Bush Mechanics

Truckers Darren Schneider and Rod Bryson couldn't have chosen a more dramatic place to stop. But having turned off the 90 Mile Straight, "Australia's Longest Straight Road," in the early hours of the morning en route from Melbourne to Perth, their three-carriage Kenworth inexplicably shuts down. A misty dawn reveals an endless vista of saltbush: They're bang in the middle of an ancient seabed stretching 700 km from South Australia's Head of the Bight west to Balladonia. Nullarbor translates as "no trees" in Latin, and for the moment the truckers are without a clue. "Usually when there's a fault, a series...