Riding with the road trains
17th February 2009
Latitude 34'37, Longitude 116'07
Start Mileage: 13875km
Finish Mileage: 19827km
Fuel reading: 9.41/100kms
Trip Notes: windscreen cracked, road train passing and big mine country
The headlights on the horizon took me by surprise. The roads seemed so flat that I felt certain that we would see any oncoming vehicles well in advance. I tried to avoid staring into the oncoming spotlights. Around us, buttes formed shadowy silhouettes. A kangaroo appeared to our left, and I swerved to avoid it. “Damn it,” I cursed as I steadied the wheel and squinted nervously into the light. The assistant stirred in his sleep, but did not wake. Five thousand kilometres in eight days had taken its toll. My problem was that I could not gauge the distance between the Skoda Octavia Scout and the oncoming truck. Eventually I concluded that the disorientation was due to his high beams and flashed the Skoda Octavia Scout’s in signal. The answer came back quick enough. Two gigantic saucer-like beams lit up the road. That’s not a high beam mate, I could hear him say. That’s a high beam.
It was nearly on top of us by the time I saw it was a road train. Gigantic wheels churned up clouds of dust before the brassy cab. It was lit up like a Christmas tree - “Mac Dawg” printed in an arc of Hollywood bulbs - a buffalo skull tied to the front. This was a classic Australian road train, a true Goliath, only he had the stones, not us. One hundred and fifty tonnes of polished metal and unprocessed bedrock hurtled towards us. The truck horn blew like a deep guttural bellow. ‘What?’ the assistant sat bolt upright with a start. Suddenly everything went dark and there was nothing to do except drive blindly left and stop. We were in the middle of the dust cloud. Dirt rained down on the roof. When the dust cleared, a large spidery crack had appeared on the windscreen. I swallowed hard.
This is big mine country - Karratha, Port Hedland, Mount Tom Price, Newman - gigantic black cracks in the earth from which Australia digs her golden prosperity. The north of Australia was jammed with mines. Three kilometres trains snaked back and forth to Perth. Charter planes flew overhead. The locals barely noticed as we arrived in Port Hedland. Hotels were overbooked, restaurants were few, and the radio was jammed up with the news that someone had just been shot in the heart with a crossbow just south of Karratha. Eventually a passerby stopped to direct us to a place outside town, and then hurriedly went on his way.
I instantly understood why this great mining state was a perfect location for a healing forest. Western Australia was a land of extremes. There was a greenie for every miner. There was an artist for every redneck. An exception for every stereotype. God only knows what people made of us! The snug karri forests of the south coast were a refuge after the big empty landscapes of the north. Birdsong echoed dreamily between the enormous trees – some are over ninety metres high, while the crater of a nearby stump is big enough to fit a party of twelve. Fiona Sinclair set up the Southern Forest Sculpture Walk to bring together a divided community. The local dairy and logging industries were falling apart, but now the town is so successful that they can demand artists create projects specifically for their forest. “Boldness has genius and power in it,” Fiona surmised, quoting Goethe.
We finished the west coast with a sunset over Windy Harbour. As the sun sunk into the Indian Ocean, two freshly arrived tourists drove up in a campervan. We looked dubiously at the van’s balding tyres. They were so pale, I thought, quickly checking my own reflection in the side mirror. I was pleasantly surprised to see stubble and an adventurer’s tan. We had hardly slept in eight days, but I felt utterly at ease. “Wow,” said one of the tourists, as we looked over the pretty little bay. “Australia is completely wild. So empty, so huge.” And I could not resist saying with smug superiority, “Mate you ain’t seen nothing yet.”
James