Alan Bielenberg

Inducted into the Shell Rimula Wall of Fame at ReUnion 2000.

Gundy, as he was known, was barely thirteen years old when he started driving trucks for his father during WW11.  After the war he started Bielenberg Transport with his brother John.  Their first big trip was from a property of a million acres in the far west.

Some of the cattle had never seen a man before and the landowner's idea was to squeeze as many in as he could so they wouldn't be able to fall over on the trip.  He recalls the cattle had horns three feet long and wondered what on earth he'd started.

By the 1960s Gundy was an experienced hand at livestock haulage and his business had grown to include wool cartage.  Bielenbergs carried literally thousand of bales of wool to Brisbane and transported general goods and mail back to Longreach.  With wool prices slumping during the 1970s many of the local properties turned their focus back to cattle and the Bielenbergs spent years bringing in cattle,  some from as far away as Cape York, to stock the area for graziers.

It was hard and tough times and the family had to ride out droughts, shearers' strikes and other calamities.  Never the less Gundy and John stuck with it through good times and bad and by 1980 the Bielenberg fleet included 18 purpose built trailers.  Bielenbergs did the Longreach district mail service from 1943 to 1998.  John retired in 1982 and Alan retired ten years later in 1991.  The business is now called Longreach Transport and owned and operated by John's son David.