The excitement is building! We have been given a drive-out  date of Thursday July 16th with plans to go straight into a four day training trip with Stewart and Des from SLR.

This will be an intensive shake-down boot camp aimed at testing the Bushman in all ways, checking that everything works and that Alan and I know how to operate all the equipment.  I don’t expect we will be going far away from home, just into a suitable region that lets us experience a bit of undulating 4wd track to test the winches, diff locks, and recovery gear. Meanwhile I will be busy learning about the internal machinations, figuring out  the diesel cooktop, hot water and refrigeration system amongst many other gidgets and gadgets onboard.

The Bushman out in the sun, testing the solar panels

Lagging behind in the finishing touches is the pull out outdoor kitchen, where we plan to do most of our cooking and living. Since I am so vertically challenged and the height of the pull out unit is so high, it has been real head-scratching stuff trying to make the BBQ bench lower down to a safe and functional level for me to use. At this stage, in the interests of getting away on time, it looks like I am going to be using a little box to stand on. Admittedly not quite as techie as everything else, but it does do the trick.

As we both want to be able to safely drive our Bushman, Alan has suggested I do my Light Rigid truck driving course in order to learn a bit more ‘Big’ driving technique, as currently my experience has been in nothing bigger than the Troopie. So off I went last week to sit my written exam and am proud to say I am now a Learner Truckie!

Just so long as I have Alan next to me while driving and I can casually use the worst swear words you’ve ever heard over the UHF radio… I’ll be f$#@kin right mate!

Apparently, to pass the Truckie test you are supposed to be able to ‘Moon’ without embarrassment to any passers-by, you know, as a gesture of mateship. Here is ‘Stevo’ (his name has  been changed, to protect the innocent) showing  how it’s done.

That’s it for todays post. We are also planning a big trip to the Simpson Dessert starting the 1st of August for a few months, so stay tuned these next coming days for the first draft of our itinerary.