If you decide to embark on driving Australia’s longest stretch of straight road, you have to be prepared for anything.<\/p>\n
When Caleb Humphries’s car broke down on the Nullarbor Plain, he spent two days watching cars drive past him, hoping someone would stop. They did not.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Caleb Humphries became stranded on Eyre Highway on July 30. (Supplied)<\/p>\n
The 23-year-old was stranded about 30 kilometres from the nearest roadhouse and tried everything to get his car up and running.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I had every other part I could possibly have for my car, except for the two parts that broke,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“At that time, I tried to make a dodgy fix myself, but nothing worked, and it wasn’t until then that I realised nothing was working.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Chevy Hawkins was able to put Mr Humphries in contact with friends to order replacement car parts. (Supplied)<\/p>\n
Each time a car passed him on the Eyre Highway, he would get out of his car to alert the driver that he needed help.<\/p>\n
“But no one stopped,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He said about 40 drivers ignored him.<\/p>\n
“I was starting to get hungry on the second day. I had no more food because all my food went bad.”<\/p>\n
Trucker to the rescue<\/p>\n
Truck driver Chevy Hawkins was on his way home after helping to deliver hay to drought-stricken South Australia when his mum contacted him to say a man was stuck on Eyre Highway near Madura.<\/p>\n
“Probably 32 kilometres on the west side of Madura, there was a Nissan Patrol on the side of the road,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Caleb Humphries’ car broke down when a tension pulley melted during his drive. (Supplied)<\/p>\n
“I pulled up, went and saw young Caleb [in his car] and woke him up, and started talking to him.<\/p>\n
“You’re a wanted man, mate.”<\/p>\n
Mr Hawkins was able to use his Starlink internet to get Mr Humphries in contact with friends in Margaret River.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I stayed with him for, it’d be good 45 minutes to an hour, just so he could get in touch with people,” he said.<\/p>\n
“He organised some parts from Kalgoorlie that got sent out to him, and he got back on the road.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Nullarbor Plain stretches across 1,200 kilometres of road between Western Australia and South Australia. (ABC Esperance: Robert Koenigluck)<\/p>\n
Mr Hawkins said he was disappointed Mr Humphries had to wait so long for help.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“It’s honestly shameful of the people who went past and didn’t stop,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“If you don’t feel safe, you don’t have to get out of the car to ask if they’re OK. You can still sit in your car and check they’re OK.”<\/p>\n
‘Faith restored’\u00a0<\/p>\n
When Sarah Howell heard her son’s friend, Mr Humphries, was in trouble she knew she had to help.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I just knew if it was my son out there, I would hope that somebody would step up,” she said.<\/p>\n
But, as a Margaret River local, Ms Howell said she had to get creative with finding help from more than 1,200 kilometres away.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I just thought, well, you know, the only place I can start is in my local community,” she said.<\/p>\n
Ms Howell made a post asking for help in a Margaret River community group on Facebook, which quickly made its way into trucking and caravanning groups across the south of the state.\u00a0<\/p>\n
From there, she was able to coordinate communication with Mr Humphries and get replacement parts out to him.<\/p>\n
“It really was a massive logistical effort between a gentleman in Albany, a gentleman in Kalgoorlie, and another woman in Margaret River,” she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ms Howell said the generosity of strangers was vital in getting Mr Humphries to his final destination in the south-west of WA.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Mr Humphries arrived in the South West on August 1 and has since fixed his car. (Supplied)<\/p>\n
“People absolutely restored my faith in humanity. I was just so, so grateful,” she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mr Humphries arrived safely in the South West on August 1.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you decide to embark on driving Australia’s longest stretch of straight road, you have to be prepared…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":71099,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[55820,55823,2456,43,55826,44,55822,55824,41,39,42,40,55825,55821,45],"class_list":["post-71098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-car-breakdown","tag-eyre-highway","tag-facebook","tag-headlines","tag-margaret-river","tag-news","tag-nullarbor-plain","tag-stranded","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-truck-driver","tag-truckers","tag-wa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71098\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}