Word: schneider
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Truckers Darren Schneider and Rod Bryson couldn't have chosen a more dramatic place to stop. But having turned off the 90 Mile Straight, "Australia's Longest Straight Road," in the early hours of the morning en route from Melbourne to Perth, their three-carriage Kenworth inexplicably shuts down. A misty dawn reveals an endless vista of saltbush: They're bang in the middle of an ancient seabed stretching 700 km from South Australia's Head of the Bight west to Balladonia. Nullarbor translates as "no trees" in Latin, and for the moment the truckers are without a clue. "Usually...
...they just keep on coming and they don't thin out." But a roo isn't to blame this morning, nor is low oil or water. Written across the Kenworth's chassis is the motto without trucking australia stops, but into the last quarter of their 40-hour trip, Schneider and Bryson must simply sit on the roadside and check and recheck the truck manual...
...Schneider, 43, knows the area more intimately, having roamed it for 20 years as a mines driller. Even today, he's not regretting his decision, three months ago, to take up trucking: "The money's not as good, but it's easier." In five-hour stints, he'll take the wheel while his companion beds down in the padded cabin bunk. Each knows the other's boundaries. "If someone doesn't want to talk," says Schneider, "you leave him alone and he leaves you alone...
...With no sign yet of the engine coming to life, Schneider decides to hitch a 30-km ride to Balladonia, where he'll phone for help. "Get me a sausage roll or something, mate," Bryson calls from the truck, soon to be a mere speck in the landscape...
...Pete Schneider, spokesman for the Louisiana National Guard, said his men were ready to help. "The Guard's been pretty busy, but if the governor decides, the Guard will make it happen. It's a mission they can do. Particularly in Louisiana, our soldiers and airmen have already been in Iraq and Afghanistan. They've been in combat very recently - not that New Orleans is a combat zone. But other professional law enforcement may be able to provide help first...