When I saw driver Rick ‘Fishbone’ Obst pushing a shopping trolley as he was walking to his parked truck I knew he would make for an interesting conversation.
Aged 53, Fishbone was driving a Western Star 4900 for South Australian company Martinella Contracting and was parked at the BP Cluden Roadhouse in Townsville.
“Everybody knows me by my nickname of Fishbone which I have had since swallowing a bone from a jewfish I caught, which made my very sick,” he said.
Fishbone was going to pick up dirt from Silkwood about 240km north for delivery to a station in the Northern Territory.
“I was born in Murray Bridge in South Australia and my wife Kylie travels everywhere with me. We have just been over to the nearby supermarket. We buy lots of food as we just about live in the truck. I do have a gas cooker and microwave and usually stop at a roadhouse once a week for a meal. I enjoy T-bone steak,” he said.
Fishbone added that is favourite three roadhouses are at Darwin City and Stuart’s Well in the NT and the BP Cluden in Queensland.
His nightmare highway is along the Flinders between Hughenden and Richmond, a notorious 116km stretch.
“It has up and down gutters and lots of tabletop humps when you drive it,” he said.
Although he lives in South Australia, Fishbone barracks for the Hawthorn Hawks in the AFL.
Fishbone bears a striking resemblance to well known Australian character Dirty Pierre who for decades travelled around the country selling captioned t-shirts.