Transport Archives - thegoodwills.com

Watch out for wide loads

wide-loads-road-hazards — Photo by Laurel Wilson aka She Who Takes Photos Through The Car Window (SWTPTTCW)

When you’re caravanning in central Queensland, there are three main road hazards to watch for: road trains, road kill and wide loads. You won’t see the latter as often as kangaroos (dead or alive), wandering cattle or European tourists on bicycles. But when you do, there’s always plenty of warning. A pilot vehicle travelling well in front is the first clue. Or, if the load is wider than 5.5m, you will find police cars leading the convoy.

We encountered an 8-metre wide load when setting off from Clermont to Emerald on the Gregory highway.

The police pilot car stopped us and told us to move off the road.“It’s an 8-metre bucket and he’s not far behind me,” he warned.

Did I mention that in these parts the black soil plains turn to quicksand after rain? It was good that conditions were dry as we steered the car and van onto the grassy edges of the road.

Minutes later, the wide load roared past, followed by another escort vehicle and police car.

My view as a responsible road user is not unreasonable – we are entitled to our half of the road. The rules change when you are on outback roads traversed by road train, which often comprise a prime mover and two or even three trailers behind. When we are at truck stops, taking a breather, we usually check out the road trains that have stopped and sometimes ask the drivers where they are going. Last Sunday, we let a mine truck and its three trailers leave the rest stop first. The last thing caravanners averaging 85-90 kph want is one of those things on their hammer.

To that end, many grey nomads as they are known, employ UHF radio transmitters which they can use to tune into truckie transmissions.

It’s not exactly like the CW McCall country song “10-4 we got ourselves a convoy”, but is is useful for a van in front of a road train to be able to broadcast a message like: “We’ll pull over at the next truck stop, mate”.

I’m not sure about other grey nomads, but if you take the time to say G’day to truckies, it breaks down the “us and them” mindset.

I guess you’ve seen the movie, Duel?

At one rest stop I gave a young truck driver a hand to relocate a tyre which was in danger of falling out of his front trailer. He was towing two trailers full of car tyres. He hopped up on the drawbar and I held the tyre up until he could hoist it into the second trailer.

We had a chat about being on the road in a caravan and the etiquette of giving way to road trains. He assured me he would probably not catch up with us as his rig is limited to 90khm.

The wide load incident had me musing about the logistics involved in relocating the Peak Downs Homestead from its home of 118 years to Capella Pioneer Village. Pastoralist George Fairbairn had the homestead built for him in 1869. The builders used spotted gum timber and a system of mortise and tenon construction as nails were scarce and expensive to make in the mid-1800s.

We visited the village last Sunday and were impressed with the grand old homestead, considered to be one of the largest restored buildings of its type in Australia.

In 1987 the Capella Pioneer Village Committee negotiated for the purchase and removal of the homestead, which by that time had 40% white ant damage. Restoration work began 1989, again using local spotted gum timber and the system of mortise and tenon joints. Work was done in stages as funds were raised. The restoration, costing $125,000, included a new roof. The replacement value of the homestead today is more than $1 million. The committee member who welcomed visitors told me the homestead was moved from Peak Downs station in one piece in 1988.

This is not your typical pioneer cottage. The rooms are large with high ceilings, big fireplaces and all rooms open to a 25 metre long veranda. Try to imagine it traversing the plains on the back of a low loader (or two).

When you are towing a caravan or trailer, it is your responsibility to give way to road trains and wide loads. Bear in mind that vehicles of this type will be travelling at 80kmh with no way of braking or evading if you happen to be not paying attention.

Wide loads are one thing, but then there are the occasions when mining companies move a dragline from one mine to another. A dragline featured in that famous John Prine song, Paradise. “So the coal company came with the world’s biggest shovel, and they tortured the timber and stripped all the land”.

A dragline is a massive crane-like machine the size of an office building which operates on open cut coal mines. The sole task is to remove overburden with its 50 cubic metre capacity bucket to reveal the coal seams beneath.

In August 2017, BHP moved Dragline 27 from the Goonyella Riverside Mine to the South Walker Creek Mine. The Mackay Mercury reported that the 280km across country journey followed a route previously used to move another dragline in 2000. Highlights of the exercise included the 3,000 tonne, 45m tall Marion dragline crossing the Peak Downs Highway at Coppabella.

Draglines have 530 wheels and can ‘walk” across country at the rate of three or four kilometres per day. This exercise took 18 months to plan and four months to complete. Teams of contractors built a 35m wide corridor. Temporary road, rail and powerline crossings were built as late as possible and removed after the dragline had moved on.

While you’d have to be lucky to witness a dragline crossing, it is important motorists are aware of oversized load etiquette.

Graeme Ransley from the Road Accident Action Group told the Minerals and Energy Bulletin wide loads are getting wider, up to 10.5m. Police escorts are required when the load is wider than 5.5m. The RAAG began a campaign to educate motorists about wide loads after requests from pilot drivers and police

“Some of the concerns raised included a lack of motorist knowledge, and patience, with drivers not heeding lawful directions by escort pilots to slow down or stopping in a safe place,” he said.

“By 2013, there were up to 650 escorted wide loads per month in the Mackay region alone”.

Bearing those scary stats in mind, I spent a while this week looking at dash cam videos. This resulted in unpleasant dreams and a resolve to lift my driving attention levels. If you are planning a long trip with a caravan or camper trailer, ‘What truckies put up with every day” is a stark reminder to pay attention and drive to the conditions. Warning: not for the faint-hearted.

You will be happy to know I posted this after we’d arrived safely home, after covering 6,178 kms in five weeks. Next week’s list: washing, wheel alignment, car wash, dentist, Covid vaccination, get SWTPOTCW to write a guest blog; find another footie team to follow.

Impractical man approaches roundabout

roundabout-impractical-driver — Stage one (drainage) is done for the new roundabout coming to this tricky corner on Churchill Drive, Warwick (Qld).

Considering I once entered a roundabout the wrong way, I’ve so far managed to survive life as an impractical man. If you’ll permit me to misquote a line from that Kinks song (Lola): “Well I’m not the world’s most practical guy..”

Such thoughts emerged last week as I haplessly searched for our car in the local shopping centre car park.

“What does it look like, mate?” asked a passer-by, trying to be helpful.

”It’s a white SUV”

“Mate, there must be 60 white SUV’s in this car park – could you be more specific?

“Um, it’s new”

“What’s the rego?”

“Um, it starts with a 9”

She Who Used To Teach Geography sometimes remarks, a tad scathingly, about my wayward sense of direction. And these days she has been known to point out that not everyone can play guitar and harmonica, sing and remember lyrics of a song they wrote, all at the same time.

She inherited practical skills from her builder father and honed her sense of direction training as a geography teacher. Hence her exasperation when she says ‘go left here’ and I almost always gravitate to the right.

I rationalise this as a left brain/right brain conflict. We creative people are more right-brain dominated. Isn’t that true, Nic?

Therefore, while I can knock out a 1,200-word blog in 40 minutes, I’m almost certain to hire a handy person to mend a broken mailbox, call the RACQ when we have a flat tyre or try four screwdrivers before finding the one that will actually do the job. (Ed: It actually needed an Allen key.)

My practical skills have improved somewhat after years of frustrated tutelage from SWUTTG. One example might be that I can dismantle my own coffee machine to clean the filter and run a de-scaling solution through it. Another time I changed a light bulb.

Sometimes I come up with practical solutions all by myself. After a year or more of trying to put a cover over our caravan on windy days, I decided the solution was to roll it up and place it lengthwise along the roof, then roll the ends down the front and back of the van (after SWUTTG pointed out that the front of the cover is marked ‘Front’.). Eventually I will stop praising myself for this. When I next mention it she may well say “What, do you want a medal?”

It was difficult growing up in this part of the world in the 1950s and 1960s, when every second bloke (and a few girls) could replace a clutch plate and do their own grease and oil change. Some in my age bracket seem determined to keep these skills alive.

Just last weekend over lunch a friend was telling me how he planned to obtain a new engine and gearbox from the wreckers for his 2004 Ford ute, which has done 300k+. He says he plans to do all the work himself. I shuddered. The women scoffed.

My knowledge of motor vehicles is limited to: fuel goes in here, check tyre pressures, tighten wheel nuts before towing and stay on the left of the white line.

That was (my) number one reason for buying a new car (with a five-year warranty). I figure it might see me out.

What no jumper cables?

Some years ago we were staying at a caravan park between Georgetown and Clermont and when we went to leave, there was nothing doing when I turned the key. The battery was not just flat, it was dead. The closest RACQ was 80 kms away in Georgetown.

Eventually a bloke who used to drive trucks for a living backed his vehicle up to ours and connected jumper leads.

So we got started and drove to Clermont where a mechanic fitted a new battery after first commenting on the old one: “There’s no water in this battery, mate, none at all.”

He gave me the same scornful look Aussie blokes give when SWUTTG drives into a caravan park (and then flawlessly backs it into the designated space while I stand around haplessly waving my arms).

An old mate with great DIY skills has just retired and bought a large ex-ambulance which he is busily converting into a motor home. Last I heard, he was underneath the vehicle working on the plumbing (fresh water tanks and ‘other’). One of his ingenious plans was to build a bed platform on hydraulics which is neatly tucked away in the roof during the day.

This topic stirred up a couple of old memories, not all of which I am proud. There was the time SWUTTG’s Dad came to visit and decided (with my help) to build a timber fence across the front of our house. The old fence had pretty much fallen over and our two dogs were apt to go walkabout. So Dad, being the quintessential Canadian handyman, went on down to the ‘lumber yard’ and then persevered with my lamentable efforts as an offsider.

After a bit of swearing at the density of Australian timber, we got our posts set in concrete and Dad went off to hire a nail gun. It seems unfair that after we moved, someone bought the quarter acre block, removed the house and bulldozed everything else.

The other memory was prompted by roadworks going on not far from home. The local Council has acquired funding from the Federal ‘Black Spot’ programme to build a new roundabout between the Condamine River weir bridge and the railway crossing off Churchill Street.

My research uncovered the Council’s notice of roadworks, which mentions everything except the cost of the roundabout (about $380,000).

A small investment, but no less important than the $25 million the State Government will spend on an election promise. Work has started on a notorious ‘black spot’ intersection 12 kms from Warwick. An overpass will be built at the Cunningham and New England highways intersection; work to be completed by 2022. Known locally as the ’Eight Mile”, the intersection is used by vehicles travelling between Brisbane, Warwick and Toowoomba.

Keep left at all times

Which brings me to a confession and a 30-second video filmed at a roundabout on Vancouver Island in 2004. The confession part involved my stopping off at the Yatala pie shop circa 1995, a diversion from the Gold Coast motorway. When navigating a newly completed roundabout, I entered it the same way you would if you were driving in Europe, the US or Canada. I’m not sure how that happened and I swear it only happened once.

“Dad!” said the teenager in the passenger seat, “WTF are you doing?”

Fair call.

Now that I have managed to write 1200 words made up of self-deprecating anecdotes, I must return to a small list of domestic chores:

Vacuum house;

Finish washing and hang out clothes;

Re-set mouse traps;

Take dog for walk

SWUTTG’s list looks like this:

Sharpen secateurs;

Fit new hose connections;

Lubricate squeaky door hinges;

Clean tank filters (Bob to hold ladder);

Proof-read this and scoff a lot.

The Roads More Or Less Travelled

All roads lead to Canberra – at least that’s what most politicians think. This week we’re having a break from politics, the plight of refugees and why Australia’s asylum seeker policies are on the nose. Today guest writer Laurel Wilson (aka She Who Also Writes) looks at the hazards of the highway for travellers. This post contains 21 images. – Ed.

roads-travel — Definitely NOT our next road rig..

Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, I’m feeling quite refreshed after our 6 week, 6,000 kilometre road trip around Queensland in our trusty 12ft caravan (despite the occasional mishap, chronicled elsewhere).

One of the positives in travelling is that it can give you the opportunity and inclination to study the ever-changing surroundings. Unlike those who object to outback travel because “you can drive for ages and not see anything”, I’ve always found there’s something new to experience as you drive along. Some of these experiences, such as the pungent stink of Gidgee in humid weather, are perhaps not ‘must does’, but it was a relief to find the source of that odour, when I was beginning to think that we had a leak in the caravan’s gas cylinder or the car had developed some nameless fault.

Having a naturally curious nature (unlike the woman living in Dingo, who neither knew nor cared how that small town got its unique name), I was intrigued by the extent and variety of roads we travelled on during our latest trip.

I began to wonder just how many kilometres of designated roads there are in Queensland. According to a Department of Main Roads factsheet, as of 2013-14 there were over 33,000 kilometres of State controlled roads (which includes over 5,000 kilometres of the National network). In addition, Queensland Local Governments are responsible for almost 155,000 kilometres of roads in their respective areas.

In our latest trip around Queensland, we travelled on all but one of the designated ‘National Highways’, the only exception being the Barkly Highway, which runs westward from Cloncurry. In all of our trip around Queensland, we managed to stay off the highway called ‘Bruce’, except for the 400 or so kilometres from Cairns to Townsville, where we had tickets to watch a North Queensland Cowboys Rugby League game – one of Johnathan Thurston’s last games (I realise that the bulk of readers neither know or care, but I don’t get to write this blog very often, so thought I’d take the opportunity…).

This time, our most westerly destination was Winton, where we spent four fascinating days at ‘The Vision Splendid – Outback Film Festival’.

What constitutes a ‘National Highway’ seems to be open to some interpretation, but I’ve used a list supplied by Wikipedia (I know, I know, not necessarily the best source, but should be adequate for this purpose).

Whether the roads we travelled on were ‘National’, ‘State’ or ‘local’ wasn’t always possible to tell. (Apparently the various tiers of government have a similar problem when deciding which tier is responsible for building and maintaining them.) And we really didn’t care who was ‘responsible’; we were more interested in their state of repair (or disrepair). To be fair, of the 6,000 kilometres we travelled, the great majority of the roads were at least two lanes wide, bitumen and either in very good repair or quite adequate. roads-travel

Give the road-trains a wide berth – they ain’t stoppingOnly a couple were gravel or ‘dirt’ and gave us (and the poor old caravan) a rough ride for our money. And one of those we can blame on the GPS, which decided to take us on a trip from Glenmorgan to Surat via the most circuitous route it could find.

The other was the ‘shortcut’ from Hughenden to ‘The Lynd’, some 250km to the North. We chose this road (The Kennedy Developmental Road) because it went past Porcupine Gorge National Park, which we wanted to visit, and was much shorter than the alternative route to our next destination. And after all, most of the lines on the map were solid red (indicating bitumen) rather than the dotted line for ‘dirt road’.

As it turned out, the accent should have been on ‘developmental’, rather than ‘road’. There were frequent patches of the dreaded ‘corrugations’, in which the road surface consists of a series of ruts which run at right angles to the direction of travel. This is a phenomenon common to ‘dirt’ roads and apparently results mainly from the numerous vehicles travelling over the moveable surface of such roads. Regular grading of the road helps smooth out the corrugations, so it’s worthwhile trying to find out whether an unsurfaced road has been recently graded before you travel on it. Being of fairly ‘senior’ years, I’m quite used to travelling ‘off the bitumen’ and have met corrugations before. The general wisdom about negotiating corrugations is to drive at a reasonable speed (not necessarily too slowly, but not highway speeds either) and to drop the tyre pressures a bit if you usually run to higher pressures- though not really worth the hassle unless you’re stuck with a long stretch of ‘corro’.

The Kennedy Developmental Road was the site of one of our minor mishaps this trip. The continual bouncing of travelling across corrugations was eventually too much for the 30year old+ hinges on the wardrobe door, and we arrived at ‘The Lynd’ with the wardrobe door lying on the floor of the van. Interestingly enough, the clothes remained in the wardrobe! (Finding new hinges to fit, putting them on and getting the door to shut properly was a small triumph for ‘Handy Mandy’ and her trusty sidekick.)

This time next year the road will probably be a much more comfortable drive, as there was plenty of roadwork going on as we drove this stretch.

We met these International travellers at ‘The Lynd’ – It’s a 1915 Model ‘T’ Ford. They prefer the dirt roads (see below) and avoid highways in their world travels. They have travelled to over 50 countries, raising money for the charity SOS Children’s Villages International. http://www.tfordworldtour.org/

As you would expect, most sealed roads are black or grey, but we do come across some which, to my eye, are a rather fetching shade of pink. Some may see it as ‘tan’, but the idea of pink roads somehow appeals to me. I haven’t been able to find out why they are ‘pink’, but my theory is that it has something to do with the roadbase containing a fair proportion of the red dirt/sand common in many parts of Queensland.

One of my pastimes while travelling is to take pictures while we are inside the car (and I promise I only do this when I’m the passenger). Most of the photos in this ‘blog’ are of that type. And a few shots of the roads more or less travelled:

The value of inner city car parks

car-parks-value — Image of car parks Palma de Mallorca by Timmy L (flickr) https://flic.kr/p/TR4DFC

As you’d know, one little statistic can send me off on an investigation – like the number tucked away in a Guardian Weekly report that, globally, cars are in car parks 95% of the time.

The statistic emerged in a report about a pilot scheme in Amsterdam to reward residents with a free green space in front of their houses if they give up their parking permits. The car parks pilot scheme being trialled in six streets in an Amsterdam suburb is yet another Dutch idea designed to encourage people to give up cars and switch to carpooling, public transport or bicycles.

Residents’ cars will be stored for free in public car parks and in return something ‘green and pleasant’ can occupy the designated car space. The Guardian reports a fair degree of friction over this idea. Two early adopters (who have been heckled), have already put flower-filled tow carts in front of their houses (a cosy outdoor spot to sit in the sun and have a morning coffee and a plate of warm poffertjes).

This is not the first time Amsterdam’s Stadsbestuurders have tried to rend asunder the city’s love affair with the car. Amsterdam is widely known as the bicycle capital of the world because it is relatively compact and the narrow streets and canal bridges make driving more difficult than in other cities. When I spent time in Amsterdam (wishing I could forget what I can’t remember), the city was then trialling Sundays as a no-car day. I looked that up yesterday and find that it is 45 years since Car Free Sunday was introduced. As this blog explains, something changed in the Dutch mindset when the measure was introduced in 1973 (to dampen oil consumption amid the 1970s Oil Shock). Since then cycling with or without clogs has clearly become a lifestyle/clean environment movement.

The Netherlands leads other European cities, with 27% of all trips attributed to cyclists, a figure that has been stable for a decade. How could it be anything less when Amsterdammers own 22.5 million bicycles (1.3 per resident). Evidently Mum, Dad and the kids are in on the trend. Denmark is a close second in Europe’s bicycle stakes (0.8 per resident).

Australians are fairly keen on bicycles too, with 3.6 million using one every week, The Australian Cyclists Party says the average Australian household has 1.5 bicycles in working order, although if you wanted to be pendantic, you couldn’t ride half a bike very far. You could of course turn it into a unicycle, learn to juggle, sing and play the ukulele at the same time and apply for a gig at the Woodford Music Festival.

Digressions aside, Australians are as deeply committed to the combustion engine as the global leader (America). The latest Australian Bureau of Statistics motor vehicle census showed there were 18.8 million registered vehicles in Australia as of January 31, 2017, a 2% increase on 2016. The 2016 Australian Census showed there were 2.95 million one-vehicle households, 3.02 million households with two vehicles and another 1.50 million households with three or more. The same Census revealed that only 1.1% of Australians rode their bikes to work. The sole occupant car dominated work trips – from 65.6% in Sydney to 79.9% in Adelaide.

The notion that cars are parked 95% of the time is a figure largely calculated on public car parks which are utilised 85% to 95% of the time. Just dwell on that next time you are doing laps in one of Brisbane’s large shopping malls, waiting for a spot.

Last Saturday we went to a Queensland Ballet double bill (Carmen and The Firebird) which, I must say, we enjoyed more than the reviewer in The Australian did, apparently. There were three curtain calls.

Afterwards, we walked back to the multi-level car park where I realised (despite my disdain for automation), that I had no option but to pre-pay as there were no humans in the parking booths. The machine hungrily gobbled my $20 and dispensed the ticket. You should all know the routine by now – drive to boom gate 1, insert ticket and the boom (should) automatically rise to let you drive out.

Them were the good old days, mate

Not that I want to return to days of yore, but when we first started going to the ballet in 1988, you could quite often score a free car park somewhere in South Brisbane or West End. We’d leave home early and sometimes snag a space in Fish Lane. Ah, those were the days. Now we usually park in the Brisbane Entertainment and Convention Centre car park as it has 1,500 spaces, so is the place least likely to be full around South Brisbane’s entertainment and dining precinct. If I recall, when this complex first opened in 1996, parking 2-4 hours cost $8. That’s inflation for you.

A Colliers International white paper in 2015 predicted city parking would become more expensive in Australia, as no new multi-storey car parks were being approved. Some, in fact, have been demolished to make way for new apartment buildings. The other factor in parking becoming more expensive is that many cities now impose a congestion levy on property owners.

New technology is set to disrupt the parking business model though; one example being Divvy Parking, a digital start-up which hooks up motorists with under-utilised car parks within commercial office buildings. In late 2016, New South Wales car insurance company NRMA took a 40% stake in Divvy Parking. An NRMA study found that 30% of urban traffic congestion was caused by people driving around looking for a car park. And, according to NRMA, a third of parking spots within centrally-located commercial buildings are under-used. NRMA Group chief executive Rohan Lund told the Australian Financial Review that smart technology would be as crucial to solving Australia’s mobility issues as bricks and mortar infrastructure.

All over the world, cities are introducing measures to thwart or discourage drivers from bringing their vehicles to the inner city. These range from London’s Congestion Charge to Madrid’s blanket ban on non-resident vehicles. Only locals, taxis, buses and zero-emission delivery vehicles are allowed within Madrid. This is not the first time the padres de la ciudad have tried to beat congestion and pollution within Madrid’s city centre. In 2005, a pedestrian-only zone was introduced in a densely-populated inner city neighbourhood.

Interestingly, there are no Australian cities named in Business Insider’s recent article on 13 cities planning to ban cars to one degree or another. Most of the cities are in Europe (Oslo, Berlin, Paris, Hamburg, Copenhagen) but also China, Mexico and South America. Many of the plans are based on making it easier to walk and cycle. Several cities are planning to build bicycle-only super-highways.

Ah well, next time I go to the ballet maybe I’ll take my half a bicycle and wobble on down to the train station. (She Who Broke a Bone Falling on the Stone Steps) “Don’t forget your helmet, dear.” More reading: