Cracked up in Emerald

First the good news

today we officially left the outback of Queensland as we have passed over the great divide.

More good news, we managed to not add to the kangeroo road kill count, we will leave tht to the Ozzies, who seem masters of the art of squishing roos....

Little bit of bad news, Tiny got his windscreen cracked by a nice man speeding over a new bit of the metilda highway.

Clearly the poor chap did not get too much schooling as he could neither read the speed limit sign or the do not overtake sign, as he sped passed us he through hundreds of chippings up at us and one hit plum dead center !!

So its off to Novous tomorrow to try and get it repaired.

other than that we had a great morning at the "waltzing matilda" center in the little town that owns the song.

Pay and I have decided that our new party piece will be a hearty rendition of the song complete with accents and Jackeroo hats.

nearly mastered the first verse

soon we will be on the east coast heading south

not heard at all from our ex travelling partners Macbeth, Mark if you get this send me a message and let me know where you are at, please.

Thats it for now

Love to all as always

Simon and Pat

WE MADE IT !!!!!!

Its time to get a little excited...........

Pat, Simon and Tiny are in OZ, free and clear to roll down the red carpe of dust and sand that lies before us.

We got through in customs in just over two hours, passed first time and left our shippers in shock as we are the first car to pass through the controls process first time in over ten years.

We where very nervous about the process (and its costs) in the end just over 300 dollars in inspection charges and we where done !!!

We where also very glad to see the back of timor, a charmless place with no soul that we could find.

We are additionally happy to be rolling out of here into the kakado national park tomorrow before the rains hit proper.

Darwin has been slow roasting us (36 degrees plus) and its super humid making every little task and big one.

So, happy days all round......

Officially completed Overland to Oz Rally 0n the 13th October 2009, a rush job at at three and a half months.

still lots more to come so keep tuning in.......

Hounded by Hondas in Sumbawa

Dear all

here we are sat at the port of Bajo waiting to go to Flores, last night was zero fun with Hondas using the road outside our stop over as a race track.

I now officially hate Hondas....

It went like this

7 to 11 pm Honda racing

11pm calls to Allah

11.30 pm Honda racing

00.30 am Hondas went to bed

00.30 the dogs took over the streets and howled like lunatics until 02.45

(Perhaps they where calling to Allah also)

03.00 am more calls to Allah

(Perhaps to ask for the dogs to pipe down)

After a short prayer, we got to sleep at 03.30 sleep, until

A mixture of Hondas, hounds and more calls to Allah woke us at 06.00 !!

On a more positive note

TWO islands to go

Tomorrow Flores

Then onto Timor

Then fly to OZ for the run down to Melbourne....

Clutch is slowly disappearing

Haynes reads as follows

1. It is best to remove the engine to carry out a clutch change.

So stop right there !!!

Lets hope it holds out until OZ..........

Indonesia Part one

Nearly there !!!!

A quick note from us....

We are in Bali

Pictures from Java to follow

Quick thought on Java

We have met some fantastic people in Java, everyone has a smile and a wave, some take photos.

BUT

What on earth happens to them when they get on the road ????

Never, ever, have I seen so much traffic !!!

They must have the patience of saints, how anyone ever gets anything done on Java is beyond me and where do all these people live ??

Longest Jam, 42 miles.

Shortest driving day 11 hours and drove a staggering 297 KM !!

My Patience was nearly fried, unfortunately, my clutch is, its been hammered, so its out with the Haynes manual when we get to Melbourne and I will learn how to change the clutch component's of Tiny.

Its the least I can do for him......

Next stop

Lambok

Indonesian Island of Sumatra

Looks like a few people I know!!

The third longest bridge in Asia, links George town and the main land of Malaysia.

Tiny gets that sinking feeling as he is lowered into the hold of the Lestati 3.



He was very brave......

Tiny hanging tuff as he gets unloaded at Belawan docks

A tree, with lake Tobo in the background.

same, same

Far southern tip of Lake Tobo

Lots of scenery

Managing to stay on their own side of the road for a change, the normal route of travel is to sort of drive in the middle of the road honking your horn to move you out of the way......

An Indonesian man using his head.....

same, same

The bus was carrying the phone !!!!!

(note the buses position on the road - in the middle!!)

The Eagle (Tiny) has landed !!!!!

Well shiver me timbers....

Tiny and titchy are safe and well, unloaded and rolling down the roads of Indonesia !!!!

We had a bit of a shock when we where asked for a total of $600 to clear the port, including having to bring in heavy lift equipment, in the end we paid up and we are now around 450 KM south of Medan.

Indonesia continues to test our Britishness, the road manners here are odd (that's proper polite) the Asian flow that we had become accustomed too has disappeared for a slightly more random version of wacky races...

This is another country that I hope to get out of in one piece, I have already shared a few choice words with a more than impolite bit of carve up served to me by a microvan at a fuel station....

More to come, almost for sure...

The roads here thus far are not quite as bad as Kaz however great they are not, prone to disappearing under stones and mud, and due to the nearly every vehicle leaking oil, the roads are slippery when dry and turn to treacherous when wet..

We have noticed that despite being only a couple of hours from the equator the temperature has dropped considerably and its raining more than normal, so we have to assume the rains are upon us...

Which in turn will make the journey a little more interesting.

I know for sure that at least two cars in Sumatra have wind screen wipers, the rest is anyones guess.

We are now full on into Ramadan with the fasting festival concluding on Saturday, we hope this does not hinder our planned ferry journey to Java, scheduled for Saturday.....

So then we are a quarter of the way down Sumatra, about a tenth of the way through Indonesia, and therefore around 3500 KM from OZ and our final destination......

We are slowly starting to wish the next couple of weeks away so we can finally stop and gather our senses.