the WAFFLE page

February 24, 2009. Mucho rain lately buggered the Wing and Wave Fly-in at historic Old Bar airstrip scheduled for last weekend. The grass strip had too much standing water to accommodate the light planes. Oh well...

BUT, as good fortune would have it, I received an email outta the blue from Glenn, the production manager at Stebercraft. You might remember my photo-story in June 2008. Anyway, Glenn asked if I was interested in doing a shoot of a new 47' luxury cruiser with all the bells and whistles about to be launched. WHAT A DUMB QUESTION. So I'll do a shoot of the craft getting the final touches in the shed on Friday, and then another shoot the following Monday when the boat is towed to the Manning River to be launched by crane.

Meanwhile, on Saturday, I plan to travel to Harrington where there's a display of antique cars and motor cycles at Harrigan's Pub. That should be a blast as well.

Did I tell you I bought ANOTHER camera on eBay? Like I need another camera? This makes 4. It's a used Fuji Finepix S7000, which is a pretty snazzy piece of gear. Then I bought a bunch of accessories - lenses and filters and such. That's it... I promise... NO MORE cameras. Besides, I need the money to bring Bluey up to scratch for the Odyssey. And that, let me tell you, is quite a challenge in itself. Gary

February 3, 2009. As you know, Aussie Odyssey has taken a back seat for a while. I've been most places around these parts so there's not a lot of incentive to cover old ground. However, I see that there's a 'Wing and Wave fly-in' weekend coming up at Old Bar airfield later this month. Old Bar heritage airstrip is rare in that it's one of very few that is adjacent to the ocean, and within walking distance of the town's CBD and accommodation. The weekend will also feature surfing and kite-boarding demos/lessons at the beach. Soooo, I reckon I should be there to give the Sony a bit of a workout.

Otherwise, the focus will be on getting Bluey ship-shape. I'm already visualizing how the built-in (but removable) timber kitchen and storage area at the rear will look. A picture is worth a thousand words in this case. And I have a bunch of other ideas as well. The ol' brain is slowly doing its job. Don't ask me to explain things at this stage... I'll take lots of pics when it's all done and you'll see what this fossil is capable of. Hehe.

Somewhere down the track, I'll do a few overnighters just to test the rig in a proper camping situation. Woohoo! Boy Scouts revisited!

I tried to remove the indicator light lens in order to also remove the headlight lens to replace a bulb, but the damn thing doesn't wanna come off. I suspect the rubber mounting has fused with the body metal over the years or something like that, and I don't wanna force it. I'll leave it to Don.

Actually, I just walked down to his workshop. I was getting a bit antsy about the body/rust repairer. Nothing like a bit of a rocket up the proverbial... Don phoned him right away and he's coming here this afternoon to check out Bluey and probably give me a quote... even a rough one. I also mentioned to Don about changing the oil a couple of times in fairly rapid succession to get rid of the sludge in the engine (Oregon Richie's an oil freak and threatened me with castration if I didn't follow orders). The current stuff is BLACK. Sorry Barack... no offense. Don said oil changes in an engine "like that" is normally every 10,000 kms. "Maaaaaaate, it's taken me almost 7 years to do 5,000 kms in Tough Titties! I can't wait that long!" "You'll be doing miiiiiiiiiiiillions when you travel around Oz!" "But I want a clean engine NOW!" Yeah, so a couple of oil changes between now and when I leave... that should do the trick. Gary