Dustin gets the opportunity to explore the West Coast in the passenger seat of a K200 with the amazing team at Trans West.

Hey little truckers! How are the holidays going? I hope you got some good presents at Christmas time and the new year is going well.

While I was on holiday on the West Coast (in New Zealand’s South Island), I thought it might be good to do a transport trip on the other side of the Southern Alps, so we called in and asked Trans West (who are based just out of Greymouth). Luckily enough, Dylan and Kate let me do an article. Mum got the call on Tuesday to say I was going in a Kenworth K200 – SWEET!!

On Wednesday morning I got up and made breakfast then I got ready to go. Dad and I jumped in the car and went to the yard and met the driver, Graham (Hutch) Hutchison. For our first load we left the yard and went to Ikamatua, a small town on the way to Reefton and dropped off some bulls at a farm. As we made our way to the second job I asked Hutch why he liked transporting stock and what got him into trucking. Like many people who drive trucks, he remembers riding around in trucks with his granddad and dad, and along with the stock he just enjoys seeing rural New Zealand through the windscreen and going to many different new places; no day is the same.

The rest of the afternoon we moved cattle between farms in the Grey Valley, making our way back to Stillwater where Dad met me on the side of the road.

Another question I asked Hutch was what was his favourite truck and favourite piece of road to drive. His reply was one we can’t disagree with – driving the Devil’s Staircase near Queenstown or the Lewis Pass in his old Kenworth K108, how cool.

Thank you very much to the Trans West team, you were awesome for getting me into this truck, I really enjoyed my day on the West Coast.