Overlanding to Australia: Part 19
Will the Operation Long Drive Defender make it past Australia’s strict border controls?
The Defender is damaged in a shipping incident but our adventurers press on regardless across the Outback
Eighteen months ago, we set off from Greenwich in the UK with the sole goal of reaching the other side of the world, Australia. Now, on a short budget airline flight from Auckland to Melbourne, my wife and I are only four hours away from achieving our goal. But there are three of us on Operation Long Drive and our goal will not be truly met until Mary, our beloved Land Rover, is also in Australia.
After meeting with our shipping agent in Melbourne to hand over some paperwork for customs clearance, we anxiously await the arrival of the ship containing our car. The plan is to get Mary released from quarantine before Christmas. We appreciate there is not any room for complications and any delay will mean that we won’t get Mary until two weeks later after the festive break.
After a week of not doing very much apart from moving from one Airbnb to another, we receive a phone call to say that the container has arrived at the unpacking facility but there is some bad news: our Land Rover has shifted in the container during transit and has been damaged.
Any overlander will tell you that this is possibly the worst news you can get – and it's made even worse as today is the last working day before the Christmas break, so we have to wait five agonising days to find out how bad the damage is and what the implications are for the rest of our trip.
When the container is opened, I can immediately see that something is not right. Apart from the obvious fact that we are going to need a new back door, there is only one strap securing the car at the rear. This strap is looped though the bumper so it would have done nothing to stop the car moving side to side. The other strap at the front of the car has snapped. The Defender is squashed up against the left-hand side of the container and I am unsure of the damage. We manage to get the car out of the container with a little help
and without causing any further damage.
Our slightly wider wheel and tyre combo doesn’t just look cool, it has prevented the left-hand side of the car from rubbing against the container, so the damage is mainly to the back door, which is badly creased and doesn’t look like it will open very easily.
The unpacking company tells us that the car was not secured correctly, as is evident from the strap placement, the lack of straps and the fact that the wheels were not chocked. Our first thought is that this is a clear case of professional negligence and that we will be compensated for the damage by the packing company.
We get in touch with our agent, Clarke Global Logistics, to find out what has happened and for them to get in touch with the packing company, C3. The response was that they secured the car with four straps; the car was in gear and the handbrake was applied. That is supposedly how they have always packed the cars and they have never had any problem. As far as they are concerned, that is the end of the matter.
We know what they told us is not true: there were only two straps and the car was not in gear. We relay this back to Clarke Global, who seem to be reluctant to get to the bottom of this for us. To cut a very long story short, Clarke Global appointed a supposedly independent claims company to look at the case. In the end, they come back to deny all liability and insist that there was nothing wrong with how the car was packed.
Heading west
With a legal battle looming, we point the injured Defender west: not our usual direction, but we are opting to discover the less-populated west coat of Australia. Spirits are a little low, but it is great to hit the road again after a month of being stuck in Melbourne and we are glad to see the big city in the rear-view mirror.
We chew up the tarmac and have some pretty big driving days to make up for the lost time. We enjoy the Great Ocean Road with its spectacular sea stacks on our way to Adelaide via some world-class wineries in the famous Barossa Valley.
After a few nights of camping in Australia under our belt,
we decide that it is no longer practical to endure the damaged door. We have been tipped off by another Land Rover owner of a garage just outside Adelaide where we might be able get a new rear end for Mary.
We arrive at Triumph Rover Spares and are greeted by rows and rows of all models of Land Rovers imaginable in various stages of being salvaged for parts. This is the biggest secondhand Land Rover parts specialist in Australia. After strolling around the yard, we find a door which is slightly dented but straight and, as a little bonus, it is painted white and available at a reasonable price.
Back on the road with a functional door, we leave the tourist camper vans behind and make our way across the Nullarbor Plain. The 1300-mile journey consists of long straight stretches of road, including the famous 90-mile straight which sounds more exciting than it is to drive. We have to watch out for planes as well as cars, as some of these straight roads are also used as landing strips for light aircraft.
The main reason for our Australia adventure is to explore the remote outback. Due to the shortened timeframe, we are unable to get some of the permits required to tackle some of the longer tracks.
One downfall of going to New Zealand before Australia is that the temperature is now a little on the warm side. With this in mind, we decide to take on the Holland Track, which was carved out by John Holland back in 1893 as a shortcut from Western Australia’s first city, Albany, to the gold fields. This 450-mile track dissects some inhospitable bush from Kalgoorlie to Hyden and is perfect as a three-day test of outback driving.
We enjoy a day in Kalgoorlie, a mining town, and get some supplies before leaving the tarmac and hitting some red dust on an unsealed road that leads us to the start of the Holland Track, which is 4WD only and, after a few days of rain, the track condition is slick. The BFGS do well on the wet clay and the first day is spent trundling along slipping and sliding, with the added bonus of some deep water holes to negotiate.
After a scorching day at 39 degrees C, meeting no one on the track, we find a cooling shaded area and set up camp alone in our very own perfect million-star hotel.
“Some of these roads are also used as landing strips for aircraft”