‘I didn’t know it then, but my father set me up for a life of adventure’

As one of five children, growing up on a farm in Western Australia was a great start in life. One of the things I’m most thankful for in my early life is my dad teaching me to double the clutch on our old farm Bedford truck. I didn’t realise at the time, but this little thing Dad taught me would set me up for an unimaginable adventure later on.

Sadly, Dad was killed in a farm accident when I was 14. Mum eventually had to sell the farm. I finished school when I was 16 and worked on farms around the district.

I was drawn up north and worked on stations, crayfished on the Abrohlhos Islands, was a motorcycle mechanic in Perth, learned how to sheer a sheep, and it was while I was planting wheat at a property that a fine opportunity was presented to me. Would I like to learn to drive road trains? I was not yet 20 years old, but I jumped at the chance. I headed off in an Atkinson prime mover with two 40-foot crates on trailers.

I spent the several months learning what it took to be a truck driver by carting station cattle and sheep with an occasional trip with wheat and superphosphate. It was an education and an experience I will remember forever. Eventually my teacher, a bloke by the name of Rick, left the company and I became the main driver. I did trips to some amazing properties and met owners, managers and workers alike.

I finished the cattle mustering season with several stints at the Pilbara station mustering and bull catching. I loved bull catching time — it was wild, dangerous and exciting. I would load the bulls onto the truck and transport them to Midland.

I moved back to the south of Western Australia and drove a truck for a bloke who subcontracted me to a local trucking company. It was also a great time and we started carting sheep interstate. My boss sold the truck and I drove for one of the company’s brothers. A brand new White Roadboss. This was a very nice truck to drive, I did numerous trips to the eastern states taking young ewes and backloaded with shipping wethers to Perth. This went on for months.

On one of the trips back to Western Australia somewhere along the Nullarbor a Deluxe Coachlines coach cruised alongside me. It was about 10pm and the driver slowed down enough for me to see the cute chick up the front talking to him. He even flicked the driver light on so I would see her. He dropped down a gear in the coach, planted his foot and that was the last I saw of him.
I decided I needed to get a better life, so the rest of the trip I planned out the next seven years of my life. It was going to be perfect.

Phase one of my plan was drive triple trailer double-decker road trains in the Kimberley. There was only one person I wanted to do this with and that was Noel Buntine. Noel owned Road Trains of Australia (RTA) at the time and I wrote to ask if he had a position for me. Noel wrote back and invited me to the depot in Wyndham. This was in 1984 and only the beginning of my adventure!

How did your parents influence you?

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