Patrolling the Fence

There've been a lot of high-profile automotive farewells of late and there are more to come. You know who they are.

But in among the superstars, the end of the line has also come for a blue-collar hard worker, the Y61 Nissan Patrol.

Felled by increasingly stringent emissions standards, the traditional ladder-frame 4x4 wagon has been with us for 19 years as the Y61 or GU, and 17 years before that as the technically similar Y60 or GQ.

Before that, Patrol history in Australia traces all the way back to 1960 and the 60 Series, which has entered Australian off-roading folklore as the first vehicle to cross the Simpson Desert.

Yes, the Patrol name continues on, but it’s attached to the petrol V8-engined Y62 that has no technical relationship with the Y61 and little connection with its traditional audience.

So, it’s time to farewell an iconic Aussie off-roader and what better way to do it than by heading off the beaten track in search of another icon of Australia’s past, the Rabbit Proof Fence?

Not one fence but three
The Rabbit Proof Fence is best known for the 2002 Phillip Noyce directed film of the same name that followed the epic 1931 journey of three Aboriginal girls along the fence from confinement near Perth back to their home in the north of the state.

In fact, those girls followed all three different fences that were built more than 100 years ago in a futile attempt to hold back the rabbit plague sweeping across the Nullarbor from the east.

Rabbit Proof Fence number one was completed in 1905 and stretched 1834km from the south coast at Jerdacuttup to Eighty Mile Beach on the north coast. It was claimed at the time to be the longest fence in the world.

Completed in 1907, the 1165km Rabbit Proof Fence number two was constructed further west running from Bremer Bay on the south coast and parallel to number one, until turning north-west near Yalgoo to eventually intersect with it south of Wiluna.

The shortest fence, number three, ran east-west from an intersection with number two near Yalgoo 257km to the coast at Kalbarri.

In total, these three fences took hundreds of labourers seven years to build through virgin scrub and consumed hundreds of thousands of pounds in the process.

With the rabbits long since having made it to the west coast, only a few sections still stand. Wild dogs, foxes and emus are now meant to be contained.

The officially maintained sections of what is now known as the state barrier fence are off-limits to all but maintenance crews. But great swathes of the original fences were taken over to define boundaries as farming spread further east.

Other sections have simply fallen into disrepair and that means a significant piece of history is slowly disappearing.

One Aussie icon meets another
So, our plan is quite simple; collect a Patrol ST from Nissan in Perth and head along the Great Eastern Highway to Cunderdin, which was the railhead and headquarters for the building of Rabbit Proof Fence number two.

From there it’s northward by backroads and tracks, trying to pick up evidence of the fence, see the sites, meet some people along the way and visit towns that are close by. We only have five days, so there’s no way we’re going to get more than a taste of what’s out there.

But it is an intriguing alternate way to see Western Australia, rather than following the coast south to Margaret River, north into the Pilbara or east to Kalgoorlie. Where we are going is the sparsely populated heart of Australia’s biggest state.

And it’s a rich and healthy heart. North of Cunderdin the wheat fields stretch from horizon to far-distant horizon. This is surely one of the world’s great food bowls.

Massive headers march in GPS-guided formation across the fields harvesting the wheat, their dust rising lazily into the faded blue sky, visible for many kilometres.

Further north the wheat fields give way to gold and iron ore mining. Construction suddenly rears out of the desert and scrub, long ore trains clink-clack their way to the coast. The rocks, the ground and the road are a deep red.

Up here every second vehicle is a crew-cab ute with a set of flashing lights and the signage of one contractor or another. High-viz vests and safety helmets are the local uniform. The motels in the small towns are filled with contract workers.

Some of those towns seem energised and healthy. Others are struggling, rows of closed shops lining their long main streets.

The country feels old and worn, with barely a hill to interrupt panoramic views. Yet it is also beguiling, impressive, vast and handsome in its own way.

And so too is our Patrol, which eddies across these great long stretches of arrow-straight roads at a steady 100-120km/h, sending out a long plume of red dust.

No, it’s not the latest thing when it comes to infotainment, cabin refinement and safety features, but out here the Patrol makes immense sense.

Its 3.0-litre turbo-diesel is strong if industrial in its refinement, its long-legged suspension and long-wheelbase ride accommodating us well as it floats over the bumps. It steers approximately and shuffles through the gears slowly.

The interior space is massive, easily swallowing our luggage, photographic gear, extra spare tyre, drinking water and food.

When we do have to venture from the high-quality gravel roads on to rougher stuff, the Patrol’s part-time mechanical diff-based 4x4 system and ground clearance copes without breaking a sweat. Anytime we step from its air-conditioned cabin into the sweltering heat we can’t say the same thing!
Australia's abandoned heartland
The fence is our sometimes absent companion. Salt flats and private property cause us to detour occasionally, but we always manage to find our way back to its distinctive hexagonal wire.

Cross-roads invariably bear the family names of early settlers in the area; Mason, Keogh, Solomon, Lynn. Every now and then an original gate reassures us we are on the right track. They are engineering marvels, more than 100 years old and often reinforced with the visual signature of an angled bar across the top.

There is much else to see here. We explore a mining tunnel infested with micro bats that brush around our heads in the darkness. We see the occasional Kangaroo by day and hundreds by night. We see emus, goannas and yes, we see rabbits.

We stumble upon abandoned mining towns such as Big Bell. As the sun sinks, long pink shadows are cast on the red brick walls of the deserted two-story hotel. The only other surviving building in this once thriving town is a church. Seems right, the two Aussie houses of worship…

This is such a rich and enjoyable and interesting journey. There is so much to take in yet so very little official promotion of it. There are occasional plaques, signs and even the marked grave of a construction worker near the small town of Wubin. But the potential of the Rabbit Proof fence as a tourist drive is barely tapped.

There has been a push to commemorate the fence since it reached its 100th anniversary in 2007, but that has come to nothing so far.

Maybe it’s the concept of commemorating a fence that is the struggle, but really it’s more about the people who built it, maintained it and have lived along it than the posts and wire from which it was made.

The people behind the fence
For the first 40 years of its existence, the fence was maintained by hundreds of ‘line runners’, who kept their section of the fence in good order. They lived in primitive, isolated conditions for months at a time; rode horses, camels and bicycles. They were refugees, they were loners and they were WWI survivors unable to cope with society.

And there are still many characters out here. We meet people like third-generation farmer John Lynn, a 61-year-old who has never lived anywhere but in sight of the Rabbit Proof Fence. An old line-runner’s well and overnight camp spot is located in a small triangle next to his boundary.

“The fence held the rabbits back for 15 or 20 years,” Lynn tells us. “There were very strict controls. You couldn’t go through the gate and leave it open or you would get fined.

“It was illegal to bring a rabbit to this side dead or alive. The line runners had a lot of powers.”

At Yalgoo are Chilean couple Raul and Ivonne Valenzuela, who run the local supermarket. They left their home country to escape the repressive Pinochet dictatorship and somehow found their way to this tiny outpost. Nowadays Raul is a local shire councillor.

Then there’s Damian Morrisey, alone overseeing Pindathuna station, near where fence two and three intersect. He is burned black by a lifetime working in the outback sun.

“The biggest problem now are the dogs,” he says. “Before they came here, we had thousands of sheep roaming everywhere.

“People come up here and say we are going to go out and shoot those dogs. But you can drive around for six months and not see one.

“But they are there alright, you see their tracks.”

And so it goes. On our last night, well on the way back to Perth, we park in a wheat field north of Dalwallinu and watch the much-feted super moon come rising over the eastern horizon. In such a big landscape it looks about the right size.

And so does our vehicle. Apart from one puncture the big Nissan encountered no issues and ran faultlessly, amassing 2208km and consuming around 230 litres of fuel along the way (for a consumption average around 10.4L/100km). It became our big, friendly packhorse perfect for this task.

Our adventure was a reminder of why the Patrol is loved by so many and why it will be sorely missed.

No doubt, we’ll see examples on our roads for years to come, being used to work and explore Australia’s vast countryside and the life and history it contains.

Hopefully, some will trace the Rabbit Proof Fence. It’s a journey worth taking.