Truck & Driver UK – July 2019

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July 2019 Truck & Driver

Aussie adventure Part 2

Paul recalls his exhilarating first drive of a new tri-axle Kenworth C509 to the ‘Top End’ of Oz

L

ast month I explained how

I came to arrive in

Australia, and the stages I

had to go through to end

up transporting livestock. The

ultimate objective was to get to

the far north, or the ‘Top End’ as

it’s called in Australia, which is

worlds apart from the populated

east or parts of the south; it’s a

bit like comparing the Highlands

of Scotland with Essex.

The Kenworth C509 is the toughest truck in Australia

PAUL O’CALLAGHAN

By now an accepted member

of the team, I was out on my

own, doing a variety of work,

jumping from truck to truck, and

just happy to be in Australia

driving trucks. “Would you do

sheep?” the manager enquired.

Although I’d done plenty of cattle

and a few loads of pigs, I had

never hauled sheep, but am

always up for a challenge.

There’s often a certain

snobbery among cattle drivers;

big boots, big hats and even

bigger egos. Although potentially

a lot more dangerous to work

with than sheep, cattle are

normally easy enough to handle

• open a gate and they’ll move.
  Sheep, on the other hand, are
  not always so obliging. In fact,

they can be very frustrating to

work with. Factor in that you are

operating four fixed decks

instead of the two for cattle and

the workload is doubled.

Counting sheep

One of my first jobs was

assisting in the loading of a huge

vessel transporting sheep to the

Middle East, which took at least

four days to load 20,000 sheep.

Each day I delivered four to five

loads from the feedlot on the

outskirts of Perth to the port at

Fremantle, and I can honestly

say it was the hardest work I

have ever done. Bear in mind

that there are no lifting decks,

and you are clinging to the sides

of the crates to pen off the

animals using old-school fixed

four-deck trailers.

But when you have a goal in

sight, nothing will stop you,

although that’s not to say it was

all hard graft until I got to

relocate to the north. Our

workshop, located in Kewdale at

that time, was a hive of activity,

with new trucks being kitted out

for a side-tipper job in remote

locations at the northernmost tip

of Western Australia. Wandering

through the busy workshop, I

marvelled at the brand-new

tri-drive Kenworth C509s – three

driven axles, a flat-roofed

dog-box sleeper, with a big

square bonnet behind the

toughest bull-bar I had ever seen.