Picnic Party’s Exciting Experience

Tourist coach on Bulli Pass, C1910. The following account of a coach accident on Bulli Pass about the same time reveals a coach of similar design, which had three more people aboard than the 15 pictured here. I wonder if this Jack Beatie was from the same Beatie family who later operated buses in Wollongong… anyone know?

COACH HORSES BOLT IN BULLI PASS – COACH OVERTURNED AND SMASHED – INJURIES TO PASSENGERS; Sydney, Monday: An exciting experience to a picnic party in the Bulli Pass happened yesterday afternoon. Five horses with a coachload of 18 passengers got completely out of the driver’s control and bolted madly down the pass. The coach was owned and driven by Jack Beattie, of Wollgngong. The party had just started to come down the pass when the leader commenced prancing. Soon the whole five were in full gallop down a dangerous defile, but the driver, though he plied the brakes and stuck bravely to his post, could do little else to keep the team from smashing into a bank at one side, or tumbling down an abyss some hundreds of feet on the other side. Half a mile down the hill, at a point known as The Elbow, a curve on a stoop gradient of about one chain radius was safely negotiated at a full gallop. Then the passengers, fearing that the coach would be smashed to atoms every instant, jumped out as best they could. Miss Day had one of her legs broken and Miss Gordon received severe injuries. None of the other members of the party were seriously injured. With the drtver on the box were Miss Cahill and Miss Osborne. The driver being that if they jumped from the coach, it meant certain death, entreated them to hang on to him, which they did in an heroic manner. A mile further down the pass the horses continued their wild race, with only the two women and the driver on the box seat. All the rest had jumped out. It looked as if the driver would get to the bottom safely, and do the last turn near Green’s house at the foot of the hill. The driver was so tired out that he could no longer guide the horses. The coach was overturned and smashed to pieces, while the two woman, and the driver, were pitched clear of the debris. They escaped with very few injuries. The horses were thrown down the bank and also escaped serious injuries.