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MikeS	MikeS posted 11 Years Ago HOT Topic Details
Group: G4 Member Posts: 264, Visits: 1.2K	Morning chaps, long time no posts from me down under ! Hope everyone is still behaving themselves and keeping to the 'orange side' ;) Anyway, some will remember when I moved out here nearly 3 years ago (yep, it's that long already) one of my main goals was to get the photograph of Tango in front of the big red rock in the centre of Aus. Well, over Easter we finally got there. Exactly the same night as a certain William & Kate.... Pretty cool eh :cool: We took advantage of the 4 day Easter weekend and the Labor Day holiday the following week to get a 10 day holiday from only 3 days taken off work. A 3300 mile round trip from our house in Melbourne, through South Australia, passing through the Land Rover Club of South Australia's yearly bash at the foot of the Flinders Ranges where we stumbled across this.... 2008 110 from the cancelled event, was sent out here as 1 of the 2 selections Defenders and now belongs to a very nice Brit. He was heading off from Melrose to the Flinders Ranges, where he was meeting up with John Pearson from LRO mag for an 8 week holiday crossing the Simpson Desert, John's managed to 'borrow' a D4 for his holiday rather than ship his 110 over as he'd originally planned. Anyway, we drove up to Ayers Rock via some of the iconic unsealed tracks and trails through the Flinders Ranges and SA / NT. This is our first proper trip since moving here, Tango's been restricted to my town car for the last 2 years so it was superb to just be able to open her up and clear out the clag of the last couple of years I can tell you. We took the Oodnadatta Track from the Flinders to Marla and on the way, a bit of a milestone for Tango was reached, so we stopped at the exact spot to take some photos. That milestone ? 100,000 miles on the clock. And a simply stunning place for it to happen, middle of nowhere on the Oodnadatta Track. Couple more from the same spot, it was a little bit straight and a little bit sunny.... The open road to nowhere.... Had we been there 3-4 days earlier we'd have been driving much slower, in mud, as the area had 7" of rain in one day which closed all the tracks to traffic. You can see some of the small ruts at the side of us, believe me there were many others much deeper and plenty of washouts to avoid, which keeps the speed down to about 80km/h (50mph) at the max. Those ruts drag the car all over the show if you drop into one, so it's certainly a bit of a concentration fest, especially with all the gear on the roof as it's a bit top heavy to say the least. Crossed about a dozen floodways, none of which were more than 12-18" deep but it gave an idea of just how much rain had fallen. The 'greenery' in the photos had only arrived really since the rain. Hitting the wet sections of the track at 50mph lead to an almost instant dragging down of speed, we could very easily have got stuck had they been 30-40 yds longer that's for sure. Talking to others we met on the track, the area to the north was incredibly wet, born out by the state of the vehicles we saw to be honest, we were positively showroom clean in comparison. Having said that, it's now stained red underneath and it's taken a while to get the thin layer of red dust off the inside. I took 2 spare wheels, one underneath and one on the roofrack but luckily didn't need either, letting the pressures down and keeping the speed down did the trick so we didn't get any punctures. The Oodnadatta has a reputation for damaging tyres, but other than a few scratches the Pirelli ATR's I fitted in the UK 3 years ago are still OK :cool: . We also had 3 jerrys of fuel on the roof along with 2 boxes of recovery gear and tools. Inside the car were our bags, the newly installed fridge in the boot (full of beer, wine and snack food), 15 litres of fresh water, sleeping bags in case we didn't get to our destinations each day, the camping stove and incredibly vital kettle, a small air compressor for the tyres and my trusty Halfords Professional Toolbox. It's also now fitted with a double battery kit to power the fridge and iPads etc, along with UHF radio in the glovebox, so all up we were pretty heavy albeit still with plenty of room. Petrol was available at a few of the small places along the way, but not always the minimum 95 RON I need, mostly it was the 'standard' 91 octane, which wouldn't have done on its own so I kept mixing it with the 98 I had on the roof or a bottle of octane booster. I never ran below half empty before fueling up, which was about every 200km (not far at all). Fuel 'economy' was pretty horrendous, fully loaded it used 20 litres per 100km, so as we covered 5500km that's a lot of fuel... It's also nearly double the price once we got a couple of hundred miles from Adelaide, albeit still cheaper than the UK !! The car didn't miss a beat. I have to say it's just an incredibly comfortable place to be sat for hours on end on rough roads. The air suspension took most of the bumps in its stride, only the 12"+ deep washouts shook it up (one of those will cost me a new rear wheel bearing soon after I didn't spot it in time and walloped it at 90km/h) and at every stop we were the envy of all the other travellers we met. Generally the conversation would go "so, what Toyota or Nissan are you driving?" "Erm, we're in a Range Rover Sport" cue lots of laughing and "a Range Rover ?? Out here ?? Are you quite mad ?? How many times has it broken down, you're not on the school run anymore you know, etc etc". Then they'd see it, realise it's not just any old RRS and pour all over it looking at what it has fitted. One chap just stood looking at it, then looking at his 12 month old Toyota Land Cruiser 70 series (think Defender without any comfort, which should give you a great impression of them) and said "my spine is very jealous of your air suspension". It's fair to say that Tango caused lots of comments wherever we went, many asked if we were recce-ing for some competition, as the Sydney to London Classic Rally had been through the week before. Our average day consisted of 5-750km of driving. Longest day was nearly 800km, I was dog tired after that one even though MrsMike drove the last 2 1/2hrs. Ayers Rock is 240km off the main highway, so just over a 2 hour drive off the main Stuart Highway. A section of the Stuart Highway went quite quickly, as the Northern Territory speed limit is 130km/h and I only saw one cop car in 400km, so I sat at 160-170km/h (around 100mph) for 2 hours with the occasional run up to 210km/h when passing the Road Trains. Now they're impressive, bloody enormous things they are, over 160 feet long it feels like you're overtaking them forever, even with 130mph on the clock. My tactic with them was to call them up on the UHF and wait for a clear stretch, most of the truckies will tell you when it's clear and then pull out and just plant the throttle, not lifting off until I'm past them at warp factor 10. It's a long time since I've been able to wind up Tango properly and for an old bus, it still surprises me just how much ooomph it's got at the higher end of the rev and speed range considering the drag from the roofrack, it really does go like a stabbed rat. Believe me when passing 2 or 3 road trains together, it's quite unnerving just how long you're out there for but the drivers are fantastic on telling you when it's safe, they're also quite funny when you come past them at 130+mph in a fully loaded 4x4, many's the time we'd get a "faaarrkk me, what is that thing and how fast are you going!?". Bear in mind, they're also cruising at 70-90mph with 3 x 30 to 40 tonne trailers behind a monster tractor unit.... So anyway, thanks for reading and I'll try and stop in a little more often. Next year we've been invited to take it to Cape York (the northernmost point of the Oz mainland), Darwin & Kakadu with another group of Sport owners to prove to everyone else that they're not just a school run car! We might do that, albeit I'll send the car ahead to Brisbane on the train and cut out a couple of days of boring driving. Before that though it'll need MTR's again and probably a bull bar. Someone does make a bar for the Sport now, but once it's on that's it, there's no going back as it needs the front wings trimming to make it fit. Not sure I want someone taking a grinder to my front wings... Dave I'm sure will like my new reg plate on Tango, fitted only in February this year :cool: Take it easy fellas Mike BV55 YZE, Fleet No 19 - Thailand 2006 Now registered as YZE 481 in Melbourne, Oztralia.
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G'Day !!

MikeS - 11 Years Ago

Sounds excellent! Has it really been three years since you left sunny...

stu_007 - 11 Years Ago

Yep, we left in September of 2011, time really flies. Still got the...

MikeS - 11 Years Ago

I did the same and have bought a new Defender but still same old build...

stu_007 - 11 Years Ago

It's a bit of a worry that's for sure, especially as I plan to modify...

MikeS - 11 Years Ago

hi mike long long time wondered what you was up to...

davezrx - 11 Years Ago

Dave, I looked at the photos and all I could think was how long it...

MikeS - 11 Years Ago

see what you mean mike , funny how its only the WARN STICKERS ?:(:(...

davezrx - 11 Years Ago

Epic trip Mike :) Great pics too. Sorry to butt in on your...

lottienmatt - 11 Years Ago

yep , adys still with us . just had major house extension ,and its...

davezrx - 11 Years Ago

Any idea what the timescale is on that?

lottienmatt - 11 Years Ago

Just wanted to say what a great post this is. Enjoyed the story and...

Gadge - 11 Years Ago

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