We are off!

5/4/14

Now that Matilda is in her shipping container we are making bookings for ourselves! Yesterday we bought Japan Rail Passes (green) for 7 days of rail travel (first class-this means we will have reserved seats, and so can be assured of sitting down!) 

We will travel on Tuesday (8th April) to Cairns. We will overnight there before flying to Tokyo (8+hrs). We will overnight in Tokyo and then fly to Fukuoka (on Kyushu - the southernmost of the main islands of Japan). Fukuoka is said to be a gourmet paradise-as long as you are NOT vegetarian! 

After having a look around Fukuoka we will activate our Japan Rail pass and travel northwards to find the cherry blossoms! This will be a quick overview of the southern parts of Japan. We will visit here in more detail in the Autumn season later in the year. 

Then we will spend a week in Kyoto and surrounds before going to Osaka. In Osaka we will pick up Matilda from the port and our road trip will begin! (About 22-23 April). YAY! 

8/4/14 

We are on our way! We have safely reached our apartment in Cairns and so far don't think we have left anything behind! 

And we are so pleased to find that our old friend Sally May is in Cairns! We haven't seen Sally for years! She was my dive buddy on the Pandora expeditions back in 1980s, and has been working in Western Australia as a maritime archaeologist. So you can see why she is the last person we would expect to meet up with here! 

At the last minute before we left home I confirmed our marine insurance for the vehicle. There is a severe cyclone brewing right in the path of the ship, so we thought insurance might be called for this time! 

Matilda is in the container!

3 April 2014

Today is the day when we had to take Matilda to be loaded into a container. After weeks of uncertainty as to the actual date we now know when she will sail. We had delays in getting our bank garantee - in the end we mortgaged a property (we needed $200,000+ 

 bank garantee for the carnet), then delays in getting the carnet (carnet de passage - a passport for the vehicle). But now finally she is in the container and shipping next week. 

This morning we got ourselves to the loading area with the vehicle clean, packed, empty of fuel and water, and with her AUS sticker in place ( indicating an Australian registration). 

The first task was the removal of the roof top tent. We were grateful for the skillfull forklift operator who didn't even TOUCH the vehicle. 

Then it was into the container! First the UHF antenna needed to be lowered. Eventually after all male minds were concentrated on the issue the antenna was able to be folded downwards and out of the way!

Not much room! The CEO of the shipping agent company was driving -so it would be his fault if any damage was done! In fact a number of staff members came out to watch and take photos. This is not an entirely routine operation even for this company!  

Slowly, slowly! 

And she is in! And so is the driver! He had to climb first through the crawl-through into the camper to switch the battery isolator switches, and then back into the truck, out through the side window onto the windscreen! He then climbed down the bull bar and pulled himself under the vehicle. 

He did look a little stressed by the time he got out, and there were lots of jokes about his car keys being left in the truck etc....but anyway it is done! 

And we were very satisfied with their professionalism. They will finish the loading tomorrow with the vehicle being strapped down, the tent loaded into the back of the container and customs checks if required. 

The shipping agent was Coliss-Young. 

           

COLLESS YOUNG PTY LTD

Mob + 61  417 553 276

Tel: +61 7 3890 0800

http://www.collessyoung.com.au/

The people doing the packing of the container were:-

SO! Now we will get ourselves to Japan to see the cities before we have the vehicle to contend with. And also to see the cherry blossoms before they have finished -with all of the delays we don't want to miss the displays. 

So watch this space for ongoing updates -will we see the blossoms? Will we brave the nude Onsens (hot springs, communal bathing - traditionally and still exclusively naked, although gender separated!). And how will our vegan diet preference go in Japan!

Matilda is not quite fully "new"

24/2/14

We picked Matilda up from the repair shop yesterday. She has been buffed up, and fixed up, and looks great, in our driveway again. 

But the new steps are not functioning correctly! They are not holding in the "up" position. This is the same problem we had with our original steps, resulting in their catching on a tree. Mark from EOV is working on the problem, suspecting it is a faulty batch of motors in the steps. So for the time being they are held up with a rachet strap :(

And driving home from Caboolture she had an engine sys warning light. This is also a recurring problem and is similar to what happened at Wiepa, holding us up for 10"days! So Matilda is now booked in to Fuso next week for a review of this problem. 

We will also take the precaution of having her looked over thoroughly by our favourite 4WD expert before we load her for the Japan trip. Time is getting very short now so I hope he doesn't find anything amiss!

14/3/14

Fuso has fixed the engine sys warning. This time it was again the vehicle speed indicator but they said it was dirt in the sensor. They cleaned it out and all is now well. They also did a wheel alignment and straightened up the steering wheel.

We have since been out to Stanthorpe and back without any problems.

During a late Friday night birthday celebration with 2 of our oldest and best friends we made an impulsive decision to go to Stanthorpe for the weekend! In the morning we still wanted to go so we threw some clothes and food in and off we went. We have a property at Stanthorpe, so we knew where we could camp. It sure was lovelly to get out again. 

But Bronwyn and Dottie didn't like the look of the roof top tent! They thought they would have an accident if they had to negotiate the ladder at night! So we volunteered to sleep in the penthouse while they slept in our bed in the lower level. 

This was the first time I had been up in the tent. And the ladder was a bit scary, but I found that if I took it slowly and held on tight it was OK. It was good for us to try it out, and we decided the mattress was too hard. We have since put a memory foam topper on it. So for anyone thinking of joining us -it is now that much more comfortable. 

We had Matilda looked at by our favourite 4wd expert. He found grease nipples falling off, the bull bar loose, and other small things. The air filter was very filthy ( not sure why? - could it be the Cape). He advised us to have an early service ( Fuso says it's not due until 30,000 Klms unless the vehicle is driven in rough or dirty conditions!)  We have done 18,000 Klms in dust and mud, and since we are going overseas we had him do that. He also invited us back for a tutorial session on maintenance for the vehicle (perhaps detecting that we are novices in this respect :))

So this morning we had our tutorial. We started with a grease gun and learned where all the nipples are. We learned how to check and change the air filter and the fuel filter, and the fan belts, including the "endless air" belt. We developed a list of tools and spares that we need to carry. And we were told how often we need to do the inspections etc. This was a very useful session for us, and took 2.5 hours on a Saturday morning -and then he wouldn't let us pay! 

So if you are in Brisbane and need a 4wd specialist I highly recommend Mario - very knowledgeable (recommended to us by other mechanics as the best 4wd specialist in Brisbane) and all round very nice guy! 

Mario at 

Moorooka Mechanical Services, 

33 Baldock St 

Moorooka 

phone 38480115

We have our bank garantee approved for the full value of the vehicle. This is needed for the Carnet. We now have to wait until we have the bank garantee on paper before we will take the paperwork to the RACQ to get our Carnet. We are still awaiting the replacement steps motor from Sydney. 

Then it is a matter of packing the vehicle into a shipping container, and she is off. Ships leave here for Osaka weekly, so we can go as soon as we are ready. At this stage we are expecting to ship about 1st April.

Matilda is all new again!

22/2/14

Matilda has been in the repair shop for the last few weeks, getting everything fixed up after the shakedown trips. There was a quite a list of things to be done, some serious and some trivial. The more serious ones were the window of the camper (which was our fault -banged it on a tree),

the steps (under warranty because the steps were coming down while we travelled), strapping on one of the fuel tanks, 

battery tray, fridge door (ALL of the door shelves broke off!) 

and waterproofing of lockers. 

More minor ones were dust ingress, adjustment of doors, some fiberglass repairs, loose screws. Mark at EOV has been very good about it all and Brad here in Brisbane who has done the repairs has been very good as well.

We are still waiting for a shipping date, and many of the things we need to do in preparation depend on that date. We are also waiting for a valuation of Matilda to arrive from Mark in Sydney. That valuation determines the carnet cost, and also the insurance cost. And we can't get our travel health insurance until we have our flight dates.... Also we need a couple of things done by Fuso under warranty, So we will be very busy as soon as we have Matilda back home. 

Meanwhile we have been getting medical and dental checkups seen to, getting the Brookfield property ready for us to leave again for 3 months, paying bills, catching up with our real estate developement, etc. 

We have also bought some more toys! I am concerned about radioactivity in food in Japan, so I researched and then ordered a hand held Geiger counter. It has been ordered on eBay and will arrive in a few more days. I also ordered an inTeach (Delorme) device. This is a personal locator, with two way txt message capability. That means. I can communicate easily with family and friends from anywhere in the world. (I did have a spot connect -but it has somehow been lost!) the spot connect however was capable of only one way communication.