Scarlett - ND RF Ltd. Goodness

[Nevyn72]

Hey, where was last night's weekly update?!

I was on a train coming home from Parkes, you'll have to wait.....

[madmort]

[Nevyn72]

:roll:

[Nevyn72]

.... I made sure I got a window seat.... Onwards!

I boarded the plane...
The plane took off...
I enjoyed the view...
The plane landed...
I got off...

Having only had a large bucket of coffee for breakfast I was a tad hungry so went searching for something in the airport foodcourt.
It appeared the main item on the menu was extortion.
There didn't appear to be very much that resembled food either... Given I was unable to go anywhere else in search of alternatives I took out a small mortgage and acquired an 'egg benedict roll' and a coffee, not surprisingly a bit later I felt a little unwell...

I then wandered outside to the bus rank which was mercifully almost deserted and I was able to remove the facemask for a bit.
I took a deep breath, the egg benedict roll repeated on me, it didn't taste any better the second time around...

The bus pulled up...
I got on...
I didn't enjoy the view nearly as much...
The bus arrived...
I got off...

In the distance... on the edge of the bus terminal... out on the street... was a little red car... and an unexpectedly large woman.
Not fat, just big... tall... wide... solid... she wouldn't have been out of place in the All Blacks lineup!
I was immediately concerned over the wellbeing of the driver's Recaro seat.

I wandered over and introduced myself but that seemed unnecessary as she already knew I was the one she was waiting for.
Maybe it was because I had just gotten off the bus and was walking straight toward her?
Maybe it was because I had told her what I was wearing in a message earlier?
Maybe it was because I still had a deathgrip on my backpack?

I had a good look around the car.
I didn't need to... It was almost like it had just come off the showroom floor!
She had a cloth sheet protecting the seat, I sat in the seat, it was fine, she had paper protecting the floormat, she had a boot full of goodies...
I said done! Let's go to the bank. She drove there, it was quite impressive watching her get in the car.

Inside the bank I handed over a surprisingly small white envelope. The teller fed the notes into the automatic counting machine which disconcertingly swallowed the notes in the process thus making it impossible to dispute the count.
The machine had indigestion and spat out one note... the teller put the note back in... the machine spat it out again... the teller put it back in again... the machine had a tantrum...

The teller looked at the note, I looked at the note, the seller looked at the note... we all looked at each other... we all looked at the machine... The machine looked embarrassed... The machine ate the note and went *Ding*.
I was a lot poorer...
The seller had a smaller mortgage...
I still didn't own the car...

Next was to the motor registry to declare the sale and cancel the rego.
She drove again, one last time...
When we arrived she unbolted her personalised plates and we went inside.
It should have been straight forward, it wasn't. It took two staff, a supervisor, a phone call and some serious computer terminal abuse but we finally cancelled the rego.

We wandered outside and the seller handed me the keys.
I stuck the unregistered vehicle permit sticker inside the windscreen.
I finally got to drive my new car!

While I drove her the short distance back to her workplace she programmed the first waypoint of my journey into the satnav.
I dropped her off and not being familiar with how the satnav operated promptly got lost...

I found an out of the way place, pulled over, worked out where I needed to go, how to drive the satnav and took a picture of my new toy.

She didn't have a name yet but here she is!



Next Episode: It's time to bring her home!

[rascal]

I’m not sure the female PO would be that delighted to be referenced to an All Black…

[ManiacLachy]

She's a beaut, I think you did really well on this one!

Other's might grumble about the "never-ending story", but I'm loving it!

[charcoal]

Lachy's message +1

Well written and very entertaining

[KevGoat]

Been enjoying this and as has been mentioned the car looks great. Those additions lift an already good-looking model.

Sent from my SM-G781B using Tapatalk

[Nevyn72]

I found an out of the way place, pulled over, worked out where I needed to go, how to drive the satnav and took a picture of my new toy.....

As it turns out I had been travelling in precisely the wrong direction, with 100% accuracy, I really hoped this wasn't going to be a precursor of the rest of the journey.

After a short process of comparing what the car's Satnav was displaying and what I could see on Google maps on my phone I realised that the way the car was giving directions was counter-intuitive and didn't make much sense...
At this point I decided that whatever name I settled on for this vehicle, it would be female.

Now finally on the move (in the correct direction this time) I quickly broke free of town and was blasting down the open road.
Overall I was very happy with how the engine behaved, although there was some serious negotiation going on over the clutch friction point. I really don't like how light modern clutches feel, preferring the 'heft' of my old SE's Exedy HD unit.
Overall I would say the power 'felt' not dissimilar to my old, lightly modified SE in the low to mid-range but without the top end grunt and less torque low down. A bit lifeless at the bottom but really perking up around 3000rpm. Different to the old turbo but not bad, in fact I rather liked it.

My overnight stay was with some friends just East of Lismore in a place called Meercham Vale. The quickest, smoothest and hence most boring way to get there was back through Brisbane and down the coast on the Pacific Highway... Nope!
So after some playing before I left Sydney, I decided on a suitably wiggly route inland via Warrick and Kyogle, it didn't appear that much longer, either in distance or time and went over the ranges, what could possibly be wrong with that!
I really should have done more research...

Here's a link to the route if you're interested, around ~300km and supposedly ~4 hours...
https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Toowoomba,+Queensland/Meerschaum+Vale,+New+South+Wales+2477/@-28.2929687,152.8359936,9.5z/data=!4m19!4m18!1m10!1m1!1s0x6b9644ba48e3658f:0x400eef17f20bf50!2m2!1d151.9506696!2d-27.5598212!3m4!1m2!1d152.0491278!2d-28.0954372!3s0x6b97a714120a67cf:0xd235cce89ad77a8d!1m5!1m1!1s0x6b9a7993ab5438d5:0x40609b49043f960!2m2!1d153.436799!2d-28.9117787!3e0

I left Toowoomba at roughly 1 pm with a nearly full tank, (although I forgot to ask the previous owner how long since it was last filled and with what fuel grade), and arrived at the first waypoint, Warrick, just over an hour later. By this stage after over an hour of running around sorting the sale, then the drive, there was a serious need to find some facilities!
As always the saviour of the uncomfortable traveller hove into view with it's shining beacon of golden arches upon a tower.

Here's a picture in the carpark as I realised I hadn't taken any pictures enroute so far as I was having too much fun driving...



I considered a small snack while there but the Eggs Benedict roll from the airport earlier reminded me I wasn't done with my digestive tract yet and if I added further ingredients to the mix there would be consequences....
So I just grabbed a bottle of water and headed off.

Given the needle on the fuel gauge had hardly budged and was still over 3/4 I didn't bother looking for fuel.
I set the Satnav for Lismore to start, with a Kyogle waypoint, and promptly ran into roadworks. Little did I know this would foretell far too much of my afternoon.
After about half an hour of bumper to bumper traffic I finally broke free of town and headed South-East toward the town of Legume where my problems really began...

At Legume there was a turnoff onto Mount Lindesay Road for the run across to Kyogle. Around 200m in was some obvious roadworks, a pilot vehicle and an incredibly bored looking individual holding a Stop/Go sign. I was the second vehicle in behind a dual cab ute.
I figured I'd just get past the roadworks, pass the ute and enjoy the really wriggly line on the map over the mountains.
Nostradamus I ain't...

It turns out the roadworks were more extensive than I expected and hoped... by a lot... a HUGE lot!... About 42km worth...
If I'd bothered checking I would have discovered the following link.
https://investment.infrastructure.gov.au/projects/ProjectDetails.aspx?Project_id=066011-16NSW-NP

Next Episode: I hate roadworks... and ute drivers...

[ManiacLachy]

As always the saviour of the uncomfortable traveller hove into view with it's shining beacon of golden arches upon a tower.

I feel attacked

[Nevyn72]

It turns out the roadworks were more extensive than I expected and hoped... by a lot... a HUGE lot!... About 42km worth...

After an unreasonably long period of time our little convoy, led by the pilot vehicle, headed off...

The extent of the roadworks was quite impressive, massive realignments, new formations, widening and other associated environmental rearrangement. This left only a fairly narrow, compacted dirt track between the earthmoving equipment and the earth that had been, errrr.. moved.
Needless to say the pace was slow and I was keeping well back from the ute in front to avoid the worst of the dust and any stones that were thrown up in transit. I figured with roadworks of this scale they couldn't last that long, could they? Ignorance is bliss....

Eventually, after about 5km or so, the pilot vehicle peeled away and we were able to proceed at our own pace. I probably should have been a little more surprised that there were no vehicles waiting for the alternate journey, local knowledge, mutter, mutter, mutter...
Unfortunately the road conditions only mildly improved with the occasional bit of remnant bitumen in a very sorry state. The ute in didn't increase speed very much either, generally staying towards the middle of the road and barely even breaking 30kph. At this rate I was never going to make to Lismore!

Every now and then, when the road straightened, and some bitumen appeared, I would line up for a passing move but the ute would vary speed a bit erratically and move even closer to centre of the road. I'm not sure if it was just a local getting a bit excited or the driver was being an 'Ar$ehat'.
Eventually a good enough opportunity presented itself and I was able to lunge past, mercifully just as the worst of the roadworks came to an end... FREEDOM!

Ironically, it would have been a really nice drive, spectacular twisty country, if not for the roadworks and associated other drivers... I hope to head back there in a few years when the work is done and enjoy it properly. Anyway I was now over an hour later than I wanted to be and given this was early June the days were short and I had wanted to arrive before darkness given the unfamiliar destination.

Oh well, there's only thing for it, time to stretch the legs on my new toy and see if I could claw back some of the lost time!
Let's see, elevated velocities, on an unfamiliar, winding, mountainous, country road, with no license plates... What could possibly go wrong?
Mercifully nothing, but Jeez I had some fun for a while, blew off some frustration too.

By the time I had cleared the roadworks and other moving roadblocks I was barely even halfway to my destination for the night, had been up for nearly 12 hours, and had only had two coffees and a suspicious Egg roll during the day... I was starting to get a little over it...
Mercifully the rest of the drive to Lismore was uneventful and I landed in town at dusk, in the middle of the afternoon peak hour, yay!

Of course my destination was exactly on the opposite side of Lismore, plus a bit, in a rural location. I pulled over at the first opportunity and set the satnav for the address, decided I had enough fuel to get there (I really couldn't bear the thought of finding an appropriate petrol station at this stage) and set sail into traffic-gheddon. It may be a regional centre but they appeared to have ambitions of challenging Sydney for sheer traffic stupidity... I was more than a little nervous.

Somehow I made it through and was promptly convinced the satnav was smoking something illicit, surely this narrow winding lane couldn't be the main road to Mercham Vale and the coastal communities beyond? At least I discovered the LED headlights were effective... the high beams could more accurately be described as light cannons!
As the satnav was saying I was almost at my destination I realised I couldn't see much of, well, anything... So I pulled over and gave my mate a call just to confirm the address, which he did, and then to ask if he could meet me down at street level. I'm really glad I asked him to do this as I rounded a corner and would have completely missed his driveway if he wasn't standing there with a torch!

Being a rural location there wasn't much light so I couldn't see much as I drove up the gravel driveway and parked. I discovered the next morning this was largely because there wasn't much to actually see. This was the home of a childhood and lifelong mate, I'd had lots of contact over the years and he'd frequently come down to my place in Sydney but this was the first time I'd been up to his current residence. I was really looking forward to catching up with his whole family, well at least for as long as I could stay awake that is...

Things were a little chaotic, as these occasions often are, but it was great to gasbag for a while over a delicious lasagne dinner with red wine. All the while playing with their two Huskies, themselves equally distracted because Stella (the female) had just dropped a litter of 8 pups barely over a week old!
The biggest challenge for me would be to avoid smuggling one of the pups home with me the next day...

To finish this chapter off, here's the proud, but very tired mum with her horde!







Next Episode: Will I actually make it home?

[ManiacLachy]

Beautiful pups! I would have definitely departed with a co-driver the next day

[charcoal]

Beautiful pups! I would have definitely departed with a co-driver the next day

Hobbes would have felt betrayed...but agree that the puppies are adorable

[Nevyn72]

The biggest challenge for me would be to avoid smuggling one of the pups home with me the next day...

I woke very early the next morning, around puppy-o'clock, because 8 newborn huskies are going to make sure absolutely everyone in the area knows when they're hungry!

While I slept very well, I'm sure looked just as pleased about the early start as the Louie, the puppy's father did in the image below...



Anyway a strong, freshly brewed coffee soon set things on the right course and I could start pondering the day's journey.
I was well aware that the day's forecast was something approximating the opening moves of the apocalypse and the weather radar over the whole state pretty much confirmed this. I wasn't too concerned as the goal was distance today, to get home in time to return to work the next day and a long boring highway run was on the agenda, hopefully relatively weather proof.

I had already decided to delay my departure until ~9:30am to time my arrival into Sydney well after the afternoon peak but early enough for a late-ish dinner. So with a bit of time to kill and after playing with the dogs for a bit we wandered around the combined shed/house they were living in to see some of my mate's current projects.

I saw a light aircraft poking out of a partly open side door but wasn't too surprised, I'd seen it before when my mate showed up on my doorstep one day looking for a bed for the night. He'd just sort of bought the plane on a whim and was bringing it home, and oh, by the way could he cut up the wings on my driveway while he was there?





I also saw the bodyshell of the GQ Patrol in the above picture on blocks in the paddock on the other side of the driveway. I asked what happened to it as it was previously his 'best' vehicle? (currently the new best vehicle was my 17 year old Mazda Astina that I gifted to him for his kids to learn to drive on).

He promptly lifted the main garage door to reveal the chassis and running gear from the Patrol on a hoist in the process of being fitted with a replica bodykit of a HumVee (yep military spec) suitably reduced in size of course. Apparently it was a project he was working on with his son to be his son's first car... There were lots of other projects scattered around but too many to mention here.

My mate's the sort of mad tinkerer who's, shall we say, really good at starting projects....

With the morning moving on, it was time to bid my farewells and begin the journey home. I was at least able to start the trip with the roof down as the worst of the weather was still making it's way Northward through the state. I decided to head toward the coast rather than backtrack to Lismore to make the connection with the Pacific highway. The time would have been similar according to the almighty guru Google maps but the trip probably more scenic.

The first order of business was fuel as I still hadn't filled up since collecting the car ~300km ago. Despite not being completely full when I started the range-O-meter was still indicating ~130km remaining. Not bad for a 48 litre tank!

Now I have a particular belief about fuels and which brand is best. The answer being they're all probably quite good. However I'm not convinced that they necessarily play nice together when mixed so have always had a policy using the same brand, which in my case is Caltex, which I suppose is now Ampol, unless you go to a Woollies branded servo...

There only appeared to be the one Ampo-Calte-oollies brand offering on my route within a reasonable distance so the first stop was decided and it was time to go.

Next Episode: Can you believe this was only a 2 day trip?

[Nevyn72]

...so the first stop was decided and it was time to go.

Once on the move the Satnav immediately tried to turn me about and head off into the mangroves at the first major junction, really need to negotiate a peace with this thing, but at least it wasn't required for the majority of the journey home so could be largely ignored....

After a leisurely three quater hour cruise I arrived at the servo to discover they didn't have 98.
I was bit surprised about this in this day and age but at least they had 95 so that would have to do for the moment. According to the owner's manual 95 was fine but I still short fueled the tank with only $30 worth with the intent of stopping at one of the more major highway service centres further South to tank up fully. Despite only adding ~20 litres of fuel this brought the gauge up to a little over 2/3rds full from nearly empty, hmmm...

Like all new cars, it was going to take a bit of time to learn the quirks of the fuel gauge indications.

It wasn't long before I joined the Pacific Highway and began the long boring plod down the coast to Sydney. The weather wasn't bad but was slowly deteriorating with scattered showers increasing so unfortunately the roof had to go up full time now. At least the reports of bad buffeting with the RF at highway speeds constantly seen on the US forums didn't seem particularly justified. Yes it was there, but no worse than my old NB with the roof down and ironically things were smoother with the wind deflector removed.

Being the responsible adult I am ( ) after about another 2 hours of driving I pulled over into a rest stop for a break and a bit of a stretch. It had absolutely nothing to do with the 'you're getting old ya Ba$tard' need for a pit-stop to deal with the morning coffee.
Things were a bit damp but not the torrential rains (some snow even) and hurricane force winds seen further South, at least not yet anyway.



Feeling refreshed, relaxed and relieved I rejoined the highway and continued South.
I had downloaded my entire CD collection onto a USB stick and had that playing on shuffle (you have no idea how long it took me to work out how to make the 'shuffle' work and now it will never be spoken of again) which resulted in a very interesting and diverse playlist!

At one point I even received a phone call and the bluetooth handsfree worked flawlessly, although with road noise in the closed cabin at highway speeds the caller had trouble hearing me. (Calls I have received more recently with the roof down and/or at slower speeds have had no issues though). Fun-fact, when receiving a call the audio only comes through the driver's headrest speakers...

The fuel gauge was barely even budging as I rolled on South past various refueling options at Graton, Coffs Harbour & near Kempsey. The range indicator say I still had heaps and the consumpto-meter said the car was barely even sipping 6L/100km, Nice!
I however came to the point where I had to make the call, divert for fuel at Port Macquarie or go for gold and make the run to Taree? The indicated range said I would just make it and, travelling frequently to Taree for work, I knew there was a large service centre just off the highway with the right brand of go-juice and a huge food court of dubious dietary options....

Bugger it! Taree it is!

Next Episode: Can you really trust the range estimate?