Living it up in Darwin

We've been in Darwin for over a month now, and haven't updated the blog at all. Works started for both of us which is a huge change in lifestyle....

Life in Darwin has been pretty interesting. The weather hasn't been too bad considering what we've heard about it, it's not as bad as the weather in northern inland Australia and is pretty bearable most of the time (we're in air conditioning most of the time though).

Since the last blog update we've done too much to write about... We've spent most weekends at Mindil beach markets trying the different food stalls, but it shut down over the wet recently, so we've migrated over to some local farmers markets at rapid creek which are even better. We've also been eating out way too much. It's been great.

Darwin is really big on markets. Fruit and veg grows really easily up here and is real cheap. The large population of people from south east asia also gives it some great food, and they also grow some interesting veggies at the farmers markets.

Mindil beach sunset at Mindil markets

We headed down to Litchfield national park one weekend with our friend Hyso who lives up here. Litchfield was pretty cool, but had a lot of tourists in it because of it's close proximity to Darwin. We did a few rock jumps and swam in the multiple lagoons at Litchfield and drank a lot of Melbourne bitter (the beer of Darwin aswell) It was a great day.

Swimming tourists

Litchfield waterhole

We've also been getting to know the locals of Darwin and generally just hanging around with Hyso. It's been pretty good. Here's a picture of Hyso's pet snake Brian, an A class reptile in my book, definitely the friendliest snake I've met.

Brian the snake

We've also headed out to the local rodeo, and seen some cowboys get seriously injured riding bulls and horses. That was a great night, unfortunately I had to work my first Sunday shift the next day, so we couldn't stick around for the amateur drunken boxing or the end round of the Rodeo.. Goddam reality... Only 5 months till we're on the road again...

Dude falling off a bull

Dude falling off a horse

A bull intimidating the rodeo clown and staring off the crowd

We had the best seats in the place, we sat ringside with fold out chairs and got to see people coming off right at our feet. It was great. The Ambulance had to be called in for a dude who got hoofed in the head by a bull, and I'm pretty sure there were a few broken arms. It seemed like every second person had to limp away, some of them looking pretty injured. And there were a lot of cowboys on crutches or with arm casts on walking around. The animals didn't seem to mind TOO much either, the horses were pretty freaked out and were pretty retarded, but the bulls knew they were completely in control.

Apparently we got the last rodeo for the season, everything seems to shut down over the wet. Everything except mud racing that is... We might go to our first one this weekend.

It's definitely a town full of Bogans up here, but if you can embrace being a bogan I think you can get a lot more enjoyment out of life than if you were a retro Melbournite or a health nut or a muso or something like that.
It's hard to let yourself get into it when you've been educated your whole life, but I think they really do have the most fun out of all the subcultures in Australia.
If only life had turned out different and I was missing a few teeth...



We have also started renovations on the bus. It's getting a complete overhaul while we're stationary, with a new interior and a new clutch. I've also kinda repaired the bike holder aswell, and am gonna put swivel chairs in the front (We ran into an old Jehovah's witness who'd done it in his coaster and he told us how to do it cheap).
I've also attempted repairs on the old XR motorbike and took the cam cover off and rocker cam's and cam-chain and junk in an attempt to re-torque the head to stop all the oil leaking.
This was really a bad idea from the start, the head was torqued perfectly fine already and by taking the bike apart I managed to completely destroy it...

So, instead of paying to fix this piece of crap bike I got a new one from Army auctions. A 2000 model XR250 for only $2300. So now we have 2 XR's, and I'm starting to cannabilise the old one for parts which will be handy on the road.

The new reliable XR250, I'm pretty sure it would have done a tour of afghanistan, it looks like it's been around the block

As far as Reno's go, we've stripped out the single bed and started a dining area using ply and some floating floorboards from Bunning's for a tabletop and some vinyl from spotlight to upholster a Chaise lounge with the remaining floor space. We've got so much more storage now it's crazy, and it looks remarkably professional.

The new dining table (I didn't bother cleaning all the crap off for the photo

The Chaise Lounge

As far as breakdowns are concerned I think we've only had the one since getting to Darwin, (Burst radiator cap). Luckily we were running on autogas so when the engine got too hot it just cut out because the gas evaporated too fast to reach the engine, which stopped any damage occurring to the engine from getting too hot. Of course it cut out on one of the busiest roads in front of the largest shopping centres in Darwin.
But that's always been how the bus rolls.

Anyway, probably won't update the blog that much while working, it's a holiday blog really and shouldn't be updated too much with stories about work..

DARWIN

We headed to Katherine gorge after Mataranka and it got even hotter than before. The top of Katherine Gorge can reach temperatures in excess of 60 degrees centigrade according to the info centre.
It was pretty hot while we were there with the bus sitting at 40 degrees inside all day during the day, and maybe cooling to about 30 - 35 at night. Our fridge wasn't coping too well and was at 18 degrees...

In the interest of our food and our sanity we decided to adandon the upper NT until we came back down with a working air con.

We kayaked Katherine gorge, and it was OK, but still didn't see any freshwater crocs. We saw a pretty cool snake though

Katherine Gorge from a Kayak

Some kind of snake (hard to see in this picture)

On our way back up the gorge we got pulled up by national parks for kayaking in the gorge without a permit.
We honestly didn't know you needed a permit to go kyaking in the gorge, it seemed to be the biggest thing in their day and about 5 guys came down to talk to us and we had to pay $11 each for the privilege of kayaking down their glorified river.

It was nice of them to let us off, but really there wasn't really much special about Katherine gorge, definitely not enough to charge people to paddle around in it.

After that we headed straight to Darwin and picked up a french Canadian hitch-hiker on the way up who had been standing in the heat with no water for an hour already at the bottom end of Kakadu. Poor guy looked like he was about to die. It was really hot...

When we finally arrived in Darwin the temperature was a lot more bearable, it was probably only about 32-35 degrees. We decided the first thing was to get an air conditioner. They don't make them as small as the one in the bus anymore (of course), but we found one a little bigger (And about twice as long) and cut a hole out of the roof and put it in. We couldn't wait to get it started and had it running while we were putting it in.

After that ordeal we went down to the night markets which were awesome (we've been before but they were just as good the second time), but we didn't take a camera. We also went to the Darwin international film festival and watched some international cinema in the deckchair cinema. That was heaps good, we saw a great doco called Tabloid about a beauty queen who allegedly tied down and had her way with her Mormon boyfriend.
It was the funniest documentary I've ever seen, definately worth watching.
The cinema is great too, there were possums running around in the tree's and it was nice being outside in the fresh air. It had a great feel to it and it was pretty cheap too.

We also went and saw the underground fuel tanks under Darwin city and read about Darwin's not so colourful history with all the attacks from Japan. (Apparently Darwin received more bombing than pearl harbour, it's just there wasn't much there to be destroyed. It definitely took some serious damage though).

Deckchair Cinema

Underground fuel tanks (The above ground one's were destroyed in WWII

Typical NT news story

We're having some major difficulties with the old XR 250 at the moment. It's blown it's head gasket and is blowing out heaps of smoke and spraying hot oil all over your leg while you ride it. I reckon this is because these bikes are only air cooled, and probably don't deal with 40 degree heat too well...
I'm gonna have to bear with it for a few weeks and just go to work with engine oil on my leg for a while until pay day and we can get a reliable vehicle.
That would be the day...

The bus is also making some alarming squeaking noises which sounds suspiciously like bearing squeaks.
I sprayed fish oil all under the chassy in the hopes that would miraculously fix whatever's squeaking, but it's never that simple...


Otherwise everything's great. Darwin is a great town, I think we're gonna have a really good time here.

Mount Isa to Mataranka

Haven't updated for ages. Not because of a lack of want to, but because there is no reception between Mount Isa and Mataranka.

There have been the usual bus drama's, but everything's looking sorted now.

We made it back to Mount Isa by taking short trips and then stopping and watching T.V for an hour while we let the bearings cool, thankfully the bearings didn't crack and no grease got into the wheel hubs.

We then asked around for a good mechanic in mount Isa, and found a real good one. .. In fact, the best mechanic we've ever had (And there's been a few...)

We also ordered some new bearings from supercheap auto (after mount Isa toyota lied and said that you couldn't get bearings for vehicles that old, even though it's never been a problem from other toyota dealers...)

While we waited for the bearings we went to a few more of the local landmarks, we headed out to the 'poison hole' (an old abandoned open cut copper mine) which was meant to have super green water you can swim in. (It turned out to just be a dam...) We also caught up with some of Rachael's old friends from Armidale Uni, and got a personal tour of the town and it's surrounds and the mine site. We were also disappointed over and over again by the mount isa dining experience.

Here's a photo from main street mount Isa showing the view of the open cut mine from the streets

Mount Isa and the mine and smelter from above


After staying in mount Isa for a week we were getting pretty over it, it's a pretty depressing town with the smelter overlooking it, and you can't walk barefoot anywhere or you get black dust all over your feet from the copper smelter, which might not be a problem for most people but was driving me crazy.


The mechanic (Kev, from Kev's Automotive Mt Isa) was amazing, he went through everything really thoroughly, adjusted all the brakes (which were way out) and replaced the bearings. He was brilliant. The old bearings were quite heat damaged so it was good we got on top of it.

But, after driving another 180K's to Camooweal we stopped for gas, and the bearings were still heaps hot.

Apparently that is just how hot coaster bearings get when driving in the outback heat, and we were being hypochondriac's... It's hard not to though with our track record.

So, we bared on through the hundreds of K's to 3 ways then up to Mataranka. And on the way we passed 'Hobohome'.
These are a couple of Kiwi's I've been following online for ages at www.hobohome.com . It was cool seeing their bus in the flesh, they are kind of celebrities in my mind.



Mataranka was very nice, it was a bit of a paradise after travelling through the red centre. We stopped at the Mataranka thermal springs first thing in the morning and braved the flying fox shits dropping down from the palms above (There can be up to 300 000 of them hanging around the springs during the dry season) and enjoyed a peaceful swim in the springs before all the backpackers started to arrive.

Rach and Me in the Thermal Springs

The springs were apparently a balmy 34 degrees Celsius, but they almost felt cool compared to the heat around Mataranka, and were very easy to stay in.
We've been struggling a bit on this trip with no air conditioning. It is first thing on our list of things to get done, especially now we're in the Northern Territory, it's killing us...

After the springs started to fill with backpackers we decided we'd have a crack at kayaking up the roper river on our inflatable kayaks and try spotting some croc's
We went up a few K's and then hit some rapids caused by some tree's blocking our path, I almost got sucked into the rapids being a retard and lost my snorkel gear which was on the back of the kayak and my paddle (Which I managed to retrieve at great danger).
After that we headed back down the river, trying the kayaks over the smaller rapids (They did really well). It was a good trip in all, but we didn't see any croc's (Apparently they are breeding this time of year and making nests, so are hard to spot on the shore). We did spot a water monitor, a baby snake, and a bunch of fish though so it was a good trip

Tree

Baby Snake stuck in a hole

Water Monitor - Notice it's flat fin tail for swimming.

After that we headed over to bitter springs to cool off. They were amazing. after all this time inland I've been getting badly snorkel deprived. It was good to spend a bit of time underwater. And diving around in the fresh water was pretty cool. The lower specific gravity of fresh spring water made it easy to sink to the bottom.

The springs didn't have a huge amount of life in them due to the low oxygen in the water from high temperature and the underground source of the water. But a surprising amount lived in there. There were long necked turtles, A lot of plant life and about 100 000 guppies.

Bitter springs were well worth the visit.

Here's a photo of Daly Water's pub for no reason

And some spoonbill's eating some innocent fish trapped in a puddle


The bus looks like it might take us to Darwin after all, we just need air-con. It's killing us...
Tomorrow it's off to Katherine gorge to see some crocs. It's a hard life...

Mount Isa

Well haven't updated for a while, as per usual.

After the breakdown in Normanton we took the bike out to Karumba to see the seafood festival (very underwhelming but the town was really nice), and on the way back the front tyre blew!! We hailed a couple of people down and they helped us reinflate our tyre and we got another 10 K's or so and then it went down again. Eventually a ute with a few jackaroo's around our age pulled over and helped us put the bike on the back and take it to Normanton. They were pretty interesting guys. The driver was probably younger than we were and had worked in the mines as a diesel mechanic for a while and then when he saved enough had bought three properties at Mount Isa and became a cattle drover.
We've been hearing stories like that all over the place of miners who are 25 and own 3 houses or are on 190K a year. The starting wage for a miner is 85K a year!!! I don't think I was even on 60K when I last had a job and I've got 2 degrees..!


When we were getting the motorhome fixed up we ran into a few people travelling round on a 1976 moto guzzi. It was pretty cool, and they were having just as many mechanical problems as us which was comforting, and actually also had a failed rear wheel bearing at the next free camp we stayed at. If you want to read their blog it's www.guzzioverland.co.uk
It's not as good as this blog though.

Very Modified Guzzi

When the motorhome was eventually fixed up we went down to Mount Isa to see the town. On the way though we noticed the rear wheel bearings were also getting heaps hot (Scalding hot). At one of the free camps on the way though we met a nice ex truckie who taught us how to loosen wheel bearings on truck axles.
The bearing nuts were literally fused on they were tightened so much, I had to actually chisel them off the bearings...

When we got to Mount Isa we took the underground mine tour which was pretty interesting, and got a good insight into the lives of the miners and the layout of a mine. I'm not really into mining but it was actually pretty fascinating.
We got a real miners insight on how to flog free fuel and tools from the mines and learned about one of the locals who managed to make a whole excavator from flogged spare parts from the mine (he got caught though). At the end of the tour the guide kind of ruined it though by giving a 10 minute spiel on why the carbon tax is a bad idea and how it's going to ruin the mining industry. (I don't think they are doing too badly by the look of it). Then everyone started paying out Julia Gillard. The whole town hates her, it is truly a town of bogans...

After this we took the bus to the mechanic in Mount Isa to check over the wheel bearings and brakes (I also adjusted the brakes because the wheel bearings were still getting too hot after adjusting them, the brakes were also on way too tight).

While the bus was in the mechanics we headed over the the underground hospital which was pretty cool, more just because we got to see all the dark ages surgical equipment and machines and cat gut sutures they used back then.

Underground Hospital

When we got back from the tour the mechanic gave us the thumbs up on the bearings and brakes, with the advice that we should add some more grease at the next stop, and we headed for the northern territory.

We made it as far as Camooweal Billabong (180K's) when the bearings started squeaking. So we set up camp and over the next couple of days proceeded to repack the rear bearings (They were still getting heaps hot). This took us ages as we have never done it before, and it is way harder on truck bearings. We also visited the nearby caves on the bike and tested out our new tyre on the dirt road out there.

We repacked the bearings eventually, but might have damaged the seals which stop grease from leaking onto the stub axle and drums when we were removing the hub.
We made it 60 K's down the road to Avon Downs to check the bearings and they were still extremely hot.

The lesson here is never trust a mechanic, ever...

So at that point we headed back to Camooweal billabong and tomorrow we're gonna limp back to Mount Isa doing 30 K's at a time then resting the bearings. This is gonna take all day (It's 180Km's to Mount Isa). We'll then order in some new bearings which will take about a week and try and contact our friendly mechanic in Cairns to try and weasel some money out of him after he destroyed our bus.
It's kind of a plus going back to Mount Isa, even though it's full of Bogans there was still a lot which we didn't do in the surrounding area, and with a fixed up bike we can visit all the off road spots now.

Shade tree mechanic repacking the bearings

In the mean time we're just soaking it up at Camooweal billabong. It's a real nice spot with HEAPS of native birdlife (Being the only water around) there's a lot of native cranes, native budgies, Brolga's and all sorts of other stuff, a lot of people spend weeks here and I can understand why.

Normanton

Well we were originally intending to head to Karumba (One of Australia's 50 or so self proclaimed fishing capitols). We've been getting complacent with the bus lately, thinking that we've fixed all the major issues. We made it about 10 K's out of town when we heard a bang and the bus veered off to the left. We managed to stay on the road and pulled over. And thought we had blown the front left tyre.
When we got out everything looked fine, the tyre was OK, everything to do with the steering looked OK (Except finding the steering swing arm bushes are worn practically to nothing and will need replacing real soon).
So, confused, we drove back in to Normanton to continue testing.
After driving around slowly with Rachael outside listening for weird noises (to the amusement of the locals in the pub) Rachael diagnosed that the front left wheel bearing had exploded. This being because it was making metal screeching noises and the metal was so hot after driving you couldn't touch it...

Here is the damage, the grease cap has exploded and the bearing has chewed itself to pieces


Is it coincidence that this has occurred in less than one week after the mechanic at Cairns re-packed all the wheel bearings? We've contacted him about it and he's sending a wheel bearing kit to Normanton which is good, at least he's taking some responsibility. It just means we'll be staying in Normanton for at least the next week. (There's not much in Normanton, it is the biggest town for about 5 hours drive any direction, with a population of 1300...) Hopefully we might get lucky while staying here and see the morning glory cloud phenomenon (although its not due to start until next month.)
Normanton is also the home of the biggest croc ever recorded, which was a whopping 8.63 metres long (crocs this size don't exist any more after mass culling, the biggest getting to about 6 metres)

Tomorrow there is a fish festival on at Karumba which should be worth a visit, so we'll take the bike (Our only reliable vehicle) over to see the sights.

Before breaking down in Normanton we've had a pretty good time being back in Oz. We stopped in at Etty bay on the way down, which is a beautiful coastal town where we had a BBQ on the beach. The town has 5 local cassowaries and they've obviously figured out that anyone having a BBQ is a prime target.
These are really big birds up close, their feet are probably the most impressive and dangerous aspect of them.
After harassing us for about half an hour this cassowary attacked a nearby teenager's car for being too shiny..

After that we stayed at a few free camps as we crossed the great dividing range and stopped in at Undara volcanic national park, home to the longest lava tube system in the world.
You couldn't explore the tubes unless you went on a guided tour, which cost $50 (which was more than we could afford after the brakes incident). We broke the budget and took the tour and were a bit underwhelmed. We also climbed the rim of one of the volcanoes (the kalkani crater) which was pretty amazing, more simply to see the landscape than for the crater though.

Trees growing out from one of the cave-ins in the lava tubes

Kalkani Crater from above

Also in lemon news we also lost the awning while parked at a free camp on the Gilbert river (or gilbert stream in the dry season). I had just started setting ut up when one of the people at the camp stopped to chat to me. stupidly I didn't finish clicking in the struts and while we were chatting a very slight gust of wind blew the awning upwards and pulled it clean off the roof.

After inspecting I found that the previous owner has, for some reason, only screwed the awning into the fibreglass section of the roof, and not bothered drilling into the metal beneath it. I just can't understand how he thought that would be OK....

Anyway, putting it back on ended up being a small issue thanks to the help of our new friends Sharon and Bruce who we've met up with at some of the free camps along the way.
We were meant to meet up again at Karumba, but the bus has struck again...

We've also had some blown fuses due to a dodgy lighter socket and the exhaust pipe has come undone due to my shitty welding. (I think I should just get welding done professionally in the future, or do a course on it..) But these all pale into insignificance compared with the exploding wheel bearing...

I've also put some very tight fencing cable on the bike rack to help attach it to the bus a bit better, to prevent a repeat from the last time it came off....

Bali

Well we headed off from Cairns airport and went to Bali and left the lemon with the mechanic for 2 weeks to fix the brakes.
As soon as we got into Bali we were attacked by sprukers trying to give us a lift to where we were going. We got into the car with one guy and he wanted to charge us 200000 rupiah ($20) to get us the 6 K's to our hotel.
We got out of his car and waited for the professional taxi service and got there for $5.
That pretty much sums up most of the trip, because we didn't go in the peak season there weren't as many westerners as usual to pick on so we got targeted a lot. The usual sale points were sunglasses, transport or food. And they would harass you to the point of blocking your exit from their shops and physically putting things in your bag to try and force you to buy it... This isn't to say the Balinese weren't nice people because there were some lovely people on the trip, but a lot of neighbouring islands would come to Bali to make money off the tourists and that was really annoying.
The drive from the airport on it's own was a real eye opener for us. It was only a 6 K drive but took over half an hour. There are NO road rules in Bali. In some ways the roads need a bit of flexibility because people always have to drift onto the opposite side (the roads mostly being single lane), but it also causes a lot of chaos and slows things down. People have no qualms about dumping a pile of sand in the middle of the road or parking in the middle of traffic, and there are scooters, dogs, chickens and pedestrians everywhere.

Kick ass pink tandem scooter in Kuta

We spent the first couple of nights in Kuta while we waited for Boris, Chris and the Belgian girls to arrive (Their plane was delayed), and after that we headed straight out of the city to try and escape the hawkers. We went up the east coast to a town called Candidasa and stayed there in a couple of resorts. (Top of the line resorts are around $80 a night which are VERY luxurious. We stayed mainly in a place at $35 a night).
Out there we had a crack at scuba diving on the USS Liberty ship wreck at tulamben, which was sheltering at Tulamben beach after a Jap torpedo attack and was wrecked when the volcano at mount Batu erupted in the 1960's causing it to topple over next to shore, making it accessible by beach which was cool.

It was an incredible dive. Bali is subject to a fair bit of overfishing (like all of Indonesia), but the USS liberty still had a fair bit of fish life (Although not many big pelajic species) it was really really good.
Another bonus from doing the dive was that Rachael managed to get her dive license on the day.
Rachael failed in Australia because apparently she has asthma and failed her dive medical (After paying $450 to complete the scuba course), but this was not a problem in Bali. Dive medicals are unheard of over there and a Dutch dive instructer just tested she knew what she was doing and passed her on the spot. How good is that, truly the Balinese way.

Rachael and Jose

Some divers off one of the shipwreck walls

Who needs a toothbrush when you've got CLEANER SHRIMPS. They'd go right up inside your mouth, they had no fear at all. It's nice to see that the fish don't just eat them after they clean their mouths out.
As for some of the Balinese people though...

Mantis shrimp

Leaf Frog fish

Coral trout?


After scuba diving we hired some Honda scooters for $5 a day and went and experienced the traffic first hand and explored the country side. Driving was really full on. We didn't have our licenses, but that doesn't matter in Bali, if we had been pulled over we would only have had to bribe the cop around $20 Australian to get off (If we were Balinese it would be WAY less).
Corruption is lithe in Bali, policemen actually have to pay the country significantly to become a police officer and then make their money out of bribes. It's a rich man's career over there.
One of our taxi drivers said he used to drive trucks from 14 years old, and had to rely on police corruption to keep his job. (Paying the officer $2 every day when he was pulled over to allow him to drive, and thus keep his job) He actually trained to be an accountant at uni, but then quit because he makes a lot more carting tourists around...

Trash Chicken. It's nice seeing chickens everywhere in Bali, they seem to have a good life. Hygenically it's probably not so good, but people were very tolerant of the chickens.

Roosters do not get such a good life in Bali. Cock fighting is officially outlawed in Bali, but with all the corruption it is everywhere. Every second house has roosters out the front for sale in baskets for cock fights.

Sad dog (Most dogs didn't look very healthy, I've heard this can be a hindu thing, some people think that if a person's been reincarnated as a dog then they've done something bad to get there..)

Kid's racing skiffs

Some Balinese kids near the hotel. They were eating some foul tasting berries off the ground. They didn't speak any English but that didn't stop them grabbing their parents to try and sell a guided tour for the area.

While wandering around I also found some local spearfishermen who took us out spearfishing some of the local islands (completely illegally). The dude (Jon) who took us spearfishing had a HUGE speargun he had lengthened himself.
He caught three small tuna's and a giant trevally on the day, these were cooked up proper bali style using slow cooking with coconut husks over chicken wire and occasionally slowing the cooking with some dirty water from the nearby pond (which everyone also washed in and disposed of fish scraps too). The fish was delicious, cooked perfectly.

Swimming in the filth water :D

Here also is a dude carrying some tables on a scooter. We saw ALL sorts of crap going around on scooters, there were up to FIVE people on one scooter, or about 15 sacks of rice or even full stalls selling food it was crazy.

That's probably enough really, we also went to the temples and the hot springs (both disappointing) and went rafting aswell.

Now we're in Innisfail getting ready to head out towards Darwin tomorrow. We're planning to head to some REAL hot springs tomorrow on the way through. The bus is back from the mechanic, we had to replace ALL the slave pistons because apparently they were all leaking, new seals had to be placed on the diff because it was also leaking oil into the brake housing, and we needed to get the master cylinder sleeve replaced and the piston lathed down to make it smooth again. In addition to this the mechanic also repacked all the wheel bearings, which I'm happy about because the rear left bearing was giving off a fair bit of heat after a long drive.
The bill in total was $1900... and after all that the brakes still feel as mushy as before... but at least they aren't leaking.
We're now broke so we've decided not to go to any more mechanics and do the work ourselves.
This evening we successfully tuned the gas to the new air filter (hopefully), which is one more job down. It's a long way to Darwin, so hopefully everything goes OK on the trip.