7 1/2 Days in a Road Train - Part 1 of 5

[Music] i'm mick and this is sally in our videos we hope to showcase what australia has to offer you can follow us on our adventures via the following social media platforms if you like the video please subscribe to our youtube channel [Music] well the trip that i'm about to head off onto now is a bit different to what i normally do um normally it'd be a two-up uh driving trip but this one's going to be solo and because of the rain that we've had up north i can't go straight up through the middle i've got to go into new south wales queensland and back into northern territory that way i'll be leaving adelaide on the tuesday night and heading up to borough as a double road train and in the hookup yard at borough i'll hook my third trailer on and then i'll head to darwin from borough as a triple road train now this is not normally done but the transport authorities and the government's given a 28-day grace where we can run triple road trains up through that area once i leave borough as a triple road train i'll head up to broken hill and to get through broken hill they've set up an escort traffic control system up there where they'll escort the road train through broken hill there's no bypass on broken hill and that way the traffic and the road trains won't get tangled up together once i'm clear of broken hill it's on the cobar and then i turn and go up to burke and from burke will be on through to charleville um mount isa long reach and then i come back out onto the stuart highway at three ways and then it's a normal run up to darwin from there once the trailers are sorted out at darwin um by the time i got there the road down through the stuart highway through to glendambo is open and once again that's a police escort to get through the flooded area at glendambo the roads that i'll be traveling on on this trip with the road train i've been on before uh with a motor car never a road train so should be an interesting trip so jump in enjoy the ride with me and let's have a look a bit of a bit of a look at the flooded country the map that you're looking at now that's the normal route that we would take from adelaide to darwin going up through the center through alice springs and finally coming out at darwin and the map that you're going to look at now is the detour path that i took on this trip going out into new south wales up into the bottom of queensland and then across the three ways in the northern territory before finally moving north to go to darwin [Music] [Music] yeah good day everyone a bit of a different video this one normally we're straight up through the center from adelaide to alice springs and on to darwin but with all the rains that they've had just over a week ago and the roads have been flooded and to date they're still flooded so the transport industry is being given the okay to run triple road trains from borough in through to new south wales up into the bottom of queensland and then across back into three ways there in the northern territory and onto darwin so it's a much longer run uh the exact distances i'm not sure but it is a long way and uh for those that are following the channel normally i'm too up on this trip here i'm on our own um just about all trucks there are some two-up trucks running but most trucks at the moment are running as single drivers so yeah hang with me and uh i'll show you along the way a bit of different scenery in this video being part one i traveled from adelaide in south australia up through to charleville in queensland and not knowing how long the entire trip was going to be and what the floodwaters were going to be doing because at the time of leaving home the waters and so on they were still up it was still raining in queensland and across the barclay where the road was being closed spasmodically so i had to pack enough food to sit on the side the road for who knows how long should i get flooded in so i was well prepared plenty of food plenty of water and the total length of time and and whatever at this stage was really unknown [Music] [Music] as i'm traveling through south australia and soon to go into new south wales and even queensland the speed limit for road trains is 90 kilometers per hour uh quite slow really when you work out that on a normal run we would go from port augusta north and we sit on 100 kilometers an hour so 10 kilometers an hour slower than what we would normally do certainly makes a kilometres tick over very very slowly [Music] now i'll be up to andy junta and that's the last town in south australia before i hit the south australian new south wales border [Music] now rolling into coburn where i cross over the new south wales border and start venturing my way through new south wales because i'm traveling as a triple road train and there's only normally a double road train on this route they've set up a traffic control or traffic management in broken hill and we'll pull up here and give them a call on the radio and let them know that we need a an escort through the town because they don't want any triple road trains mingling with cars i guess but these guys here they're in front of me now and they certainly knew what they were doing and they give me an escort through the town close off the required intersections as we approach them a lot of roundabouts on the road coming in through here i think the memory it took about 10 or 12 minutes to get through the town so they just sat in front of me and made sure everything was going okay until we get down to the right hand turn and then followed by a left hand turn where they closed off the intersection [Music] during the trip in through this part of town there certainly was no shortage of these small roundabouts to negotiate but luckily there was not too much traffic around during my trip through here and it created no issue for me you got one coming towards yourselves at 53.5 metres in total length you certainly wouldn't want to get tangled up with a a car or anything like that whilst driving through a town here's where we make the first right-hand turn and you'll see the vehicles here they totally block off the intersection to stop any traffic coming through and that gives me plenty of room to swing out to the left before turning right and make sure that back trailer doesn't drag over anyone that's sitting on the corner like that vehicle was there [Music] now approaching the left-hand turn and once again the traffic management people they close off the intersection to give the road train plenty of room and freedom to get around the corner without dragging on anything [Music] thank you very much from broken hill it was under cover which was going to be my first refuelling uh location and as we left broken hill and the further you get there more and more feral goats started to appear on the side of the road they're pretty road savvy really none of them stayed on the road they'd see you coming and they'd move off to the side so there's no fear of hitting them i guess but certainly made for easier driving [Music] [Music] [Music] not knowing what the situation was like at the service station where i was going to refuel i dropped the three trailers here at the inspection station i had been told on the uhf radio that it's quite easy to get blocked in or jammed and not not able to get out at the back of the service station where the diesel fuel pump was so rather than risk that i dropped the trailers there and went in bobtail and fueled up and come back broken hill [Music] i thought we were going to have traffic control here in coba like we had in broken hill but after calling him on the radio or notifying that i was a triple road train coming through i heard nothing so i went on and proceeded through on my own but i waited here for this double road train to come out around the corner and i had to do a left-hand turn there plenty of room if you had the road to yourself but unfortunately not all motorists want to give you the room that you can see that there's a road train to come here he's way off the left-hand side the road giving me plenty of room he would have known i was going to swing out wide to get in there but these two vehicles here not interested at all they just managed to come straight down the road until they realized that i wasn't going to move and they had to get over so they did but quite a tight corner to get around and a very narrow street here with all the vehicles parked there to run through three trailers down without hitting anything [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] leaving coba now heading for burke and the road that i was about to go on to i had heard a few horror stories that it was one of the worst roads in new south wales but apparently only a few years ago has been done up so it was a very very good road in the end and that took me up to the location where i camped for the night which was 80 odd k south of burke good morning everyone it's uh thursday morning about ready to rock and roll here it was well after 10 o'clock on tuesday night before i got out of adelaide so i'm south of burke at the moment and trying to work out when i'm going to get into darwin i'm not quite sure not having done this run this way before but i'm sort of hoping maybe i might get there sometime tomorrow night late tomorrow afternoon but it's unknown there's no phone coverage out this way so i can't bring up google maps and see how far it is but we'll push on today and see where we get to tonight [Music] with all the rains that australia has had it wasn't very far at all in between seeing water lying out into the paddock unfortunately the camera doesn't pick it up here because obviously it's only looking out the windscreen yeah you didn't have to travel very far and there's water lying around somewhere [Music] [Music] so with the waterways around burke and north burke uh certainly made it for very pretty to look at as you're driving through and of course the darling runs through burke as well [Music] so by the time i get back to adelaide on this trip i would have achieved a bit over 7 300 kilometres for the entire trip and it's amazing to travel that much uh distance and nearly the entire countryside for that trip was green as seen here so when i left that load i had a fridge van on the front as my lead trailer and when i looked at the fuel gauge on that fuel tank for that trailer who was shown three quarters full so i naturally assumed that the tank wasn't filled before it was delivered to be loaded anyway i set sail with it like that and monitored the fuel usage and that night it was showing about the needle width just under half a tank so i thought okay so it's going to use a quarter of a tank of fuel per day or there abouts well i was actually wrong because when the tank's full it only shows three quarters on the gauge so in fact it actually used half a tank during my time there so i was pulling into some servos as i went and this one here at kalamala it just did not look at appealing or inviting at all and as i turned in here i had to keep going even though i'd noticed that there was a road train on the side of the bowser i wanted to go to i couldn't leave my trailers out on the street so it was basically a point of no return [Music] is well they uh got a counter somewhere over it i guess it's not by card uh there's a machine at the where the front door used to be to refuel the trailer at this location that meant that i had to leave the service station go out and find somewhere to turn the road train around and then bring it back on the correct side of the bowsers to enable the hose to reach the tank on the trailer so with enough fuel in the trailer to keep me going at this stage i elected to keep rolling and try and find a more user-friendly survey [Music] they're pulling into our parking bay if i pronounce it right at wyandra and just stopping for a compulsory half hour break one thing about the parking bays up in new south wales and queensland most of them not all but most of them have got good facilities at least they've got a toilet which is more than what i can say is available in the northern territory and south australia no very good parking base [Music] now entering the town of charleville and not being familiar with the heavy transport routes and the likes through these towns you're constantly scanning all the time when you come into a town like this to see if there's a heavy vehicle bypass some are easy to follow and some not so easy it's a pity that the power's the bee somewhere in the transport industry or governments don't make a phone app where you can bring it up on your phone before you enter these villages and just have a look and see where the bypasses are it would be so much easier and keep all the heavy vehicles on the right road [Music] [Music] [Music] so so [Music] [Music] well that's about the end for this video being part one so part two we'll kick off from charleville here and continue the journey [Music] if you like the video that you just watched give us a thumbs up and if you want to see more of our videos hit the subscribe button and once you've done that tap on the bell and change the notification to all that way every time we do uploads to our youtube channel you'll be notified [Music]

Channel: JustCruisin with Mick & Sally

Views: 326,133

Keywords: Train, Trains, Road, Roadtrain, Roadtrains, Mick, Moore, Sally, Just, Cruisin, Crusing, Justcrusing, Justcruisin, Adelaide, Darwin, South, Australia, Northern, Territory, New, Wales, Truck, 7 1/2 Days in a Road Train, Days, 1/2, in, Kenworth

Id: w3DXwWE0UwA

Length: 29min 23sec (1763 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 11 2022