{"id":831272,"date":"2026-07-29T12:51:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T12:51:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/831272\/"},"modified":"2026-07-29T12:51:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T12:51:09","slug":"back-working-for-the-boss-and-lovin-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/831272\/","title":{"rendered":"Back working for \u2018the boss\u2019 and lovin\u2019 it"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Tony McNally from Mount Gambier drives a Merrett\u2019s (from Penola) 2013 T610SAR. Image: Jonathan Wallis<\/p>\n

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Nelson is always a good stop between states, and the little store on the river\u2019s edge always stocked plenty of home made take aways and good coffee.<\/p>\n

This time, alas, the shop has gone, totally, but we found the BP service station there was a welcome stop anyway.<\/p>\n

While there we were fortunate to catch up with Tony McNally from Mount Gambier driving a Merrett\u2019s (from Penola) 2013 T610SAR and towing a Bx2 from \u201con the SA border\u201d with logs to Portland.<\/p>\n

Tony tells us he has been on the road now for 23 years, the last five with Adam and John Merrett.<\/p>\n

He told us they took over the business from their father \u201cSnow\u201d some years back now, leaving him more time back on the farm!<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are doing a great job and I am happy here! On the downside, though, there have been plenty of changes in the industry since I started out driving, not, sadly, all for the better.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had set myself up as an owner-driver for four years, and was happy doing this, but then Covid came along, and that finished that.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo here I am back working for \u201cthe boss\u201d again, but happily this is working out pretty well as they certainly look after their gear and their drivers.\u201d<\/p>\n

This profile is part of Jonathan Wallis\u2019s latest road trip series. For more profiles from the road, make sure you pick up your free copy of the July 31 issue of Big Rigs from the usual outlet.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tony McNally from Mount Gambier drives a Merrett\u2019s (from Penola) 2013 T610SAR. Image: Jonathan Wallis Nelson…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":831273,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[64,63,105],"class_list":["post-831272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=831272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831272\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/831273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=831272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=831272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=831272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}