Brambles Long Distance

was Sully driving there then??

Nope, he had hung around that joint long enough, to have risen to the dizzying heights of his utter incompetence, they made him foreman ( boss cocky ) of the crane division, he was doing that when I started there.

regards [smiley=vrolijk_1.gif]

Here's another I still get a chuckle from when I think about what happened on this particular night.

Heading north one evening and just crossed the Dawson River and came across a bunch of trucks parked in the sort of unofficial lay-by just after the bridge, I knew a couple of them, so, decided to call it a day myself.
They had a good fire going in an old four gallon drum, this drum had NO holes in the sides and somebody had put about half a gallon of diesel into the bottom and added wood to it, the wood was drawing up the diesel like a wick and a good hot flame was coming from this fire.
Some food and a steel plate was bought out and it was soon cooking on this impromptu bar-b-que, one of the pilot drivers had even gone into Theodore and acquired a couple of slabs of 'barbed wire', looked like an enjoyable evening was about to eventuate.

Plenty of Bull$hit flowing freely, as the slabs of 'barbed wire' were consumed, that is until the evening had a dampener put on it.

One of the drovers decided to have a leek, OK, plenty of space out in the paddocks for that.
Nope, he decides to extinguish the said fire, which had only just been refuelled with another couple of bits of timber and a big splash of diesel sloshed down into the bottom of the drum again, it was burning very comfortably actually, until this idiot decided his bladder couldn't wait any longer.

He approaches the drum and points percy at it and starts to download, must have got about a third of his bladder emptied, when this said liquid starts to evaporate because of the heat being chucked out by the fire.

Now for a quick question, what is water made from, remember your science lessons from back at school.

Well, what happens to a flame if you add lot's and lot's of oxygen to it ?

Yep, it happened all right, there was this great big roar and an extremely large flash of flame, as the oxygen ignited.

Said turkey relieving himself, falls over backwards, whilst everything is still operating as per usual, he needed a change of clothes after this lot, so did a few others, as I'm positive they filled their nappies from all the laughing.
Said turkey goes for a change of clothes and then he starts roaring like a bull, the flames had removed all the hair from around his "you know what", everybody starts laughing again.

No one could top this lot, it kind killed the evening after that bit of entertainment, so we all called it a day and hit the hay.

regards greenie [smiley=vrolijk_1.gif]

Somebody might get a chuckle from this lot ?

Coming back from Perth after delivering a bit of machinery and I head back home empty, I pull into Willcania just on dark and pull up at the Shell for some tucker. When I get out and am walking across the highway, I happen to notice a pilot car and thought, I know that car and who the driver is. Yes, I know her all right, had her as pilot a couple of times out of Sydney. Sit down at the same table and start talking, she's been to Adelaide with a wide load and was heading back to Sydney, and wanted to know if I was going to keep going tonight.
I was feeling OK so decided right there, to keep heading East for a while.

She asked me if I would mind if she followed me, as there are a lot of sheep out on that road between Willcania and Nyngen, not many fences either and quite a lot of grids across the highway, which equals lots of 'wooly jumpers' roaming around out there.
She wanted to use me as shield, just in case we ran across any mobs of sheep, reckoned she felt a lot safer with about 20 ton of steel between her car and any of these ' wild ' animals.

We leave Willcania and she's kind of like a shadow with headlights, tucked in tight behind me and we get rolling along at quite a good clip. The countryside out there is old wind blown sand hills with stunted scrub growing all over the place, these small rises are spread out about every couple of kilometres, It's like a lottery out there at night, any sheep over this one, nope, maybe the next one.
About halfway to Cobar, the rises get a slight bit higher and the lottery gets a bit more keener, because now, when you crest a rise, it's up and over real quick and your waiting for the surprise that you know is somewhere out there.

Well, that surprise suddenly became real, as I popped over this crest, bingo, a big mob of sheep and real close, I knew this pilot car was glued to me rear number plate and she had no way of knowing what was about to happen, it sure was going to be a surprise to her. No way for me to hit the picks, not without her rear ending me, so, she had to take her chances with what was about to happen.

The mob spooked when they saw the lights top the rise and started to scatter, not quick enough though, three remained dead centre of me front bumper, a second later one decided to run for it and I flicked that one of into the scrub with the bumper, the other two were very unlucky, they just went straight in underneath the bumper bar, which was made out of a bit of thick walled channel iron, a good beefy strong bar up front when needed.
So, these two met the bumper bar square on, which would have burst them open, then down under the front axle, which would have made the big bits a lot smaller, then down to the diffs where the bigger bits were made even smaller.
All this was happening in seconds, and by the time the thoroughly busted up carcasses got down to the low axles and small rear wheels on the low loader, they would be nothing more than fresh mince meat along with a good supply of busted up blood and guts.

Yep, that's what came out from the rear end, saw it all in the mirror, just a large cloud of small dark matter sprayed out everywhere, by now she's hit the stoppers, so I do the same. Hop out and have a look at her car, which was painted that light tan colour Holden used, but, it was now a patch work of blood and guts and minced meat, it looked like it had been driven through an abattoir and it even had a bad smell too, along with this brand new paint job.

I start laughing, but she can't see the funny side at all, she's livid about now, and trying to use the windscreen wipers to clean the windscreen of all this gooey gory stuff. The wipers weren't doing a good job at all, only making things worse, so she quit that lot and starts crying, eh, a grown woman letting loose with tears, she was old enough to be my mother, and this just wasn't in the script.
Anyway, I decide it's far safer to load the car onto the empty low loader and let her off when we get to Dubbo in the morning.
Get to Dubbo and unload the car, then fuel up whilst she's got the hose going trying to clean up the car, had a feed and a laugh about what transpired back there and departed the scenery for home.
I reckon she would have been smelling baked sheep guts for quite while, with all that stuff hitting her radiator, every time it rained, or, got a bit hot, phew, another whiff of baked sheep guts, not for me.

regards greenie [smiley=vrolijk_1.gif]

Keep em coming Greenie,
I'm enjoying them.

They are crack a of story's greenie keep em coming cheers

She's lucky you had a float on, they come out in bigger bits with an ordinary trailer on, had a few cars "tuck" in behind me when I did Mt Isa every week and roo's don't break up like sheep do, they didn't last long.....would have been better on their own at 60 kph then following me at 100.

Ya want more, eh, you lot must be "gluttons" for punishment.

Here's another one that somebody might like.


Comeng were a rather well known engineering firm, that used to be on a very large block of land, situated in Evans Rd at Salisbury, the site they occupied, has now been sold and broken up, there's a smattering of all different sorts of factories and establishments there today.

They won quite a few contracts, for bits and pieces for some of the draglines, that were then being erected on site, up at the coal fields in central QLD, I had to go in there, to pick up a few bits over the years.

This is what happened, when I visited that place for the LAST time.

Had the Road Boss and Allison 3 row of 4, as it was only meant to be about a 25 ton bit-o-steel to P/U, this combo would be legal with this sort of weight onboard.

Get on site and inform the foreman of what I'm after, so he shows me where and what it is that I've got to pick up, it's one piece of a foot for a dragline, that's being built up at German Creek. The two 'walking feet' for the dragline, are made in three individual sections for each foot, then assembled on site, each finished foot would be weighing about 75 ton.

All in all, a very, very solid chunk of steel, that's been all welded together.

The building I had to get into, had the floor level quite a bit higher, than what the road outside was, there was a short steep concrete ramp with a very sharp hump/point at the top of the ramp, where it joined onto the floor of the building.
The building was set at about a 45 degree angle to the road and made reversing into the building very easy, the doorway looked nothing special, about 18-20 feet wide, with a roller door up high enough.

Get it into the building and in position, the overhead cranes do their thing and it's loaded, I chain it down well, as it was a couple of days drive over rough roads, before I got to the German Creek site.

Start the truck and sneak towards the open door real slowly, hmm, this doorway is just wide enough to get this lot out the door, the load was about 16 foot wide, doorway about 18 foot wide, not that much room for error here, eh.
Get the horse and and bit of the cart out the door, when the float bellies out on the top of the hump of that concrete ramp, OK, back up and have another go.

This time I hit the ramp with a bit of speed, hoping that I could drag it over this concrete peak. Nope, it all came to a shuddering stop when I was about a third of the way out the door. Get out and start scratching my head and the foreman has got a smile on his face, he then says to me, --- " yeh, thought this would happen, the last fella got stuck just like that".

What to do now then, he ordered the crane driver to bring a crane down to that end of the shed, hook onto the rear of the float and try to lift it up, at the same time as the arse end was being lifted up and the weight eased from the chassis rails, I had to reverse it back into the shed.
Did all this quite OK, now what, the foreman then tells me I have to reverse ALL the way down the back of the shed, just give it heaps and shoot out the door, dragging the chassis rails of the float over this concrete hump, eh, is he for real, or what.

Explain that this bit of dragline foot on board, is a tad wide for me to know exactly where the lifting lugs are, in relation to the doorway, or the side of the building.
He then tells a young fella to stand at the doorway, over next to the wall and give me a guide as to where the wall is, in relation to the side of the load.
I have a chat to this young fella and told him exactly what I wanted to see his hands doing, he says OK, I reverse down the back of this joint, this building would have been about 3-400 feet long, so I should be able to get a good bit of speed up and drag this lot clear out the door.

Wait for the foreman to stop all traffic outside on the road and when he yelled OK, I just give it to it, I'm away and I'm right up it, the kid on the door is doing OK with his hands, as I hurtle down the shed towards the door, check the mirrors, yep, the lugs might be about six inchs away from all the steel posts holding this big building up, oh, these posts are also holding the rails for the crane too, as I get closer to the door, I've now got it in 'high range', that means I'm doing about 35 kays, that's a pretty good turn of speed for that short distance, when suddenly the kid on the door, just gets a look of horror on his face, turns and does a runner.

Oh-Oh, about now, I got a very funny feeling, that all is not right,

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yep,

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it sure aint !


to be continued

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the second bit

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The idiot kid on the door, forgot to look at the lifting lugs that were welded onto the sides of the foot, these were sticking out at least another 6 inches wider than the side of the actual load, he was just watching the side of this foot and giving me an indication of where that was, which was not the widest part of the load at all.

Now when I arrive at the door entrance, the truck shoots out and down the ramp, the float hasn't got a hope of stopping me now when it starts to drag on the concrete hump, then there is a 'god awful noise' coming from behind me and about now, it's all happening.

Now that pesky corner steel post, one of the bigger ones, just happened to be in the way of the lifting lugs, so it gets jagged by the first lug and what does it do ?
Being a corner post holding this big building up and it had the rails for the crane attached to it as well, so it's got to be planted in the concrete extra strong like, everything else that was welded/bolted onto this post was very strongly attached too.
Well, it get's twisted and bent all out of shape ( think of a twisty bit of liquorice ) and was pulled forward a bit as it tried to follow me out the door, the post had all this brickwork around it as well, this brickwork just disintegrated as the post was being bent, this bent post then allowed one side of the big roller door, to come crashing down onto the concrete behind me.

Now when I did get the load out of that door and pulled up, I looked back at the door and there was no way of locking this joint up tonight, not unless you do some radical major surgery to the stuff I just demolished.

The foreman is screaming at me for wrecking this end of 'his' building, but I then inform him ' that it was his worker, who was guiding me out of the shed, I was only driving and doing what you, the foreman, had told me to do '.

Instantly I'm advised that I have a very impromptu meeting the company Manager and I would be required to fill out a large lot of paperwork for all the damage to this building. Pushed through the door into the Manager's office and the foreman starts to tell this horrible tale of woe about the demolition of his building,

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all done by me.
The boss listens intently and when the foreman has finished wailing about the destruction I've caused, he then asks me for my version of events.
I explain to him how and why it all happened, as I saw it, he's looking at me as though I had two heads, but after hearing what I had been told to do by the foreman, and what the foreman told the kid to do, he made me fill out some paperwork, but, he sure gave a mouthful to the foreman.
After I hand back the paperwork, the Manager stares at me and announces to all and sundry, - " that I'm NEVER to set foot on these premises, EVER AGAIN ".

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OK, no skin of my nose, bye, see-ya-later, eh.


regards greenie [smiley=vrolijk_1.gif]

heres a few photos of the offending article.

Really enjoying your yarns, Greenie, you're a great storyteller, mate.

I'll add this one as three instalments

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If you drive around long enough, then the law of averages will tell you, that somebody, somewhere, is going to run into you, or you'll be involved in some way or another with an accident, no mater how careful you are, it's just going to happen and your going to be in the " poo ".

The company I was driving for at the time, Brambles, required you to fill out a report, in triplicate, if someone run into you, or, an incident happened around you, and an insurance claim could be made against the said company.

Hadn't had to fill any of these out for a quite a few years, then in one 24 hr period, I had three incidents which would require I fill out these forms when I got back home.

Been up to Townsville and delivered the load and headed back home empty, got to Mackay and decided to call in on some friends and called it a day. Had a nice evening there and left Mackay around 8.30 the next morning, in no great hurry, was going to head down the track and had to ring the depot when I got to Rocky.

Heading South out of Mackay, the road deteriorates around Alligator Creek and starts to twist and wind it's way over a few small hills as you approach Sarina. Working my way through this lot and come across a car towing a caravan, with another car tucked in behind him, so, I'm now in this slow line-up. As we get closer to Sarina, more vehicles join the queue. I knew the road and where you could safely overtake, so I sat back and waited till we got out of these little hills.
Break out of the timber and the road now straightens up, see all the way to Sarina, nothing coming, so indicator on, car in front don't want to go round the caravan, so it's my turn, quick look in the mirror and it's time to boogie. Round up the car and keep going and start to round up the caravan, get up alongside the car towing the caravan, and then I hear this 'whooshing' noise out my door window.
Quick look out the window and W.T.F. here's a Ford LTD going for it down in the table drain bagging me up, so that's now three wide, all going south, on a two lane road, eh.

Me, I just hit the skids and now the car towing the van is ripping me of on my left.

Clown driving the LTD, realises that a concrete culvert is fast approaching, so he hooks the wheel to the left and just pops up out of the table drain and was airborne, just like a kid does on one of those skate board ramps.
Me, I'm really stopping fast now and the poor old fella towing the caravan, suddenly spots this 'fruit loop' in the LTD coming at him side on, and about a couple of feet above the road surface at about a 45 degree angle, so he hits the stoppers real quick as well, which allows the clown to go sailing up a bit higher and then the nose of the LTD, does a dive into the tar.
The LTD was just going to fast to get any traction at all, and it flips, I counted the diff four times before he landed back on the tar, he continues bouncing nose over tail and side over side for about a hundred metres, finishes way out into this open paddock to the left of the road.
He eventually comes to a stop and the Ford LTD is now about the size of a Datsun 120Y, real compact looking. I'm stationary on the wrong side of the road, and all the other vehicles which were following are stopped as well. I pull the truck back onto my side and stop in front of the old fella with the caravan. Look over at the crumpled mess in the paddock and reckon that the turkey in it, is bound for the morgue, so jump out and go back to the old fella with the caravan, to see if he's OK, like no heart attack.
A driver down the line-up of cars that saw what had happened, comes roaring up and screams out he's going for the cops at Sarina, just a click and bit down the road. He departed in a hurry and then I look back over at the wreck again, and the clown is now climbing out the drivers window, how he managed to not get killed, is a mystery to me.
Start to walk over toward the paddock and another driver from way back in the line-up, runs up to me and starts telling me about what and how this idiot got to be where he was. Turns out he was travelling far to fast as came around that last corner and whoops, lot's of vehicles in front going slow and nowhere left for him to go, so out he goes and starts to overtake them, this is while I was already out doing my thing, and then this idiot, just drives down into the table drain and tries to overtake me as well.

Wow, what a jerk.

Ambulance and blue light are now fast approaching, so give up any idea of going out into the paddock, copper spots me in singlet, shorts and boots and points at the truck and asks me if I'm the driver, answer in the affirmative and he told me to stay where I am, OK, I'll stay put.
Young Plod spends about 10-15 mins with this idiot out in the paddock, then storms back to me and ask for my licence and log book, hand all this over and as he's writing down the details, he announces that I will be duly 'summons' to appear in Sarina court at a later date.
About now, I'm real interested in proceedings and start to tell this very young Plod what I know, nope, he ain't listening to me at all, so then this other fella, who was down the rear of the line-up, starts to tell plod what he saw. Plod tells him to shut it, or he'll get a ticket as well, eh.

This idiot out in the paddock only got a good cut on the back of his right hand and a bunch of sore ribs, so the ambo's departed with him.

Must have been there for nearly an hour and a half, before the plod says 'eff orf', didn't need to be told twice and departed quickly, whilst thinking "how in the #ell could this jerk even be thinking of charging me ", ah well, looks like I'll have to report this lot when I get home, I reckoned I was going to need a good mouth piece, for this to be sorted out in my favour.

[smiley=vrolijk_1.gif]