When siblings Jodie Black and Craig Goulthorpe attended the Shell Rimula Wall of Fame Induction ceremony in 2023, they were excited to see their late father, Garry Goulthorpe, honoured.
They didn’t know that they would each be inducted into the Wall of Fame also, alongside the man who had inspired their own careers in transport.
When Garry got his truck licence at age 16, he would be the first in his family to join the transport industry.
He was able to secure a loan to purchase his first truck, a Commer Knocker, by advising the bank that he owned a farm and needed the truck to help him run his cattle.
The reality was that Garry was a farmhand on a small farm in Victoria that housed just one milking cow. This slight stretch of the truth would mark the start of the five decades Garry spent behind the wheels of his ever-changing fleet.
His last truck, a White 4000, was nicknamed the ‘The Mistress’ as his wife joked Garry spent more time with the truck than he did at home. A self-taught operator himself, Garry would share his exceptional breadth of trucking knowledge and his passenger seat with his children.
Of Garry’s four children, Craig and Jodie would choose to follow in their father’s footsteps in the transport industry.
“I think my first word probably would’ve been truck,” jokes Craig. “From the earliest age I could remember, I was around trucks with Dad.”
Mastering how to change a tyre, tarp a load and get himself out of trouble mechanically, a 13-year-old Craig still remembers the day his father let him drive his road train for the first time.
On a station near Winton, Craig would spend the next two hours navigating a bush track to deliver a load of general freight, a proud Garry by his side. Craig, with this experience under his belt, gained confidence quickly.
Once, while his parents were out checking to see if the paddocks were dry enough to drive on, Craig received a phone call from the farmer to inform Garry that the wheat was ready to be loaded.
Garry Goulthorpe inspired Jodie and Craig to follow in his footsteps.Craig, understanding the urgency, rushed outside to put the drive tyres back on the truck and began the drive down the highway. Upon spotting their own White truck heading towards them on the road, Craig’s bewildered parents watched as their 15-year-old son waved them past!
Having secured a role with Northern Transport, Craig gained his truck licence in Alice Springs once he turned 17. Braving the Tanami Road to cart fuel and explosives to the mine, Craig recalls “some days, we’d come back with an axle on top of the trailer. It was that rough, it would just rip it out.”
Craig would eventually head to Western Australia, where he would find a passion for carting livestock. First with Humphries and later with KLT Transport, Craig would typically find himself loaded with cattle or sheep.
Craig carting stock for KLT Transport.On one occasion, however, he was tasked with moving a load of deer. Far less docile than the livestock he had grown accustomed to, Craig had to put a cap tarp on top of a stock crate to stop the deer from jumping out.
“If I had it my way, I’d go back there tomorrow, but I’m too old for stock now,” Craig says. “It is a young man’s sport.”
In an industry Craig believes is getting harder every day, he is grateful for his current role at J.A & J.G. Young, with “the best boss I’ve ever worked with”.
Having seen his share of 19-hour days, Craig appreciates serving a business that treats its staff like family.
“If you need time off, its not a problem. If you needed to borrow money, he’d lend it to you.” Today, Craig drives a Kenworth C508 that he has called “Desert Boots”, a nickname given to him “because that’s where I want to be!”
When he’s not driving, Craig has tried his hand at building trailers. Reminiscent of his father’s time in the transport industry, Craig has approached this new challenge with resourcefulness and diligence. “I didn’t know anything about it, but I winged it!” he laughs, “Whatever is put in front of me, I’ll work it out.”
Although Craig has not had the opportunity to work alongside his younger sister, Jodie, they have each provided support as their sibling navigated the industry – Craig as a “mobile mechanic” and Jodie as a “second mum”. Jodie was married and had four children, running a furniture shop and accompanying Craig as his offsider when she could.
No stranger to adversity, Jodie was diagnosed with, and later beat, cancer, and was faced with the end of her marriage.
“I was like, you know what, it’s my turn,” Jodie recalls, “so I went and bought a truck.” In 2006, Jodie collected her brand-new Western Star from Wakefield Trucks in Adelaide and promptly had it painted the same colour as her beloved Ford Falcon XR6.
“I don’t start small. I have to go the full hog!” she jokes.
Jodie started with RTG transport, running to Sydney three times a week with her second husband. Jodie rarely asked for help on the road, eager to prove herself as a woman in a “man’s domain”.
On one trip, she blew an inner drive tyre. Whenever Jodie would hear a jake brake coming on, she would turn off the torch and hide up under the drive until they left, determined to change it herself. After four hours, Jodie’s resolve saw her back on the road.
In 2006, Jodie collected her brand-new Western Star and promptly had it painted the same colour as her beloved Ford Falcon XR6.Jodie would go on to run Melbourne to Adelaide for Harris Refrigerated Transport. Jodie would often take her children with her in the truck following her divorce, left with no other options.
Wanting to spend more time with her family, Jodie started a cleaning business before the love of the road called her back after a mere six months. Jodie then worked on a farm at Tarlee, South Australia, carting hay in an SAR Kenworth. Today, Jodie says she’ll “stick to local work and getting greyer!”
Reflecting on her time in the industry, Jodie says “I kept to myself as a woman in transport.” “I never bit to anything. They’d say ‘Is this your husband’s truck? Where is your husband?’. I’d just smile, nod and keep walking. I don’t need to justify why I’m there.”
Jodie did, however, share the road with “some really good men,” including her older brother.
“If I ever got lost or I didn’t know something, I learnt through Craig. He’s always been there for me, no matter what.” It is no surprise that Jodie’s advice to her fellow operators is to offer a helping hand wherever you can.
In an industry where people are quick to mock someone giving it a go, or worse, plaster them on social media, Jodie encourages operators to share their knowledge with their colleagues.
Jodie ranks her induction into the Shell Rimula Wall of Fame, alongside her dad and brother, as one of the proudest, and most surprising, moments of her career.
“I nominated Craig because I really wanted him in there with Dad, but then when my sister put me in also, I was just shocked!”
For Jodie, “being inducted into the Hall of Fame meant being accepted into the industry.”
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