The time has come,' the Walrus said, 'To talk of many things'

As a member of the Suzuki 4WD Club I have seen plenty of pics and trip reports of members trips to the Victorian High Country. The scenery has always looked marvellous and been something I have wanted to lay my own eyes on. The huts are something that I have been particularly interested in seeing.

I decided that before I move to Tassie, that it’s something I should do. So I did!

At first I wanted to go by myself, but knew in the back of my mind it was not the best idea, but I certainly did not want to be part of a large group. I started to think about who may want to come along.

My first thought was someone who I had worked with at UUNet many years ago, and who I had recently made contact with via FaceBook. Kim had recently bought a 4WD (a Jeep Wrangler) and she had been hassling me for ages about when we were going 4WD’ing. So Kim was first cab of the rank with the ‘Do you want to go to the High Country‘ question. It was a spur of the moment thing… I really was not expecting the positive response I received. Kim was thrilled with the opportunity!

At first I planned to just take a couple of days off after Easter, but then we both figured it would be better take the whole week off and really make a trip of it.

Over the next few months a had to get the Zook ready. What had prevented me from going camping over the past few years is the fact I have sleep apnoea and I use a CPAP machine while sleeping, hence I need power! So the first thing I needed to do was sort out a power source from the Zook. This meant a second battery and an inverter.

Good mate Darran helped out with the installation of the second battery. As the only logical place it could go was behind the drivers seat on the floor, it required that the draw behind the drivers seat had to be shortened to leave space for the top of the battery to pop out of the fake floor.

The draw gets shorter to make way for the 2nd battery.

Darran installing 2nd battrey into the Zook.

I then was lucky enough to source a 1000w inverter at a VERY good price (Thanx Squik!). This gave me more than enough 240v power to run CPAP machine, a fridge and still be able to charge my laptop, camera and blue tooth headphones. I love technology!

Next on the agenda was some new shoes for Zook. The old Goodyear Wranglers had given me many good years of service, but they had to be replaced. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd then announced that just about all of us would be getting some ‘stimulus package’ dollars… sweet!! That will pay for new shoes for the Zook. So I had a budget of $900 for 5 new tyres… the research did begin with earnest.

After a few weeks of phone calls to many tyre retailers, I finally found some good tyres that where within my budget. I really would have preferred another set of Goodyear Wranglers, but no one would budge towards a good price. Everyone had them for around $240 each, which was beyond the ‘Rudd Bucks’ budget. I eventually settled on some Cooper Discoverer ATR’s for $199 each. So, for only an extra $100 on top of the Rudd Bucks I could get the 5 new tyres. SWEET!!! These were fitted the weekend before the big trip.

New shoes for the Zook.

After renewing some worn out or lost camping gear, and borrowing a car fridge (Thanx Pagie!) I was finally ready!

Kim and I had during this time been mainly communicating via email and had agreed on the proposed route… so everything was just about ready!! Only thing that remained was the all important beverages to consume…oh, and some food!

……to be continued