What a great night in Goondawindi

Tonight was great night with the awards handed out Team Illawarra raised over $81000 with team BSL raising over $31400 of that money, there are 5 team Illawarra cars so that is a great effort by all contributing to the Illawarra Branch of Camp Quality.

The total amount of money raised by the 66 cars was 1.3 million which is outstanding and all involved should be congratulated, The Kombi has done us proud there have been a lot of people coming up and congratulating us on our efforts and finishing with out to much repair, Camp Quality have already invited us back for next year they are more then happy to have TEAM BSL01 in the fleet.

We are having a drink with the Illawarra rambo's as they are officialy known after a very long week of dusty, muddy, wet and happy trails, the water pistols have been a great relief with the ambo's as they where happy to get into us at very oppurtunity, someone even decided to place honey on our door handles today, lucky it wasn't super glue.

ALL IN GOOD FUN.

Laughter is the best medicine.

Tomorrow caps off the last day on our esCarpade and we all have had a ball.

Kombi Nick Name

I forgot to tell you all the Kombi nick name.

The "Titanic" due to the big rockberg that took us out.

We arrived a Goondawindi this afternoon all well!!!!

Today was a good day we started at breakfast as a museum at Dalby full of old cars and tractors, The food was really nice and it was in one of the old sheds full of old fire engines, there was some very intersting equipment there that serviced Dalby for a number of years some of the stuff was dated back to the late 1800's

These are some of the old trucks in the yard.

This is a old hearse complete with a coffin in the back it was a bit eary.

This is an old steam train.

Today was a great rewarding day for us we went to a couple of schools and handed out our goodies as the kids came running to the cars all the escarpadiens started unloading our water pistols on the kids, the kids where having a great time, then we went and participated in the puppet show yes we are thing singing and dancing as part of the show, the puppets tell the kids that they shouldn't treat kids differantly when they are sick. the kids loved it and as we left we unloaded the water pistols again we actually filled our water can 3 times and we left empty, that is more then 60lts of water.

 This is the puppets in action telling the kids about how to deal with kids living with cancer it was a really good show for all of us.

This is the boys at the hotel in Goondawindi it has been a big day with a number of muddy river crossings and we have a large number of admirers we are out performing a number of cars in the kombi on these river crossings and muddy tracks, we have met a number of people who everyday ask us how we are going and they are impressed with the staminar we have.

I leave you now with a comment that was made today from one of the cars.

"That Kraut can will not get across there"

Didn't I have great pleasure calling over the radio the Kraut Can is through no rope on the front good luck with your crossing.

Tonight is the awards night i will update tonight if we win anything.  At least it will not be anything from the car as the front number plate is still in the cabin.

More money to our total Thanks to the Jim Knowles group

We had a sponsor come and have dinner with us tonight at Dalby, yes thats right we know people everywhere that has been 3 towns in a row that we have known some body.

Tonight the Jim Knowles group courtesy of Greg Keys donated more money to camp quality, when we gave them the money they where wrapped there was a slight hint we are really close to the 1 million mark for this bash by all the cars, this makes our total over the $31400 mark for our car alone. 

There are 66 teams and over 200 people, today we even had a lady at a flag us down at a farm in the middle of no where with her 2 kids and gave us money, all of them where impressed with what we where doing.

There are some people on the farms that are not entirely wrapped as i got my first bird from a farmer on his ride on mower, i gave him a wave as we passed and much to my surprise he gave me the bird.

He must of had the washing on the line as all you could see was dust and a man sitting on a bright orange mower with his finger proudly and firmly in the air.

We are having a great time for such a worthy cause.

We met and had a chat with the CEO of Camp quality and he was impressed with the Kombi and our efforts.  

We Arrived at Dalby with no INCIDENTS!!!!!!!

Hello everyone from Downtown Dalby in outback QLD.

We arrived at Dalby today after leaving Hervey Bay this morning, Hervey Bay is such a nice place i think all of us want to go back there soon for a visit without having to repair a car.

This is the sign where we stayed notice the sticker down the Bottom.

"WE LOVE THE GONG"

Poor Andrew will have to clean that off when they find it.

This is a place in Hervey Bay called wet side there is a small water park for kids plus a surfing platform due to the lack of surf there.

All the boys ready for a big day this morning at Hervey Bay, Rebecca is all repaired and ready for action, she didn't stay this clean for long, the guy at car lovers didn't look real happy when we left.

The Dragon is back on the car after a terrible incident the day before he got knocked off by a low flying branch.

This is all the cars lined up at Goomeri State School, we got the water pistols out and the kids loved it, we thought it was good while we were wetting them, but they didn't, they all gang up on us we where soaked for hours.

Another shot of all the cars at the school, we where happy that we actually got there early enough to join in on the action, this was our first school visit.

The Dragon enjoying the view at the school.

Now we have all managed to get some unofficial nick names while we have been away, i will tell you what they are.

Dave "Crocodile Dundee" King for his persuasive method to get a cow off the road, i wont explain you will have to ask him.

Simon "the white Knight" O'Connor for attempting to help all the broken cars in the field yes thats write we havn't been the only car that has major issues.

Peter "Mr Cool" Hales as he wears his sunnies everywhere even at night time.

And

Craig "Ernest Hemingway" Knowles for my efforts on this blog.

We are about to head off for dinner at the Dalby RSL will try and update more when we get back tonight.

Big day today Kombi ready for action

Today was big day we got to breakfast at 10:30 as we where developing a action plan how we where going to fix Rebecca the night before over a few quite water's

We got Rebecca fixed and ready for action thanks to Andrew getting the parts we needed by the time we had all the parts it took us about 2 hours to fix ready for the next 3 days driving.

We think Dave is actually doing somthing WE THINK!!!!

All the boys in action under the car carrying out the repairs.

 Quick Quiz, who owns this muffin top!!!!! Hint SOC

The boys before someone decided to walk 10km to dinner.

All celebrating the repairs being completed ready for a big day Tomorrow with Andrew the new honoury 5th team member at Hervey Bay Hotel.

The food was great at Hervey Bay Hotel one of the best meals we have eaten on the trip!!! Nice water there too!!!!!

We will update more tomorrow night at Dalby

Great night last night in Hervey Bay check out what we woke up to

We all had a great night at Hervey bay RSL last night got to see some good photo's and somone actually recorded the kombi hitting the rock and there was a almighty cheer at the function for us.

It also got a mention at the official discussion prior to dinner.

So we have had plenty of sleep ready to start rebuilding the Kombi.

We just wanted to share with you all the view that we have to put up with this morning

The pier with Fraser Island in the back ground.

Looking up the coast.

And the pools, its a hard life but someone has to do it.

This is the view from our balcony at Pepper Resort in Hervey Bay (Thanks Andrew again).

We are at Hervey Bay and we have the parts ready for action.

This morning we left Mooloolaba ready for a big day on the trail Kombi fairing ok Got the new shocks from a mate who picked them up for us, ready for action we are fairing better then the roller (caught fire in the rear brakes).

Ready for action the hotel owner was impressed with the Kombi, Pete's the driver today.



This is where we hurt Rebecca actually she was screaming in pain due to hitting a rock the size of Ayres Rock.



 Craig getting smashed by the ambo's with the fire extingusher.

Mr Cools Ayres Rock, it looks small but it did some massive damage moved the motor to the drivers side by 20mm.

 Beetles don't float but at least they didn't hit the rocks.

 This is the right path for the car through the water which we were told go left but someone said "its a Kombi it will go straight through go through the middle" (NOT BOZO)

This is Rainbow beach and it is not the Kombi.



This is us waiting on ambush for the cars we smashed at least 6 of them.

Well we finally got to Hervey bay tonight at 5:45 infront of most of the field because we had no bash plate and no full gear box mount,  so unable to get the Kombi through the track in the afternoon without this equipment. Lucky for us we had a contact in Hervey Bay (Andrew Offner) who drove a round trip 180 km to get us the part we needed when he got there he explained to the guy who had them what is was for and he gave it to him for free because we are a worth cause. We rang at least 20 wreckers from rainbow beach looking for the parts most of which where happy to laugh and say good luck with that trying to get the part.

We have all the parts required to get Rebecca back in action to join the field Thursday Morining.

Team Work rocks (thanks Andrew)

Got to Rainbow Beach some issues will update

The kombi is Broken but going we will get there tonight

Good Morning from Sunny QLD

Good morning from sunny QLD just thought i would put some photo's on of the green dragon yes we have traveld nearly 1500 km with it stuck to the roof with Duct tape.

Also a photo with Illawarra Ambos at a small country pub 2 days ago.

We will update the page tonight woth photo's of the beach drive HOPEFULLY!!!

Inverell - Warrick - Crows Nest - Mooloolaba

Hello everyone sorry we haven't updated the BLOG we have had 2 really big days with plenty of action

Ill start with the Kombi needing some minor repairs we broke a bolt on the rear drivers side shock fixed on the side of the road by Simon

The moblie mechanics actually lost money on us as he had made a bet that we would get through without their help as we had a really good prepared car.

We got on the road and finished the course.

 Simon trying to squeeze under a car helping with gear box issues

Simon & Dave reading for a good Rubix cube night. 

 Craig ready to shoot Norm, Norm got soaked, he only had a small water pistol.

Rebecca waiting to go down the hill for the water crossing

 Holy crap we where told that this was a water crossing but the water wasn't flowing "it looks like it was flowing to me"

 Half way there we can make it.

 See we did make up the hill what who needs a tow, actually we did seeing all the mud a water from the prevoius 64 cars it just bogged us down, however before us was a 4X4 that needed to be towed from a position less then we go to GO THE KOMBI.

.

This was all the people waiting to cross the water watching the other cars trying to get through, note the commodore when we finally got across it was still not moving.

The afternoon session got called off due to the lenght of time it took to get all the cars across the river.

It has been a tough couple of days with the troubles yesterday and the river crossings today plus the bumpy terain we are all still in good spirits and having a great time laughing and helping the others allong the way.

Got to Mooloolaba tonight and had dinner at the under water world.

We will update the BLOG after the Rainbow beach run when we arrive at Hervey Bay

Left Tamworth and made it to Inverell after a bucket load of DETOURS!!!!!!!

We got to Inverell.

We left Tamworth at 10:00 the morning driving was good Simon did a great job driving though RAIN, MUD, RIVER CROSSINGS AND SNOW!!!!!

Yes you read right SNOW.

 You can see in the distance a Commodore getting dragged out by the 4WD

 This was at Armidale, this place was so cold !!!!!

The afternoon session got cancelled and a group of us on found  OUT about after 40 km's into the course.

We turned around and had about 3 more road clossings due to heavey rain we nearly ended up at the finish line first the only problem is it was 6 days to early.

We finally got into Inverell and we where not the last but close. We got here at 18:05 had to get ready for dinner at 18:30.

 Green Dragon still on the roof after gale force winds, good duct tape.

Dinner was a good night and we where awarded with a prize in front off all the group at dinner, The award was somthing that we had lost during the day Our number plate!!!!!

We might need the duct tape for the number plate!!!!

We dressed up in Jockey shirts on about 6 of us in the group did but hey it has to be worth more points SURELY

Today we are off the Warrick via Tenterfield hopefully we will get there.