11: Getting Back To Oz

0:01Hello and welcome back to Matt's Trucking Great podcast. Mat Ireland as your host once again and today I am delighted to be joined or rejoined, depending on how you look at it, by my good friend and brother from another mother I think, Paul O 'Callaghan from Ireland. Paul, it's a pleasure to talk to you again mate. No problem at all Matt, nice to be back having a bit of a chat. It's been a while and I think there's been enough time passed that I'll have plenty of content for you anyway. Yeah, I should say so. So for any listeners who are new to this channel and didn't listen to us on the truck and driver one, we used to regularly catch up because of Paul's travels about here and there that he's going to get into.

0:40But obviously, if you are a previous listener, you'll know all about Paul and what he gets up to and whatnot. So where are you? Well, what have you been up to, Paul? Because the last time we chatted was a bit before Christmas, if I remember rightly. Yeah that would be right Yeah it was just end up Probably towards the end of the cattle season As we call it in In the north of Australia So that was busy right up until Christmas And I left Darwin around Christmas And I went to New Zealand Craig McCauley Who a lot of people don't know Kindly put me up He's another one of our ilk Who's obsessed with trucks And we get along quite well So I spent a few days there with Craig I was actually going to spend a bit longer in New Zealand and then just got a little bit of nothing major.

1:26And I went, actually, Bolivia then, that was kind of where I was heading forward. That was always the plan. But I actually had Christmas with Craig and we did a typical, you know, what truck drivers do on their day off. We went and did more driving. So Craig's got a Toyota RAV4 and we sat with Craig and Dave McHugh. He's the editor of New Zealand Trucking Magazine. and we went on a drive, a mountain, kind of a pass, an off-road drive, which is only open a couple of days each year. And so this is in the north of the South Island of New Zealand. And I really should remember the name of the road Craig will be giving out to me.

2:04But anyway, we ended up in Mount Linford. So that was quite interesting. And then I went from there anyway. I flew from there to Bolivia. Wow. So yeah, it's somewhere I'd never been before and somewhere I'd wanted to see for a while. I did Chile a couple of years ago and just always wanted to see Bolivia. It's quite hard to get to, so I took one flight up to Auckland and then from Auckland to Santiago in Chile and then Santiago to Lima and Peru and then from Lima and Peru to La Paz, Bolivia. Oh, right. Quite a shack about then. Yeah, it was. That's kind of what put me off going there. initially but as as with anywhere i go on holidays of course it was all revolving around trucks and that what really drew me there mainly was just um just to go on and see and video and photograph the old volvo trucks they have which have mostly originated in in europe and a lot from scandinavia and um yeah for some reason yeah you'll be aware of and i was for some reason out there it's from I was there for probably about two weeks almost.

3:18And I'd say it was about 90 % Volvo. And of that, I'd say 60 % of those were F12s. And then the rest was, you know, version 1s. So stuff that you won't see really anywhere else. Everywhere you looked, there was all Volvos. So that's basically why I went there. And everything else then was a bonus after that. Oh, absolutely. And I suppose it's there sort of summertime-ish out there. Southern Hemisphere, that sort of time of year Yeah, it was I had shorts on but a lot of people Had jackets, it was comfortable I'd put it like that and quite a variation Because you've got really You've got three different geographical areas With different climates You've got the Altiplano, the high plains And then you've The Andes and the youngest Mountains and that and then you've got The Amazon region which borders with Brazil.

4:13So it's got quite a lot of variations. But I flew into La Paz and when you arrive in a new country, it's always kind of quite exciting and what kind of impression. Yeah, when you leave the airport and I was immediately impressed. I just got a taxi. I think it was loads of old cars there, like old Corollas and things like that. I got one of those down into... So the airport is up on kind of like a higher part. La Paz is sort of built on the side of almost, kind of nearly the side of a mountain, you know. And then I suppose when it expanded, they had to go upwards and the airport's up there. So on the way down to the, down to this main city of La Paz from El Alto, I passed, I saw two or three F-12s, you know, like two or three trucks in total.

4:58And they were all in there. You just figured this is a good sign. I've come to the right place, you know. Yeah, yeah. And quite cheap as well, you know. I stayed in a really nice hotel in the old parts of the city there. I think it was only something like, you know, maybe$30 or something like that, 20-something euros, you know? Brilliant. Really nice, yeah. So they have a nice kind of indigenous culture out there. You know, the way you'd see the ladies with the kind of bowler hats and the big kind of dresses that instead of, I thought it was quite funny where, you know, a lot of female clothing now, it's designed to sort of hold shapes and and and kind of maybe flatter a bit more this is this is the opposite this is they want to make their hips look as wide as possible you know maybe it's something to do with fertility i don't know but anyway we digress you know yes absolutely so but do you have a rental car and just go yes go about yeah yeah i um i didn't really book anything before before i went i wanted to see what it you know would be like when when i went out there so yeah i found this a local hire company and um but i was kind of researching before i went out you know these international driving permits a lot of countries you actually need those and of course i have one but didn't have it with me i think that's somewhere in australia like it's it's uh it's a pretty kind of antiquated kind of a thing you can get them off the aa and different companies anyway yes i didn't have one i was wondering how that would go when i went to hire the car you know so when i went to hire the car i think i met them on they came out on a message to the guy and yeah it was nice it was a kind of like a like a family run kind of thing but anyway they didn't even ask me for a driving license not to mention international license once they had once they had my passport and they got the deposit and it wasn't i think it was maybe like 75 us dollars a day or something like that so yeah so anyway i am i was looking at they had little suzuki jimneys which were which were cheaper and they're tough little vehicles so that was what i wanted I ended up with a Toyota RAV4, which actually was a far more comfortable vehicle anyway.

7:02So that was, yeah, I had that for, I hired it for, took it for 10 days initially. And where I wanted to go was, you know, the way you may have seen some videos from Bolivia, where I think it's on Volvo Trucks channel, you know, it's the world's most dangerous road. There was like an F10 rigid going down there. Anyway, I wanted to go into the mountains more so than, so that's kind of north rather than going south to, you know, the salt lakes and Lake Titicaca and that. So, yeah, headed north and, yeah, it definitely lived up to expectations. And when I left the city originally, I was thinking, you know, you'd see a lot of land cruisers and like rugged four wheel drive vehicles.

7:46And you wonder, well, sort of, why do they need those? And, yeah, I discovered that when I got into it. got into the mountains, I actually was feeling a little bit sorry for the RAV4 because they'll have paved roads and all of a sudden then they're just massive potholes. So you're better off to never really get up to too much speed. And those places where the road just completely washed away and you were driving in gravel. So by the time I handed it back, the tires when I picked it up were just kind of getting pretty close to the wear blocks. and of course by my hands and back they were fairly well cut up but I was wondering if there was going to be anything said they didn't say anything but it was fantastic when I went and liked it and like I said everywhere you look there's just all trucks at work and everyone seems to be reasonably happy maybe they don't know any different and all the drivers there I noticed were taking really good care of their trucks so So when they don't have digicards and tech graph hours, they're not really trying to rush to get places, if you know what I mean.

8:56Yeah, yeah. No time pressure. No time pressure, I'd say, yeah. And also trying to prolong the life of the vehicles. Quite often you'd see they'd have their wife and their children with them. So just a nice kind of an old way of operating. Yeah, absolutely. And for those that haven't really seen any photos and stuff like that of a lot of South America with regards to the trucks and unaware, as Paul sort of touched on at the beginning, there's a big export market for second-hand trucks, like I say, especially Scandinavia, because there's six-wheelers as well, the Netherlands and a few others, and some of the groups I'm on on Facebook regularly see contributors from South America with photographs of these old Volvos still wearing their European, I think there's even some English ones out there here and there not many but just with like the you know the new license plate put on and and away they go it's um i just i find it fascinating i think it's brilliant because you'll see you've got a good chance of seeing companies that don't exist any longer and their deliveries are still living on that's right yeah and uh that's what i would you know there was always the the expectation to see a company you recognize and i actually did i saw uh two trucks from um from Norway from tendon transport so both of them are F12 Globetrotters but they do so many modifications to there it won't resemble in a lot of cases what the truck originally would have been so for example this was like an eight by a long eight by four rigid with an F12 Globetrotter cab which he never had which he never had and so they're swapping cabs and chassis and axles and And the big thing I noticed out there as well was most of them are hub reduction axles.

10:40So big, heavy axles and I suppose more rugged. And the other thing I noticed as well was I didn't see one forklift all the time I was there. Everything is handballed. These wooden bodies with maybe doors to the back, obviously, and a side door. So there seemed to be handball and everything. I just on the second day I was there, they have actually a cable car system in La Paz, which I hadn't really been aware of. But that's how people get around. And it's an ingenious way of, you know, moving people around, especially when you're talking such deep hills there. So I just thought you can buy a car that's pretty cheap.

11:18And I headed off and I just got off at a stop and I, oh, here we go. It was a Swedish F816 version one. and then I went for a walk. And basically what it was, it was like an area where it was just a kind of a fruit market and all of the fruit vendors, you know, were operating out of these old trucks like F7s and F6s. And yeah, when a country doesn't have, from what I could see where I was, when there's no supermarkets and everything is sold kind of on the street, it really makes it for a vibrant country. Like once you go to the little towns, like everything, everyone is selling things on the streets, you know.

11:52Yeah, and I guess it'll all be seasonal like it used to be over here. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, I didn't see much in the way of refrigeration either. And you just mentioned something there about old companies and logos. I didn't really see any ex-British ones. I saw, I think, Flott, which I'm sure you know. Yeah, Dutch container haul, yeah. Yeah, yeah, I saw one of those. And then what I noticed then in around El Alto was they seemed to actually make up graphics and stickers of, let's say, European companies. So there was one that was like an F. It was a Volvo tipper, like a dumper, we'll say, six foot four.

12:35But it had Donegal groupage stickers on the side, which didn't make any sense. So they seem to be kind of quite, almost it's kind of quite proud to have some sort of European name or logo on the truck, you know. Yeah. So, yeah, it was interesting to see that as well. It's interesting as well that it's like 90 % Volvo. They've really, really cornered the market. I mean, I wonder how that's come about, whether it's just that they became really abundant and there's an awful lot of spares because there's a lot of them and people obviously don't want to deviate off. I mean, were there many like, because Mercedes is quite often a good, rugged, reliable truck for a sort of country like that or no?

13:24No. So I still haven't got a definitive answer. you know some people will tell you that the in the like in high altitude and that they're the best engine and that's you know the V8s can't hack it so I always like to put that one out there to get a few lads I don't know I don't it might have been a case that that's just what they started and they got with and they got the parts and so no that's my own guess of what I've seen there I like it has to be 90 % Volvo after Volvo there was there was a couple of Scanias again they'd be six cylinders maybe like you know our 420s and that I saw probably one maybe yeah so I'd say next is Scania next then it would be Renault saw a couple of maybe uh premiums and I saw one Daft didn't see any MANs didn't see any Mercedes Iveco so it's um the interesting thing was when I uh when I came back up oh yeah and servicing then and garages well that's all done on the side of the road yeah i i actually found just by accident uh open up in an alto in alto el alto i should say i found the basically the the area where they're where the trucks are being serviced and maintained oh brilliant it was literally just on the side of the road like and they must have an abundance of parts and obviously they have this was labor is cheap as well so they have to have the mechanics to do it and they'll just take on anything it was great to see that and you said just about the the import thing so they all they come in through chile you know bolivia's landlocked it wasn't always landlocked but they they were in there was a back in back in the day there was a there was a conflict with um with chile and and they lost their coastline so anyway the the trucks come into into chile and then they end up in bolivia but um an interesting thing as well was with with the cars they have cars going around with no number plates so they're called they're illegal imports basically they have no documents and and how i found out about that was there was actually a fuel the fuel shortage when i was there now this is previous to the whole iran conflict and um i was cute i was wondering what was going on and basically it was just a shortage of fuel and it was like big queues going to a filling station so i was driven for a couple of days and i was in kind of gone through the mountains and i was down in the you know kind of more the amazon sort of base in the area i was queuing up for like an hour or two and eventually i got talking to a guy and um what i what i deciphered what he was saying he pointed out he said no you've you've got a you've got a plaque so a plaque was registration yes it's with the fact you can go to the top of the queue oh so oh yeah so okay well i don't have to be told twice and that's what happened i went up to the top and and someone let me in so uh what how was explained to me, those guys with the, that don't have the, that have the illegal imports with no papers, like they're actually not allowed to fill from the pump.

16:16They have to put it into a container first. Right. Buy it, yeah. So the fuel thing, so they've got a new government came in, that just came in like in December and they're getting rid of the, they got rid of the fuel subsidies. So I think fuel had doubled in price, if not tripled. So between that and the shortages. It was a bit kind of mental what went on. And in the end, actually, there was a lot of protests out there. So obviously the workers union got together and they were protesting against the cutting subsidies. And I had probably had the car for a week and I got back to El Alto and I was going to go south then.

16:57I wanted to go down to Santa Cruz and photograph more trucks. What else are you going to do? But the main, sort of the more, I was in the mountains. I wanted to go to see a little bit of the more kind of trunk routes, but I actually couldn't leave I couldn't leave the city the blockades had kind of locked more or less locked the country down so I went sort of went driving and every year where you went the roads were blocked and then I'd try another little way around and they were blocked and even at one point I just stopped and I was just kind of observing what was going on and the police kind of came up to the roadblock and oh the roadblock it's pretty harmless like they have little rocks out on the road you could literally drive through but what I was told was if you drive through there's a pench or car where rocks and it got a little bit kind of tense when the police pulled up those two police cars and I could hear a bit of shouting and the police didn't go through, they turned around so you know I don't know, some of these kind of countries it's interesting to see how things work and in the end I actually returned the car a couple of days early because I couldn't go anywhere and I was talking to a couple of other tourist people had cut their holidays short so I was quite lucky to to even do yeah to get out when you could sort of thing to get out when i could yeah because i actually met um while i was at that little roadblock there was a guy who pulled up and he had an ex-swedish conversion 3 f816 cattle truck rigid and drag and i had actually uh i had seen him a couple of days beforehand in the mountains i just saw it on the road because they're going that slow that you can always have time to stop the car and get out and take a photograph and he recognized me yeah i got i got talking to him anyway and um he was going to santa cruise he had a load of cattle from he was coming from the kind of you know that that amazon region so it would have been a long drive a couple of days drive and you know they're uh they're chewing on on cocoa leaves you know because i was telling him i was a truck driver as well and he said oh yeah but life's how long how do you keep going and i said i don't know we've got to sleep for a while and you know i'd say he was going on the cocoa leaves but anyway basically what was i said what are you going to do now you can't go through the roadblock and he said no he was going to have to he was going to have to try and sell his cattle to an abattoir in that region in El Alto, but then he wasn't sure if he was going to get paid for them.

19:06So, you know, they talk about struggles and I thought, geez, that guy is really, you know, really, really up against it. So I think there might have been a bit of an agreement after they might have brought in some of the subsidies. But, you know, when you looked at the trucks they had and how tough they were doing, and then they've got rid of this fuel subsidy, I think, like, Jesus, every country has its challenges for truckers that's for sure you know yeah I don't think any country has it good do they no just just different challenges yeah definitely no I got really really impressed really you know like the country I was stopped at a couple anywhere I'd see trucks I guess you know stopped and you can eat pretty cheap there as well so generally it'll start off it'll be like a kind of like a soup thing and then it'll be chicken and rice and a bit of dessert after but um it it caught up with me towards the final the final day it's quite a regular thing i don't know where i got like it was i was just not not very fussy about where i was where i was eating like you're going to a little village and everyone more or less is is doing is doing food but there was one little small place and there was i actually saw a cat in the kitchen you know so i don't know if i picked it up or or or something else but um no it was it was somewhere I'd I'd go back to again like it felt safe everywhere you were you know and it's predominantly Catholic country as well so no it was it was definitely worth going to anyway no brilliant I mean did you encounter any hostility for you taking photos of trucks or was everyone pretty open to it no no in fairness that's a good that's a good point they were they were all smiling they were all they were all happy yeah which which which made it made it good you know if a certain country you go through there's always an element of suspicion and i'm sure if you were maybe some places in take for example the middle east it might not might not go down as well but that's what made it i suppose enjoyable um there was one one um one morning actually i was just driving i drove past actually the day before and there was like there was a breakdown i think it was a version two that the cab up and anyway there was a bit of rooting going on and the next day i was coming back the recovery mission i was on they must not got repaired so i just pulled up in the car and have a bit of spanish and i just explained to them what it what it was about and they said oh yeah no problem work away so basically they had um they had an fl7 rigid probably one of one of the roughest trucks i've ever seen in my life you know you'd quite regularly see trucks bits missing off and grills and bumpers and stuff like that yeah they they had a they had pulled the the uh the version two out from underneath the the trailer and they had an nl12 as as the you know the recovery truck that was going reverse underneath it and they used the fl the toe the the version 2 but the stuff was just so rough i actually gave them a hand then to um they had the head was just sitting on the ground and i was looking at them lift that up the body was made of wood like just it was like a real flintstones kind of a body on this fl and i gave them a hand to uh to lift it was four of us you know lift it's quite heavy i thought we got halfway up and i thought this is not going to work but no they got that and we caught up and but anyway i was looking my hands were all oil after him like i didn't dare i did it and there was no such thing as baby wipes there i didn't even have a rag you know but they were happy they were happy enough to smile in the way and and uh you know but definitely no no no no problem no hostility nothing like that they were just happy to have their have their picture taken and like i said you know great to see kids in in trucks and whole families and that you know yeah yeah sounds amazing yeah brilliant so where did you go from there then so I went back to Ireland then I had a week I was only back in Ireland for a week so then I headed to the next trucking related trip after that then was Norway quite a change in temperature then isn't it yeah big change we went there nearly the 8th of February so I went with Kevin Feeney so that's the third time we've we've gone together yeah the same into the same kind of thing as i am you know trucks and and scenery and that as well so again flew in flew into oslo and um actually hired another uh toyota rav4 okay yeah that was the one that came up at the at the best value and and i'd had such a you know i had experience but it was a pretty similar model to the one i had in bolivia except it was a higher spec and you know what i actually uh got really really got to like that we had a next c60 and we were there last year.

23:40But those, I found, Matt, with modern vehicles, it's now, which is the one that annoys me least? That's what it's come to. And in fairness to that Toyota, like it was, you didn't, every time you turn on the engine, you weren't pressing screens, turning off this and turning off that. Like it was pretty, it was enjoyable to use, enjoyable to drive. Big thing there is just, you want a heated steering wheel and heated seats. so it was two litre petrol um petrol hybrid oh yeah that by the way when you go to hire a car in norway now you go to the list of on the websites it's all electric cars right it's a yeah you can scroll a fair way down yeah and even i was um wherever we were you know just booking accommodation as we're going along and i was trying to stay in you know small sort of apartments more or less and uh you know someone would send it to send you a reply on booking.com do you need a electric plug-in you know but anyway absolutely no interest in that whatsoever i didn't want didn't want that to be sort of dictating your roots and definitely definitely no when you pull into a service station like there was one service station near a place called alvedal and and we we stopped there last year and you can see that there's even a lot more electric vehicle chargers than there had been previous and people are just there there was more cars charging there than there actually was at the pumps, you know.

25:01Wow. And in a lot of cases, you know, you just pull in your, we just want to go in for a coffee and a hot dog, which is basically all you get in the filling stations there or some sort of a creamy bun. But they've taken away the car parking spaces just for normal growth. Yeah. And I think people, you will see more of this when, so you've got just a service station and they're putting in these chargers. Well, who's going to lose out? And a lot of times it's actually the trucks, the space for trucks that'll be sacrificed, you know. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And what a contrast, again, with Bolivia, because I can't imagine there's a single electric vehicle in Bolivia.

25:42No, no, no. I think they probably had spiked a little bit in Bolivia with the abolition of the subsidies. but well I definitely didn't see any anyway you probably couldn't get more of a contrast like you say Norway are on a big electric push look they've got the money to do it I suppose and really you do need money to be able to do it but yeah we actually did we were there 10-11 days so we did 4 ,000km and went further north than previous times So basically we left Oslo and went on the E134. There was a couple of transport companies there we wanted to call to. And then headed north, we went up to Strind, stayed in Strind for a few days.

26:31It's actually a lot colder than they normally have. Like we were, you know, you're driving along, you'd see the ice, kind of giant icicles, you know, coming down from the rocks and the cliffs on the side of the road. Yeah. And when we got to Strind, they were saying, no, it's one of the colds that they've had. But we were really lucky, no rain at all and quite a lot of sun. Oh, good. yeah so that was that was great and you know everyone out there any drivers you meet like they're all positive there's no one kind of whinging and and uh and and moaning and you a lot a lot of places just apart from oslo you any yards we just just drive in and and people don't ask really ask you who are you ask any questions you know or just taking photographs So we went up to the Lofoten Islands.

27:17We got a ferry from Bodo across. So that was like, it was, you know, the same as maybe Dublin. The Hollyhead is about three and a half hours on the ferry. So Lofoten is one of the kind of, it's quite a touristy place, which we weren't kind of, even at that time of year, we weren't expecting, but it was almost over in certain areas with Asian tourists. And you can imagine what the standard of driving would have been there. Not the best, I presume. Not the best, no. but no it was still still nice to nice to see it and we stayed in because you know there would have in the old days and that you know in the glory days there would have been loading fish out there and there was a I'm not sure if you know Rasmussen Transport they've got quite nice I think about 50-50 Volvo Scania refrigerated company they've got that's where they're from Rasmussen so right all to there and from from there then back up you know Fosk and all the way down to E6, off to Morirana.

28:15We're actually surprised to see how hilly a lot of that kind of countryside is there. So you can see why they have the big power, but yeah, not really much in the way of all trucks there. We saw some moose as well, which was... That's always good. Yeah, yeah, quite elusive, but no, I managed to get some photographs of them, so I reckon they'll do a fair bit of harm if you... Yeah, you can see why they need a... They genuinely need a bull bar on the front of their trucks, really, can't you? Yeah, yeah, for sure. And it's tough going on trucks out there. There's no motorways and a lot of hills, and you can see why they get rid of them after a few years.

28:57And also, I'd say the cost of maintaining them, they don't really have, in comparison to places like Greece, or even Bolivia, where you have cheaper labour and lots of garages, they'll move them on pretty quick. Yeah it's such a stunning part of the world isn't it I mean how much sort of daylight were you getting In February Actually more Than we thought that was going to be an issue But no we still had ample time Like it was bright up until You know 5 o 'clock in the evening So I thought that was going to be an issue But it was good There was a lot of snow on the ground There was one night we were Up near Moirana And it was kind of getting dark Generally you try to be off the road before before yeah yeah i ended up doing the dark and it was snowing quite heavily and i was so i was hoping it wasn't going to last because you literally couldn't see anything you know yeah no they're so they're so well organized you know they'll be out with snow clouds but a lot of the a lot of the roads were they had snow on them but they weren't icy if if that if you know yeah yeah quite a bit of grip on them but everyone is everyone is is is maintaining good momentum you If the limit is 80 k's, they're definitely doing 80 and 85, 90.

30:12So the standard of driving there is just beautiful. It's a joy to drive there. Empty roads, good standard of driving. And that's one of the things that makes it for us as well. Oh, definitely. Yeah, absolutely. So how long are there for? Just a week? 10 days. Yeah. 10 days, yeah. And like I said, staying away from more or less, staying away from cities and trying to find, at that time of year, accommodation. pretty reasonable priced we stayed in one uh before we got to string and it was a nice little apartment they actually had a sauna sauna in the in the living in basically in the kitchen you know all right lovely that was quite cool yeah and then when we were in lafotte we stayed in you know they have these kind of traditional fishermen's cabins they call them like wood structures you know and it's it's just on the water you know it's part of the foundation is just still on the water yeah probably a little bit a little bit touristy but it was it was good to do it as well and once you know of course it has a reputation for being expensive and you know eating out and pubs and that that are but a lot of time you know if you have an apartment there you can you know just cook your own food and you'd be nearly glad of it sometimes you know even your own have lunch during the day temperature wise it I think the most we had was it got down to minus 22 or something at night time yeah yeah but we went out for a walk and uh what i find is it's um it's not as bad as you know the way you get that kind of a cold sort of a damp wind like you get in ireland yeah or the only thing is your extremities now you'd want like you'd want your you know your fingers you'd want your fingers in your pockets for a pair of gloves on but uh no i was it didn't it wasn't an issue i was um it's quite enjoyable yeah i've often found that like if it's uh as long as it's like dry cold it's much more manageable isn't it i mean because uh maybe years ago we were in kazan that's sort of regularly about minus 29 um but it was sort of dry and it was obviously cold but not that bad when we got back to moscow uh the temperature rose it was about minus 10 i think it was but because it was a bit more damp it felt worse than what it had in kazan it's quite strange really yeah that's no you're you're dead right like we someone told you like minus 22 you know you'd think, oh, it must be on beer.

32:28But no, there was no wind. But we did find all right that beer will freeze at that temperature in the boot of the car. That's not good. No, well, there was other times it would have been down to minus 10 and we had beer in the boot of the car, but it came to the next evening and it was a bit of a surprise when it's just getting strothing out the top. Put your beer in a microwave to warm it up. It would freeze. I don't know what would have happened there, yeah. but no the supermarkets are quite good and quite handy there as well yeah so that was that was Norway yeah this episode of Matt's Trucking Group Podcast is kindly brought to you by Ewan Marshall Limited a haulage company based on the Scottish borders who undertake general and bulk haulage across the UK and Europe thank you very much Ewan for your kind support and your kind words they're really much appreciated

33:24So back to Ireland from Norway. Back to Ireland from Norway, yeah, yeah. And so, you know, the current state of affairs with returning to Australia, well, flights, that's kind of a side issue, you know, going through the Gulf at the moment. So I'll have to look at maybe going through Singapore. But anyway, I suppose the news up there is the weather, the amount of rain they've had, like the worst or the heaviest rain and biggest floods in 20 years where I left the truck up and Catherine, that town has been essentially a couple of pictures there. You would have seen how much rain they got there and various parts across the top of Australia.

34:03So hence why you haven't gone back there yet. Yeah, I'm not surprised really. I mean, one photo you sent me for the listener, we'll perhaps put up on the socials. There's a particular bridge and it's split 50-50. In the dry season, like the gorge, it's marked up the pillar of the bridge, the support. And it hits like the top is what, 19 metres, I think it said. And then with this rain, that water has hit like the bottom of the bridge. It's like 19 metres worth of water flowing underneath it. It's just mind boggling to me. It's just unbelievable. Yeah. And then, of course, you know, main arteries, main roads are closed.

34:44And then you have all the subsequent damage to the roads after, you know, there's water just flowing. Flash floods. Flash floods, yeah. so um that'll that'll put a put a whole things like the the yard i saw pictures in the yard like there's water water in the pit and um the main main depot there is is is darwin where most of the trucks are are left you know catherine's quite a smaller depot and um i suppose i left it there i can put it in the shed there but i wasn't expecting that my rain took me someone had said to me oh you should leave it up leave it up and down what if it rains but the chances of it are it's 20 years since it happened but there you go, you just never know, because one thing you can never predict or never mitigate against mitigate against I should say is what the weather is going to do and there's been seasons where they've started in January, they've started moving capital in February but it'll be probably after Easter at this stage when they go back out there Fair enough, so I take it with the holidays and whatnot and not going back to Oz, you've had to go back to work in Ireland have you?

35:46Yeah I just Finally said a better go and Do something you know you're trying to Kind of cramming all the things you can't do For the rest of the year when you're Out there and driving So after that I actually did a week At home just on moving floor So that was my first Experience in I was driving a Renault T high I know you were driving a T normal A lot of the time weren't you Yeah I am yeah with a walking floor funnily enough yeah yeah so um that was the first time it so it was a it was a 2024 model not the evolution not the the newer one but it was um you know well spec'd like it was a twin tag and um you know full air all the all those kind of things so um yeah what'd you think of it i i wanted to like it more than more than i did right yeah it was good points and bad points what i found it was very good driving position comfortable to drive i didn't the steering wheel comes back it was a lot of time i don't really have the steering wheel at this you know vertical position anyway so that was that was all right i just found i don't know was it the fact that the roads were bad that it was a twin that it was a tag and that also was on air it was it took a little bit of correcting yeah by now i was talking to a guy recently and he he uh he had a um a midlift one that you enjoyed and he he found the same thing so look i i don't know the thing one of the kind of immediate thing which which kind of i disliked was i just found out my with my left foot left leg was you know in the normal position then when you want to kind of move or pull it back it it kind of gets narrow you know you've got the dash kind of coming out on top of it and looked across the passenger side and i was like oh there's acres of room over there so this has obviously been something it's been like a right hand drive where that you know you're you're kind of losing out in that bit of leg room so i was a bit disappointed with that the dashboard um you had one little spot for your phone that was it there was nothing else for as far as you know putting your uh wallet and stuff into coffee cup holder was pretty poor like i've i've got one of those kind of termos things it was it was rattling around in it so look at that's probably just the immediate kind of things um yeah i didn't do any nights out and it looked like a like a nice cab to do to do a night out in i'd say if i had a you know probably a left hand drive yeah that's I probably would have had a different view and I just didn't find a kind of waking up in the morning really getting overly excited about it did everything pretty good like you know you drive on on a regular basis maybe get to like it a little bit more but anyway that was my take on it anyway yeah fair enough I mean yeah I'm unfortunately not a massive fan of the T that I drive, but it is a very basic fleet spec pusher axle.

38:41It's 68 plates, so it's what, eight years old. And again, my biggest bugbear is the lack of steering wheel adjustment, but I know that that's been corrected with the newer one, and the newer ones are a lot more comfortable. But I know people who have the T high, and they absolutely rate them, and they've driven super space cabs and big scanners and stuff like that, and they say these are obviously guys who are doing the nights out in them so it must be a fairly good truck yeah yeah and that's not look that's just an honest like I'm not slating it I'm just saying that just a little thing that I noticed it and it looked like a nice truck to do a night out in I've driven a couple of Magnums not that many they were both left hookers and I absolutely loved the Magnum so maybe I had kind of high expectations you know of getting that same feeling you know but definitely Little things like the dashboard.

39:32Yeah. I found there was... It could just be a lot better. Yeah. But look at... They all have... All trucks... I don't think there's any of them that are 100 % perfect. You'll always find little things here and there. One thing that actually wasn't very handy was with the walking floor. When you're... You couldn't put it on high idle with the handbrake off. You know, just to let it push itself forward. Yeah. And I had heard that before. someone was telling me about in the mercedes and they had the same thing so um i don't know a lot of things now you need to program this or i kind of program that out let's all yeah i mean it's yeah because the arctic i drive you can have the handbrake off and revving it that's not a problem and it'll push itself forward but the eight-wheeler rigid if it if the handbrake's off and you open the door it pulls the handbrake on automatically which is a which is a great safety feature but it doesn't have it in the Arctic, which I just find a bit strange.

40:29Why is that not quite a general thing across the board with trucks anyway, just to be on the safe side? I don't know, but that's a bit of a by-the-by. So I look up to some of it. It wasn't that I didn't intensely dislike it or anything. I just wanted to like it a little bit more than I did, and maybe if I had a sort of, if I had a like, you know, I'd say it again, a left-hand drive one, maybe I'd get to like it a bit more there there is a lot of stuff that ran i'll do quite quite well like it was um it was it was comfortable to drive and seats you know all that kind of thing yeah fair enough so what you just did a week on that or a couple of weeks just did a week on that and um so after that course then i had to get out and do a couple of more kind of longer stretch legs a bit and do a few longer ones so that brings me to where where i am now at the moment i'm actually because you've not actually told you've not actually told me where you are this is this is a surprise yeah well yeah so I did a run down to Italy started off in a few drops in La Hara in France and then down to working my way down to Italy and down around Treviso and finished around Ancona Pescara and I'm currently in Sicily really oh wow of course for me I wasn't expecting it so I got a ferry from San Giovanni Villanova San Giovanni last night.

41:54I was actually on the ferry for 45 minutes. Yes, yeah. Off in Messina. Can you pay on card now? Because the last time, I mean, it's been a long time since I went to Sicily, but that was cash only to pay for the ferry. Someone else had said that to me. And I had the cash ready, but when I said it to him, I think he would have taken the card as well. So it was€260 for a return ticket. Wow. So yeah It was actually quite interesting When I got there It had all the kind of hallmarks Of that kind of Classic scene You know when you get there There's always a Nice little bit of Kind of Chaos and pandemonium Someone waving their arm around Oh yeah Yeah That front was Louis like in a pink jumper I don't know He was giving out But someone Was in the queue In front of him And the guy with the Yellow With the yellow jacket Was just laughing at him But anyway The truck There was a beautiful V8 Eurostar Pulled up beside me Yeah just a map of it and it was just running so sweet you know i wouldn't have really heard many of those v8 ivecos taking over this thing was just it was really really sweet and bridge with speed line allies on it and you know that was that was great to see there was a magnum then like one of the you know flat sort of magnums from you know about 2006 that era you know yeah yeah yeah and um so when you're driving on to this ferry there you have to go under like a little low bridge that the rail passes over it.

43:17So it's 4.1 meters. Like it's tight. It is tight. Yeah. Marrow. And then there's another one you go underneath. So yeah, it came off then in Messina and you have to kind of go around as like a circular thing. You go around twice. It's to get you up on the next level. But like it's straight into big, there was a daft rigid and drag in front of me a lot of like oranges on it. And he was just crawling along. I was wondering what's wrong with him. But there was, I came through the pothole that big that I was wondering if I was going to catch the bumper on it, you know. flipping heck yeah if you have a solar guard thing i think you want to be raising the air and it's going to be had it yeah no i was uh it was somewhere i've never never been before so quite quite lucky to oh excellent yeah oh yeah i've only ever been there the once and what's the cap what's the capital uh i can't think what it is now it's not palermo what um we did a show there finish the show out got the ferry back and is the is the way we'll finish now down to the bottom so when I came off the I came off the ferry last night I only drove for about maybe half an hour yeah I'm still three hours on Palermo I just had a little little services here so I haven't really seen seen that much of it tomorrow now I'll get to get the drive and see a bit more of it but yeah I presume yeah it's it's it's more would you say is Palermo not the capital no no it is yeah sorry I just couldn't think of it yeah it is Palermo yeah yeah see I couldn't because you hadn't told me where you were I couldn't quickly research it before we started recording yeah yeah when we finished the show in Palermo back to the boat and back onto like mainland Italy started heading north and the road was shut because they're doing roadworks so they're still building the motorway all the way down to the bottom and i got sent from memory got sort of sent up the coast road and then up and over the top of the mountains to drop back down and it was hard work but beautiful and i was just thinking i've got a long way to go and i really want to be getting getting going because i think the journey south i think it had been 20 hours driving from carizzo where i've been parked to get down there.

45:35I think I did two 10-hour shifts to get to Palermo from memory. All right. Well, sorry, I thought you were asking about motorway in Sicily. No, there is motorway all the way, yes, from basically all the way to the whole length of Italy. Yeah. Yeah, it was quite... So yesterday I left up, I was up around just north of Naples and really, really enjoyable drive all the way, you know, different than what I was expecting. I thought it was going to be more barren, but no, it's still quite green. You know, we're going through a lot of mountains with that kind of typical sort of Italian style with trees under the back.

46:11But then you go down into a couple of fertile valleys. But I think the thing I find about Italy is especially up around the north, like, you know, that A4 from Milan across Venice there, it's just shock of lack of traffic. Of course, it's a trip around the route as well. But you end up just out in the middle end. If you're doing this sort of a reasonable enough speed, most of the day you're out and overtaken. It actually gets a bit tiring out. while so it was quite nice to get into uh get it into a quieter part where you could yeah so once you're sort of south of bologna and heading south it just eases off doesn't it and it just becomes and again like as you said look going across to all uh anconi as soon as you sort of hit as soon as you can see the adriatic it's just like oh this is lovely this is bloody lovely and just sort of keep going and yeah just get so much quiet and it's just so much different down the south isn't it it really is yeah for sure like i'd never really been down past naples before so i came across them uh there was a road happening on either a scar across the motorway taramo there l 'aquilla so there's actually a bit of snow there coming across so the weather is actually you know hasn't been as uh it's hard to know what close to bring because they did a run to france the week before la rochelle and then down to carcassonne loading carcassonne back up so um today is the The first day actually I've put the shorts on.

47:30We even had a bit of sleep yesterday. Oh, froggy. But it's quite nice here now. Have you got a fridge on then? Yeah, I've got a fridge on. I think I'll be loading in Palermo to go back to Ireland. So I don't know if that's Tuesday or Monday, but I'll definitely try for tomorrow. Anyway, so where I'm parked here, there's... so this truck fly app i don't know if you've used that before or yes yeah yeah yeah like kind of a late adopter to it but um it is really really handy so it's just a little filling stations a little bit closer to motorway but it's not too bad there's um there's a couple of polish trucks there there's a truck from serbia and uh and two greek trucks which is which is nice you know lovely because there's a greek guy behind me you know he's got a uh an ocean race version version 3 with a tanker he said he's got a load of orange juice on but they're always friendly there's a there's another there's an r730 greek one with an ex-german euro laner on it yeah so yeah so i always like to see a few greek trucks as well so i just went from walking you can walk down into the walk from filling station down into the towns i walked down to the coast there and got a coffee and a couple of things in the supermarket so um yeah kill kill the rest of the day here it's not looking out at the Turanian Sea, I think it is not a bad life really.

48:53Oh yes, bloody splendid I mean I'm looking out the window now, it's really grey and overcast, I think it's going to rain at some point and it's really windy it's not a huge amount of fun but I'm going to retire to the pub soon and have a warming pint and a friend has made some cheese and marmite straws so a little snack as well which would be nice