As we roll out through sweeping curves and narrow bridges a mob of station horses trot across the road, hastened by the unfamiliar flash of my warning beacon and a boar withdraws to the scrub, abandoning the prized carcass on which he breakfasted. From common Crow to Wedge-tail Eagle and Jabiru, the roadside is anything but sparsely populated and the Fire Hawks pitch and roll mischievously in front of the rig as do the huge flocks of Cockatoos and Parrots.

Across Bow River, the signs for which have long since gone, thanks to Barnsey’s crooning, the road snakes its way through the savannah, guided along its path by the hills strewn with huge red boulders and blanketed by Eucalypts, their stark white trunks standing out amongst the ochres and infinite shades of green and defying the red dust that threatens to stain everything in its path.

A Bustard bird struggles to gain altitude as I approach while Black Cockatoos nonchalantly graze in the Pandanus as I slip slowly past a road train hauling four trailers of ore to Wyndham.

Up here, you can’t not notice that everything is just as its always been, unchanged for thousands of years, save for the effects of fire, sun and rain… no photograph or painting can truly embrace the vista, it stretches beyond the boundaries of vision, beyond imagination, it’s the Kimberlys.

I’ve had six or eight runs across “the paddock”, one across the top and a few up and down the west coast. I’ve had some good pilots and met some great people along the way. It’s generally quite social.

The change of pace, from east coast general freight, took some adjustment. There’s no hurrying with these loads as the small tyres under a fifty tonne load have a habit of going pop as the road temperatures rise. Sunset generally sees us pulling up for the night, hopefully not too far from some local watering hole and a refreshing shower although there have been a few nights in the middle of nowhere too, but usually with good company, be it a pilot, fellow driver or grey nomad… yeah, it’s okay to fraternise with them, we’re wide, slow and obstructive too and it’s not a bad way to spread a little enlightenment about the better ways to play nice on the roads and to show them the usual stereotypes aren’t always correct. .

Tyre changing was a bit of an issue for a while but with the acquisition of a rattle gun, the cooler weather and a bit more knowledge of how to prolong the life of these hard working little black doughnuts, it’s all gotten a little easier.

Travelling to the west, for an east coaster, is like a journey to a foreign land. I had no knowledge of the geography and have been lost around Perth on more than one occasion. It also takes time to work out which road houses are the better ones to stop at and the distances between them are far greater than in the east. Generally the attitudes are good over here but the odd road house staff member lets the side down. Leslie, at the Cue Shell was one with a poor attitude… After dropping the trailer at the road train assembly area I bobtailed back into town for a shower. The toilets were signed as “out of order” but further enquiry revealed this was a lie. Showers would be $4 each, which I don’t really mind paying but toilets were for customers only. I saw red and erupted to inform her that my $58 purchase surely qualified me to spend a penny… “Public toilets are down the main street!”, I was informed. Your head’s up your backside was the general gist of my retort, we’ll not stop there again! The hotelier had a much better attitude, letting us use the guest showers before having a very good meal and a few cold ales.

The roads themselves are generally better in the west, wider and flatter save for a few places. Potholes are rare and the shoulder is usually wide which is nice as I usually am too. At a little over three metres it isn’t too bad as the trailer generally fits between the fog and centre lines but anything wider starts to hog the road. The trucks usually understand and ease over to let you pass by as do the majority of cars. Some appear to panic as you approach, even at three metres, heading well off the road while a few choose to hold their line with a metre or more to their left as they brush past the trailer with only inches to spare, often braking and veering away when they are already along side… poor buggers mustn’t see the large reflective signs, fluttering flags, flashing amber beacons and pilot vehicle. It makes you wonder why they’re touring around out here if their eyes are closed.

Of course it gets worse around town, everyone in a hurry and trying to sneak past where there’s no room. Western Australia generally runs at a slower pace than the eastern states but the commuters are still a flighty bunch and I’m always glad to clear the city limits and hit the open road.

My first jaunt saw me on the road for seven weeks, my return to home was greeted by a knee high lawn and after mowing it twice it was time to launch again for a three week stunt but I don’t mind being away for a few weeks when it gives me a few days at home and I’m not as tired as I was doing the general freight with only one full night at home each week.

Generally life on the road is good, huge star filled skies go on forever in the evenings and the view from the office is an ever changing vista of sunlit plains… What’s not to like?

Hauling out of the east coast capitals, drifting west through the likes of Nyngan and Cobar, what traffic there is becomes friendlier and on the whole a little more sympathetic to the toiling trucks . Although the down side is the constant waving and the tendinitis that ensues. If anyone knows where to buy those little waving hands that stick on the windscreen, let me know!

 Just as well the consideration levels increase… As the roads draw longer and the sightings of other road users stretch their intervals the trucks lengthen too. Sightings of 19m singles dwindle and even the 25m B-Doubles become fewer as road trains and B-Triples take over the freight task.

At almost 54 metres and a whopping 120 tonnes a triple road train is a formidable adversary. It takes a considerable amount of time to slow the big jiggers and even longer to wind the rubber band back up; it’s well worth giving them a little extra consideration when it’s time to share the road.

Today, for example, I heard a call on the two-way… “Copy in the train, behind the caravan?”. The call was acknowledged and what followed was a copy book example of the right way to play. The train passed by without need for deceleration and was called back in to line once the manoeuvre was complete. Everyone was happy and safe.

I had passed the same van a short time earlier, receiving similar assistance as these grey nomads continued their holiday at a sedate 80kph, watching their mirrors and thinking about how to minimise their impact on others.

There was a second van, not much further in front of the first. I could still see both in my mirrors with the train in between and gaining on the lead van. With a clear road ahead of me I hailed the driver in the road train, telling him he was all good to overtake. As he pulled out and came along side the van I could see, still in my mirrors, the shadow of the goliath as it crept slowly past. At this point the road ascended, ever so slightly but enough that the train succumbed to Newton’s laws and lost the ability to pull past. Despite having been half overtaken the van continued at the same speed as before, seemingly oblivious to his pursuer.

Comments were made about the caravans origin state, as indicated by its registration, along with the unconscious state of road awareness afflicting the driver. At this point the first van piped up, over the radio, divorcing himself of any present, past or future association with the other van, almost apologising for the belligerent attitude of his cohort. Working together via the two-way we managed to get the train past but not before the driver got well and truly hot under the collar and still with no cooperation from the ignorant caravan driver.

It would be nice to think that the Grey Nomads would sit down, at the van park or road house at the end of the day, and whilst enjoying a cold beer or a fresh steak they would lament about the abilities and sufferance’s of the road train drivers who haul the supplies up and down these lonely roads only to be consumed by the ignorant and thankless. Thankfully, it’s a mentally impoverished few that spoil it for the rest.

One such reader was a little lady who lives in Western Australia who took the time to send me an email. Little did I know the ramifications of that email. Not only did she become a close personal friend but she introduced me to the most important person in her life, her husband, and months later I was drawn to a point where our lives would collide and I now drive for their company, Gavin Transport.

One of the things that drew me to Gavin transport is the passion that Julie and Eamonn have for the industry. Julie’s rig is the pink Western Star that many of you would be familiar with… adorned with the icons of her sponsors, the Pink Star was born to raise awareness for the McGrath Foundation and after earning more than a half million dollars for such a worthy cause is continues to gather momentum.

“Yeah, what ever!”, it’s a pink truck and another breast cancer awareness tool but the difference is that this truck works for a living, hauling oversize loads across Australia and yet the dedication with which Julie operates means this truck is always pristine and heaven help anyone who disrespects the Pink Star.

So what’s my point? Truckin’ Life are currently inviting you and me to vote for Rig of the Year and the Pink Star is one of the contenders… should the Pink Star win then the prize money etc will be donated to the McGrath Foundation… many of you will be of the opinion that Breast Cancer receives more than enough recognition as it is and yet the women in our lives continue to die, so when does this recognition become too much?

No body knows what the solution is but a way you can help, at no cost to yourself, is to ensure that the Pink Star takes out the Rig of the Year award…

To cast your vote jump over to my “Vote for a Star” page, fill in the details and click submit to email in your vote… click here

I’ve tried all the others over the years, even a set of Cessna landing lights at one stage but nothing is comparable to the new Great Whites.

On first inspection you’re struck by their small size, compared with the others on the market, that is until you pick one up and realise these little beauties are built to last, no flimsy plastic parts, these things are as tough as a Mallee Bull.

That’s nothing though, compared to when you first turn them on… Brilliant white light, as far as the eye can see, not that candle yellow you get from halogens and as soon as you hit the switch it’s there, no warming up like HID. The throw of light is also astounding… Where ordinary driving lights will illuminate the road ahead, the Great Whites go one step further with a broad spread that lights up the roadside beyond anything else’s reach. My experience suggests that this broad spread of light has kept the wild life sitting quietly on the verge with less flickering shadows chasing Roos out into my path.

Great Whites are obviously impressive, on numerous occasions I’ve been asked what I’m running by other drivers, the difference is that obvious. My only disappointment is when I have to turn them off!

Here’s  a video demonstration of how bright these lights are…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_n5sZeFndaI

Check out Great Whites on Facebook and have a look  at their website for more info… www.greatwhites.com.au

Discussion was had by those further up the food chain than we lowly drivers and the unload was brought forward by ten days then another two. We met at the assembly area the following morning to be guided onto the mine site only to find out the engineers couldn’t approve the lift and a bigger crane was needed… Back to waiting.

Over the subsequent few days we became regular faces around Newman and the Capricorn Roadhouse. I managed to procure a haircut and even a parking ticket for using three spaces and a bit in the car park. Carn’ guys, these things were designed for hatch backs, not Heavy Haulers. A tap on the door and a suggestion of where to park would have sufficed… I argued my point but to no avail I was trying to have a rational conversation with a public servant, I was trying to teach pigs to sing again!

After too many days spent consuming too many beers in Newman a larger crane was found and we repeated the exercise of a few days earlier, this time with a successful conclusion.

Two hours up the road to another mine to load an articulated dump truck, apparently known as a Moxie… I’m not sure why they call them that and I was even less sure of how to start it up but I figured it out and rolled it up onto the float. Chained down and ready to roll I headed out for Geraldton, another thousand kilometers away but I almost felt like I was starting to head home.

We craned a set of excavator tracks onto the floats, one each and at 47 tonnes a piece they make for a reasonable load. Fueled, fed and with the trailers greased up we set off on the 5000km journey across the top of Australia.

We headed north west toward Mt Isa, stopping at Hughenden the first night before running out through Julia Creek and Cloncurry. I haven’t visited the ‘Curry since I spent New Years there in 2000, or so they tell me… It’s hard to remember! Nothing has changed much and it was all fairly well how I left it, save for the diesel price… $1.74 a liter!

We elected to refuel at the Isa, which was 20 cents a liter cheaper, and continued on towards the Territory border. Our second day on the road was a little shorter than we planned, thanks to a serious looking storm on the horizon that threaten to interfere with our progress and we dined with the Camooweal locals at the Post Office Hotel.

As we crossed the border into the Northern Territory the rain was constant but allowed us to up the speed, past the 80kph mark, safe in the knowledge the tyres would be running a bit cooler on the wet road. Eventually the clouds lifted revealing panoramic vistas of the Never Never as it rolled out to infinity and our road speed decreased again in an effort to ensure some longevity to our tyres.

We turned right onto the Stuart Highway and rolled north, passing through a few spartan townships like Elliott, a good demonstration of how not to manage indigenous housing, before spending the night at Katherine.

Another thousand liters of fuel in the tank and we headed west again, towards Western Australian.

The haul from Katherine takes you through rolling red hills as the road snakes west toward the Victoria River. Huge red cliffs rise up all around like giant sentinels showing the way. Once across the border and in to the Kimberleys the scenery becomes even more striking, more huge outcrops loom all around and great boulders are scattered at their feet with large expanses of grazing land in between.

It is at this point that I’m struck by two thoughts… Were the Victoria River sentinels guides or gate-keepers, guarding the entry to some ancient Valhalla for surely if this isn’t the place where all those dream time stories were conceived then I can think of no place on this island where they were. My second thought was while I’ve journeyed a long way to get here it dwindles to insignificance when compared to the journey of the Duracks yet these vistas are the exact same as they saw, the giants have not played marbles here during the interlude and save for the roads the constant washing and drying cycles dished out by mother nature would have done little to change this land during such a short moment in time.

We halted for the night in Halls Creek. In stark contrast to the rest of the Kimberlys, unchanged by men, Halls Creek is slowly being eroded… A beer at the end of the day would have been nice but no pub exists thanks to a local population unable to abstain from over imbibing. The toilets in the Coles Express were unserviceable having been blocked by whole toilet rolls and an uninspired local youth. I waited until the next morning and walked across the park to the public facilities. After wading through the garbage, strewn across the park, I found cutting edge, self cleaning toilets complete with loiter alarms disappointingly locked… I walked, uncomfortably, back to the truck before beginning another day. The morning would be long and the pressure of my situation would weigh heavily upon my mind until we reached Fitzroy Crossing 260km away.

Relieved to have reached Fitzroy Crossing, in more than one way, we continued on.

We continued west to the Roebuck Roadhouse, the started heading south at long last. Down past the Sandfire Roadhouse where I’m sure I got buzzed by a Spitfire aero plane which was eerie in the middle of almost desert, no phone reception, no nothing just me and an ancient flying machine sharing the same place but from very different time like some Bermudan experience.

Port Hedland was the next overnight stop before the final run down to Newman. We’d made it, everything still intact, through some of the most amazing scenery Australia has to offer.

Stepping out of ones comfort zone is always just that, uncomfortable but I’ve always done it, pushed a little further, just to see what happens… It hasn’t always worked out but I’ve never stopped learning… Heavy haulage was outside my comfort zone and despite the imminent learning curve I looked forward to the challenge.

Upon my arrival in Perth I was handed the keys to a Kenworth T908. A classic amongst trucks if ever there was one, the 908 is the embodiment of everything my childhood imagined a truck was. Whilst it lacks some of the more luxurious appointments of a modern prime mover, every part of it says “Truck” and says it loud.

I moved my gear across into the new ride, washed and polished her then set about familiarizing myself by checking fluid levels, greasing etc before setting off on my first job hauling 40 tonne rolls of conveyor belting out of Fremantle Port. This was an excellent opportunity to start learning the basics under the watchful eye of the rest of the Gavin Transport drivers and become better acquainted with the Perth geography, safely following someone else, although at one point I did find myself unguided but successfully completed a messy U-turn near Subiaco somewhere and I made it back to the depot without too much trouble.

Finally I loaded up to travel east, back whence I came. A twenty tonne, 3.8 meter wide excavator bucket was my payload and I required a pilot vehicle to guide me along the way… At least I wouldn’t have to navigate, I hoped. My pilot, Jack, from Parkes and his side kick Foxy, Diesel, proved to be good traveling companions as we made our way, 4500 km, across Australia and up to Nebo, a little inland from Mackay in north Queensland.

The trip went well save for a mouse trying to remove my Pilots toe, one night on the Nullabour and a few days later we went our separate ways, Jack chasing a load to guide south and myself becoming familiar with the local Hotel while I waited for another truck to arrive from Brisbane before loading up to head across the Top End, back to Western Australia.

I passed between Collie Hotel and the back of Old Bundemar Station with a field of ripe sunflowers to my left, ready for harvest, their blackened faces bowed and their wilted leaves hung like little slumped shoulders waiting for the inevitable, unable to run.

Onwards past Warren, Nyngan and Cobar. I stopped briefly to check the tyres in Wilcannia, unashamedly locking the doors and arming myself with a winch bar, this is not a town I intend to linger in. I pressed on toward Broken Hill, halting just shy of the town with another 900 kilometres under my belt.

From Broken Hill I trundled across South Australia, down through the Flinders Ranges to Willmington before splitting the trailers again for the short run through Horricks Pass and down to Port Augusta. Once assembled it was an easy run out to Ceduna for a quick shower and a few more kilometers out to Iron Knob and another well earned sleep.

The following morning I awoke to a bleak, overcast morning and a noticeable chill in the air. It was with anticipation that I fired up the diesel engine and begun my assault on the infamous “Paddock” as the regulars call it… The Nullabor Plain to the rest of us. I’ve not travelled that road before and save for my knowledge of Latin, I had few preconceptions of what it was like.

It’s true, there are no trees on the Paddock but rather than an infinite expanse of desolation there’s a thick low cover of herbage, my botanical ignorance requiring me to describe it as a mixture of gorse and salt bush. Various small animals scuttle under its cover as I or the huge Wedge Tail Eagles draw near. The Eagles are impressive, I’m used to seeing them in the eastern states but seldom so numerous or so close to the road. They sit on the fog line ripping at the carrion, unafraid as they stare up at the passing truck.

As I neared the western edge of the plain the Great Australian Bight comes into view and your nostrils fill with the sea air. Images of nursing whales and deadly white pointers fill your mind in contrast to the veritable desert that surrounds you. Impressive vistas abound, long coastline views and massive cliffs as the sea slowly chews its way inland.

The crossing from South to Western Australia is unremarkable, save for a few quarantine questions at the gate and the country quickly changes… Low twisted trees proliferate a vast expanse of savannah and to my right, stretching off into the distance is, what looks like the ancient coast line. It’s easy to imagine that your driving along a prehistoric ocean floor that was once rich in life and that if there were a corner, just around it would be huge herds of grazing wilder-beast

Not much charges until you reach Norseman, then the straight ribbon of road begins to bend and wrinkle as the country closes in and the trees look less tormented. It’s here I call it a day once more before the final few hundred kilometer run into Perth the next day… I made it.

After an additional three hours loading trailers where they didn’t want to load and reinvigorating converter dollies that had given up the willingness to work, I finally rolled out the yard all 36 or whatever metres of me. A quick adaptation to my extra ten metres was affected as I made my way across Toowoomba amongst the Friday evening traffic and finally I was on the open road… WHOOSH! I’d blown an airline some where and thirty two of my forty two tyres ceased being those agreable rotating masses and turned into lead weights. As the brakes rapidly gained a firm hold on everything I managed to get some of the combination off the road but not all… A run to the top of the hill behind me with safety triangles was required before the next behemoth came wandering along. After a quick check of the lines and taps I found the offending coupling and made good the air leak. Again the dash to the top of the hill to collect my triangles and dash back to remove the obstacle but at least we were rolling again and not a moment too soon as the heavens opened up and doused the hot humid evening with rain drops, the size of which only a summer storm in Queensland can produce.

After three hours driving I made it to Goondiwindi for a shower and some dinner before continuing on my way, across the border into New South Wales and continuing south down the Newell Highway. I was following another truck as we crossed the border and continued to do so until Moree. The lights on his back trailer had been flickering on and off for some time and finally gave up so we stopped at Moree to find the problem. A quick replacement job on his trailer socket, hastened by a squadron of oversize mosquitoes, saw illumination return to his combination and we trundled on.

The approach to Coonabarabran required me to loose my back trailer and return to a slightly more manageable size so as to navigate my way through the town and commence the one hour of hills and curves that leads down to Gilgandra where I unhooked ready to bobtail it back up to Connabarabran to fetch my remaining trailer. I gave a few ineffective minutes help to another driver, doing the same as I, whose trailer had sunk in the bitumen the moment he’d pulled out from underneath it and started the hour long run north again.

Alas my body couldn’t make it and I was forced to pull up in a rest area just twenty kilometres from Coonabarabran, thoroughly exhausted after almost eight hundred kilometres of driving but the sun was threatening to start her own ascent so I wasn’t disappointed.