Back again…. To much going on to blog at the mo, so please bear with me. If I could I’d be doing this as the full time job, you know that.
Plus side for you lot is that we have a new roving reporter living and trucking from Regina in Saskatchewan, Canada. When life in Suffolk, England gets to non-plus and you and the family want I new challenge, then the wonder of being a mother trucker, means you can apply your skill set pretty well anywhere in the world. So in this case, the destination of choice was Canada. A few months waiting for permits and visas and then off they went, off to a new life in mid-Canada just north of the US border
Not everyone’s cup of tea I’m sure, but driving a fuel tanker has lots of benefits, not to mention the danger money! The Super B tankers operated by the Canadian Co-Op Foundation can carry 62,500 litres of diesel or 71,000 gas/ethanol. The two trailer combinations are about 120 foot from the front of the tractor to the rear of the trailer combination called a super B. The job entails delivering fuel to mostly all commercial delivery points, along with a few farms. For now he will be based in Regina xn the relatively local areas (by local you can still clock up 1100km in a days work), until further exams are passed and then the trips will get longer, opening up the whole of western Canada up to Alaska.
For now a day cab Mack Anthem is the daily steed, with the hope of a bigger sleeper as and when the longer trips become the norm. To be fair the sleeper on these trucks are huge compared to the previous European sleepers, so I’m sure he will cope when the time comes. This is just a taster and hopefully it will become a regular update rather than a one or two off!! Thanks AS and family.
Firstly a bit about me. I’m 28 and originally from a sleepy village in Suffolk but now find myself trucking on the other side of the world. I started working in transport at the age of 20 and spent the next eight years working in the office of two well known Norfolk hauliers, starting out as a trainee traffic planner quickly working my way up the ranks. During this time I also acquired my C, C+E and Transport Managers CPC as well as other qualifications. 
For those who don’t know the driving hours rules in NZ are very different. Firstly they still use paper log books, a far cry from digital tacograph cards. You are allowed to work up to fourteen hours a day every day with a ten hour break after each shift. During this fourteen hour shift you are permitted to take a thirty minute break after five and a half hours work. This means two breaks are required a day giving you a total of thirteen hours work a day. You are allowed to work up to seventy hours a week before a twenty four hour break is required and your week resets. On a drivers log book you only have a ‘work’ and ‘rest’ column which makes the whole process a lot easier than changing mode switches. As a British citizen with my C+E licence I am able to drive in NZ without sitting any practical or theory exams and there is no such thing as a CPC. I have recently acquired my NZ licence as I have plans to stay and this only involved a theory test to gain my class 5.
The purpose of this blog was to prove it’s not as hard as people think to follow your dreams, anything is possible with a bit of hard work and determination. I have recently been back to the UK to visit family and upon my return I will be changing jobs for a new challenge having felt like I have achieved everything I wanted to from my previous one. I’m not one for changing jobs regularly but my new one will give me more time off with the chance of bigger trips around the country for more money. I’m even shopping my golf clubs out to NZ in the view of enjoying a round or two on my days off. 
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