#RescueRanger

Over the Easter weekend I had a couple of phone calls from a mate who was camping at Ningaloo, around 1200km away from Perth.  As I was in another room of the house I didn’t get the calls until later in the day.  The first call went along the lines of “I may need a favour”, the second was “I absolutely need a favour”.  Turns out my friends ute had a damaged gearbox and he couldn’t drive it any further.

As the phone calls came in on Good Friday this made the whole rescue a little bit harder, as obtaining a flatbed car trailer became a mission of its own.  To keep family in the picture social media was bombarded with the tag #RescueRanger.  Meanwhile my mate had made his way down to Northampton as a passenger in a friends 4WD. Come 8AM on the Saturday morning a trailer had been procured and attached, and it was time to head North, collect my mate, and then keep going up to the North West of WA, before heading home.

Stopping only for fuel six hours later I arrived in Northampton, dealing with the Easter traffic, with a trailer limiting the speed I could go.  Two hours later we stopped at the Billabong Roadhouse for food and to swap drivers.  Back on the road we went up to Carnarvon, our next stop, where it was time to refuel the Rescue Ranger.

Around an hour and a half drives north to Minilya Roadhouse, we arrived where the Hilux had been left at the local caravan park.  On the way up we went by three cows in the middle of the road.  As it was after dark this was a small concern, and I’ll be putting some more lights onto the truck before my next trip.  After repacking everything heavy from the Hilux onto the Ranger we got it onto the trailer, and started on the long drive South.  At this point the fuel consumption of the Ranger had changed dramatically, and we were now limited to a max of 80kmh.  Stopping in at Carnarvon we went for a quick refuel, a chat about how much further to go that night, and camping in the trucks by the side of the road.

The next morning we got back on the long straight road South.  Now we were playing a game of how accurate was fuel consumption on the #RescueRanger, and could we make Geraldton without filling up again.

A few hours later we stopped at Galena Bridge, swapped drivers and stretched our legs.  At this point the range to Geraldton was 60km shorter than the fuel tank was saying we could go.  A little while later we got into Gero, still with 60km worth of fuel, time to get a refill.

The next hop got us to Eneabba Roadhouse for some very welcome food, a longer break, and let us see the local police and bikies having a staring contest with each other before driving off with one pursuing the other.  After the final two hour stretch though it was time to unload the truck, return the trailer, say our goodbyes, and stop off for some well-earned fish and chips.

All up over the 36 hours of the weekend it ended up being just shy of 27 hours driving, and 2062km, thankfully a bit shorter than the feared 2400km trip as the Hilux had managed to limp out to the main road.