Elvie

Holidays are great aren’t they! If your job is taking photos and writing about trucks, then what better way to spend some time off than to take photos and write about trucks!

It is hard for me to work out the difference between my job and my passion. There’s an old saying, if you love what you do, then you will never work a day in your life. You should all remember that.

Every five years my mate Craig McCauley and I go on a road trip in Australia to remember a great friend who died 15 years ago. Guy Spurr loved trucks. He was a well-known photographer and writer in the industry. If you look back in the New Zealand Trucking magazine, you will find his wonderful stories to read. Guy loved the Australian road train scene, cattle trucks in particular, so we always remember him by going to one of the places he (and we) love most. The Australian Outback. This year, we had Rob van der Hoek and Dave Connor along for the ride. Great mates and first-rate truck photographers.

The Outback

Firstly, what is the Australian Outback? The outback is the name given to the huge interior of Australia where there are not many people, but a whole lot of land and space. It contains desert, national parks, and huge pastoral (grazing) farms and stations.

The outback is also the traditional home of Australia’s famous truck and multi-trailer rigs known as road trains! Most commonly, a road train is a tractor and semi-trailer combination towing a second trailer (called a double), often a third trailer (called a triple – most popular), or even four trailers (a quad). There are lots of different ways the trailers can be connected, and different weights and lengths too. The classic triple combination is normally 53.5m long and with the right permits they can operate at 124.5 tonnes GCM. GCM stands for Gross Combination Mass and refers to the weight of both the rig and its load. On one part of our trip we went to see 59.5m quad combinations able to carry up to 120 tonnne of product.

I’ve included a map of our road trip, and the red line shows you where we went.

Our trip started in Mt Isa, a big mining town in western Queensland. We then went to Cloncurry for a couple of days and caught up with some close friends before travelling east to Julia Creek for a day photographing trucks there. Julia Creek is on the Flinders highway that runs between Cloncurry and Townsville. A lot of freight, fuel, and cattle are trucked on that road!

Do you have Issue 2 of Little Trucker Down Under in your collection? Have a look at the Pratt family’s cool truck on both the cover and on the poster of that issue. Where did it come from? That’s right, Julia Creek!

We then travelled 1329km from Cloncurry in Queensland to Alice Springs in the Northern Territory. The first 792km took us across the Barkly highway to a famous road house called ‘Three Ways’. It is located where the East/West Barkly highway meets the North/ South Stuart highway. From there we travelled 537kn south to Alice Springs. That one trip was the same as travelling from Auckland to Wellington and back, or Christchurch to Invercargill almost two and half times! Crikey! The car was puffing and needed a rest at the end of that!

See if you can find that part of the trip on the map. It will show you just how huge Australia is.

At Alice Springs we visited the National Road Transport Museum and the Kenworth Dealer Hall of Fame. I had never been, so it was a huge thrill for me.

While there, I was finally able to see the restored Rotinoff Viscount cattle truck on display – a real bucket list thing for me. Vesty Brothers bought two identical Rotinoff Viscount trucks in the late 1950s – one named Jackie and one named Julie. The trucks were famous early cattle road trains able to carry more cattle at a quicker speed – about 50km/h believe it or not – with new levels of driver comfort. I have always been interested in these two trucks, and what a thrill it was to actually sit in a Rotinoff Viscount. Sadly, only one could be restored, and poor old Jackie had to donate her bits and pieces so Julie can sit proudly in the museum today. It’s great to know one of the trucks is safe and sound, even if she doesn’t have her cattle crates on any more.

There is so much truck and road train history at the museum. Make sure it is on your ‘bucket list’ for when you are a little older! It is a must see.

After Alice Springs we motored north up the Stuart Highway toward Darwin. Word had gotten out that we were on the road taking photos and the truck drivers tooted, flashed lights, and waved. The outback is a friendly and welcoming place, full of great people.

When we were north of the Three Ways roadhouse again, we had a cool assignment to complete.

In 1987, a special truck won the Australian Truckin’ Life magazine Rig of the Year competition. It was a V8 Mack Super-Liner named Blue Thunder, owned by Kiwi-born Neville Dobbs. It hauled refrigerated trailers between Adelaide and Darwin for Northern Territory Freight Services (NTFS). We were all younger back then, and the famous poster of Blue Thunder, taken at a place called Churchill’s Head on the Stuart highway captured the hearts of all of us young ‘truckers’! Our good mate Carl Kirkbeck recently built a model of Blue Thunder by reconstructing the Highway Replicas NTFS Mack road train model. He lent us the finished Blue Thunder model to bring on our road trip so we could take its photo at Churchill’s Head – just like in the 1987 poster.

The Stuart Highway bypasses Churchill’s Head now, but the old road is still there, today just a sideroad. What a thrill it was to find Churchill’s Head and retake the great photo. A truly fantastic moment.

Next was the 360km side trip up the Carpentaria highway to capture those big 60 metre long and 240 tonne ore carting road trains I talked about. Owned by Wagners, the road trains cart their loads 120km from the McArthur River mine to the port at a place called Bing Bong (truly, it is called Bing Bong). Have you found it on the map yet?

There was one more special place I wanted to see. Remember those Rotinoff Viscount cattle road trains from the 1950s on display at the National Road Transport Museum? Those trucks were used to cart cattle from the Maryville road train compound at Helen Springs Station in the Northern Territory to Comooweal in Queensland. The old compound is still there, and I stood right where the Rotinoffs would have loaded. What a trip this was!

From there we travelled on to the town of Katherine. It is here the main road from West Australia, called the Victoria Highway, meets the Stuart Highway. This makes Katherine another busy meeting place for trucks. It was also home to one of Australia’s most famous outback truck companies – Buntine Roadways, founded by the late Noel Buntine.

Our wonderful holiday ended in Darwin, where we spent three days photographing the trucks rolling in and out of Australia’s northernmost city. What a wonderful holiday, following my passion for trucks with fantastic mates.

Just think, one day you too will be able to go on a cool road trip somewhere with great friends and take photographs of amazing trucks. I’ll look forward to reading about it.

So last year about July, we decided it was time to start getting the Ultraliner ready for the 50 Years of Mack show. My whole family and I (Mum, Reece and my sister Lucy) spent many hours down at the truck yard polishing wheels, bumpers, the diesel tank and so much more.

The old girl then went for a quick trip to Dunedin where Terry at Custom Signs tidied up the sign writing. Reece told me he was going to get my name on the passenger door. I didn’t believe him, until he sent me a photo. Oh my gosh, how cool is this!!!

So in September Reece and I hit the road. We left home in Balclutha and were heading to Tauranga. We picked up some bulls in Hawarden and headed to Picton. We had three hours to wait in Picton so we had a short sleep in the cab. Then at 1am we drove onto the big ferry ramp. First time I’d been on the ferry!! Once we parked the truck we headed to our room for some sleep.

Nearly four hours later we arrived in Wellington. Once we got the truck off the ferry we headed up the road to the Matamau Diner for breakfast. They have walls of truck photos, it’s awesome! After we left the diner we headed up the road to Hastings where we unloaded the bulls to their new home.

After unloading we headed to Taupō, which is another three hours up the road. We stayed in Taupō that night, and the next morning we carried on up the way to Tauranga. We dropped our truck off where they repaired and painted the crate.

We then got a hire car and headed to the Waikato to do some soil testing on a farm for my step dad’s other business, Highland Nutrition. Check out the photo of me holding the impressive clover and plantain.

Once we’d finished soil testing we drove to the airport and flew back home.

50 Years of Mack Truck Show

Thursday 20 October
Reece and I got up super early, drove to the airport and flew to Tauranga to pick up our freshly painted truck. Only to arrive there and find the signwriting hadn’t been done. Our stomachs dropped to our feets, this was a nightmare! After a lot of stress and some fast phone calls, Cliff and the guys at Sign Art did us a massive favour and got the crate signwritten for us. Wahoo!

Friday 21 October
Mum and my sister Lucy flew from Dunedin to Palmerston North to meet us. Reece and I got in the truck and drove down to Palmerston North. We all arrived around dinner time and settled into our motel for an early night.

Saturday 22 October
We had another early start. Today is SHOW DAY!! We had to head to Motor Truck Distributors where all the trucks met, so we could travel to the show in convoy.

It was a massive convoy with around 180 trucks. We drove to the Manfield Raceway where the parade was held. There were around 200 trucks there. It was amazing! All Macks, all shining, all so cool!

When the parade was over we went back to the motel to get ready for the dinner and speeches. I was getting tired so I sat in the corner and did some sketching. Glenn and Julie Allingham from Jaks Trucks were the owners of the winning truck.

The next day Mum and Lucy flew home. Reece and I went to Felding saleyards for a photoshoot. The following day we cruised around Palmerston North and for a look through the Motor Truck Distributors workshop where the Macks used to be built. We caught up with National Sales manager Stu Wynd.

Then headed to Bulls for the next day’s work.

This was a super early start. We carted heifers to the port of Nelson for a live export. I had a few naps throughout the day.

We stayed in Levin for the night then went back on the ferry the next morning. We then picked up calves and took them to Culverden. The following morning we loaded steers at Scargill and took them to Makikihi.

Next, we’re homeward bound… PHEW!! What an epic trip.

Here at Little Trucker Down Under, we love how much all our mates love trucks! And we think that all of the amazing people in our trucking community are the very best part of this industry (well, except for the trucks!). The heart and kindness of our trucking community was really put on show recently, when everyone came together to celebrate the birthday of seven-year-old Ollie Johnson in Hamilton.

Ollie’s parents had posted on Facebook asking for a truck ride for truck-obsessed Ollie to help celebrate his birthday. But the sector came through with no less than 64 trucks answering their call.

Ollie’s mother had offered $50 to anyone willing to take her son for a ride in their truck for his birthday. She said Ollie was feeling lonely and hoped a ride in a truck would cheer him up.

“All he wants to do is be a truck driver. He is just obsessed,” she says.

After seeing the post, Hart Haulage owner Barry Hart thought he could do better than just one truck ride, and began planning a truck convoy just for Ollie.

Barry put a call out on social media and 64 drivers turned up for Ollie’s birthday convoy.

“It’s the norm for truckers and our industry. It’s why we love this industry,” Barry says. Some truckers travelled more than 120km in their big rigs to take part.

“For all the guys to come along, it’s pretty cool,” Barry says.

The convoy grouped and started from the Hart Haulage yard near Huntington in Hamilton. It ran down the Waikato Expressway to Hautapu, finishing up at the yards of C&R Developments.

C&R Developments opened up its car and machinery museum for everyone to enjoy, while Service Foods Ltd provided hot food and cold beverages via a food truck stall for the crowds that were there.

There were approximately 250 to 300 people at the event.

Mum Katherine, who put up the original Facebook post, says Ollie was brought up around trucks.

“We are so grateful. This story has gone around the world, we are so humbled,” she says.

Dad Simon said the industry really came together.

“Thank you doesn’t cover what happened today,” he says.

“A lot of people have gone to a lot of effort to make today happen, and it’s those people who couldn’t be here who have helped us along the way, we really want to say thank you.

“And thank you to Hart Haulage, who has been on the same page the whole journey, we are just so grateful.”

And Ollie’s favourite truck of the show? A C509 Kenworth. He even had a go at blasting the horn.

Happy birthday Ollie, from all your friends at Little Trucker Down Under.