Robert Symonds
Inducted into the Shell Rimula Wall of Fame in 2023.
Robert, Symo, Symonds was born in South Australia in 1949 and by the time he was 4 could name the different trucks he saw as he took trips with his dad in an old Maple Leaf Chevy or a Leyland. After leaving school and working in farming in South Australia Symo arrived in Perth Western Australia in 1968. Around 1972 Symo carted bricks from Midland Brick, which in those days meant you leased the truck from the company and transported bricks for them, which were loaded by hand.
Symo became a fire fighter before buying his own truck, a D Series Ford to transport his horses for his polo matches. However, Symo saw a dollar to be made in this truck, so he started contracting to Shell. He carted heating oil around Perth to fill tanks on houses for their oil burners. “We would put about 8tons on a 5ton truck” he said.
In 1979 Symo and a bunch of mates, Peter and Rodney Thompson and Rodney Gandy started a transport company in Eneabba in Western Australia called Rural Services. They would cart “anything rural,” Symo said.
A few years later, after selling out of that business, Symo went back on his own. He bought an Atkinson 3800 and a road train set of cattle trailers and went into contract cattle carting. When cattle season stopped, Symo would cart grain in the summer and play polo in his spare time. Contract carting was good to Symo, he ended up with 2x3 decker sheep crates and 2x cattle crates which were removable and would turn into grain bins for the summer.
On one of his rare breaks out of the truck Symo met his wife, Joanne. They married in 1981 and had 3 daughters, Brooke, Farrar and Billie. In 1984 Symo sold out of contracting and bought into Boologooro, a sheep station 80km North of Carnarvon. But it didn’t take long for the driving bug to bite again. Symo had an opportunity to buy a F700 model Mack, with a 237 Maxidine and started paddock carting for local stations. The station carting business grew and before long Pastoralist Locky McTaggart partnered with Symo, and Bennalong Transport was formed. They bought 2x convertible crates and went stock carting throughout the Kimberly, Pilbara and Gascoyne areas.
Somewhere around the 2010s Bennalong transport moved out of stock carting and focused on general freight out of Perth to Carnarvon. Symo ran his business right up until he retired in 2022 and sold. Symo was and still is known throughout the Gascoyne as the bloke who, “If Symo can’t cart it then no one can”. He would transport nearly anything and if he couldn’t do it, he would organise it to be done for you.
Symo took great pride in making sure freight was loaded correctly and that a tarp looked like it was shrink wrapped on, with a twang in the ropes and perfect envelopes, if it wasn’t done that way, he’d make you do it again. Symo was known for saying, “Yeah mate if we’re not on time, we are early.” Symo retired after 55 years in the industry and loved the days when ‘we weren’t in such a hurry and you could have a good cook up and a beer with your mates along the way’.
