From an epic odyssey with a truck full of hives out to find some sweet honey, to a 6,000-kilometre round trip with two leading race V8 supercars, to an ocean-to-plate adventure with the award-winning Mooloolaba Fisheries, the fourth issue of ROADBOSS Magazine will be fully loaded with awesome yarns on the icons, leaders, innovators and colourful characters that form the backbone of Australia’s road transport industry. Here’s a sneak peek!
“They’re just like a truck on water mate,” deckhand “Fish” bellowed over the roar of the trawlers’ 450hp CAT 3406 TA engine as he took a well-deserved break from the intense work involved in setting the boat’s booms and nets a couple of kilometres off the Mooloolaba coast.
Old-school truckies might bristle at the comparison. But the 36-year-old – who started life as a deck hand at 17 – has a point.
At 19.9 metres long, five metres wide and weighing in at 100 tonnes fully laden with 18,000 litres of fuel, trawlers like the “Learmonth K” aren’t much different in size to a typical semi-trailer.
They also require highly skilled skippers at the wheel, not just to navigate the ocean’s equivalent of our pothole-riven roads and highways – the tides, currents and swells – but amateur boaties clogging up the seaways.
For both “Fish” and “Learmonth K” owner and skipper Jamie Vallance fishing is the only life they know. And they wouldn’t have it any other way. Images: Sam Thies
And just like a truck, the main purpose of these “trucks on water” is to carry freight from source to customer as quickly as possible; for the “Learmonth K” it’s a hull full of around 280 boxes of snap-frozen Eastern King Prawns and bug tails destined for retail and wholesale customers on the Sunshine Coast and further afield across Australia.
The similarities end there, though. Unlike the trucks of today – full of modern comforts and conveniences – trawler fishing is intense, back-breaking work. For both skipper and deckhand there’s little automation to make their jobs easier; helming the boat, finding, catching and boxing their prey is a largely manual process involving huge nets hauled by rope winches and large net drums or reels – manually set often amid rolling ocean swells in the dead of the night.
But for both “Fish” and “Learmonth K” owner and skipper Jamie Vallance, this is the only life they know. As well as the freedom of life at sea, the returns – for both skipper and deckhand – can be lucrative, especially in a still reasonably healthy fishery off the Queensland coast where Jamie has worked his trade since 2009.
“I’ve been fishing all my life and know nothing else,” says “Fish”, as he rips off his Queensland State of Origin jersey to show us the tattoo of his first trawler “Elizabeth G” inked across the breadth of his chest.
Delivering fresh wild-caught seafood is simple: catch it as quick as you can, get it in as quick as you can, and process it as quick as you can. Images: Sam Thies
For Mooloolaba Fisheries, the “Learmonth K” – and other boats like it – are a critical link in its quest to deliver the freshest, wild-caught Australian seafood both to its own retail markets on the Sunshine Coast as well as other retail and wholesale customers throughout Australia – and beyond.
CEO Paul Schenk says the trick to delivering ultra fresh wild-caught seafood is simple: catch it as quick as you can, get it in as quick as you can, and process it as quick as you can. Crucial to this is developing strong relationships with fishermen.
“It takes time to find the right products and build trust with the fishermen. Paying the right price, and paying on time, is critical to building that trust.
“We’re all about supporting 100 per cent our wild-caught fisheries in Australia. Because we have to, otherwise we’re going to lose them,” he tells ROADBOSS in our feature story set to appear in the magazine’s Summer Issue.
ROADBOSS ventures out to Western New South Wales with apiarists, Neil and Brett Bingley, and a truck full of hives to find some sweet honey. Images: Alastair Brook
From seas to bees, the upcoming issue will also feature Harrison Hunkin’s recent adventure with leading apiarists, Neil and Brett Bingley, as they venture out to Western New South Wales with a truck full of hives to find some sweet honey.
One thing he and photographer Alastair Brook discovered is that bees don’t like dark colours and don’t fly after dark, making night the ideal time to transport the winged insects to the golden canola fields! It makes for an epic yarn with simply stunning imagery.
What does fly at night – and day – is race car transporters as ROADBOSS found on a 6,000-kilometre round trip with two leading race V8 supercars, hundreds of thousands worth in tools, tyres and equipment all packed into a million-dollar trailer.
With plenty at stake, it’s not the champagne truck driving that many believe it is, but thankfully for Walkinshaw Andretti United, they’ve got their best man Vinnie Borgia behind the wheel.
Vinnie Borgi takes us on a 6,000km trip with two leading race V8 supercars, hundreds of thousands worth in tools, tyres and equipment packed into a million-dollar trailer. Images: Thomas Wielecki
Look out for our epic road trip to Townsville beatifully shot by Thomas Wielecki with one of the great trucking characters.
On a sweet nectar of a different kind, Steve Brooks heads to WA to catch up with Scott and Regina Harvey of SRH Milk Haulage fame.
It’s a big jump from the rolling farms of eastern Australia to the dairy flats of WA’s south-west, but distance certainly hasn’t fazed Scott and Regina’s horizons.
Yet while the cost on heart and home has been brutally tough at times, nothing has broken the bonds that keep this enduring partnership firing on all cylinders.
On a sweet nectar of a different kind, Steve Brooks heads to WA to catch up with Scott and Regina Harvey of SRH Milk Haulage fame. Images: Alastair Brook
As Steve discovered, the partnership has evolved from one truck into a remarkably successful, high-profile business which now boasts close to 200 employees, a fleet of 75 trucks and around 120 Tieman or Byford tankers moving more than one billion litres of milk a year.
From one truck in 1996 on home turf in the NSW Hunter Valley, the company has emerged as one of the big players in a highly specialised field, with operations spanning from home base at Rutherford to Raleigh on the NSW north coast near Coffs Harbour, Poowong in Victoria’s Gippsland, to the other side of the country at Picton in WA, just a few kilometres outside Bunbury.
The steady but consistent growth appears at times to astonish both Scott and Regina. “I try not to think about it too hard. It can give me a headache,” Scott laughs. “There’s no way either of us thought it would ever grow to where it is now.”
To ensure you don’t miss out on these cracking yarns – and many more – subscribe to ROADBOSS Magazine here. The next issue is due out November 2024!
