An old mate from travelling was in London for a couple of days and crashed on the sofa. It was good to see Peter again. We first met in the wilds of eastern Turkey back in 1993. He was sitting in the tourist office in Urfa with his girlfriend Donna. They were the first English speakers I’d seen for a while so I plonked myself down and just talked at them – non-stop – happy just to verbalise the words that had been trapped in my head for the previous two months. He told me later that they thought I was a freak which goes to prove that first impressions are almost always correct.
The conversation turned, as it often does, to Alby Mangels, a mutual hero of ours. (If you look in the acknowledgements in my books there’s always a little tip of the hat to Alby.)
Alby is perhaps best described as an adventurer and film-maker. His films World Safari I, II and III (and the subsequent TV series cobbled together from footage from the movies) are the reason a whole generation of Aussie males started travelling in tiny denim shorts – looking for the adventure and the girls in bikinis that seemed to go hand-in-hand in Alby’s epics.
Like all good Aussie adventurers Alby sailed close to the wind and after a scathing expose on A Current Affair he disappeared off the radar for a while. But in recent years there’s been a rehabilitation of sorts. An autobiography, a DVD and an appearance on Where Are they Now?
I live in the UK now so I hadn’t heard of the show. But Peter directed me to the clip on YouTube and the memories came flooding back – Alby racing ostriches, Vic puncturing the Zodiac with a fishing hook, Sam the bull terrier chasing a wild boar, Alby miraculously find a sock full of opals from the sunken wreckage of the Greta Marie. Even Judy Green makes an appearance. She was the most famous of Alby’s bikini-clad companions and looks amazingly well-preserved.
I’m not sure that Alby’s work holds up to close scrutiny. And it is perhaps viewed best through nostalgic eyes. But when I see the old footage of Alby’s adventures it still has the same effect on me – I want to grab my pack and head off into the unknown for a proper old skool adventure. It’s like my very own personal call of the wild.
I’ve embedded the Youtube clips from Where Are They Now? below. If you’re not already into Alby then they’ll probably leave you a bit mystified. But if you were one of the thousands of Aussies who crammed into a church hall to watch World Safari back in the late 70′s and early 80′s, I hope it stirs the travelling spirit inside you again.
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On a whim a few years back I bought all three of the World Safari DVDs form Alby’s website. I can’t recommend them enough – as well as the nostalgia factor, seeing Alby cross Africa and the Pacific were just great moments!!
Oh, and seeing Vic survivie 3 rounds in a boxing tent, too!!