0001 Time to change direction

0001  Time to change direction
6th September 2019
Peking to Paris is over - What next ?

Olivia & Evelyn in Hobart

This blog is not intended to be all about VW's, even though I am going to start by documenting the rebuild of one.  I am now 72, and having been really busy for the past few years, I am now wondering where I am headed over the next 10 years - Or hopefully more !  So this blog is intended to just be a way to document the future, and my thoughts along the way .  We have grand children (currently) in Perth,

Nick & Hayley in Almere

Hobart, and near Amsterdam (+ twins on the way !!), and know that visiting them quite frequently will figure prominently in our travels.  I also have some
                                                        outback trips I would like to do in
                                                        Australia, (Janet doesn't really like

Damien & Poppie in Perth

sand and camping !! )  so I am keeping my 2008 Toyota Landcruiser camper so I can complete them.   I envisage some extensive and exciting drives around Australia, often visiting friends and family en route, some Euro travel to Amsterdam and UK, possibly some classic rallying, and maybe anther trip to Alaska (I love Alaska !!), and one really big trip I would love to do - To Antarctica, but not on a normal cruise ship - but on an ice breaker !  So in 10 years time, I will look back and see whether I managed to do any of it !     But lets go back to the present. 

Crossing the Finish line in Paris

On 7th July 2019, we reached Paris after 36 days driving from Peking to Paris in a 1954 Austin Healey 100.  The car's owner, my friend Ashton Roskill, drove, while I navigated - sort of !  While the rally (Peking to Paris 2019) only took 36 days, I had in fact been working on the car almost non-stop ever since March 2017.  So I am currently still recovering, and now have to decide what direction my life is to go in now. I firmly believe that things don't just happen - You have to make them happen - As Barry Sheene once said "Don't wait for your ship to come in - Swim out and meet the bloody thing" !! 

The Healey rebuild

Despite the Healey rebuild being pretty soul destroying by the end due to all the problems we encountered and the endless hours involved, in a perverse way I found that I did enjoy the rebuild process, and I also learned an awful lot of new skills, and I feel that it would be a shame to let those skills go to waste. In addition, I also learned an awful lot about Rally Navigating, and while I still have a lot more to learn, I really enjoyed it and would like to do more of it if possible.  While in the past I have always been "the driver", I found during the P2P that I really enjoyed sitting in the passenger seat and being a navigator.  My problem is that Classic Rallying can be very expensive, so I need to work around that issue too !  Hmm - This is going to get complicated !

Lotus Europa I sold

I sold my Lotus Europa back in April this year, because I had found that I just wasn't enjoying it as much as I used to.  It would have been great to be able to keep it sitting in the garage so that I could just use it when I felt like it, but I neither have the garage space nor the funds to support such a toy, so I was happy to sell it.  But I do need a project, and the project needs to be car orientated, so I tried to think of a car that had a low cost, spare parts were available, was simple enough for me to work on, and most importantly was not too common. (Those of you who know me know that I like things to be "a bit different" !)  It also needed to be something that IF I decided to do some minor Classic Rallies,  would be robust enough and also fitted into an existing class competitively. I would also want to use it as my everyday car.    So it therefore needed to be pre-1972, have disc brakes, and be under 2 litre, and be relatively user friendly.

I didn't really fancy a sports car, new or old - Been there, and done that.  I wanted a roof, (dust proof)

VW Type 3 1600 Fastback

and I wanted 4 seats to make it usable.  I didn't want run of the mill rally cars like an Escort or a Peugeot or similar - Everyone expects them to be fast, and they are too expensive anyway. Too common, too.    Then I thought of VW's.  My first 2 or 3 cars were VW Beetles, and I not only liked them, but was quite good at working on them - I even made one into a Beach Buggy in England and another into a Baja Bug when we lived in Dubai.   But there are still a lot of Beetles out there, and also quite a lot in Classic Rallying - There was even one on the Peking to Paris - So I decided no - Too common !   Then I thought about a slightly larger VW of that period, the Type 3 1600 Fastback.  Slightly more "upmarket" than a Beetle, has front disc brakes and improved suspension over a Beetle, a bit more storage space inside, and its 1600 engine is easily enlarged to just under 2 litres while remaining within rally specifications by using the same block etc.  And both spare parts and tuning parts are readily available almost anywhere in the world.  

Back of the Fastback

Bingo.  Now I just had to find one - They are not that common !   However, through a few Lotus friends, I found one quite quickly down in Sydney.  It needed a total rebuild, but was basically very sound, with little or no rust.  I had a look at when I drove down to Melbourne to sell my Lotus, and bought it on the spot - Now I just have to get it up to Queensland so I can start work on it !

Benn & Sarah's brewery in Hobart

In the meantime my daughter Sarah and her husband Benn have recently purchased a craft brewery in Hobart,  Fox Friday Craft Brewery, Hobart )  and invited me down for a quick visit so I could see what they are doing and discuss their future expansion plans.  So I flew down there last Tuesday, and came back on the Friday, and had a great time with them.  Their brewery is going really well, and Benn is doing a great job with making some really popular beers - But it was cold down there !  Freezing !!

Benn & I enjoying his bar !

Snow on the hills type cold !  But not only good to spend time with Sarah and Benn, but also with Olivia (5) and Evelyn (1 1/2), and to see their schools and spend some time with them all. And read them lots of stories !   Janet and I are driving down to Tasmania for Christmas in mid December so looking forward to that.  In the meantime, in the cold of a Tasmanian winter, 3 days was great !


The Healey has now arrived back in Brisbane Port from Paris, and hopefully I will be able to collect it from the Port sometime next week once it has been cleaned and fumigated.  If it gets here in time, I plan to trailer it back to Ashton down in Sydney next week, and then collect the VW and trailer it back to Queensland and start work on her.

By the way, the VW's name is Clementine.   Why ?   Because the colour is officially called Clementine.  Really ! 

So that's where I am up to.   I am going to post up the trip we did to China before I went on the P2P.  I want to document it because it was a fun trip, and some of you who haven't been to China may enjoy some of the fun we had, and the many photos !!   So I will do that next.