See the sky about to rain (surely not!)

It is with a tinge of sadness that I can report that progress on Triumph Hunt has been fairly slow of late.

Last Thursday (10th March) I spotted a 2000 advertised locally. It was going fairly cheap, and far too quickly I was imagining changing tack from looking for a pricey and 'sorted' saloon (like we have seen already) to a rust-free but tatty little number with potential that could be driven and developed. We set out in the afternoon to go and have a look, but horror of horrors the unthinkable happened! It rained ... and it wasn't any of your English drizzle, this was your bona fide, rain-stops-play, full on, fair dinkum, actually-I-don't-really-fancy-crawling-around-under-a-car-in-this, sort of rain. I didn't know this sort of thing could happen in Australia, I might ask for my money back! So we bailed out half way there, and Graham sulked all the way home.

When I eventually got around to looking at the car the next day, it didn't turn out to be as interesting as I'd hoped. Looking rather forlorn in a front yard full of dodgy looking motors unfit to accompany to be stabled alongside the work of Michelotti, I was informed by the wife of the owner (whose face was covered in food for some reason) that it had been given to them by a friend and her husband had intended to restore it as a project, but didn't have the time, and they'd been told they were rare cars and it was worth at least $2,000 *yawn*. They were asking $1,000, but guess what? Yes, you're right, it was a bloody auto! Very calmly, and without frothing at the mouth, I explained that I didn't want an auto (it wasn't even worth buying and converting) and turned around and left. I naively assumed that an advert would mention such a detail, but I guess it's my own fault for not checking.

Determined not to give up, I also paid a visit to British Auto Care in Brisbane last week. I've been ringing them occasionally to see if they know of any cars around that are on the market, and thought I might as well drop in on them and see their workshop. It wasn't a wasted trip, and I had a decent chat with one of the guys there who had just sold his Toyota super-charged 2500 saloon to another mechanic at Greg Tunstall's (another Triumph mechanic). Have a look at it in the register on www.triumphowners.com. The guy reckoned it hadn't really been worth building in the end. I also gave Greg a call again to see if he knew of anything, and ended up chatting about the lemons that people try to sell him, which was pretty funny. There's a nice sounding Mk1 Pi up for sale in the area it turns out, but at a little more than I'm willing to part with.

However, I did have another sniff at the Mk1 Pi that's for sale in Adelaide ... thought I'd see if the guy was willing to meet up half way if the car was 'all that' and then drive it back. He didn't seem over-enthusiastic about it though, and I think I'd prefer to hang on and wait for something local.

The driving at the weekend was fairly good fun, though, even without a car befitting my suave British character *cough*. Ella and I jumped in the Ute and headed south out of Brisbane to Springwood National Park. We really ought to get a Collie to stick in the back of this car to complete the image. About an hour south, we came off the highway at Mudgereeba and headed up some excellent twisting mountain roads, crossing little wooden bridges and revving the nuts off the little Brumby. Eventually Ella asked me to slow down so she could point out her favourite spots ... not accepting my explanation that "we need to keep the momentum up to get up the hill!" The coin-operated BBQ (!) worked a treat and we had a decent walk in the rainforest the next day.

So far this week, I've not so much as smelt any 20/50 or EP90, although in response to my advert on the afore-mentioned website "no slushboxes considered!" a gentleman has contacted me about his Mk2 2.5 Pi ... Watch this space for news, I don't have any details on it yet.