Behold the Bush Trip

wild camels crossing the road

As part of my job, I regularly go on what they call "bush trips". This means that we head out to remote communities in an agency 4WD. Sometimes the vehicle is a Land Cruiser, and the old ones are referred to as 'Troopies" or "Troop Carrier" as some of them have bench seats along each side, and able to care 11 people. We also have a Land Cruiser Prado which is a sweet ride. I took one out bush for the first time this past week and it was amazing to drive, such a smooth ride, great control, and luxurious to ride in. We had the tunes going on my iPhone, and the scenery flew by outside. Then we also have Nissan Patrols, which are shit on the bush roads. They bounce all over the place, and you hardly feel like you have proper control. Thankfully they are replacing any of the old vehicles be it Troopie or Patrol, with Prados.

after the bushfire, the termite mounds survive

So when we go out bush, we like to leave quite early in the morning, about 6am, sometimes at 7am so we can get there early, have time to do all of our work, and still get back before dark. Some communities are 3-4 hours drive away or more. On occasion I've had to stay overnight because it is too far to go and come back in the same day if we have a lot of work to do in the community. Sometimes we visit 2-3 or more communities along the way.

there are a LOT of old dead cars on the side of the roads

This week I traveled to one I hadn't been to before, Utopia. Utopia not so much a community as an area. There are several outstation bores where there are 3-5 houses with folks living in them, along with several work buildings. Right in the middle of this land tract is a health clinic and several houses for the staff. One must drive from one of the bores to attend the clinic. Some of the bores have small schools, usually one building. There are a few little stores scattered around the land tract, with the largest one being at Arlparra.

The road signs for each bore and service is painted on the bonnets taken from old cars. Pretty cool looking as someone put some thought into each one. I'm trying to upload here but Blogger is being a bitch and rotating the photos so they only post sideways...not sure what that's about.

took a big rock to the windshield!

Going out bush on a road trip requires some preparation. We have to make sure our gas tank is full, which is a no brainer, but we also have to do other checks on the vehicle to make sure it's in good shape to travel, so we check the recovery gear, oil levels, battery levels, tires, etc. We also have to sign out a fuel book in case we need fuel, a satellite phone to check in with and an epirb, which is a device that we use to track our travel with online, but also to call for help when we need it. It uses satellite tracking so we don't need cell phone towers to send the signal. There is no cell phone service in the bulk of the communities we travel to. One must also pack emergency water, and then personal water. I like to take at least 3 litres for myself, and encourage my bush partner to do the same. Once I went with a guy who brought one 500ml bottle for the whole day. Nowhere's near enough. I also like to pack a little cooler (esky here in Australia) with some food, ice packs to keep it all chill, and some frozen water bottles for cold water later. Another must is to wear a light scarf around my neck to keep the seatbelt from chafing. When you drive on the 4WD tracks, the vehicle bounces and the seatbelt saws back and forth across my neck, what little neck I have.

sometimes we drive through bushfires

Preparation also includes calling the communities the day before to ensure the people we want to see are there. So we can call the health clinic, the police station, or the school to check, as most days one of those services would have seen the family we are looking for. These are also stopping places once we arrive in the community, often for a chat, or to use a clean bathroom.

wild donkey outside Areyonga

The bush roads to these communities are sometimes paved part of the way, but most are desert dirt, so red sand, dirt, and sometimes gravel. They can be a bit rough, with lots of corrugation along the way which can mean a bumpy ride if you have to drive slow. Keeping the speed up around 100kms/hour smooths most corrugation out. There isn't much to see along the way besides the landscape which doesn't change much for the most part. There are no coffee shops or restaurants along the way. There are occasional rest areas where you can pull over along the Stuart Highway, but nothing on the bush roads. So we usually just pull over in the shade of a big desert oak tree, or gum tree and take our own breaks. We usually see animals along the way, most often cows, but quite regularly we see wild horses, wild camels, sometimes wild donkeys, and a host of lizards, snakes, eagles, hawks, falcons, etc. Bush trips are my favorite part of my job here in central Australia. I truly enjoy getting out of town for the day and spend in the peaceful outback.