For the past nine years Rick Noble and his wife Vicky have run the Dumbleyung Roadhouse in WA which has been a popular stop off for truck drivers.
Situated 271km south-east of Perth via the Albany Highway and the Wagin-Dumbleyung Road (38km east of Wagin), Dumbleyung is a small Wheatbelt town and Rick estimates an average of 50 truckies a day pull up there.
“We have trucks travelling from Queensland to Bunbury Port and others with general freight and cattle and horses. We look after the drivers,” Rick said.
There is plenty of parking, showers for drivers and good food to select from.
“The steak burgers and onion burgers are favourites of the truck drivers,” Rick said.
I phoned Rick on September 7 when their field days were being run nearby.
“It is very busy here with people from the field days dropping in. We open daily from 6am to 6pm,” Rick said.
The couple live in a residence just near the roadhouse and in cold weather drivers will have a yarn to the couple around a campfire.
The region became world famous on New Year’s Eve of 1964 when British speed ace, Donald Campbell, set the world water speed record when he raced his boat Bluebird across Lake Dumbleyung at 444.66 km/h (276.3 mph).