There's a railway line across Australia, surprisingly entitled the "Trans Australia Railway line".

To allow maintenance on the railway where it passes through the outback regions, there is an unsealed service road running alongside the tracks.

Now, call this daft, stupid or pointless, but I wanted to incorporate one part of this service road into our cross-Australia section.

An innocent idea, born from inquisitiveness, that almost ended in a mangled mess. This is what happened...

... which was winched off the road and back into the bush, from where it had earlier escaped.

Not considering this a bad omen, we continued.

This is the STABILISED situation! After reversing into holes dug behind the wheels on the high-side, the truck re-entered the safe-zone again.

Now it was ready to move forward on the bridging ladders and onto level ground once more.

During the night, it rained.

Anywhere else, this wouldn't matter. However, for those who know Aussie outback roads, and what they become after a lashing of rain, will understand the gravity of the situation.

There's more grip on an oiled ice rink than there is on the clayey mud.

10km after the first cleared tree, we came across another one. A mini-diversion around the obstacle led up a side-incline out of the ruts in the road and onto the side scrub. Gripless on the surface, the right turn only half made it up the slope. Forward motion stopped, and a sideways slide started down into the deep rut of the track.

We came to a speechless halt at a side angle that I'd only like to repeat again on a rollercoaster.

Leaving the sealed Nullarbor road in perfect weather conditions, 20-odd kilometres of the 200km unsealed track to the service road were completed before coming across a fallen tree blocking the track. It was dark, so we pulled over for the night, intending to clear the blockage in the morning. All sensible stuff.