Para below refers to picture above.
The penetration of those driving (additional bright) lights has to be seen to be believed. Over the years I have had just about every make and model, size and shape of driving light and these knock everything else off the map including 12 inch bull lights.
That bullbar is heavy duty steel and weighs in at about 300 pounds. There are 7 working antennas on the ute! I have spoken to all parts of Australia, New Zealand and even USA just driving around in the old thing!
See? We all have extra lights and bull bars out here! It is a necessity!
Just thought y'all might be interested!
Kindest Regards
Indy
|
I arrived at the Smelly Product Company to load smelly product, I was told to "Go down there, somewhere, and someone will find you".
So I went down there somewhere and someone did, indeed, find me. He was a tall, skinny, Asian looking lad and seemed terribly polite and anxious to please. Unfortunately, as I don't know how to speak the Asian dialect he spoke with, there is some poetic licence in the following story, below.
I said, "GerDay. Owyagoinmate?"
He said something that sounded like "Vervoovom hoonk".
I kind of figured we were off to a flying start (particularly after my …. discussion the night before with Nincompoop), so I said to old Asian mate "What's the order for?"
He "Verhoonkook vas".
Right! This is gonna be good.
"Can I see the order, please"?
"Ooonsink kwoaw" – but he handed the loading slip over.
"I see. It says 29 Tonne here, mate, but the customer has only room for about 25 Tonne, so I have been told to only pick up 25 Tonnes"
"Fookaw hoowow zonk".
I figured that we would work it out with sign language – eventually. Now, I only wanted about 9 or 10 Tonne (18,000 – 20,000 Lbs) in the truck and the residue in the dog, thus riding a bit better and saving smoke off the trailer tyres on braking. So I am watching my air gauges and when I reasoned they were high enough I said to old mate that "That'll do, mate"!
He must have thought I meant he needed to put more product in the front of the front tub. It took 10 minutes of throat slitting gestures and holding my hand up and every other possible sequence of hand signals I could think of to get him to stop – with the truck now well and truly …….. suffice to say it had an elegant sufficiency.
I figured I best be labouring the point regarding the 25 Tonnes.
"Mate" I really need to only load 25 Tonnes".
"Fookaw hoowow zonk".
So I then counted out up to 25 … individually on my fingers.
"Ahhhhh! Hoog zagoo fonk".
Anyway, in the end, despite the fact that he seemed to know enough of English to fill a thimble and I know absolutely nothing of his yabbering, we did manage to get the weights spot on. I think this is indicative of the fact that he really was very good at his job, but that we had a wee bit of communication breakdown.
So I drive the 2 hours to the customer at the Stinky Stock Feed Suppliers, drive onto the weighbridge and the young fulla says, "GerDay Indy. Haven't seen you for a while. Whaderyagot on?"
"Product X"
"Ahhhh! How much yer got fer me?"
"25 ½ Tonne."
"Schnitzenkrugen. We can only fit about 20 – possibly 22 maximum – and only then if we are empty. If the augur stops, just come into the control room and tell one of the blokes and we will make alternative arrangements"
Great!
So, I unload the dog – no worries. I get all the truck unloaded except for about 2 Tonne and – you guessed it – the auger stops.
"Ay, mate. The screw isn't screwing anymore," said I.
"It must be married", says old mate.
"I think the silo's full", says I.
"Nah! You've blocked it up on me", says he. "You're gonna have to climb up there and unblock it".
"Like hell".
So he re-sets the circuit breaker.
Guess what happens when you re-set a circuit breaker on a auger drive that is choked because it is full? You got it right! It stuffs the whole show.
I mentioned again that it was full. I was again ignored. The young bloke who initially started me off returned, confirmed my assessment, but said that since ol' mate had jammed the whole job, bad luck for me.
Thus I had a discussion with the Big Boss of the Stinky Stockfeed Supplies and, eventually, we tipped what was left and left it piled up on the pit – which should have been plan "A" and should have already applied – 2 hours previously.
Such is trucking.
PS. I fell asleep writing this so if it looks disjointed it probably is because it is!!
This will be relatively short, sharp, sweet and to the point. I think my last couple of blog posts overdid the verbosity (new word just invented by Indy) a little bit, so this will just be an introduction to a video I have placed on Youtube.
Today, or rather earlier this evening, I visited the Truck Driver's Memorial Wall at Tarcutta, Riverina, Southern NSW. This wall was erected to commemorate the lives of truckies right throughout this vast, beautiful and often unforgiving land who have given their lives in service of the community whilst working within the industry, or after having retired from it.
As you will hear when I read from 2 of the plaques on the wall, so very many were just far too young when they were taken from their loved ones.
Australia has a vast expanse to cover (about the same land mass as mainland USA – excluding Alaska), but we have a small population, spread over its entirety, serviced by a relatively small road transport community. We number less than 40,000 (including local drivers) so it is often the case that when someone is lost, we will know them.
Aside from all that, every person on that wall was a son, a daughter, a brother, a sister, a husband or wife or some other relation, or was a mate. It is right and fitting that irrespective of how they died, we remember that they died in service of this nation.
May they rest in peace.
I think before I launch into this soliloquy I should give a wee bit of background about myself that some of you may not already know. I know at least one of you are privy to various aspects in my life and how they have influenced the way I am, however most may need a little of this background to understand why it is that I think, say and do things as I do. To the extent that I even use underlining as emphasis – something people rarely do in a blog post et al.
By the way, this will be long, so if you've not the time to hang about and read garbage for an extended period of time, then, perhaps, await an opportunity when you do have the time, or just don't read it, I guess! I just think that I should be warning you that it will probably be an epistle of monumental proportions. It feels kind of strange writing that after having recently bleated about people not reading, but, you see, I am writing this to assuage my mind, rather than as entertainment value – kind of thinking out loud. The reason I want to put my background in is that I have some quite diversive attitudes to society in general and, I guess, no one wants their readers to think ill of them – myself included.
This, in itself, is quite strange, because as a general rule I couldn't give a tinker's cuss what people in general think about me. I am what I am and if they have a difficulty with that, then they are free to make their own arrangements. I will have to think about that one.
A few short facts, in point form, about me.
Now that I have given the background, I can launch into this missive properly.
Several things in the last few years of my life and the lives of those I know and/or care about have had an enormous impact upon me. I guess what has really predicated this train of thought has been what happened to Terry's little mate Rusty, as much as anything. I never met Rusty, nor ever would I have, in all probability. Whilst I hold Terry in the highest regard (which would be absolutely obvious to anyone who has read anything of hers I have commented upon), the reality is that I haven't met Terry. However, no one should have been deprived of a companion as has Terry's family. No one should have had to go through the mourning and sense of loss as has Terry.
You see, it wasn't so much that it was Terry and Rusty, although it disturbs me enormously that someone I regard as highly has had to endure as she has. It was because it happened.
As a species I am singularly unimpressed with mankind. As a species, we are duplicitous, arrogant, ignorant, self absorbed and look after our own interests solely and at the expense of all others. As individuals I think we have the same character traits, only to a greater or a lesser degree. I honestly thing that if each and every one of us were to look deep within ourselves, we would find instances where we have been duplicitous (in the truest sense of the word), arrogant and all of the rest of the things mentioned above. I sincerely believe that if you look all those words up in the dictionary, and their synonyms, at least some time we could all apply them to ourselves.
I also think that, fortunately, the people that I have chosen to include in my life control these traits admirably. It is not a bad thing to have these traits, because I think they are part of being human. I think it becomes a bad thing when you allow them to control how you treat others or if you visit detrimental aspects upon the lives of others because you allow yourself to be determined by these traits. Am I making sense?
Now getting back to Rusty. Here was a great little fulla, just going about his business, harming nobody, restrained in his own domain. Along come these other critters that were let roam in suburbia and had formed a "pack" and the rest is a terrible history. I blame, without shadow of a doubt, the "owners" of these hounds. They have abrogated their responsibilities entirely and a poor little blighter went through hell and now is no longer with us. There is no excuse in suburbia for failing to control your domestic animals. It is such failures that lead me to continue to think ill of us as a species.
You see, a dog cannot reason. They merely react spontaneously to the circumstances in which they find themselves. Whatever a dog does is a result of what the circumstances are – not because it has thought something through. In this way, dogs are honest. People are not.
There are not many things in this life that I hate, but one thing I surely do hate is killing things. If you have to because you need to eat, then you do. If it is unavoidable (stray animals on the highways, for example), then such is life – and death. On a number of occasions in the past, because of a skill I had, I had been required to dispatch with packs of wild dogs that were sheep killers. Sadly it was a necessary evil and I gained no pleasure from it. I would far sooner have dispatched with the previous owners of those dogs because, in most cases, they had been domesticated dogs from suburbia gone wild. Every shot fired was into an animal that was merely reacting to the circumstances in which it found itself.
Yeah! You may guess I don't have any regard for irresponsible "pet" owners.
With me, what you see is what you get. I never change how I relate to other people without that they change how they choose to be with regard to me. This has been something that I cannot fathom. I tend to relate the same way to people, at all times – at least, how I regard them. If I believe them to be an arsehole, chances are they will forever be an arsehole to me. If I choose to allow people into my inner thoughts and they are well regarded, then there they shall remain until they choose otherwise.
I also tend to be very forthright in my views. This is because it is my belief that people deserve to have honesty visited upon them. I don't really understand when people say one thing to you and say another behind your back or, perhaps, their words and their actions are at odds to one another. I see this every day of my life at work and I just ….. well …. I just fail, that's all. I fail to comprehend politics and dishonesty, hence I will help anyone at work or anywhere else in my life, but I am extremely selective as to who I travel with or who I share my …… I dunno … true friendship, I guess, with.
I am a confidence person. I tend to appear be confident around people I care about until I feel I have made a blunder. Once I make a blunder, I continue to make blunders, each succeeding error being worse than before. I am not sure why this is so, but it is the way it is. I guess it may be because I have felt quite apart from society at large all my life, so have no firm belief in my capacity to behave "normally". Hell, I don't even know what normal is!
Because of the solitary nature of my lifestyle (even in years gone by when I was in a "relationship" that meant a whole heap more to me than it did to the other party) I think I have ostracised myself significantly from ….. people …… which gets me back to the fact that I prefer dogs – or "primitive" people because they are closer to being straight up than modern society.
The dichotomy of all this is that I get enormous pleasure from meeting people I regard as friends (even though I may not have met them previously) or catching up with old ones.
In the space of the last fortnight (2 weeks for you Americans) I have managed to catch up with 2 mates that I have been speaking to on Amateur Radio for 25 years, but not previously met! This was a real joy for me. They were Col, VK2EEE and Alan, VK2ALN. Both I have spoken to virtually 2 or 3 times a week in all that time but never had the opportunity to shake hands with. I guess we finally reckoned that we are all getting older and we best be doing it before one of us fell off the perch!
Also, in the space of about an hour, I met up with 3 old work mates, all of whom I regarded highly. They were Roger (still at the evolution of Pioneer Quarries), Rodney (also still with that mob) and Nudge (who has since departed like me, and gone elsewhere). I cannot say how great it was to catch up with these blokes, all separately but within the space of an hour or so. An amazing coincidence I am sure, but enjoyable none the less.
I have rabbitted on long enough and I am running out of time as I need to get my backside into gear and get to work. I think this post is a work in progress so I may add to it.
Sorry to bore you all with it, but it was as much to "get it off my chest" as anything!
Drive safely
That should suffice to remind me - I hope.
So I get to work on Thursday afternoon.
"Indy. BD had another little issue."
"Oh no".
"Yeah. He clobbered your steps on the left hand side. You know he drives the T904 as a relief driver regularly, no worries, or anything else in the yard. Put him in yours and he has a failure twice in 2 days. I've ordered the parts and we'll get it like new for you ASAP."
Might be better to quarantine Matilda as well as me next time!!!!!!!!!!! Having said all that, BD is usually great to have as a relief driver because e never damages stuff (seldom, then) and will always own up if he does have a catastrophe.
I will be glad to have poor Matilda looking back to her best because, naturally, when you stop somewhere, the first thing someone says is "What did you hit?" I am quick to redress that!
Kindest Regards
Indy
Whilst we have road trains driving through where I live and whilst I see thousands of them a year (and even driven them a lifetime ago), we have only road train doubles. The really big ones are up North and way out in Western Australia and the like. I don't travel these extremely remote areas and haven't since I have had a video camera.
The wonders of Youtube means that someone else is always bound to have been there and done that.
Ol' mate has done just that and I thought I would share it with you. Some of the comments are interesting, too. Some, of course, are from knuckle draggers as well!
Anyway. Enjoy and safe driving!
You know, I am a real pain in the fundamental orifice when I am dealing with people who provide services to me. For example, if I am in a road house restaurant for a feed (why else would you be in the restaurant?) then I expect to be provided with exactly that which I ordered. If I ordered soft eggs (and I always emphasise that word) I bloody well expect to be provided with soft eggs, not concrete. If I order weak milk coffee, that means weak milk coffee, not bloody strong Bidelonian fighting syrup, or water coffee with milk added as an after thought!
This is because I provide my customers with excellence and I expect no less when I am the damned customer!
Similarly, if the staff provide an outstanding service, then I believe it is beholding upon me to recognise such excellence and I do. Trust me. I really do. I make a great fuss with management, waxing lyrical about whatever it is that I perceive has been done wonderfully, writing letters to be placed on the noticeboards and the whole nine yards. Even though Australia is not a place where tipping is the norm (simply because our staff are paid adequately and do not rely on tips to survive), I still go out of my way to recognise this level of excellence with generous tips.
I am exactly the same with my friends, which is the real reason for this post.
I wish to thank Terry and Gabby for taking the time and trouble to visit this site, read through whatever tripe it is that I have written and posting their responses. I appreciate this enormously and just thought I would say it publicly.
Thank you ladies so much. You really are very kind to me and I appreciate it tremendously. When I communicate with you privately, by whatever means it is, I am damned sure that I fail to properly show my level of appreciation and my gratitude, not only for your comments, but for your continued friendship.
Thanks ladies.
The shot, below, is a somewhat unusual photograph. I wonder who can pick what it is.
The next two are a sunrise, taken near Coleambally this morning.
First of all, I should explain that a Yowie is the Aussie equivalent of a Sasquatch, Bigfoot, Yeti and a heap of other such ……. beings. There is no more or less evidence that Yowies exist than there is for Sasquatch. It is, however, suspected that many of the Yowie sightings in Australia may be in fact quite real, although the suspicion is that the “beings” are, in fact, Vietnam Vets who have gone …… bush……. or ……. loopy or both. Particularly in the Pilliga, it is suggested that there is a couple of such poor souls who haven’t shaved since getting off the boat at Circular Key in the 70’s, have long since lost any semblance of clothing and have gone “native”.
I cannot attest to it either way, but I can say that the Pilliga has an unenviable reputation of ……. peculiar occurrences, to put it mildly, and numerous “sightings” and so forth, as well as theft and so on in the few parking areas along the length of the Pilliga.
There is slight embellishment to this story, but it is pretty close to being exactly what happened.
Yesterday, on my way North, I decided that since I had a heap of time up my sleeve as I had departed early enough to be half a day early in Brisvegas, I would have a little “Nanna nap”. I opted to do so at a parking bay (rest area) about ¾ of the way through the Pilliga Scrub.
I woke up just after dark, got out of the truck and ….. took things in hand to relieve some pressure build up, not realising that some other residents had stopped in the parking bay whilst I was in the land of nod. I rather rudely discovered this when a group of hound dogs (okay, so they were kelpie dogs …. hound dogs sounds more impressive) started whooping and a yowling, wailing and a bellowing. As you may imagine, I errrrr completed the task as rapidly as I could, then went over to investigate where all the commotion was coming from.
I discovered that these people from North Queensland (a bloody long way North – as far as Florida is from New York) had half set up camp whilst I was pushing out the zzzzz’s. They were a couple, in their 40’s, of the normal persuasion – you know, a bloke and his wife. They hadn’t completed the task, apparently, because they didn’t wish to awaken me by hammering in their tent pegs. I considered this was very courteous of them and thanked them.
The following conversation ensued between myself and Ol’ Mate.
Me: You sure yer wanna camp here, mate?
He: Ay? Wot?
Me: Haven’t ya heard about the reputation of the Pilliga?
He: Yeah! I heard sumpin’, but I dunno about it! I reckon I’ll be right.
Me: Are ya sure? Ya got a young wife there and all them dawgs.
He: Wot’s the dawgs gotta do with it?
Me: Yowies.
He: Wot?????
Me: Bloody Yowies, mate.
He: Nah! The dawgs will protect us.
Me: You gotta be kidding me. They’re just bloody sheep dogs and probably pets at that.Sheesh! You wanna lot fiercer dawgs than that if they gonna take on a bloody Yowie. Bloody kelpies are all bark and no balls. Besides, there’s a bloody mob of them Yowies here abouts and them dawgs are just gonna be like bait and attract them. Mate, they just love dawgs. They reckon they taste great!
He: Fair dinkum.
Me: Yair. Would I lie to you? (Then pointing to the full moon over head). Them bastards travel under a full moon! Sheesh! You’ll end up with a whole bloody tribe of the bastards on your doorstep in no time making a helluver fuss. Them itty bitty tents aren’t gonna afford you any protection at all and them dawgs will both attract them and annoy them. Mate you gonna have one helluver drama here tonight of yer hang about.
He: Yer ever seen any of them?
Me: Sure! About 10 years ago I was camped up in a parking bay just up there a ways and I woke up to find this great hairy face looking in my driver’s window (which I had up and the door locked) and it scared the living daylights outta me. I belted outta there like there was no tomorrow. Next morning I found scratch marks all over the door and the handle was all broke and the bastard bloody near got in. I only stopped here, today, because it was daylight.
He: You’re shittin’ me, aren’t ya?
Me: Nope! No sir! Not at all. It’s ridgy didge. That’s why I got up, mate! I’m not bloody stayin’ here after bloody dark and especially not on a full moon.
I then walked back to my truck and did my “pre flight”, did a bit of stuff in the cab, got the paperwork up to scratch and started to dawdle out of the rest area.
Well, I’ll be!! I looked in the bloody mirror as I headed North, and here they are, high tailing it out of that parking bay heading South having followed me out of there. And I mean high tailing it.
I guess they reckoned on not wanting to tangle with a whole bunch of them mean ol’ Yowies after all!
Keep it safe.
Firstly, it is spectacular scenery, with rolling hills, steep valleys, sharp mountains and just glorious views.
Now, I used to be a regular New England runner sometime between the mid 80’s right through to ’94, running up and back 3 times a week from Sydney to Toowoomba or Brisbane. That is up 3 times and back 3 times, just about every week. Additionally, I also did a lot of work up there prior to this period, carting 4 decks of sheep and or 2 decks of cattle, so I was and am still very familiar with the road – and I absolutely love it. It has some of the most beautiful scenery in the country and, whilst it is a “busy” drive (because your hand is never far away from the gearstick in this mountainous drive), once you know it, it is tremendously enjoyable although quite demanding. You do not need to make any errors because the New England will make you pay dearly for it – and how!
