I`ve just been watching the latest series of Highway to hell , anyone got any info on this ,it seems a bit less glorified than Ice road truckers or am i being naive■■?
did i spot one of your artics in pink the other day Dan…or was i seeing things?
carryfast-yeti:
did i spot one of your artics in pink the other day Dan…or was i seeing things?
That’ll be one of my younger brothers fleet , his yard is down the bottom end of the village .
Would that be Highway thru Hell?
You need to see Out Back Truckers… Pretty much as it happened… there is a bit of narration over the top of things to explain what’s going on to Jo public… but if you can see through it there’s some good stuff going on…
Highway Thru Hell… Jamie Davis… Big Red Western Star… Coquihalla pass …1200 or so meters… Back door into Vancouver …Pretty good show It runs about 8 or 9 seasons…
Jeff…
Jelliot:
You need to see Out Back Truckers… Pretty much as it happened… there is a bit of narration over the top of things to explain what’s going on to Jo public… but if you can see through it there’s some good stuff going on…Highway Thru Hell… Jamie Davis… Big Red Western Star… Coquihalla pass …1200 or so meters… Back door into Vancouver …Pretty good show It runs about 8 or 9 seasons…
Jeff…
Yeah Ive seen outback truckers , the old guy with the old Kenworth is some character , Ive seen quite a few Highway thru hell episodes and enjoy watching it , Al Quiring comes across as down to earth ,1 of his quotes made me laugh “chrome don`t earn you money”
Outback Truckers, there’s a guy on there, Dennis Dent with his 3 axle 15 year old Merc. Now THAT fella is an outback trucker. That Merc. of his gets a hard life. Some of the programme is not worth watching but just bits of it are ok (Dennis Dent, Steve Graham, and the guy with the mobile car crusher ) he can stand in a shower for a month, he will never come clean 
Steve Graham, isn’t doing to well… he’s just worn out,his dog got poisoned, it dug up some bated meat that was planted for feral dogs by the local council Last I heard he was thinking about chucking it in… Denis Dent… Well Denis is Denis… The price of scrap steel fell through the floor… I guess if you have a big enough area to store it you could do quite well as long as you can ride of the storm…
Yogie’s still hauling big stuff out west. I met up with him at a truck show just out side Melbourne before Christmas…
Turbo went to jail for fraud ( nicking the Freightlinner )… then he got out and did a runner… supposedly to Florida !!! but you can still get him on his old phone number… dumb ■■■…
Season 5 has been filmed and is now in post production… going to air early October on Discovery… terrestrials to get it 1 week later…
Sludge is still doing fuel out west… but we’ve seen most of what he does… The Un Zud stuff he did was quite interesting bro…
Jeff…
one of jamies parked at top of rogers pass waiting for forecast snow and boy did it hit took pic on my last trip into b.c. from nova scotia
Jelliot:
… Season 5 has been filmed and is now in post production… going to air early October on Discovery… terrestrials to get it 1 week later…
Looks like we wont get to see it here in the UK. Sky and Discovery are having a hand bag fight at the moment over costs and Sky are losing or dropping all the Discovery channels!! Shame as the “Outback” series, Truckers and Pilots, are one of the best formats on TV at the moment.
Jelliot:
Steve Graham, isn’t doing to well… he’s just worn out,his dog got poisoned, it dug up some bated meat that was planted for feral dogs by the local council Last I heard he was thinking about chucking it in… Denis Dent… Well Denis is Denis… The price of scrap steel fell through the floor… I guess if you have a big enough area to store it you could do quite well as long as you can ride of the storm…Yogie’s still hauling big stuff out west. I met up with him at a truck show just out side Melbourne before Christmas…
Turbo went to jail for fraud ( nicking the Freightlinner )… then he got out and did a runner… supposedly to Florida !!! but you can still get him on his old phone number… dumb ■■■…
Season 5 has been filmed and is now in post production… going to air early October on Discovery… terrestrials to get it 1 week later…
Sludge is still doing fuel out west… but we’ve seen most of what he does… The Un Zud stuff he did was quite interesting bro…
Jeff…
Which 1 is the older guy with the Kenworth , he is very resourceful , I watched 1 episode where he had been stuck for weeks , I think he got stuck in a river at 1 point and there were crocs in it he didn`t seem too concerned , very entertaining as is Highway thru hell
bullitt:
Jelliot:
… Season 5 has been filmed and is now in post production… going to air early October on Discovery… terrestrials to get it 1 week later…Looks like we wont get to see it here in the UK. Sky and Discovery are having a hand bag fight at the moment over costs and Sky are losing or dropping all the Discovery channels!! Shame as the “Outback” series, Truckers and Pilots, are one of the best formats on TV at the moment.
go onto the torrent sites and just download them for free…reach them via proxy servers as you wont be able to access them direct now…to find a live proxy go onto youtube and searh for torrent sites.then follow the millions of links…free everything.
Hi Ramone the seasoned guy with the K 9 oh and triple is Steve Graham, he’s always done remote trucking and was one of the main reasons that Maz Lahotti at Prospero wanted to actually do Out Back Truckers, the rest of it just fell in after that. Most of the drivers are a good bunch of folk but as always there were a few bad apples that seem to get in on the act… They shoot 50 stories a year and have to use most of them to fill in the time slot, so if they find that some of them are " unsavoury " by then it’s usually to late to cut them out and try and find something else to fill the gap…
Maz always said he wanted to show it how it was, with minimal interference, which is why it plays out how it does… Discovery originally wanted to juice it up with rock music and dramatic voice overs. But when they got the viewer stats for the first couple of shows they let it run as it was…
There’s crocks in most of the rivers up the north west… other than up on the plateau…
I was up at Katherine a few years back when it flooded…Katherine is about 120 k’s inland from the sea… there was 8 meter Salt water crocks and Bull sharks swimming down the main street… That’s genuine you can look it up on ABC news… Actually that’s not to unusual
Normal crocks aren’t to bad…but they can still bit your head of… just be ware when you go near any kind of water, throw in a couple sticks in first… Salties… now that’s a different kettle of fish… stealthy, vicious, very fast… they can do 20 meters in the blink of an eye and can easily take down a cow or a horse…
Steve was stuck in the mud on season 1 for 8 days and the camera crew had no option but to stay with him… they were only about 10 k’s from the final destination, but there really wasn’t much there in the way of accommodation so they ended up camping under one of the trailers…
Jeff…
Good day Ramone,
I had a little to do with road to Kalumbaru a few years before Outback truckers ventured that way and have a little knowledge of crocodiles found in the top end and can tell you that the smaller species is called a Johnson and is a fish eater not known as dangerous to humans other than a bite can be very painful,the salt water crocodile is a predator which as me learned friend has said is extremely stealthy and quick,we worked on the principle of if you see it coming its to late.I.m really not sure what a couple of sticks is supposed to do except maybe attract a salty.
The waters of the north are overrun with them and i would advise extreme caution in any creek or river or body of water like a billabong across the top of Western Aus Northern Territory and Queensland.
When I first went to work and live in the West Kimberly professional croc shooting was banned the year before I arrived in 1972, in those days you could swim just about anywhere my son and daughter learnt to swim in the Fitzroy river I.m afraid not the case now.If you have a dog the chances are a croc will take the dog in prefence to yourself ,if you are attached to the dog keep it away from the water wherever you are it dosent have to be in the water.
I was told by my boss if you camp near water do not go to the water at the same time each day,if there is a salty there he could be waiting and not necessarily in the water ,they are known to wait away from the water and will attack from behind hit you with their tail and once your in the water it gets difficult from there on.
I first went to Kalumbaru in 1973 a bit before Outback truckers turned up I.m afraid there was no front end loader or grader on hand to pull you out when you got bogged, I know Steve he certainly does it hard and I watched the first episode and all I can say is no local contractors would go up there during the wet season.The road was graded once a year starting in may and finished by august one cut each way not for tourist traffic or supplies to the mission theirs came by barge from Wyndam but for cattle trains and station supplies as far as Theda.
After the Aboriginal Affairs took over the running of the community a lot of improvements were put in place one of them was a power house supplying 24hour power to the community,i carted the fuel for it for a season they had huge storage there so that they didn’t run out when the roads where impassable I guess thats all changed, we tried with double road trains we got in ok but were unable to pull 2 trailers up the Theda jump up on the way out so it was single trailer only from there on from Theda station to Kalumbaru, that has obviously changed if they are pulling triples in and out glad its not me.
Happy days every trip was a challenge and the scenery is magnificent I guess it was a Highway to Hell to some but I can understand why it now attracts so much tourist traffic in my day sometimes you didn’t see another vehicle for days.
Cheers Dig
Apologies for the quality of pics they have been in the shoe box for some time
I went over the Coquihalla last week and it rained the whole way. Unusual for January. Must have been a slow day for Jamie; he sent one of the lads down to the Subway at the Flying J for sandwiches.
The idea about throwing a stick or rock in the water it to see if anything reacts to it… crocks in general are fairly curious and will usually have a look at anything that moves, so if you get to your water hole and chuck something in it… from a distance… and that "big log " over there swims towards it… then it’s probably not a log… Personally I tend to stay away form water up in that area…
I was watching The Leyland Brothers… Yeh remember them … they were up on some kind of Plateau up north somewhere… one of them said It’s perfectly safe to swim up here as there are no crocks in this area… I can’t remember where they were but it’s not the kind of thing I would like to guess about…
I had a load of fresh to Karratha back in November … that was far enough for me… 43 in the day 29 at night and the air con wasn’t working… I slept in the back of the empty fridge one night…we still had snow when I got back to Tasmania… which is a bit more like what I’m use to … Sorry to hi jack your thread Ramone…
Jeff…
Jelliot:
The idea about throwing a stick or rock in the water it to see if anything reacts to it… crocks in general are fairly curious and will usually have a look at anything that moves, so if you get to your water hole and chuck something in it… from a distance… and that "big log " over there swims towards it… then it’s probably not a log… Personally I tend to stay away form water up in that area…I was watching The Leyland Brothers… Yeh remember them … they were up on some kind of Plateau up north somewhere… one of them said It’s perfectly safe to swim up here as there are no crocks in this area… I can’t remember where they were but it’s not the kind of thing I would like to guess about…
I had a load of fresh to Karratha back in November … that was far enough for me… 43 in the day 29 at night and the air con wasn’t working… I slept in the back of the empty fridge one night…we still had snow when I got back to Tasmania… which is a bit more like what I’m use to … Sorry to hi jack your thread Ramone…
Jeff…
Just to clarify. The road to Kalumbaru starts at Derby and ends at Kalumbaru Community and is called the Gibb River Road I forget the exact distance but better than 400miles, the first 160miles were the most populated with several stations being scattered along it after the Mt House/Glenroy turn off you enter the Phillips range and the country becomes more tropical, it has been publicised by the Outback Truckers TV show but in my day it was more of a Highway to Hell as help wasn’t guaranteed anywhere,my first trip was a small 8 ton load to Doongan station there were no specific directions except follow the main drag, and a breakdown or problem was dealt with the same way then as now “do not leave the vehicle” you may be there a while but eventually some one will turn up so as you may imagine there a lots of creeks rivers gorges and permanent pools of water,but the rules were the same in this as water is in more populated places “approach the water with caution” throwing something in the water will not invoke a saltwater croc to approach on the surface it will sink and become a submarine to investigate and they make no noise no splash if you haven’t spotted the snout at the surface you won’t know its there.Just a note if you throw a rock and hit close to its snout you may be treated to some spectacular aerobatics.
The Leyland brothers made most of their shows in the 1960s good entertaiment and at the height of the professional shooting era so it was possible there were areas croc free, since those days the croc population has exploded and every year we have people taken by them and it concerns me Jeff when people make broad statements that others who read may take it as gospel.
The Outback Truckers show reaches a vast worldwide audience and there may be some people who are members of this site contemplating having a look at it for them selves by all means you won’t regret the journey but do it between May and late August that is the main tourist season and there are lots of people travelling it at these times its 4wd only country and remember treat every bit of water with caution.
Cheers DIG
I wasn’t trying to make a broad statement… the first time I was up that way I was with … for want of a better word “bogan " truck drivers” I think they would have a higher opinion of them selves… more Russel Coyte than Leyland brothers… however I believe they’re still working up that way…
Just so you can get you head round it…Mount Isa to Karratha is about 3600 k’s ish … London to Moscow 2500 k’s ish… If your traveling west from Mount Isa towards Karratha you won’t meet much in the way of traffic … towns… half a dozen or so but not in the European sense of the word…the distances between towns can be vast…
It is a fantastic part of the world, but if your going out remote, it’s probably better to consider going on a guided tour for your first time out, if not at the least tell someone where your going, what route you intend to take, and what time you estimate your going to get there…It’s not just the wild life that can get you the weather can be just as deadly…
Or you could come to Tasmania and get lost in the southern forest for a month or so…
Jeff…
Well it looks like Sky TV and Discovery have sorted out their differences as the Discovery channels are still on air so it looks like we will get to see the remaining OBT series when they get to the UK! I think the scenery up in the north is stunning to be honest, just how I like it, hot and dusty!
I must admit, that Steve Graham is one of the most tenacious and patient people I have ever seen! He never seems to get fazed, just accepts what has happened and gets himself out of it! All good stuff. 