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Tasmania specific bushwalking discussion. Please avoid publishing details of access to sensitive areas with no tracks.Advocate Story on Dennis Maxwell
Sun 14 Sep, 2014 3:22 pm
Gave me a bit of a laugh, Dennis is a legend!
From the Advocate
http://www.theadvocate.com.au/story/255 ... ars/?cs=86
Dennis Maxwell has charmed a few people after 50 years on the buses.
To pinch a phrase he quite often uses to describe his beloved older vehicles, Dennis might be a bit rusty and worn at the edges, but he still goes like the clappers.
The booming husky voice and natural storytelling of this affable 79-year-old force of nature is like a magnet drawing people in.
He spins stories riddled with colourful language and self-deprecating humour.
Chivalry and old school values meant he always cleaned a tale up for the ladies.
"Even today when the kids see me driving the school bus they say: 'Let the girls on first, it's old Maxwell at the wheel'," he tells.
Dennis is known far and wide as the: "King of the Mountain" after carting thousands of bushwalkers into Cradle Mountain and Lake St Clair National Park and the other pristine locations around the state that tourists come to see. Staying at picturesque places like Pelion Hut halfway on the Overland Track.
"I've carted paupers [backpackers] to millionaires [like Dick Smith]," Dennis said with a chuckle.
"They all come for the same thing; to get away from it all — and no phones," he says.
"Places where the wealthy have to look after themselves because there's no one else to wash up their dishes."
A lot of challenging country roads were driven in rain, ice and snow.
"On that bus we used to cart 540 dozen eggs on the roof from Wilmot to Devonport to
put on the railway to go to Hobart and be made into egg pulp," he tells as he flicks through his old photographs.
A self-taught mechanic he sorted out plenty of bus breakdowns himself.
Lying face down on a bus floor to fix a broken pipe he would surface with a grease smudge and a grin on his dial to restart the bus.
Neil Robins, president of the Tasmanian Bus & Coach Society, said Dennis is "renowned across Tasmania".
"I haven't heard a bad word about him, he'd go out of his way to help anybody and this was reiterated on the weekend with the stories told," Neil said.
The weekend event he is talking about was a party attended by 100 peers to celebrate the adventure-filled 50 years in the bus industry for Dennis and Jeanette Maxwell and their distinctive green and white emblazoned Maxwell Coaches.
The milestone anniversary just clocked over a few weeks ago.
"Without my wife, I would not have succeeded," Dennis was quick to point out.
His tough exterior softens when he speaks of Jeanette.
"She's a lovely woman," he says.
Jeanette worked right alongside her husband driving school buses.
Often with their two daughters (Anne and Karen) in tow when the girls were littlies.
Dennis mostly did the charter and touring work and there was also a farm at Wilmot and a mail run to take care of.
Dennis sold a number of his buses in recent times, but says he has no intention at all of retiring completely.
As long as he holds a licence he will be driving the bus to somewhere.
It's a sentiment that has always kept him on the road.
Much to the chagrin of his wife and daughters it didn't matter if it was Christmas Day, when a call comes in Dennis goes out.
"Our motto is: We never say no," Dennis said.
"If someone wants to go somewhere we fit them in somewhere, somehow."
In the beginning, he bought his first bus (a 1958 Mercedes) off R.G. Fisher at the end of August, 1964, which carried 31 kids on the Erriba to Wilmot school run and also had a charter licence on it.
"The first day on the school bus was noisy, but I've got a big voice so it was fine," Dennis tells.
"If you become part of the kids there's no problem — and they knew who was boss."
Dennis quickly made a rule that parents had to pull up on the same side of the road as the bus to collect their children.
"That's where kids get run over; they would come straight out from behind the bus because they don't think."
"There's nothing hard about driving buses, but you just have to watch what you are doing and watch what other people are doing all the time.
"The biggest problem is other people, because our roads are not wide and a lot of roads don't have a white line."
Dennis said the worst drivers on the road are the drunks and tourists from overseas who are not used to driving and tend to pull up anywhere.
"You've got to be alert to that sort of thing," Dennis says.
His passion for his work becomes abundantly clear.
Jan Bingley, director of Phoenix Coaches, said at bus meetings he has been known to go to the front of the room and bang his fist on the desk.
"Can't remember what he was talking about, but he was very passionate," she said.
Dennis is not just a bus driver he's part of the attraction for the tourists that can't get enough.
Recently he carted a man he had first taken on a bus 40-plus years ago who came back with his son this time because he loved it.
The unique Dennis Maxwell Tasmanian experience comes with a lively running commentary of people, places and sights.
Dennis is against the change in policy he has seen which requires tourists and locals to be charged what he calls a steep fee to walk in Tasmania's national parks.
"Someone is being paid to sit on a backside in Hobart and think up these stupid *&%$#! ideas which are not good ideas," he says bluntly.
"National parks are set up as money grabbers trying to take more money off people.
"I'm not going to pay $1000 a night for a bed — not me.
"I can sleep standing up," Dennis laughs uproariously.
He thinks back to how much easier it used to be to run his business and for his passengers in the era before tighter regulations and the exorbitant cost of public indemnity.
He gets uncharacteristically sombre recalling a bus crash tragedy which rocked the state and the tourism industry.
More than a decade ago it was one of his buses that was hired by Cradle Mountain Lodge with one of their drivers at the wheel that went too close to the edge and kept going.
Four people were killed in the terrible incident.
In another shocking crash Dennis was the one driving a bus load of interstate school children when all on board were lucky to escape unhurt after a collision with a train, which took the front end off the bus.
The bus and train collided at the Burnie Airport crossing.
"I had my foot stuck, but no one was hurt," Dennis said.
"I went along to a school reunion some years later with the Camberwell Grammar students that were on board."
Dennis grabs his trademark hat, which is well worn and has seen better days, as he climbs aboard a shuttle bearing his name.
The hat has been used over many years to shield his scone and doubled as a scoop for ice cold water taken from wilderness places like Dove Lake.
His passengers ignored the fact it was just on his sweaty head and would gulp in the water cupped from his hat.
"I've had at least hundreds drink out of it," he says with a grin.
Once you've met Dennis you would never forget his energy for life.
Dennis stands as the real deal people want to meet. He's a little bit crazy in a good way.
You've gotta wonder about his cure for kids feeling bus sick.
"I put them up on the spare wheel [on the front of the bus] to let them cool down.
"They hung on for grim death, but you wasn't going fast and only went a few hundred yards to get fresh air into their lungs.
"They were never sick again."
Dennis fondly remembers days before gas stoves and toasting marshmallows by a campfire.
"We used to go with a tour into Pelion Hut and camp at Douglas Creek for New Year's Eve. We'd dance the old year out and the new year in by the fire."
When asked again if it might be time to retire so he can take his wife on a holiday he scoffs and lists reasons against.
"Work doesn't become a problem.
"I get on easy with people.
"I love what I do.
I love my buses.
"And it's *&%$#! hard to get my wife to go on holiday."
The land he bought to retire to in 1977 is on Lillico Straight where a few old buses sat covered in lichen and moss.
Neil Robins has taken delivery of two that were once the pride of the Maxwell fleet, for restoration by the Tasmanian Bus & Coach Society. Dennis donated a 1963 AEC Reliance 590 with Denning bodywork, one of only 10 coaches built in Australia (in its configuration) and said to be the last. Originally built for Greyhound it toured Tasmania and was "retired" in 1992 where it sat for almost 20 years.
"The remarkable thing, was in 2011, when our society toured the North-West Coast, Dennis said he'd fire it up . . . most were sceptical that the coach would actually start, but lo and behold, Dennis cheerfully fired the vehicle up first go and drove us around his paddock."
From the Advocate
http://www.theadvocate.com.au/story/255 ... ars/?cs=86
Dennis Maxwell has charmed a few people after 50 years on the buses.
To pinch a phrase he quite often uses to describe his beloved older vehicles, Dennis might be a bit rusty and worn at the edges, but he still goes like the clappers.
The booming husky voice and natural storytelling of this affable 79-year-old force of nature is like a magnet drawing people in.
He spins stories riddled with colourful language and self-deprecating humour.
Chivalry and old school values meant he always cleaned a tale up for the ladies.
"Even today when the kids see me driving the school bus they say: 'Let the girls on first, it's old Maxwell at the wheel'," he tells.
Dennis is known far and wide as the: "King of the Mountain" after carting thousands of bushwalkers into Cradle Mountain and Lake St Clair National Park and the other pristine locations around the state that tourists come to see. Staying at picturesque places like Pelion Hut halfway on the Overland Track.
"I've carted paupers [backpackers] to millionaires [like Dick Smith]," Dennis said with a chuckle.
"They all come for the same thing; to get away from it all — and no phones," he says.
"Places where the wealthy have to look after themselves because there's no one else to wash up their dishes."
A lot of challenging country roads were driven in rain, ice and snow.
"On that bus we used to cart 540 dozen eggs on the roof from Wilmot to Devonport to
put on the railway to go to Hobart and be made into egg pulp," he tells as he flicks through his old photographs.
A self-taught mechanic he sorted out plenty of bus breakdowns himself.
Lying face down on a bus floor to fix a broken pipe he would surface with a grease smudge and a grin on his dial to restart the bus.
Neil Robins, president of the Tasmanian Bus & Coach Society, said Dennis is "renowned across Tasmania".
"I haven't heard a bad word about him, he'd go out of his way to help anybody and this was reiterated on the weekend with the stories told," Neil said.
The weekend event he is talking about was a party attended by 100 peers to celebrate the adventure-filled 50 years in the bus industry for Dennis and Jeanette Maxwell and their distinctive green and white emblazoned Maxwell Coaches.
The milestone anniversary just clocked over a few weeks ago.
"Without my wife, I would not have succeeded," Dennis was quick to point out.
His tough exterior softens when he speaks of Jeanette.
"She's a lovely woman," he says.
Jeanette worked right alongside her husband driving school buses.
Often with their two daughters (Anne and Karen) in tow when the girls were littlies.
Dennis mostly did the charter and touring work and there was also a farm at Wilmot and a mail run to take care of.
Dennis sold a number of his buses in recent times, but says he has no intention at all of retiring completely.
As long as he holds a licence he will be driving the bus to somewhere.
It's a sentiment that has always kept him on the road.
Much to the chagrin of his wife and daughters it didn't matter if it was Christmas Day, when a call comes in Dennis goes out.
"Our motto is: We never say no," Dennis said.
"If someone wants to go somewhere we fit them in somewhere, somehow."
In the beginning, he bought his first bus (a 1958 Mercedes) off R.G. Fisher at the end of August, 1964, which carried 31 kids on the Erriba to Wilmot school run and also had a charter licence on it.
"The first day on the school bus was noisy, but I've got a big voice so it was fine," Dennis tells.
"If you become part of the kids there's no problem — and they knew who was boss."
Dennis quickly made a rule that parents had to pull up on the same side of the road as the bus to collect their children.
"That's where kids get run over; they would come straight out from behind the bus because they don't think."
"There's nothing hard about driving buses, but you just have to watch what you are doing and watch what other people are doing all the time.
"The biggest problem is other people, because our roads are not wide and a lot of roads don't have a white line."
Dennis said the worst drivers on the road are the drunks and tourists from overseas who are not used to driving and tend to pull up anywhere.
"You've got to be alert to that sort of thing," Dennis says.
His passion for his work becomes abundantly clear.
Jan Bingley, director of Phoenix Coaches, said at bus meetings he has been known to go to the front of the room and bang his fist on the desk.
"Can't remember what he was talking about, but he was very passionate," she said.
Dennis is not just a bus driver he's part of the attraction for the tourists that can't get enough.
Recently he carted a man he had first taken on a bus 40-plus years ago who came back with his son this time because he loved it.
The unique Dennis Maxwell Tasmanian experience comes with a lively running commentary of people, places and sights.
Dennis is against the change in policy he has seen which requires tourists and locals to be charged what he calls a steep fee to walk in Tasmania's national parks.
"Someone is being paid to sit on a backside in Hobart and think up these stupid *&%$#! ideas which are not good ideas," he says bluntly.
"National parks are set up as money grabbers trying to take more money off people.
"I'm not going to pay $1000 a night for a bed — not me.
"I can sleep standing up," Dennis laughs uproariously.
He thinks back to how much easier it used to be to run his business and for his passengers in the era before tighter regulations and the exorbitant cost of public indemnity.
He gets uncharacteristically sombre recalling a bus crash tragedy which rocked the state and the tourism industry.
More than a decade ago it was one of his buses that was hired by Cradle Mountain Lodge with one of their drivers at the wheel that went too close to the edge and kept going.
Four people were killed in the terrible incident.
In another shocking crash Dennis was the one driving a bus load of interstate school children when all on board were lucky to escape unhurt after a collision with a train, which took the front end off the bus.
The bus and train collided at the Burnie Airport crossing.
"I had my foot stuck, but no one was hurt," Dennis said.
"I went along to a school reunion some years later with the Camberwell Grammar students that were on board."
Dennis grabs his trademark hat, which is well worn and has seen better days, as he climbs aboard a shuttle bearing his name.
The hat has been used over many years to shield his scone and doubled as a scoop for ice cold water taken from wilderness places like Dove Lake.
His passengers ignored the fact it was just on his sweaty head and would gulp in the water cupped from his hat.
"I've had at least hundreds drink out of it," he says with a grin.
Once you've met Dennis you would never forget his energy for life.
Dennis stands as the real deal people want to meet. He's a little bit crazy in a good way.
You've gotta wonder about his cure for kids feeling bus sick.
"I put them up on the spare wheel [on the front of the bus] to let them cool down.
"They hung on for grim death, but you wasn't going fast and only went a few hundred yards to get fresh air into their lungs.
"They were never sick again."
Dennis fondly remembers days before gas stoves and toasting marshmallows by a campfire.
"We used to go with a tour into Pelion Hut and camp at Douglas Creek for New Year's Eve. We'd dance the old year out and the new year in by the fire."
When asked again if it might be time to retire so he can take his wife on a holiday he scoffs and lists reasons against.
"Work doesn't become a problem.
"I get on easy with people.
"I love what I do.
I love my buses.
"And it's *&%$#! hard to get my wife to go on holiday."
The land he bought to retire to in 1977 is on Lillico Straight where a few old buses sat covered in lichen and moss.
Neil Robins has taken delivery of two that were once the pride of the Maxwell fleet, for restoration by the Tasmanian Bus & Coach Society. Dennis donated a 1963 AEC Reliance 590 with Denning bodywork, one of only 10 coaches built in Australia (in its configuration) and said to be the last. Originally built for Greyhound it toured Tasmania and was "retired" in 1992 where it sat for almost 20 years.
"The remarkable thing, was in 2011, when our society toured the North-West Coast, Dennis said he'd fire it up . . . most were sceptical that the coach would actually start, but lo and behold, Dennis cheerfully fired the vehicle up first go and drove us around his paddock."
Re: Advocate Story on Dennis Maxwell
Mon 15 Sep, 2014 8:01 am
He use to live up the road from us when we lived at Erriba on the way to Cradle.....he hasn't change much after all theses years.
A living tassie legend, he'll go down as a bit of a character in tassie folklore.
A living tassie legend, he'll go down as a bit of a character in tassie folklore.
Re: Advocate Story on Dennis Maxwell
Mon 15 Sep, 2014 12:38 pm
'Hold on to yer false teeth folks, it's about to get rough!' haha
Re: Advocate Story on Dennis Maxwell
Fri 07 Nov, 2014 11:42 pm
He is a great bloke - been dropping us off and picking us up for years. Will be doing so again this summer, all being well.
Re: Advocate Story on Dennis Maxwell
Sat 05 Sep, 2015 8:39 pm
Great to see Dennis inducted into the National Road Transport Hall of Fame,
http://www.theadvocate.com.au/story/332 ... -truckers/
AFTER 51 years on the buses and 60 years in the transport industry Dennis Maxwell, 79, is still behind the wheel.
However, the larger-than-life Wilmot personality was stopped in his tracks when he was inducted into the National Road Transport Hall of Fame last weekend in Alice Springs.
It was a surprise honour he received alongside two fellow It was a surprise honour he received alongside two fellow Coasters, Queenstown trucking identity Tim Atkinson, and East Devonport-based transport magnate Chas Kelly.
"It was *&%$#! massive," Mr Maxwell said yesterday. "The nice part of it was it was unexpected.
Sherrill Ives, vice-chair of NRTHF, said the tight camaraderie in the industry makes these induction nights a great time for all involved.
Mrs Ives, formerly of Devonport, is a volunteer at the NRTHF, one of the top visitor attractions in Alice Springs.
"It's not just about the trucks and engines; it's about the people that drove the trucks, rebuilt the trucks and restored and modified them ... these trucks are responsible for opening up the centre. There is no more resilient or colourful a character than Mr Maxwell.
He bought his 1952 Austin K4 Truck and started working for himself in 1955. In 1964, with wife Jeanette, he bought a dairy farm at Lower Wilmot and purchased their first school bus, a 16-seat L391D Mercedes Benz to transport children from Erriba to the Wilmot Primary School, a contract the Maxwells held for 46 years.
Maxwell buses also operated a mail contract for Australia Post for many years. That first school bus led to many more buses, which led to transporting bushwalkers to and from Cradle Mountain Lake St Claire National Park.
Mr Maxwell became known as "King of the Mountains".
He is semi-retired, but still drives to keep his hand in.
http://www.theadvocate.com.au/story/332 ... -truckers/
AFTER 51 years on the buses and 60 years in the transport industry Dennis Maxwell, 79, is still behind the wheel.
However, the larger-than-life Wilmot personality was stopped in his tracks when he was inducted into the National Road Transport Hall of Fame last weekend in Alice Springs.
It was a surprise honour he received alongside two fellow It was a surprise honour he received alongside two fellow Coasters, Queenstown trucking identity Tim Atkinson, and East Devonport-based transport magnate Chas Kelly.
"It was *&%$#! massive," Mr Maxwell said yesterday. "The nice part of it was it was unexpected.
Sherrill Ives, vice-chair of NRTHF, said the tight camaraderie in the industry makes these induction nights a great time for all involved.
Mrs Ives, formerly of Devonport, is a volunteer at the NRTHF, one of the top visitor attractions in Alice Springs.
"It's not just about the trucks and engines; it's about the people that drove the trucks, rebuilt the trucks and restored and modified them ... these trucks are responsible for opening up the centre. There is no more resilient or colourful a character than Mr Maxwell.
He bought his 1952 Austin K4 Truck and started working for himself in 1955. In 1964, with wife Jeanette, he bought a dairy farm at Lower Wilmot and purchased their first school bus, a 16-seat L391D Mercedes Benz to transport children from Erriba to the Wilmot Primary School, a contract the Maxwells held for 46 years.
Maxwell buses also operated a mail contract for Australia Post for many years. That first school bus led to many more buses, which led to transporting bushwalkers to and from Cradle Mountain Lake St Claire National Park.
Mr Maxwell became known as "King of the Mountains".
He is semi-retired, but still drives to keep his hand in.
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