Word: wheele
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...primary function is to link the nation's major cities, apart from Canberra. But it has always attracted intrepid tourists, and, in recent years, its commercial traffic has been supplemented by the four-wheel-drives of "gray nomads." These older Australians, many of them retirees, are gaily squandering the children's inheritance to see the country, their caravans and motor homes tootling contentedly through the emptiness of desert and bush, turning off to see the sights, oblivious to the thunder of 53-m-long road trains. For this year's Australian Journeys special issue, we decided to tootle along...
...north of the Minilya roadhouse, glossy black dots strut through the silver mirage around a dark mass on the road. With a Formula 1 driver's judgment of closing velocity, at the last second they wheel into the sky, crows playing chicken with the traffic. The tableau of roadkill they are enjoying looks like a multi-species suicide pact. There's the standard eviscerated kangaroo, but also an emu less than a meter away, head tucked under its wing as if sheltering from the wind that fluffs its feathers. Beside it is a foul-smelling black-and-white smear that...
...Brien, who comes from Victoria, has been traveling through central and Western Australia with partner Simon Wagstaffe in a four-wheel-drive vehicle towing a camper trailer. Escapees from city office jobs, for six months they've carted around wares (Wagstaffe peddles a flame-ignition kit called Light My Fire) to markets, trade shows and country fairs. "We wanted to see the country and find an affordable place to buy property and settle down," O'Brien says. "Instead of drawing on our savings, we thought it would be a way of paying our own way." The hawker's life...
...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...
...Despite the rough going, the area's spectacular scenery draws a steady stream of tourists, who set off like explorers, their four-wheel-drives and caravans laden with water, food and fuel. Of the 100 vehicles a day that travel this stretch of Highway 1 in the dry season, Clarke says, around 60 belong to tourists. Even a hell ride has its allure...