Well after months of planning the weekend was here for a 3000km road trip to collect HellPatrol.
For those who don't know HellPatrol lived in Adelaide and I'm in Sydney, that 1400km across almost half of Australia. I know I'm weird, but the chance to buy HP from another forum member with an element of trust, was priceless. When I had bought the other 1978 Ute (bright Orange called OJ) I contacted Nathan and chatted about the future of HP as I had a ute tub, but no ute, OJ was rusted out badly.
Anyhow he had changed his mind at the time, but promised to call me should plans change, well about 6 months later (ring ring) actually was a email or PM. Anyhow I said YES without the approval from the wife, sorted that one out with a shopping budget and now had to plan how to get this ute back to Sydney.
After getting a pile of car shipping quotes, best price door to door was around $900, fuel and a trailer would cost about the same. Difference was the shipping mobs wouldn’t allow any spares or anything inside the car. Simple this option was out
I then had a mate with a lease vehicle; in Oz you need to get a certain amount of Km's each year to meet taxation purposes (FBT). So I struck a deal to take his ute while he was overseas (yeah free fuel). Also worked out to sell a few bits along the way (Eddy, you owe me cash 8)
So the day came and we departed 3:30pm Friday 7th November, half way there we hit heavy rain which gave my fearless co-driver "Ferdy" a hellish drive as the car with trailer was swaying and going all over place when hitting BIG puddles at 100km/hr. Ferdy was also struggling with a shoulder injury so it was double painfully !! Thanks ferdy, without your help I wouldn't have been able to do this weekend.
Anyhow kept on driving to the outskirts of Waikerie (Eddy's town) and had a quick sleep on the side of the road (hour or 2) and then rocked into Eddies at 7:30am or so. Did our business deal and Eddie had to go with family duties so said our goodbyes and were off.
Then a quick 2 hour drive or so into Adelaide, met another bloke to collect some wheels and then south to HellPatrols place, I managed to get myself lost and had a quick tour of Port Adelaide, very nice !!! Anyhow after a few calls to HP we got back on the right track. After some more chatting, the freeway I was planning on taking was closed. Would you believe they have a one way freeway
I was going the wrong way for that time of day as they change it to meet the traffic flow ?Anyhow HP saved the day and was already making his way into town to find me and take me home. Got to HP's house and started drooling over my new purchase, in short I am very pleased and she has a few pieces on a G60 I had never seen before, will write more later on this !!!
Did our $$$$$ deal and started loading her up
Best part of that exercise was the beer afterwards!!
hmmm beer. After much deliberating Mr's HP gave me a street directory and off we went, to my surprise I had HP following me halfway out of town taking photos and video. Just when I thought I was free, this evil 
black jeep was there No we were on out way home and heading out of Adelaide to Murray Bridge, here we have a big hill and the Rodeo was struggling all the way up, poor beast. Once over the hills we were all good.
Had a late lunch at Murray Bridge and took a few quick snaps
Pretty straight forward drive from here until midnight, when we got to Balranald, had dinner at a truck stop and off again, we then had heaps of kangaroos on the side of the road, in groups of 30. I was painfully paranoid and stayed on 60km/hr until a truck caught me (had to wait a hour and covered only 60km
) Once on a trucks tail I sat back on 100km with some safety of the trucks bull bar.More driving straight through the night until we hit Wagga at sunrise, then home stretch 450km home, At Joigong we stopped at a rest stop and then from nowhere this little terrier came up to me, we were in a rural location we no houses or anyone nearby, after much deliberating we chucked him in the car
Were we found him
As he was on the HWY with cars zooming past at 110km we went up a local dirt road hoping he had come from a nearby homestead, bloody hard with a 2.4 tonne trailer behind you. We gave up and headed home.
We got to Goulburn and had to change a trailer tyre as 30km outside town we could feel a problem, the rear right had a slow puncture, this meant the front right was taking allot more load, I felt the trailer was a bit more unstable, makes sense when I now know the pivot point had moved forward, with more weight up rear of the trailer. The front right tyre was now overloaded and starting to separate. Put the spare on and got home.
After a great breakfast from the wife for Ferdy and me, I did some unloading, chores and down to the pound wit the dog. Luckily he was microchipped and he lived in Canberra, he had been dropped at a friends place where he had escaped !! lucky i picked him up. Better still the owners were in Sydney and picked him up today !! All good as I’m a big dog lover !
Started polishing her this afternoon and that right hand side is now shiny as !!!!! almost as good as the For Sale photos !!!!
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