To fit in a good day’s work, you start early. At the very first hint of the shift from night to daylight, Phil (Pip) Avery falls out of bed into a pair of jeans, tips Jack the Russel off his boots and heads to the kitchen for the first coffee of the day. He slips the first essential piece of equipment for the day into his pocket. It’s his mobile phone. As he heads out to the back gate to let the dogs out for a run it begins to ring, the business day has begun. Behind the bike shed the first rays of sunlight pick up the shining bulk of the new shed and the gleaming red of the “Pup”.

Pip’s Pup is a 2002 Value-Liner Its first life was as a medium weight prime mover hauling containers to the wharf for Patrick’s in Brisbane. Rejigged as a body truck with a removable molasses tank, the 370 hp truck now humps 12 tonne loads of molasses-based nutritional supplements to cattle and sheep stations throughout Outback Queensland. It handles long runs on roads, sealed and unsealed, and then grinds through roadless paddocks to deliver direct to troughs in the bush – going places that the average four-wheel driver from the city would baulk at.

Read more about Pip's Pup in the February issue of Truckin' Life Magazine