The Outback Trip

Heading of on the many klm journey, Mt Isa was the next destination for the parts to arrive for the helicopter.

                    Parts for the helicopter arrived on time. Thanks Shane. Time to drag it out and fly Mt Isa

Mount Isa open cut mine

Ranges looking back to Mt Isa

Another shot of the open cut mine

                                                              Back flying again yahoo
                                                                                   

 Back on the road and heading west

 Until disaster strikes again as we arrived into Camooweal. The idler bearing on the fan belt had failed and their we were wondering where the bearing for that was going to come from.
I got in touch with the racq from camooweal and low and be hold out of eight bearings on his shelf, he had one to fit.
Out we headed

The road that just keeps on going

In between the overcast hot days we had plenty of driving through heavy rain

Don't no what the smile is for $159 a ltr for gas

O Dear here we go again. The truck was doing great steaming along in 40 deg heat when a oil line blew to the gearbox. Fixed it but lost all the oil and didn't have enough for it to engage any gears.So i put engine oil in the transmission. It worked but i didn't like doing it. 

More drammers to follow wrecked a trailer tyre. Time to get a new one in Alice Springs

Come for a drone fly around the Devils Marbles

At work flying the drone

Time to drag the chopper out at Burrow Creek and go for a fly around the ranges here

Burrow Creek Roadhouse

Time for a beer at the Burrow Creek Roadhouse

Driving again and of to Alice Springs

                                                         The McDonnall Ranges video

A trip out west of Alice Spring took us to the McDonnall  Ranges. Some very spectacular mountain ranges.

A drive back towards Alice and another extended road trip towards Ayres Rock

Ayres Rock area had some heavy flight restrictions , this made it very hard to film with the onboard camera's. The HD Cannon and a Go-Pro on my head were used to do the footage. A little shacky in places because it was real ruff flying in the heat.

  

                                                              Transport around the rock

Happy Australia Day to all

On the road again

                                    Back in the truck again and on the road to Coober Pedy

Inside the underground opal shop

Sunset after a Coober Pedy flight

A nose over take off, looks like I was going straight for that sign

Sunrise from the take off point Painted Hills

           



                                             Painted Hills

Now for the people that think my rig is big.
Looks very small against this road train

Salt Lake fly over

Port Augusta the last part of the Outback Road Trip and time for Svenya to depart. Sorry to say goodbye and welcome to Julia

Limped the truck into Port Augusta with this blocked exhaust

Time to check out the truck and find another noise

           As I expected a bolt had come out of the flywheel and was trying to make its way out

New mufflers fitted and bolt replace in the flywheel and truck ready to soldier on

Charters Towers

Arrive at a roadside camping area just outside Charters Towers, where I could take off in the helicopter for some flights while waiting for the parts to arrive for the truck. Bad luck was not to miss me again. First flight out and the rotor tack sensor failed. Helicopter grounded. So, back to waiting for the truck parts and try and find a rotor tack sensor. Many thanks go out to Shane Smith from melbourne who was kind enough to send up a tack sensor out of his kit.

And I thought drive in theaters had died. Charters Towers has its own drive inn

Parts arrived for the truck and thanks to Trevor James from Gold City Helicopters for giving me a hand to change the bearing on the truck

Townsville

Time to have a good look over all the Machinery. A large segment across Australia in some very hot conditions needs everything to run as planned. Time in Townsville to get thous little jobs done and wait for Svenja to arrive back from Sydney. Taking a good look over the truck after its trip from Airlie to Townsville came up with not a nice find

Centre bearing on the tailshaft of the truck has had a moment . Hopefully parts won't take to long. Looks like a longer stop in Townsville.

Parts ordered and after the New Years delay with everything opening again parts should be about a week.
Joy to the parts being sent to the wrong part of the country. Another week delay. So of we go heading on to Charters Towers to wait their.