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