Merry Christmas!!!
By · CommentsMerry Christmas to all my readers here; here’s hoping that you have a wonderful day and a fantastic new year.
I hope that you all have a wonderful and safe holiday, drive safely if you are on the roads.
Kewarra to Cooktown
By · CommentsWell, with the last official day of my holidays, Matt & I decided to take a 4WD trip to Cooktown via the Bloomfield Track and stay overnight at the Lions Den Hotel at Rossville.
If nothing else it will give us a good indicator of how the dual battery system will function. So by the time this post is published we will be well on our way!
The route takes in the Daintree and Cape Tribulation as well as the odd water crossing on the 4WD drive only Bloomfield Track. Given the current weather at night Matt and I have a donga (or demountable) booked at the Lions Den so that if it rains there’s no chance of us getting drowned if a tent leaks. 
Kewarra Beach to Cooktown via the Bloomfield Track.
So tomorrow morning, it will be time for Matt to go round the house and clean up all his toys that he has around and also the floor of his room as well. While he’s doing that, I’ll be setting up the tray of the Ute so that we can also test out our new dual battery system to ensure that this works as well. The other thing is that I will get a good idea of how he’s going to handle the trip to Cape York next year from this as well.
Saturday morning will be spent fishing from the Cooktown Wharf where anything and everything can be caught in the right conditions & a lot of nothing if they aren’t !
Then we’ll go for a drive down the road to the golf course (Quarantine Bay Road), and take the road just to the right before reaching the golf course and go for a drive along the beach. Finally, head home from there through Mareeba and clean the truck up and hose it down to get rid of any sand and salt from the trip.
Sunday gets spent doing the final clean up of the truck and anything else then back into work again on the Monday – ho hum…..
Still, it has been a nice week off and lot of progress on the Ranger in preparation for the big Cape York Tip next year, which isn’t far off now.; I’m looking forward to getting to Archer River already! :-)
New tyres and dual battery system
By · CommentsMonday and Tuesday this week saw the Ranger get it’s first set of new tyres since I’ve had it and also the installation of a dual battery system.
With a trip to the tip of Cape York planned for next year and now only 9 to 10 months away, the upgrades are starting to happen in earnest and this round cost just over $2500.00 for both the new tyres and the dual battery system, but with the original ones down to only 20% tread, they needed to be replaced and the drivers side front tyre showing signs of wear and an oncoming wet season, it had to happen.
The Ranger had Bridgestones from factory and they had lasted 41,000 Km over some rough terrain stretching from Weipa in the north to Brisbane in the south and fraser Island In the east, so the tyres have had a good run to go through all that:
This covers 41,000 Km in just over 12 months, from Weipa to Brisbane, Fraser Island and Karumba.
The new tyres were theCooper Discoverer AT/3′s costing $342.00 each fitted including all disposal and environmental fees; and here they are on the truck all fitted:
New Coopers!
These babies are going to take us to the tip of ape York next year so the extra 33% tread on them will come in handy to say the least.
The next thing implemented on the Tuesday was a dual battery system; TJM Cairns installed a Megatronics system, they install these units on the emergency management Queensland vehicles and also the Rio Tinto mine vehicles and they have no problems with them. So there isn’t too much better an endorsement in that line. Part fo the installation was a deep cycle marine battery which can be run flat and then recharged with no problems; this also allows em to keep my starter battery for starting the car and not running fridges or anything else.
Installed dual battery system
The other thing that I had finalised this week was my new personalised plates which I had ordered as an early Christmas present for myself:
New Plates!!
Slowly the Ranger is coming together as the touring vehicle that I wanted to go camping with; next on the agenda is a long range fuel tank and suspension upgrade and then it’s basically ready to go to Cape York next year, a winch is on the wish list but not a necessity by any means.
