[Vella Gonzaga]

Billy Cart​

Image Source: Australia Remember When / Facebook

Remember flying down the steepest hill in a homemade billy cart? Those rickety rides were built from old pram wheels and wooden crates. No brakes, no helmets—just the thrill of the ride! Do you have stories from those wild rides? Share your memories here!

 

[Littleboy8]

My brothers made us the best billy carts in the street the other kids were so jealous.

 

[EllieN]

One of the Billy Carts we made had steel rear wheels. We took it for its maiden run over to a new housing estate just being built. No houses at that po8nt, only roads curbing and channeling in.
My friend Paul was the test pilot. Started at the top of this very long hill. All went well until he went to negotiate a “ a left hand bend” at the bottom, when we realised we were not good engineers.
The steel wheels failed the grip department, the back slipped out sideways, he hit the gutter, and turned over, luckily, on the grass footpath.
Very lucky also with little injury, considering to helmet.
All great fun.

 

[Ebby]

Go carts and sledging down big hills was so much fun as was hopscotch cycling and playing marbles sad those day are long gone.All the young ones want to do now is play games on their phones.

 

[EllieN]

Go carts and sledging down big hills was so much fun as was hopscotch cycling and playing marbles sad those day are long gone.All the young ones want to do now is play games on their phones.

Yep!

 

[starrysnan]

My big brother and I built various models - he was a very good carpenter - the biggest difficulty was finding enough wood and wheels. We had great fun, no major injuries and kept out of Mum's hair for a while. Kids these days do miss out on outdoor fun.

 

[Kevin. A.]

We used to live in Pagewood (Sydney) opposite the primary school. There was a large hill coming down from the street next to us, we used to use anything we could put together with wheels. We (the local children) would pull our homemade wheeled contraptions up this hill, sit on our billycart and just let gravity work its magic. One of our friends made a Billy cart using truck wheel bearings. That thing used to fly down the hill. Oh boy what memories. We moved up to MT Druitt and I was in the local scouts. My father made a large Billy cart with solid rubber wheels. My brother and I and another friend who was also in the scouts, would go around the nearby streets knocking on people doors asking if they had empty beer or wine bottles. We collected the bottles to raise money for the scouts to buy equipment such as tents or whatever else they needed. The Billy Cart would take about fifteen creates stacked up before we had to go back home. It took the three of use pushing or pulling to move the Billy cart around, up and down the sidewalks crossing the roads. We even had tiedown lugs where we could secure ropes (the old truckies knots) to help stop the creates moving.