64 replies to this topic

[Spider]

Hey Tony !

Nice to see yr face around here again

 

Sorry lads I haven't made any recent up dates. Been off grid + the past week has been a blur. The old lap top I'm doing these posts fro, has a dying keyboard and so a post takes some 10 minutes  frustration t write up. I never did get the ipad thing working before I left and had next to no hope of doing that on the road. All is well, it' been huge, on the home leg now. I'll do a decent update once I get back.

[maystro]

What a great road trip Chris.   Talk about off the beaten track.  I thought I had travelled all the bad highways with pot holes but you go where there are no roads to make pot holes....seriously hard core, love it.   

 

Were they raptor footprints in the sand next to your Moke

I can see now why you are so fastidious in your Moke builds. 

 

Brad

[HUBBA.HUBBA]

Looks excellent. I'd love to do that

[fulldrive]

So good spider, when my moke is finally put together I'd love to come on a trip like that. 

[Matpaul]

Oola... I had a vague feeling I had come across that expression before so I Googled it half expecting to find something rude. I was pleasantly surprised and pleased to be re - educated. A very appropriate term, well done! Great story!

Edited by Matpaul, 19 May 2021 - 02:58 AM.

[mav]

Great write up spider.
Thanks for that

[Spider]

Hang in there guys, it's a long long way from being over here. I've been tied up the past week (excuses, excuses), it ain't over yet.

 

Thanks for the interest and wonderful comments

[phil hill]

Always good to hear of your exploits Chris.

 

Stay safe and keep up with the updates.

 

Phil.

[Spider]

A back-track in the story here. I've had some more photos developed and printed  Trying to keep them in trip order.

We couldn't resist stopping for a laugh and some photos here

 

 

Not sure if the term 'Bogan' is known around the world, but in Australia, the term is slang for those in society who choose to dress in old style cheap clothes, faded jeans, chequered flannelette shirt, Ugg Boots with a fag hanging from their gob,,

 

Sunrise on our first Camp

 

Still had the broken driveshaft to repair before the flies became activated

 

 

It was a bit of an unusual break. I have broken a few over the years, always on the outboard end, but this one is seems wasn't fully clipped in to the Pot Joint and was driving on that last few mm of the shaft - until we drove in the soft sand between the dunes.

 

Wasn't a big deal though and before long, back on the road.

 

The Birdsville water supply comes from an underground water bore, it comes out heated to around 80⁰ C, they run the water through some cooling ponds, a filtration plant, then it's pumped up a tower for storage and to give the town some water pressure through it's reticulated water.

 

 

On saying our Farewells to Birdsville, we stopped at the Diamantina River

 

 

So we could get an idea how much water was in it and if it was flowing.

 

 

While there is water in this part of the River nearly all year round, it's not often in flow. The catchment for this river is about 750 miles (1200 km) away in central Queensland. Rain doesn't often fall in that catchment, but it's usually very big when it does.

This would have a bearing on the next leg of our trip, some 175 miles (300 km) further on.

 

On the Birdsville Track, crossing the border from Queensland back in to South Australia - and yes, we did both have Covid Permits to enter

[xrocketengineer]

Wow! I just found the thread with an incredible adventure. Fantastic pictures! You make an axle shaft replacement in the middle of the desert look like a routine thing. It takes me a year to plan one!    

[Mini Manannán]

Fantastic Chris, like Xrocketengineer I'm in awe of your desert engineering.

 

And no, Bogan hasn't got to this end of the globe

[nicklouse]

Fantastic Chris, like Xrocketengineer I'm in awe of your desert engineering.

 

And no, Bogan hasn't got to this end of the globe

You must be mixing with the wrong people. Or not watching the right channels on YouTube.

[Spider]

Wow! I just found the thread with an incredible adventure. Fantastic pictures! You make an axle shaft replacement in the middle of the desert look like a routine thing. It takes me a year to plan one!    

 

Cheers mate, it's been ages for a variety of reasons since I've been able to properly get away and do a decent Moke Trip. Hopefully they'll become regular again,,,,,

 

 

Fantastic Chris, like Xrocketengineer I'm in awe of your desert engineering.

 

Many of these repairs are fairly straightforward and the Mokes have largely had minor modifications to them to make some repairs easier to do.

 

The hardest thing with many of them is getting stuff clean and trying to work 'clean'. When I snapped that drive shaft, it was actually blowing up a fair bit, far to much to take a CV Boot off. Lucky, the wind dropped off that evening so I was able to do the repair at first light, but more importantly, it let us have a fire !

[Spider]

 

If you get a chance- could you take a pic of a route map? How are you navigating?

I am actually running a map app that also logs (when I remember to set it). I’ll upload a screenshot when I get home.

 

 

This is the total trip that we covered;-

 

 

Not quite sure how to put a scale to that as it'll come up different sizes for all of us, depending on what we are looking at it from.  Maybe one way, if you can find Newcastle (should be a familiar name for you guys) about 1/2 way up the coast, then look west to Dubbo, that's a distance of about 235 mile (340 km).

 

 

This has a bit of detail of the section of the Map covering the more 'technical' part of the trip

 

 

 

There's more to come yet lads

[Mini Manannán]

 

 

That's about a year's mileage for most of us...  The distances in Australia are mind-boggling!