GORV - Digital Magazine Issue #16 | Page 44

THE FISH WAS THIS BIG WITH TIM SMITH MY DAD WAS AN ICE ADDICT CAMPING CALLS FOR A GOOD PORTABLE COOLER AND ICE. LOTS OF ICE. Gidday RVers! Just recently I’ve been thinking about a cold beer, in fact I’m thinking about one right now. I know where I get it from, my Dad, he loved an ice cold beer; in fact, he still does. But nowadays they are much easier to come by, what with your home-size fridge in your solar-powered caravan, your plug-in electric eskies and your cars with refrigerated glove boxes. Ice- cold anythings are everywhere, but not back in the day. When I was a kid and we went away on holidays, I remember all the fuss and time spent getting the ice, not the crushed bags of party ice available nowadays in every servo. No, my Dad was after a great, big block of the stuff, the size of a two-door Datsun 1600. And we would make a special trip to the Ballarat 44 gorv.com.au ice works to get it. The bloke there would pick it up with a pair of giant metal pincers while my dad would be asking him helpful stuff like, “Cold enough for ya?” Or, “How’s your brass monkey going?” (As a kid I was very impressed; I thought that the guy actually had a brass monkey. Only years later did I discover that the gentleman’s work environment had rendered said monkey incomplete.) The icing-up ritual was very important to the trip, as beer and caught fish demanded a below-zero storage environment. Needless to say, not many fish were caught, so that left more room for beer. So as you can imagine, the ice box was a crucial piece of equipment, and over the years we had the very best. I know this because I still have them all… SEE TIM'S ICEBOX COLLECTION