Car 44 Repco Reliability Retrial 2019

Finished..

Day 26- 27. Lightning Ridge- Bathurst- Lakes Entrance. What an amazing contrast of Australia in two days- Outback, Snowy Mountains area and East Coast again. Nice time was had at Mt Panorame, but the start this morning at the top was quite chilli. Our adventure concludes tomorrow at
Melbourne Showgrounds. 14 782 klm finished now!!! Has gone so quick!!!

Day 24 and 25. Bowen- Springsure- Lightening Ridge. Event total now 13 543 klm. Such a change from the East Coast tropics to the Outback again. Temp tonight about 3 degrees. Everything is going well, the days and klm pass quickly. Three days before the end in Melbourne!!!

Day 23. First day of the last leg ( Cairns - Melbourne) . Passed the 12 000 klm mark today. Was a great day, beautiful scenery, special stages with gates, creek crossings, meeting original entrants etc, Back inland tomorrow to Springsure.. camping again.

In the original Repco in 1997, 13 cars qualified in completing the event, out of over 200 entries. In this event, over discussion at dinner, we realised only three or four have completed every stage available to us, we are one of them!!! So proud of our team, sponsors and Tonto.

Arrived in Cairns, one day rest stop before the final leg back to Melbourne. 11 412 klm now completed in the event. Nice to sea the east coast and have grass to walk on!!! All good!!

Arrived Charters Towers at end of day 20. Nice change in environment from “the desert”. Tonto had a major mishap, first of the event, Rear Tyre disappeared in a cloud of smoke!! Cairns tomorrow

End of day 19, some car maintenance, tour of Mt Isa and then a stage tonight. 6am start tomorrow to Charters Towers! Melbourne from here is 2 008 klm as the crow flies, 5 000 klm our way....

End of days 17 and 18 from Darwin to Mt Isa via Daly Waters ( 618 and 1 009 Kim’s). We have now completed 10 091 klm of the event, 5 000 to go. Special stage tonight in Mt Isa then onto Charters Towers tomorrow. Car is performing well. Big surprise meetup with Eric Hutton in Darwin, after about 35 years!!!