Pilbara haulage driver Heather Jones reluctantly traverses a 1,260-kilometre sewage run every two days. It's a tough gig, specially if you're a germophobe.
www.abc.net.au
Outback sewage truckers — an essential service, but not for the faint-hearted
It's exhilarating, as a passenger on a 36-metre pink road train, watching the world whiz by from up high in the cab of this gigantic truck.
Only, I'm trying not to think about how this will all end.
In roughly 1,260 kilometres we'll be surrounded by sewage, as far as the eye can see.
I've jumped aboard for an outback journey with a difference.
We'll be traversing what's believed to be the world's longest sewage run, across the Pilbara in Western Australia's remote north-west, with possibly the world's biggest germophobe.
ABC journalist Karen Michelmore jumped aboard Heather Jones' truck for an outback journey with a difference.(ABC Pilbara: Karen Michelmore)
Truck driver Heather Jones and her colleagues make the round trip from Karratha to Newman and back every two days.
With each run they remove up to 70,000 litres of excrement from the temporary workers' camps of Australia's iron ore mines which keep the national economy afloat.
"We're heading to Newman with our poo tankers, commonly referred to as 'turd herders', 'poo patrol', 'you dump it, we pump it'," Ms Jones says dryly.
Pilbara haulage driver Heather Jones reluctantly traverses a 1,260-kilometre sewage run every two days. It's a tough gig, specially if you're a germophobe.
www.abc.net.au
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