It's held up traffic, blocked off several lanes at a time and even required some signs to be moved and branches to be cut back.
But for heavy hauler Jon Kelly, transporting a $14 million stainless steel sculpture from Brisbane to Canberra has been one smooth ride.
Lindy Lee's monumental Ouroboros sculpture has been on an epic journey through country towns and down massive highways, from a Queensland foundry to the National Triangle in the capital.
When we wake up on Wednesday morning, the 13-ton work will be in its final resting place outside the National Gallery of Australia.
For Mr Kelly, is was a two-year planning project that amounted to a relatively simple logistical journey.
But it took some convincing for a large team of artisans and engineers - not to mention the artist herself - to believe the work could be brought here in one piece.
"I've never moved a piece of art in my life. We've moved some really, really amazing heavy haulage ventures, but never a piece of art," he said.
"So I was a little bit sceptical about whether this was in our scope of what we would do. And then she [project director Eve Willems] said, 'In its entirety, it's eight meters wide, 12 meters long, and four-and-a-half high', it didn't sound like a piece of art, she had my attention, so we drilled into it."
The plan had originally been to bring the work to Canberra in four sections and assemble it on site, but Mr Kelly convinced the team he could get it here in one go.
And to everyone's relief, the job was very nearly done with, as he put it, "just one 'keep left' sign harmed in the process'."
"It's my 25th year in the business in November this year. I started when I was 19, I'm a third generation trucker. It's all I know," Mr Kelly said.
"I'm just fortunate that we're extremely good at what we do, but in terms of difficulty ... that this is like a solid 1.77 out of 10 difficulty on our scale.
"We're used to moving these dimensions, but larger and higher and two and 300 tons, with multiple trucks and bigger trailers. So while this is quite a large article in its size, and it presents its own challenges, one good thing is it doesn't weigh 200 tons."
Ouroboros has travelled with a police escort through towns, closed down roads and just squeezed over bridges through Goondiwindi, Dubbo and towards the border to Canberra.
Lee accompanied her masterpiece on the full journey, which in essence began back in 2019, when National Gallery of Australia director Nick Mitzevich invited her to create "the most ambitious thing that you could do" to mark the entrance to the gallery's precinct.
The $14 million commission is the most expensive in Australia's art history
And it's finally here in Canberra, where it will stay forever - or at least for the next 500 years, the lifespan of marine-grade stainless steel.
With the help of a large team of artisans at Brisbane's UAP Foundry, Lee conceived of a giant snake eating its own tail - Ouroboros - perforated with tens of thousands of holes, and made of highly polished stainless steel.
The result, made entirely of recycled scrap metal, will rest in a reflective pond. Visitors can walk into it, and during the day, the surface will reflect the moving day around it.
At night, it will light up from within, and shine like a series of constellations.
Speaking to The Canberra Times in the last few hours before the sculpture was to take its final journey, from Eagle Hawk to the gallery, Mr Kelly said the last few kilometres would definitely present some challenges.
"We've got some very tight intersections. We've got some traffic lights we have to get through that we've only got around about 80 millimetres of clearance on each side," he said.
"We're going to pull out all the signs and go straight over the top of all the chicanes and barricades there. So that presents its own challenge. It's always the first two kilometres of the job and the last two kilometres of the job that cause issues.
"We'll make sure that the article is unloaded safely and then head back to sunny Brisbane, where it's triple the temperature it is here."
And so, after so many months in the planning and so many hours on the road, what does Mr Kelly think of the work itself?
"I think the work, now that I understand it, is pretty amazing, to be honest, and I think that it'll be something that all generations get something out of, that's for sure," he said.
"I haven't had a lot of exposure to the art world. I've had a lot of exposure to the transport world, and I'm a very passionate person about my trucks and my trucking field, and each of my trucks are very individual, and they're like a family member. And it's like Ouroboros is a family member to Lindy and the art crowd.
"So it's been really interesting seeing two passionate fields from such different walks of life come together."
- Lindy Lee's Ouroboros will be unveiled on October 25. Visit nga.gov.au for more details.
