It was only after Alby started screening footage of World Safari I to live audiences that he realised that it was his crazy antics that drew the most attention and differentiated his film from your run-of-the-mill Dick Smith, Leyland Brothers, Bill Peach, Malcolm Douglas, etc (not to denigrate these fine Australian adventurers in any way :-). The point being that the idea to cross the Sahara in a two-cylinder Dutch car called a DAF, bought for $200 from a bicycle shop, was not conjured up by Alby to please audiences, but because he is plain bonkers.

Crossing the Sahara almost cost Alby and John their sorry lives. The Sahara equals 1500 km of unforgiving desert between petrol and water stops. Shortly after leaving, they had to retrace their steps after John contracted hepatitis. Two weeks later they set off again. Two hundred kilometres later they broke the main traverse spring, and ingeniously lashed it together with their steel tow-rope. Then they foolishly left the main "track" (actually just a string of posts about one kilometre apart) to follow a smoother path, and lost their way. No amount of searching would locate those posts. They thought their game was well and truly over when miraculously a lone nomad stumbled across them and they were saved.

They were mentally and physically exausted after a string of experiences which included travelling with a military convoy through Mozambique. In Alby's words "Looking back, there's no doubt we were crazy, as the whole area was a mass of destruction, scattered houses and the wreckage of trucks that had been blown apart." Another time a native tossed a spear through the front door, narrowly missing his stomach. And yet another time they were chased by a bull elephant and only God's providence saved them from being squished.

So they hitched a ride on a cargo ship from Gibralta and made their way back to Holland, where both Alby and the DAF were born. The DAF company were so impressed, they put them up in the best hotel, gave them a new DAF, $10,000 for publicity rights, and then proudly displayed their car in their Auto Museum. You see, it's things like that which simply encourage him all the more.

If you've seen the car yourself or have a photo, drop us an e-mail to tell us all about it.

PS: "CJ Horse", one of Alby's mates, told us a few years ago that the car was back in Alby's possession.

PPS: John Field lost interest in the World Safari I film project, and going quietly mad, joined a Zen Buddhist community in Sydney.

If you leave me, can I come too?