Vic's roadtrip in New Zealand in his beloved International. Not a bad day's work says Biglorryblog!

"Now it's down around the 25km/h Devil's Elbow." get that Jake working Vic!

"....and lots more 35km/h corners....."

"....most of these corners are blind and the roads are too narrow for B-trains and long artics to keep to the left of the centre line, "says Vic, "Which is why we have, and use, CB radios to warn other trucks. At the moment these roads are being used by over-length logging trucks which take up almost all the road width on a lot of corners; they have to have flashing lights which are useful at night but useless in the daytime, however their drivers are very good about warning of their approach by CB and there aren't really too many problems."

"It was back to Gisborne early the next morning to get another load of wine and on the way back to Napier the second time I stopped at the top of the Wharerata Hill to get a photo looking back towards Gisborne." And behold Vic's beloved Inter having a rest..

"...and I and then walked across the road to get another photo from the carpark from where all the Japanese tourists take their photos of themselves against the background." Well why not..it is a stunning view!

"Now back up the hill towards the Mohaka Railway Viaduct again. The road takes a very sharp narrow left-hand corner around one of the viaduct pillars, again a CB corner as there is no room for 2 trucks to pass and barely room for a truck and a car."

Now the easy part! "Down to the coast now getting close to Napier city."

Vic adds: "On the way back from Napier to Auckland there is the VERY steep and short uphill, Tarawera hill which always catches new drivers out. Because of a sharpish corner at the bottom you can hit the hill at about 80km/h maximum and it requires some very fast gearchanging and skipping gears to get up the hill; any fluffed gearchanges or being to slow to get a lower gear results in the truck stopping very quickly. I mucked it up once years ago in an F12 Volvo when the range-change didn't go through, BLOODY SYNCHROMESH gearboxes! First gear wasn't low enough for a re-start and I got towed up by an INTERNATIONAL S-Line logger who had no trouble doing so with his Cummins engine, Low-split Crawler gear, interaxle lock and cross-locks. In this photo I have just come over the top of the hill ready to head down around the 25km/h the hairpin bends to the road you can see in the distance and on to Auckland."

Now here's a view BLB regulars will recognise..yes it's the Axis terminal webcam! "The next day I ended up on carrying 40ft high-cube containers to the Fergusson Container Terminal on the Auckland wharfs, where BLB gets the webcam photos from sometimes"

"....as you can see in these 2 photos which the boss captured off the webcam when he was checking up to see what we were doing. That's not quite true really, I asked him to try and get them! My truck is in the first photo and almost hidden in the second one, but, for a possum pie, what are the 2 Fluidex trucks that you can see clearly?"

"Now here I am waiting for a vacant space on the unloading grid..."

"..and on the grid and waiting for a straddle carrier to unload the container."

"...and getting unloaded and ready to head back for another one. It was quite a change from driving around Gisborne and Hawke's Bay with a B-Train tanker, but it's OK now and again!"

Thanks Vic great stuff...only quit knocking syncho boxes. they've never done me any harm (well not much anyway...and the other night I dreamt I was driving a 13-speed Fuller in a Foden...perfectly. make what you will of that Sigmund Freud! (and no it wasn't into a tunnel...)