A little bit more info for you Ron
Snow Hill - Refrigerated Cargo Vessel - ID Number: 7347756 - Built La Ciotat, France 1974 - Swedosh Flag.
Gross Tonnage: 11403 - Deadweight: 12782 - LOA: 173 Metres - Beam: 25 Metres.
Sold 1985 renamed Noor.
Sold to Indian Breakers and broken up Alang 1998.
Interesting stuff, Ron and Backsplice. I read that ‘Noor’ means light and is a common name for either males or females. It is also one of the 99 names of Allah. Allegedly he has 100 names, but only the camel knows the hundredth, hence his smile!
John
John West:
Interesting stuff, Ron and Backsplice. I read that ‘Noor’ means light and is a common name for either males or females. It is also one of the 99 names of Allah. Allegedly he has 100 names, but only the camel knows the hundredth, hence his smile!John
Noora for girls; Noor or Noori for boys (sometimes written as Nura / Nuri). In Arabic it’s written as it shows on the ship photo above. Spot on with the camels there! 
Robert
Well thanks for that ,John & Backsplice , that’s what I like about Mirlins thread it’s so divers but still holds the interest in our truckers in that desert land , I wonder what the secret name is ■■ They do make cheese and Yogurt from a mixture of camel milk and fresh urine ,this is a fact !! I am not taking the p —, Mirlins yogurt was aways Ronay Sorry runny ■■ Ron
And how did this cheese and yogurt taste - was it edible?
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Johnny , I have eaten some of there cheese ? this holds the secret of long life so I was told . It tasted like Limburga with small particles of sand and smells like somthing you find behind loose skin Ron
ronhawk:
Johnny , I have eaten some of there cheese ? this holds the secret of long life so I was told . It tasted like Limburga with small particles of sand and smells like somthing you find behind loose skin Ron
Thanks Ron for your answer. The small particles of sand and smell are intriguing… [emoji15] Was the cheese homemade or could you buy it?
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Don,t like yogurt ■■? the only cheese I remember out there was “Cowbell” in little triangles or the Kraft spreading kind in a jar and the jar was often recycled into a teacup ■■? the fridge in my F89 just did,nt seem to work right but it was a good place to store provisions as long as they were canned etc mind you the aircon was on continuously while out on the road so the cabin temp was,nt to bad …what a life when you stop and count the hours spent in the cab its mind boggling … this line up has a few that have been cannibalized
Mah Salahms
You Pampered Pommie!
Are Scots Pommies? Or is that reserved for the English? The only air conditioned truck I had in Saudi was a 6x4 Kenworth, which, with the benefit of years and specsavers I wish I’d bought!
A glorious 2 weeks - then back to the Saviem. Reliable, but hot! No A/C. To be fair, adding a compressor for an A/C would perhaps have been too much for the undersized radiator.
There have been posts on here about trucks going up Taif after 10 at night. I think this may have been so at some point. I can certainly remember going up that mountain in the daytime.
I recall climbing Taif from Jeddah and hearing a bell like ringing noise coming from the engine. After I was over the top, the sound persisted, although perhaps not as loudly as when under strain. Then again, maybe it was louder when you eased off from the throttle, it’s a long time ago! I could hear it all the way ‘home’ to the eastern province, 1,000 miles away.
I was no mechanic, but inevitably we all talked about noises and this sounded like a ‘little end’ to me.
I was going home for 3 weeks off when I returned to Dammam, so parked up and left it.
There was a general ‘agreement’ that if you weren’t there your truck could still be used. As I remember, Pat Conway’s truck broke down, so he borrowed my Saviem. Pat was a mechanic and instantly diagnosed the bell like ringing noise as a little end. He used my Saviem while his own truck was being repaired, then put my Saviem into the MAN garage.
When I returned to Saudi, I had my truck back, with a new little end. Pat had paid the bill, which was less than his earnings. That was how we all worked together then.
John
G’Day John
Yes you’re included as a POM for sure !
Originally all goods, equipment etc owned by the Government and shipped to Australia was marked with the broad arrow mark to identify it as Property Of (his/her) Majesty and that included the clothing worn by convicts. A good number came from your home parts ?
End of the history lesson.
I thought I would get back on track …here are a couple of “Tonka tragedies” these are compliments of Ian (The pig ) Pender taken after the rainy day for the year
Mah salahms
Air con what’s that , working as a driver mechanic with T/A For 2’1/2 years it’s a fact that we had no workshop and all the repairs where done in the street including cab repairs & resprays gearbox clutch diffs every part of the trucks that we ran ,including engine rebuilds and servicing with no pit we kept the spanners in petrol to keep them cool ,it was unbearably hot !!! the breakdowns where many with blow outs etc, hubs over heating , brakes burn outs ,they could be days away but it was right up my street I loved the adventure of it all and got every truck that I attended to back safe including mountain recovery with Taseco a further 2 years , and in between 18months with GCC now those days have gone, but bloody hell what an experienced it was fantastic , the food was basic water was life giving with no shade and heavy work , back at base my mate JD was brilliant Ron
Did you guys not get sunburn often working in such conditions?
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jsutherland:
Did you guys not get sunburn often working in such conditions?Sent from my Hol-U19 using Tapatalk
Hi johnnie,
Skin pigmentation is a funny thing. I have never been brown in my life. As a kid I saw others go brown, but the same amount of sunshine ‘down the coast road’ where my uncle had a caravan and my cousins and myself lived in tents in the summer, caused me to go very red, sometimes ‘peeling’, but always returning to white.
On a trip to Baghdad, Paul Kerr and I camped outside ‘the British Club’ and used the facilities, including the swimming pool. The seven year old daughter of one expatriate couple said to me, as I climbed out of the pool, ‘you, are a very white man!’
In Saudi, I tended to wear shirt and jeans, because I didn’t want to burn, but eventually I could get away with not wearing a top without burning…but still I remained white.
I met my then wife (she flew from England, me from Dhahran,) in Cyprus, and we had a couple of weeks at the Poseidonia hotel in about 1980. On my first day, next to the pool, one of the concierges asked how long we were there for. ‘Ah you will soon be nice and brown, everyone from England looks like this when they arrive.’
He couldn’t believe I lived in Saudi! After two weeks he did. Still white!
I guess my ancestors didn’t see too much sun as northerners!
John
Sunburn yep you could get burnt if you were’nt careful about it once you got an undercoat you were pretty right but believe me it was HOT !!!..try and wash your truck was impossible through the day water dried as it was applied !!!I don,t recall anyone being off sick with sunburn though !!thats not to say no-one was??
Ron I like the Royal Enfield even though its an Indian made one ■■? a 500 Bullet by the looks …you,ll need a half a dozen house bricks in your coat pocket to help you stay on the seat ■■?
see the one I daw last week !!
the next pic I blew it up but its blurred it was that checkpoint on the Riyahd road what you see is a tangled load of motor bikes apparently confiscated and just thrown in a heap !!! the first time I approached the Checkpoint I had no Idea what it was all about so crept along till i found out not to worry just scream through sometimes the cops would shout shwaya shwaya just give them the thumbs up !!!
now I,ll shwaya shwaya myself to bed to cold out here in the garage
Mah Salahms
From Jeddah docks, to the mountain tops , just a few shots to keep this thread Rollin , there’s a Possibility that the air fuel control on the ■■■■■■■ powered ERF will soon run out of One of its 2 elements ?!!! , unless Mirlin puts something in the Tank ?!! I have enjoyed looking back at the sands of time, and thank all home and abroad for the stories told '? Ron
Ron, how did you source all the spare parts you required? Trailer parts were probably easier to get, I assume. What about tools? Regards Johnny
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backsplice:
Sunburn yep you could get burnt if you were’nt careful about it once you got an undercoat you were pretty right but believe me it was HOT !!!..try and wash your truck was impossible through the day water dried as it was applied !!!I don,t recall anyone being off sick with sunburn though !!thats not to say no-one was??Ron I like the Royal Enfield even though its an Indian made one ■■? a 500 Bullet by the looks …you,ll need a half a dozen house bricks in your coat pocket to help you stay on the seat ■■?
see the one I daw last week !!the next pic I blew it up but its blurred it was that checkpoint on the Riyahd road what you see is a tangled load of motor bikes apparently confiscated and just thrown in a heap !!! the first time I approached the Checkpoint I had no Idea what it was all about so crept along till i found out not to worry just scream through sometimes the cops would shout shwaya shwaya just give them the thumbs up !!!
now I,ll shwaya shwaya myself to bed to cold out here in the garage
Mah Salahms
I realise that this thread is of limited interest to those who didn’t live and work in Saudi. But I have found it fascinating, with some magical pictures. My only traverse of the side of abha mountain, shown graphically in Ron’s pictures was before the road was finished, when it was just dirt, and was frankly one of the most frightening episodes of my life. A few inches was the difference between descending slowly and extremely, and fatally, quickly!
I could be wrong Backsplice, but my understanding is that Royal Enfields are the originals and the Indian built ones are Enfields. I stand to be corrected on that.
Anyone who has photos of those good old days please submit them. I enjoyed Gordon Pierce’s trip to Sharourah. I was a couple of years behind him, and the road was at least outlined, though a long way from being finished. it was still an immense adventure, including being stuck on a sand dune with a Saudi/Yemeni (it was a border region and they could really choose who they were) offering to drive my truck over an immense dune. He had a huge scimitar and a rifle. I declined, but decided if he insisted, the truck was his. Luckily, a D10 appeared and dragged me over the top. Surreal!
John.
John …have a look at this site royalenfieldsydney.com.au/ this may solve the dilemma
Back to KSA I seem to think that the period from late 70,s until early 80,s may have been the peak speaking for myself that is I did 12 months and even though I had been in the MN for a good while and was used to foreign places my first couple of weeks were apprehensive to say the least but when your keen you soon acclimatized ! I hope this thread keeps going but when you think about the age group …well need I say more I know there are things I,ve still got to remember all thats needed is a spark to remind me and there were times when an individual good get a bit of the doldrums but on a personal note even taking my 4 days in Ta-if nick into account I enjoyed my stint
C,mon Ron crank up that ■■■■■■■ !!!
