need some workers, like, the railways, the farmers were coming, who wanted to go to the farm, the PMG was coming around picking up people, they were building a trunk line between Sydney and Adelaide. And as far as Bathurst was underground, and from Bathurst onward was above the ground, the telephone lines. So I volunteered to go the Post Masters, the PMG, the Post Masters General. Me and Augi and Henry and another bloke. And so they packed us up on the train, and, I don't know where did they take us, I can't remember now, but they got us off the train and there was a truck waiting for us to pick us up and take us to Young. It was just a truck in the front part and the back of the truck was a tarpaulin over it and we just got under the tarpaulin sitting in there. Everyone had a bit of a suitcase. And he was driving and driving and all of a sudden they stopped, and we just (it was raining all the way), and we just pulled our head out, and we seen that the driver went out of the truck, and there was like a river, like a sea in the front of the truck. And he was walking into that bloody water. He wanted to see, just to test it, to see how deep it is, if he can cross. But he got in nearly as far as his waist, and he was coming back he said. He can't go across here. He got to go back and make a loop somewhere around to go around, to bypass that. So, that's what he did.

And we finally arrived at Young. The tents were already put up for us. There was a bed in it, and a rolled up mattress and two blankets. So we got in - there was two men to a tent. And there was seven of us altogether. So I was the last one, so the last tent, it was just me, there was nobody else. There was only one bed. So I got in there, and I put a suitcase down, and I sat on the bed. Because it was raining for a couple of weeks I think, without a break, and the bed just sunk into the ground, the legs went right into the ground. So I had to get up and pull the legs out, and go outside and look for some wood to put under the legs so the bed would stay up. That was the start of, wow! And we were get ready slowly together, to get the beds fixed up. And we didn't have much to unpack anyhow.

And the following day the line inspector was Dr, uh, Mr Lynch, from Wagga Wagga. He called us together and he told us what's got to be done. There was already about 29 or 30 people in the camp there already, so we were the last ones. And then the following day we started to go out to work, it was, the line was running from Cowra, Young, and from Young to Cootamundra. From the camp at Young, working between Young and Cowra, that's the first one we started on. When that was finished then we moved from, between Young and Cowra towards Cootamundra on the other side of Young, as our camp was four miles on the Cowra side from Young. So between, outside Young, and then on the other side of Young it went under the ground, it wasn't on the pole, above the ground. So that was everything fine.