I *think* we’re driving to Uluru on Friday. We have next week off and are a 90% chance to go Home > Adelaide > Coober Pedy > Uluru > Alice Springs > Oodnadatta Track > Quorn > Adelaide > Home.
We’re prepared, but are still working out the logistics. i.e. is it too rushed?
More to follow……
Had a great time fanging Dad’s MX-5 down the Gt Ocean Road to Apollo Bay this morning.
Dad picked me up from home at 6.15 and we drove the five minutes to our meet-up point opposite Bunnings Waurn Ponds on the Princes Highway, just before the Anglesea turnoff. We were a few minutes early but the 50-strong convoy soon zoomed past and I pulled out to join it. There were a few stops and starts between Waurn Ponds and Anglesea to bunch up the cars and let others join the convoy, but as soon as we cleared Anglesea the proper driving began!
On the section between Point Roadknight and Lorne we were behind an MX-5 who struggled to keep up with the cars in front (she was a bit slow, the cars in front were pretty quick), but it was still fun whipping into corners and letting the car do its thing. I haven’t driven a manual for a while, but the memories of driving my old Mini Cooper repro came flooding back and before long I was up and down the gears, accelerating into the bends and generally having a great time.
After a coffee break at Lorne (where Dad tried a weird self-heating latte that he’d bought – but it didn’t self-heat) we were off again on the section to Apollo Bay. Dad suggested we try to get into the convoy a bit earlier to avoid the slowpokes, so we moved out of the foreshore car park in about 9th or 10th spot, which was almost directly behind the MX-5s with all the racing stripes, fat exhausts and rollcages.
It was clear after about 2km that the gold car in front of us couldn’t keep up with the racers (or didn’t want to), but he was going plenty quick enough himself, thanks very much. It took almost everything I had just to keep up with him around those corners, so I’m glad we weren’t immediately behind the rollcage brigade. It really was quite quick … the car feels like it’s on rails no matter how hard you push it through corners so there’s no need to brake, which is handy as there wasn’t time to. In fact it went around them even better when I accelerated through them, which felt good to me but I’m not sure what Dad thought of it. Before long my arms started hurting and my clutch foot was ready to give up, but then we rounded a corner and were upon Skenes Creek, where the limit dropped back to 60 and we could trundle for the next few kms into Apollo Bay.
All up it was a great experience. I can see why the club members enjoy these runs – the early start means very little else on the road (i.e. in your way) and a real chance to take a very capable car flat out around corners whilst staying within limits on the straights. The top was down on 90% of the MX-5s the whole way (including ours, naturally) and although it was pretty cold at first it was fantastic to zoom along with the wind in our hair. There’s a lot to be said for open-top motoring.
Thanks again Dad, and I’m glad you’re enjoying being part of the club.
(More photos to come when Dad sends me the ones he took on his camera)
I need to sit down and write a proper post about our trip away last weekend but probably won’t get time to do it until this coming weekend, so in the meantime here are a couple of photos and the link to more on our Picasa page ….
Saturday: Near Hotham Heights looking towards Mt Buffalo
Saturday: On the Bogong High Plains Road between Omeo and Falls Creek
Saturday: Walking up the Summit at Falls on our way to find the place where we were married
Saturday: At the little hut near Eagle Chair where we signed our marriage papers
Saturday: Looking down the Kiewa valley from Road 24
Saturday: The spot on Road 24 where we got married
Sunday: Hanging a right in the Wandiligong Hedge Maze
Monday: Fanging it on the Dargo High Plains Road from Hotham to Dargo (Jayne took that shot from the sunroof!)
More photos on Picasa.
It goes without saying that the Mini Cooper we hired for Jayne’s birthday was superb fun. So much so, in fact, that we’re almost certain to buy one when we buy a second car.
Anyway, I was just hunting around on YouTube for some feel-good footage and I found these. They’re great. Watch them.
Rob beat me to it, but I’ll add a couple of our photos anyway.
Sim had his rally drive experience today. Family and friends had tipped in a bunch of cash as a 21st present for him. Rallydrive is located near Rockbank in Melbourne’s west and lets members of the public ride in a rally car at speed with a pro driver and also drive it as fast as you like for as many laps as you can afford.
With light rain falling to help bed the dirt track down a bit Sim certainly went for it on the course. No spins but a fair bit of sideways action and plenty of snarly engine revving. His car was a tiptronic Magna AWD, and before you say “Magna??????” here’s what the Rallydrive web site has to say:
These cars were driven by Ross Dunkerton and team mate Bill Hayes and secured 1st and 2nd place in the Australian Cup.
The Rally Drive cars have not been altered or de-tuned in any way and produce over 280hp. The cars are full FIA spec which means you could race these cars in any rally anywhere in the world.
When he’d had his 10 laps or so he was taken around for another 4 laps by one of the drivers at top speed (the last pic). It’s fair to say that there was triple the sideways action and quadruple the snarly engine revving.
Looked like great fun.
I have to say, though, that it would be hard for anyone to not look back on it and wish they’d gone even harder. Still, I suppose that’s what keeps you coming back for another go (and another $500) …..!
Through the chicane:
Too fast for me in this pic:
Trying to catch the slowpoke in the Suby (he did):
Sliding around on one of the hot laps:
I’ve just spent an hour getting online quotes from AAMI, Allianz and RACV for our home and contents and car insurance. We’re currently with Allianz.
Here are the wildly different quotes that I received. The premiums are for monthly payments.
Car insurance
Each quote includes: rating 1, no claim bonus protection, no windscreen excess, $500 basic excess, no drivers under 30, rental car, agreed value $34,000.
Home and contents
Why are AAMI so cheap? Their cover looks as good as the others (I read the Product Disclosure Statements). If I can’t find a reason why I shouldn’t switch to them within the next 7 days then we’re switching.
Spent some time this weekend planning some holiday time for later in the year. We hope to wakeboard at Mulwala as much as we can before it gets too cold, and would also love a weekend at the snow (we haven’t been since our wedding in 2004), but I mean a lengthy holiday. A three to four weeker in maybe October or November.
Overseas is out of the question and so is flying any distance within Australia unless we sell our block of land for a REALLY good price. We can’t count on that, so we’ve narrowed it down to these touring holidays.
Of those, we’d most like to go to Tassie. It would be the most expensive, as even though we’d save a heap of money by taking our car over (and not having to hire one) the ferry tickets are about $300 each return for a normal allocated seat. You can do it cheaper if you get a day sailing and stroll around the ship for 10 hours but the day sailings only run in summer.
Tassie would be awesome though. We’d start at Devonport, head west along the north coast through Burnie, Wynyard and Stanley to Marrawah, then take the dodgy road from Arthur River to Zeehan, make a quick trip north to Waratah and Cradle Mountain, then backtrack to Strahan. From there we’d follow the main road to Hobart, Huonville, Bruny Island and Port Arthur, then track up the east coast to Freycinet Peninsula, Bay of Fires and Binalong Bay before a bit of inland trout fishing, then Launceston and the Pipers River wine region and finally back to Devonport.
If we can somehow save the extra $600 that this trip needs over the others we’ll do it. I loved my four days in Tassie two years ago and Jayne keeps saying she’d love to take me to see where she grew up. Hopefully we’ll find a way.
We bought a new car today. The final deal is subject to our finance application this week, but we don’t expect any problems with that – even taking our stupendously large mortgage into account.
We were very close to keeping The Ox (it’s been very reliable over the last 2 1/2 years) but the main reason not to was the number of kms it’s done: 200,000. In the next two years we were expecting to outlay cash for a new auto, new shocks and new brakes on top of any other servicing costs and/or problems that you can expect from a 200,000km car. Our thoughts were that upgrading to a newer car minimises the risks of those costs, which is particularly important to us given that we will drop to one income when we have a baby.
Also, The Ox has no airbags, which I’ve never really been comfortable with, and although the 2.5i pulls Tasty along OK, there’s no getting around the fact that a larger engine will cope better with towing.
So we bought this.
It’s a 2003 H6 Outback Luxury and it’s pretty swish. Front and side airbags, a 3.0 litre 6-cylinder engine, leather trim and all the luxury fruit like dual sunroof, climate control, etc, etc. It’s done 80,000kms, which is slightly above average but we do lower than average kms each year so in 5 years we’ll be ahead, so to speak. It drives nicely, very smooth until you get to about 4,000rpm – then it takes off at a rapid rate of knots.
So assuming the finance goes through OK on Monday, it’s bye bye Oxy. You served us well. Let’s hope your big brother does too.
- On the way to Mt Baw Baw with Johnboy, Damian and Jed, the day after I picked it up, July 2004.
- Packing up after our wedding at Falls Creek, July 2004.
- Jayne putting it through its paces somewhere in Wombat State Forest, 2005. She scraped the front bumper pretty badly just before this photo (bad front and rear overhangs on the Outbacks), but then a truck cut us off a few months later so we ended up with a new bumper anyway.
