IT'S 6.30am at McCarthy Transport's Masterton yard. It's dark and cold, but truck driver Lyn Evans, my guide for the day, has been working since 3am.
With the truck already loaded - 45 tonnes of truck and logs - we're quickly on the road. We're heading northeast via the Pahiatua Track to Santoft Forest, near Bulls, to drop off the first load of logs.
Masterton harvested 368,221cu m of forest in 2007, and nationally the forestry and logging industry was worth about $1.4 billion to New Zealand last year.
Lyn is one of about 95 drivers who work for McCarthy Transport, which has three hubs in the North Island.
He's been driving logs for 22 years, and stock trucks before that, and loves the independence of the job.
Lyn's not shy about sharing his pet hates: cyclists, pedestrians, roundabouts and bad drivers.
"Cyclists get on the roads, especially those ones in leotards, and they think they own the road. They travel a metre out from the white line, sometimes two or three abreast, and none of them have got a rear vision mirror and half have got iPods in their ears."
Pedestrians and drivers who take a carefree approach to indicating at roundabouts can also be an issue, says Lyn.
"I think a lot of people don't realise what it takes to stop these things."
In his time driving trucks, Lyn says, things have changed.
His jobs are now put on an iPhone which sits in the cab, and his movements are monitored via its GPS so dispatch can see the progress he is making on jobs.
He said the most noticeable change has been in the areas of health and safety and ongoing driver training - drivers recently had a health and nutrition workshop to make sure they are looking after themselves on the road.
All drivers are very clear on the dos and don'ts, says Lyn - for example, they can work a maximum of 13 hours a day, up to 70 in a week. Logbooks need to be filled out accordingly, and chains on the logs need to be secured and checked thoroughly.
With the Manawatu Gorge closed, the trip to Santoft is 20 to 30 minutes longer than it should be, and the Pahiatua Track is a windy, narrow road.
"The first time I drove it I didn't think I would come out the other side, but now I've driven it so many times it's nothing."
Lyn says that he prefers the Rimutakas to the Track, as at least over the Rimutakas there are passing lanes and slow-vehicle bays.
At one point along the Track, six cars are backed up behind Lyn's truck, though as soon as a big enough verge appears, he pulls over to let them pass.
He recounts an incident near Tinui five or six years ago in which a car attempted to pass him on a stretch of black ice - the car ended up on its roof.
Driving along the Pahiatua Track, he points out several broken fences - Lyn reckons the fences are fixed up time and time again, but people keep crashing in the same places.
"People just don't know how much room they need, especially on the corners."
We arrive at Santoft, and the load is hoisted off the back within 15 minutes, leaving us to make our way to Lismore Forest, up the Wanganui River.
As we enter the forest, Lyn asks me if I'm afraid of heights. I soon see why.
The track leading up to the skids is perched on the side of a hill, steeply rising into the heart of its logging operations.
Arriving at our destination, I also see why the skids are called the skids - there's more mud on the ground than one would see after a rained-out music festival.
It's thick, deep, months-old mud which stops us in our tracks after we're reloaded. Lyn radios the guy in the grapple loader, and his machine wobbles up to Lyn's truck and nudges it out of the rut - or skid row.
We're lucky to have a fine day, and the track has dried out a bit - even Lyn admits to getting a bit nervous coming down the track on a wet day with a full load on the back.
We creep down the hill carefully, and we're on the road again, back to Waingawa.