On tour in Sydney – with Peter Lloyd and his Actros

Peter Lloyd squints in the bright morning sun and points at his “uniform”. “Shorts and short-sleeved shirts – I can wear these kind of clothes practically all year round.” However, it is not just the weather that makes Sydney the best place in the world for Peter – or the “best address on the planet”, as he describes it. “I like the lifestyle here. People just tend to take things a little bit easier.”

“Football and hockey used to be my favourite sports, but now it’s fishing; and there are some amazing fishing spots here,” says the 55-year-old who was born and raised in Australia’s largest city. He then adds with a wink: “If I ever have any free time, that is. Right now, it’s really just work, work, work!”

Peter’s employer Sydney Sideloaders bears the lorry driver’s home city in its name as well as his most important tool, apart from the Actros. Sideloaders are trailers with hydraulic arms that are frequently used in Australia for loading and unloading shipping containers. The driver controls the process by means of a small console. “We can drop off the container in the customer’s yard at any time of day or night without anyone needing to be there,” Peter explains. “The customer can unload it at their leisure and let us know, and then we come and pick up the container.”

Sydney Sideloaders has approximately 20 lorries and transports around 12 000 containers per year. Their principal cargo is imports from Asia. They take them from the two ports of the city with five million inhabitants to the customers, most of whom are also based in or around Sydney. Many of Peter’s trips therefore take him across the famous Harbour Bridge and also past the city’s other famous landmark, the Opera House. Sightseeing from the behind the wheel, if you will.

The headquarters of Sydney Sideloaders is located in the direct catchment area of Port Botany, one of the two ports in the city on the Pacific coast. Just a stone’s throw away is Yarra Bay, one of Peter’s favourite fishing spots. “I love going out in a boat there with friends. We’ve even seen a few sharks there.”

As much as Peter loves Sydney, he also loves getting out of the city occasionally, which in Australia, often means driving out into the outback. “I drive through the outback in New South Wales around every three months,” he says. His destination is the small town of Cobar, around 700 kilometres to the north-west. “There’s a copper mine there that I transport excavation equipment to.”

These are pitfalls that are less of a threat in his native Sydney. However, nature is not always friendly there either: “I was once doing a guided tour on the very top of the steel structure of the Harbour Bridge when a thunderstorm suddenly broke out,” says Peter. However, within a few minutes of this, he was back in his regular clothes again – his “uniform” of shorts and a short-sleeved shirt.

Photos: Alexander Tempel