I believe that John Belfield and his crew of five were the first to drive in to Truscot and the trip was timed to coincide with a WA expedition that was organised by John Hardy (dec) of Port Hedland. The Hardy group staged through Kalumbaru and were ferried across to Truscot by boat. This was related to me by Murray Lucas of Perth who passed away some years ago.
Murray and a couple of other members of the group set up camp in the middle of one of the original roads and were drinking perfectly good rain water from abandoned 44 gallon drums that were everywhere. One day they heard the revving of an engine and crashing of saplings being knocked down and Belfields vehicle ( the Mean Green Machine) came down the long disused road, the first vehicle to travel along it for twenty years or more. It pulled up at their camp and John abused them for camping in the middle of the right of way with much laughter all around.
On that occasion a section of the runway was cleared and a light aircraft flown in that took everybody up in turns for a look from the air.
One vehicle that Murray and his mates found somewhere away from the main area that Murray showed me a photo of was the stripped out remains of a Dodge 3/4 ton Command Car that looked very straight. He assured me that only he and the two blokes with him knew about it. Murray was a bit of a leg puller and I will probably never know if he was just winding me up.
David
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Hell no! I'm not that old!
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