Robert Turvey
Robert John Turvey was born in St George QLD 26th May 1963, and grew up in Toowoomba QLD. Although he always wanted to be a truck driver, his parents said he had to get a trade first, so at 16 Robert started his trade as a Diesel Mechanic, first with Guilfoyle and Inglis Toowoomba and finishing his last 12 months with N & A Riley.
Robert moved to Adelaide where his father Bob was working, to work as a mechanic for Hi Speed transport while driving weekends running to Broken Hill, and after work at night doing Nhill changeovers. After 12 months George Dow, the owner of Hi Speed transport, offered Robert his dream job as an interstate driver.
This was followed by jobs driving for Ken Denton in Adelaide and John Kelly & Sons in Toowoomba still running interstate before changing to run Brisbane to Karumba for Neill & Pam Conway at Gainfire with a few Darwin runs.
The Darwin bug bit and Robert got a job with John Bain Transport, owned by Dicky David at the time, running Brisbane to Darwin. 6 months in, Dicky gave drivers the opportunity to buy their trucks and Robert bought the W model Kenworth in 1990. It was then, running Brisbane to Darwin, that Robert met his partner Kate Peut in Katherine and they went on to have two daughters, Holly and Abby.
Robert bought his own trailers and continued to subby for JBT and then NQX before doing whatever jobs came up including carting cattle out of Blackall, general freight to Perth and cotton out of Gundy in the season. In 1999 he traded in the W model for a brand new Western Star and went carting cattle for Gary Ballard and Scott Choyce, before subbying to G & S Transport in Alice Springs running to the Granites. Then came the opportunity to subby to NTFS carting off the rail in Alice to Darwin until the rail line went through to Darwin. This meant the work dried up so the sad decision was made to sell the truck and trailers and his new career in the Fuel industry commenced with NT Fuels in Alice Springs. Fuel carting continued with Bulktrans/Directhaul and Indervon in the NT/WA and then QLD after moving to Gold Coast.
3 years at Savannah working on the coal seam gas moving rigs then general freight Brisbane to Darwin for Reinke’s before back to cattle carting for JBS Transport preceded a move to Adelaide to work for ABC Transport as Operations Supervisor for 3 years (with fuel carting, running dog trailers to Pt Augusta and Alice or Darwin linehaul trips thrown in).
A half-hearted attempt at retirement lasted 4 months before the lure of doing something new saw him working fifo for G & S Transport on side tippers and loving this latest chapter in a very long and varied truck driving career.