Day 3 of 5 Day In The Life Of A HGV Tramper

Alarm went off at 0320hrs, managed to get a good night's sleep for a change - at least 6 hours! I was lucky that I did not hear any of the trucks going in and out of the yard.

Brew and vehicle checks then off onto Felixstowe Quay to have my 2 empty boxes taken off and 1 box put on.

The 2 boxes came off with no problems but when the crane tried placing my 40ft box on to my trailer it was snagging on my rear pin. 

So a bit of maneuvering and it dropped on to all 4 locator pins and I was off.

Destination Gillingham Kent, not to be confused with Gillingham Dorset!

Arrived at location, but still shut so it's now a question of waiting till they open up!

As I am right on the waters edge I took a picture.

I'm in an industrial part of town so no amusement arcades or candy floss here!

I did have time for my porridge whilst I was being unloaded, another stunning view!

I finished unloading around 1030hrs and had a reload in Dover booked for 1300hrs, so I got out of Gillingham and pulled over for a brew.

Off again and arrived at my location in Dover via some very narrow streets. It's not a nice place to drive an artic around.

The place I had to get into looked tight to say the least but it soon became obvious that no matter what angle I took it just wasn't going to work.

So plan be was to park at the top of the hill and they would fork lift the goods up to me.

The flaw to this plan was that the 7 ton forklift (not a tiny one)! Could not get the goods up the hill!

So I tried again, but with no luck. I wasnt going to risk damaging the truck as it was extremely narrow, it was on a bad camber and I ran the risk of either getting stuck, tipping over, or damaging body panels!

So plan C was to get a smaller truck, load it, drive it up the hill, unload and load onto my truck.

Matthew who owns Coombe Valley Transport in Dover turned up with an old DAF they use for shunting with a small trailer.

He also said my truck wouldn't of got in so I did feel vindicated and it wasn't my lack of ability that stopped me!

Trouble was, this all took time, which as a truck driver is something you cannot afford to loose to much of.

It was touch and go a couple of times that I even got loaded, it was a bit haphazard to say the least.

But eventually I did get loaded but was out of time!

This is where Matthew without hesitation said no problems you can park up in our yard overnight!

Anyone who knows Dover will know that it is virtually impossible to park a truck, so this really was a life saver.

What a total star and Gentleman,  not many of his like about these days!

I pinged a Macaroni Cheese in the microwave and wolfed that down, had a brew, spoke to Kiera and promptly fell asleep!

Stats for the day - Card out 1911, 239km driven with a total driving time of just 4hrs 16 mins.

Sounds an easy day, but it wasn't! 

Another day done! Till later...