From the driver's seat
Our Aussie mate Mike gives us a first-hand look of what he sees from behind the wheel.
I’ve driven some of the biggest and coolest trucks in Australia. From east to west and north to south, I reckon I’ve seen most of my great country in the wind- screen from the driver’s seat. Nothing like picking a rest area and watching the sun go down while munching on a sandwich and having a soft drink or flying down the highway with the roar of that big diesel and a great song on the radio.
I’ve always loved trucks. So I thought I’d go through and find some pictures of things I’ve seen from the driver’s seat. I picked three trucks I’ve driven, and some shots are of the trucks and others are from the dash camera as we rolled down the road.
I came over to New Zealand and went to the TMC show in Christchurch a while back. I was lucky enough to meet Mr Ed Solly. He introduced me to a really cool old W model KW called “Rocky”. I even got to have a drive in New Zealand! You’ve just got to love where trucking can take you.
The great big drive
Our Aussie reporter Mike shows us the spectacular drive from Sydney to Perth.
Name: Mike Williams
From: Sydney, New South Wales
A bit about me: I’m a full-time truck driver, part-time podcaster and writer and a frustrated chef! My favourite drink is coffee and my favourite food is lemon tart.
Favourite truck: Got to be the Kenworth T909
I spent several years driving across Australia from Sydney to Perth and back. Three and a half years of it with my Rose and our pup Ollie. Eight thousand kilometres per week. That’s a total of about 1.5 million kilometres!
We drove this awesome big cab Kenworth K200, which we lovingly referred to as Angela. She was well set up for the run too. As well as a comfy bed, we had a fridge and a freezer plus a microwave. She even had a toilet! A massive 600hp series 2 Cummins driving an 18-speed Fuller Road Ranger transmission kept us trucking along towing a B Double set of Freighter drop deck chiller tautliner trailers.
Our run started in Sydney on Monday night about 8:30pm. We drove down to Wagga Wagga and then across NSW through to Yamba in South Australia. Ollie loved to get there because the roadhouse girls always had a sausage or two they’d done for him while we filled the truck with diesel. Next stop, Port Augusta late Tuesday afternoon for a shower and a meal. Then on to Penong for more fuel. She got a bit thirsty and that’s the last place we could fill before the long haul across the Nullarbor into Western Australia. A quick stop at the quarantine facility on the WA/SA border and then a stop at Cocklebiddy for Wednesday morning breakfast. More sausages for Ollie! He was a spoiled pup. Then it’s the run all the way to Perth, getting there around 7pm. A night off while our trailers were unloaded then a quick reload in the morning and it’s off back to Sydney getting home Saturday morning.
It was a lot of fun and we saw some great sights every week. Beautiful scenery, dawns and sunsets. Looking out the windscreen is a great place to be.
Let's truck some dirt in the Pilbara
Our on-the-ground reporter in Australia Mike Williams shows us what trucker life is like in the hot, unforgiving climate of Western Australia
Name: Mike Williams
From: Sydney, New South Wales
A bit about me: I’m a full-time truck driver, part-time podcaster and writer and a frustrated chef! My favourite drink is coffee and my favourite food is lemon tart.
Favourite truck: Got to be the Kenworth T909
If you want to drive the biggest trucks on public roads in the world, you head to Western Australia.
I was lucky enough to get to drive the biggest of them. I had to show I could do it first though – you need lots of experience and training before you get the keys to a truck that’s worth over AU$1.5 million dollars!
Anyone with the ambition to work in the trucking sector in Western Australia can work their way through the ranks and get to sit in the driver’s seat.
There are a lot more jobs than just drivers though. Without the heavy vehicle mechanics, auto-electricians and all the other support staff, we wouldn’t be able to move even a tonne of dirt! Where do you want to work in the transport team?
Smart Trucking
Our on-the-ground reporter in Australia Mike Williams tells us all about telemetry – which is special equipment used to record what a truck is doing on the road.
G’day there Little Truckers. There are a lot of interesting characters in trucking in New Zealand. We have a few in Australia as well. My friend Rod Hannifey is one of those. He works for Rod Pilon Transport in Dubbo in New South Wales.
Rod is a long time road safety advocate with probably the smartest truck in Australia. I don’t mean smartest as in best looking either, although it does look good, I mean the smartest as in it has lots of hi tech equipment to record what the truck is doing on the road. This is called telemetry. You normally see that on race cars. Rod records all the data from the road and the truck and shares that to help make our roads safer.
He’s driven all over the place and carried all sorts of freight. When I last saw him he had a “B Triple” hooked up heading for far North Queensland.
Let’s have a look at the Transport Industry Vehicle that Rod drives to promote road safety and collect the telemetry data he shares.
