Farmer Andrew Thompson didn’t look more than 50 when he pulled up in his Mitsubishi FK417 at Richmond in southern Tasmania.
When he said he was in fact 60, I immediately asked him the secret to his youthful appearance.
“I live and work on my farm at Campania and eat a lot of the vegetables I grow,” he said.
The six-tonne capacity Mitsubishi carts hay, lucerne, potatoes and other produce and gets as far away as Smithton near the end of the Bass Highway.
“I have had it for around seven years and it is a very reliable truck,” he said.
Thompson also runs a fencing business which keeps him fit and used to play Australian Rules for Bothwell in his heyday.
“That was back in the seventies,” he said.
With Thompson in his Mitsubishi were his pet farm dogs named Joysie, Chelsea and Roxy which are an integral part of running the farm.
He likes stopping at the Mood Food Roadhouse at Kempton along the Midlands Highway and also at another at Conara.
The road he finds challenging to get along is at Bronte and he concluded our yarn by telling me that he expected a good crop of potatoes soon.
“There will be potatoes for Christmas,” he said.