WHEN out on the road, talk between drivers always turns to the state of the highways. With so much depending on the ability to successfully cross and navigate the tracks, motorists are always keen to collect as much information about the roadways before they have to tackle them.
Owen Ringrose would stop intermittently on these highways at the stations, townships and roadhouses and have a quick chat to whoever was around about the roads coming up on his journey.
The North West Star joined Owen as he made one of his routine 1800 kilometre round trips between Mount Isa and the Gulf, delivering essential supplies to the people of the region in the lead up to another wet season.
And while it was a routine journey for Owen, the trips themselves were never predictable.
A week earlier he and two other drivers became stuck behind one another along the muddy track leading into Burketown.
A sudden downpour had turned the dirt into a swampland that quickly dragged down the tyres of the trucks and trailers.
They would remain there for about 12 hours before they could be winched out.
And while such an incident will always cause a delay, Owen continued making his rounds and delivering the goods until the job was done.
Some stations are far too remote and their orders far too small for Owen to make a single trip out there, so at times he arranges for several workers from outlining stations to meet somewhere on the road to collect all their goods.
Because of this, Owen tries to arrive a certain points along the journey at the same time each week so they are able to work him into their schedule.
Owen said it was just part of delivering good customer service.
The journey we were making this week would take us from Mount Isa across to Cloncurry, north to the Burke and Wills roadhouse, where we would spend the first night.
After a couple of hours kip, the truck would head across the semi-sealed roads to the tiny township of Gregory before pulling into Gregory Downs Station and heading north to Burketown,
Entering Burketown, which as anyone who has been to the town and seen the condition of the dirt track would know, is no easy feat for a heavy vehicle.
And it was on this road that Owen had become stuck the week earlier.
Luckily, there was no rain this time and Owen was able to straddle the dirt road until he reach Burketown.
After several deliveries in the tiny Gulf outpost town, the truck would make deliveries at the small Tirranna Roadhouse, followed by Doomadgee.
The famous Aboriginal community was the biggest delivery spot for Owen.
Finishing off the long list of delivery points would be Hells Gate roadhouse (complete with its tourist-attracting tag line "Hell! It's not that bad is it?") and across the border to the Northern Territory and Wollogorang Station.
The largest and oldest cattle station in the Northern Territory, Wollogorang is a vast holding of 1.76 million acres.
It has 80 kilometres of frontage onto the Gulf of Carpentaria and usually runs about 40,000 head of cattle.
Owen stops regularly at the station for his deliveries - its homestead is conveniently less than 100 metres from the highway.
On this trip it is only to drop off a few boxes of fruit and vegetables.
Last on the list is the small Redbank Copper Mine, with only about a dozen workers, which is about another hours drive from the homestead but still on the Wollogorang station land.
It was 900 kilometres each way and we would use almost the entire 2000 litres of fuel in the tank (with a rough ratio of about one litre per kilometre).
The 2008 Mack Titan truck (purchased brand new) pulling three refrigerated trailers weighed about 90 tones in total, with half of that figure being freight.
Owen said the wear and tear on the vehicles as they travel long and isolated roads was one of the major expenses for the business.
However on this trip we would be fortunate - there would be no busted tyres or motor problems.
Owen said the new fangled computerized components on the trucks do not consider the needs of the isolated Outback driver.
Recently he broke down on the dirt track highway and had to wait forty-eight hours while a station plane flew to Mount Isa to collect a mechanic with the expensive program and laptop needed to be plugged into the truck to discover the problem.
Owen said, unlike the older traditional motorized vehicles, he was not able to get into the motor and find out the trouble without such a computer program.
Once the computer was plugged into the truck it would take less than one hour to repair.
That's why he said it helps to have a bit of patience when driving the unpredictable Outback.
On the first night Owen makes his delivery of lollies, flavoured milk and orange juice to the Burke and Wills Roadhouse before grabbing a quick bite to eat.
He has already worked a 16-hour day and shows no sign of fatigue.
We would have about four fours sleep before heading north to Burketown and Doomadgee.
"I've never needed an alarm clock in my life," Owen said.
"Whether it is five minutes or five hours sleep, I can go to sleep straight away and wake up when I need to - I'm pretty fortunate like that."
True to his word, almost exactly four hours later, the truck would pull back onto the lonesome stretch of highway.
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