Category: shitbox rally

Day 7 – Out of the desert

Day 7 – Out of the desert

by Jupiter and Sons ♥ 1 Comment

Right. If you just leave the mattress inside the swag and roll it all up together it ends up as a pretty tight little plasticky sausage roll. Much better. I feel more certain than ever that tomorrow we’ll be ready to start this rally.

On our final morning we woke up at Tobermorey Station; hundreds of luminescent parrots and swooping raptors, squawking and battling for the choicest spots in the trees around us. Only Australia could deliver so many vibrant birds in the middle of a desert. Well done Australia.

A chap wandered over to admire our ride. He noted the carpeted walls and sunroof and working clutch, and asked after our intentions for her. Unwanted shitboxes get auctioned off at the finish line and it has not escaped a few rallyers that our car is not, well, a shitbox. Just maybe a misunderstood family car with a patchy history and a previous owner who had to flee the country, for some reason, which was most likely not related to the car.

This inspecting chap, in casual conversation, also mentioned that he had previously owned a CRV and that he had changed it from front-wheel-drive to rear-wheel-drive and that was a good thing to do and that he could do it for us right now if we wanted; in the middle of the desert, with no workshop, before breakfast. I don’t even know where to start with this, but just add it to the list of things we obviously can’t do.

So today was a pretty straight stretch, 500km-ish, from Tobermorey to Alice Springs, along the Plenty Highway. Don’t be fooled by the word Highway here, it is misleading… to say the least. I feel like there should be some sort of universal definition of highway, and some agreed standards, to give motorists clarity and comfort. Something basic like “if your road is made of shifting dust and has enormous holes and the occasional lake in it, it is not a highway.” Something like that.

As we meandered further into the centre, the eucalypt leaves gradually became that beautiful lime colour common in the Territory, and the bark smooth and white more often than not. The landscape began to undulate and bubble out of the flat expanse to which we had become accustomed, as the MacDonnell Ranges slowly roused themselves and then leapt out at us from the south.

As we finally hit the tarmac of the Stuart Highway, and turned left, rallyers began to splinter from the groups that had kept them nourished for the past week. Some drivers, perhaps beginning to revert to their real-world selves, pushed up and through other groups, overtaking in dubious settings, determined to travel at the allowable 130kmph despite piloting cars closer to the scrapheap than the autobahn. The radios began to crackle with anonymous, frustrated men demanding that forward groups travel at the allowable speed or get off the road. The outback UHF version of the modern keyboard warrior.

And so, just before sunset, we emerged from the desert and rolled into Alice Springs like Max Rockatansky, if Max had enjoyed a nice drive through the outback in a mid-sized Japanese car, having encountered very little societal collapse, few if any post-apocalyptic wastelands, and zero barbarous killings. We discussed, and agreed, that Miller had made a fine choice going with a black 5.7L V8 Interceptor for Max’s iconic shitbox, rather than a silver Honda CRV with it’s 1.5L engine, 140KW of power, and carpeted walls.

Then we went out to get matching Stackhat tattoos from Alice Springs’ second highest rated tattoo artist. He thought they were rad.

And so a few observations before I end the story of this rally, for which we were never really ready.

Far Western NSW, South Western Queensland and all of the Northern Territory is SO empty. The dirt is so red. The horizons so wide. The emus so ungainly. The sunsets so audacious. The eagles so badass. The dust so relentless. The bakeries so plentiful. The parrots so sublime. The stars so mesmerizing. The road-trains so unyielding. The fires so blazing. The night so silent. The daybreak so squawky. The highways so pot-holed. The ants so industrious. The wandering cows so serene. The swags so fiddly. The clutches so optional… and the pub-crawls so protracted.

Farewell for now outback Australia, and farewell forever to our dear, unremarkable, Honda CRV.

Our CRV riding off into a typically magnificent sunset

Day 6 – #straya

Day 6 – #straya

by Jupiter and Sons ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Fauce popped his head out of his swag this morning, his hair all frazzled up like a bottlebrush, and, with a tone that reminded me of somebody figuring out one of those 3D, sail boat, blurry eye posters for the first time, exclaimed; “oooooh, hey Jupes – we’re on a pub crawl”.

It’s shocking that it took us 5 whole days and more than 3000km of driving to figure it out, given all we do is drive and stop at pubs, and the occasional nice looking silo, but he’s right. We are 5/7ths of the way through a very elaborate pub crawl. Everybody else seems completely aware of this fact.

I want to talk a little more about the Coopers Cowmen. They are driving this tiny Corolla with no clutch, but also with no boot space, and most of the boot is full of sub-woofer. Last night that sub-woofer was playing the low frequency bits of The Prodigy until almost sunrise, and not the mainstream Prodigy favourites but most of the B side tracks from the Jilted Generation, which lend themselves very nicely to a sound-system made entirely of sub-woofer, because the B side is mostly low frequency experimentation. Anyway, our makeshift tent city seemed entirely unperturbed by this late-night expression of musical creativity, except for one chap who said he would put a hammer through the front windscreen of the Cowmen’s Corolla if it happened again. Seemed an extreme response but I am confident if they can drive a car through the outback without a clutch, then a lack of windscreen would not necessarily rule them out.

But the sub-woofer has me digressing. My point is, they have no space at all and they seem to be getting on just fine. We have this giant CRV and zero subwoofers, and yet every morning we are shoe-horning our many possessions into every nook and cranny we can find; it is the car version of sitting on your suitcase while your partner carefully and steadily pulls the straining zips together. Needless to say, our mattress situation remains unresolved.

This morning our comfortable car finally caught up with us. Fauce and I were required to stand up on a trailer and hoola hoop in front of 500 people. I was disappointed at how bad I was at this; my hips didn’t cooperate at all. Fauce was quite good and mocked me with his eyes and talent, which I found indelicate.

Today our pub crawl took us from the South-West Queensland outback town of Bedourie, through some wild, empty Queensland countryside, just across the border into the Northern Territory, and onward to a small hobby farm called Tobermorey Station, which is a mere snip of a thing at 1,480,000 acres. The maximum carrying capacity of Tobermorey Station is 15,000 head of cattle, which means conditions are quite squishy for those poor bovines. They only get about 100 acres each, and they are mustered by helicopter.. #straya.

Fauce and I spent the first few hours of our journey today wondering and debating whether our 15 year old selves would think we were cool. We had no resolution on this question, and were unsure whether our very presence on this rally would add or detract from that equation. But it did make me wonder what we have been talking about for the last 50 hours of driving. This journey does have a way of twisting, bending and distorting time and conversation… and spinal alignment.

A highlight from today was seeing 5 wedgetail eagles, with their broad chests and fuck-you confidence, devouring a giant red kangaroo on the side of the road; I say again… #straya.

We also popped $50 into a donation tin at one of the pub crawl stops in deep Western Queensland, for a group of school kids from that town to go skiing next year. It struck us as an evocative and wonderful concept, and we figured it would feel as adventurous and exciting to those kids as wedgetail eagles feel to us.

We made it to Tobermorey in the daylight, which was a wonderful development. I bought a key ring for $10 which was just an ear-tag from one of the cows. Not modified at all, just an ear-tag. I will never use it but I felt good about the purchase. I could also tell I was back in the Territory because everybody was chatty, and friendly, and in no hurry whatsoever.

We had a nice evening with sizeable but not ostentatious fires, lots of whip cracking (add to list of things we can’t do) and an incredible spread of gluten-free options for dinner, without hyperbole perhaps the best I have ever seen. Such an array of gluten-free delights is probably not what one might expect on a 6,000km2 cattle farm as close to the middle of nowhere as you can get, but perhaps I need to say again… #straya.

Apparently there was also a blindfolded dance competition after dark, but I had already snuck off for my favourite part of the day – cozying down into my sleeping bag like a plump mummy, opening the zip of my swag just a sliver so the ants don’t find you straight away, and looking straight up at the brightest soup of shimmering stars I have ever seen.

Ever since ice had stopped forming on my forehead, north of Silverton, this has become a rare treat indeed.

Not where the hoop is supposed to be

Big sky at Tobermorey

Atypical mattress arranging

Day 5 – Betoota and Birdsville

Day 5 – Betoota and Birdsville

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When we awoke on day 5, some of the soiled and tattered wedding dresses from yesterday’s adventure had been affixed to a set of nearby rugby posts, billowing silently in the wind. They reminded me of the trussed-up dingoes we had seen swinging gently from trees, south of the wild dog fence. It was simultaneously captivating and unsettling.

Our car was an ochre-coloured, muddy mess, and completely drained of washer fluids, after the gravelly beating of the previous evening. Being the experienced outback adventurers that we are, we recognised fluids and some measure of windscreen visibility might be useful, so we set about rectifying the situation.

We had purchased a giant water vessel in Shepparton which we had been carrying around on our roof for almost a week, but so far had not got around to filling it up (soon we’ll be ready to start the rally). Instead, we have remained quite well hydrated via regular purchases of bottled water from outback petrol stations dotted around the place. Fauce prefers sparkling.

So, given there was no convenient tap to assist us with our task, we cleaned our windscreen, headlights, and topped up our various water reservoirs with one and a half litres of filtered, bottled water. About $7 worth. We recognise this is not text book ‘outdooring’, and hoped nobody observed our shameful act.

Our drive today was clearly designed simply as a pretext to take us past two famous pubs; Betoota and Birdsville.

I didn’t know much about Betoota before we got there. My friend told me it has a camel club and a four star hotel. Because I am a middle-class, left-leaning man who only uses the old, non-confusing social medias, my only association with Betoota is its satirical rag, the Advocate. I am not sure what I expected before we arrived; maybe that semi-famous editor-at-large guy behind the bar, or front pages of various editions plastered on the walls, or at least some suggestion there was a symbiotic relationship going on here. I left a bit confused and I am genuinely not sure the Betoota Hotel is in on the joke. Or perhaps it is all so subtle that I am the one not in on the joke. Wikipedia describes Betoota in relative terms to Birdsville, quote “Betoota is a ghost town to the east of the town of Birdsville”. Birdsville is itself not a thriving metropolis, so that gives you a pretty good idea as to what is going on in Betoota. Not much.

I had quite a long chat with a guy I thought was a security guard for the Betoota Hotel; about Betoota, and the Hotel, and whether we could buy some petrol. But it turned out he was just a guy from the rally dressed as a security guard, so that wasn’t very informative. Anyway, we drank a XXXX there dressed in our tie-dyed coveralls, which we have now cut down into tie-dyed dungarees

Gosh, I just need to digress briefly to exclaim at just how empty the outback is. I was expecting empty, yes, even very empty, but, wow, it is just flat and very, very empty. Like, really empty. Heaps of spinifex though.

Anyway, we rolled into Birdsville mid-afternoon and immediately multiplied its population by 5. Everybody drank a beer and then got back into their quasi-road-safe vehicles to drive another 300km on dirt roads in the dark.

As our buddy group was organising itself to depart, one of our teams (the Cooper’s Cowboys) casually mentioned they didn’t seem to have a clutch anymore. Firstly, why are they called cowboys? Was there some sort of child labour thing happening when people wrangling cows became famous and cool? Surely they are more accurately cowmen? Anyway, I’m going to call them cowmen henceforth.

Where was I? Yes, the clutch. So Fauce and I figured that was the end for the Cowmen, because we have no knowledge of clutches and what can and cannot be achieved without one. The Cowmen were almost suspiciously relaxed about this whole thing. We all gave them a bit of shove and off they went, once around the block and then off into the outback. So add that to the list of things Fauce and Jupiter cannot do; drive a car without a clutch, or even conceive that a car can be driven without a clutch.

We arrived in the dark again, half a dozen of us literally pushing the Cowmen into camp. Apparently that’s fine, and everything’s going to be fine. Seems unlikely.

Only 1200km to go.

Captivating and unsettling

Day 4 – Carpeted walls and functioning brakes

Day 4 – Carpeted walls and functioning brakes

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The remnants of our enormous bonfire were still smoldering when we awoke in Hungerford, to a pleasant temperature and a dry swag. We were in outback Queensland, where the dew point is high and the chance of obliterating your vehicle on a wandering cow is yet higher.

There were quiet whispers in the breakfast line that one or more vehicles had not made it through the night. This rumour seemed supported by the battered Commodores and Corollas still sitting on the flat bed trucks here and there. We dropped our heads solemnly as we ate our packet weetbix. We also heard, indirectly, that somebody had left the rally and maybe they weren’t coming back and that their partner was driving alone, and liked it better that way, or maybe didn’t like it at all. Also, that a certain buddy group wasn’t getting along, or somebody wanted a new group. It occurred to us for the first time that maybe we were on a school camp, with all the personal turmoil, rumour and strain that entails, but a school camp for people in their 50s who are also drinking a lot. This hadn’t occurred to us at all; our group was reasonable, harmonious and relaxed, and also we were so distracted by our obvious capability gaps and out-of-sync costuming that we hadn’t had time to consider the relationship aspect of what was going on around us.

Also, most of the men today are wearing wedding dresses, so that tends to offset any genuine discussion on the human condition.

The theme was ‘white wedding’, which had been enthusiastically, and rather gloriously adhered to by most rally participants. This was another theme for which Fauce and I had planned to shop in Melbourne, but ran out of time. Also, we had misread it as simply ‘white’ and Fauce had procured a white body suit for the purpose and we had thought maybe I could just wear white undies all day because I am quite pale. But, knowing what we now know about the driving and the weather and the public interaction and so forth, we thought that might not be tenable.

Fauce put on his Fem-Bot outfit, which we had loosely thought we would use to match my Dr Evil costume later in the week, and I put on the wig from my German weight-lifting ensemble, plus a Teen Wolf singlet, for which we had no real other plan, and some shorts. We went with ‘white-trash wedding’, which most people to whom we explained it found amusing. Everybody else just seemed confused, which was quite reasonable.

This morning at the briefing two or more groups were subject to public derision and hoola-hoop humiliation because their vehicles are not, well, shit enough. We feel that hoola of shame is coming for us too. Our replacement CRV is really quite comfortable. It even has an electric sunroof and carpet on the inside of the doors. We are trying to keep those luxurious facts secret but simultaneously trying to circulate the contextual story about the demise of our Kia Carnival. It doesn’t seem to be working. People are noticing our comfortable car with its functional wing mirrors and reliable ignition. We didn’t bring any logs for the fire last night so our credibility is already hanging by a thread. Also, Fauce is dressed like a Fem-Bot.

You might be surprised to read that we had quite a long drive today.

About 550km through Quilpie, which doesn’t seem to have any Give Way or Stop signs, to Windorah. At some point during the drive we were required to pour in our first every Jerry Can of petrol, which was quite the moment. It was made even more special because Fauce did it whilst wearing a pink negligee and matching bright pink gloves.

I took the last driving shift today, which once again concluded in the dark. We had the opportunity to test the brakes very late in the day, when a very large black cow, which was inconveniently the same colour as the night, sauntered out onto the road. It was a narrow miss. Perhaps we were self-conscious about our car’s lack of shitness at the beginning of the day, but we were certainly grateful for its functioning breaks by the end (and the carpeted doors, which are a delight).

Tomorrow our journey takes us through the classic outback pubs of Betoota and Birdsville.

Red Dirt

Day 3 – The pagan sacrifice

Day 3 – The pagan sacrifice

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I woke up with ice on my forehead and white face paint on my sleeping bag. Despite my best efforts in the camp shower last evening, there was no soap and no mirror, and so actually I hadn’t washed off much of the white paint at all. Yesterday I looked ghoulish, today I just looked confusing.

Like aged, disinterested, quite soft crocodiles, we wrestled our mattresses into the car, then ate breakfast and ultimately we were ready to depart about 10% faster than yesterday. As Fauce and I say to each other every morning; soon we’ll be ready to start this rally. Our key learning from this morning was; yes, tuck your tomorrow trousers into the swag with you, but go one step further and pop them into your sleeping bag. That way you don’t have to pull on wet, semi-frozen trousers to start the day. That’s pro-camping.

It came as a great surprise to us at the morning briefing that today we would be driving a lot, and lots of it would not be on very good roads. We mouthed things to each other like “did you know we would be driving this much?” and then shrugged our shoulders theatrically while looking around at our fellow rally-ers who seem wholly aware and supportive of it.

So today we journeyed from Silverton through Broken Hill and Wilcannia to Hungerford. We are still on our 1500km, 48 hour detour to avoid the wet road, so Hungerford, and perhaps also the route there, felt hastily arranged. I can confirm, however, that you can buy paw-paw lip balm at the Ampol in Wilcannia, which feels like real progress to me.

This was our first real stretch of relentless dirt road for the rally and at first it was a great thrill, not particularly stressful, and afforded wonderful photos of red dirt and opportunities to spray vast waves of muddy water everywhere through the dips and culverts. Wonderful stuff.

As the sun slipped lower, slowly melted away and then completely gave up on us for the day, we realised however, that the sticky cloud of dust in which we had been driving all day might prove to be something of an obstacle at night.

The cloud enveloped us. Our tepid headlights threw out just enough light to rattle around between the dust particles, this way and that, but not enough to cut through. And so the whole convoy slowed to a walk, each of us floating in our own ethereal dust bubble, guided only by the blurry pricks of red tail-light bobbing about in front, which were in turn guided by their own red tail-light, and so on and so on. Each of us under the flimsy presumption that at the end of this long chain of tail-light reliance there was a car that knew where it was going.

For an hour or more Fauce and I lost our tail-light safety blanket and so drifted through the outback alone, in a dream-state, listening to Simply Red, not always sure we were on the road; occasionally running through a small patch of spinifex and so then turning away from that spinifex and back onto the bumpy, gravelly bit which may have been the road, but may also have just been ‘the outback’. We never hit tree nor shrub, which we thought was a good thing, but then again when the sun had set it didn’t seem as it there was much to speak of in the way of tree or shrub.

Just as we had submitted ourselves to the fact we were 300km off track in the middle of a thankless desert, a tiny pin-prick of red light sprang for a moment above the horizon. We yelped with joy and accelerated ever so slightly towards it, and ultimately rejoined the snail-paced convoy as it lurched and jolted through the desert.

And so, in this way we all finally reached camp at the Hungerford showground, or rodeo ring, or marketplace, and quickly set up in the dark. After a very tasty dinner put on by the very fine residents of Hungerford, we set up near the fire to watch the triage tent crank into action; the road today had claimed many a victim.

The fire began as a very pleasant affair; warming, invigorating, but not imperiling. Then the logs began to arrive. At the morning briefing ‘those with utes’ were instructed to ‘pick up some firewood’ during the drive. Now, if you want an instruction to be enthusiastically carried out, tell a group of ute-driving men to out-firewood each other.

Wow. Some of the logs looked like whole trees, hewn from the earth with bare hands. Ute after ute pulled up and triumphantly disgorged their bounty, building enormous piles of timber all around us, as if we were preparing to build a new community centre. And once the wood has been collected the wood must be burned!

And so on it went, trunk after trunk. None for later. All for now! And so what started as pleasant campfire quickly became pagan sacrifice and we were forced to retreat a good 50 meters, lest our polyester trousers catch fire.

Before bed we added one more item to the list of things Fauce and Jupiter cannot do, but I can’t even really describe it, it was a partial conversation we overhead during the pagan sacrifice and it was something about cutting up a star picket and welding it into some or other part of the engine, or engine-adjacent area. Wild stuff.

Tomorrow we are back on schedule and on our way to Windorah.

Frosty swags and frosty heads

Day 2 – Modern Day Vampires

Day 2 – Modern Day Vampires

by Jupiter and Sons ♥ 1 Comment

We awoke on the morning of day 2 in a freezing swamp and wondered if sleeping in a swag in the middle of a racetrack in central NSW during winter is really for us.

Each day we are adding something to our list of basic things not to do. This morning it was don’t leave your shoes outside when you’re sleeping in a freezing swamp during winter.

We pulled on wet, crispy boots and went, shivering, to breakfast and the morning briefing. It turns out the whispers about the Astra are true; not only did it tragically pass away yesterday, the owners seemed to have locked the doors and disappeared, taking the keys with them. How this was achieved without a car in the middle of the NSW desert I am not sure. What I am sure of is that such behaviour is frowned upon by shitbox organisers. The drivers of the Astra, whose identities remain unknown to us, were the subject of quite some derision. It seemed that somebody was going to salvage their wheels however, which was a silver lining.

We also learned during this briefing that recent rains in central Australia meant that one of our key unsealed roads was unsafe to drive upon, which meant a two day diversion from our original itinerary; because, in central Australia, a washed-out road takes two days to drive around.

So we returned to our makeshift camp and tried to forcefully squeeze our enormous, not-at-all-shrink-wrapped mattresses into the back seat of our car. We eventually managed this, although the situation as it stands is untenable.

We then turned our attention to the dress-up theme of the day; ‘punk’, for which we were very unprepared. We have been about 22 hours behind schedule ever since our Carnival incident, and so our window to procure punk outfits in Melbourne had evaporated. We had some costume elements of Voldemort, white face paint, flamboyant renaissance painter, medieval peasant belts and a lavish, faux-velvet Dracula jacket. We did our best but ended up far closer to ‘modern vampire’ than ‘punk’; very, what we do in the shadows – Fauce like one of the well dressed ones, and me more like the emaciated 1000 year old ghoul in the basement. These outfits did, however, provide nice juxtaposition to the red dirt and country pubs we toured throughout the day.

We covered about 550km today; Hay via Ivanhoe, Menindee and Broken Hill to the gorgeous remote town of Silverton; famous for camels and Mad Max. We saw wild roaming cattle, goats of all shapes and sizes, birds of all colours, a huge golden sunset, kangaroos and wild emus. My wild emu count at the start of today was zero, now it is 37. This was a real treat.

We spent most of today again on sealed roads, due to the aforementioned diversion, so the fabled ‘triage tent’ remained without many patrons. But one feels this might change tomorrow, with about a million kilometres to cover on the dirt.

Oh, also the shitbox rally attracts a rather handy, practical genre of human. I am not saying Fauce and I are not without our skills and talents, but we have been keeping a list of the many things we have seen going on around us that we don’t know how to do. I’ll start that list now:

  • Open a beer without access to an implement specifically designed for this purpose;
  • Roll up a swag into any reasonably sized package; and
  • Get a ‘carby’ started with a small plastic cup of petrol that still had some red wine in the bottom.
Day 1 – Spaghetti Pie

Day 1 – Spaghetti Pie

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Today we were wearing tie-dyed coveralls and orange stakhats and the only comments we received were about our tyres. They are admittedly very nice tyres, but that gives you a reasonable idea of proclivities of our fellow shitboxers.

Today was a smooth ‘introductory’ day, mostly on sealed roads, 425km from Melbourne to Hay via Heathcote, Echuca and Deniliquin.

We’re getting to know our buddy group, the members of which all seem to have their eccentricities, as do we, I suppose. There seems to be a genuine interest in helping one another. For example, we mentioned the weird slow acceleration thing our new shitbox goes in for from time to time. A fellow driver sought to help:

“Does your transmission have a dip-stick?” he asked me

“Ah yes” I said “the gear lever? It’s just to the left of the steering wheel.”

He could have shamed me in front of my new colleagues, but did not. Instead he just popped our hood and had a look. Of course he was referring to a dip stick for our transmission fluid, to check our level, who knew that was a thing? Well, as it turns out we don’t have one, so the mystery remains.

The day went quite smoothly really; we lost one car very early and news of its demise travelled like a whisper on the breeze.

“An Astra, did you hear?”

“Ooh yes, the Astra. I heard it was a tyre, or the engine, or the transmission fluid. If only they had a dipstick.” Anyway, they weren’t in our buddy group and we never met them so it all still seems rather theoretical to us. Like a tragic flood in a country we’ve never heard of.

Otherwise, the number of bakeries in rural Australia is truly astonishing, evidence that a meat pie will survive any cost of living crisis. And they are so confident in their product they will unashamedly offer up ridiculous concoctions, like the ‘spaghetti pie’ we spotted in Echuca. Unfortunately it is so popular that they had sold out. An experience missed.

We made it to Hay before sunset and set up quickly for us, but objectively very slowly. Our swags are brand new so we had to drag them out of their original plastic – a classic way to identify yourself as a seasoned professional. Our swags contained these shrink wrapped mattresses that expanded like microwave popcorn as soon as we released them. They are, between them, now about the same size as our car. Not sure what we’re going to do about that tomorrow. We don’t have any means with which to re-shrink anything.

There are some truly spectacular set-ups around us however. One team across the way casually set up an almost full-sized basketball hoop, which emerged from their car somehow, and there were all manner of contraptions and home comforts disgorging from tiny vehicles in every direction – dudes playing darts over there, ladies wearing LED robes over here, and a fella sitting on his roof with an electric guitar.

We have already heard legendary tales about what happens over night at the ‘triage tent’; like a frankenstein’s laboratory that fuses 40 year old Corollas and battered Datsun Sunnies together in an unspeakable alchemy of rust and flame. It sat quietly this evening because the poor fallen Astra was either long gone or a myth all along.

Anyway, we hit the dirt tomorrow, so quite likely by the evening we will see smoke and steam begin to billow from the triage tent, like Mount Doom in the heart of Mordor.

Hay Showgrounds

Day Zero – Some good things and some bad things

Day Zero – Some good things and some bad things

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So, today some good things happened and some bad things happened. Most of the bad things happened in the first 15 minutes.

Firstly, Damian from Murphy’s Mechanic and Scrapyard had a quick look at our now no-longer-smoking engine and said a word that made it clear our beloved Carnival would not be leaving Euroa.

“It’s fixable” he said “but the cost would be many, many, many times more than the car is worth”. We thought the number of times he used the word many was indelicate, particularly within earshot of the car.

The second piece of bad news from Damian was that none of the cars on his lot were for sale; not the Bedford, not the battered Merc, not even the former taxi (which we learned later was just a taxi – Damian also runs the Euroa Taxi company, and some other things).

It was about 0900hrs and we hadn’t had coffee or food, only bad news.

So, following the principle that you can achieve most things with some internet, a phone, a credit card and a positive attitude, we found a café with wifi and set about trying to find a new shitbox. Our first one took six months to find but today we had about 6 hours.

We started with local dealerships, which was not profitable. Seymour, Echuca, Shepparton… well-meaning used car sheisters just couldn’t bring themselves to sheist quite so shamelessly. “we have cars like that” they would say “but they’re not really road worthy. Or safe. Or registered”; it was always a variant on that.

Autotrader and Facebook Marketplace next. Gone were our days of only pursuing Taragos, Carnivals or other 7 seat leisure wagons; anything with a whiff of registration, in the price and geographic ballpark we went for; Astras, Lasers, Hondas, Wagons, Sedans, Utes, anything. Lots of non-replies, a few “yeah she’s sweet except for the complete lack of suspension, or windshield, or wingmirrors, or transmission”. Very few roadworthies, even less registration and not much time left.

So, late into the morning, and on our second coffee we spotted a Honda CRV with 268000km, alarmingly cheap, three weeks of rego, 30 minutes drive away with the magic words listed on the ad  “must leave the country. Need sell now.”

So we made contact with the seller, confirmed it was still available, and yes those precious three weeks of rego. So we called a cab, which was when we realised Damian ran the tow truck, the mechanic, the scrapyard and the taxi company. Full life cycle.

Minutes later we were picked up by one of the mechanics who had diagnosed our poor Carnival earlier that morning and we were off heading north, with an envelope of cash, to Shepparton. We bid our taxi (and only means of transportation) goodbye and threw our lot in with the Honda CRV.

The seller, let’s call her Sammy, met us enthusiastically and gestured for us to hop in. “Does it drive?” we asked. She looked at us quizzically and said “yes” and asked whether we wanted to have a drive. We were satisfied by the answer but thought a test drive might be a reasonable bit of due diligence.

We drove around the block, and because the car didn’t immediately burst into flames we agreed to the sale. She seemed pleased but also confused “you don’t want to check anything?”

“Should we check anything?” we retorted to which.. “no, no but most people who have looked have wanted to check things”.

This gave us three pieces of information; more than one other person had inspected the car, those people had ‘checked things’, and based on those things checks (at least in part), had decided not to pay the, admittedly very modest, price for the CRV. We had no time to consider the second-order ramifications of those observations and reiterated our enthusiasm to confirm the commercial arrangement.

This was not as easy as we might have hoped.

Given Australia has in no way achieved Federation despite declaring Federation 124 years ago, if I live in the Northern Territory and wish to purchase a vehicle in Victoria, I may as well be from Mozambique. We tried and tried to navigate the internet and hard copy versions of the transfer forms and then ultimately decided we needed to drive to the Vic Roads office to work it out.

Sammy, leaving the country on Sunday, was delighted to take this journey with us to finalise the sale. Time was ebbing away.

Arriving at the Vic Roads office we were dismayed to see a large, milling, disgruntled crowd all waiting to get an eye test, or dispute a fine, or offer their organs up for donation. We took a number and I sized up each of the tellers, trying to decide which was the best demographic to explain this slightly out-of-the-box transaction that we wished to complete. Women aged 55-59 are usually my best demographic with which to build early rapport, so I hoped for Lynda at Counter 4.

After the setbacks of the morning we felt our spirits soar when the number 4 popped up on the screen and Lynda gestured us over with a forced smile “How are you?” she asked “how can I help you?”

“Lynda, we’re great” I responded “we have a slightly difficult challenge and would love your assistance”. Sammy stood smiling bemused, wondering how she had found herself in this situation.

Anyway, Lynda was great. She explained that because I was from the NT (and Fauce from miles away) we would need a ‘temporary’ garaging address which could be Sammy’s. And, no problem about the Roadworthy Certificate, we have 14 days to complete that. She would transfer into my name which is all legal and excellent and once that certificate is available the transfer would be complete, and if by then I am back in the NT I could transfer the plates etc etc. All sounded great and irrelevant given at the end of this week we will cancel the registration and mail the plates back to Victoria (if the CRV lasts that long). Sammy explained again meekly that she hadn’t had time to get the Roadworthy done, but it was becoming more and more apparent to us that perhaps Sammy had the time, but not the inclination.

No matter – a glorious victory, thanks to Lynda’s generosity of spirit, and expertise within her own bureaucracy, we had our second shitbox!

So we bought a few more essential provisions, learned that our hotel in Melbourne had cancelled our room because we didn’t show up the previous evening, and navigated that particular issue via a ‘shift manager’ named Simon who was the least helpful person we encountered today, and drove the 30 minutes back to Euroa, and Murphy’s Scrapyard.

It was now 3pm and we were still at least 2 hours drive from Melbourne (pre-rally briefing at 6pm).

Damian and his crew greeted us warmly, although we had to wait a few minutes while he finished with some customers. We learned at this juncture that Damian is also responsible for Euroa’s rental car market. King of the town.

As a parting gift our now vanquished Carnival yielded up her high spec dirt tyres which Damian’s team transferred onto our new CRV. “looks much less sissy now” he said and shook our hands.

Damian offered us $100 to receive and dispose of the Carnival, which had now been stripped of all fixings and dignity, which we immediately offered back to him for the labour on the tyres and his general good vibes and assistance. A gentleman’s transaction.

With one last defiant gasp of energy, our Carinval sprung to life just once more, long enough to spit out the Best of Simply Red CD, then closed her pale green eyes forever. Rest well old friend.

So, with a heavy heart but a renewed hope, Fauce pulled out of Murphy’s lot as we both waved furiously. The CRV was momentarily stuck in 3rd gear and then wouldn’t accelerate, or really drive at all, but then it seemed to hiccup and come to life and off we went. So maybe we’ll hear more about that, and maybe we won’t.

Onward to Melbourne… and the start line tomorrow.

Farewell newish friend

Day Minus One – More smoke and steam than we had hoped

Day Minus One – More smoke and steam than we had hoped

by Jupiter and Sons ♥ 2 Comments

It’s Thursday, the rally starts in Melbourne in two days.

Started bright and early on the South Coast having made it safely from Sydney. Feeling smug. Car driving well enough. Some of the doors don’t open, the clutch is smooshy, first gear is pretty elusive and there are strangeish quirks with the locks, but in general things are looking bright.

We purchased Simply Red Greatest Hits and Love Songs 70s, 80s and 90s on CD from the Braidwood Vinnies, found a roof rack and installed it poorly, then purchased the incorrect tie-down strap for the spare tyre but it seems stable enough. Fashioned some flag poles from PVC piping and bought an over-spec’d esky and hundreds of cable ties. Procured five bumper stickers from Milton, Braidwood, Yass, Gundagai and Holbrook.

All day we’d been saying things like ‘woah that clutch doesn’t smell great’ and ‘geez, smell that burning oil? Oh well. That’s what you get for $1500’… and then just around Wadonga, with misplaced hubris, we started congratulating ourselves on our fine preparation and very very foolishly declaring pre-emptive victory. We’ll be in Melbourne in no time!

And very, very shortly thereafter… Oh, we’re slowing down, Fauce said. Oh no, we’re overheating. Oh, yup, the engine has cut-out.

By the time we had rolled to a stop on the shoulder there was alarming smoke/ steam/ smoke stuff billowing aggressively from all sorts of places. We bounced out of the car with our tiny, single use fire extinguisher at the ready. Pointing it this way and that.

After a minute or two, when we were slightly more confident our car was not about to burst into flames, we approached it with caution, like one might a caged tiger. We gingerly popped the hood then looked in. Yup, it looks really hot and smoky and not driving, we confirmed.

So, after eating a banana each, we used the power of a mobile phone and a credit card and before long Rhys from Murphy’s Mechanical and Scrap services in Euroa was with us. He confirmed the engine was really hot and smoky and not driving and then hoisted us and our shitbox onto his truck.

So now we are drinking nice red wine and eating a chicken curry in a lovely country pub in Euroa and wondering what tomorrow might bring us. Rhys has a wide selection of very shitty looking cars in his scrapyard so it may be possible that by lunchtime tomorrow we will be cruising in a very beat up Mercedes, a battered Bedford Wagon or a clapped out Euroa taxi, all of which we spied in his yard.

Stay tuned.

Purchasing our shitbox

Purchasing our shitbox

by Jupiter and Sons ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Our search for the perfect shitbox continued for months; a Toyota Tarago or similar 7 seat family cruiser for $1500 is not easy to find, if you are picky and want things like an engine.

Here are few more examples of the types of vehicle advertisements one encounters when scraping through this ‘market segment’. You can read the first installment here.

1997 Saab 900S

Blends both performance and luxury into one irresistable package.

Roof doesn’t open. Clutch needs replacing. Front seats are munted. Radio antenna broken. I’m selling it because maybe someone wants to repair it and give the old girl a new life.

Use of the past-tense verb ‘munted’ was truly wonderful.

Daihatsu Pyzar

Unregistered, no plates. Selling as have upgraded to a car that actually runs. Buyer will need to tow away (at buyer’s expense. NOTE the sale does not include towing costs. The buyer must pay for and arrange to get the car towed away.)

I sent a private message to confirm who would pay for towing but didn’t receive a response.

2006 Holden Astra

Solid and reliable – hell yes! I bought this car from a friend last year after my Subaru wagon was written off. I needed something fairly quickly and this was perfect. I paid him $1000 and spent $2000 getting it cleaned, serviced and roadworthy. He bought it new in 2006 and always had it serviced and maintained. The kms are now high but the engine is in great condition. It had never skipped a beat and runs perfectly. Cosmetically however it is showing sings of age! My friend had a dog and for the life of me I cannot get all the dog hair out! To be honest it is a bit of a grandpa car! If you want quick off the mark then this isn’t it. If you want great mileage then this certainly is it. The cons: The rear left passenger door doesn’t lock and the electric window on it doesn’t work. I’ve bought a new car so keen to just get rid of this one. It’s cheap and reliable but don’t expect any class or style. It’s had a life and many stains will never come out. And dog hair…!

One must also navigate numerous Facebook Marketplace conversations like this:

(18 January) ME: Hi Rafat, how are you? Is the vehicle currently registered and if so when does the rego expire? Thank you very much.

(18 January) RAFAT: Yes, are you interested?

(19 January) ME: Hello thanks very much. Yes, maybe. How long does the rego go for? The car runs doesn’t in?

(20 January) RAFAT: No rego car stop long time. Good for parts or mechanic to start it.

(20 January) ME: Oh, OK thanks Rafat. It might not be the car for us.

(21 January) RAFAT: Thumbs up emoji.

But after much searching we have now secured our beloved 2003 Kia Carnival, only a little munted, and ready to set sail next Wednesday (12 June) for the first segment of its unlikely journey from Sydney to Melbourne, and then Melbourne to Alice Springs via Hay, Silverton, Tibooburra, Windorah, Bedourie and Tobermorey. Internet-willing I will send updates from the bush…

More to come.

Ready for customization