Underestimated

Hello. I’ve just finished reading a blog of a two couples who are from Brisbane.

http://blog.travelpod.com/travel-blog/threeinatruck/1/tpod.html

It seems I’ve underestimated the kind of road that the road of bones is. It’s doable, but it’s not just going to be a gravel road with a few rocky river crossings. I’ve borrowed all of these pictures from their blog, so consider this me referencing them.

I imagined more of this:

… and NOT so much of this.

The other good thing about this blog, is we now have some clear distances between Vladivostok and Magadan…. 5000KM, two to three weeks of driving or roughly four weeks since arriving in Vladivostok. The road to Magadan is effectively a figure-eight. Meaning there are four segments, allowing you to swap roads mid way if you have a failure or have had enough. It also has the advantage of us not retracing exactly the same steps to and from Magadan (that could get boring)

The white truck above arrived into Magadan with no brakes… relying on the handbrake. To be honest, I can’t quite get my head around all of the mechanical failures. From what I understand, they have had FOUR flat tyres. And they don’t look like the cheap all-terrain tyres that came on our truck, these look like top of the line brand name off road tyres! It does look like they are carrying more weight than us and it turns out that the brake failures were due to a damaged brake line due to some after-market air-bag suspension. We’re they running lower pressures? Should they have been driving slower? One of the cars (the bogged maroon v8 turbo land cruiser) was AVERAGING 105KM/Hr one day. Not on this road, but on some highway closer to Mongolia. Oh my god that’s still crazy.

So to summarise, I’ve underestimated:
How long shipping and customs clearance will take
How much time the travel will take
The distances involved we must travel
How many failures to expect

Good news is that they used the same shipping company. It’s so important to use a Russian company as the days of paperwork on the ground in Russia is immense and I would say impossible to translate and organise without their local knowledge.

So, enough about them. What's new with us? Well, not a great deal. Since recovering the Rodeo last weekend, my headlights, taillights, and indicators all had condensation in them to some degree. The degrees ranged from a light haze to our own portable river ecosystem.
Here they are, all washed and drying in the sun. So much for ‘semi-sealed’ globes, there is a huge gap at the bottom even with the rubber boot on all the way.

Sealed it up. The roof rack has now been emptied. I’m still yet to discover the source of the leak in one of the boxes, but I will. I’m trying to work out the logistics of how we get the car packed and unpacked from the shipping container. The roof rack needs to be taken off to fit in the container. Apparently they deliver the car to your hotel… so that alludes to them putting the roof rack on?! I’m not sure if they will eh. It seems the boxes and hi-lift will actually fit in the back of the car, but with the rack, I may have to dissemble it entirely and pack it in the car. No great big deal, but it’s probably an hour’s work to assemble it again.

Here is a new idea for securing the flyscreen mesh over the grille. It was taped in place before, and although the tape stuck to the grille, It wouldn’t stick successfully to the flyscreen (I’m a slow learner ok!).
It’s tough aluminium flyscreen, so it does bend over the back side and the clip just holds it still.

More real world testing of the GoPro

It’s in my nature to save things, I don’t know why. Even though the camera came with four adhesive mounts, I was still very hesitant to use one… well I did. I fixed one behind the mirror and it generates some brilliant, vibration free, point of view shots. Today we went on a picnic with Cassie’s parents. I ran the camera for about 30 minutes on 720p, 60fps in wide mode. The wide mode is stunning but it makes us look like we are driving very fast. Below is a shot in wide mode. You can see the fish-eye effect towards the outer edges with the bendy trees. But amazingly, you can even see the snorkel in the bottom right of the shot. Because the camera doesn’t have a preview or viewfinder, the footage is typically captures with a ‘I hope this looks ok’ attitude as it is just guesswork on these early days.

So only after getting home and reviewing the footage, I’ve decided ‘wide’ mode is too wide.
I know that the shot below is virtually unusable, you can see the difference in perspective if you use the bull bar as a relative measure. The camera is mounted at the exact same angle and position, yet the perspective is more ‘human eye’. I think the wide mode would be very useful if you wanted to capture traffic for evidence, but to capture a point of view, I think this mode may be better.

It’s taken years to slowly break the habit of ‘keeping things for special occasions’. We all do it. We have the good china we don’t use, along with the good cutlery. The good tools we save for good jobs and we leave the plastic screen protectors on things way too long. But the sad truth of it is, it all goes out of date. Either you grow out of it (heaven forbid using good clothes for having fun), it gets stolen or you don’t care about it any more.

You can’t take one lick of it with you, so stop living like

I get why we have this attitude. You only have to be poor for a day to appreciate the scarcity of things. I’m sure it comes from parents and their experiences (and those of their parents). I’m sure if you only got one meal a day, you would certainly keep the screen protector on something worth a hundred meals.

I do however think that some of the countries we will be travelling through will have a different take on it… but more on that later.

Q: What’s new?

A: Not a whole lot ;-)
I guess you could call it practice. Deliberately getting bogged to practice self recovery:

I am so thankful for the front diff lock, without it, using the Maxtrax never quite works like the advertisements. They are fine, but used on a vehicle with open differentials, you end up only able to use one at the front, and one at the back. But even then, once those wheels have traction on the Maxtrax, the drive disappears out to the wheels with less traction.

Today I changed the transfer case oil and rear diff oil and greased everything. The transfer case oil needed changing because of the below video. The right hand side is a sample from the transfer case, the left hand side is a clean sample from the gearbox.

Four wheel driving is an expensive hobby.One of the reasons I resisted buying a car before we left is so that I could avoid costly damage. Ok, the above is a minor cost, but the damage can get expensive. I have discovered that over the course of my ownership, I have inadvertently dinted both diesel tanks. No biggies, but enough to see that they are not perfectly straight. dammit! Probably lost 5L in capacity all up, but the question begs, is there any weakness developed now? To try and limit the risk associated with a tank rupture and loss of fuel, we will be switching between tanks every couple of hundred KM’s. This way we only risk loosing 'half’ our fuel if one tank fails and we don’t notice the leak. if you buy into the superstition, Murphy's law would suggest it will invariably be the full tank that fails… but I don’t really buy into that. I do believe in mitigating risks however ;-)

Oh! something that is new is this: (Obscure shot builds suspense). Don’t mind the string, I’m still learning to trust the suction mount.

It’s a low price, brilliant quality HD video camera. Key features include 1080p HD video, 11MP stills, 170 degree field of view, water proof to 60M. They are an ugly little bastard but very versatile. The versatility is demonstrated in the accessories which are very well priced. From additional ‘bolt on’ batteries, anti-fog inserts, wi-fi remote and even a red floaty to help you find it in water.
To demonstrate it’s versatility, here is another video shot entirely with these cameras:

Shot entirely with GoPro HD Hero 2’s

We’ve taken probably two hours of footage with it so far, and it has been very impressive. Not quite as awesome as the footage above, but cool none the less.

One of my roof boxes leak. I have no idea where or how, but after some significant rain the other night, there was about 5mm of water lining the bottom. A bit annoying considering they are meant to be weatherproof… evidently not.

The registration on the truck expires on the 10th of June. Not awesome because not only would we be on our trip by that stage, but how would we renew it's registration whilst in Russia. It'll be shipping out mid march so time is of the essence.

On a previous visit to the RTA, after swimming through the 'you can't do that' attitude, we realised that renewing the rego ahead of time would be an option. I couldn't remember the specifics about it, so we visited the RTA this morning to clarify. Even the topic blew her mind... "you mean your taking YOUR car overseas?" as if she had misheard me. However, once she thought it trough we came up with some results. The short of it is, we can renew the registration up to three months before it's expiry and a pink slip is valid for 6 weeks prior to renewal.
This is all good news. In a few weeks I'll go get the pink slip done, then renew the rego on the 10th of March. The window sticker will actually be for 15 months which is cool. I had fears of arriving in Russia but having difficulty moving it without the sticker.

I feel like my job in this trip is preparing the car. I know I go on and on about it, but its my responsibility. It'll get a full service with synthetic oil before loading it on the ship. I'm also going to change the brake pads and maybe shoes too before we go because it's something I can do. I've always had this fear of a clutch failing. It happened towards the end of our last trip. It wasn't a deal breaker and realistically, we could have driven another 30,000km in it's state. But it's almost like a single point of failure that concerns me. You can run on a few less cylinders, one tank, one tail shaft, one diff, a few brakes, no heater, no aircon, no electricity, one gear or one range, but you can't run without a clutch. The beauty is, they typically don't fail instantly. You'll feel it slipping long before you can't move the car. But as you embark on an isolated stretch of Mongolia steppe or sandy Kazakhstan with the thought in the back of your mind "gee, I think that slipped when we went up that mountain yesterday" the uncertainty will rise and I will begin to stress.

You may suggest 'why don't you just replace it ahead of time?' Well because I suspect it would cost at least $1500 and if it doesn't need doing that sounds like a waste of money.

On the Pajero, it had an inspection window on the side of the bellhousing. I don't think this one has anything like that but I assume you could measure the width of the pressure plate to determine life span?

 I've rebuilt our laptop with a fresh install of it's operating system, all new drivers, 4x the memory and upgraded the hard drive. Not only does the new hard drive offer twice the space, it offers much more speed and better battery life. That and it's oddly quieter. I'm posting this post from the laptop to make sure it all works. Weirdly, I need to seriously start thinking about the in-car navigation. I had been procrastinating on such a purchase, but I really need to act sooner rather than later. I might go down and measure it to make sure it'll fit.

The second picture is a bit of a laugh. I took this picture milliseconds before a guys head came into view (if you look close you may be able to see him behind the snorkel). I was taking the picture of our car kind of 'in context' of the street. When I walked up to the car, the old guy said "You're flirting with danger there". To which I replied, "what's that mate? no front number plate?". "No, parking front in in a reverse in spot". Maybe he was just making conversation but it's so stupid. why can't people just mind their own business?

So Cassie's Letter Of Invitation or Visa Support letter has been ordered and should arrive on the 7th of February.

 Position: 12-01-14 16:54:32 -0800
http://maps.google.com/maps?&ll=-35.37395,149.1872&q=-35.37395,149.1872&z=16

Storm blew over

Excuse my short hand, I'm writing on the phone so my post will be brief

The meeting with the client was calm and un-eventful. They seem to think we have 6 months left on our contract which works out well as i didn't think we had one. Even if the worst happens, its a heap less workload on the other gents. We will be going through a tender process with other companies.

The tyre is now mounted and balanced but I need to get it up onto the roof. It was a bit windy and wet to attempt today, but tomorrow is a different day. It's a two person job. One to lift and one to steady. In an emergency it's certainly a one person job, but you risk denting something.

My Russian visa was issued without a hitch. It's the multi-entry 12 month business visa. Jackpot!

I was fortunate enough to receive a tyre repair kit for Christmas.
 

The're not intended for sidewall damage, but I'm sure I'd give it a go in the middle of nowhere.

The perfect storm

The pic above are of the drawer unit I sold. The gentleman was kind enough to send me pictures of the finished product, all painted and enclosed at the sides. They look soooo good.

Tomorrow (the perfect storm) has the potential to go well, or very bad. It’s a day when I meet with a client that is key to my business. If they decide to drop us, it may jeopardise the trip. It has obvious financial implications, but the upside is it will result in less workload on our staff which could be good seen as I won’t be there to assist. An additional upside is that it may be an opportunity to renew the contact with this client so it may be a good day after all.

Tomorrow also should be the day I pickup my visa. I also ordered a used tyre off eBay and today or tomorrow it should have been fitted and balanced to it’s rim.

This is kind of one of those moments where nothing can really be said due to the wide audience. I’m remaining so restrained about the contents and references. It’s amazing how I’ve written about ten lines that cannot be published for this reason. I do get tired of this…

Good vibrations

Sorry, it's been a while since posting. In fact, a lot has been going on over Christmas. A deal of my time was spent cleaning up the garage. It was quite a mess, dark and not conducive to any constructive work.
Its now wired with 6 power outlets and two fluorescent globes.
I put all this work (and I mean days of cleaning and wiring) by taking the opportunity to get out of the sun and use my new grease gun. I made the mistake of over greasing the drive shafts. I figured that you put grease in until you see it push dirty grease out. But this is incorrect for greasing the splines as it causes the shaft to bind up with a kind of hydrolock scenario. I think i relieved the problem by removing the grease nipples and going for a long undulating drive which forces the excess grease back out.
We has noticed a vibration has developed... I thought the grease had unbalanced the drive shaft as it had happens just after this and at around 90kph but doesn't go away even after 120+. Well with our recent hot weather a big slab of tar had melted to one of the front wheels. With this removed and the back rims cleared of mud, the problem seems to have gone away!

A big shout out to goes to Jim! Today, driving down the coast we were followed ever-so-paitently by a motorist, all the way from Braidwood. We thought its just because we were setting a nice relaxed pace, but in fact Jim had recognised our camper from this very blog. We were so thrilled that:
A) people actually read our blog
B) that our car was recognisable
C) that someone took the time to stop us and say hello.

It was the most fantastic feeling and hopefully is an indication of good things to come. I regret not taking a photo with Jim by our car, by the water but we were in a rush to surprise my mum for her late birthday.
We look forward to your comments Jim and apologise for what would have been a hopelessly slow trip for you following our old truck through the mountains.

A lovely saying I heard recently is that "love travels on a gravel road"

I apply three schools of thought to this
1) obviously relationships, like gravel roads mean you shouldn't expect a smooth ride
2) we travel on gravel roads... as a couple
3) I love travels on gravel roads full stop.