If you’d ever like to meet a bushie – a proper one, you can’t go past Stephen of Copmanhurst NSW. He grew up ‘old school’ – from working as a woodcutter at eight years of age to pig chasing, mechanic welding, opal mining, factory work and a host of other occupations that have made him the character he is today. Now that he has retired, Stephen works on his 140 acre farm with pride – leveling, clearing, slashing, digging and filling with his new L2202 Kubota.
He cleared 30 acres using the 4-in-1 to push over banksias and pop them out of the ground. “I’ve done 42 hours work on my tractor since I bought it at Christmas and it hasn’t missed a beat,” he says. “The 4-in-1 front end loader is my favourite – it does everything and the 4WD diesel is perfect for all the implements. I leveled a 14m x 10m site for the shed using the 4-in-1 and pushed it all up the hill out of the way. Then I did some roadworks by leveling 170m worth of topsoil, clay and aggregate on the road and used the 4-in-1 to cut the drainage to about 600mm deep. The tractor works brilliantly, it’s not hard to do a good job with it. I’ve saved about $2000 in expenses already not having to hire people to come out and do the work.”
As well as the Kubota, Stephen bought a towbar, slasher, grader blade, carryall, sun canopy, post hole digger and spare ROPS (for his older tractor). “I’m impressed with the AGMAX slasher. I slashed some thick grass that was 1.6m-1.8m high and it just mowed through it, but I had to go down a range. I’m thinking of doing some geological test holes with the post hole digger and later on I’ll plant trees and do fence posts. My wife has given me one year to complete the work and on my list is clearing debris from the river flats, slashing the rest of the block and building a firebreak so it’s all busy at the moment.”
Stephen thought that SOTA offered excellent after-sales service and was pleased that he had access to spare Kubota parts. “I’ve got an old grey market tractor here and I couldn’t get spare parts for it at all, so it’s really good that found out I could get the parts from SOTA,” he says. “Now I can fix up that tractor and if my new Kubota needs parts I can get those too.”
“I tell everyone about SOTA Tractors because the service is unbelievable. It’s worth more than gold to have someone who wants to do business correctly with you and these fellows do. I’ve never met a company like them for service and I reckon you’d be mad to go anywhere else.”