It has been nearly four weeks
since my last update and that has been more than enough time for me to get up
to plenty of mischief. We will have to
travel back some three and a half weeks to my last week off. After catching up on a couple of weeks of
washing and sorting out a rather large pile of dishes, it was time for some
fun.
One of the fellas that I work
with, who also lives in the caravan park has what he calls a “buggy”. Now, if you are thinking golf buggy you’d be
wrong. If you are thinking dune buggy
you’d be closer but still wrong. This “buggy”
is basically a roll cage on wheels and here is the best part… it is powered by
a Honda CBR1000 motorbike engine. So one
afternoon seven of us set off with the buggy and three dirt bikes to have some
fun. The buggy was insane, and looked
and sounded like a Formula 1 car as it shot past. Unfortunately we had to pull the pin as
darkness fell, but the owner had to give it one last thrash and ended up
running one of the tyres off the rim and breaking one of the welds on the frame
that held on a wheel. So that was the
end of the buggy until it could be repaired.
Most of the repairs have since been completed and I can’t wait to take
it for another spin.
 |
| The Buggy |
Then next day I took my troopy out
with one of the fore mentioned blokes on his dirt bike to see if we could find
a track or two. We ended up on the other
side of the Super Pit were it was very muddy/slippery on the flat ground and
then there were rocky mounds throughout which were approximately 30meters tall
and very steep, which provided some good challenges. Whilst the bike was a lot more agile and
could move a lot quicker though the bush, when I spun out in the mud, I didn’t
end up lying in it. We had a good couple
of hours mucking around and there was only one hill that I couldn’t get
up. Just before reaching the bitumen on
the way home we met another couple of blokes in their work landcruiser. They had been out thrashing that car and were
all smiles until my mate on the bike asked them about this big dint in the side
door. They were more than like going to
get a pineapple when they went back to work.
That is the saying over here when some does something wrong, instead of
getting a boot in the arse they get the pointy end of a pineapple.
After our little spin behind the
super pit my mate and I decided to go for a decent off road trip. We set our sights on a place called Cave Hill. We started off quite well and the track was
quite tame. However, the further we went
the narrower the track became and eventually disappeared. My mate on the bike road a head a few times
to see if the track started again and we were going okay but very slowly as I
was having a lot of trouble getting through the thick bush. It didn’t take us long to realise we were
getting nowhere and losing daylight so we decided to turn around. Just before reaching the bitumen I started to
hear a hissing sound and new straight away that I had a puncture. Upon further investigation I discovered that
the sidewall had been punctured and the tyre would be a right off. Returning home without ever reaching Cave
Hill my mate’s bike then decided it wasn’t going to start and I found I had
also busted a spotlight and an airline, we concluded that it was not a very
successful trip.
So with one broken buggy, one
broken bike and one broken car, the three of us were glad we were going back to
work so that we couldn’t break anything else.
At least not until our next week off anyway.
This week has been a little
tamer, but only just. One of the blokes
he at the caravan park made an arrangement with a mate that if he dug out a
tree stump we could borrow his chiminea (pot belly fire place) for the winter. The stump was about two foot in diameter and
after an hour or so of digging he gave me a call to see if I could pull it out
with my winch. I was only too happy to
give it a crack and ten minutes later the job was done. So for the last couple of nights we have been
sitting around the fire enjoying a few brews.
Having a red wine with Bryce by the chiminea
My final story wasn’t totally my
fault, but then I am not sure who else to blame. Anyway I will start from the beginning. A few of us have set up a media player and
hard drive in the crib room to watch movies of an evening. However the crib room gets rather cold at
that time as there is no heater, so we have taken to lighting the gas oven and cook
top to warm the place. This has been
quite successful and doesn’t take long at all.
A few nights back at about one in the morning I was half asleep on the
couch watch a movie with the burners going, nice and warm when I heard a
bang. Looking over my shoulder the first
thing I see is the two/three foot flames on top of the cook top. After extinguishing the fire I found that the
plastic grill off the roof mounted exhaust fan, located above the cook top had
fallen off. No damage was done, apart
from the loss of the fan grill and an hour later I had cleaned up the melted
plastic and vented the room of the thick black smoke. I then decided it was time for bed.
So it has been a fun couple of
weeks off with a little bit of work in between.
Also we a re just about finished on our current sight so I am not sure
if I will be moved to another or what.
Until next time… Cheers
