FACT: Sand is the worst substance on the planet. Don’t question me, it just is. Combine the granular nuisance that I’m still shaking out from my boots with the not-so-humble fly (the most annoying creature on the planet), and you’ve got a ROADBOSS nightmare. WRONG: How wrong I was indeed. The three days I spent in the corner of Queensland, swatting flies and cascading dunes with a vintage 1943 Chevy Blitz and a larrikin named Jeff crossing the width of Australia was a ROADBOSS dream!
Like a jockey “encouraging” its steed down the final straight, Jeff Fulwood – arm out the window – cheers his Chevy Blitz truck up the final red dunes of the Simpson Desert.
Exhilarated by the effort of his old truck, Fulwood admits he pushed the Blitz to its limit. “I never go over 3,000rpm, but I had to get it over 3,500 for that last dune,” he says laughing. Next stop … Birdsville.
It’s my first encounter with the man who is crossing the width of Australia in his trusty 1943 Chevy Blitz and now in his late 60s, his beloved Blitz truck pips him in age by more than a decade.
Highway driving on the eastern seaboard is a bit foreign to me – I’ve never done it, I’m used to the Kimberley’s … I’m a bush truckie I suppose.
Famed for its legendary feats alongside trucking legend Tom Kruse (the famous 20th-century mail carrier of the Birdsville Track), a Blitz is rarely glimpsed outside of a museum or scrapyard.
A fair enough reason to pack up the car and drive over 18 hours at the drop of a hat? I think so.
Birdsville marks day 35 of Jeff’s pilgrimage, and he’s just made it through the interior of Australia … so far so good.
Since leaving Shark Bay in Western Australia, the Blitz has touched the Indian Ocean, rolled and sometimes swam along the Great Central Road, encountered Uluru, but its arrival to Birdsville signifies the home stretch to Byron Bay … and real roads.
Jeff’s adventure with the Blitz is a homage to his beloved outback transport industry, a snapshot into life in the old days, and he’s playing a missionary-like role
The usually scorched plains of western Queensland, now tinged green thanks to recent rains, have lured the tourists just in time for school holidays.
But, instead of snapping the migrating pelicans or the populations of emus and kangaroos, all cameras are focused on the 80-something-year-old truck rolling through its streets.
Fulwood knows how to soak up the fanfare – for him, the adventure with the Blitz is a homage to his beloved outback transport industry, a snapshot into life in the old days, and he’s playing a missionary-like role.
He’s an outback trucker in its purest sense. He apologises and means no insult when he
This just feels like another job to me, I’m out here on a mission, I just want to get across Australia and raise some money.
The usually scorched plains of western Queensland, now tinged green thanks to recent rains, have lured the tourists just in time for school holidays.
But, instead of snapping the migrating pelicans or the populations of emus and kangaroos, all cameras are focused on the 80-something-year-old truck rolling through its streets.
Fulwood knows how to soak up the fanfare – for him, the adventure with the Blitz is a homage to his beloved outback transport industry, a snapshot into life in the old days, and he’s playing a missionary-like role.
He’s an outback trucker in its purest sense. He apologises and means no insult when he claims he has little interest in ‘road transport’.
The Blitz has a top speed of around 40km/h on a good road, which he hasn’t seen in two weeks, so a good 12-hour day is needed if he is to make any dent into the journey
“Highway driving on the eastern seaboard is a bit foreign to me – I’ve done very little of it. I’m used to the Kimberleys … I’m a bush truckie I suppose,” he says.
But, more importantly, he’s doing this trek for charity. A brief of his epic trip is draped along the side of the Blitz with a QR code link to donate to Variety.
He’s a passionate trucking man, but an even more passionate humanist.
An old mate
Jeff cites his previous two outings in the Blitz and an adventurous streak from a close friend as the inspiration for his Trans-Australia trek.
I know I’ve said it before, but in the old days this was as good as it got. This used to be the every-day truck.
After purchasing the ex-military Blitz in 2002 to take part in various smaller trips as part of the Year of the Outback celebrations, the duo combined again for another ‘Outback Odyssey’ in 2004, this time crossing the Simpson Desert to raise funds for the Royal Flying Doctor Service.
But long-time friend, Digby Brewer, thought the Blitz had a bigger challenge to undertake.
“After I did that trip for the Flying Doctor, Digby came and saw me a year later. He said, let’s go across Australia for Variety,” Jeff says.
“He was very passionate about Variety; he’d even collect scrap metal and sell it to make money for Variety. Just a bloody legend of a bloke.
Jeff is doing this trek for charity, with a brief of his epic trip draped along the side of the Blitz with a QR code link to donate to the Variety charity
“Oh, and he wanted to go across in his Massey Ferguson,” Jeff laughs. “That’s right, he wanted to go in his Massey Ferguson and me in the Blitz.”
He (Digby) named the trip ‘Truck and Tractor Across Australia’. Due to illness, however, Digby sadly passed away before the trek ever took form, but his idea has been on Jeff’s mind since.
“I really wanted to make that trip,” Jeff emotionally reflects that evening outside of Birdsville.
“So, last year I decided to tick a couple of things off the bucket list before it was too late and one of them was to do this trip across Australia, in memory of Digby. So that’s what I’m doing now. With a big nod to his passion for Variety at the same time.”
I’m lucky I can go home and sit in my flash Kenworth with the air-conditioning and sleeper bunk and everything else, so I can’t complain about life with the Blitz.
So, what does life entail when you cross Australia from west to east in a Chevy Blitz? Well, Jeff usually rises with the sun. He sleeps on the flatbed of the Blitz in a swag – he hates sleeping on the ground in case the snakes get him – and drives until he’s “had it”.
The Blitz has a top speed of around 40km/h on a good road, which he hasn’t seen in two weeks, so a good 12-hour day is needed if he is to make any dent into the journey.
And camp for the evening of day 36, after a 12-hour day on the corrugated roads, is a rock-filled flat, just off the dirt road between Birdsville and Windorah. This is pretty standard for him and the Blitz.
“What a great day, a really great day,” he tells me as he finally rests his feet in a seat that doesn’t vibrate from having an old straight-six engine under it.
Jeff sleeps on the flatbed of the Blitz in a swag – he hates sleeping on the ground in case the snakes get him – and drives until he’s “had it”
It’s also his first meal of the day, a quirk I’ve picked up over the past 24 hours with him. The fit, yet older man steering the Blitz has been living off tins of spaghetti or the occasional pub feed through country towns for the past five weeks – a lifestyle he’s used to, he says when questioned.
“Not much goes into my camp Harry,” he states. “Just the basics, I usually pull up about this time just before the sun’s going down, because then by the time I’m ready to have something to eat, the flies are going away, otherwise I’m just fighting them for my tucker.
“This just feels like another job to me, I’m out here on a mission, I just want to get across Australia and raise some money. I want to enjoy it, but I’m not into, you know, having flash camps and all that sort of thing. It’s just what I like doing.”
What to give the man who has everything, they say?
The fit 69-year-old man steering the Blitz has been living off tins of spaghetti or the occasional pub feed through country towns for the past five weeks – a lifestyle he’s used to, he says
Sincerity drips from Jeff’s words – he’s not the foghorn you can stumble across at a truck stop, the self-confessed ‘trucking nerd’, who dreams of the road and lives to be behind the wheel.
His father – a bush truckie as well – certainly inspired his love for trucks, and cathartically remembers his first trip with him, crossing the Strzelecki Track as a 14-year-old.
“I followed in his footsteps, and I still remember it like it happened bloody last week,” he says.
That trip spurred a five-decade-long career in transport for Jeff, predominately spent in the top end, and he’s experienced more than most.
I’ve learnt from my mistakes and I can identify risks. And I can do something about it, it’s just experience, I reckon – and a little bit of help from the Blitz at the same time.
Two years ago he decided to finish his career as an owner-driver, so he bought a Kenworth T659 and began to subby, doing the Darwin to Nhulunbuy general run. He loads three trailers each Friday and is always fully loaded on the return.
He’s run his own business and worked for large carriers – he’s bought Louisville’s and W Models and rolled a road train and lost everything – all of these experiences you can tell have humbled and prepared him for life on the road with the Blitz.
“I know I’ve said it before, but in the old days this was as good as it got,” he says of the Blitz. “I’m lucky I can go home and sit in my flash Kenworth with the air-conditioning and sleeper bunk and everything else, so I can’t complain about life with the Blitz.
“This used to be the every-day truck – but there is one thing I wish I’d brought that I haven’t got,” he admits. “And that’s another friggin’ pillow.”
Jeff’s 50 years’ experience driving trucks across Australia has armed him with the skills and knowledge to identify and manage risks
Making it through the Simpson has given Jeff a glimpse of the finish line, tarmac is a day or so away, and the conversation turns to ‘What if I get there?’
What are the chances that a Blitz and a 69-year-old driver could drive across the country in one go? Poor bookies odds I presume, but Jeff’s stakes are high.
“I’m not big-noting myself, but I’ve thought about it (the finish line),” Jeff says.
“I’m sure what will get this done is my experience – because I’ve made every mistake that you could ever make in a truck and every mistake you could ever make in the bush.
I thought it was funny because I look back on it now and think how insane of an idea it is to drive this 81-year-old truck from one side of Australia to the other.
“But I’ve learnt from my mistakes and I can identify risks,” he adds.
Jeff says his 50-year career in the cab has taught him skills to identify when something’s going wrong, what smells not right, that rattle that isn’t quite normal.
“And I can do something about it, it’s just experience, I reckon – and a little bit of help from the Blitz at the same time,” he jokes.
East of Eden
I’m told a Chevy Blitz guru in South Australia asked Jeff whether he’d “been to see a doctor lately” when he first heard of his idea.
Like a jockey “encouraging” its steed down the final straight, Jeff Fulwood – arm out the window – cheers his Chevy Blitz truck up the final red dunes of the Simpson Desert
“I thought it was funny because I look back on it now and think how insane of an idea it is to drive this 81-year-old truck from one side of Australia to the other,” laughs Jeff.
However, as I bid my farewells to Jeff and the Blitz after a well-deserved feed on day 37, I couldn’t help comparing my similarly-coloured hire car and its defaced front grill – filled with mutant grasshoppers and a bird – to the Blitz with its proud Chevy badge still shining.
In three days with Jeff and the Blitz, we’d popped a tyre, chipped the windshield and sent every warning sensor on the hire car into a spin (clogged by bugs), yet the Blitz was still standing – tired, old, uncomfortable, but still standing.
So, it was no surprise when Jeff phoned me a week later telling me he was nearing his finish line if I wanted to reacquaint. Jeff skipped Byron Bay and decided to make for the quieter Lennox Heads instead … less traffic lights, he says, which was where I caught him for the final push.
But then I started to think to myself, well, god damn I’ve just done 41 days straight, and you (the Blitz) haven’t let me down once, I’m not giving up now!
And just like Birdsville, all eyes and cameras were firmly on the Blitz as it rumbled through town and down the main beach towards the water.
Doubts had certainly manifested for Jeff though. Over 40 days alone, with himself, an uncomfortable old truck, and an impending weather system would do that to anyone.
That fear of failure and not wanting to let anyone down had flooded Jeff. Even as he approached Kyogle, the spiritual home of trucks and Brown and Hurley, fear of failure was still strong.
“Because I’m doing it for Variety and Digby too, I put pressure on myself, I just hate letting people down,” he admits.
Jeff racked up an incredible 41 days straight driving the 81-year-old Chevy Blitz from Shark Bay in WA to Lennox Head in NSW
“There were a lot of doubts and a lot of stress,” he admits over a beer after the Blitz officially touched the Pacific Ocean.
“But then I started to think to myself, well, god damn I’ve just done 41 days straight, and you (the Blitz) haven’t let me down once, I’m not giving up now!”
I think it’s fair to say that more than 150 years of experience between driver and Blitz has a hand to play in the success of this adventure. “Oh, and the fact we’ve been best mates for over 20 years,” Jeff says about the Blitz.
He’s also writing a book he tells me in recent correspondence ‘Corrugations. The Ups and Downs of an Outback Truckie’. He tells me he might want my help in writing it. I don’t think I’d do his story justice – I don’t have over 150 years of experience.
