Barry Jones is probably the only person in Bunbury who has walked every street in town.
After 48 years with Aqwest, 36 of which were spent checking water meters at every house, Mr Jones is hanging up his walking shoes.
Notching up the kilometres over the decades, he has watched Bunbury develop and grow, along with the number of meters, which have increased from 8000 when he started meter reading to more than 18,000 now.
Mr Jones joined Aqwest on July 4, 1968 and retired on December 9, 2016, celebrating his career with colleagues and his family at a special function on Friday night.
He started with the then Bunbury Water Board as a water mains installer and after five years became a water treatment operator maintaining the filter plants, before moving onto meter reading.
"I've enjoyed talking to people and answering their queries and seeing all the neighbourhood activities – and along the way I've only been bitten by about six dogs," Mr Jones said.
"When I first started we entered the meter readings into books and left people a slip of paper in their letterbox with their reading. Everyone had a water allowance and people always wanted to know how much they had used.
"We eventually got hand held machines to enter the readings which are downloaded straight onto a computer so people can be billed."
Mr Jones became such a recognisable figure in Bunbury that people would often ring him for directions and plumbers would call him to ask where meters were located.
At 67, Mr Jones now intends to travel with his wife and enjoy overseas holidays and try out his new caravan on trips around Australia.
Aqwest chief executive officer Brad Bevis congratulated Mr Jones on his years of service.
"Barry's contribution to Aqwest has been tremendous and he has been a very recognisable and important part of our customer service delivery which we pride ourselves on," Mr Bevis said.
"I wish him a happy and relaxing retirement, he deserves it.”
