“It is what it is, so you just have to do what you can,” Phillip says with flat acceptance. The bitterness dwells deep and is rarely exposed. “Not much good whinging about. Or not whinging too much,” he snickers. Jenny drives him to and from the shed most days and when it’s quiet around the office he’s often feeling his way around the old trucks or sometimes wandering among parked trucks and trailers in the yard. He’s never far away from the machinery that is, and will always be, such a foundation of his life. Critically though, technology plays its part with a highly advanced phone which allows him to easily source people and information and as he puts it: “To just stay in touch.” Quiet for a few moments, he says candidly: “The worst thing, I suppose, is the disappointment. “It’s disappointing and it gets frustrating that I can’t give Quinten a hand when he needs it. If I could still see, I could do a load for him now and again, give him a break, or just do a bit of work on a truck or trailer. “That’s a big disappointment because he’s had to do a lot on his own. I know he’s capable and he can do lots of things but it would’ve been good to help him. Besides, I miss driving. A lot.” Fire and Pestilence By 2016, the family company was effectively finished and it’s a seemingly untroubled Quinten who shrugs when asked if his father’s condition and the wind-down of Bruce Mathie & Sons put added pressure on him or his own ambitions. Collecting his thoughts, the response was typically firm. “It was difficult with everything that was happening then, but Dad’s condition was what it was and we couldn’t change anything, as frustrating and upsetting as it was. “I think about it a lot, for sure, and it was absolutely disappointing for both of us. “Suddenly, all that ability was stripped away. For 23 years I’d seen what he could do and learned so much from him, then to have it taken away wasn’t easy. But it was an awful lot harder for Dad, and Mum too. No doubt.” As for the pressure, he says simply: “There was pressure, I guess, but you do what you have to do. I’ve always been taught to just get on with it.” And that’s exactly what he’s done. Yet, he is equally quick to mention that he’s not the only Mathie of his generation to run trucks, with cousins Luke and Heath also operating their own trucks. “It must be in the blood,” he says with a smirk. With the inevitability of Bruce Mathie & Sons coming to an end, the opportunity in late 2013 to add the fuel industry to existing logging and woodchip work was snapped up with Quinten’s acquisition of a fuel haulage operation that included a Detroit Series 60-powered Freightliner Argosy and two tankers. “I can picture it and I can feel it. I can picture what they are and what they need to be.” Top: Hauling north out of Cobargo, the south coast village is still recovering from the tragedy of bushfires. Kenworth K200 is the truck of choice for QBM’s B-double tanker combinations. South of home base at Narooma, B-doubles are still limited to an overall length of 19 metres on the Princes Highway Above: For several months from late 2019 to early 2020, several Mathie tankers were committed to keeping water supplies up to fire appliances on the ground and in the air It was, he resolutely confirms, “a good move” and while the Freightliner cab-over is something of an odd-bod among its much preferred Kenworth and Western Star counterparts, it at least continues to earn a respectable living for QBM. On the other hand, with the Series 60 EGR engine proving typically troublesome, it was ultimately replaced with an ISX Cummins. Today, QBM operates eight trucks – three Western Stars, the Argosy and four Kenworths consisting of two T9s including his original T908, and two K200 cab-overs coupled to 19 metre B-double tanker sets. The specialist demands of logs, woodchips and fuel haulage mean most units work in one form of freight or the other but a couple such as his original ’908 and an immensely loyal 1997 Western Star ‘Heritage’ model (nowadays largely a back-up truck) are equipped to swap from one application to the other. Asked what workload dominates the business, he says the ratios vary. “The dynamics of fuel and logs are entirely different and they can change quickly depending on circumstances.” The last 15 months or so have, for instance, been particularly tough on both applications, starting with the devastating fires of late 2019 and early 2020 which had a blatant impact on logging operations. “The whole south coast was alight from Nowra down to the border,” Quinten explains as we drive through the small town of Cobargo where a year earlier, fires took a severe toll on life and property. Today, the town still carries the scars and there’s 68 APRIL 2021 ownerdriver.com.au
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