Waggin' Trail: Local Delivery Expedition

What a day. Up at the crack of dawn, rush home to make sandwiches & lunch & pack the esky with cold drinks while Gary went to get the truck, then take the truck to the Toll Courier yard, load 8 huge pallets of mine sample trays on to the truck, then it seemed like just a matter of following the simple delivery instructions: "Just go to Horseshoe Lights Mine off the Ashburton Road, can't miss it mate." Yeah no worries.

So we drive past Peak Hill out on the Fortnum Mine track and keep going, looking for the mine sign. Finally a scrap of tin with "Horseshoe" scrawled on it peeps out from under some rocks in the middle of nowhere. Follow the track to what looks like the mine camp, no one there except for some friendly but unhelpful dogs. Up to the geo's camp halfway up the Horseshoe Range. No one there. Drive the truck up goat track to the top of the hills and get out the camera on telephoto setting, scanning the horizon for any sign of human activity. Nothin'. Start trying all the UHF radio channels, then stop, not knowing if we might set off a blasting area by mistake. Gary spots a tiny, tiny hint of dust way in the distance; we head towards it and many kilometres later accidentally arrive at the Horseshoe Lights Gold Mine and find the bloke we're meant to drop the sample trays off to. Stop at the miner's accommodation camp for a cuppa, discover Jay, the town electrician, who's staying there as the caretaker for a few weeks as a favour to a mate. More friendly dogs and a quick tour of the tiny oasis the miners have made for themselves, complete with greenhouse, swimming pool and a beautiful enclosed shade garden.

Then back on the dirt tracks for another 70 km or so to drop off supplies to the bloke hiding out at Peak Hill, where we run into some old friends of Gary's who are prospecting & camping in their caravan nearby. Yet another friendly dog, a quick cuppa and we split up with Gary driving the tipper truck and me taking the 5-tonne tray truck. Gary starts giving me too many helpful driving tips over the radio and soon the airwaves are jammed with trucker talk as we get on to the main highway; unable to find out if a wide load is approaching us or not (everyone's talking over each other), I pull over and get out of the way just in case, because now the sun is setting and with all the dust and glare I can hardly see a damn thing.

Soon everything settles down and I follow Gary back to Meeka, a romantic outback scene of our trucks driving into the sunset, me in my cowboy hat & boots & saying things like "Yer orright southbound oversize thanks mate" on the radio, the stunning desert sky glowing with colour.

With all the delays I'm a bit late for firefighting training so turn up utterly filthy with red truck dust; Gary, being the top bloke that he is, stayed at the fire station so that he could take me home afterwards and helped Reese cook up a wonderful barbecue dinner for us all. We would have finished early except for Sam, who looks exactly like Cornelius from Planet of the Apes and is the kind of guy who likes to talk too much about types of hose valves and things to the point where even our patient instructor Gordon was ready to take him out with one of the old fire axes. Fortunately poor Sam is from the Mount Magnet brigade, otherwise I think we would lock him in a small room with some old hose parts to play with.