KEY POINTS:
The men of Papakura's P & I Pascoe Ltd - Cartage & Earthmoving Contractors are in good spirits.
Even the boss, Peter Pascoe, is looking forward to taking his trucks into the Auckland CBD in protest at new Road User Charges increases, despite the likelihood of losing up to $160 an hour, per truck, during the half-day action.
There's some speculation among the men as they head for their trucks, about 7am.
Will the protest be finished by lunch? How many other truckies will show up?
"We might get there and find Pascoe's is the only ones there," says one cheerfully unoptimistic driver.
P & I Pascoe has about 12 of its 20-odd vehicles in the protest.
Driver Gary Oppert is a 64-year-old with a truckie's moustache and 46 years behind the wheel.
He will be piloting a 10-tonne, six-wheeler Scania on the 35-odd kilometre procession into Auckland.
"This is the first time I have ever seen them get together and protest," he says as a small convoy of trucks - from various companies - makes its way toward the Papakura on-ramp to the Southern Motorway.
Traffic is flowing smoothly south of Takanini, on a sunny Friday morning that, weather-wise, is so far delivering much more than it was earlier promising.
As the team gets rolling the radio traffic starts up, with one wag playing the trucking comedy anthem Convoy over the CB.
Things get a little more congested south of Manurewa, but its nothing unusual, Gary says.
"To me it's just a normal bloody morning."
He is beginning to change his tune by Rainbow's End, however.
At Manukau, the convoy lengthens as the traffic slows. The motley collection of trucks now includes water tankers, freight and earthmoving trucks.
Many will have made the journey over the Bombays, from Mercer, Pokeno and points south, Gary reckons.
There is even a bus, minus passengers, making a protest of its own. In all the pre-protest truck hype, it's easily forgotten other vehicles use diesel, and pay Road User Charges, too.
Traffic is crawling by the Highbrook off-ramp, where rumours, later confirmed, suggest some truckies further north are blocking the way of other vehicles.
Such rudeness is not apparent in the vehicles surrounding Gary, with all the truckies keeping strictly within lane two, leaving the inside "fast" lane free for others.
Not that many are using it, with most vehicles sticking to the outside, lane one.
By 9am, almost two hours after leaving the Pascoe's depot, Gary's truck is approaching the Mt Wellington off-ramp, still kilometres from the CBD.
He has moved barely two kilometres in 45 minutes, and is taking smoko in the crawl.
Then, the word goes out that some are packing it in, and heading back to base. It is a rumour quickly verified, when Peter Pascoe comes on the radio telling his team the RTF has called off the protest.
It has taken a fraction under two hours to get from Papakura to Mt Wellington.
But their point has been proven; kilometres ahead, trucks have brought the central city to a standstill.
"I would have liked to have gone on," says Gary as he points the Scania southward.
"A lot of them will stay to the bitter end, you'll see."
