Secret Men's Business 47: Robert Rawlins

[Music] you and me more or less [Music] [Music] Robert Rollins is from Murray bridge and he's turned up here at lancefield with a pretty neat looking truck happens to be in Atkinson and as impressive as a truck is is the trailer behind it Robert how are you mate good thank you good welcome to lancefield yeah yeah great to be here so first time here yep okay so what uh What uh incited you to come across to this neck of the woods I was always coming to clunes and yarra Glen was on last weekend so while I was there somebody said well you should go to lancefield the great Victorian road trip okay now the setup that you've got here and we'll uh we'll walk around have a look at it in a minute is um is a home away from home it is and I think we were having a chat yesterday and you told me you've actually been living away from home for quite a little while yeah well I only left like a fortnight game but but yeah so yeah yeah how long do you intend to stay on the road um I go back to south Australia in a fortnight's Time bit of money there for a fortnight and then head up to Port Perry and then across to Brisbane sounds like you're having to get home next November probably you haven't you're having a lifestyle that many would be yeah would be jealous about so tell us a bit about the truck coming if I can get you off your backside and we'll walk around here and um let's start with the prime mover first uh give us a bit of history on this one mate and it was originally a fluid freight truck yeah um so it was painted in the lime green and that was all over it so yeah and then it um yeah and finish up on a farm up at Cadena in South Australia and I bought it from them sat up there the last five years up there sort of parked in the shed doing nothing did you have to do a lot to it uh chassis rails and start again okay so uh so how long did it take you to to bring it up to this level um had it 18 months so I farmed a lot of the work off because I'm over 70 now and I wanted to get it going as quick as I could I couldn't afford the year so it was going to take me to do it so so we're totally a bit more to do it that way but but it's now going yeah okay wonderful looks great I've got to say great great color great I mean everything about it we'll hopefully get a look inside shortly and behind it is this so we've got a veranda so let's walk up there and you can um you can tell me a bit about it after you see it yes we got us a dance floor folks have a look at this how cool is this right mate what's uh oh hello we'll get to this as well so tell us the history of this yeah well I only found out yesterday um I knew beforehand it was Ford Motor Company's merchandise trailer but guy here yesterday tells me that it's one of the bicentennial trailers from 1988. oh okay when Kenworth did the uh did the circuit yeah Kenworth supplied the trucks and threw off built all the trailers for it right and this apparently is one of those trailers pretty special yeah yeah yeah like yeah I mean you would be the most comfortable uh Truckee here at lancefield with this setup so does it take long to uh 10 minutes maybe dark enough it doesn't doesn't take much um the deck here is operated off the 12 volt winch and just let that down and these are just obviously gas struts just lift them up and put the post in the job's done yeah put those in and put um stands underneath the deck just to sit the deck on yeah like 10 minutes quarter of an hour and it's it's set up ready to go spectacular yeah and hey there's nothing like being comfortable when you're on the road yeah you guys will do it properly all right so can we go in here and have a look at the front half yes yes we can as long as you excuse the mess it'll be right mate you're on the road as you said that's a TARDIS yeah it's a lot more room in here than I would have thought yeah I just had a neat little kitchenette just here all right guys door to get in from that side when the trailer is closed up yep a bit dark in here but uh yeah they probably see we can solve that problem ah mate what a setup how good is this good to do yet and stuff like that but I concentrated on the things that I needed to get done so as long as you're not uh six foot eight the bed's just perfect yeah but it's it's enough room yeah yeah yeah yeah there's enough room heaps of storage yeah what a puller yeah so that works for me all right absolutely but I'd be rude to ask you what you paid for this that is that's a bargain in anyone's book how cool is that so was the the front of the trailer done up like it it is now when you got it all was that was that that was that living quarters yeah no I did all that myself um it was just storage space for the merchandise originally and I've added all that onto it right okay okay so well but that's uh that's just as well you got it for 10 grand then isn't it mate yeah you did have to spend a bit more yeah so do you fitted that out yourself yeah yeah yeah yeah did all that myself and yeah yeah I think come up again it's handy being a handyman so the air conditioning obviously wasn't there at the time and no no none of that was the air room solar and all that up there oh that's what the the yeah the power Banks yeah yep that's 6000 watt inverters there two three three thousand watt inverters and lithium batteries to run at all okay how much water do you carry as much as you want on something like this yeah it really doesn't matter there's a thousand liters of fresh water you're not you're not going to run out overnight no no I can a thousand liters of fresh water and catch about 400 gray water so anything beautiful works at all yeah yeah indeed it does that and what do we got sitting here it's a 51 British Bedford up until she started getting a ride I go did 20 000 Mile in that in the first five years before covert got to us okay yeah drove it to Alice Springs and Brisbane dubbo a few trips across here oh yeah so what's your history mate you're you're tracking by trade or oh it's been 58 58 years 56 years with trucks so yeah probably livestock sort of pretty much did it all your own business or you work for people I had our own trucks for seven years or so but then for that I sort of went to work for other people yeah yeah but less grief I mean something you didn't have to pay for it but this is uh this is just bloody brilliant really is superb thanks for showing us through yeah really appreciate it it's nice to meet you yeah and enjoy the rest of your travels yep I'm sure I will yeah good on you Robert thank you mate okay thank you thank you

Channel: Truckin With Kermie

Views: 2,560

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Id: zoekjGV5DaI

Length: 8min 24sec (504 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 24 2023