0029 Spending time at home

 0029 Spending time at home

Feb - May 2021

Filling in time !

Sophie, Hayley & Emily

The girls in Hobart markets

The 4 months after we returned from Christmas in Tasmania (with
Sarah, Benn, and their girls Olivia and Evelyn) were a mixture of various activities - A bit like life in general, I suppose ?  Anyway, some things were more exciting than others, but all were important in keeping us busy while the Virus continued to rage both around Australia as well as around the world, so limiting our ability to do any travelling.  Of course our primary wish is to get to the Netherlands as soon as we can so we can meet Nick and Tanja's twins (who are already 1 1/2 years old !) and see Hayley and of course Nick and Tanja.  Keeping families apart is one of the several sad aspects of the virus.

Mending VW dashboards

Soon after coming back from Tas I was busy in the garage trying to recover usable moulded dashboards for the VW.  I had bought a fibreglass one from S Africa in order to complete the rebuild last year, but I also had 4 badly damaged original VW units, so I thought I would try my hand and attempt to make a couple of usable ones. Not easy, but by using some special dash repair materials I think I have got a couple that are re-usable, or maybe even able to be sold, as they are as rare as hen's teeth.  Just got to paint them now to see if they come up ok.

 

An electric bike

Bert Munroe's Indian

In February I went up by train to the Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane to see an artistic motorcycle exhibition called "Design, Art, Desire", and it turned out to be excellent.  A "different" slant on the history of motorcycles through the ages which included favourites like Bert Monroe's Indian (about which the movie "The Fastest Indian" was made), and some incredible electric motorcycles that were absolute art forms.   A very pleasant day spent up there with friend Winno from the Lotus Club.

Testing a tent for the VW

By now I was trying to work out how I could go camping in Clementine, my VW.  I would like to drive her right around Australia next year (only 15,000 kms or so !), and for me to be able to afford to do this, I will need to do mostly camping.  And as I know from my previous long distance camping trips, if something isn't easy and quick to do, one very quickly stops doing it.  This is especially true when the camping trip is months long, and not just a few days - A tent that is difficult to set up/take down maybe fine for a weekend, but if you have to do it every day for weeks on end, it must be simple and quick - Especially at my age !  To do this in the VW will probably mean a trailer, and with the power limitations of the VW (a whopping 53 hp !), that trailer needs to be light. Very light !   I have a tent that is very quick to set up, called an OzTent RV3, and my idea is to mount it permanently on a flat trailer, so it can be erected within 30 seconds.  I have purchased the tent, and am currently in discussions with a company that builds light aluminium trailers to try and find a design that will work.   Watch this space ....!

Fire at a neighbour's !

In March a big fire burnt down a house 2 doors up from us, which provided a little bit of excitement !  With property prices everywhere currently skyrocketing during the virus, we have 3 other houses being pulled down and new houses built within 100 metres of our house, so having yet another neighbouring house get destroyed by fire means we almost feel like we are currently living on a building site !  Hopefully the new houses will add to the popularity of our immediate area, which can only benefit our house value - Not that that will benefit Janet & I, but it may benefit the kids in the future !

Janet on the farm

In mid March we were allowed (virus wise) to travel to Victoria, and I drove down to Melbourne to meet Ashton, and we were guest speakers at the exclusive Melbourne Club at their annual Formula 1 Grand Prix dinner - A full house of 400 guests at a sit down black tie dinner !  This was quite a special invitiation for us - Previous speakers have included people like Jackie Stewart, Murray Walker, and Craig Lowndes, so this was a big honour for us.  Our talk about our adventures on the Peking to Paris rally seemed to be well received, and it was interesting to enjoy a night's accomodation in the Melbourne Club.  Meanwhile, I had dropped Janet off in Yackandandah with our friends Jos and Tony, so I drove back up there, and we had a few days with them with all the fun of the farm with new born calves everywhere !   A great few days with some good friends.  

Dust on the cars

Since April I have been very busy helping a friend with his car collection.  He has collected a very eclectic collection of cars from both USA and Europe - Varying from 1940's Ford pick up trucks, through 1960's Chevy Impalas, Ford Thunderbirds, an Austin Healey, and a couple of Morgans, through to modern classics like Aston Martins, Ferraris and Lamborghinis.   However the owner is so busy with his business that the cars were all just stored in a warehouse, collecting dust, while the batteries and various rubber hoses, seals and brake parts were perishing.   So I offered to look after his ever-growing collection for him because the cars all looked so forlorn and neglected. Initially I just

Some of the cars

wanted to try to prevent them deteriorating any further, but more importantly in the long run to fix the problems and get them all running again, so they can be used.  After a month of just washing them and doing simple things like pumping up tyres and fixing batteries etc, I realised that I needed help, especially on the mechanical side.  So I enlisted the help of good friend Steve, who had built the engine and much of the suspension on Gidget for our 2019 Peking to Paris Rally, and was more than qualified to handle just about anything on the mechanical side.  He now works for himself, and has set aside 2 days of his work week to come and work with me.   By the end of May we had a large number of the cars running, oils and brake fluids changed, and were moving on to more detailed
tasks like rebuilding carburettors and fuel pumps, and replacing broken or leaking oil seals.  We are having an absolute ball with these cars and meanwhile it is keeping me busy and out of mischief !  And working with Steve, I learn so much - It is a great project.

A big Chevy van

In the meantime, my friends Dean and Judy were back in Queensland.  Dean used to own a 4WD garage, and it was he who prepared my Troopie for her big trip aound the world in 2014.  He was also my "personal mechanic" during the trip - I would text him whenever I had a problem and he would tell me what I needed to do !  He followed my trip closely, and as a result wanted to do the same trip.  After he retired, he prepared a big BMW motorcycle for the trip, and at the end of 2018 we both did Spanish lessons together - Dean so he could speak at least a little before he arrived in S America, and me just because I like Spanish.  Then of course Covid hit, and S America was off, so Dean and his wife Judy have been travelling around Australia instead !  After almost a year on the road, they need to make some changes to their motorcycle and sidecar set up, so they are staying in our house during our absence in Perth in June, and carrying out their repairs and improvements so they can set off again. 

Troopie set up for camping

Troopie has been pretty much ignored recently, so I have spent a while going through her in preparation for our trip to Perth in June.  A big itch I needed to scratch was to drive across central Australia - There is a famous track called the Gun Barrel Highway that goes across the centre, but in recent years this has fallen into disrepair and is now a very serious off road trek - winches, sand dunes, 3 car convoys etc - All a bit too extreme for me!  But there is a slightly easier road called the Great Central Highway, so I plan to do that instead. It runs almost directly from Kalgoorlie in W Australia towards Ayers Rock / Uluru, and Alice Springs.  Janet decided some time ago that she didn't want to camp across any more dusty deserts or wild places, so who to do it with ?  Surely someone would like to join

Nick & the girls go shopping !

me ?  Anyone ???     Then I was chatting to my sailing buddy Jamie, and he said he would love to do the trip.  I have sailed with him on his 45 ft yacht before, getting shipwrecked one time and even rescued by the Coast Guard another time, so this would be a perfect opportunity for me to give him a tasted of my type of travel - Across the Outback !!  So he is flying over to Perth on the 19th June, and we will set off across the desert on the 20th, with 3 weeks in which to get back to Queensland.   Should be a great trip :-)  

Rest of the pics are here :-   

https://photos.app.goo.gl/AAMLfT1EtPKceR2D9