4X4 REMOTE TRACK: Old Eyre Highway

[Music] good ey everyone just negotiate past this Land Cruiser and anyway I'm greeting all of you uh from The nullor Roadhouse which funnily enough as the name suggests as Mike knows who's traveled with me is there's a little bit more behind a name and this is uh obviously on the nullo plane now a lot of people travel on the air highway but today today what we're going to do is we're actually going to travel on the old Air Highway because why not that's why we have a four-wheel drive uh four-wheel drives are a tool for exploration so I'm going to take the air Highway all the way to the South Australian West Australian Border this is the idea and then head ju out to the backx to clips and I want to set up camp there tonight uh because I've got a particular shot that I want to get for a commercial cuz we actually shoot commercials for our sponsors um we provide media packages and this sponsor in particular is a zipo and that've been really really nice to deal with and we want to make sure that we the shots to make this commercial uh the adelade show has finished the adelade for D Adventure Show so this is just me basically coming back and I thought why not bring you along for the ride um it's been nice just to sit on the road um the shows are always good fun uh but there is a lot of preparation that goes into them and make sure I'm going where I need to go uh yeah so it's nice just to get back and actually just sit on the road and get back to being me um not that I take on a different Persona at these shows I don't know how to do that but it is nice just to be quiet listen to a bit of music I've got a couple audio books that I'm sort of trying to work through so plenty to do plenty to do the paren seems to be going okay uh we have had a bit of a uh gearbox issue which is plagued us on across the noore uh which was driving over this way uh Pete PCB if you're watching this Pete top job thank you so much for all your help and assistance um he's Jimmy up a mhip fix of putting a bit of Airline from the Philip plug with the gearbox to the actual um sorry just TR M kids kids people [Music] uh uh so yeah so he's done a great sort of I guess push mechanics job of making sure everything's okay um gearbox hasn't blown up yet so I guess you know we're all right but you know we'll see how things go anyway I'm going to do a bit of navigation and I'll catch you later on as always down the so no four-wheel driving video on YouTube these days shouldn't go without an airing down segment personally I think airing down your tires is much like ordering a cup of coffee changes every time I can't understand coffee uh it's just water and beans but that's just me and tire pressures are the same it's really what comes down to suiting your vehicle the weight and also the overall Tire construction too and the climate that you're in you're going to run higher pressures when it's hotter and you're going to run lower pressures when it's colder because it all comes down to the overall friction of the tire and also comes down to the rubber composite of the actual Tire itself the overall V vulcanized rubber rubber in the tire there few little tongue twisters in there so yeah I think people go a little bit overboard yeah it's what works for you and to pressure themselves isn't a definitive uh quantitive value either you know back in the day before these fancy deflatable gauges and storm this and that you used to put a ruler on the ground or a cap measure and uh and that's how you would do it went a bit too low there anyway um that's what happens when you're talking to camera that'll be all right so yeah it and and that was looking at the overall bulge and the overall flat spot uh on the base of the tire so that's really what you want to sort of be looking at how does the tire look how does it perform so that's my 2 cents and more and everyone else here I know you have your own opinion on it too just like coffee but anyway as long as they stay round and not flat on the bottom all the time it's a great day so I'll do the other ones the number five trailer is pretty light light so I'm I'm putting them down to about 15 psi and we're just we're not in a Land Cruiser folks we we don't have twin turbos so we're just tucking along at 30 40ks an hour we're here to enjoy the journey and the adventure end of rant let's get on with the show so here we are on the old Air Highway I've got to laugh at myself I am a d never been cool why would you want to be cuz I'm driving along this bumpy track and just to the left of me I think you can probably just see a car coming now watch out here they come and there they go it's a lovely smooth Road there and I'm bumping Along on this bumpy old truck but I'll tell you what it feels better feels much better doing this and we're going to start veing away from the highway pretty soon so let's see how we go steady steady all the way amazing to think this is just one lane and this was the key highway that linked Western Australia to the rest of Australia pretty much know prior to 1943 there wasn't anything here and I'll talk about that later on down the track is [Music] so this is one of the tanks and these tanks litter the the air highway now now these were so important back in the day because you know Motor Vehicles weren't what they are today they weren't as rugged they weren't as reliable I guess you could say and you know you wouldn't be looking at doing 1,000 km a day that was just ludicrous that was just stupid um you would have to have so much coffee to do that so you know you'd cough and splatter your way along the nullor and you'd basically try and hit uh one tank out after another and the construction of these tanks varies depending on when they were built this one looks like an earlier one it's actually built out of the surrounding Limestone and you can actually see on top it's got corrugated iron and it's being built in such a way that when it actually rains that hits the corrugated iron and then it actually drains into the tank filling up the tank pretty clever when you think about it and so even though you know you had a somewhat water source here it was still really a gambling act because you just didn't know whether any rain had actually been here passed through here and how long it had actually been since the last decent rainfall because temp temperatures here can get up to 50° Centigrade like that and the water within it can actually evaporate over time also dead animals falling in the tank itself too can spoil the water and if you drink that stuff it can make you really really sick but anyway we'll go in we'll have a bit closer look at this uh tank there must be a bit of water in it because there's actually some finches uh flying around and they don't really go too far from water because they're uh grain eaters so they've got a very dry pallet you could say anyway we'll go and have a look apologize if the audio is not that good there's a bit of wind around here today but this is just amazing this stuff this kind of stuff is just incredible um I've seen this before in the goldfields and I've seen a couple of examples earlier up the track or the highway here today and what they've done here is we've got our tank over that way over here they've actually excavated out a massive depression in the ground so when it rains it actually pulls in there and you can see bit dry at the moment but you can actually see in there that we've got grass growing at the bottom and there's nothing around it so it obviously does contain water now looking at the overall I guess dead nature let's say of that particular grass in there I don't think we would actually find any water even if we dug down you know if it's looking like cha then there's no water in the subsurface and you're going to have to dig too deep and it's not going to be be worth it but what an impressive setup this is actually much bigger than I thought um just looking from the road in but uh I've just had a look around the tank and it's incredible we're going to go look at that as I said before but I just got a bit sidetracked but the way that they've constructed it this tank is just awesome so let's get over [Music] there so this kind of simple effective engineering I just find absolutely fascinating as I said they've builted out of the local rock around here uh cement one of the key ingredients is lime so they had plenty of that but the wood here is the interesting part that would have had to been brought in probably on Camel train uh back here in the day or probably from the railway either way it had long long way to come when I first initially looked at the tank itself I thought it actually collapsed in and probably has partly collapsed in but it's designed all to flow down into the center and even though this is probably close to 80 years old uh it's still doing a really good job there's plenty of water in there oh a swallow or a finch just popped out so it's incredible there's another little structure behind this and that's actually looks to me to be like a overflow tank uh when this fills up too much so yeah amazing and as I said you know this is 80 years old it would be probably would have been put in place when the uh the highway was put through or maybe even before who knows but uh incredible incredible stuff and this this is it you know this is what can make a really somewhat featureless boring track just really interesting anyway I I could spend all day here but we got miles to make so we'll see where we end up next what a nice spot [Applause] though [Music] [Music] [Music] for is so we're here at the remains of 16 M tank and this is the I guess the the furthest west tank or the first tank that you come across traveling East from the south Australian West Australian Border similar construction as to the one that we saw earlier and along the actual air Highway itself you know we've talked about the tanks but there is actually quite a few Rock holes too and these I find fascinating because even you know the highway obviously had to follow those Rock holes initially you know so important and they would have been critical out here trying to explore in this part of the world and and for those who you know had subsisted here for thousands of years such a special spot but from here we're going to leave the air Highway and we're going to head due south down to the Cliffs of the Australian bite as it's about another 15 kilometers or so to the South Australian West Australian Border so we'll have a little bit of a look down there so I'm just sort of filming this on the go so I apologize once more but we're down here at the Australian bite and what a incredible place it is it's rugged and there's a certain Beauty in its rugged form um we've got wonderful sandes down here we've got an incredible Beach that would leave Bondi in the dust literally and then a lot of sharks out there too but anyway but it was on this spot or round about here nearly 9 years ago now that Damon and I came over from tazzy with our series uh heading west which you can watch on our Channel and I really encourage you to do so it's a bit dated now but I think it's still a good little video series that we did um certainly you know very cutting Edge at the time and we camped on the edge of these Cliffs here and I remember waking up from my swag and looking at the series 2 Land Rover and I was just blown away not only by The View but you know I paid $400 for the car and I keep saying it but it's the best $400 I ever spent it literally has changed my life completely you know I wouldn't be doing this kind of stuff I wouldn't have gone to the Adelaide four-wheel drive Adventure Show presenting um you know Dam and I wouldn't have made films or films that have been film that have been shown you know around the world and you know and written for you know over half a dozen magazines World worldwide so and that that's only the the only the start of it really you know if we hadn't done that trip over to Western Australia I wouldn't have met my now wife and have a wonderful son and uh have a life of somewhat of Adventure so it's incredible you know people who don't own a Land Rover or don't own a vehicle of significance just can't comprehend um how important they are uh it's it's not an interest it's not a hobby it's it's a lifestyle you know and it does it it changes your life and it's incredible being back here and I just had a quiet night last night um by myself and had a couple fermented beverages I'm happy to admit that had a shandy on the Landy for the London Mud Club but it was nice just to sort of sit be quiet and just just reflect so today I'm going to pack up all of this my teapot and my panakin and we're going to head into Western Australia and I'm probably going to leave you here see how I feel but uh it's a pretty nice spot to sort of finish this little video off on um I'll show you what I can see in front of me here it's just brilliant brilliant and I I feel also that these moments this uh sort of remote travel that I've been doing I really don't think a lot of people will be able to experience this in the same way the same sort of cavalier happy go-lucky way that we have in in 20 years time not to be Doom and Gloom but everything does seem to be coming uh more and more regulated there's more and more permits around and you know that's just the way it is because more and more people are traveling um and yeah it's just the way of the world but I feel very very um lucky fortunate to um to be here and to be here with this vehicle too you know this is why you own a Land Rover this is why you own a proper four-wheel drive but yeah anyway I'll let you get on with your lives hope all as well and um yeah if you haven't already subscribe to seriously series give us a thumbs up but please do support seriously series on patreon I'm not kidding you and I'm certainly not uh pulling your leg when I say it does make a big difference and the more support we get via patreon in particular uh the more um views and all the rest that we get uh the more Adventures we can bring your way because it does sadly all cost money but anyway we'll see you on the next one catch you thenar

Channel: Seriously Series

Views: 4,768

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Id: b7ZxxtuAgZk

Length: 23min 58sec (1438 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 08 2023