Still in Darwin

Well works rolling to an end, we've been working for WAY longer than we intended, this has cut into traveling time a bit, but it's good because we are now stinking rich.
 We still officially have three weeks of work remaining, but we've just got back from a trip to East Timor so I'm gonna start updating the blog again, and hopefully a bit more regularly now.

 First a few photo's from Darwin to recap the last 8 months
We started a new business while in Darwin selling fresh picked coconuts at a stall at the various markets around Darwin. This started off as a joke and a way to waste time just selling coconuts for $2 each at a local market.
 But after they sold out in an hour we knew we were onto something and started to up our business. It was pretty fun trying to get up the tree's at first when we had no idea what we were doing. We were trying a pole with a loop on the end, or innefectually climbing. At one point Hyso tried tying a rope to a machete and throwing it up into the tree to wrap around the nuts. We both tried pulling the nuts off, but when we both pulled at once the knife came free and SHOT out of the tree and missed Hyso's head by about a foot (blade first). Looking back on it it does seem dangerous, but at the time neither of us even considered the possibility of that happening. By the end I was getting pretty good at getting up coconut trees, the perfect method I think is to use a bit of towel around your ankles and a loop of rope to sling around the back of the tree, then you can just worm up the tree and then get into the branches and cut nuts down at your leisure. We were getting so professional we'd even lower them down with a rope to stop them smashing in the high trees. The only problem was we couldn't get enough nuts to the markets in Rachael's station wagon. We've given it up now due to the department of environmental health being pedantic. But it was a good little earner, pulling in between $200 - $300 a weekend. Which was nice extra cash, and something to do

Coconut Stall



 

Coconut Frog


  There's also been the usual crocodile tours and junk which everyone does in Darwin which have been fun.








Fat Crocodile
We've also learned how to go mud crabbing using pot plant holder hooks from some mates in Darwin. I can't get over how easy it is to get crabs this way, you almost feel guilty pulling them from their holes or picking them up off the ground, It is way easier than potting for them and I reckon you get way more crabs. This is gonna be a great way to get some free crab dinners while we cross the top end (which is full of mangroves). It's a nice way to spend the day too walking around the mangroves. The only danger is the huge tides around top end Australia. One guy we went crabbing with on his boat said he went out too late one time and got caught in the incoming tide. The tides are pretty serious around here (up to 8m high) and completely cover huge areas of sand. He had to wait up in a mangrove tree with his friends until they could call a boat in to come pick them up.


Mud crab

Here is a golden tree snake, which are present in plague proportions across from the caravan park, you have to careful of these when jogging as they are a bit aggressive (one went for me when jogging once) and their bite can make you feel a bit sick

This is an olive python which I encountered outside the bus one night by stepping on it barefoot in the dark. It was the calmest wild snake I've ever encountered, it was so chilled out it let me touch it and didn't even bite me when I stepped on it, that was a very cool snake, it looked very impressive too with dark blue/black scales on it's back which didn't show up too well in the photo
As far as Lemon news is concerned I've spent the last TWO DAYS trying to find a short circuit somewhere in the wiring. For some reason the battery was flat just before our flight to Timor, I managed to dodgily hook the deep cycle batteries to the ignition circuit using a tent peg and start the motor to move the bus into storage as an emergency measure, but once we got back it was still flat despite 9 days of solar to charge it...
So the last TWO FREAKIN DAYS I have been crawling around under the bus and through the dash following the wire supplying the short to find out why we have been losing 7 amps of power. And my god I have discovered some dodgy wiring in my travels under the dashboard. I did manage to pinpoint the problem yesterday, it was a wire leading to one of Mike Savage's dodgy little side switches and not a short at all... It was a switch for a reversing spotlight he had installed which had been switched on somehow... What a waste of two days, I could have just switched the light off and the problem would have been solved... I feel pretty retarded after that. But I have since disconnected the spotlight (which I have never used) and have also tidied up the wiring under the dash, fixed a few real dodgy issues (Mike Savage has been drawing the current for half his lighting from the ignition circuit... I have no idea why he would do that)(Actually I do, he is a dickhead). And also while everything was out I've installed a new usb capable cd player and new speakers which looks sick as AIDS. So I guess some good came out of the last two days. But my god.. I never want to see another wire again.

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.