Building sites, boat launchings and even film sets; he has done it all in 53 years working for De Geest Construction.
Now 53 years, four cranes and two generations of De Geests later, Mr Johnston has retired.
After a long working life it would take some getting used to.
"It’s a bit boring," he joked.
Mr Johnston began at the company as a labourer in November 1970.
Six weeks later, he took over the crane operator role.
"They threw me in the deep end," Mr Johnston said.
"Down the back of the yard, with the [crane] on tracks and said have a play around on that."
It was not all smooth sailing at first as he recalled a near miss trying to get the crane on to a low loader trailer.
"I just just about shot clean over the low loader."
The crane he learned to operate now sits at Steampunk HQ in Oamaru.
Mr Johnston said from the first minute he sat in the crane he loved what he was doing — even if it meant he got dragged out of bed once or twice.
"You’re on call 24 hours a day so I’ve had train derailments, truck crashes, a bit of everything.
"What I liked about it was the variety of work. You didn’t know what you were doing from one day to the next."
One of his more exciting times was working on the set of the film Vertical Limit in Queenstown.
Mr Johnston said he was surprised to learn how much of his work would be shown on screen.
"It was quite funny being there all day and then when I see the movie there’s about 10 seconds of what I was doing."
He has kept two detailed scrapbooks of his career that feature countless newspaper clippings about jobs or incidents related to his work.
