Road trip over - I'm home (more pics and a video added)

[gundownunder]

Hey Y'all, did you miss me
Just got back from a 4000 mile road trip from Perth on the west coast, to Melbourne on the east coast, and back again.
Took off on good Friday and drove across the country to Little River for the Australian Cowboy Silhouette Nationals for 2011.
5 days of shooting, Wednesday for practice, Thursday 40 round CLAS, Friday 40 round CLAS, Saturday 80 round pistol caliber and Sunday 80 round rimfire.
It was my first time at a national competition of any type so I went into it more for the experience rather than the expectation of actually winning anything and it was certainly an experience, and I certainly didn't win anything.
Cruising along at a steady 60 miles an hour the old Patrol never missed a beat the whole trip and kept fuel consumption down to under 10 liters per 100 km (you can do the maths if its important to you).

A story ain't worth diddly without pics, so here you go.

The Great Australian Bight on the Nularbor Plain


My Patrol on whats left of the old Eyre highway that ran across Australia before they put the new bitumen one in,
you can still drive hundreds of miles of it but its hard on both man and machine.


The original rabbit proof fence which they built across South Australia to stop the rabbits reaching Western Australia, too bad the rabbits reached WA before the fence was built.


The Eagle Park range at Little River. During the comp we watched both a Fox and a Wallaby foraging about on the slope above the 200 yard line, totally oblivious to the gunfire going on below them and the Fox actually trotted across the 100 yard line during a cease fire.


Part of the Eyre Highway in WA were the surface has become so polished by the constant passing of heavy traffic that you can see it shine for miles into the distance. The pic doesn't do it justice, it really is blinding

[Pitchy]

Cool pics, thanks, sounds like ya had fun.

[J Miller]

gundownunder,

Wow is my only comment. I've always wondered what the American equivalent to the Nissan Patrol is. I've got a 95 Pathfinder, but it's smaller than the Patrol.

The old road you were on reminds me of the power line roads back out west. Passable but brutal on man and machine.

And, the polished new highway looks exactly like I-40 across parts of northern Arizona and New Mexico.
If it weren't for your gun laws I'd immigrate. A guy can still get lost in Australia. Not so much here anymore. To darn many humans.

Joe

[Aussie Chris]

Nice pics Bob, sounds like a great road trip!

I just got back from my own roadtrip last week on the Harley with a mate. Drove from Melbourne to Adelaide, long way on a bike.
Did 745kms (462mi for the yanks), in one day on the way back, epic! i'm still a bit sore.

Great pic of Eagle park, I am a regular there as it is my local range, about 40mins from home.

Chris

[Old Savage]

Very interesting - have a friend in Perth who moved there with his brother.

[AJMD429]

THANKS for the pics and sharing the story. Sounds like a place one could really love. Too bad the 'gun laws' are so ridiculous there, but it seems you all manage to get some firearms recreation done despite them!

What is the deal about the "rabbits" and Australia...?

[gamekeeper]

Sounds like quite an adventure, glad you got home safe and with a lot of great memories.

[bj94]

That takes me back to my old IHMSA days almost 30 years ago.

[Ysabel Kid]

Glad you made the trip safely. What does gasoline run in your part of the world?

[gundownunder]

It was a great trip and I'm looking forward to the next one.
I didn't take a lot of pics so I'm glad you liked the ones I did take, I took a few video clips but they run up quite a few megabites and would take hours to load.

Answers to the questions:

Joe, I don't know if you guys ever got the Patrol, but its equal to the Land Cruiser and Land Rover in size. You might have got some of the Jap imports over there like the ones Canada and Oz got, they called them Safari Granroads, that's the one I've got.
Yes, you can still get lost in Australia and its so sparsely populated and so big that people still can, and do, die when they get lost out here. Sheep and cattle properties out in the dry country are often well over 1 million acres each, with only a couple of people working them, so if you break down out there its possible that nobody will find you.

AJMD429, our gun laws are draconian and here in WA they are even worse than in the rest of Oz, but we can get guns if we can show a genuine need for them, and they will not consider personal defense as a need.
What is it with the rabbits?. We have millions of the buggers, and even with calicivirus and myxomatosis killing them wholesale fashion they still manage to survive in numbers large enough for pro shooters to make a living off them. Every year rabbits cause millions of dollars damage in Oz. Feral and pest animals in Oz cost $700 million a year and rabbits are the biggest offender by a large margin.

Ysabel Kid, gasoline, or petrol as we call it and diesel, or distillate which is what my Patrol runs on are both about $1.50 per liter in the city and up to $2.00 in the bush, so about $6.30 to $8.50 per gallon. If I've done the conversion correctly I was getting over 25 MPG.

Here you go, a few more pics

This is something you don't see too often, a rainbow on the Nullarbor



One of the original rain water catchment tanks from the days when Nullarbor was a cattle station before National Parks took it over, .there's been so much rain this year that the tank is actually full



Some old vehicle that ended its days alongside the old Eyre Highway



In the Wheat belt region of Victoria a farmer started a huge stubble burn, you could see the smoke from more than 20 miles away



and lastly, one video for those of you with high speed internet, this one runs about 25 meg and is at Madura Pass where the Eyre highway runs down onto the plateau on the western side.

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v455/ ... nt=005.mp4

[pwl44m]

Did U say a "Road Train" ?

[Old Time Hunter]

Did U say a "Road Train" ?

Yep, he sure did. We used to call them that too when they ran across the "pike" from Gary, Ind to Erie, Pa. Triples across Norh Dakota were also called "trains" at one time. So the term is legit.

[pwl44m]

I've seen them in other states but here in Ca.- well Ca. being Ca.- they aint legal. I can't imagine backing one with No tracks.
So what were the lengths on those ?

[J Miller]

Cool video. That road train went by so fast I couldn't count the wheels, there sure was a bunch of 'em.

Where in OZ is the Nullarbor plain?

Wooo Hoooo, I found it, I found it. Right there by the Great Australian Bight.
I actually found a map I'd printed out last year and ... there it was.

Now, "The Great Australian Bight", would that name come from the curvature of the coast line looking like something had taken a bight out of it?


Joe

[kimwcook]

Really appreciated the pics. I've never been to the land of OZ so it's nice to see some real life pics.

[Nath]

Outstanding pictures

Now then just one question! Did you think of me whilst watching that fox??

Nath

[Ben_Rumson]

Neat trip...Pretty shooting range..Great pics.. Very interesting... I think that old rusty vehicle may have been left there by Burt Munro during one of his record attempts in Oz.. Looks kinda like his trailer..

[gundownunder]

Not for one second Nath, we were all too busy thinking " if that darn range officer don't call fire soon I'm gunna have an accidental discharge "

Road trains are huge, and here in Perth we even use them on the main arterial roads in the city. On the east - west run they are limited to 40.5 yards but on the runs up north they are a lot longer.
If you want wheels you'll find plenty under a road train, 1 steering axle, 2 drive axles and up to 8 trailer and dolly axles is not unusual. Biggest collection of wheels I've seen is 2 steer axles, 3 drive axles and 15 trailer and dolly axles. For those not familiar with dollies, they are an axle and turntable assembly which fits under the front of the trailer and hooks the trailer to the ringfedder on the trailer in front. All up some of these trains can weigh over 150 ton and can cruise at a bit over 60 miles an hour.

Here's an excerpt from Wikipedia you might like.

World's longest road trains

* In 1989, a trucker named "Buddo" tugged 12 trailers down the main street of Winton, Queensland.[13]
* In 1993 "Plugger" Bowden took the record with a 525 hp (391 kW) Mack SuperLiner pulling 16 trailers, but a few months later this effort was surpassed by Darwin driver Malcolm Chisholm with a 290 tonnes (285 LT; 320 ST), 21 trailer rig extending 315 metres (1,033 ft).[13]
* There was some back and forth in the 1990s between Winton and Bourke, New South Wales, with the record finishing in Winton with 34 trailers.[13]
* In 1999 the town of Merredin, Western Australia officially made it into the Guinness Book of Records, when Marleys Transport made a successful attempt on the record for the world's longest road train. The record was created when 45 trailers, driven by Greg Marley, weighing 603 t (593 LT; 665 ST) and measuring 610 m (2,001 ft) were pulled by a Kenworth 10x6 K100G for 8 km (5 mi).[13][14]
* On October 19, 2000, Doug Gould set the first of his records at Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, when a roadtrain made up of 79 trailers, measuring 1,018.2 m (3,341 ft) and weighing 1,072.3 t (1,055.4 LT; 1,182.0 ST), was pulled by a Kenworth C501T driven by Steven Matthews a distance of 8 km (5 mi).[13][15]
* On March 29, 2003, the record was surpassed near Mungindi, New South Wales, by a road train consisting of 87 trailers and a single prime mover (measuring 1,235.3 m (4,053 ft) in length).[16]
* The record returned to Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, on October 17, 2004, when Doug Gould assembled 117 trailers for a total length of 1,445 m (4,741 ft). The record nearly didn't fall, as the first prime mover's main driveshaft broke when taking off. A second truck was quickly made available, and pulled the train a distance of 1,500 m (4,921 ft).[17]
* In 2004, the record was again broken by a group from Clifton, Queensland which used a standard Mack truck to pull 120 trailers a distance of about 100 metres (328 ft).[18]
* On February 18, 2006, an Australian built Mack truck with 112 semi-trailers, 1,300 t (1,279 LT; 1,433 ST) and 1,474.3 metres (4,836 ft 11 in) long, pulled the load 100 metres (328 feet) to recapture the record for the longest road train (multiple loaded trailers) ever pulled with a single prime mover. It was on the main road of Clifton, Queensland, that 70-year-old John Atkinson claimed a new record, pulled by a tri-drive Mack Titan.[19][20][21]

[pwl44m]

I guess U could say "This Truck makes Wiiiiiiiiiide turns" I wonder if They had a Caboose. An almost Mile long Truck and Trailer rig could haul a lot of Groceries or Ammo, well maybe not Ammo.lol

[Gobblerforge]

Dude, I think he was on the wrong side of the road.
Gobbler

[Rube Burrows]

Very nice pics. Thank you for sharing.