Still sanding

My daily trips to Auckland continue and I no longer have any fingerprints left, thanks to days and days of sanding. The repair certifier we have engaged viewed progress last week and was generally happy with how things were going, although he wanted a few additional areas cleaned off for inspection. If all goes according to plan he will come back in the next day or so for another inspection and, fingers crossed, give the go ahead to complete the repairs. After that he should just need to visit for a final inspection and complete the paperwork, but this may still take some time yet…

We are still awaiting the arrival of our Low Volume Vehicle modification plate. We have spoken to the LVV certifier several times, and he continues to assure us that the plate will arrive soon, but no sign of it yet. It was meant to take a couple of days, and that was two weeks ago.

We had hoped to be well and truly headed south by now, but here we are, still in the winterless north. We have managed to catch up with a couple of friends though, which has been great. Yesterday was the Warkworth Kowhai Festival market day, which is probably the first one I have been to since I left school (ages ago), so Catkin got to see how we celebrate spring in these parts.

Another week of hard toil starts tomorrow. Hopefully more to report by the end of the week.

Making progress, slowly

Making progress, but slowly, is how we left it at the end of our last full post nearly three weeks ago. Things slowed down even more after that, but we finally seem to have things moving in the right direction again.

At that stage we had done all that we could ourselves, and were waiting on the opinions of various people who we needed to certify certain aspects of the vehicle.

Because the Camel Trophy Land Rovers have roll cages fitted we needed to engage the services of a Low Volume Vehicle certifier. The roll cage, even though it was fitted by Land Rover Special Vehicles division when the vehicle was first constructed, is classified as a modification, and as such must be certified for use in New Zealand. The LVV certifier instructed us to fit approved padding to some parts of the cage, which we have done, so now we are awaiting the arrival of our modification plate and for it to be affixed to the vehicle.

Two small areas of corrosion and some small patches of surface rust need to be repaired, but the repairs must be carried out in accordance with the directions of a Repair Certifier. It seemed to take some time to get a repair certifier to have an initial look at the vehicle, but now that one has, we have his proposed course of action and have got cracking putting it into action. I have been backwards and forwards to Auckland every day to work on the Land Rover, and by the time we have finished it will be as good as new.

So we are making progress, but it is very slow!

In the meantime, it has stopped raining so much and the ground has started to dry out at last. Mum and Dad are still putting up with us, and we have been enjoying copious amounts of large, juicy grapefruit from the tree, as well as delicious home cooking and too much dessert.

We had originally hoped to be heading south around this time, but obviously that was too optimistic, and at this point in time it still isn’t clear just when that might be. Hopefully by the end of this week we will have a clearer picture of how things are looking with the vehicle and when it might be going back to the compliance centre for a retest.

We're still hoping that we will be at the end of our odyssey sooner rather than later, and certainly before everyone in our families celebrate two birthdays since the date of our departure from the UK, but in the meantime we say Happy Birthday my sister Claire. Have a great day.

The Ultimate Inspection

Two working days passed without hearing back from the compliance inspection centre. They had said that the inspection normally takes a day or so, so I was starting to get even more nervous. On the third day I decided to call and see how it was going. Unfortunately, the news was not good.

The inspector started reeling off a list of reasons for failure, and it was so long I had to get him to go through it again so I could write it all down. Having only discussed it over the phone and not being able to talk about each item while looking at the vehicle, we were a little unsure of the full extent of the problem. There followed a period of soul-searching, wondering whether, despite our research into importing a vehicle into New Zealand, we had underestimated the standards that vehicles were required to meet. Maybe a 14-year-old vehicle would be too difficult to bring up to the required standard, and the dreaded fall-back option of shipping back to the UK to sell was once again mentioned. That would be a last resort though, and we spent the rest of the day phoning around various places getting an idea of prices and availability for parts and work. We decided to head down to the inspection centre early the next morning to get a better grasp of exactly what would need to be done to pass the inspection. It was well worth our while, and after talking it through with the inspector we realised that a lot of the items would be relatively easy to resolve. In fact, we managed to sort out a good number there and then.

By the end of the day we had cleaned out our number plate light and replaced one of the bulbs, realigned our headlights (probably to account for the removal of the one tonne of equipment from the back of the vehicle), made a few ‘minor’ adjustments to our auxiliary lighting and sourced new front brake discs and pads. The next day I went back down to Auckland and spent the day replacing the front brake discs (as well as taking the opportunity to replace the wheel bearings on one wheel) and fit two new red reflectors to the rear of the vehicle. Fortunately when I cleaned up the disc pads, we could see that they were an approved brand and still had plenty of wear, so I’ve been able to save the new pads we bought for use in the future. The guys at the compliance inspection centre have been really helpful while we have been sorting out these matters, and I can’t thank them enough.

The Camel has now been transported to a specialist Land Rover mechanic to get his opinion on the remaining items that need to be rectified, namely exhaust emissions and two small areas of corrosion. As from this year, all used vehicles being imported into New Zealand have to undergo an exhaust emissions test on entry, and ours has failed. An emissions test is a normal part of the annual MOT in the UK, and we have never had any trouble passing that before. In fact, it is still within those limits. The New Zealand test is much more stringent though, with the limits being just over a quarter of those for the UK. Hopefully a thorough clean out and fine tune can get it through the test.

In the meantime, the Suzuki we have been running around in sprang an oil leak from the rear axle, and the need to replace the oil seal gave me a chance to replace the rumbly wheel bearing at the same time. Friday was spent on that, and now we can actually hear ourselves as we drive around in it.

So there we are. Still a bit apprehensive about the emissions test, and not sure just when it will be going back for the retest, but at least we are making progress, no matter how slowly.

We’ve been back in New Zealand for just over two and a half weeks, but it seems like an age ago since we left Brisbane. It’s great to finally be back, especially that it’s for good this time and not just for a holiday. Catching up with friends and family has been fantastic, although we’ve been trying hard not to bore them all with our “When I was in Africa…” stories.

Long Way Down

Another birthday rolls past for me, so that means Happy Birthday to Sue as well.

Now have the special edition dvd of the McGregor/Boorman Long Way Down to accompany the book received from GAS, so once the Olympics are done with we can sit down to ten episodes, plus extras, of African overland travel as it should be. Or could be, if you have an unlimited budget, heaps of sponsorship and massive support team...

Back in the bosom

As soon as we had packed the car up in the container David decided it was time for a bit of sightseeing so off we went to view the Glass House Mountains and other local areas. We also managed to see Kathy and Dave, friends from Queenstown. They are working in Brisbane and were pretty keen to pop up to Bribie Island for a bit of a cycle around and lunch. We managed something like a 5 minute cycle ride in between eating and talking.

We were still not finished with exporting the car formally and as soon as various documents came through we jumped on the train to Brisbane to pay a visit to the Customs house for our final exit stamp in the Carnet. The whole process took just a couple of minutes and a couple more because the Customs officer was quite perturbed that we had omitted to sign the front of the carnet- she was the first to notice our error. With everything done we had just one more day in Australia so we borrowed David and Helen’s bikes again and explored a bit more of Bribie Island.

David very kindly drove us to the airport and we had hoped that we might be able to catch a glimpse of the container ship transporting our car from the plane but we were in the middle row of seats, so we could not even see New Zealand as we came in to land.

Normally it can take quite a while to get through the quarantine section of arrivals at Auckland and because we had taken George the Giraffe (a carved wooden giraffe), one of our few African souvenirs with us, we had anticipated that we would be quite a while and had suggested to Gavin’s parents that they didn’t rush to be at the airport for the arrival time. So of course the plane was early and we were through Immigration, Customs and Quarantine in 10 minutes flat and out into the arrivals hall just about the time the plane was due to arrive waiting to be welcomed back. Pete and Trish were not far behind though and soon we were on our way again. After popping in to see Gavin’s sister and her boyfriend, Kathryn and Alan, who live in Auckland we carried on back to Warkworth.

The following day we drove out to the Wenzlick farm at Matakana where Gavin’s uncle and aunt, Bryan and Bev, have been looking after the trusty Suzuki in one of their sheds. When we parked it up, nearly 18 months ago, we forgot to disconnect the battery and after a few tows around by tractor (it is a rather hilly and very, very, very wet farm at the moment) the little beast refused to start so off went Gavin to buy a new battery while Bev and I studied the waterlogged garden, it has been raining here for weeks. The new battery did the trick and it started first time- what a beauty. It may not be the most luxurious or modern little beast but it even made it through a Warrant of Fitness without any problems, after washing all the bird poo off.

Over the next few days we caught up with many more members of Gavin’s family and friends. We have made a couple of trips down to Auckland to get into progress importing the car and in all honesty, not be down on Australia, but it does seem to be a lot more straight forward than our last country.

So now we have been back for a week. Yesterday we unpacked the car from the container and our hard work and David’s hard work seems to have paid off. The car passed its quarantine (MAF) inspection with flying colours, apart from a quick hovering up of a little dust and sand that had shaken down during shipping no further cleaning or fumigation was required. A process which had taken 11 hours in Fremantle took only a couple of hours in Auckland. In the afternoon the car was transported to a vehicle compliance testing station where inspectors are going through it with a fine tooth comb to ensure that it meets all the Kiwi safety regulations. Gavin has been worrying about this inspection ever since we departed the UK so we just hope that it goes OK. Fingers crossed.

71 today

Happy Birthday to my Pa from a wintry New Zealand.