COMMER VAN OZ TOUR : February update

FEBRUARY UPDATE!!

DSLH 3970 Miles

With the end of February we find ourselves now in Central NSW.

After leaving Victor Harbor we continued along the coast and crossed the boarder into Victoria visiting all the beautiful coastal towns along the way. We camped in the Glenelg National park and launched our small boat to explore the spectacular Glenelg river.

Amanda even caught a couple of Brim from the bank by our campsite. I would strongly recommend the south coast of SA/VIC to anybody looking to plan their next holiday, it is a very picturesque coastline dotted with beautiful towns with attractive names like, Port fairy, Nelson, Portland and Apollo Bay. We followed the Great Ocean road around past the Twelve Apostles and then headed north visiting Colac and onto Geelong. We also caught up with Nanna & Pop "Amandas parents" who are also on tour in Victoria at the time. It was great to see them and see some sights together, hopefully we will catch up again down the track.

We continued north over the next few weeks camping in forests and reserves as much as possible and enjoying the scenery and wildlife that we encountered each day. Being a bit of a Military enthusiast, we paid a visit to Puckapunyal Army Base and after gaining the necessary passes at the gate we visited the amazing collection of Tanks and armored vehicles on display at the base.

The collection boasts to be the largest in the southern hemisphere including a WW1 Wallowing Willy, photos of some of the Tanks are below. We camped for two nights at Major creek at one end of the Military firing range and i was reminded of nights at my Grandparents house near Salisbury Plain laying in bed listening to the sound of artillery pounding away in the distance.

Some more time was spent camping on the mighty Murray River before crossing the next boarder into NSW.

Again the Commer has performed admirably with no major problems, although not without a few challenges to keep me busy with the tools. We had a hill that she did not want to climb and after reversing the Commer and trailer half a mile back down "twice!!". On the third attempt with a long run up, engine screaming and Amanda walking and the water tanks emptied to lighten the load, she finally chugged over the peak. It also appears that Rootes painted the inside of the fuel tank with a protective film which is now being stripped off by additives in modern fuels and is blocking up the fuel system. This took some diagnosing, at first i thought the fuel filter was blocked so changed it with a spare. Then i thought maybe the new electric fuel pump had packed in, so reconnected the original AC Delco pump. I was able to temporarily get us going again by blowing compressed air down the fuel line to clear the blockages . Finally at our campsite i removed the fuel tank and cleaned it out best i could. This is only a temporary fix as much of the decaying liner is still in the tank and is going to need to be removed.

On the next morning after cleaning out the tank we ran into a bog miles from anywhere and the Commer sunk in. Luckily i had equipped us for such an occasion and we got the recovery gear dirty for the first time. After some time digging and pushing it was out with two sections of roll out track and a 4.5 Ton hand winch,, The tracks sank in the clay but finally the winch slowly pulled her out.

Great team work by Amanda and I and all part of the adventure in a 43 year old English Bus.