Wide Loads

When driving along the highway, we frequently come across wide loads. Now, us English are accustomed to this meaning that we need to give the lorry a bit of a wide berth due to the odd holiday home being moved, or the machine on the back sticks out by a few feet. Of course in Australia, where everything is big, they don’t mess about with piffling little machines with a sign on saying ‘wide load’. No, at least 2 police escorts will drive quickly towards you on the wrong side of the road, forcing you to actually off-road before they smash into you. If you don’t get yourself fully into the field/grass/bush at the side of the road then a monster of a truck with an impossibly big piece of machinery on the back, taking up the full width of the road, will hurtle along the road at about 100km/hour and crumple you like you were a matchbox car. The photo above is an example of one we saw on the way to Clermont. Yet another hazard to Australians - I am quite surprised that they live to any age over 30 here, or aren’t nervous wrecks by the time they are that age.