Andy\'s Adventures!!! Update 21/05

Howdy Dudes,
Just a quick update for you all.
All goes well. We made the mad dash to Melb OK. Currently in Tassie and loving it. Only just managed to get back on the net, so will update web page soon with pics.
Only minor problems on route, rear brake locked on 10km from home!!! not a good start to trip. Also last week dissy packed it in, I think the mech advance siezed causing the expected problems. Lucky I had a spare!
New motor is going well (Thanks to German Auto's). Done ~3500km so far. Fuel economy not what I would like (~6.8klm/L), but not unexpected considering it's fully loaded and extra wind resistance of racks. I don't think all the additional work I did on the motor made much difference on power/torque or fuel economy! Extra heat in exhaust has aided heaters in Tassie though :-).
Spare fuel tank gives ~40L, as does water tank (Thanks Dan). Inside cupboards are working out fine as are awnings.
Cheers,
Richard
Oh, ad a BIG thanks to all those others that helped along the way :-)

Pics,
Camp Arthur River Tassie

[Edited on 29-4-2004 by Andy]

[Edited on 21-5-2004 by Andy]

Ben Lomond NP Tassie
1600m above sea level.

Looks like your having great fun seeing the sights (lucky bugger) have a great rest of your trip:thumb

Mt Wellington (Hobart) 1300m and above clouds. Temps ~5degC + a stiff breeze Brrrrr...

Good onya!!! Have a great trip. Look forward to reports. Hope Andy is well also!!!!!!

Have a great time! Hoping all goes well....

Sweet. Looks like your having a good time Richard........ Andy is a legend.

[Edited on 20-4-2004 by 72TWINCAB]

Thats nothing you want to try geting up thier inthe middle of winter with ice and snow everywhere(its called Jackobs Ladder by the way),as at the top there is one of Tasmania's ski resorts.Plenty of fun for mountain bikes in the summer tho.

Sounds like a great time,love the pics.Look forward to the next update.:thumb

Looks like you're doing the team proud, Richard. 😀 I'll have to talk to you about those rear spare carriers when you get back...

Thanks for all the well wishes folks. I'll keep you all up to date and will update the web page soon.
Modulus, when I update the web page your free to use bit's of it for AVD campers if you like, or I can do up some more specific reports, just let me know. I have heaps more pics!!
Andrew, NO Andy's not going up there in the snow :-) Hope you guy's had fun on your trip down here!
Till next time, happy VW'ing
Richard

Thanks Richard,
The

http://www.aussiekombicampers.com/

website is following the trip, and dispatches from the road can be seen at the Trip Reports section of the site.

hth

Thanks Modulus, that looks great, your doing a wonderful job there.

Howdy Folks. Well we're safely across Bass straight again and in Melb.
After a few parts and minor repairs (Thanks to Volkspower) we are off again.
We head through a few towns on our way to the Grampians and then back to do the great ocean road. All going well we be in SA in 2-3 weeks.

Oh, also if anyone wants to say G'day, or if we pass your way you can ring us on 0416 137 163.

Till next time.
Richard.

Hey Kol, here is a pic from a Baja Bus up here at Klubfest today.

Howdy all.
Just a quick one to say hi and we are still on the road going well, as is Andy. Having heaps of fun (hence the lack of e-mails and web updating) but if I get my butt into gear it will change.
Anyway we have been through western Vic, the great ocean road and the fleur peninsular in SA and are currently in Adelaide (Thanks Busman for your help!) recouping before heading on to Coober peady then back down to go across the Nullabour.

Have been catching up with quite a few fellow dubbers along the way, and good to see fellow travellers (in kombi's of course) all over. The best I have seen (not VW though) was a couple doing a very similar trip to us in a 67 mustang. Very nice!

Graham, thanks for the pic, looks cool. Here's another of mine, but I will get some better ones later. Basically there is a pipe running from the towbar (behind bumper) up to the roof rack and a frame swings from that. A simple catch in the middle and one large bolt to pull the spare tight to the rack. Works well and tyre goes on easily.

Cheers and keep on dubbin,
Richard

Camping Kombi style!

Looks like your having a great time and your photos are great. The vw comunity needs more like your self to show that VW POWER is just fine(lets see them fix a brocken fuel injector on the side of a track as aposed to pulling a jet out and giving it a blow) anyway you have many miles to travel and plenty to see so will not keep you from some great Australian senary. Andrew

Glad your enjoying my old haunts Andy!!! And i noticed that they still havent bothered to seal the road up Ben Lomond...it is very nasty in spots, except from that photo i think it looks tamer, until your there in the car going down....grip those seats hard he he

Looks like you and Andy are having a ball, love seeing your updates, we hope to take off next year sometime and do some of the same tracks, so safe speeding!!!pics are great, go the VW's.
rick and stef😉

Hi Richard
I was wondering where you got too, forgot about the trip!
Looks like Andy is doing well, how long have you been gone now?
The telegraph station at Eucla is almost out of the sand now the dune has passed it by. I took the BM across there last August, the cross winds on the Nullarbor are shocking, I must have worn off 2mm more on one side of the tyre from leaning in to it.
And I finally bought that Oval I was fretting over for years.
Keep up the Updates. Love to see other peoples trips, especialy VW one's.
Good Luck!.....Rob...😎

Hey guy’s thanks for the kind words. Yep VW’s are the way to go. In most camps I get people from other vans up to huge mobile homes coming over for a chat on Andy’s setup, so I can’t have done too bad for a first go.
Your right Andrew, sometimes I wonder if some modern vehicle is the way to go, but as you say VW’s are easy to keep going, even if not perfect they usually get you there. A shop in Adelaide I stoped at had two type 4 motors being rebuilt, one had driven half way from brissy with a dropped valve seat, and another from Darwin with a broken valve. Both had apparently driven in say “she’s lost a bit of power” 
Blue bus, just do it, it’s a great country to explore, not only is the scenery sensational, but so are the friendly people everywhere! When I get around to doing the web page you can use it for some tips also!
Hey Robo, good to hear your trip (and the BM) went well. I will watch out for the sand dunes, AND the cross winds. Andy makes a nice sail on the side at the moment.
Good to hear you have another project getting under way. We’ve been on the road since the beginning of April after a very late start.

Anyway, we’re back on the road again, trying to avoid the chocolate factories that are everywhere. I’m still trying to find out how long you can live on a diet of chocolate and fudge!! So till next time keep well.
Richard

PS Fellow VW travelers on their way to Darwin.

Hi again from the wanderer!!!

Well we made Coober Pedy and Womera fine (nice place to visit, but that's enough for me), then headed back down to the Eyre Peninsular, a beautiful spot to visit, especially if you like fishing (not that I had time to wet a line 🙁 .
Saw a lineup of Kombi's in the Pt Augusta wreckers if anyones out that way, but never stopped in. Actually they seem to be all over the place (wrecked kombi's that is), including plenty of private yards with a pile of kombi's in the back yard (all bay's so far). It must be a disease 🙂 At least I'm not alone.
We have also crossed the Nullabor, it's actually quite nice if you have time to explore, especially the cliffs of the Great Aust. Bite. We were very early in the season for the Southern Right Whales and only saw one from the cliff tops, but there can be up to 100 across the bite in late July.
Other than a blow out which ruined a tyre :cussing one night down to -2degC and $1:42 for fuel the crossing wasn't too bad.
After that we headed into Kalgoorlie from a few night's. Nice town, but we didn't strike any gold.
From there it was straight into Perth to recoup before we head north and get some warmer weather and clearer day's than the foul weather here in Perth.
Till next time, keep on Dubin,
Richard


Whalers Way, tip of the Eyre Peninsular

did you sort the springs andy ?

Ahhh..... What a morning view!
Pt Lincoln

Great Aussie bite

Morning welcome to WA 😀

High seagull,
Thanks for your help!
In the end I have left the suspension as it is. It has lasted this long, so I will worry about it when I get home. It was baddly sagged before the trip, and add the camping gear and there's not much travel left. It's not doing any harm, just limit's the amount of klms I will do on rough roads.
Cheers,
Richard


Mining Kalgoorlie style

Well it’s been a while since the last update, so here’s a brief catch up on what has been happening on our adventure.
We headed back into Perth to do the usual catch up, re-stock, washing and service etc before pushing on North. We don’t plan to do much in the capital Cities on this trip.
Well a short stop soon became a week long disaster.
We blew out a tyre crossing the Nullabor which meant a new tyre, so I decided to get two new ones to run on the rear of Andy and when they persisted to leak we discovered the rims leaked at the welds!! Not a good sign but with tubes fitted we should get home OK.
An extensive search for an elusive squeak from the motor was conformed by a local VW specialist as being a blown head gasket, so Andy was off the road for a few day’s getting this repaired by the great guy’s at Volks West who did a good job and bent over backwards to help us on our way THANKS GUYS!!
That shock out of the system and we continued on our way Northward into fine warm weather, very welcome after that cold, wind and storms of Perth.
The major stops along the way north have been the Pinnacles just north of Perth and Hangover Bay (what a name!!)
Next is Geraldton for a stop over then onto Kalbarri NP. There is some spectacular coastline to see just south of it where we see up to 20 Dolphins surfing the waves, almost as good as the Great Aust. Bite and the Great Ocean Rd. The NP itself is also spectacular and we do some walks through the gorges created by the rivers running through the area.
Next we head to Denham to see Monkey Mia and the Dolphins which is great, a beach of nothing but shells and some ancient life forms called “Stromatolites” not to mention the beautiful coastline, beaches and great weather.
Then it’s onto Canarvon for a stop over on our way to see some blow holes caused by waves on the rocks where we again see Dolphins and Turtles, then we push onto Coral Bay, a pretty spot but just a tourist town so we only stay the one day.
After that we make the run to Exmouth and the beautiful Cape Range NP and Ningaloo reef. A spectacular place where camp on the beach and spend 4 days swimming, canoeing, snorkelling and fishing (without any luck though).
We are sorry to leave there but head onto the equally spectacular Karijini NP in the heart of the Pilbura and the Iron ore ranges. We explore the great gorges there and get in heaps of bush walks, including a 9km hike to the top of WA’s second largest peak Mt Bruce.
Next stop is Port Headland, pretty much a town based around the BHP port for exporting Iron ore.
After a quick stop at Eighty Mile beach and we are now in Broome for some R&R.
Till next time,
Richard

Some Pics: Looking over the beach near Denham and Monkey Mia

Getting into the sand near Monkey Mia.

Camping in Karijini NP

Drivers Eye view on the way to Port Headland

And Broome is absolutely full of Kombi's!!!!!
Good to see so many have made it this far. Almost as good as Byron Bay.

hi good to see you are up and running ok , there paying $30.00 an hour for fitters in kal now $1600.00 a wekk after tax !!! brome is a nice place are you a the canavan park palm beach ?

Yes have been looking at the job market as I go. Might come back this way after I get home looking for some well paid jobs. The Pilbra and Iron Ore mining looks good to me!

Broome is absolutely packed, school holidays, week end and the "stairs to the moon" in action was not a good time to turn up, we are in the PCYC oval which is an overflow for the caravan parks.
Lucky we only plan to stay a couple of days. The solitude in the middle of nowhere is more our style

Richard🙂

[Edited on 2-7-2004 by Andy]

Great updates Richard, I've been reading along with much interest. Great to see the kombi getting around without any major hassles. Good to see you're enjoying the trip!! I'll look forward to seeing your website after you get back. It's gonna take you months to build it!!! :thumb

Hi Richard
Great to your enjoying yourself. What speed have you been cruising on with the old girl, especially across the nullarbor, when I went accross on the bike the north winds were very strong. What sort of tyre wear are you getting, do you have light truck tyres fitted or just radials? Also how is the fuel consumption going, what sort of Kays to the tank are you getting IE nullarbor and city.
Man your living my dream, Im always glad to see PPL doing this sort of thing, everyone should do it just once!
PS I finally bought that Oval I was always talking about!
Good Luck for the rest of the trip and take it easy.
When you get back Ill have to come and visit!!
Robo......😎

[Edited on 2-7-2004 by Robo]

Thanks Guys.
Yeah Kol, the web page was supposed to be updated as we went. My excuse is we are having tooooo much fun :thumb

Rob, yep all is great, you'll have to get out there. We have slowed from sitting on ~90 in Tas, ~95-100 in Vic and SA to ~80 since we started the Nullabor crossing. This has changed fuel economy from ~6.5km/L to ~7.7km/L (best so far is 7.9km/L). With the extra tank we carry ~100L, but we fill up ~every 600km to be safe.
Tyres are hard to say. We are travelling on the 4WD all terains (light truck). Fronts were new when we left ~15-16000km now and still almost full even tread. Due to a blow out we fitted two new tyres to the rear in Perth. The tyres that came off had ~50-60000km on them and still had a good ~20000km to make them illegal. Wear hasn't really changed on the trip to previous. I suppose we are doing ~5-10% on varying dirt roads, the rest is bitumen. Currently running ~50psi rear, 42psi front to handle the ~2.3 tonne load.

Cheers,
Richard

[Edited on 3-7-2004 by Andy]

safe and happy travellin Richard... we still have not left on the trek yet but have sold house and will go to nth qld this week and set up there before we choof off. keep the updates coming
tony g (subavan)

Hi again. The next instalment from Andy’s adventures!

Well we made it into Broome and saw the “stairway to the moon” a natural show when a full moon rises over the mud flats with a low tide. The reflection of the moon light looks like a stairway to it. It was very cloudy but we did get to see the spectacle for a minutes. There really wasn’t that much else for us to see in Broome and spent one of our days there heading north to one of the secluded beaches, rather than stay in the very crowded ones in town. I think it is becoming another Cairns.

From there we push on to Derby which is north east of Broome. Derby is getting into the Kimberly country, another amazing part of WA. There’s not so much industry here now, just a few very small mines, a little cattle, some fishing and pearl farms. It is also just south of the Buccaneer Archipelago, which is a maze of hundreds of Islands. We take a scenic flight over them in a 6 seater plane which takes a little over an hour. The highlight of the flight is to see the “horizontal falls”. Derby has the highest tides in Australia at over 11m. This combined with two narrow gaps in the ranges along the coast has water rushing in and out of the small gap as the tide rushes in and out, an amazing sight.

From Derby we head into the heart of the Kimberlys and the Gibb River Road. It’s all dirt roads now ranging from reasonable roads to “4WD only” roads which I love to take Andy down, much to Cath’s horror. We see some of the beautiful gorges along the way which provide an oasis in the otherwise dry landscape and enjoy a cool dip in each one. Access to one Gorge involved a number of creek crossings which had water over Andy’s front bumper which he took in his stride. Of the sights we saw were Bell Gorge, Windjana Gorge, Tunnel Creek, Fitzroy crossing (and Giekie Gorge) and Halls Creek.

We also rescued a stranded family in a falcon Station wagon which we towed ~50km on dirt road to get them to help!

Next stop was Kununurra which is on the Ord river, and north of the Ord Dam and Lake Argyle. It’s an area rich in agriculture using the wet season rains caught by the dam. The “man made lake” is 70km high (north/south) and you need an open sea licence to take a boat out on it!!!

From here we took another 2 hour flight which passed over the lake, Argyle Diamond mine, the river and farming land, and the highlight of the “Bungle Bungles”. In there the weather warn ground has left a maze of beehive shaped rocks thought the area which makes a spectacular sight from the sky. We avoided driving in there as reports we heard was it took ~4hrs in a 4WD to cover 50km. I don’t know if Andy is up to that much punishment after all the dirt roads we have seen recently!

From Kununurra we head out of WA and into our last state/Territory, the NT. We head into Katherine and get to canoe the gorge there. A large and spectacular gorge with a number of “rapids” to carry the canoe over to get up stream. We spend a day in the gorge canoeing, swimming and having fun, such hard work!

From there we start heading North again and stop in to see Edith Falls then onto Leitchfield NP. It’s a small NP only ~100km south of Darwin based around a series of creeks and rivers, most of which keep running through the dry season. Again a very pretty area and a diverse landscape to see. On on short walk you can pass from low scrub to dense tree lined river, through Palms and into rainforest. Truly amazing.

All that fun and we have arrived in our last capital city, Darwin for a re-supply and quick service before heading into Kakadu to see what it’s all about.

Till next time keep well,

Richard.

Andy going for a swim!

Andy on the beach near Broome

Taking on the Termites in NT

A fellow Veedubber. This guy brought his with him from Germany. An ex police Syncro
Apparently some kind VW people helped him in Melb with some FI problems.
Anyone from the forum??

Looks like you're having a great time Richard, look forward to chatting about it when you get back.
Graham

'XCELLENT'

Just reading this, i've come to realise we should have not sold our kombi...therefore will be selling the 4WD and grabing a kombi...

Steve

Sounds like your having a great time & the photos are really cool.Thanx for all the updates, its great to read about your fantastic trip.🙂

So cool! I love the photos, just beautiful! Cheers, Aurel

Howdy all. A quick update from Katherine in the NT.
We have been through Litchfield NP and Kakadu as well as visit Darwin and on our way south again.
We will go as far as Tennent Creek before heading for QLD and back to Brissy the quick way.
I'll post some more pics next time.
Cheers,
Richard

Ahh.... the end of a great trip!
We are back in Brissy after almost 5 months and 27,000km on the road (and wishing it was longer!!).
From Katherine (NT) we came back into QLD and stayed at a number of inland towns on our way home, namely Mt Isa, Winton, Longreach, Blackwater, Theodore and Toowoomba as well as visiting many more.
Andy coped well (well not really but he got us back 😀 ) and we are back to the grind stone to pay for it all now :jesus
Anyway I promise a trip report and more pics soon, and I will do up my web page in the coming weeks.
Cheers,
Richard
PS: Thanks again to all those who helped us along the way. Long live the forum!

Congratulations on a great trip! I hope to do it myself one day. Thanks for sharing the stories and pics 😀

Did you know that if you'd gone the other way round it would have been 28km shorter 😉

when you unpack & remove all the extra do-daddds & unneccessary stuff Andy wil at least for a few days be perceived to be going like a rocket 😀

Not to mention the huge sigh of relief from poor old Andy.
😀

Time to start preparing for a Cape York trip now I recon.

Richard

Just linking in another "andy" post
http://forums.aussieveedubbers.com/viewtopic.php?tid=4445&page=2#pid488668