Just thought you good people would enjoy a little Australia true yarn
Maddog64 does the Plenty Highway,
There’s just me, me Deli and my Camper Trailer,
Left Alice Springs just after lunch 19th August 2008. 60k's Nth up the Stuart Highway you turn left onto the Plenty Highway..
Its a shortcut to QLD
60k's along the plenty Highway you come to Gem Tree, Nice little campsite and gem fossicking site. Plus Fuel.
$2:40 a litre mind you for Diesel and no unleaded or LPG. Just Diesel and dirty water, fuelled up, stocked up on tucker and off I went again.
6 k's later the black top ends. I had been told that the Plenty Highway had just been Graded and smoothed over and should be a nice drive.
Crickey, if that road had been freshly graded I'll eat me passenger seat.
Corrugations 2+ inches deep, 9+ inches between.
A really rough old ride this was gonna be. Plus theres the added bonus of huge Bull dust drifts across the road, every now and then you come across a cattle grid which is sort of 4 foot higher than the rest of the road so you get a ramp up and down either side and at 90kph these can be very entertaining. Trouble is you can’t see over them for quite a distance till you on top of them and every now and then you find cattle, one or two or three or 20 standing on the road right afterwards.
Anyway, after a little experimenting with speed I found that travelling at about 90kph was the smoothest ride I could hope for on these corrugations. Trouble was, getting from 0 to 90 is like sitting on 50 jack hammers going flat chat. Everything in the Deli starts popping open, things bounce around in the cab like crazy, you get some really worrisome cracks n bangs come from in and around the car. The wipers keep coming on and the auto lever kept jumping out of gear.
Then finally at about 90kph it all smooths out somewhat, just a rough vibration and less noisey.
Every fuel stop is a nightmare but at the same time gives you a good reason to check to see if that last big bang you heard was really as serious as it sounded and to look for other things that may have come loose. But then of course you had to leave and go through all that banging and crashing again till you hit that magical speed and all settles back down.
Nearly 200k's down the road you come to Jervois. Not sure what Jervois is all about but there was a camp ground and diesel pumps there so I filled up again.
Lady pumping me fuel asks how much fuel I'm carrying. Well she's just filled my tank so there’s supposedly 75 litres in there + 1 jerry can in me Deli and 2 on my camper trailer so that’s another 60 litres.
She mumbled something thing about fuel stops and walks away. I decided to ask about this fuel stop thing so I went in to her little tin lean to (office) and grabbed a drink and ask, how far to next service centre?. Well, she says that the Tobermoray Crossing (NT/QLD border) fuel stop has permanently closed and next fuel is almost 600k's away at Boulia. OK I'm all good, got heaps of fuel.
Checked my trailer, tyres, did a walk around me Deli to check her out and alls good so off I goes again.
Its very late afternoon now and the suns going to ground, pulled up about 10k's after Jervois for a coffee and another safety check over me Deli. Wacked me spotties on for a light check,
alls good, took a quick pic and then off I went again. Its fully dark now and I havent seen another car on the road since before I hit the dirt around 2 that afternoon.
Hmm, Nice moon out, stumpy trees and bushes line the road and my spotlights are working great.
And at the right speed and with the right tyre pressures and 4wd engaged (not diff lock) its looking to be a great night. Should make Boulia by midnight.
Anyways, I’m feeling great/confidant and all is well. Every now and then the corrugations set the deli in a bit if a drift and there aint no one else out here so I have no issue using the entire road. Its heaps of fun and all very entertaining trying to keep the deli straight and safe.
Ok, I think I was about 50+ k’s out of Jervois when I hit a really deep puddle of Bull Dust on the left hand side of the road. These puddles are real hard to spot as they don’t look any different to the rest of the road. Maybe a little smoother but its impossible to spot on the move. I had been through heaps of these Bulldust puddles and its a lot like driving through a puddle of water. The car suddenly slows, steering goes heavy, theres a huge explosion of red dust then its all back to normal. I had a huge red dust tail following me to start with but the Bulldust puddles sort of leave an atomic red mushroom cloud hanging right over the spot you hit it. Really spectacular but not something I was able to photograph on the move.
Back to the really deep one, The deli sort of dropped into the puddle and slewed/drifted hard to the left. I pulled her back straight then bang I’m out the other side. I’ve lost a lot of speed in the process and was probably doing 60 when I got out of it. I accelerated again but at 80kph I got this feeling that the deli was pulling hard to the left! too hard! felt like someone had thrown an anchor out the passenger door.
Figuring I’ve probably blown a rear tyre I pull up and did a walk around and quick boing check on all tyres, deli and trailer, all seemed good! Maybe after hitting that puddle I was just feeling a little paranoid. So I did another quick check and started to drive off. This was really weird, Deli was definitely pulling hard to the left, so I pulled up again did a quick walk around, tyres still all looked great. Deli looked normal. So I decided to have a cool drink and smoko break.
It was while I was enjoying this break that I realised my trailer tyres looked very strange. On closer inspection the right trailer wheel was right forward and against front of the Wheel arch. The left side was right back and against the back of that wheel arch. I took a quick look under the trailer with a little torch assuming that the U bolts on the leaf springs had come loose and the axle had slipped somewhat. Easy fix, straighten up axle and tighten U bolts.
I was not prepared for what I saw............
Both tailer axle mounts, thats left and right side had been ripped free of the chassis.
On closer inspection the leaf springs are held to the trailer chassis at one point the front of the springs, the rear leafs simply held in line by guides and are free to slide backwards and forwards in these guards.
So my axle is sort of hanging in place by these two Slides/guards, there is no fixed point any more...
The front of the right spring was in under the trailer
The left was out in the wheel arch. The axle had twisted to the left.
What a night mare,
it was 7:30 close on, I’m out of mobile phone range haven’t seen another person or car for more than 5 odd hours, had the UHF doing a scan (nothing heard) its dark, getting cold and I’m on a dirt track by myself. I sat and contemplated my situation for half an hour, smoked and drank and thought.
Well I couldn’t stay here so it was fix axle as best I can and see what from there.
Out comes the Jacks, axle stands, tools and torches. Trailer gets jacked up and I used 2 axle stands at the rear end for extra support then set too trying to get the leaf springs straight and back under a the chassis to start with.
That took me an hour,
One of me, two sets of leaf springs. I’d get the left side under the chassis and go to the right to position that one and the left side would pop back out. Ended up getting one side in place and binding it with tent rope to stop it moving again. Finally got both sides in place, axle mounts sitting over the holes that were their original resting place. Then my issue was how to keep the axle straight and under the trailer. At first I slid the axle backwards forcing the leaf springs hard into the slides/guides and figured that it might just stay there till I got back to Jervois. Not that I wanted to go backwards on this trip but it seemed I didn’t have much choice.
I packed up, got the trailer back on the ground and moved the deli all of 6 feet before I heard the springs bang and grind back off line. Quick look again and I realised that the welds holding the rear guides in place were cracking as well.
Crickey this was gonna be hard,,,,,
More coffee more smokes and more thinking,. I realised that I needed a way to bring the springs forward taking pressure off the guides and to be able to stop the springs from moving both backwards and forwards! How???????????
Starting to get stressed now, its well after 10 and I’m not getting anywhere fast.
I had no long ropes, chains, and I couldn’t for the life of me think of a way of holding the axle in place. More thinking more stress, then I decided to take a little walk just to re air my head. 5 minutes later I’m back at the Deli and having a good laugh at the situation when a thought finally hit me. I’ve got a snatch in the back of the Deli!
Pulled out my snatch strap, unrolled it and thought, I can do this !!!! Halved the snatch strap to find centre, laid that over the A frame at front of trailer and around each side of the A frame then dragged the ends down under the trailer. Wrapped each side around the axle left and right so preventing backwards movement, then on to the rear of the trailer, up over and through the tie down rack then back under trailer to axle the ends of the strap just made it back to the axle and I decided to use my bow shackles to tie them off around the axle so preventing any forward movement. It was a tight fit and the snatch strap was a perfect length. The last bow shackle took ½ hour to get the pin through and screwed in place because of the tension on the strap. Still I got it done.
Quick check over, tools away and a very slow drive for first few meters, then a gradual rise in speed to about 60kph eyes darting between mirrors, trailer and road all was good but the corrugations were shaking the heck out of the deli and so the trailer.
I did about 10 more k’s then pulled over and did a check all over the trailer. The axle hadn’t moved, all seemed good and tight and I hadn’t felt any oddities while driving so I took off again. Finally managed to get up the courage to hit 90 again and that was so much smoother. I pulled over at regular intervals to check and inspect my repairs. All was good for a time but then at one stop I noticed I’d lost a bow shackle and the snatch strap had been dragging on the ground. Lost a 4 ton rated bow shackle and didn’t have a spare. Needed something to tie the end of strap back in place got 9 guy ropes for my tent out and platted them together to make a rope of sorts then tied the strap back into place with it.
Finally back on the road but slowing for cattle grids was a right royal pain as you lost that relatively ok vibration and returned to the bone shattering bangs and thumps of the corrugations until you could get back to speed. Of course I was worried about losing my axle and trailer so I did what I could to hold all together.
It was a few hundred k’s on from the initial repairs when I came across a mob of roo’s that split left and right at my approach. Unfortunately, one big red decided the conversation was gonna be better on the right side of the road than the left and jumped out in front of me. I hit him with the left front of the deli with one heck of a bang then he went under.
I pulled over and went back to check if he was ok or dead, but unfortunately he was neither. He was in a right mess and his legs looked like tangled spaghetti and he was snorting blood but still very much alive and in a great deal of discomfort.
I hate seeing anything in pain so I used my Leatherman and Bled him out. Coulda left him to die in his own time but that would have taken ages and would have been too cruel, took less than a minute and he was gone, with me trying to sooth his way back to the dream world. Wished him well, painted an eagle in his blood on his forehead (to set hin Free)and moved him off the road and out of the way, had myself another quick drink and left.
The rest of the drive to Boulia was pretty uneventful. I stopped at Tobermoray crossing for a quick pic but that was it.
Arrived Boulia 5:30 am. Camped here for a night and tried to get trailer repaired but no one would help so I ended up driving to Winton with the axle still tied on! Another 365k’s
at least it was on tar. But that is the single lane ribbon of black top in the pics... Gin Gin Highway. Arrived Winton mid morning next day and had no worries getting the trailer chassis strengthened and mounts re welded as well as the guides checked and repaired. Guy who fixed trailer congratulated me on my bush repair job and wanted to buy me dinner at the local pub.
I got back to my motel about 5pm and slept through to 6 the next morning. With my trailer fixed and stronger than original i was back on the road again
So thats my Plenti Highway adventure,,
Cheers all
Maddog64
Travelling alone through this sort of country can be dangerous especially when theres 100's of kilometers between civilisation and the occasional break down can be a little worrisome when you havent seen anyone for a few days. But what the heck.... I hate big cities 
I wouldnd have done that first trip if I had of known the Plenti Hi Way was that bad but then then again I wouldnt have found out the trailer was not up to it either. The repair job consists of a length (12") of 5mm flat bar welded along the chassis and across the damage site then the spring mounts weld to the flat bar. She's done a fair few k's since then over all sorts of terrain and handled extremely well but its now time to retire her and for me to find somewhere to settle down 
But I do have a good UHF in the car and most times you can get someone on air using a repeater channel 
Good Ship 
Call me BCDelica-less