February and March 2017
And the Kimberley, and Mongolia !
Soon after we got back to the Gold Coast,
Damien flew over from Perth to pick up his old Toyota van which had sat here
for 3 years in our driveway. I had put a
new battery in it at the end of last year, and it seemed to start up OK, but
Damien wanted to load it all up with his heavy tools, compressor, welding
equipment, bicycles, surf skis, and lots more, and drive it back across the
Nullarbor. He had done some work on the
engine 3 or 4 years ago when he was living here, putting on a new cylinder head,
but it has over 400,000 kms on it, which is quite a lot for a petrol
engine. In addition, he brought his 5
year old daughter Poppie with him for the adventure, which Janet and I weren’t
too sure about. Hmmmm.
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| Damien & Poppie enjoying the pool with Trooper |
He checked everything over, filled it with
fuel, and got his big buffer out to clean up the bodywork which was pretty dull
and had a bit of surface rust on the paintwork after sitting there for so
long. And then he called up the mobile
inspection unit for a roadworthy so he could re-register it, and coincidentally
got the same guy who had inspected it 3 years ago ! Since it had hardly any additional miles on
it, it passed fairly easily, and with the registration completed, Damien loaded
up (a 2 day job !) and early one morning, sat Poppie in the passenger seat, and
headed off the 4600 kms back to Perth.
Janet and I had our fingers crossed, especially since the weather
forecast was for some hot weather. 3
days later he called us to say he had arrived safely, the car didn’t miss a
beat, and Poppie had a ball !! It had
been great to see them, even though it was only for a few days.
The downside is that now I have hardly any
tools – Damien has just about everything, which has been very useful to me
recently, but now I will have to make do with my meager collection. To add insult to injury, I later found that
Damien had accidentally taken my angle grinder to Perth with him ! (Janet later brought it back !)
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| Hannah's graduation from the Police Academy |
Janet had returned to Perth on the 29th
January to babysit Poppie again, since Damien returned to the rig for a month
on the 30th, Poppie started “big school” on the 1st
February, and Hannah was still at the Police Training Academy. This was to be Janet’s last “rotation” to
Perth because Hannah’s cousin was coming over from England to act as an au
pair, and since Poppie would now be at school 5 full days a week, the
babysitting requirements wouldn’t be so extensive. Janet was due to come back to Queensland on
2nd March, but since Hannah’s graduation from the Police Academy
would be on the 16th March, she decided to stay on an extra couple
of weeks for that. As a result I have
been busy over here on my own for 6 weeks !!
First of all I have done quite a lot of
work on the Toyota. Shortly after we get
back from the UK at the beginning of May, we are heading off on a 5 week trip
up to the Kimberley region of NW Australia, so I need to get the car mostly prepared
before we go away to the UK. Not only
will the trip be more than 10,000 kms, but since we have never been there
before, and probably won’t get the chance to go again, we want to see as much
as possible while we still have the Toyota.
So there are desert roads, remote locations, and the possibility of some
fairly severe river and water crossings anticipated, so we need to be ready.
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| New upholstry in Troopie |
First job was to get the interior
mattresses sorted out after losing half of them on the way back from Perth ! I ended up getting everything done at Clark
Rubber, a local store that I initially went to just to buy the foam, but then
found out they also did re-upholstering as well, and had some really good
materials. I had been round to other
boat and RV upholstery places and they were mostly “very busy” or “would need
3-4 weeks notice” etc. Clark Rubber took
2 weeks, and did a really good job.
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| Hi lift jack on Troopie |
Next task was to buy a hi-lift jack and
bracket to bolt it behind my spare wheel.
I did not feel I needed one of these on my S America trip, as I intended
to stay mostly on the roads, but for this trip up to the Kimberley I felt it
was wise, especially since another couple would be with us in their 4 WD and
caravan. So I spent some time
researching these and how to mount them securely, looking at 2nd
hand ones and new. Eventually I went to
a local Camping and 4WD show and they had good ones for some $30 off normal
price, so I bought one. These jacks are
very heavy, so carrying it all the way back to the car was a bit tough ! Within a couple of days I had managed to work
out how to fit the bracket and mount it.
Job done.
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| Repainting the Lotus air bag |
I then returned the slide out kitchen unit
to its original condition, after experimenting (unsuccessfully) with some new
ideas for it, and tidied up a few other bits and pieces that needed doing. I
have a couple of other things I want to do, but they will have to wait.I also had to repair the central air bag cover on the hub of the Lotus steering wheel. The hot sun has a negative effect on the rubber they use for the cover, and the blac paint goes all sticky. The cure is to remove the airbag from the steering wheel, strip all the sticky paint off with thinners, and then repaint the black centre and silver surround. Result ? One new looking (and non sticky) steering wheel hub !
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| Incy wincy at night |
We have brick pavers around the swimming
pool, and the cement grouting between the pavers had become quite sad over the
years, so my next job was to try and tidy that up a bit. I have never really done cementing before, so
that was a bit of a learning curve, and although it is slow work, it is
starting to look a lot better. Similarly
inside the house the house there were a number of chores needed doing like
re-grouting tiles in bathrooms, cementing pathways, and other things that over
the past 3 years have just started to wear out. We also have had some big spiders in our garden recently - In fact, I have been catching flies and feeding them to the spider ! He stores them in his larder until he
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| Half a pineapple |
is ready to eat ! He also looks quite good at night !! We also had one of our pineapples mature - Do you realise each plant takes 2 years to grow one pineapple ? And just as ours ripened, the hot sun burnt one side of it and dried it up !!
Trooper our standard poodle is now 11 years
old, and is really showing his age. His
back legs are starting to give him real problems, and he finds it difficult to
lie down or get up, and sometimes when we are out walking, his back legs just
don’t support him, and he falls over.
Very sad, but at the moment he does not appear to be actually in pain,
and manages a short walk round the block in the mornings, and a longer walk in
the afternoons down in a local doggie park.
We just have to keep an eye on him to make sure he remains happy and
well fed !
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| Lotus' lined up for the sprint |
Have also had a couple of Lotus Club runs
which gave me a chance to get out in the Europa. One of these was an early
morning breakfast run up into the hills north of Brisbane, and the other was a
competitive sprint event where I helped out with the timing as I am not in a
position to compete myself yet.
Finally, and perhaps most excitingly, on
the 10th March we received an email from the Endurance Rally
Association (ERA) that our entry in the 2019 Peking to Paris Rally has been
accepted, and we are officially “in” !
This makes everything a lot more real, and means we have to really start
planning everything very carefully in order to be ready by mid-2018. As a result, I started working more seriously
on spare parts sourcing for the Austin Healey, especially since our forthcoming
trip to England would give me an opportunity to visit suppliers in the UK and
finalise a lot of the work we need to do.
This Peking to Paris adventure will be covered separately and if
interested you can find details of our progress over the coming months here
:-
The next job was to drive down to Sydney to
pick up the Healey from Ashton’s house and bring it back to Queensland so I
could start work on it. As I had a
friend’s trailer at my house, and it was suitable for the Austin Healey, I
decided that it would be wiser to take the trailer down and carry the Healey
back rather than driving the Healey back.
I would love to have driven it back, but time was getting away from me,
and sometimes you just have to take the “safer” option !
Rest of the pics are here :- https://goo.gl/photos/4UnzTsQk4bgK7GaZ8
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