Our next trip, almost there

June 1, the first day of winter in Australia.  That means two things; the temperature will be cooler - even cold at times - and it will be drier.  Roads and tracks in the north of the country will be open and it will be possible to travel reasonably safely.  In other words it’s time to hit the road. 

For various reasons we didn’t get anywhere last year but did have two visits to the USA to see our granddaughter and her Mum and Dad.  There is also another ‘grand-sprog’ on the way!  We also experienced two amazing three day train journeys, firstly from Sacramento to Chicago, crossing the Rocky Mountains in the early spring, and then from Chicago to Los Angeles in the Fall, so it wasn’t all bad. 

This year we’re determined to go before Mike gets too old and as Kim puts it “he’ll need a Stanna stairlift to get into the rooftop tent”.  Not that the intervening period has been entirely idle on the Land Rover front.  We’ve managed a few day trips and organised Christmas driving trials for the Brisbane Land Rover Club.  And work on Vin Rouge has continued.  After our last outback trip there were two things that became a bit of a bugbear.  Filling the water tank was an awkward and messy affair that involved unloading some of the gear in the back and pointing a hose at the little filler hole.  This time we installed some additional pipes so that the filler and breather can be taken out of the vehicle through the driver’s window.  Now it’s a matter of connecting the hose to one pipe, turning on the water and waiting until it squirts out of the other pipe.  We’ll find out if the practice is as good as the theory.  Mike has also modified the drawer system.  Two drawers now grace the back of the vehicle.  With the galley stove in place one drawer will fully open and includes a chopping block, the other partly opens to provide access to domestic stuff and doubles as an additional work surface.  By some very careful measuring, better use has been made of the available space and now the heavy things such as spares, tools and recovery gear are lower down, a double bonus as a little more space is available for lighter weight things above.  Cutlery, crockery and cooking utensils all stow in the drawers as well.  It’s almost a case of the sum of the component parts slightly exceeding the whole.

Modifications have also been made to the roof top tent.  The ladder can now be folded away to make more space when the tent walls are in place and the walls have been re-cut to better fit the sides of the Land Rover.

The last couple of weeks have been busy with preparations.  All the camping gear has been checked, serviced, cleaned and stacked ready for packing.  Vin Rouge has had the front axle overhauled, a persistent oil leak in the back axle fixed (well, we hope so) and the timing belt replaced (just in case).  A service and polish and we should be set to go.

The plan this time is to go north to Cape York.  It’s a 1,700 kilometre road trip from Brisbane to Cairns.  The direct route uses the Bruce highway which is as dangerous as it is tedious so we’ll deviate on to minor roads where we can.  It will increase the journey time but make the trip more interesting.  From Cairns it’s around 1,000 kilometres to the top, most of which will be slow going over rough track.  There’s also quite a lot of rivers to ford so we’ve made what is known locally as a ‘bonnet bra’ to keep the muck out of the engine bay.  It should be interesting with lots of wildlife, including the huge salt water crocs which we’ll do our best to avoid.  After that, if all is going well we’ll go west into the setting sun taking the Savannah Way to Broome, another 4,000 kilometres not including side excursions.  That ought to take care of a couple of months.

As we did on our last trip we’ll be writing a blog of our adventures and posting photos.  Entries may be a bit irregular as for much of the time we will be well out of mobile phone telecommunications, so please be patient with us.  

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So for now it’s putting the final touches to the preparation.  Hopefully we will be leaving towards the end of next week.