Thanks Al and Lyn, I now have Darkie at home:))

I arrived home this afternoon after travelling to Romsey to pick Darkie up. The trip down was pretty uneventful but it seems I bought the rain to downtown Romsey and the rest of the eastern seaboard LOL

Al helped me fit the side steps on Wednesday afternoon and I also transfered all the stuff from under the seats in the triton into the drawer under the tray of Darkie. It was quite suprising how much was under those seats :)

Darkie got the green light from the Engineer on Thursday morning and that afternoon we changed the loan tyres over to the good ones. Not long after that the heavens opened and a light shower of rain dumped about 40mm in 20 mins.
The creek at the back of Lyn and Al's soon flooded and their 2 kids and the dog were out playing in the water.

I had a relaxing day on Friday, I took Darkie for my first drive and refuelled him ready for the trip home. I could have left Friday but I wasn't sure if anyone was comming to the open invite Lyn had posted. I ended up leaving at 3am Saturday morning with it still raining.

I made good time to the border considering the weather and the fact it was the 1st weekend of school holidays. I turned off the Hume Highway onto the Olympic highway and made my way up to Molong then onto Wellington. The rain seemed to be getting heavier and I missed the turn to Gulgong so took the next turn to Dunedoo. That road is sealed for the 1st 60km then is a gravel/dirt road. After comming around a blind lefthand sweeping corner I had to hit the anchors as the powers to be had blocked the road at a causeway. It had about 1 foot of water over it and was flowing reasonably quickly. The causeway was 2 lanes wide and concrete, so I tried out High range in Darkie and drove through it. A few miles down the road I came across an oncoming 2wd and flagged him down to tell him that he wouldn't get through.

I stopped at Coolah for a coffee (Driver Reviver gotta love em) only to find out that the road between Willow Tree and Premer was closed and that B Doubles were not getting through, so another detour up to Gunnadah was needed. I arrived in Tamworth about 5pm yesterday afternoon. All up I did 1150km in a day and it took me 14 hours.

Today I met up with Kiwi and her clan as well as John T in Tamworth at about 7:30am. After a bit of a chat I hit the road again and arrived back in Woolgoolga at around 2pm.

Darkie averaged about 18L/100km or 5.5km/L of Diesel. He is a bit of a slug going up hills but is what I expected of a non turbo 4.2 1HZ. The Finance minister has approved funds for the turbo already LOL Just need to convince her about needing to do the exhaust upgrade at the same time ;)

So for all the effort and waiting I must admit that it well worth it. It would not have happened without the great assistance from Lyn and Al. So Thank you to both of them.

And Lucky can you tell me how to get rid of dog drool and hair from the inside of Darkie ;)

Cheers and Merry Christmas

Kev and Darkie