Ella and I were late entrants in the Wrest Point South East Tasmania Rally. That turned out to be a bit less ‘rally’ than we’d hoped and a bit more ‘tootle’. Lots of fine cars, from the pre-1918 category up to the 1980s, but no real navigation to be done, and we spent most of the day attempting to get past old Wolseley’s with picnic hampers, and the like. There were numerous stops scheduled – half an hour for morning tea, an hour and a half for lunch – so we ate lunch early and then went off driving at lunch time. This was good; we did a big loop on a dirt track from the lunch break in Oatlands up to a place called Interlaken. We even saw an Echidna!
Ella is doing a bad job of hiding/sheltering in this photo!
These are the local roads that serve Interlaken - how much fun?:
You want to avoid running over these, however ... getting a flat tyre out here wouldn't be fun:
There were a few other Triumphs around – including a Herald Convertible (butchers job I think) and a “Bob-alike” (albeit an auto TC rather than an ‘S’).
So, as Ella was deeply unimpressed with the ‘rally’, the week after had to be an improvement … and it was! I’ve met up with a couple of younger generation Triumphers in Tassie, and they’d recommended coming along to a run down to Southport, and the southern-most tavern in Australia (arguably). This turned out to be pretty lively with nine or ten assorted Triumphs and a ‘boy racers’ and ‘old duffers’ agreement – the boy racers raced off, and then waited for the others to catch up. A pleasant morning was spent re-enacting sections of the famous Targa Tasmania . I got to drive behind Bruce in his smart (and well-driven) yellow Dolly Sprint as he led the run – he clearly knew the roads and allowed me to open BOB up. Great fun! The whole day felt somewhat Club Triumph - like ... smiles all round.
This is in Cygnet near the beginning of the run (I was allowing my brakes to cool here after some very fast Targa stage with lots of hills):
Here we are lined up at Southport:
Unfortunately, however, Glen (one of the younger guys) suffered a painful differential malfunction on leaving the car park in the morning … this isn’t the first time it’s happened on his Mk2, but then given its spec. it’s not that surprising I suppose. Glen showed me the damage done to the internals of the diff. … ouch! He has replaced the diff. With a 4.11 ratio, however, and is selling me a 3.45 to replace our noisy one. I’m going to try and requisition an empty house’s driveway to do the change over as I’ve got the steepest driveway in the world at the moment – not the safest place to change a diff.
In terms of maintenance, I've managed to sort out a fuel pump oil leakage, re-fit the weatherseal, fill the holes allowing water into my front wings, but still have to do the diff. get some replacement seats (then I can get rid of the wood holding the seat base up!) and get some new front tyres, and a grease gun that will actually reach my steering rack.
Phew I need a cup of tea after that!
