In Australia, truckers are called “truckies”. Despite their cutesy-sounding nickname, these drivers are seriously hardcore.
They haul huge loads with multiple trailers (called “road trains”) through thousands of miles of uninhabited outback desert.
As an outback trucker, you don’t want to get stranded. Out here, you can die in a matter of hours without water.
Australian trucks come equipped with heavy-duty bars designed to plow right through stray kangaroos without stopping.
Australia’s Outback Truckers
As a country, Australia is approximately the same size as the United States. But that’s where the similarities end.With a
population of just 25 million, mostly concentrated around the coasts, Australia has thousands of square miles that are almost entirely empty.About the only people living out here are farmers who manage remote cattle ranches. These massive swaths of land are so dry that they require miles of grazing land for even small herds.
Road Trains
Connecting these people to the outside world are long haul outback truckers who run massive road trains of supplies into small towns.
They are possibly more important to the Australian outback than American truckers are to American farmland.Without these enormous road trains, the most remote communities would
never get supplies.It’s not just the long hauls outback truckers have to deal with. There’s also scorching heat in the summer and horrendous rainy seasons.
Many times, truckies are so far from civilization that major mechanical problems can quite literally result in life or death situations.There have been many reports of
people dying in the outback after their vehicles broke down just because they didn’t bring enough water to stay hydrated.Life on the road for truckies is much the same as for American Truckers. They spend a lot of time sleeping in trucks and away from their families.
For the most part, they drive Mack and Kenworth. And in most parts of Australia, truck stops are much smaller and much farther apart. There is often little or no cell service.
The life of the Australian truckie is far more hardcore than that of the American trucker. But in much the same way, they are the heroes of their transportation industry.
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