Joe's Update...

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We picked up the Ute (the pickup mysteriously changed description somewhere south of the equator before being unloaded at Fremantle) a few days ago after no end of problems. Apparently the foreign number plate will be a real talking point because unlike the French who have been allowing the Germans to invade them in their own cars at will for about a century now, not to mention boatloads of Brits doing the ‘bandit run’, no one comes to Australia for a bit of sightseeing in their car and leaves with it again except for the Worb’s.

I finally got the second battery up and working at an auto electricians in Myaree just on the outskirts of Fremantle. The guys somehow shoehorned the battery under the bonnet and fitted a fandangled split charger. For those with the slightest bit of interest, only the primary starter battery is charged until a certain voltage is reached at which time both batteries are charged. The accessories that are fitted run only off of the second battery and never drain the main one. The fancy bit is that they’ve fitted a link so that I can override the system and allow the secondary battery to start the car. But the really cool thing (in every sense of the word) is the fridge that is running off of the secondary battery, or to be more precise the really cool things are the dozen Crown lagers that have taken up residence. Esther is now complaining that there isn’t enough room for food (this from the girl who said the fridge was too big)!

What may seem hard to believe is that we can’t get all our stuff in the pickup so I also went down to the TJM 4x4 Megastore to get a roof rack fitted. Boy, those guys took a long time to fit it. I suspect it’s a cunning ploy to make you browse because when you see something in there you’d never even known existed before, it suddenly becomes an essential…

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