The Millers Flat Carrying Company was a legendary Central Otago trucking institution. We chronicle the company’s 31-year history.

Millers Flat is the first town in Central Otago as you leave coastal Otago on SH8. Entering the town, you are greeted by a familiar brick pub, and as hard as it is to go past it, you have to turn right to get into the heart of the town itself. In the process, you cross one of the country’s best bridges, one that Millers Flat Carrying Co trucks crossed many times during the ownership of Roy Tosh and Forbes Knight from 1954 to 1985.

Forbes and Roy were working at Clutha Carrying when their aspirations to own their trucks started gathering steam. Forbes had done time in the army as a driver and worked on farms and Roy had also come off farms, so neither was a stranger to hard work. Forbes recalls unloading bagged super at nearby Carterhope when at Clutha Carrying: “Two hundred tons of it, and 12 bags to the ton,” he says. That is about 84kg per bag, so no wonder he ranted somewhat. But they got on with it – as you did.

The men became aware of a three-truck business coming up for sale over in Millers Flat. They gathered finance through family and, in 1954, bought L Brady Carrier. Forbes was 22 years old and Roy somewhat older. The business consisted of the depot and three Ford V8s, with work consistent with most rural carriers of the day: livestock, fertiliser, coal and whatever else could fit on the back of a relatively small four-wheel truck.

The trucks weren’t great. In fact, they were “hopeless”, according to Forbes. They constantly blew diffs and overheated regularly. It is a hilly area, though, and the trucks were likely pushing their limitations every time they drove out the gate.

New diffs weren’t cheap but Syd Brenssell, a transport operator over at Edievale, suggested Fordson tractor diffs as a cheaper replacement, and that worked.

The company came with a licence to cover all of Tuapeka County through to Burnside in Dunedin, which was handy as there was livestock processing in Burnside. Some of the work was gravelling roads for the county, giving them quite a range.

But, like all small towns, the railway line running through it led to the restriction of transport against rail; a measly 30 miles (48km) but later increased to 40 miles (64km). From Millers Flat, it was the Hercules Line, which ran from Clarkesville to Hercules Flat just shy of nearby Roxburgh. It would eventually close in 1968.

From Fords to Commers

There wasn’t much in the way of livestock back in the 1950s. Most of the land was grazed by rabbits and farms were still being broken in. Two of the Fords would spend time carting sand for the Roxburgh hydro project under contract for Fulton Hogan. Due to their constant issues, the Fords were all replaced with Commers and one of the first jobs for the new trucks was to cart away the working men’s huts from the Roxburgh hydro. The Commers were better, but like the Fords, they did more than they were designed to do. Gardner Motors in Dunedin supplied the first models and VTR Motors in Invercargill, the later ones.

Roy and Forbes both drove, and Roy would oversee most of the company’s daily operations. The work was mostly manual and very hard. Take a look at old photos of truck drivers back in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, and you can tell it was physical work. The Commers were doing well and would become the company’s backbone through the 1960s and into the mid-1970s. Most of them would eventually pull a trailer.

Donald Gilmour was to become one of the senior drivers for Millers Flat Carrying. He was also the company mechanic, but his forté was engineering. He built some lovely cattle boxes for the company. Donald was working at the Millers Flat lucerne company, driving a GMC. It would cart raw lucerne into the factory for processing into powder and pellets. When the factory closed down, the machinery was trucked on the back of Millers Flat Commers to a new home in Hinds, where it is still in use today. Donald went to the Carrying Company and onto one of the Commers. He would go onto a petrol-powered tractor unit pulling a semi with another single-axle trailer behind that. This Commer would later be replaced with a diesel version. Donald was said to be the ultimate driver and could back an A-train combination effortlessly without a locking pin. Plenty of drivers would come and go over the years, but Forbes believed in employing local drivers when possible. Colin South, George Beel, Ray Kerse, Merv Hume and Jimmy Adams from Tulloch Transport fame also did time at Millers Flat Carrying.

An unemployed Lenny Davis rocked up on a post bus and slept on the bench outside the local shop before going down to inquire about a job – probably after finishing at Hydro Haulage after the completion of the dam project. Plenty of casual work was available during the summertime, especially when there was hay to be made.

Nissans for apples and pears

Along with the rural sector work, carting fruit was also an income stream. Central Otago is well known for its orchards, which start about Millers Flat and continue through to Cromwell. The good climate and irrigation from the nearby Clutha River make conditions ideal for growing. Most fruit was trucked to Ettrick, where the NZ Apple and Pear Board had its cool stores, and also to a cooperative pack house next door. From there, it would be loaded onto a train and taken to Dunedin.

In 1968, the Apple and Pear Board wanted to truck fruit directly from the cool stores in Ettrick to Dunedin. Forbes and Roy had trucks carting locally into the cool stores, giving them a chance to get into this venture. They decided to trial a new truck and trailer for this work. The big issue was the 40-mile restriction against the rail. They couldn’t cart the fruit when the train was already there. Forbes requested that the Apple and Pear Board sort this or there would be no point in the trial taking place. With that, they contacted the minister for transport, who happened to be Peter (JB) Gordon, and asked if it was possible to lift the restriction. It coincided with government plans to shut the Hercules Flat line, so everything fell into place.

This work saw a departure from the Commer brand. Forbes and Roy took a punt with a new 4×2 Nissan Diesel Taska, boasting 170hp (127kW), and trailer to trial the fruit cartage. It was the first of its type assembled in New Zealand and had done the rounds as a demonstrator. The work literally proved fruitless as Dick Holgate, who was also going for the work, won the contract. The rest you could say on that front was history – the pink Volvos of Holgate and Anderson would become synonymous with carting fruit for the next three decades.

On a side note, Dick Holgate was also working at Clutha Carrying and left around the same time as Roy and Forbes. Dick bought Lauder Transport in Ōmakau.

The fruit cartage was an opportunity lost for Millers Flat Carrying, but the Nissan was to remain in the fleet. UD shouted Forbes a trip to Japan to have a look at another Nissan – this time, its big brother, a 6×4 Rhino. Forbes and Roy bought that as well.

Forbes’ thoughts on the Taska can’t really be expressed in a G-rated magazine. It would overheat often and crack heads traversing all the hills around this neck of the woods. The new boy on the block wasn’t cutting it with its British stablemates, so the boffins at Nissan Japan sent engineers over to evaluate and troubleshoot its woes. As it was the first in New Zealand, it was good to be seen to be backing their product. However, they were somewhat taken aback when they saw what the truck was doing and what landscapes it had to contend with. In Japan, they put tunnels through their hills, keeping things flat … but not here, where we wind our way around and over. The Japanese didn’t put a trailer behind their trucks either and ran their permitted weight … not here, though. ‘Load ‘em up and make them work, and then put a trailer on behind.’

The evaluation was the truck doing what it wasn’t designed to do. The Rhino went well but was noted to crack its head at least once. It was a big beast, though. An extra axle was added in front of the tandems to help get the weight balance right. It made for an impressive truck and Forbes was its main driver. It was a tipper and had its own crates, pulling a two-axle trailer most of the time.

Charlie Skevington drove it later and had an unfortunate incident travelling home one night after taking lambs to the Fairton freezing works. With his girlfriend Fiona, later to be his wife, they hit a horse at full noise on the Hilderthorpe Straights just north of Ōamaru. The horse’s head hit the windscreen but didn’t go all the way through, and the cab was pretty much broken off the chassis and the trailer crate came off and hit the back of the truck. It was repaired and lived to fight another day.

Introducing Fuso

When the rail was open, the train would bring in Southland Phosphate Company fertiliser and coal and would be unloaded. However, when it closed in 1968, the carrying company had to go over to West Otago Transport at Heriot to get its Southland Phosphate fertiliser – some farmers preferred that product. Heriot still had its rail coming into town and would retain that until 1978, when the big floods made it uneconomical to repair the line. The product was loaded into the trucks with Fordson clamshell loaders, which were popular then. If it were a busy day, Millers Flat would take its own loader over or use the ones owned by West Otago Transport. Many companies had them for this purpose, and for unloading from trucks and trailers that didn’t have a hoist. As tipping decks became standard and the rail slowly disappeared, the clamshell loaders fell the same way.

In winter, Donald Gilmour would take his Commer into Burnside for fertiliser, but would wait until three in the afternoon to leave, giving the Manuka Gorge time to thaw out fully. The single-drive Commer struggled to gain traction on some corners when it was icy, but at certain times of the year, Manuka Gorge never thaws out. The Kempthorne Prosser and Dominion Fertiliser works at Burnside had a steep entry point, which was also the exit point. Some trucks couldn’t get back out fully loaded, especially the single drives like the Millers Flat Carrying Commers. Charlie Skevington, who drove Commer No.7, a 1968 model, and then a new Commer, No.12, found it easier to exit via the freezing works by going over a bridge and through a tunnel where the livestock trucks unloaded.

The loathed Taska was shown the door in about 1972 after being written off in an accident when its brakes failed at Shingle Creek. It ended up down a hill and in a bank. A K-Series Dodge with a Perkins 510 V8 was bought as its replacement, and another new Commer arrived at the same time. Ian Pringle, who was on the Taska, was put onto the Dodge, which had a front-of- body hoist. The Commers were all twin-ram under-body types. The Dodge had a two-deck cabover pen stock crate and pulled a two-axle trailer.

John Rae joined the company in 1973 and went onto Commer No.7. Tony Omand was also with the company, on Commer No.9. He had arrived in the late 1960s from Gardner Motors in Dunedin, where he was a mechanic and he was also a mechanic at Millers Flat Carrying. Donald Gilmour was still on his No.4 Commer but received a new T81 Fuso in 1974; another four-wheeler tractor unit pulling two trailers and again supplied by VTR Motors. His original TS3 Commer would become a spreader, as would its Commer replacement (No.4).

A step-up to Volvo

Spreading wasn’t a big thing for Millers Flat Carrying. As mentioned, the area is covered in hills and a single-drive Commer, even with chains on the back, wouldn’t really cut the mustard – so it was left for the aeroplanes to do most of the work. It was the job of the carrying company to get the fertiliser up to the airstrip, though. Commer No.4 was evidence of that when it rolled and needed a new cab.

Ewan Tosh remembers going along for ride when he was a young fella. “A convoy of Millers Flat Carrying trucks headed into Beaumont Station, all overloaded to hell with superphosphate, and I had to open 30-odd gates all the way through.”

The poor bloke at the end of the convoy had to close them all again. Overloading wasn’t uncommon in such a scenario, as the convoy opted for back roads. One would imagine that they would have taken the main road back afterwards when empty…

The T81 Fuso went well, so it prompted the purchase of a second one in 1975. It was a 6×4 rigid with the new-style cab and was the first in the fleet to get a three-axle trailer with three-deck Sutton crates, which, back in 1975, were a load in themselves. It did have an aluminium deck all the same…

This T81 was a 330hp (246kW) V8 model, so it sounded good. John Rae was its driver, and the Fuso was a big step up from anything else in the fleet, but it would turn out not to be the most reliable truck. An undersized radiator caused most of the grief, and the clutch wasn’t that great, either. Again, like the early Ford V8s and the Nissan Taska, it was prone to overheating and cracked a head occasionally. The Kysor temperature warning alarm would sound often, usually when a hill would come into sight … the Devil’s Elbow between Raes Junction and Edievale on SH90, in particular. It was frustrating as the alarms are loud, so John installed a cut-off switch to eliminate the problem and relied on the temperature gauge to keep matters in hand. The Fuso also spent three months off the road when a car pulled out in front of John going through Waihola. It was only six months old when that happened.

The Nissan Rhino was next to be pensioned off. In 1976, Forbes and Roy purchased a new six-wheeler G88 Volvo with a three-axle trailer. The G88 had a new Sutton three-pen crate, but the trailer had a new Toko Engineering one. Toko was in its infancy as a company, and it was not a popular sheep crate. Forbes would drive the G88 most of the time and would often flog John’s Sutton-crated trailer and use that, as it was more user- friendly. While Forbes was driving the G88, Roy was driving a TK Bedford, which replaced his No.5 petrol-powered Commer.

The Volvo was a big step up again and the reason for its purchase was its light tare weight and the fact that quite a few were now proving themselves as good, reliable, comfortable trucks on the roads of Central Otago. Teviot Transport, Cromwell Transport, Upper Clutha Transport, Radford’s, Turners … and let’s not forget those iconic pink Holgate and Anderson Haulage ones. They were popular trucks.

The Volvo theme repeated in 1980 when Tony Omand received a new F10. As the replacement in New Zealand for the G88, it was also a popular truck. This one received Nationwide livestock crates.

The last purchase was another Volvo: an N1025 bought set up as a spreader with a twist- lock body, so it could also be a tipper. It was purchased from Dalhoff and King, which had bought it off McDougalls, which had depots in Invercargill and Winton. Originally a tractor unit, Millers Flat had it stretched for the fert spreading bin.

John had a stint on it and recalls his first load: “The first load I sowed was a mixture of super and oats. I drove to the paddock, set the computer, walked around to make sure everything was right and hopped in and set off. I looked in the bin after the first round and it was all gone! Turns out I had turned the power switch the wrong way and put the bin in stationary unload. What an expensive mistake … Not long after that, Ian Beel took over and was a dab hand at sowing!”

Hard winters and big weeks

Winter periods were a chance to get on top of maintenance, painting sheep crates and getting staff away on holidays. There was a lot of coal to be delivered as everyone had an open coal-burning fire back then. There was always a coal shed to be filled with a hand shovel.

Frost fighting was a huge thing during the autumn and winter. Shell would supply the diesel to three tanks in the depot, and Millers Flat Carrying had a couple of tankers to deliver diesel to frost pots throughout the many orchards in the area. There was one rigid tanker and one semi-trailer tanker carried around by the Commers. Charlie Skevington and Donald Gilmour would do this and would be up all night getting on top of it.

“Winters were so much harder back then, not a good time to hang your washing out with all the frost pots burning,” says Charlie. John Rae adds: “You would get up in the morning and go outside and the sky was black with smoke.”

The burning of pots would usually happen during the blossom period and could go into November if unlucky.

Pre-lamb shearing would kick off around August, so there was also wool to cart. Early lamb drafts would start in about November after the weaning. Lambs would be the morning loads and then the crates would come off for hay cartage into the night. Doing hay was a massive, labour-intensive job back then, with mostly small bales. Friday and Saturday were big hay days and Sunday a big day for carting livestock. Sheep and bales of hay equated to the same – one small bale was the same as one sheep when loading.

It was the time before log books, so big days were the norm during the busy season. Livestock would be carted through to May and then there was the fruit to do.

John Rae recalls a 42-hour day! “Millers Flat to Burnside and back to Millers Flat, and then up to Smithfield in Tīmaru, then back to Raes Junction just shy of Millers Flat for calves to go back up to Orari in Mid Canterbury … admittedly, I squeezed in two hours’ sleep at Raes,” he says. This was back in 1974 and in the K Series Dodge pulling a two-axle trailer. There were three trucks from the company doing that work that day. They all stayed in Makikihi on the way home.

Charlie Skevington recalls something similar about the long days. “Roy’s wife would prepare food for us, so we always ate well, and we were given an overnight or away allowance. This would somewhat backfire as we would stop at places like Dunsandel, Makikihi, St Andrews or Palmerston, and then spend our allowance on alcohol and have to sleep in the cabs of our trucks,” he laughs. “And Roy would always have his bedroom light on until he knew you had made it safely home, no matter what time of the night it was.”

End of an era

In 1985, Forbes and Roy decided to sell up. After 31 years in business, Roy was ready to retire. Ultimately, the fleet consisted of three Volvos, two Fusos, two Commers and the TK Bedford.

That there were Commers to the end showed they were great trucks and reliable as the tide. Yes, every now and then, one would fail – such as John seizing one at Crookston with a full load of lambs bound for Mataura. Tony Omand always had a spare engine in the workshop, ready to be fitted when needed. It was usually about the 90,000-mile (144,000km) mark when another motor was required.

Roy passed away in 1985 after the company was sold, so sadly, retirement was short-lived. He was a very community- orientated man. He started up the fire brigade in town with a car and a pump trailer, obviously making a statement that having some sort of fire response in the town was very important. He was also very handy when it came to fixing valve radios and televisions. Often, in the evening, he would be out with his bag of replacement valves fixing the locals’ TVs and radios. Hewsons in Tapanui trained him up to do this.

Forbes still lives in Millers Flat and is now in his 90s, and has spent his life supporting horse racing clubs and sports in general.

The company was sold to Mount Benger Timber which had sawmills in Ettrick, Palmerston and Ranfurly. It wanted its own trucks to cart logs into the sawmills as well as running the rural side as usual. Within two years, that company went under and took what was left of the carrying company with it.

“Work was hard, but you made things work for you to make things slightly easier. It was hard, but a great place to learn,” says John Rae.

Charlie Skevington echoes John’s words: “It was a great grounding and a great place to work.”