Showing posts with label travel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label travel. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Sandfire Roadhouse

Armed with one hugely costly spare tyre, I headed north. The next leg was a wee bit daunting: 560 km of dirt road with nothing at all along it, according to my new map. I was a bit anxious about the tyres, but felt I had to press on. It was hot and getting hotter. About half way along this barren stretch, one of the front tyres exploded. It's tricky to deal with this on dirt at 200 km/h and the wheel itself and parts of the brake were junk by the time I stopped.

It was the middle of the day. The road was so hot, it hurt to kneel down to undo the wheel nuts. Eventually, I got the front right corner of the car jacked up enough to remove the wheel. By then I was exhausted and mildly panicky. I threw a towel under the car and slid underneath to get some shade. The heat from the road below and the hot exhaust above was grim, but the shade still seemed better than being out in the sun. I might have been slightly irrational at this point.

Half an hour later, a truck going south stopped to see if I was dead. When the driver understood what I was doing, he said, "Come on, let's get your spare on the car and then you can stop about five miles back there for cool shade and cold drinks and people to chat with."

I found that hard to believe, but he was insistent that there was a new place for travellers to rest at. He did most of the work getting the wheel on and the tools packed away and headed off on his way south, and I drove gingerly north. And it was true, there was a place to stop. My memory says it was called Sandfire Lodge, but either my memory is wrong or they changed its name later. There is a place called Sandfire Roadhouse marked on current maps of Australia in the right place, so it's still there.

I was one of their first customers and they asked me to sign their visitors' book and their petition to be granted an alcohol licence, which I cheerfully did. I doubt if they still have those records from 1970 and my name has been changed many times since then, so tracking that down would be tricky now.

They had a spinifex shelter with water running down the walls to cool the wind blowing through. It was better than heaven for me that day. And they had cold soft drinks on ice which made the whole experience seem magical. A lot of my angst over the Dunlop Tyre Service at my previous stop evaporated at Sandfire Whatever. Although I was still aware that I once again had no spare tyres and a long way to go before stumbling on civilisation again, so I took things easy when I finished my rest with the kind people in the middle of nowhere.

Monday, November 15, 2010

Service With a Smile

As I drove into Port Hedland on my way north, I spotted a Dunlop Tyre Service and thought about the four blown-out tyres I was carrying. Perhaps it would be smart to stop for some tyre service. The place was quiet, the workers all wearing nice clean white overalls, and I was pleased to see that I could expect swift service and a chance to be on my way with little delay.

My illusions were shattered when I finally got one of the men to acknowledge me. "Sure, mate, toss them there. Come back on Thursday." I don't really remember which day he said, but it was about three days in the future and I could spare an hour or two at most. So I pleaded with him. No dice. I grovelled. Eventually, he told me they'd sell me tyres and tubes but I'd have to fit them myself if I was in such a hurry. With my tools, not theirs.

This didn't suit me at all. I hate tyre irons and car wheels. And it was hot, seriously hot. So I sat on the ground, lit a smoke, and fantasised about nasty things that could happen to the fine folk at the Dunlop place. Before I gave in and submitted to my fate, a shiny new ute arrived with a flat truck tyre in the back. The driver was wearing a suit, which was something I didn't ever expect to see in that part of the world.

He went through the same routine with the helpful men in white. But his grovelling was more intense than mine because he had a team of men waiting out in the sticks for him to get back with the wheel. He had no more luck than me and was on the point of tears.

Seeing a possible win-win situation, I approached him and asked him if he knew how to fix a car tyre. He said yes. So I offered to fix the truck tyre if he'd do mine. This wasn't completely altruistic, as the only hard part with truck wheels is knowing what to do. But it's much easier than a car tyre. He was ecstatic and offered to pay my bill as well as do the work on my tyre. I said OK, because I expected to be paying a couple of dollars for a new tube.

I put a new tyre and tube on his wheel. He put a new tube inside my old tyre and mounted it. Then he went to pay. Luckily he had a business cheque book, because my tube cost over $100 (in 1970). I don't recall how much they gouged him for his truck tyre and tube, but I do remember being shocked.

I'd actually got to be 23 years old and driven almost all the way around Australia before I saw my first real proof that the rumours I'd gown up on telling of the kindness and generosity of the people in the bush were not to be relied upon. Although I was soon to learn that not everybody was like that Dunlop place.

Saturday, November 6, 2010

Dusty Roads

Before setting off on my drive from Perth to Darwin, I got a few words of advice from my truckie mates who went up and down the west coast. After loading all my possessions, including tools, several jerry cans of fuel and four spare wheels in my ute, I set off full of confidence.

The first day, I got to Carnarvon comfortably. Stopped at a pub to have a beer with some truckies going south. Probably had a couple of beers, because I was still there three days later and now had only three days to cover the remaining 2,300 km (of which only the last 270 km was sealed). It was mid summer and long before the days of air-conditioning in cars.

But I was not really concerned. Not until I came to a fork in the road that was not marked on my map. Nor was there a signpost. At least there was a Volvo stopped at the fork, so I pulled in to ask for directions. He'd been sitting there for 12 hours waiting for somebody to come by and tell him which way to go. According to my maps and my knowledge of my fuel consumption, I could afford to go not more than 50 km down the wrong road. The guy in the Volvo couldn't even go that far.

We tossed a coin and took what turned out to be the correct road. After a while we drifted apart because the infinite supplies of fine dust made close following impossible. That night, after a brief stop for food, I headed out of whatever ghost town I was in to continue my journey but discovered that both my headlights had fallen out of the car while pounding over the corrugations during the day. All that was left were sad little wires dangling from where the lights should have been.

I waited for a road train going north and flagged him down. He eventually agreed, after sighting my road train licence, that I could drive in front of him and use his lights. He didn't need to tell me, but he did, that I shouldn't even consider slowing down once we were up to 110 km/h, as he would not be stopping. And off we went. The night drive was cooler and once my mirrors had all fallen off his lights didn't bother me too much. But I did start getting tired by the morning and I started to worry about him falling asleep behind me. Fortunately, we both survived until daybreak and I was able to accelerate away from him and get back into my 200 km/h rhythm.

Every two to three hours, I would catch up with another road train's dust cloud. At least the daytime wind was constant from the west, so they could see my approaching dust in their left-hand mirrors. As I got close, they'd swerve across to the wrong side of the road to allow a pass in the dust-free zone on the left. I knew what to do: keep going flat out past the truck. They wouldn't stay out there forever, so timid or law-abiding drivers never passed them. I hear that road is sealed now, so those ancient courtesies have no doubt been forgotten.

It's strange looking back on that trip 40 years later. Despite the great emptiness of the west, so many interesting things happened on that brief journey that it would take fifty thousand words to tell the story. Luckily for everybody, I don't have what it takes to write that much today.