After an epic journey around Australia, the Riley family's world was shaken

Five years ago, Australian pastor David Riley, his wife, two high school aged daughters and their youngest son, set off on an epic journey to lap Australia.

During that adventure, Riley came across the story of Nevill Westwood and Greg Davies, the first to lap the continent by car.

The young pair left Perth bound for Darwin in a tiny Citröen cabriolet called Bubsie. They had been sent by their church with a simple but daunting, task, to establish a mission in the Northern Territory.

Riley, along with his family, followed the route of this intrepid pair, documented in his book,Bubsie and the Boys.

Westwood and Davies had no maps. There were no petrol stations or mechanics en route, and they navigated by following telegraph wires, Riley told RNZ.

The car driven by the two six-foot-tall men was tiny, he says.

“A little two-seater cabriolet soft top, seven and a half horsepower engine size, that's half the engine size of most modern-day ride on lawnmowers. There was barely enough room for the two of them.”

The car now sits at the National Museum of Australia in Canberra.

“If you looked at it in the museum today, you would think, ‘how could this car make it all the way around Australia?’”

Keeping Bubsie ticking over on the mammoth journey required some primitive and inventive bush mechanics, he says.

“One of the ways they overcame all their flat tyres up north was to take a freshly killed cow, skin it and to wrap the skin into tight balls and stuff it in their deflated tyres with holes in it to create solids.”

The pair would travel for hundreds of kilometres with tyres filled with animal carcass slowly cooking from the heat and friction, he says.

“The outback flies swarmed to their car and it stunk. And the irony of two vegetarian 7th Day Adventist missionaries travelling the outback with their tyres full of animal carcass is quite funny.”

The duo bought or were given petrol at cattle stations on the way, but they had to be creative when Bubsie’s fuel tank started to leak.

“The fuel tank was located underneath the dashboard and so one of the fellas, Nevill, would drive but with his head and hand under the dashboard stopping the leaks with his fingers but not able to see where he was driving and Greg his partner would stand on the side of the car on the running board and give him directions as they drove through the outback.”

When they eventually reached Darwin, they decided to continue circumnavigating Australia rather than stay and develop the mission. However, another three people were setting out from Perth with the same idea.

Westwood and Davies found themselves vying to be the first people to drive all the way around Australia, up against a retired butcher and a mother and daughter pair.

Although they had a considerable head start, their competitors drove bigger and more powerful cars, Riley says.

“They had a 4000 kilometre start in a race of about 13,000 kilometres. But they knew that a mechanical problem of any sort would hold them up for a week or two."

There was a point in the race where it was thought others would overtake Bubsie and the boys, Riley says.

“But it didn't happen, they managed to hold on to their lead and be the first to arrive back into Perth, Western Australia, five months after they set out.”

The journey and its deprivations tested their friendship, Riley says, and it all came to a head in Sydney. They had a falling out and Davies decided to leave Westgate and Bubsie.

After Riley and his family completed their own journey. tragedy struck. His eldest daughter Jess became ill with headaches.

“She was hospitalised, diagnosed with an aggressive brain cancer, glioblastoma. In less than three months, we lost Jess.”

Jess had a rare cancer-related syndrome and the whole family was tested.

“It was discovered that I was the one that had passed it on to Jess and also as a result of that testing it was discovered that I have terminal cancer as well," Riley says.

"The doctors have given me another few months to live, but with treatment over the last few months it is possible I might make it through to the end of this year.”

This shattering news makes the memories he made travelling around Australia with his family for two years even more precious, he says.

“Every evening lying in bed with the lights out, talking with my wife and three kids in their bunks as we talk about the day and talk about the plans for tomorrow that was the best memory that I’ve got.

“... And every night I would think the same thing, the most important priorities in my life were all lying within a five-metre radius of me, my family.”