The gentlemen of the road
By Joanne Lane Around midnight... "Jo," Ed Duff's voice pierces my reverie. "Ya gettin' doey (sleepy). Take ya boots off and go lie in the back." He jerks a dust-stained thumb to the inviting mattress behind the drivers' console of his 53-metre long road train. It's tempting but I know I will miss the all important small details of the trip if I lie down a wedge tail eagle picking at road kill, the wave of passing drivers, the short wave conversation, the rattle of the three trailers behind us and Ed's conversation about life on the road, Aboriginal issues and international affairs. We're somewhere between Halls Creek and Wyndham in Western Australia. This land, the Kimberley's, can only be described as frontier territory. Where out "there" beyond the horizon could be the end of the world, mapped in medieval times with dragons or an abyss. Ed's been out "there" and for him it's just work and a way of life, for me it's an honour to get a behind the scenes look at a world that usually passes in a cloud of dust. And it is a different world. In 1997 there were over 5000 road trains with two or three trailers on the road (Australian Bureau of Statistics). These vehicles carry 65 percent of Australia's freight tonnage and travel 19,000 kilometres each per year (Roadfacts, 2000). Although Ed estimates cattle road train drivers travel 120,000 kilometres. So there are actually more Australians than you would think choosing to live their lives sitting 4.6m above the ground on top of 62, 1-metre high, $500-a-pinch tyres. Ed describes his life above the rattle and thump of the wheels as "working in an air conditioned office with a view". This "office" is a little more expensive than most. Ed bought a truck for AUD $150,000 second hand (he rents his trailers) and has his own independent company, Duff Contracting. He's proud of his truck and rattles of its capacities - 525 horsepower, 18 gears, 1800 litre fuel tank... I'd only just met Ed and his partner Christine Tully the week before in Kununurra. Ed, 38, first came here from his hometown Chinchilla, Queensland in 1992 on a working holiday. The trip prompted him to move here permanently. Christine is also a Queenslander and seven months pregnant so she can't come with us. Earlier tonight she'd squeezed her bulging stomach into a car and driven me 50 kilometres to the Halls Creek turn off where Ed's truck Gotherwunday (Got her one day) was waiting. It's a hard life for couples who can spend up to eight months of the year apart. So Ed and Christine are lucky he can base from Kununurra. Other drivers take their wives with them. Sarge and Helen, from Brisbane, drive to Darwin twice a week. Their driving console is a semi permanent home with a fridge and television. Fortunately Helen loved the travel admitting they would not be together if she didn't. Christine is very supportive of Ed. "He's like a little boy when it's time to jump in the truck again. I never thought I'd get into this kind of thing, but I get excited when I see the truck coming." Ed and I head off to Lissadell cattle station past the Argyle Diamond mine. It's a dusty, lumpy, rough road and we hit kangaroos as they scamper across the road. When we pull in Ed drinks a beer and prepares a swag for me outside. I have time to register the stars, a moment to worry about crocodiles and snakes and then I fall asleep. At dawn a road train rumbles past and bathes me in dust. When we arrive at Lissadell four road trains are already queued beside the cattle stalls. The station hands have mustered 1000 cattle for the shipment from Wyndham this afternoon headed for Asian markets. They weigh the cattle and we break for "smoko" (morning tea) and ferry across to the kitchen in utes. Smoko is really an excuse to eat steak, the staple diet out here. Dave, the large and friendly cook, has baked scones and possibly the world's largest chocolate cake. The ingredients are "three eggs and a lot of sugar". Once we're fed and watered it's all systems go. Each driver pulls up to the stalls and opens his trailers. The ringers drive the cattle through the chutes to the drivers who use jiggers - plastic rods that deliver tiny shocks - to move them to the end of the trailers. Sometimes they jump between the trailers so they can wave and shout at the cattle below. Ed, ever the gentleman, helps everyone until his own truck is loaded and paperwork signed. From here we head to Wyndham, 100 kilometres north of Kununurra. We pull over as the sun sets to check the cattle and I photograph Ed against a blazing sky. "Is that THE photo?" he asks when we drive off. At the port our 174 head of cattle are weighed. Unloading them is much faster as Ed simply opens the trailers and drives the cattle through and we are soon driving back to Kununurra. On the outskirts of town we stop at a truck yard in the Packsaddle farming area. As Ed and the guys dismantle the trailers and change tyres I scratch a farm dog between the ears and watch the road trains spewing past in clouds of dust as the sun sets over hay bales and green fields. It's a magic moment. So when Ed asks me if I want to accompany him on a trip into the Northern Territory the following day I can't think of anything else I'd rather do. We have 1000 head of cattle to collect with five other trucks and it will be a two day trip. When I meet him at the roadhouse I feel a rising excitement to climb aboard again. A few days later I hitch to Darwin with Wayne Hudson and Greg Fearney - two road train drivers. Every second word is "prick" or "bastard" but they are still gentlemen of the road. In Darwin we end up in a bar proclaiming long life and health to the road train and its air conditioned office with a view. BOOK HERE |
