add rear airbags for towing the van (Poly Air, the ones also used on the van); and
a bolt on a sealed snorkel. It is a bolt on job, no cutting. GrenX’s final development of the diesel airbox is now complete. Rohan confirmed to me last Friday at the 4WD and Adventure Show.
The Doc has some DIY things to do, but GrenX will do the final work. The Doc needs to book the trip to Melbourne. The Doc organized the final work with GrenX at the Sydney 4WD and Adventure show.
Watching the Grenadiers do water crossings up at Cape York in the Canny Outdoor video was the final prompt.
On the trip to collect the Vista RV Crossover caravan, The Doc had a short stay at Dubbo and managed to visit the Narromine Aviation Museum.
During WWII Narromine was one of the largest pilot training schools in Australia. Images include the Rolls Royce Merlin engine, from a De Haviland Mosquito, as well as parts of the Bristol Beaufighter used by Australia during WWII.
The Mosquito used a Rolls Royce Merlin Mk25 engine. It had a single stage supercharger for low level missions of 618 RAF Squadron. In December 1944, 618 RAF Squadron was deployed to Australia to use Barnes Wallis’ Highball bomb against Japanese targets – aka a variation of Wallis’ famous dambuster bombs. But 618 were never deployed into combat in the Pacific and the Mosquitos ended up at Narromine and were sold off after the war. De Havilland Aircraft also built Mosquitos at Bankstown Aerodrome in Sydney.
The Dambusters were 617 RAF Squadron, flying Lancaster Bombers using the Upkeep variation of the bouncing bomb.
After towing the Vista RV Crossover to Dubbo, The Doc visited the Narromine Aviation Museum.
A few days ago The Doc and his friend Steve visited Waulinbakh Wildlife Sanctuary at Stroud New South Wales. Our guides for the day were AWC staff Elly and Josh.
Steve’s main objective was locating live myxos in the field. We had success locating 5 or 6 species. The Doc located the first myxos, but they were of poor quality, but later he spotted a large fallen tree which turned out to be a myxo gold mine. Steve’s find on the rotting tree included a myxo that had only ever been reported in NSW twice before (one of those sightings was by Steve). It was Steve and Josh who did all the heavy myxo lifting.
We met with three other AWC staff that day on site, one of the land managers Matt and two senior staff on visit to the sanctuary.
Steve and The Doc brought along morning tea and lunch, after an early visit to the Buladelah Bakery. Small thank you gifts to the AWC staff were also given.
We stayed at the Lady Jane Motel in Buladelah for two nights as part of the trip, run by a hard working family. They are in the process of renovating the motel. The room The Doc had was great, but the newly refurbished rooms were amazing. It was a great stay.
A big thank to Australian Wildlife Conservancy and the owners for allowing us to visit. Here are some images from the visit. The Sony P&S camera struggled in the low light conditions.
The Doc gets a guided tour of Waulinbakh Wildlife Sanctuary this week, provided the rain holds off. Mate Steve Young wil be looking for myxos in the field. Waulinbakh is privately owned but some conservation efforts are undertaken by AWC.
When The Doc visited Flinders Island in late 2023 for a photography course, the group went on a plane ride. The plane took off from Lady Barron airs strip and flew over Cape Barren Island, Green Dog Island and a few other islands all part of the Furneaux group. The images were taken through Plexiglass, so the images are soft and they had heavy colour casts. The Doc got rid of most of the colour casts with some recent techiques, and has salvaged a few images. Not inspiring images but better than nothing.
The Doc reprocessed some images from his Northern Territory trip, since he cannot travel due to treatment. This time the Devils Marbles south of Tennant Creek. A few image this time. Click on any image to see the slideshow, enjoy.
The Doc took two cameras on the helicopter, including a Pentax 645Z Medium format camera. The Pentax gives massive files which The Doc can crop how he wishes. The files have eye watering details, not always appreciated when you can only post small images on a blog.
The Pentax renders very accurate colours, more so than the Canon 1DX which was the other camera used. These images are a very accurate representation on what you see from the helicopter.
To be precise, these images are from the West Arnhem Region.
Some images reprocessed from The Doc’s 4 day helicopter trip around Arnhem Land and Kakadu in 2017. It was a great trip. Click on an image to see the slideshow. Enjoy.
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