Page 83 - Demo

I have carted older cows to a meatworks at Tongala, in Victoria. That’s 2200kms from Alice!
But I’ve got lots of friends in Australia and my wife Carolyn and I own a vehicle and caravan there – based in Alice Springs.
Each year for four years now, we’ve left the farm in the hands of our daughter and son-in-law and, for June, July and August we’ve gone to live in Alice Springs – when the Outback’s busy with cattle cartage, due to the cooler conditions. Carolyn works at the hospital, while I drive a roadtrain for Orange Creek Station. It’s a 500,000-hectare station on the Hugh River, about 100 kilometres south of Alice.
At Orange Creek I’ve done some flatdeck work, carting mining equipment from outback areas using a triple. And in my first year there I did a lot of stock cartage within the station – from the outer yards to the feed lot at the homestead.
But a lot of the work is carting cattle out to meatworks or for fattening – and, given that Alice Springs is smack in the middle of Australia, that means you’ve got a long way to travel.
Young cattle that are sold off tend to go south to Port Augusta, where they’re cross-loaded onto smaller B-double units and transported down into South Australia and Victoria or across and east into New South Wales.
Fat cattle go south to the meatworks at Murray Bridge or Naracoorte in South Australia. Murray Bridge is over 1400kms....one-way! Naracoorte’s another 250kms further – and I have carted older
cows to a meatworks at Tongala, in Victoria. That’s 2200kms from Alice!
Cattle going north are generally headed for live shipment to Indonesia. They’re usually transported to feed lots in the Darwin area, where they’re acclimatised ready for the sea voyage. This trip is also a long one – it’s about 1500kms from The Alice straight up the Stuart Highway to Darwin.
The result is that the roadtrains are fitted out for the job. Fuel tank capacity is a priority, so truck chassis length is at the max in order to accommodate the tanks. The Kenworth C509 that I drive has room for 2300 litres. As well as this the trailer belly tanks hold another 1000 litres for emergencies.
Here’s a typical day in my Aussie trucking life. It starts at 5am when I head over to the cattle yards, where my truck is already parked up, waiting for its BAB-quad trailer unit to be loaded at first light. These trailers are newly approved – referred to in Australia as a “quad” unit.
My job this trip is to transport fat steers from Orange Creek to Murray Bridge, south of Adelaide, to a meatworks. So, for my 120 steers it’s their first and last road trip! These cattle weigh in at an average 710 kilograms so it’s a big payload.
The boss is sorting cattle so I get out the wheel brace and start methodically checking wheel nuts. The day before I spent fitting 22 new tyres –
It’s early evening as the 140-tonne roadtrain pauses for a moment just north of Coober Pedy on its trip south. e BAB trailer quad set is designed so it can easily be broken down close to major cities....where quads are not permitted
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