And now for that bullbar, and winch, and indicator harness and ......

Having thrived in the Strzelecki Desert, it's now time for our Troopy to finally get his bull bar, winch and an alarming number of wiring harnesses attached.

Step 1 for the various wiring harnesses is take the two batteries out. This isn't usually much of a deal in a suburban car, but lifting a huge diesel-starting battery that is already at chest height makes for an intersting trip to the chiropractor next day.

Step 2 is pull off all those nice bumpercovers, support braces and other things that you just paid thousands for and take them to the tip for recycling (anyone need a second hand bumper wing?)



Alas poor crush can - I knew him well. This is a bit of the mountain of parts heading for the recycling.

For some reason a new bullbar needs a new set of crush cans. Maybe because it deforms differently in an accident and so needs different crush cans to make sure the air bags work (We bought this model to get one with airbags, so it's kind of important to do everything by the book in this department)


Toyota helpfully provides quite nice little instruction booklets with the parts - which is just as well, given that to get the trailer lights to work, you first have to install an indicator relay system in the engine bay; then run a chassis harness that snakes the full length of the troopy to the back; then attach it to the breakout plug in the trailer wiring harness; then .... you following this? suffice to say that things aren't as simple as they once were and adding almost any new bits - even genuine parts - takes longer than it used to. Still, once they're installed, they tend to do more fancy things, more reliably than back in the sixties.



Now, which one do I read first.

Most of these are pretty good, but there seem to be about three winch fitting ones - which you need to read symultaneously while balancing 40 kg winches and tightening nuts to 77 Nm with a very long bar.

On the Bulloo Overflow

We reached the Bulloo Overflow between Tobooburra and Wanaring and were amazed to see a sheet of water stretching out of sight to the north into Queensland and south into NSW. On the shallow muddy edges a myriad of tiny insects and desert crustaceans wriggled through the water, frantically living out their lives in the few months of plenty while the water lasts.

The first thing we noticed was a pair of brolgas dancing with each other - leaping into the air with wings extended and then landing with still-extended wings. Like everything else out there, they had romance on their minds. Makes you realise that our inland wetlands are the engines that drive our bird populations.

The brolgas didn't think much of us and quickly made off to more secluded spots where they could continue their flirtations undisturbed.

Soaring overhead you could see gull billed and whiskered terns swooping down to catch little fish - and even the odd seagull - a bit out of place 1000 miles from the nearest packet of fish and chips

This is a gull-billed tern looking for breakfast....

Ahh - he's found it - and also gained an instant best friend shadowing him from above and keen to help him eat his catch.

Gull-bills are not above chasing the smaller whiskered terns to steal their fish

Black-winged stilts have much better manners - daintily picking up tiny critters with their forcepsy beaks.

It's sooo good that at least some our our wild rivers can still flood - despite the huge irrigation systems being built. It will be a very sad day when all the water ends up in some cotton farm dam where it is completely useless for wildlife. The extraordinary flush of life we are seeing at the moment only happens whendry ground is flooded. Permanent water might be a reasonable drought refuge, but very few birds will breed there.

We hit the road next day for a series of great desert vistas....

And lots more budgies

Got to Cobar next day. It has to be the goat capital of the world. They are everywhere.; wandering along the side of the road; browsing the bushes in farmers' paddocks; standing on their back legs to reach the tastiest morsels - or like this little kid, just acting the goat by the side of the road. Unlike thick-as-two-short-planks sheep, goats seemed to have great road sense and never did that stupid thing of running in front of you at the last moment.


Off to Gundabooka National Park tomorrow.