EXPLORER BURNED

Hokitika Guardian, 18 June 1921, Page 1

EXPLORER BURNED

'TERRIBLE ACCIDENT IN CENTRAL AUSTRALIA.

SYDNEY, June 7

The three members of the Public Works Committee of the Federal Parliament, who set out this week to spend three months in the centre of Australia looking for a suitable route for the North-South Railway will, it is to lie hoped, have lietter luck than Francis Birtles, who left some months ago on the same task. Birtles is a well-known cycle rider, and equipped only with a bicycle, a rifle, and a small pack, lias made some remarkable journeys over the empty porions of the Continent to the north and north-west. Some months ago be managed to persuade Mr Hughes that lie could do some useful pathfinding for the railway, and Mr Hughes provided him with funds and a motor-car worth Cl 200, and let him go. AYhereupon lie disappeared into the wilds, and very little was beard of him until news came that disaster bad overtaken him and his companion. This action of Mr Hughes, by the way, lias been very sharply criticised lately.

Birtles, it appears, got right through the central semi-desert from South Australia and well into the Northern Territory. He had had a lot of trouble with the car, and in obtaining supplies of benzine, but be bad got going again. He was running with an open exhaust and an open bonnet, and had 87 gallons of' ben.zine piled on behind. The big car was running rather quickly over open country; where the grass grew long. The driver did not see a low stump, hidden in the grass, and (lie car struck it heavily. The whole structure was jarred, and the benzine tank under the car was broken, and leaked. The petrol fumes came at once into contact with the open exhaust, and there was a sharp explosion, and the car was wrapped in flames. The collision had also set the stored benzine leaking, and almost simultaneously this took lire with a terrific explosion. This all happened in a second or two, and the car and its two occupants, Birtles and Fry, were wrapped in flames. Birtles put the car out of gear and both jumped. They were horribly burned, but they managed to walk 4,| miles to a station, where they collapsed. There was only a black there. Ho rode 18 miles to another station and reported, “.Motor car be catch fire white man’s shirt all burnt—flesh nil cooked.” Help was promptly sent, and the men were taken to the Marranboy Hospital, where both are still in a critical condition. A party went, to look for the €I2OO motor car, but found only a heap of melted metal. The Public Works party, now startling, is travelling in three motor cars, with officials and camp equipment. They propose to cover a great area of practically unmapped country. How they get on remains to be seen.