Monday 24 March 2008

Google Map

Check out the searchable Google Map - centred on our house today - at the bottom of the blog.

Car Servicing & Thinking About Not Working

Over the long Easter weekend it has been all car stuff I am afraid.

Saturday was spent removing the 2nd row seats and rust proofing the door panels (for that beach driving on Fraser Island!). Also some other bits and pieces that needed doing like wiper blades and washer fluid and all that boring stuff.

Then Easter Sunday at Paul's we changed the engine oil + filters and diff oil, plus greased the uni joints under the car. With Paul and his dad's help of course, but it is a nice feeling knowing you changed the oil yourself and saw all the clean stuff go in all the same! Once the transfer case oil leak (typical Land Rover apparently) is sorted at the dealers then the gearbox and transfer oil will be changed and we will be good to go - in terms of oil anyway!

Next plan for the car is changing all four shock absorbers and front springs for some heavier duty and 2" raised ones, and raising the rear by 2" with a special lifting kit (as the car has airbags for the rear suspension). We'll also replace the rear brake pads whilst we are at it.

Me and Em still have a lot else to do other than the car; packing, moving out, planning, etc. And now only have about 3 weeks left at work. Both of us are really excited about leaving work, but daunted by the thought of not being at work at the same time - make sense? Well, imagine waking up every day and not having anything to do except fish (we've both got rods now!), beach bum/surf, read, drive (sometimes), explore, make/pack camp, and cook. It's gonna be weird.....

Wednesday 12 March 2008

We've Quit!

Me & Em both handed our notices in at our respective employers yesterday. It was a very exciting day indeed!

Emily works at Philip Morris too and we both scheduled meetings with our managers for the same time so the news came out at once.

And we went to see Ian Brown at Hi Fi Bar in the evening with the Freeman's which made it a really cool day overall!

Monday 10 March 2008

Warm up bush camp with Nick and Dyo

Over the Labour Day long weekend we took a trip to Bunyip State Park with Swiss friends Nick and Dyo. This was a dry run for our trip and included a couple of tricky 4WD tracks through the park.

It was also a great way to spend the weekend with our Swissy friends who are shortly heading off to Buenos Aires on assignment, with plenty of bush tucker had around the fire on Saturday and Sunday night before heading home on Monday during a windy, hot, total fire ban, day off work!

Nick teaching us how to chop wood the Swiss way:

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Base camp:

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A friendly local in a WWII jeep:

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Nick's Suzuki leading the way:

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My Disco after a difficult climb up steep terrain called Western Track, both cars made it up no problem and it was beautiful forest at the top:

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And some happy campers at Seven Rock lookout - after searching for this place for nearly 5 hours (including the difficult 4WD Western Track) it was a welcome relief to see the wide open view of Gippsland and Westernport Bay from the top:

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Tomorrow is D-Day at work for me and Em so come back soon for some more stories of how we are getting on with our preparation!

Saturday 1 March 2008

Some car prep pictures...

Paul (our travelling buddy) put his chippie skills to work on the back of my car one weekend in his hometown Aireys Inlet. The frame and floor is made of aluminium and plastic joints with ply shelves, carpeted expertly by the girls, for a rather useful end result!
















I had the dual battery and inverter fitted which will also come in very handy for powering all the 12 volt camping accessories, charging the laptop and camera batteries and most importantly the 50 litre Waeco fridge:














And above I had a crack at fitting the driving lights - with direction from Paul!

Em's stuff


Yo - Chaz is buggin me