Post by simmo123 on Jun 4, 2015 10:59:21 GMT
Hi again forum members, Ole Simmo as you see has’nt got a gig for today
plus most of the chores around the house, garden etc are pretty well up to scratch ,Patricia is catching up with her stuff which means one thing left to do, another possible “Simmo Rambling” with about just about anything that comes into this ole fella’s overactive mind.
The seventies seems a good place to start...I will have to make sure that I don’t double up on stuff that I have already posted to the forum..
Okay after my spell at Mt Newman Iron ore mines & having managed to get a bit of experience truck driving I head out to see if I can get a job based in Perth with only short trips away from the family, at that time jobs were not easy to get so after much door knocking I found a small local trucking contractor that did both country & local deliveries / house removals/ general haulage etc, I can even remember the name of the company “Westpantec”. They had a small mixed fleet ranging from small removal vans to large semi trailers ( articulated with a prime mover to hitch on to ) a C class licence which I already had was required for these rigs. After a couple of weeks of myself doing local work the boss snared a large contract which involved huge amounts of new basic furniture which was made in Perth & needed for the Iron ore mining camps/ settlements which had taken off up in the north west of Western Australia, Port Hedland, Dampier, Mt Newman, Mt Tom Price plus a few more. A local furniture manufacturer was full on turning out all of these items. The distance involved for delivery ( road was the only option ) was around 1000 miles up to Port Hedland / Dampier but Tom Price/ Newman were around 800 to 900 miles ,( this milage is for one way only. The other major setback was in those times after leaving Perth heading up north to these sites the normal sealed bitumen road finished about an hour out of Perth & from then on it was loose red gravel up until you were a few miles from your destination when in some cases there was a couple of miles of sealed road. The condition of the gravel roads varied hugely depending on weather conditions / whether the graders or other roadworking machinery had been working on them to give them some sort of levels & also if there had been any damage/ washed away sections due to the weather. The other real problem with the gravel roads is that after a short while without being graded by the machinery the road surface forms what were known as corrugations which is like driving on lines of ruts, the only way to overcome this is to get the correct speed which enables the vehicle to basicly float over the road surfice, which avoids having the vehicle shaken to pieces. There are even today many of the smaller not so busy country roads that have still not been sealed. My first trip was reasonably uneventful other than several blown tyres ( it was a really big learning curve for Ole Simmo with the help of another truckie) to get to break down a truck tyre from the rim then fix the patches on followed by repairing the tube then with great caution after reassembling the tyre & rim to blow the tyre up making sure that the steel ring is securely in place otherwise if it springs off you are a goner. I learnt a lot from the other truckies who in those days would unselfishly stop & muck in to help out. It was roughly a two week round trip which in those days was worth around $100.00 but I paid 2 for my food etc, also the truck had a small bed behind the seats which although a bit rough it was better than nothing.
Ok my first trip was successful, so after one more good trip the boss came up with the brilliant idea that to make it more profitable he would try & source out a back load so as to avoid coming back with an empty truck.
Now it gets a little more interesting..
Right the man has come up with an idea, he has been in touch with a pet food manufacturer in Perth who employs a couple of professional kangaroo shooters who are operating about 200km from where Ole Simmo is dropping off the load of furniture for the mine site ,it is before I get to Port Hedland so the plan is for me to firstly find out exactly where the roo shooters are operating while on my way up to Port Hedland, then once I have unloaded the furniture I can head back to the roo shooters camp & they will help me load up all of the roo carcases ( minus their heads & innards ),I was informed by the boss man that they had all of the generators up at the bush camp needed to freeze down the said roo carcases. Even though it was still a 2 day drive from the roo shooters campsite he said that the said load would still be in good enough condition to be used as pet food. Forgot to mention that it was suggested that I take up some tarpaulins to cover the said cargo as it would 2help to keep them coolI was also informed that he would make it worth my while. Just a small detail that I should mention, we are looking at some fairly
warm weather up in that part of the country with summer temps hitting 100F most days in the old scale. No refridgeration ..sounds interesting
Ok I am slowly refreshing the old memory,( coffee break) it seems to improve as I get into the swing of things, one thing just seems to jog me into remembering something else connected to this saga.
.
Right Simmo has headed off on he’s big trip with all of the instructions Re, the backload location details, as far as I can remember it was a reasonable trip up to Port Hedland & I was able to spot the turn off track where the pickup as per instructions. So on unloading the camp furniture at Port Hedland I headed back to the turn off for the roo shooters camp, found it with plenty of daylight left & headed down a very narrow & rough track through the native bush. It twisted & turned getting deeper into the bush, the track was almost impossible to follow plus to turn my rig around was not even an option. The deeper I drove into the bush the worse it got but without any sign of a campsite.You can imagine how relieved Ole Simmo was when he spotted some smoke up ahead & sure enough there it was. It is hard to describe the conditions these Roo shooters live under, there were to older fella’s & two young boy’s who would have only been in the teens, there accommodation consisted of a tattered old tarpaulin that was stretched between some trees plus another tarp on the ground which served as there bed, kitchen & eating area. The two older fella’s were the Roo shooters, they told me that they come up for weeks at a time until they have filled up what I remember looked like a big gypsy style caravan on four wheels with no windows, just a door where they loaded the roo carcases through, the whole thing was attached to a very large diesel generator which also looked as though it had come out of the Ark, it just kept thumping away supposedly to keep the roos frozen The nearest civilization would have been a couple of hundred miles away. They were all very aimable & we had a coffee & some tucker ( food) which just happened to be roo stakes ( it was a first for Simmo)
I was pleased that I was able to turn my rig around as the clearing was just big enough, so I opened up the back of my rig & everybody helped to get me loaded & on my way before dark as it would be a bit hairy trying to find my way out through the bush. I spread some tarps across the floor of my rig & everyone mucked in.PS I forgot to mention that they had a couple of roo dogs which they also use while hunting the roo’s, not very friendly either. I stayed in the back of my rig & they passed the said cargo to me whereby I began stacking them from the front. One big problem!!! The carcases were not frozen as I had been informed, in fact some of them were just a tad warm, I passed a comment but it was ignored by everyone. In all there would have been at least six tonnes altogether which spread along the inside of the enclosed truck body & probably about a metre high. What came next took me by surprise, coming out from under another tarp which was laid near the freezer trailer was a big heap of emu heads piled up about waist high, apparently the government in a bid to stamp out excess emus ( who are seen to do huge damage to the land) had put a bounty of about $3.00 per & only payable if the emu heads are taken down to Perth where the numbers claimed can be verified, you could imagine the stench that they gave off. Any way I got on my way back out to the highway ( gravel unsealed road ) to begin my nonstop journey back to Perth.
More to follow when things get really serious.
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plus most of the chores around the house, garden etc are pretty well up to scratch ,Patricia is catching up with her stuff which means one thing left to do, another possible “Simmo Rambling” with about just about anything that comes into this ole fella’s overactive mind.
The seventies seems a good place to start...I will have to make sure that I don’t double up on stuff that I have already posted to the forum..
Okay after my spell at Mt Newman Iron ore mines & having managed to get a bit of experience truck driving I head out to see if I can get a job based in Perth with only short trips away from the family, at that time jobs were not easy to get so after much door knocking I found a small local trucking contractor that did both country & local deliveries / house removals/ general haulage etc, I can even remember the name of the company “Westpantec”. They had a small mixed fleet ranging from small removal vans to large semi trailers ( articulated with a prime mover to hitch on to ) a C class licence which I already had was required for these rigs. After a couple of weeks of myself doing local work the boss snared a large contract which involved huge amounts of new basic furniture which was made in Perth & needed for the Iron ore mining camps/ settlements which had taken off up in the north west of Western Australia, Port Hedland, Dampier, Mt Newman, Mt Tom Price plus a few more. A local furniture manufacturer was full on turning out all of these items. The distance involved for delivery ( road was the only option ) was around 1000 miles up to Port Hedland / Dampier but Tom Price/ Newman were around 800 to 900 miles ,( this milage is for one way only. The other major setback was in those times after leaving Perth heading up north to these sites the normal sealed bitumen road finished about an hour out of Perth & from then on it was loose red gravel up until you were a few miles from your destination when in some cases there was a couple of miles of sealed road. The condition of the gravel roads varied hugely depending on weather conditions / whether the graders or other roadworking machinery had been working on them to give them some sort of levels & also if there had been any damage/ washed away sections due to the weather. The other real problem with the gravel roads is that after a short while without being graded by the machinery the road surface forms what were known as corrugations which is like driving on lines of ruts, the only way to overcome this is to get the correct speed which enables the vehicle to basicly float over the road surfice, which avoids having the vehicle shaken to pieces. There are even today many of the smaller not so busy country roads that have still not been sealed. My first trip was reasonably uneventful other than several blown tyres ( it was a really big learning curve for Ole Simmo with the help of another truckie) to get to break down a truck tyre from the rim then fix the patches on followed by repairing the tube then with great caution after reassembling the tyre & rim to blow the tyre up making sure that the steel ring is securely in place otherwise if it springs off you are a goner. I learnt a lot from the other truckies who in those days would unselfishly stop & muck in to help out. It was roughly a two week round trip which in those days was worth around $100.00 but I paid 2 for my food etc, also the truck had a small bed behind the seats which although a bit rough it was better than nothing.
Ok my first trip was successful, so after one more good trip the boss came up with the brilliant idea that to make it more profitable he would try & source out a back load so as to avoid coming back with an empty truck.
Now it gets a little more interesting..
Right the man has come up with an idea, he has been in touch with a pet food manufacturer in Perth who employs a couple of professional kangaroo shooters who are operating about 200km from where Ole Simmo is dropping off the load of furniture for the mine site ,it is before I get to Port Hedland so the plan is for me to firstly find out exactly where the roo shooters are operating while on my way up to Port Hedland, then once I have unloaded the furniture I can head back to the roo shooters camp & they will help me load up all of the roo carcases ( minus their heads & innards ),I was informed by the boss man that they had all of the generators up at the bush camp needed to freeze down the said roo carcases. Even though it was still a 2 day drive from the roo shooters campsite he said that the said load would still be in good enough condition to be used as pet food. Forgot to mention that it was suggested that I take up some tarpaulins to cover the said cargo as it would 2help to keep them coolI was also informed that he would make it worth my while. Just a small detail that I should mention, we are looking at some fairly
warm weather up in that part of the country with summer temps hitting 100F most days in the old scale. No refridgeration ..sounds interesting
Ok I am slowly refreshing the old memory,( coffee break) it seems to improve as I get into the swing of things, one thing just seems to jog me into remembering something else connected to this saga.
.
Right Simmo has headed off on he’s big trip with all of the instructions Re, the backload location details, as far as I can remember it was a reasonable trip up to Port Hedland & I was able to spot the turn off track where the pickup as per instructions. So on unloading the camp furniture at Port Hedland I headed back to the turn off for the roo shooters camp, found it with plenty of daylight left & headed down a very narrow & rough track through the native bush. It twisted & turned getting deeper into the bush, the track was almost impossible to follow plus to turn my rig around was not even an option. The deeper I drove into the bush the worse it got but without any sign of a campsite.You can imagine how relieved Ole Simmo was when he spotted some smoke up ahead & sure enough there it was. It is hard to describe the conditions these Roo shooters live under, there were to older fella’s & two young boy’s who would have only been in the teens, there accommodation consisted of a tattered old tarpaulin that was stretched between some trees plus another tarp on the ground which served as there bed, kitchen & eating area. The two older fella’s were the Roo shooters, they told me that they come up for weeks at a time until they have filled up what I remember looked like a big gypsy style caravan on four wheels with no windows, just a door where they loaded the roo carcases through, the whole thing was attached to a very large diesel generator which also looked as though it had come out of the Ark, it just kept thumping away supposedly to keep the roos frozen The nearest civilization would have been a couple of hundred miles away. They were all very aimable & we had a coffee & some tucker ( food) which just happened to be roo stakes ( it was a first for Simmo)
I was pleased that I was able to turn my rig around as the clearing was just big enough, so I opened up the back of my rig & everybody helped to get me loaded & on my way before dark as it would be a bit hairy trying to find my way out through the bush. I spread some tarps across the floor of my rig & everyone mucked in.PS I forgot to mention that they had a couple of roo dogs which they also use while hunting the roo’s, not very friendly either. I stayed in the back of my rig & they passed the said cargo to me whereby I began stacking them from the front. One big problem!!! The carcases were not frozen as I had been informed, in fact some of them were just a tad warm, I passed a comment but it was ignored by everyone. In all there would have been at least six tonnes altogether which spread along the inside of the enclosed truck body & probably about a metre high. What came next took me by surprise, coming out from under another tarp which was laid near the freezer trailer was a big heap of emu heads piled up about waist high, apparently the government in a bid to stamp out excess emus ( who are seen to do huge damage to the land) had put a bounty of about $3.00 per & only payable if the emu heads are taken down to Perth where the numbers claimed can be verified, you could imagine the stench that they gave off. Any way I got on my way back out to the highway ( gravel unsealed road ) to begin my nonstop journey back to Perth.
More to follow when things get really serious.
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