For a lot of people, getting ‘off grid’ and away from it all involves putting some dollars down on a four-wheel drive with a caravan or camper trailer swinging off the back of it.
But in the case of Brendan McIver, it is just a simple matter of swapping the trailer behind his 1994 Western Star and switching from work to relaxation mode.
Recently Brendan and his 13-year-old son Ben had made the trip to Winton in northeast Victoria to the August round of the Australian Super Truck Nationals, with the Western Star hauling the trailer, which has been fully set up as a self-sufficient camper unit.
Both the Western Star and trailer have been a part of the McIver family, which is based at Willow Grove in Victoria for over two decades.
The 30-year-old truck still works every week, while the trailer, which had initially been used as a horse transporter, had recently undergone a three-year refurbishment and overhaul.
Nicknamed ‘Dark and Stormy’ by its original owner who ran it east-west across Australia, the Western Star 4964F, with a trusty Detroit Series 60 under the bonnet has been a faithful servant.
“I bought it when it was four years old from Peter Ball in Gatton and have had it since then,” Brendan explained.
“He used to cart bananas out of Tully across to Perth with it. Back then I was doing interstate and had a W-Model Kenworth that was costing me an absolute fortune, so I bought this.”
In the years following, Brendan ran the truck pretty much all over Australia on interstate, clocking around four million kilometres in that time, and today still puts in the hours each week.
“It still works full time; most people don’t believe that it’s a 30-year-old truck. Now I just run a side-loader with containers in and out of the wharf and that sort of thing.
“We do mostly country work with it and occasionally run interstate if people pay the right money.”
Brendan purchased the trailer at around the same time as the Western Star from multiple Caulfield Cup and Group-1 race winning horse trainer Ross McDonald.
“He used it to move his racehorses around and just wanted it to go away with our horses for polocrosse.
“I stopped playing around six years ago when I broke my leg so that was the end of that. It had already been fitted out up the front so over the last three years we have just been refurbishing it right through.”
Today, the trailer is geared up from top to bottom, from the solar panels on the roof running through to an inverter, along with the gas hot water unit and full kitchen/dining and sleeping areas, along with a pull-out awning off the side of the trailer.
“Wherever we want to go we just want to be self-sufficient and off we go with all the mod-cons from home. With the solar on the roof and the inverter I can turn everything on at once like the air conditioning, kettle and so on and not have any issues,” Brendan said.
Down the back of the trailer, the rails for tethering the horses inside are still attached but only one steed goes for a ride today – a Suzuki Jimny four-wheel drive.
“We use the Suzuki as our little run-about. Obviously if you go away, you can set yourself up and the trailer as a base and jump in that to go where you need to go.
“It just fits in snug with not much clearance each side – for now I just open the rear door and stagger out the back – which I will have to do until Ben gets the driving duties.”
With family friends racing in the Supertrucks at Winton over the weekend, Brendan and Ben had headed up the Hume to give the trailer its first workout since the overhaul.
“It was just magic on the road; you wouldn’t even know it’s there. Basically, it’s the first weekend we have taken it away and tried things out, so I reckon we have it about 98 per cent right,” he said.
While still out and about earning a dollar with his truck, Brendan has a few ideas of where the big Star might head once it is again hooked up for some recreational travelling.
“We might look at going up to Alice Springs next year and then head across and check out the Winton Truck Museum and things like that.
“With this all set up now we can just plod along and do our own thing.”