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Subarino (old forum mate from Perth) swung down our way in his MY Hatch (“Hatchie”) to have a rest day then to cruise up to Subinats with us - he ended up sorting out the cruise control on Ruby Scoo - it turned out to be stuck vacuum relays. Some WD40 and tapping with a screwdriver freed them up with a little effort.
I changed the reverse switch on the gearbox as the cruise control was sorted - the old switch was intact wiring wise but for some reason decided not to work. I purchased a new one ages ago for this replacement. OEM goodness 8-)
Since pulling Ruby Scoo out of the back yard all I’ve done before the trip was cleaned her out, put air in the tyres, replaced the battery, swapped the UELs in (numbered days - not good for 4wd’n), put fresh fuel in, swapped the gearbox switch and drove her. I didn’t think to check the oil until after the initial drive. Same once in Sydney…
Anyway, the drive was good. Having cruise control even better! We left on Thursday, at about 11am - later than expected because a) TISM concert the night before…
…(f*ck’n awesome!);
cleaning up tools etc from the Redback Brumby conversion work and c) I was packing between cleaning etc. Deni was our first stop for a feed and dunny break:
Did a “tactical refill” on all vehicles at Narrandera and continued on late into the arvo.
Grenfell silo art:
At the end of the day, stopped for pizza in Grenfell township before heading to our accommodation:
Very Late Friday morning, we were in the Blue Mountains. It’s difficult to find a good area for Blue Mountain pics as a non local (aka tourist):
And one with our whole convoy - the Pajero was the Brumby fill in since the Brumby conversion wasn’t completed in time before we needed to leave. The Pajero copped a well over due (I didn’t realise it was 20k since the last :shock: ) oil change and that was it for the trip prep on this vehicle. Also ran flawlessly and copped a stez upgrade as per Mrs El_Freddo’s “instructions” - my arm was twisted hard on this (no it wasn’t!).
We swung by Bilpin for Subarino to check it out (this is where the MCM Brumby came from that we helped build) and had lunch at the Bilpin Cidery (highly recommend). We bought some non alcoholic cider for this kids - and forgot to get our own drinks…
On to our accommodation at the Alpha where I met the likes of Bantum from the Ausubaru forum! Great to finally meet up and check out his stock MY Touring Wagon in the flesh. There were many others from ‘24 that I caught up with as well - in the carpark as usual.
Sadly no one was willing to give Ruby Scoo a wash and a polish, no matter how much I asked or joked about it.
Then it rained that night - and again in the morning…
Bump in time on the Saturday - in the rain… After being ticked off the list and receiving the goodies bag, I was asked to show my display sticker before being allowed into the display area further in the venue. I think the volunteer thought I was trying to sneak in and taking the piss
She was good about it though, I guess she thought only shiny Subarus would be there, understandable! This is the only pic of Ruby Scoo as the feature that I have from the show and shine display part of the day:
Can’t believe I only took the one pic of her. Also thought I’d take more and see more but that didn’t happen! Note the sunshine - this was the weather for the rest of the day! Slip Slop Slap!
The parade lap was done, then a second lap that ended with a longer carpark time than we spent lined up on the main straight. I was stressing a little about fuel as I was on the top of the “E” and this was the lowest I had the gauge since I started driving her again.
After the double lap, we managed to get three old Ausubaru forum legends together from all sides of our continent! Crazy that this ever happened, I couldn’t imagine it happening way back when we watched and read about the brumby build back in the day let alone getting Hatchie over east too! Stu (aka Brumbyrunner from Settlement Creek Racing) was awesome to have a yarn and a laugh with too. I hope to catch him up again soon!
It’s a shame they don’t use the forum anymore, those were the days when forums were actively busy!
Off to the servo after a feed at the Tavern around the corner. Ruby Scoo took 58.something litres from memory and got 610km indicated. The tank capacity is 60L! I do the OCD fill to the brim.
I later found out the trip metre is 9.4% over actual travelled. Anyway, that brought the fuel consumption figures up a bit! Just glad I didn’t run out on the track, that would’ve been mega embarrassing! Fuel consumption was roughly 10.5L/100km - and that included the mountain climbing the day before -> filled in Narrandera, over the Blue Mountains via Lithgow to Bilpin and into Eastern Creek for Subinats. Not bad for the old girl loaded up on a road trip.
Sunday was a bit of a tourist day - a drive over the big coat hanger three times with a pic somewhere in between:
After this we headed off to the Sea Cliff Bridge for lunch at the Scarborough Inn. Headed North after lunch:
The cliffs were awesome, I reckon it was better south to north. I would say the best way to enjoy the bridge would be to walk over it. You can’t really see much of the bridge or the ocean from a vehicle - unless it was a bus that’s nice and high, but where’s the fun in that?? The road surface was something we could only ever hope to enjoy in Victoria for the same length of the bridge :-P
After this we headed out to show our boys some stuff on the way back to the hotel. Incidentally we met Moog’s neighbour in traffic (crazy!) - he bailed us up so his kids could tell us “U R A Bus”
We officially met again later in the week at the MCM drift night that we stumbled across. That’s another story though!From here we said bye to Subarino early in the morning on the Monday after Subinats for his journey back to Perth. We then headed into the Blue Mountains again where Ruby Scoo sat for the week. Once we checked into our family holiday accommodation, all the weather did while we were up there was rain the whole time. That threw a spanner in the works for walks and taking in the scenery. We made the most of our time doing other things like riding the double decker trains - a novelty for us (even did a ride over the harbour bridge!). Also recommend checking out Scenic World. Epic Blue Mountains views and quite an interesting history of the area with the worlds steepest railroad still in use as part of their attractions. We did this after checking out - as did the rain! Epic scenery enjoyed!
After a day at Scenic World, we pointed things south west-ish and headed home, first stop was a night in Lithgow, Mrs El_Freddo and I were stuffed. Ruby Scoo and Fred (Pajero) hit up Mt Panorama on Saturday - the weekend after the big race:
From here it was basically a straight shoot home. Ruby Scoo was close to 540,000km while at Mt Panorama on the race track but I couldn’t be bothered burning the extra fuel and wasting time doing laps “just” to have it roll over on the track - there was about 20km to rack up, so one lap and some pics did the job then we were off.
Somewhere past Bathurst and well before Cowra I happened to look at the odometer to see 539,999 ready to roll over - I completely forgot! Someone in the universe wanted me to see it so I could score this pic:
Later in the day, coming into Conargo where it’s “basically all flat”, the twilight driving looked like this:
And that’s about it. Other than my high beam driving lights not working it was a straight, boring, uneventful run home. Fred was out front for the dark run home to use its driving lights.
Awesome trip, met with some old forum members which was mint!
Can’t wait to do it again next year, most likely without the family holiday week afterwards though. It was good, but definitely not for every year! Travelling with kids is hectic!
Now to tick off the Ruby Scoo to-do list of bits. You may have noticed in the odometer pic I have two working gauges… dunno what’s going on there. The Tacho sometimes bounces around under certain conditions - it get my hopes up it’ll work again but they’re quickly smothered. The temp gauge never moved off cold since I started driving her again. Thankfully I have a working, accurate mechanical temp gauge to observe.
For now, Ruby Scoo is performing daily duties sporting her new Subinats26 and TISM stickers on the rear window.
