29 Dec 2016

Off back to Melbourne this morning, not a too hot day for driving and with the "air conditioning" (read quarter vent windows) operating hit the road at 0730. There was a bit more traffic today and managed to build up a bit of a line of cars behind me along the Bruce highway, though they weren't stuck there for too long as they only came along as I neared places that I could pull over or at over taking lanes. That said it was good to get to the Hume so I wasn't holding anyone up from there on.

Was a quite drive and again not too much traffic, it is always good at this time of year as there are no road crews blocking lanes with maintenance along the way, so no delays. I stopped briefly for fuel at Gundagai and thendecided as I have often passed the mid way point of Tarcutta, well midway between Sydney and Melbourne (where Canberra should have been built, except there is not enough of a water supply there for it to have been), and have never actually been able to get a picture at that point I should stop and remedy that situation.

 
It really is a shame that the red reflector from the boot emblem managed to fall off the car on the Parkes trip, actually surprised that it managed to last there that long actually, I notice it missing every time I walk past the car.

Anyway as you can see in that pic the sky had clouded over by this time and by the time I made it to Albury there had been a bit of rain, though not too much, mind Albury must have had a bit before I reached there as the ceiling at the Lavington petrol station had fallen through and dripping still as I had a bit of lunch. After the refueling and then the lunch break, for the first time in a very long time and for the first time on a long trip, the Count refused to start!

Luckily I had parked the car out of the way, which saved having to push it anywhere so it didn't matter how long it took to rectify. It was surprising as I had only refilled the tank not more than 30 minutes previously, then started it, moved it and parked so I could have lunch and when I came back plenty of fuel and plenty of power, just no spark. I tired he leads (have a spare set in the boot) and checked the rotor (electronic ignition has been fitted), but still nothing. The electronic ignition module was warm to the touch which was a bit odd, but I resorted to calling the RACV ( I am a member and have top cover roadside assistance, which I have for just such a situation, though have never used it before.

Had a few conversations with various people while I waited for the NRMA man (RACV had passed it on as I was in NSW, less than about 10 kilometres from the VIC border) which was interesting. When the NRMA man arrived he touched the coil and recoiled in horror as though he had just stuck his hand in a fire, it was very hot to touch, so we definitely had a problem. Mr NRMA announced that there was noting he could do (yep looked at nothing else) and went off to call a tow truck to take it to an auto electrician. This was taking some time and as it had taken so long I tried to start the car once again, it started! I called the tow truck off (the Count has never been on a tow truck whilst I have owned it) and drove to the auto electrical place and even though they a\were very busy they had a look at the Count for me, though to be honest they weren't too sure about it as they weren't used to working on something as old as the Count. After various tests and lots of electrical sparks it was decided that anything could be causing the problem so we'd just go for the most obvious to start with and we installed a new coil, I say we as I did a fair bit of the installing of it. Once in the car started and I was away, blind faith and ignorance that the problem was solved.

To be honest I am not sure that the old coil would not have kept me going all the way home, but the new one certainly did and I had good cause to test it out as I had to stop quite a few time from the border onwards. It started to rain and while it was never all that heavy it certainly was necessary to use the wipers, which have never been fantastic on the Morris, even by the limited standard of their nature. The passenger side wiper decided that as a rare treat it would wipe more that half of the windscreen pane that it clears (usually it only does half of it) and started wiping the whole screen, though it seems it became a bit too enthusiastic as it started wiping right to the side of the screen and managed to dig itself into the windscreen rubber, which stopped the both wipers completely. I had to stop and pull it back a number of times to "reset" it's sweep, though by this stage it had a mind of it's won and decided that it would be more exciting to wipe the A pillar rather than the screen. I finally managed to re-position it on it's spindle and it went back to wiping just half of the passengers screen again, though at least it was working.

I had been warned that the storms in Melbourne has been quite intense, but never had much along the route. Just near Euroa though the police had closed on lane and had lowered the speed limit to 40, so even I had to slow down! There was some minor flooding over the highway though the police were still waving the cars through, so off into the water we went. Unusual situation driving through water that at times we up to the sills of the car (the Count is by no means a low slung vehicle), not able to see the road surface and feeling the water flow tugging at the wheels, while the water is hitting just under the floor of the car. All was well though, no great drama, and if it was at all dangerous the police would have closed the road all together, so happy they had not!

After that there were no further incidents or delays and finally managed to get home at 10 minutes to 11 pm after the 0730 start for what should have only been a max 10 hour drive at 80kph. It had started out so well too, oh well it happens sometimes...

26 Dec 2016

Off to Canberra again today for a post christmas family catch up. 0730 departure as had to stay and watch the Doctor Who christmas special on iView this morning before I could go, Some things are just too important to miss 😁

Was just the usual trip with not very much traffic about, which is always a plus. Went through Holbrook on the way up to refuel and to see what changes the bypass has made to the town, from what I could see not much has changed at all. The submarine casing of the old HMAS Otway is still there attracting visitors, which I suppose is what it was placed there to do, so that must be a good thing. HMAS Otway is one of the old Oberon class submarines of the Royal Australian Navy, it was built in Scotland in 1965 and was commissioned into service in 1968. Otway was decommissioned in 1994 and sold off for scrap with only the fin having been donated to the town of Holbrook. The town managed to buy the upper casing (everything you would see above the waterline when it was surfaced) from the scrap metal merchants that won the tender for the metal scrap of the whole casing, and installed it in the main town park.

Other thanks that it was dry and to be honest if you hadn't know it had rained so much relatively recently you would have not realised it had, everywhere was so dry and brown, it's amazing how much difference a few months can make to the landscape...

4 Oct 2016

So left Canberra this morning for the drive back to Melbourne. Canberra was not terrible exciting visit this time, but I guess you get that sometimes don't you.

The drive home was, as usual, slowly done at 80 kilometres an hour, though the good thing about the Hume Highway is that it is duel lane all the way from the Barton Highway to Melbourne. That means that it doesn't matter if the car is slow as there is ample opportunity for other drivers to pass will minimal disruption to their pace. Mind you do always get those that come speeding up to the back of your car and then seem to wonder why they have to slow down, they don't seem to look more than 10 feet in front of themselves sometimes. It's a shame that the Barton Highway from Canberra out to the Hume Highway has not been duplicated as it is still mostly one lane in each direction, it really is just a glorified "cattle track", not the sort of "Highway" you would expect leading you to the capital city of a country.

Anyway the drive was long and the day was wet. I didn't stop often other thanks to refill the tank and the rain just kept on coming down. Was great to see some streams that I have never seen water in before, though other thanks that nothing exciting to say really...

Oh I did receive this picture over Instagram from a fellow Valley Green Morris Minor owner, seems a friend of his had taken it while driving on the Hume and passing me. Small world isn't it.  Note it isn't my photo, I would credit the photographer, so thanks Retroasted.

2 Oct 2016

Off to Canberra by 0700 this morning to get the journey done, quite a nice morning so all good for the water levels to have dropped a bit and all the roads I needed to be clear. Bonus that there was not much traffic travelling early and it was a good easy run. Quite a few of the pot holes had already been filled, so there were not too many crashed or too much ducking and weaving to miss them, there were still some shockers though.
It was a non eventful trip, so was give time to ponder the fact it on this trip I have seen almost every farm dams and most small creeks and large rivers full, overflowing and running, some of them I have never, in all the years of driving through these areas, even seen with water in them! It really is an amazing country.
Random happening of the day would have to be being followed out of Boorawa and all the way to the Hume Highway by and MGTC, very cool, even though he did have the roof up. Managed to make it from Parkes to the center of Canberra on 1 tank of petrol, 295.6 kilometres on 20 litres according to how much it took to fill it from past the E point on the fuel guage, so that is something like 6.77 litres per 100 kilometres, not too shabby for a 1955 car.

Canberra was as it usually is, Canberra, though I was surprised by the bad state of some of the roads and how the city centre is mostly deserted, a lot of empty shops in there and not many people anywhere. A lot of other things to see though...

1 Oct 2016

The day started out nice and sunny and then went very grey and then sunny, such was the process of the whole day. The gates opened at 8 and everyone was supposed to be in place by 9am, so I was there at 8 and only the organizers were there as well, bit light on for punters at that hour. a whole group more cars started to roll in ans line up and it was looking promising.

Some really very nice cars turned up and from Queensland, Western Australia as well as New South Wales, some very nice ones ans almost every one driven there too, rather than trailered, which is always the best thing. To say I was surprised that only a couple of the cars from the Canberra club turned up, one being an organiser, and not a single other Victorian club car was there other than mine! i though that the Vic club were coming on mass and had coordinated a meeting point for their drive up and all, but something obviously happened, not a single one. Both surprised and very disappointed with that from Canberra and Vic, oh well I guess the weather and flooding had them all too worried.

After the show I wandered about town, it certainly doesn't take long to get around anywhere here, it's quite a small place. It's not surprising to see a lot of closed shops about, though there are sure a lot of pubs in town. I haven't been out to The Dish, as I went out there last time I passed through here on the trip around Australia (5 Jun 2014 if you missed it)

Today is all about the cars though...

and some more from walking around town

 Off to Canberra in the morning...

30 Sep 2016

Well it sure has been a while between travels, though here we go a long weekend and a Morris Minor car show in Parkes, regional New South Wales.

It's been a bit of a mystery as to whether the show would happen given the state of flooding and cut roads only 25 kilometres down the road from Parkes, but there was a clear road still open and so off on a road trip.

What should have been a 10 hour drive with stops along the way to stretch, fuel and eat, turned into a twelve hour drive from 0545 to 1830, including a few fuel stops and one stretch meal break. twisting and turning along roads through central NSW was somewhat interesting. the condition of the roads has been quite terrible once away from the main highways as all of the big trucks that usually stick to the main highways have had to divert off through the small towns and back country roads and they are just tearing the surface up as they are far to heavy. Some sections of the roads were down to 40 kilometres per hour so you could try to avoid the worst of the pot holes that have opened up and that was an effort to achieve I assure you. It rained most of the way up, well off and on, though more on than off so it wasn't a great run, though still interesting. The Count ran faultlessly, as usual, perhaps a tiny bit heavy on fuel, though not really a problem.

It turns out that some of the organizers of the show are staying at the same place as I am, next room actually and I heard them mention to someone on the phone not long after I arrived that "there was a little Morrie with Victorian registration, so you have no excuse", so it will be interesting to see how many people turn up tomorrow. If you listen to the news the whole place is underwater and everyone is trapped, so a lot of people have been scared off I bet. We'll see I guess...

Crossing the boarder from Victoria to New South Wales at Wodonga / Albury

The Murray flowing high and very well along the boarder

Boarder art. there were brief moments of sunny blue sky

Lots of water and paddocks under it out west 

canola always makes for a bright image even in poor weather, though bit of sun here again

Parkes main street on a Friday night 9bad phone pic), Sir Henry on his corner

4 April 2015

The Nationals "show and shine" this morning and many cars turned up by 0900, which I guess is great as the official start was 0830. Lots of cars just there for display, as was the Count, though a lot still there for the whole competition and trophies end of show. Over all it was a great range of cars and standards really varied from the trailer attendees to the original and the everyday drivers, fantastic to see such variety. Many people really put so much time and effort into the cars and some really put so much money into them as well. Lots of cars that have been retrofitted with running gear from a variety of other cars, though mainly Nissan/Datsun and Toyota engines and disc brakes, some with turbos and the like. My personal taste is for the original Morris/Austin engines though I can certainly appreciate the effort and engineering that goes into the engine swapped cars, the performance from a Morrie with turbocharged twin cam Toyota 4AGE installed must surely be amazing. Interesting too to see how many cars have also been fitted with dual circuit brakes as well, even the cars with original engines, guess it is much easier to work on and certainly safer if one circuit fails.

 Nissan power

 Toyota Twin Cam Turbo

   Sue's car always attracts attention

Over all some amazing cars to see and great to catch up with some of the Canberra club members, weather and location were both great.

On the way home stopped by some friends place and took the previous owner of the car for a drive before heading back to Melbourne, which seemed like a fast four hour journey this time and on arrival it appears that one of the rear tyres has decided to give up the ghost and has developed a leak fro the inner tube.