Another Rambling by Simmo part one

[simmo123]

Hi everyone,Ole Simmo is off on one of he’s ramblings again,that is providing i can manage to remember most of the details of this latest foray into The Simmo family experiences after parting with twenty pounds our arriving in Perth W Australia in 1968 with two ankle biters in { kids} in tow.
After a couple of years of my working at different jobs including spending a fair bit of time away from the family usually in remote areas of the state doing pretty well anything that was asked of you just to ensure that enough money was coming in to support Patricia & family who were back living in the outer suburbs of Perth city & were coping with all of the problems of starting a new life in a new country, plus living amongst strangers and also being what must have seemed a million miles from her life and family which she had left behind in England, which on looking back must have been pretty tough on her at that time, hey !!! but she is one tough chick. ;D
Most of the work I took on enabled me to acquire various skills which stood me in good stead over the years, I was able to get to drive all types of heavy duty trucks machinery and also be self sufficient in long distance haulage which in those days was the life blood of the state of WA....iron ore mining up in the northwest of the state was just getting fired up so the demand to cart supplies up to the minesites at places like Mt Newman, Mt Tom Price, Port Hedland {where the ore was shipped out from} was for many years full on, the biggest problem was that due to the distance from Perth around 1200 miles plus factor in the fact that more than three quarters of the roads were little more than dirt tracks through the hundreds of miles of rugged bush the wear & tear on the vehicles was horrendous. In a steep learning curve i was very soon able to become proficient in breaking down the rims & tyres of the trucks in temps reaching up to 50c in the sun plus i got to know the basic mechanics of the trucks as well.
Moving on to one of my more interesting experiences on a trip from Perth to Port Hedland which i would like to share with you & this experience will forever will stay with me .I was working for a trucking company who had only a small fleet of trucks but had diversified into carting new furniture from Perth up to Port Hedland 1200km from Perth,the furniture was for the single mens camp where the mine site workers used to live in specially made cyclone proof huts or “Dongers” as they were known , in those days,the trucking mob i was working for had the contract to get the furniture up there.This company as i mentioned were small and the fleet of trucks had seen better days however I badly needed the job. Another scheme that was popular in those days was the smaller companies would offer you what was called “ trip money” as apposed to a weekly wage with overtime rates which was the normal thing with the larger hauliers.....OK..so” Young” Simmo as i was known in those days did a couple of runs up to Port Hedland with just the usual problems but it was still worthwhile getting the $120.00 pay for each trip which could take up to two weeks per trip & considering the basic wage at that time was around $30 per 54 hour week it was well worth it... providing you had a fairly trouble free run...also not forgetting you had to keep yourself as well as having to sleep in the truck which became a tad uncomfortable as you could imagine in the heat. On loading up for my next trip i was informed by the boss that they had arranged for me to pick up a backload from up in the general area where i was delivering the furniture,the upside was it would be a little bit more trip money for me...it sounded all good... before my leaving he gave me all of the details of the backload I was to pickup and which i reveal in due course...Right... now it was starting to look a bit interesting...my mission on travelling up to Port Hedland was to go past the Whim Creek Pub/truckstop which was by memory a couple of hundred miles before Port Hedland,after getting several miles past the Pub i was to look for a track turning off to the right into the Bush,the reason for this was to help me to locate the spot where i had to pickup my backload on my return from Port Hedland because it would possibly be at night, which meant i may have a problem finding the pick up point.....The Plot Thickens......
Listen in to the next rambing when all will be revealed ...Simmo..11.00pm Tuesday 23rd October 2012
once again best wishes to all