After a good day’s driving the TEC team spent the night at the lovely Smoky Bay caravan park.  We enjoyed a delicious curry at the  Smoky Bay Community Club Rooms and met the locals and old friends.  Thank you very much to the Smoky Bay community for their generous support and interest in our endeavours.

A very early start to the day as we have 604 kms to cover, with first stop being Ceduna.

It was agreed that we change tractors at Smoky Bay because of some safety concerns that weren’t able to be resolved.  It was a difficult decision as it meant that Darren, Janine and the children were not able to continue the journey.  Our sincere thanks to Darren for all of the work he had put into building the replica of Tail End Charlie, and to Janine for all of the background work she had done.  We wish them well in their endeavours.

With the departure of the tractor with which we had left Melbourne, we continued our adventure with George Baldwin's 9G tractor from Smoky Bay.  Fortunately this tractor has been kept in excellent working order since taking part in the 2004 Chamberlain 9G Trek Around South Australia.  Maximum speed in this tractor is 45 klms/hour, so we continued at a very sedate pace.

We stopped at Penong to collect generous donations.  Thank you to Penong community for your generous support.

Part of the way, a few oncoming drivers took a second look when they passed TEC being driven by a driver with purple hair (Allan with a purple wig)!!

One travelling family in a green bus was surprised with the answer they received when they enquired “are you trying to take that tractor across the Nullarbor”?  The proud reply came back, ‘no mate, we’re taking it all the way around Australia in 38 days”!!

Fun and games three quarters of the way across the Nullarbor when TEC ran out of fuel and the ‘fuel’ truck was still far behind – so TEC had to be towed by George Baldwin’s truck for a while – something different!!!

A couple of our vehicles pulled up to cook up excess vegetables before the SA/WA border quarantine control, then on into the night to our night time stop to meet our itinerary requirements as we had a very long drive next day.  A long but enjoyable day.

Apologies to Smoky Bay residents for the incorrect spelling of their town in yesterday’s notes……

Penong - home of windmills


Trevor and Judy at the whale watch centre


Fuel stop

George's tractor at Ceduna