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If you were riding a motorcycle from Europe to Australia or vice versa as part of your RTW trip back in the ‘70s, you needed to know about two ships.
One was the MV Chidambaram, which was based in Madras and conducted sailings to Singapore and Penang. Referred to by its owners, the Indian government, as a “modern passenger liner” she was more like a floating slum by this time from what I’ve been told, and the first choice of hippies, backpackers and especially motorcyclists none of whom were able to get permission to travel through Burma. She was the only affordable way to cross the Indian Ocean with your bike, and was sorely missed after she caught fire in February 1985 and was decommissioned soon afterwards. I was unable to avail myself of MV Chidambaram because she was laid up with engine trouble when I needed her.
On the Freemantle quay: “This is more difficult to load than a sheep!” Photo: The Bear
The other important ship was launched in April 1951 in Holland for a Dutch shipping company as MS Tjiluwah, and sold to Singaporean Pacific International Lines in January 1972 to be renamed MS Kota Singapura. She had an identical twin, the MS Tjiwangi, and the 9000GRT ships had been known as the “Elegant White Yachts” during their early service. The name had become a little optimistic by 1978 when I caught her; she was transporting more sheep than people, for one thing. But she took motorcycles, and at a good price.
My XL250 being settled on the animal deck. Photo: The Bear
Kota Singapura connected Fremantle in Australia with Singapore to provide the “ship” stage of the cheap Ship-Jet service to Britain, with British Caledonian providing the charter “jet” stage for young and mainly penurious Australians. These made up most of the humans on board, which meant a six-day party; especially at tax-free booze prices.
My traveling companion Charlie and I had reached Perth a few days before the ship was due to sail after riding across Australia from Sydney. The freight office in Fremantle, the port of Perth, denied that it was necessary to be there early, as their head office had assured us. “Why would you want to do that, mate?” said the puzzled bloke there, before shooing us away until the morning of the sailing.
I had arranged for us to stay with Ray, a fellow writer for Two Wheels magazine. Neither he nor his girlfriend were home when we arrived at his house, so we walked in (nobody locked their doors in Perth), located the fridge and drank his supply of cold beer. When he arrived home from a long and dry photo session, we attempted to assuage his annoyance by singing the Swan Lager song.
“Swan Lager, Swan Lager, you killed my old man.
Swan Lager, Swan Lager, kill me if you can.”
That’s Mrs Bear-to-be in the red bikini, with me and a friend. Photo: The Bear
This set the tone for the next few days and when it was time to deliver the bikes to the dock and then board our trusty vessel, Ray donated a cardboard box of chardonnay so that we would not get too dry before the ship’s bar opened. That happened when it was theoretically outside Australia’s jurisdiction.
Once that limit was reached, the party began. We spent the evenings listening to the band The Friends in the bar and the days sitting around in the sun or playing increasingly boisterous games of water polo – “beardies” against “cleanskins” so you could tell the teams apart – in the tiny but deep pool. When I say boisterous, nobody was seriously hurt although a couple of blokes did have to be dragged from the pool and resuscitated after they’d been held under water a little too long by an opposing player.
Talent night demonstrated that there was little talent on board except for drinking, but Charlie and I rang in some other blokes and did a live action version of “Waltzing Matilda.” It even included an actual sheep, rustled from the mob ‘tween decks by Charlie who, despite having a PhD in plant genetics doubled effectively as a sheep rustler.
In the late ’70s, a lot of trade in Indonesia was still carried out by sailing ships. Photo: The Bear
The XLs, meanwhile, sat down on that sheep deck, accumulating a thick and malodorous coating of the lanolin exuded by their traveling companions. It is quite amazing how much of the stuff is in the air around a mob of sheep, and how much of that settles on all surfaces as a greasy coating. It took several washes in Singapore to strip it off, and the smell stayed with the bikes for quite a bit longer. Another effect on the bikes came from the non-stop vibrations of the ship’s engines. The XLs refused to start in Singapore until we drained the carburetor bowls and blew through the jets, which had filled from the fine suspension of dirt in the fuel.
The Singapore wharfies had no problems with the bikes, but we did! Photo: The Bear
By far the most important thing about the Kota Singapura crossing was that I met Mrs-Bear-to-be in the lounge on the second day. A genuine shipboard romance followed. She was on a Ship-Jet trip to Europe and would get there seven or eight months before me, but after a couple of days keeping each other company we agreed to meet again when we could.
And that, dear reader, is exactly what we did; and on our return to Australia we became a Bear Pair.
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