Diary of a Truck Driver

The best laid plans often go awry and Friday was definitely one of those days. It sounded simple… pick up a container and a ute.

I arrived to collect the container at around 11am and had to cue for almost an hour, which is not unusual, only to find I had been sent to the wrong yard. I went to another yard and didn’t have to wait long to find out the container wasn’t there either. In fact it was sitting at the docks waiting to board a ship and it was empty! A few phone calls back and forth and it was found that customs had emptied the container as part of an inspection and the contents was sitting on the other side of Sydney. I trucked over to load the contents which turned out to be 98 semi trailer tyres which I had to load by hand, by the time I finished it was 4pm and I still hadn’t picked up the ute so I hot footed it across town again to find that the ute was in fact a small truck and had to put 38 of the tyres in the back of it to make room.

I finally left Sydney through the heaviest traffic I’ve seen here and after another two hours I had made it to the free-way.

Having started the day at 4am I was legally obliged to finish at 9pm so I didn’t manage to make it home until Saturday morning where upon I unloaded the tyres.

I’ve spent the rest of the weekend with a crook back and haven’t been a lot of fun to be with to say the least.

Irony in advetising

This sign struck me as ironic. It’s next to a busy set of traffic lights near the Sydney airport and reads… “I’m always travelling. i love being free.”

Kicked of the day near Newcastle, topped up the tanks (half filled them for $700!) and headed down the Central Coast to pick up a load then on to Sydney.

Sydney Traffic

A couple of pick-ups around town, always fun… not, then filled up with stuff from the depot and headed back toward home.

Stopped for a shower at Wyong which was much needed as I had spent the whole day stinking of blood meal (sort of like a wet dirty dog).

I had a moment of clarity when I realised why men shouldn’t have long hair. Whilst talking to my eldest daughter, whose birthday was today, I noticed two women struggling to change a tire in the car park. I resolved that after my phone call I would go and offer to help at the risk of appearing sexist. Really I just wanted to be helpful and could see they were struggling. As I approached the vehicle I realised that one of them was actually a male with long hair. I was faced with a dilemma; do I continue to offer my assistance and risk offending the male and if I don’t then I was only offering my assistance because they were female and I am therefore sexist. I elected to appear sexist and diverted at the last moment. An awkward moment from a moral point of view but I saved the pride of a fellow male and but for the fact that I have published this story for the world to see, nobody will know.

My dream car... Merc Benz SLK

Doing a change over (swapping trailers with another driver) at Singleton tonight and then an early start in the morning, at 4am, as I have to head down to Wollongong before returning home via a couple of pick ups in Sydney. Hopefully I’ll get home at a decent time and have a nice evening with Donna.

Here’s a shot of my dream car passing me. It’s a Merc Benz SLK if anyone wants to get me one for christmas.

Last night was the warmest recorded August night for the Brisbane Airport (close to where I was) with an overnight low of 19 degrees celsius and it was definitely warm.

I unloaded this morning and headed to Beaudesert for the next load bound for Newcastle.

I had an uneventful run and having pulled up early yesterday I didn’t have to struggle with my log book and got a good eleven and a half hour run out of the day finishing up on almost 900 kms.

This week so far

I’ll spend the night at the truck stop at Beresfield and head over to unload early in the morning.

I’ve added RSS feeds to the site.

This has been a sharp learning curve as I’ve never delved into feed aggregation before.

I’m my own worst client because I see something and then want to know how to do it. Stretching yourself is always good though and I now have a feed aggregator (Gregarius) running on my server coughing up huge volumes of news and can utilise this system on other sites also.

Saw a sign saying ‘Tackle climate change’. I’m going to ignore it, I don’t like boxers.

Saw a sign saying ‘Tackle climate change’. I’m going to ignore it, I don’t like boxers.

The beginning of a new week and I set off to Sydney on Sunday afternoon. I don’t like starting on Sunday afternoons, it feels like such an incursion into ‘my time’ but at least I don’t have to wrestle with the doona on a Monday morning.

I arrive at my destination at close to midnight and wander down to the gate to ask the security guard what time I can get in. Apparently I can unload at 3am so this is going to make for a great run. I’ll unload and head up the road for a few hours sleep and then head for Bathurst to load up ready to head for Brisbane.

Trip this week so far

Best guess is I should be at Goondiwindi on Monday night and should get to Brisbane at about 11 on Tuesday morning having completed about 1600 km’s since I started the week.

Monday 1800 hrs:

Loaded at Bathurst, it was 14 degrees Celsius (which was a shock after the beautiful day we had yesterday) with a 25 km/h wind and driving rain. There I stood in my shorts and rain jacket yelling profanities at the tautliner curtains as one side was pinned too hard against the truck for me to draw back and the other flying horizontal, out of my reach, like some wayward square rigger.

I eventually got everything battened down and pulled out onto the road but not before making a hot cup of coffee.

I’m pulled up at the moment until my driving time overlaps with yesterdays and I can continue on until midnight, five more hours up the highway should just about do me for today.

… Managed to get to Moree before the Log Book dried up. Headed of again early in the morning finally reaching Brisbane after 14 driving hours and 1200 kilometres (Land’s End to John o’Groats is 1900 kms).

only to be told I was 30 minutes too late to unload and would have to wait until the morning.

Pulled up at the truck stop at Archerfield and made the best of a bad situation and walked the 4 kilometres to the Oxley Hotel before saving a heap (compared to Tamworth prices) on a case of wine to take home and then lugged it the 4 kms back again.

Got up a 3am to run into Melbourne.

Stopped for a shower and some breakfast at Calder truck stop then down to Port Melbourne arriving promptly at 6am. After battling the ignorance of the Security Guard nobody knew about the load. “Wait until eight and we’ll make a call” came the response.

A little after 9am I find out I’m at the wrong yard (not my fault). Across to Brooklyn I go only to find out I’m too early and can’t load until noon. Faaaark! all I want to do is start the run home. I’ve got sixteen hours ahead of me and could of stayed in the bunk until 10.

I finally got loaded on to have to tarp up in gale force winds; not much fun but I got it all tied off without too much drama and finally hit the road around two in the afternoon.

4am and I’ve finally made it home. I’ve driven all night to get home for the weekend. 26 hours after waking up I’m finally able to stop.

Day 1 on the blog calendar.
August 20th, 2009

I’ve been driving for this company for about 4 months. I haul general freight between Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane with Tamworth as my home port.

The normal week consists of saddling up on a Sunday evening and returning home on Friday.

This week I have done two runs to Sydney out of Tamworth with return loads to Armidale and Gunnedah and then Wednesday evening I picked up a trailer loaded for Bendigo and tomorrow I’ll be in Melbourne and then the run home.

I started this morning at 3:15 am after 3 hours sleep and managed to arrive in Bendigo at 6:30pm. I grabbed a couple of hours sleep on the way as I was running out of hours in my Work diary (Log Book). It’s now quite late and I’m held up just out of Bendigo with no more hours in the log book.

Dinner is a ‘Lean Cuisine’ meal heated in my little 12v oven. It’s cheaper and healthier than the truck stop alternative.

I’d kill for a coffee today, I haven’t had one today and for anyone who knows me they would find that quite incredible.

Good night.