While Covid confines humans to their homes, insects are chauffeured around the country in Australia’s largest livestock movement
It’s 5am on a frigid August morning and Trevor Monson is at the wheel of his 16-wheeler truck on the road out of the Riverina town of Griffith, New South Wales. It’s still pitch black, his headlights searching down long kilometres of straight roads.
Trevor and his son Jonathan have been on the road since 11pm the night before, when they set off from their home town of Robinvale in north-western Victoria. Pulling into an already-heaving truckers’ and tradies’ pitstop for a breakfast of coffee and cheese sandwiches, they check the precious cargo boxed up in hives piled high on the truck. The inhabitants are still snoozing, cuddled up in clusters to protect themselves from the windchill. They’re seasoned travellers by now, having spent the past five weeks journeying from Queensland to Victoria to NSW.