Tutira

I'm also meeting driver John Robson, sometimes known as JR, who I'll be spending most of the morning with.

Today, we're heading out the back of Tutira in northern Hawke's Bay to pick up a load of cows and bring them down for a more sheltered calving experience.

First, though, I have to clamber up into the cabin.

The truck door sits about 1.5 meters above the ground, well above the top of my head.

I can equate it, it's like going to the gym half a dozen times a day.

I mean, who'd do that for a living?

Speaking of, back to the truck, and after a winding journey through the country, we're nearing our destination out the back of Tutira.

The farm track is too steep and too rough for both the truck and trailer, so we're transshipping today.

Rot- Rotowaro and Rotoma.

T Patrol has Te Anau, Te Arawa, and Tutira, and W Patrol as, uh, Waikaha and Waimea.

When a truck gets wrecked, its replacement inherits the name, so you get Te Anau the second-

Ah

... and Tutira the third.

So the, the, the New Zealanders aren't, aren't the only guys who are staffing the LRDG, as it were.

By the end of 1940, the idea has proved itself.