Brooke's memories of Jude - part 1

This is Brooke here, I'm the one who started this Blog. Jo Kouw and I discussed it as being an excellent and unusual 60th present. There is no reason it can't be her 61st, 62nd ... present either! Very cost effective.

I spent almost every opportunity possible to stay at Loyola. Every school holiday or any other reason to go across there. I lived in Canberra - only a 2 and a half hour drive away. Not that I could drive (legally).

What a segueway. I learnt to drive at Loyola. Jude taught me. It was in the Daihatsu (which is now parked down in the scrap heap near the shearing and machinery sheds - you can see the green canopy in this photo)


I was driving assisted by the age of 7. I thought I was really excellent driver and did it for years with little thought. Then my confidence got battered when I drove between properties too tired. This combined with my raw experience had me fish-tailing. I lost control and did some pretty significant damage to the car (a '80-something Ford Falcon Ute - yeah mate!). Noone was hurt - Cousin Scott was in the car with me. But by golly I had a real shock. Life flashing before my eyes and all that. Well the dust as we travelled sideways and possibly backwards was all I could see!


I was really pissed when my sister got her license 2 years before I could! And she couldn't even drive (I thought - she's a good driver now - though the Audi does all the thinking for her :).

When I was 9 they got a min-bike. A Kawasaki 50cc with an automatic clutch. We had a race-track of sorts down the side of the house in what used to be the horse paddock (where Jo tried to bloat the poor beasts!). We basically drove in an oval up an down the hill. We loved it and between all of us we rode all day (Jo, Lee, Scott - actually he may have been too young, Justy - too young or not as interested possibly, Mardi - mmm I think she did this a bit. So it was Lee, Jo and I!).

I continued riding the motor bike, graduating up to the 4-stroke farm bike, for years and years. Scott, who by this stage was riding something (the Kawasaki?), and I had a track down the paddock to the North (left of the berthungra Hills when looking from the house). About 3km away from the house. There was a damm and that provided plenty of racing conditions with jumps and embankments and the like. Fantastic - we loved it!

Again we'd ride every moment we were awake and not eating (or swimming in the pool - another great distraction). Scarey moments. I only remember one. There was this lip, like a gutter in urban Australia but a bit rounder and steeper. For whatever reason, after the front wheel went over it, i leaned forward and the back wheel went up in the air. I was riding on the front wheel! I don't know how long or how far I went like this but it felt like ages. Now all you out there with your heart in your mouth, I quickly recovered (quickly - hey, it felt like ages!) and got the rear wheel back down.

I continued to ride motorbikes and did so at every opportunity. My parents were super-anti motor bikes (my dad calls them "Temporary Australians") so I never got one myself. My uncle and Aunt Peter and Noelene, along with their daughter Narelle, son-n-law Jamie and kids lived in St George - Outback QLD. Lots of stories here which I'll save for another time ("Blog to Peter" maybe! Peter is Jude's brother). Jamie had done a lot of competition motor bike riding and I learnt much from him. He told me that you'll never be a good bike rider until you've stacked 100 times. I was 16. I took it literally and proceeded over the following weeks to ride as rough (but controlled) as possible through the sandy areas and stack it. Broke nothing - didnt' even lose blood! I was too good!

Anyway, this is not about me, its about Jude. Though this is for her entertainment and I hope she found this to be.

See more photos in my collection at (oh, I'll include some samples):

Christmas 2005

Christmas 2006