The West Coasters Part Two – The Cattle Carters

Western Australia’s Kimberley region is arguably one of the most picturesque in the country. But for truckers, it’s also some of the toughest. In the dry season, the bulldust is knee deep. In the wet season that bulldust turns a soupy mud and makes travelling through the Kimberley virtually impossible.

For many trucking companies the start of the wet can be likened to playing Russian roulette, you take the risk that you’ll get there and back without getting stuck… or you stay at home.

To recap where we’d left off in Part-One of The West Coasters, we had joined Kylie TeWhaiti, his T4 and Kent Hunt and his Kenworth T9 roadtrain on the Great Northern Run to deliver fodder to a live cattle export ship that was due to dock in Broome in three days time – a journey that entails traversing the continent from bottom to top.

We left our intrepid truckies 600km to the south, because in Broome, that ship had just dropped anchor and five big Kenworths – each coupled to three double deck livestock trailers – were quietly rolling eastward, bull-lights peering into the darkness before them…

Even though the wet was still a little way off, the humidity was already building. In the cabin of Rodney Hunt’s Kenworth T9 the air-conditioner made the environment pleasant, compared the hot sticky conditions outside.

Rodney is Kent’s older brother and in the T950 behind Rodney is their other brother Dale. Both Rodney and Dale drive for Hamptons Haulage, one of the largest livestock carrying operations in the country. They have depots at Kalgoorlie in the goldfields region of the WA, as well as in Broome and Darwin.

This was one of several trips these five Kenworth Roadtrains would make to Fossil Downs station on the junction of the Fitzroy and Margaret Rivers some 400km to east of Broome to collect cattle for the export ship.

The plan was to make it to a large parking bay about 10 kilometres west of Fitzroy Crossing and camp for the night. Loading was to be just after daylight the next morning and there was river crossing that was a little tricky to get through.

It was around 10.00pm when the Rodney eased off the throttle, flicked the indicator switched and guided the nose of the T9 Kenworth into the parking bay. Moments later, the T950’s brilliant bullights appeared over the horizon and it too ambled to a stop behind the T9.

Out here in the North West, where the roads are unfenced, the trucks travel several kilometres apart at night so they can use all their driving lights as wandering stock, kangaroos, camels and horses pose a real problem at night.

As the other trucks arrived, Rodney and Dale set up a small gas cooker on the tool box of the T9 and pulled out some prime Kimberley steaks. As the steaks cooked, the conversation revolved around the big lift the next day and the station they were picking up the cattle from.

Fossil Downs
The history of Fossil Downs Station is a fascinating tale of intrigue and tenacity that begins over 5000 kilometres away on the other side of the continent, in the early 1880s.

History reveals that three sons, Donald, Charles and William, of Scottish emigrant, Donald MacDonald, who had settled and built a prosperous cattle farm near Goulburn in New South Wales made the historic overland journey to the north west with four helpers, 1000 short-horn breeding cows and 100 horses to establish one of the first cattle stations in the Kimberley plains of Western Australia.

Today Fossil Downs is one of the finest cattle stations in the North-West and the ZV5 brand of Fossil Downs stock has been seen as far a field as Java, Singapore, Brisbane, Adelaide, Kalgoorlie and Perth.

Nearly 1000 bulls have been sold from Fossil Downs in recent years to improve the quality of Northern beef herds and the station has for many years bred Poll Shorthorns. In 1934 Fossil Downs was one the first stations to transport cattle by truck – over 230 miles of un-constructed road.

The live export of cattle from Australia is worth some $920 million to the Australian economy and generates an estimated 9000 jobs, predominantly in rural and regional areas. Since 1995 some 45,000 tonnes, which is around 500,000 head of cattle, have been exported to South East Asia annually.

On average, for every dollar generated in the live-export chain, another fifty cents is created in flow-on economic activity. For every job generated directly in the live-export chain, another 1.6 jobs are created.

Back on the road
A D6 bulldozer sat on the opposite side of the river crossing as the sun appeared through the tree-lined river bank. The wide sandy riverbed makes traversing the river virtually impossible for a truck; especially a triple roadtrain.

Long rubber mats have been placed over the wheel tracks to help the trucks maintain traction over soft sandy bed.

The bulldozer is used to pull the trucks out of the creek, even when they’re empty, to help preserve the approaches to the river crossing and also to reduce the risk of snapping axles.

Because a triple roadtrain hauling cattle can have a tare weight from 50 to 60 tonnes spread over such a long length, without the bulldozer, the truck’s drive axles would struggle to maintain traction as they rise out of the creek. This becomes harder for each truck as water from the previous truck soaks the approach. However, with the bulldozer pulling the trucks there is virtually no water forced up the bank.

Once through the river, it’s another half an hour to the cattle yards along a deep bulldust road.

“This is one of the better roads,” Rodney told us. If you want to see some really bad roads, then head up the Gibb River Road, the corrugations are huge and they go for miles and miles, most times you can’t get over 20 or 30km/h for hours on end… it’s shocking up there.”

Kenworth country
Rodney reckons the Kenworth T9 is well suited to this type of work. The large radiator and the raised cabin mean that cooling the engine isn’t an issue and that was one his biggest concerns.

He can recall times, not so long back when he was forced to drop down two or even three gears simply to allow the engine to cool.

“You don’t have to do any of that with this ‘9-oh, Rodney stated pointing to the temperature gauge. “It’ll sit like that (95-100ºC) all day, it’s terrific”.

Up here in the Top of Western Australia where the average temperature is around 40-plus degrees, and with gross combination mass around 120 tonnes, being able to maintain an average of 90km/h all day is testament enough that Kenworth have got the cooling right.

Rodney reckons that the Signature engine in his truck far better than the early models and he’s more than happy with the performance, and so far it hadn’t missed a beat.

The 50 inch double sleeper bunk is also another feature Rodney reckons Kenworth have done well. “There’s plenty of room to stretch out when you sleep and storage for all the gear you need to carry,” Rodney explained.

“See, we might be away from home for a week or even three depending where we are carting the cattle. Then you need to carry some emergency gear in case you get stuck. It’s not like running the Hume over east where’s there’s a roadhouse every fifty kilometres and phone coverage.”

Sounds like the boys are pretty happy with their Kenworths carting cattle.