A Queensland-based truckie has given his son an emotional birthday gift, making it back home from Melbourne in time to celebrate his 19th birthday.
Based in Queensland’s Moreton Bay region, Mal Whiley has been in the game for 32 years and now works for Detour, driving across the eastern seaboard.
He had told his son Caleb he was still driving back from Melbourne and wouldn’t make it back for his birthday – but in actual fact, he wasn’t too far at all.
Mal asked his daughter and sister to lure Caleb outside, so they told him to come and check something on the car.
Just then, he pulls into the street to his son’s surprise. Mal says the reaction was “priceless”.
“I couldn’t believe how emotional he was. I teed it up with my sister and daughter to somehow get him outside and then film it. He didn’t think I’d make it back on time. His reaction was pretty heart-warming,” says Mal.
For the Whiley family it would seem, trucking is in the blood. Mal and his brother both became truck drivers, following in the footsteps of their late father, who was behind the wheel from the time he was just 16. “Dad has passed now but I got into trucking because I wanted to be just like him – that’s basically it,” Mal says
And now, Caleb is hoping to do the same. He too works at Detour, as a forklift operator, but as Mal reveals, “He wants to be a truck driver too. He can’t wait.”