Saturday, June 19, 2004
Holy Belgium man
ok, just a quick update on what exactly has been going on here...sorry its been so long since the
last update but there hasnt been any phones or internet for a while now.
well, we set of for cape york a while back, nearly a month ago, from cairns.
we thought wed be about 14 days tops. well, so far the toll on the car has gone like this...
broken radiator
broken engine mount
3 flat tyres
shock absorber fell off
bit of the loom got caught in the prop shaft
and finally....
we cracked the head.
oops. so here we are at moreton telegraph station, the only remaining station on the telegraph
line that came up from sydney to cape york to indonesia, connecting england and australia for
the first time ever back in 1876.
we have landed on our feet really, as there are 100's of kilometers between civilisation up here,
we only broke down 3 ks out of here and got towed in by the aussies.
we have no cash left, and theres no way of getting any here. so we are working to pay our keep,
and the people here, steve and ange, are fantastic. really restores your faith in people.
the rest of the crew (fiona, sean, richie, scotty, reggie)left last week, sean hitched 900 k's
to cairns and fiona went with reggie and scotty, richie flew home from cape york.
well, its been a mental time on the roads here, lots of fun and lots of bush mechanics..however,
we got it really hot last week and it then refused to start, we figured we had lost compression
as the starter was spinning really fast...this was born out 6 days later
when we finally managed to get the head off....we had to drill 2 head bolts out which took
3 days...then we couldnt get the head off the block...we even had a jcb try and lift the head
from the block and it lifted the whole front of the car off the ground...a couple of visiting
aussies finnaly managed to get the head off. then we had to weld 2 nuts onto the top of the bolts
and then we got them out of the block.
we have been really lucky i guess to have ended up here with good people, food, water and
a workshop. the only problem is that nearly everything has to be airlifted to here on the mail
plane which flies once a week. howevwer, we have been lucky in that we can get a brand new head
for 900 bucks, from weipa, a town 250 k's from here and delivered by road for nothing as the guy
is a mate of steves.
so, we are waiting till monday to order it and a few other bits that we broke taking the head off.
steve also has a broken pajero here, a petrol unfortunately, ( our last ditch plan is to convert
our diesel to a petrol....) but we can nick a few spares from it
incase we break down (incase? when more like...)again...so we gonna have some leaf springs,
a cv joint, shocks, bolts etc.
at least we made it to the top of oz and were on our way back down when this happened, so at least
we have already been north.
all well and in good spirits now we know that things are gonna be ok and we can go on our way,
providing of course the block isnt cracked. we could be in serious trouble if it is...
but we will wait and see.
plan is back to cairns, then on to alice and then darwin, then broome and finally perth.
well, i guess thats about it for now...better get off this satellite connection as its all dollars...
