Well it's Monday morning and 'The Old Vic' and Val are off down to Cornwall after a brief sojurn in Biglorryblog Towers... But he won't be going off in this old Atki (Pete Lynch took the shot when Vic was over in Oz). No, just a VW Golf hire car. Anyroadup I've had this post from Vic kicking around my e-mail in-box for a while and it's entitled "Why I like truck driving in NZ"--and naturally it features his beloved Inter... So I thought I'd post it up as a farewell offering.
"You might like to see why I enjoy truck driving at the other end of the earth," explains Vic, "...about 19,000km away from the M25 and the A14. It's not only because we have Cummins engines and Eaton Fuller Roadranger 18-speed gearboxes, you know! Regarding the above picture, as you know, I spend most of my time carrying grape juice and wine between wineries and from various wineries to bottling plants around the country, and a lot of the vineyards and wineries are in beautiful parts of the country. In this photo where they even have sheep around the vines (in case any visiting Aussies get lonely) I was filling one trailer with wine for bottling in Auckland."
"The next stop, to fill the other trailer, was Esk Valley Estate, where the tanker drivers always try to arrive at morning tea time as the winemaker's wife makes fantastic scones, cakes etc. Cut into the hill on one side of the winery is this small and very low-yielding vineyard, called The Terraces, from which come the grapes for one of the best and most exclusive red wines in New Zealand (the world?) called Esk Valley The Terraces. Esk Valley don't pay me to say that, either!
To which BLB replies... Grow my beauties... Grow! And to read more click through here... (Not a bad place to park up either...)
"The little ex-milk tanker behind the Mitsi with the big aerofoil looks a bit incongruous; the semi-trailer actually belongs to our company and is used to carry small volumes of wine to storage tanks along the road and they get one of the local contractors to move it for them with whatever tractor unit he has available at the time!"
"Away from the wineries and vineyards and heading for home," sats Vic."This is the view through the passenger's window from the summit of Titiokura. It is quite a long and steep climb to the top of "Titi", high-split 4th in low range (25km/h) in the Inter at 45 tonnes."
"Same gear, same speed going down the other side - I took this photo from a small pull-off area just over the summit where a certain Mr Simmonds has stopped occasionally to take photos of trucks coming up the hill. There were still a few lolly papers lying around so maybe he had been there not long before!"
"Down at the bottom of the hill the road crosses the Mohaka River on this bridge, which is about 300 feet above the river level. When I first started driving this 'new' bridge wasn't built and the road used to wind down to a bridge just above river level; that road was very narrow and steep, 1st gear down and up for most trucks of the day. Once over this new bridge, the road goes over the brow of the rise, then climbs again to the top of the hill in the distance, The Haroto; this is a long climb but half a gear higher than Titiokura although going down the other side is steeper." Jeez Vic... How on earth do you put up with driving in all that traffic?
"The road then goes through the Waipunga Gorge where the winding road crosses the even more winding Waipunga River quite a few times before climbing back up..."
Now, says Vic, it's "On to the plains near Lochinver Station. This a huge farm, not as big as the ginormous ones in Australia of course, some of which are bigger than the whole of New Zealand. I broke down here once years ago (when I was driving a Volvo F12, not an International!) and after a while a guy drove down from the farm office in an R-model Mack to see what my problem was and took me back up to the office so I could phone as there was no mobile phone service in the area then, and still isn't, come to that. I asked him where he lived and he said 'I've got a house in the middle of the station, you drive along that track for 14 miles to the crossroads, turn left and drive along for another 8 miles and you're there!'."
Last but not least he says: "From the plains the road descends to Lake Taupo down the Opepe hill. The road levels out about halfway down before descending again, and the government makes a fortune by positioning mobile speed cameras out of sight over the brow in the second part of the hill. So, there's a few hours in the life of a Kiwi trucker. Perhaps not as relaxing as sitting on a UK motorway with cruise control on, but each to his own and I enjoy it.Cheers, Vic." Yeah I can see why you'd hate it... All that congestion, lousy roads and crappy weather! I'll take Blighty any day! Hmmmmm... Anyway cheers to Vic and Val on their next leg of the 'Homecoming Tour'. Have a safe trip and return to the land of the big Inter when it's all over.
Sounds Like a great life over there in NZ, Andy still hasnt got around to painting the big Atki yet.
Vic what an amazing article. I loved it. My name is Jane Crosbie. I work for a company called Parcel Line which moves freight for Freightways. My job in the freight industry supports my passion - when I'm not at work I'm an artist. I work in a yard on a hoist and load and unload trucks and sort and move the freight itself and get to meet gorgous truckdrivers from all over NZ. So I'm not a truckdriver. Just someone who loves them to bits. But luckily all the truck drivers at work let me hitch rides all over NZ. You could say I'm a travelling artist in a rig. I like it better that way. I get to see a birds eye view of this beautiful country as a passenger in a rig. When I want to go anywhere all over this country all I have to do is jump in a rig and let me tell you its a massive buzz in the passenger seat. Yep and I get to ride in all sorts of trucks from Volvos to Kenworths, everything - though my favourite at the moment is a beautiful Scania - so quiet you can hear a pin drop in this beauty so me and a supremely intelligent truckdriver called Dan The Man who does the Auckland to Wellington to Auckland route get to have the deepest philosophical discussions on life and I can even hear him breathing the truck is so quiet. Being in that truck is like being in a sanctuary you're in your own little world. I have to say in my travels in rigs I have been hugely inspired not only by the scenery but also all the amazing and interesting people in the freight industry. The people interaction in a depot is awesome.
I loved your photos. Would you mind if I used a couple of them as references for my paintings. I am currently working on a book of paintings of all sorts of scenes along State Highway One. Thanks for your time Vic. Very very cool article and photos. Jane Crosbie