well with a couple of weeks off, i asked if my friends at MDF if they needed any help for a few days. initially i was told it was a bit quiet, then about an hour later the phone went again asking when on the sunday i could leave. despite my asking about using the harwich boat i was told to go sunday morning and head for dover, and on to ijmuiden in the netherlands ready for tipping on monday. not a problem!
ready to roll from yarmouth
on the P&O out of dover
once i was off the ferry, i stopped at veurne in belgium for some diesel
catwalk covers the tanks (hopefully) helping prevent diesel theft
unfortunately there had been an accident on the motorway towards gent, and i lost a lot of time crawling in traffic, so i wasnt going to make it all the way that night so i decided to stop at meer truckstop on the belgium/netherlands border for the night, have a 9 hour break and crack on in the morning
queueing. a volvo 4x4 had punted a volkswagen van and it was all in the outside lane, not good
9 hours off, and i was on the road again. for a monday morning, i had a great run, i didnt get held up anywhere even around amsterdam where i expected to. i rolled into ijmuiden about 9 and got tipped straight away. i then went around the corner to the dutch office, had a shower and a coffee as another truck rolled up with some stuff on it i was taking just up the road before i reloaded for scotland. the place where the other stuff was tipping was velsen noord, the other side of the water to ijmuiden basically.
approaching ijmuiden
the truck with bits i was tipping round the corner…
empty and waiting…
waiting in velsen noord to tip 8 pieces, i had to reverse in blind side, and of course when no one is watching it goes a treat!
once done in velsen noord, it was back to the depot to reload 2 empty containers which were going to aberdeen (they had come from gdansk in poland!) although they looked good for scrapping in my opinion, ah well must be wanted, mine isnt to reason!!
loaded
saw this old mk2 kadett too, dont see many of them now…
as i had been a good boy, they had booked me on the ferry from ijmuiden that afternoon which sails into newcastle the following morning, so once i was loaded i popped into the shell garage and topped the tanks up and went and joined the queue for the ferry. its pretty chaotic before they book you on, but we managed to get sorted out. there was another grampian truck (N J Bremner from scotland, 2 scottish panalpina trucks and also a dutch one, so there was a bit of company on the boat.
waiting at the terminal
boarding…
looking at the dock from my cabin
being waved off…
it was a pleasant enough crossing, i had never done it before, and would like to do it again, you never know! when we approached newcastle the following morning, this was what greeted us…
fog on the tyne?!!
off we went northbound. i got a phonecall asking me to do a trailer change at kinross services as there was a driver there who could run straight to aberdeen and get tipped that afternoon, so i swapped over and i then headed for denbigh in north wales with a load of septic tanks to tip the following morning
i got down to denbigh that evening and took a walk from where i was parked to see where i had to tip the following morning, it didnt look too big! i had been asked to give them a call before i headed in, so i did and they told me where abouts it was being unloaded
tipping
once empty, i headed down to clay cross to reload 4 10 foot containers to go back to great yarmouth, i managed to get in there before lunch, get them on and head into j29 truckstop for a shower and some food
i then set off back for yarmouth. i was to drop this trailer at the yard, and run another trailer out to change over with another driver in the morning at the lodge cafe on the a17
took this out to the cafe…
and brought his load of steel back
i then came back, dropped the steel trailer and tipped the load i brought back from chesterfield, before doing a quick load of 2 containers from one place in yarmouth to another one 200 metres up the road
waiting to load on the quay
loaded
i think it took me longer to walk across the road and get my paperwork than to do the drive!
once tipped, i then reloaded from 2 places in yarmouth to then go to harwich and drop for export and bring back some stacked flatbeds, and that would be my week done
half load harry going for export!
empty flats back in from denmark
and that was that. i really enjoyed this week, made a pleasant change! i hope you have enjoyed reading it
Good writing and good pics.
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