I mentioned in the last blog (a while ago now) that we had arranged for Matilda and I to go down to Castlemaine and get the Landy that Simon had agreed to sell her. She had to wait a whole term, but finally, off we went. We got a cheap flight down with Tiger Air and we were able to buy 50kg's of luggage allowance for $55 which was very good value and allowed us to pack all the tools, and camping gear into the grey box you see below. The orange waterproof boat bag had all the soft stuff.
When we arrived, the welcome as always was big, but before too long, everyone realised that Matilda needed to 'touch' the car. It had been a very long time, and it had achieved a high degree of importance. Of course, being Tild, she played it cool, not wanting to appear as excited as I knew she was. I knew this because for several days she'd been spontaneously giggling for no apparent (to outsiders) reason. Her grin, however was a dead giveaway.
Here we are going for our first drive, to Helen and Simon's land, where I spent a few hours fixing things like the indicators, horn, lights and things. Didn't manage to get the speedo working or the fuel gauge. I took off the petrol canister holders from the front, thinking that we'd put on the bull bars that Simon had at the land, but they'd not been on there before and needed some fitting. I decided that was a job for another day.
Earlier, at Elaine and David's house I changed the engine oil and filter (which was the largest I've ever seen!). We took a break to go to the Saturday Market that we'd been to when Gilly came over. Tild got some fingerless gloves (pictured) and we had a fab meal by the gas heater.
A lovely lady at the market...
Molly Joan, fed up that she couldn't go on the trampoline with Tilda and the boys...
Tild and Mally hatching a plot....
Molly Joan and Helen....
...and the lovely Don. Such a wonderful man and an inspiration to me every time!
Here, our hostess [with the mostest] Elaine, Mally, Molly Joan, Simon, Heath, Tild and me. Helen was holding the camera. David was indoors. Thanks for everything David :-)
The first thing we did was head for Supercheap Auto in Bendigo where we changed the gearbox and transfer box oils. I was glad we'd done that because I felt assured then that nothing would seize up when we hammered along.
We didn't take all that many pictures whilst travelling, mainly because we needed the phone for all the other stuff. We were using it as a GPS of course, but also as a speedo, a milometer, and a petrol gauge.
At the end of day one we were almost in the mountains, but not quite. We found a free little deserted campsite. It was dark when we got there, having nearly stacked it into a couple of deer on the road a couple of k's before. We slept really well and had a hearty breakfast of baked beans on toast and tea that Elaine had bought us. Lovely!
The following are mostly snaps grabbed by Tild as we passed. Here's a collage of her little time lapses. You know what it's like...on and on, hour after hour. Only in an old Land-Rover it's rattly and bumpy! At 95 to 100 kph in fourth gear (there are only 4 gears) and with a bare metal roof and bare metal doors and floors, it's also (not surprisingly) very noisy. Talking, as such, was not possible. It was a shouting kinda thing!
Up in the mountains hoping to see some snow. Matilda hasn't seen any since we left the UK.
As we got further and futher up, we were seeing scary signs saying things about not to go further without snow chains or a 4wd, and I was a little bit apprehensive... as the last time we'd been in 4wd was when Simon showed me when Gill and I were down. It had been sticky getting it back into 2wd. In the event I needn't have worried because there wasn't anything of note. Tild was a bit disappointed. We went up this road called 'Alpine Road' which has the ski resort 'Thredbo' on it. Our neighbors had gone off here a couple of days before we flew, for a week! I hope they had enough snow to keep them happy! A little before here, the heater stopped working!
At then end of the second day of driving we made it to Leanne and Jim's fine house 40k south of Canberra. We had a lovely meal and a long and wide ranging chat about all kinds of things. Very good. Slept well. Matilda played with the dogs, the chickens and the horses. All was well.
For tea the next day we had a slap up meal from the left overs that Leanne had packed up for us from the previous evening's meal. This was fab...really good to eat properly. It's so difficult to find decent food when you're on the road.
We had earlier stopped [somewhere] and bought some 'radflush' to clear the system. I left it in for 4 hours and we got the heater back with a vengence. It was draining as we ate. We'd hoped to stop earlier but had been trying to get through Sydney before the traffic, which Leanne had warned was likely be bad from around 3. Because the radiator flushing and loading had taken about an hour, we just didn't quite make it and got all snarled up.
After tea we got going, aiming to get as close to Port Macquarie as possible so as to have a shot at a mid afternoon arrival in Brisbane the day after. In the end, by the time we got that far up it was around 9pm. Finding a campsite and hauling it all out at that time of night seemed like a pain, and as I felt fine we decided to keep going and just pull over for a kip if and when I felt tired. We did pull over around midnight and I slept until 2am or so. Then we drove on, arriving in Brisbane around 9am. Here we are after getting Ned from Peta (thanks Peta) and before we unloaded.
Today we went up to the land to water the garden. It made it up the steep muddy slope with consummate ease. Matilda was chuffed. :-)
.... and Ned seems to love being in the back on his lead!
Thanks very much to all of you who helped this to be a reality. We are very appreciative and lets not leave it so long next time eh?
