A Perth man who wanted to show his appreciation for Western Australia's farming communities has organised a charity convoy of vintage vehicles, driving through the Wheatbelt and Gascoyne regions to raise awareness of the mental health crisis quietly gripping rural Australia. The West Coast Long Drive, an eight-day journey from Perth to Bullara Station, raised nearly $40,000 for farm support charity Farm Angels and sparked candid conversations with farmers, pastoralists and truck drivers along the way.
From City to Country: The Drive Behind the Charity Convoy
Dan Sutherland, the Perth local who organised the event, says he had little understanding of the struggles facing farming communities until just a few years ago. His passion for vintage vehicles drew him to a similar event in Queensland, the Long Drive for Drought, at a time when he himself was dealing with personal mental health challenges. The stories he heard from farmers on that trip stayed with him, and he resolved to bring the concept back to Western Australia.
"Just from the outside looking in, I've got a lot of compassion and respect for what they do," Sutherland said. He was equally motivated by a practical concern: that many farmers are simply unaware of the support services available to them. "The funding and help are available, but if farmers in Western Australia don't know about it they can't reach out," he said.
The convoy travelled in iconic 40 series LandCruisers, stopping at rural towns where Sutherland described meeting "true Aussie battlers," including older locals gathered at pub bars, farmers and truckies who rarely get a chance to talk openly about what they are going through.
The Scale of the Mental Health Challenge Facing Farmers
The drive comes against a backdrop of troubling data. According to the 2026 National Farmer Wellbeing Report, more than half of Australian farmers have felt depressed in the past two years. Even more striking, over 90 per cent reported feeling undervalued by the general public. Isolation and the stigma surrounding mental health are widely recognised as the key barriers stopping farmers from seeking help.
One of the convoy participants, Northampton farmer Arran Teakle, knows these pressures intimately. Teakle grows wheat, lupin and canola across 2,000 hectares of his family's property, located roughly 450 kilometres north of Perth. Five years ago, Cyclone Seroja wiped out 80 per cent of his farm's sheds. Since then, he has also weathered two mouse plagues and extended periods of low rainfall.
"We go through a fair bit; we feel a bit left out and it's something that needs addressing," Teakle said. He noted that farmers often have an ingrained tendency to absorb hardship without complaint. "If it doesn't rain or if it rains too much, that's farming so we deal with that," he said. What wears on farmers more, he argued, are factors outside their control, including policy decisions such as the live export ban and visa cancellations. "We do really need the support of the public when it comes to those sorts of issues; without the public support, you will see mental health issues increase," he said.
A Journey That Made a Difference
For Teakle, the convoy itself proved to be unexpectedly therapeutic. "After going on this long drive with Farm Angels I can see there are support networks out there," he said, adding that the experience helped him clear his head.
The event drew attention not just to the financial pressures of farming, but to the emotional weight carried by people who produce food for the country while often feeling invisible to city dwellers. Sutherland's hope is that the West Coast Long Drive becomes a recurring fixture, with plans already forming to expand participation next year and reach even more isolated communities.
The success of the fundraiser, combined with the conversations sparked along the route, suggests that a convoy of rattling vintage vehicles can do something that government campaigns sometimes struggle to achieve: make farmers feel genuinely seen and valued.
