Epic drive from Melbourne to Adelaide “exceptionally unpleasant”
Motoring enthusiasts Russell Grimwade and G.P.Smith completed the first motorcar trip between Melbourne and Adelaide taking place over 5 days from May 30th to June 3rd 1905. Driving a 10 horsepower double cylinder Argyll car, the pair experienced trouble crossing the Coorong owing to the poor condition of the pipeclay roads. Grimwade stated that he would not undertake the trip again. Reported in The Register (5th June 1905) it was not only the road conditions which made the trip “exceptionally unpleasant”. Grimwade and Smith reported soaking rains which dampened their spirits, their sandwiches and perhaps most distressingly, their matches, denying them a consolatory smoke.
A photograph showing Russell Grimwade and an Argyll motor vehicle on a sandy track near Strathdownie in western Victoria. Taken on the second day of Russell Grimwade and G.P.Smith’s motor trip from Melbourne to Adelaide. “Sand difficulties near Strathdownie May 31st 05” is written in ink beneath the photograph. Sir Wilfrid Grimwade Collection, University of Melbourne Archives, 2002.0003.00550 
A photograph showing a man (probably G.P.Smith)standing beside an Argyll motor vehicle on a flooded road amongst sand hills in the Coorong area of South Australia. Taken on the fourth day of Russell Grimwade and G.P.Smith’s motor trip from Melbourne to Adelaide. Inscription: “Lunch on the Coorong June 2nd 05” Sir Wilfrid Grimwade Collection, University of Melbourne Archives, 2002.0003.00240
The trip did not start well; the pair left Melbourne during a thunderstorm on the morning of the 30th of May. Greasy tarmac made the route to Mount Gambier on the second day less than ideal; turning the Argyll into a boat on the flooded roads. Their route to Meningie was lost in sand dunes and tussock grass. Smith and Grimwade reached Adelaide at 12.55pm on the 3rd of June. The 604 miles covered by car took 36 hours and 26 minutes.
Full details on the route Grimwade and Smith undertook can be found in The Register article via Trove http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article56675482
Russell Grimwade was born in Caulfield, Victoria on 15 October 1879, son of the Hon. Frank Sheppard Grimwade, MLA, and was educated at Melbourne Grammar School and the University of Melbourne. Graduating in Science in 1901 he entered the family chemicals firm of Felton Grimwade & Co. as director of the research laboratory. An innovator, he pioneered large-scale oxygen production in Australia and experimented with the extraction of oils and compounds from indigenous plants, amongst many other scientific improvisations. He was an early champion of forest conservation as well as a skilled cabinet-maker and amateur photographer. Grimwade began taking photographs in early 1896 at the age of 16 and soon became an accomplished amateur. Over the following 40 years he filled 35 albums with photographs covering subjects ranging from family and friends to travel and his general interests. He published ‘An anthography of the Eucalypt’ in 1921. He sat on the boards and committees of a diverse range of organisations, including the Royal Australian Chemical Institute, the National Museum of Victoria, the Melbourne Botanic Gardens, the Felton Bequest Committee and the Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science. In 1934 he donated Captain Cook’s cottage to the people of Victoria. He was appointed CBE in 1935 and knighted in 1950. In 1909 he had married Mabel Kelly and in 1910 they bought ‘Miegunyah’ in Orrong Road, Toorak, where they lived for the rest of their lives.
A small selection of his photographs of Eucalypts is discussed in a previous post Australian flora – eucalypts in focus
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