Truck & Driver UK – August 2019

(^108) Summer 2019 Truck & Driver
TEAM T&D
feed back up. It was quite
monotonous work, covering big
kilometres in an old truck, but
the money was good given that
we were on a km rate. I did
manage occasional trips to the
cattle stations and got a bit of
variety hauling bales of haylage
between two stations, all off-road
involving a river crossing – a
nice break from the highway!
Having stuck out the long
highway miles, I completed my
first season and was promised
more ‘bush work’ if I returned for
the 2013 season. More than half
of the drivers were Kiwis who’d
fly back to New Zealand for their
summer once the season was
over, whereas I on the other
hand was in no rush to go
anywhere, quite content with my
new Outback existence.
The firm had just won a
contract to haul bulk cement to
remote mines in the north west
and needed drivers, so I literally
unhooked from the cattle crates
and went straight onto the bulk
work in number 97.
The job was something
different and I got to experience
new things such as life in a
mining camp; owing to a
breakdown, the mine I was
delivering to ran out of storage
for the cement. By now well and
truly in the humid wet season, I
spent two days at the camp, in a
nice air-conditioned room with a
shower and toilet, availing myself
of the gym and free restaurant...
sheer bliss after months spent
living in a truck hauling cattle. But
the regimented, health and
safety-dominated lifestyle was
not something I aspired to. In
fact, it cemented (pardon the
pun) my desire to explore more
of the wild north.
Result! Darwin
Nevertheless, I stuck with the
bulk cement job for the meantime
as it was a good company to
work for. While on holiday to
Lombock in Indonesia, I got the
call: “Will you go to Darwin as
Loaded out of Moola Bulla station, Halls Creek,
which covers an area of 2500 square miles
Myroodah River Crossing. Rough tracks and just a Bobcat
to unload meant haylage could only be stacked two high