Former long time Tasmanian truckie Ross Jacobson had a swift baptism into driving in the tropics after heavy rain and floods closed many northern mainland roads last month.
Like Josh, Ross works for Richers Transport based at Maryborough in southern Queensland and was parked up at Townsville near his Mack Trident. He was also on his way to Kmart at Innisfail. “But the highways north and west are closed,” he said.
The previous day Ross had been held up south of Townsville and waited for four hours for the water to subside from over the Bruce Highway.
A driver for the past 12 years, Ross spent most of them on Tasmanian roads until moving to Queensland.
“The most frustrating thing about being held up due to rain is the unknown. And when the roads will be clear to travel on,” he said.
With his experience in the most southern and northern states of Australia, Ross was an ideal driver to ask what where the worst roads he got along are.
“It would have to be the one at Elephant Pass in north east Tasmania. And the road to St Mary’s is challenging,” he said.
It is 17km up a range to St Mary’s from the A3 highway on Tasmania’s mid-east coast, and it’s 10km back down to the same road.
Elephant is the southern pass with larger radius corners but gets slippery at times.
St Mary’s is steeper with quite tight corners and can have heavy traffic volumes which slow you down.
As for his favourite roadhouse, Ross nominated one in northern Queensland.
“The one at Paget in Mackay has great food and they look after drivers. I used to stop at Epping Forest along the Midlands Highway in Tasmania,” he said.
Ross barracks for the North Melbourne Kangaroos in the national AFL and I asked him what his hobbies were. “It is golf and my handicap is 13,” he said.
I told Ross that I had been to Tasmania 17 times over the past 25 years interviewing and snapping pics of truckies.
We had a yarn about some of the great places around the Apple Isle.