18.04 New Country New Car!

Some new wheels were in order to explore the new country we've decided to call home for the year! After the moderate success with the Magna, with the added benefit/feature of car camping, a wagon was always going to be the order of the day.

After much time spent trawling the classifieds on TradeMe and walking the 'strip' in Christchurch looking for the perfect wagon, we decided to look at Turners Car Auctions.

We spent pretty much a whole day working our way through the catalogue looking at some potential transport/sleeping quarters:

A Toyota Previa - ideal as all the seats fold flat to produce a bed & picnics could be enjoyed in the rain while sat in the comfort of the captain's chairs! However it smelt of wet dog & the passenger seat was broken!
A Landrover Discovery - Great 4x4 vehicle, exactly what I wanted for runs into the snowfields and along unsealed roads! Unfortunately, it just wasn't big enough to sleep in, and the V8 might have been a little thirsty too! Others included a Mitsubishi Pajero, a Mazda Capella (626), and a couple of Golf's - been there, done that!

With the plan of heading back to the auction that night, we wanted to check the cheaper end of Moorhouse Avenue. And it just so happened that there was a Subaru specialist, Crowesport, with some cars within our budget! Joanna had always wanted a Subaru for as long as I could remember, especially a blue one with gold wheels! After a test drive and a little chat with Trevor the car was ours!?

So here it is, our 1996 Subaru Legacy GT (B-Spec) wagon, Lexie - Joanna's choice! It has a 2.0L twin-turbo (sequential) motor, which we thought would help us see the all of the country in the short time that we have here. The wheels & the suspension (Bilstein) are factory options, the exhaust perhaps isn't. Try and find a vehicle without a 4 inch exhaust in New Zealand?! I haven't been in a car this stiffly sprung since I was in a Ferrari 348! It certainly shows you where your wobbly bits are!

Crowesport provided us with a 3 month warranty on the car (included in the price), which was just as well, as the cooling system had a bit of a leak (did have to write a list of issues for the problem to be solved finally) & the rear washer spent a lot of time dribbling! We won't talk about the front washers!? Trevor & Linda were very understanding though.

Having had the rear washer sorted out I noticed that water was dripping on our boot cover. So I took a jug of water out and had a look around, it was at this point that I noticed that the rubbers for the washer pipes had not been put back. So I fitted them properly, closed the boot and went to pour the water only to hear the car lock itself! Hmm, I could clearly see the keys on the boot floor!?! Our immobiliser has a special feature that locks the doors if the car is open for a certian amount of time! I called a locksmith who took 3 minutes and 80 bucks and reunited me with the keys again! Lesson learnt!!

18.02 Operation Clean Magna

With about a month to go before we'd have to leave Melbourne, we thought it was time to prepare the car for it's own onward journey. So we took a trip to the local car wash to remove all of the flies that we had collected on our journeys around Victoria, South Australia, New South Wales, Australian Capital Territory & Tasmania!


So after a few dollars and about 30 minutes of hard scrubbing, it looked sooo much better...

09.02 Tas: Low Head & Penguin Tour

After finding our pitch for the night at Low Head Tourist Park, which just happened to have the best facilities we had encountered on our entire trip! Although we were placed in the older section with the 'permanents', as we had asked for an unpowered site!? I was going to say that we were tucked in a corner again, but that was our choice for some natural cover, as the 'rope & pulley curtain system' would have had to extend all the way car if we had stayed where suggested!

We had also seen on our drive down to the Lightstation that there were Little (Fairy/Blue) Penguin tours! So after much pestering I mananged to persuade Joanna that we should go, as I had never been on one before!

Apparently it was the best tour Joanna had ever been on! We had watched the penguins coming up the beach, then we walked around the rockeries looking at their little nests and watched them waddle further up the beach!

08.02 Tas: Woolnorth Wind Farm

While having our picnic at Marrawah Beach, we had noticed the Woolnorth Wind Farm in the distance. From Arthur River we headed back to Marrawah and picked up the unsealed Harcus River Road to Woolnorth.

About 20 kilometers into our journey I noticed that the back end was stepping out a little too much, although the surface was quite rough and loose. So I pulled over and explained to Joanna that perhaps things weren't quite as what they were supposed to be. As soon as I opened the door and looked back, my fears had been realised! There was no hubcap to be seen and we had a puncture!

After a little bit of time rearranging the boot with all our clobber, it was time to make sure that all the tools were in the right place and the spare actually had some air in it!

Something just isn't right here and I'm not just talking about the missing hubcap! How does the air stay in with all those holes? I guess there is no way of telling what caused this or where the puncture occurred?!

Actually the spare was a brand new tyre with plenty of air in it! Phew! A little Cossack dance for luck was performed, before it was firmly fitted in place!!

During our time on the side of the road two people actually stopped and asked if we were okay! Anyway, the unsealed road was much smoother on the final three kilometers with the inflated tyre!!

This was as close as we got, as the wind farm was closed and there were some concerns over our tyre situation! So we went straight to the campsite at Stanley!

07.02 Tas: Cradle Mountain - Marion's Lookout

On our return to Dove Lake at 4pm we were greeted with blue skies, puffy white cloudy and sunshine! Yes! Sunshine!! And we could clearly see the top of Cradle Mountain!

So we parked the car up and headed out on the walk that we wanted to do at 8am, to Marion's Lookout! We didn't see any wildlife on our walk, and Wombat Pool didn't quite live up to its name, but there was plent of 'scat' balanced on rocks & steps!

It was definitely the worth the wait...!


After a very nice evening meal at the Cradle Mountain Lodge we decided to go for a drive down to Dove Lake again! From the park entrance this is about an 8km drive. The aim was to hopefully see some of the wildlife that inhabit the area, and there is no better place to see it in Tasmania than Cradle Mountain!

By the time we reached Dove Lake it had started to rain again, so we headed back up towards the park entrance. It was at this point that it start to sleet! We're in summer and it' sleeting in Tasmania! We weren't disappointed with the wildife, coming across Wombats, a pair of Possums in a punch-up, Pademelons and Wallabies!! They all come out at dusk!

05.02 Tas: Snug Beach

We stayed at the Snug Beach Cabin and Caravan Park, which was situated next to the beach! The camp kicthen here was very basic, it didn't have a stove or oven but two electric barbeques, which you had to pay for!! Anyway, it was the perfect spot to head into Hobart.

02.02 Tas: Launceston - Cataract Gorge

The start of a full on day travelling around the northeast side of Tasmania.

After leaving the ferry the night before we headed to a campsite in Deloraine. It was our first night sleeping in the Magna! We stayed at the Deloraine Apex Caravan Park - a very basic site, situated next to a nice little river and also a railway line that has freight trains running down it in the middle of the night!!

After breakfast in Launceston we went to Cataract Gorge, which is a short walk/drive from the city centre. They have the longest single span chairlift, and some nice walks around the First Basin.

12.01 Dandenong Ranges: Ramsay Street

On our return journey home from the Dandenong Ranges, we thought that we'd pop in on a certain street, Ramsay Street to be precise! If you look in the Melways, you won't find it under that name, but Pinoak Court!

We drove up and I tried to turn round, and then realised why a Magna had never featured on Neighbours, as it results in an Austin Powers moment! The turning circle of the Magna is probably the same as an old London Routemaster double decker! I've just read that the Mitsuibishi 380 that replaced our model isn't any better - perhaps one of the reasons why Mitsubishi has ceased production in Australia!

Anyway, back to Ramsay Street... it was a bit of a weird experience to be honest. Joanna had been here before, so she wasn't particularly interested in getting out of the car. So off I went to see the security guard (24 hour, 7 days!), who told me that I could take photos but I wasn't allowed if the owners were in their front gardens.

So I managed to take these photos before the camera batteries went flat, and the embarrassment of it all overcame me!

25.01 No Rest In Sight!

Our trip to Adelaide, to Sydney and back to Melbourne covered a total of 4251 kilometres! It was an amazing way to see a small part of such a vast country and the contrasts of the four different States (SA, VIC, NSW & ACT) we drove through. Obviously we would have loved more time to investigate the lots of different places we came across, but that'll just have to wait until next time!

It wouldn't have been made possible with our trusty Magna Wagon, perhaps she isn't quite the lemon that we thought she was! All she asked for was fuel and half a litre of oil! Having a week's break from each other certainly helped too!

We have now worked out that we have driven almost all the way down to the east coast, from Cairns to Byron Bay, and all the way along the bottom from Adelaide up to Sydney! Plus, the extra bit we did on our day trip from Cairns to the Bloomfield Track!

So what's next? There are a number of things to see in Victoria before we have to sell our Magna on, prepare for our own departure, plus there is the blog to update with a number of things that happened towards the end of last year! There will be a number of posts that will be slightly out of order, so don't panic!