The Steamtug Blog

Part 3 On the road at last!

The next morning, we drove back to Stoker’s Siding, and checked things over for a final time. It was Monday morning, so Peter went to work and left us down by his dam to make the final preparations and would catch up later in town. After negotiating the steep incline on his driveway, and the tight twisty turns up with narrow trees, we finally made it up onto the road.

We checked everything again, being nervous how she was going to travel on the road with all the scary stuff the Hayman and Reese man had told me. We headed down hill and carefully tried out the trailer brakes. Oh, they are so good! 4 big disc brakes with an electric actuator which drives hydraulics to the wheels. My brother Craig had installed the brake controller and did a really great job! Very neat and it all worked to perfection. I had to adjust up the sensitivity a bit, but even just using the trailer brakes, pulled up the whole train at the bottom of the hill.

Out onto the main road and down into the little village of Stoker’s Siding. What a great name for a steamboat town! But it was a railway stop at the end of the line from Tweed Heads. We stopped and took the time to get a photo of the sign with the boat in front, then headed down the picturesque valley road, over little streams and tree covered avenues; what a beautiful place to live!

Finally arrived in the main street of Murwillumbah. The locals all looked us up and down, and down n up, as we checked over the trailer wheel nuts. The ones we got from the wreckers were short and just looked untrustworthy even though we pinched a couple off each wheel to cover all bases. We found better ones at the local Repco, and a proper tube spanner to re-tighten all the bed bolts and double check all was good. We ran into Peter Wade driving around, as we made our way back over the Tweed River and back onto the other side of town.

Next stop was the weigh bridge. We circled around, backed up and finally drove onto the the bridge. The old boy came out with his clipboard and we pulled just far enough forward to get the Landrover off the bridge, put down the jockey wheel and left the trailer un-coupled behind on the bridge. Remember how much stress and fuss, and sleepless nights I had gone through worrying about the weight. There are 100’s of vehicles that can tow up to 3.5 tonnes, but with the trailer weight of 820 kgms, we were going to be well over the 3.5, hence the need to find an old Landrover that somehow got accidentally stamped 4,000 kgms (4 tonnes) which was a left over specification the British Army required for this model. So, pull the pin on the bridge. And the old boy yelled back to us “3.28 tonnes”. Holy smoke!!! We made it under!!! I jumped for joy! Life is so much easier when you can tow your boat with a normal vehicle and still have some room to have water in the boiler, a bit of firewood and a dozen bottles of Pims and Lemonaide (the chosen refreshment for straw hatted, cucumber sandwich munching steamboaters.)

We headed back to the service station on the Tweed Valley highway where we stopped for a cooling frozen raspberry slushy. John got me drinking these things which were really refreshing considering it was damn hot outside (as usual). As we came out of the servo ready to jump in the truck and head out, our old mate engineer that had drilled out our axle hubs pulled up with a surprised look on his face. We told him about Edelweiss, and unable to hide her big bum in town, he spotted us and pulled up for a squizz. He compared our little steam engine to his old vintage wartime Harley (yuk…). But he at least appreciated what we were talking about.

Out onto the highway, this time heading the wrong way, North to meet the new Pacific motorway. Heading south was the old highway with lots of twists, turns and hills, but this road was much flatter, new and had 2 lanes for slow vehicles like us. We made it up to 80kms/hr with no problems. Edelweiss just tucked in behind, and despite bumps and lumps in the road, she was steady as a rock. Towing perfectly well even if the tow ball weight was way under what it was supposed to be. We had stacked the spare Landrover wheels in the bow section of Edelweiss for a bit more weight, but she didn’t care and towed beautifully.

The only hitch was the engine temperature. Pommie cars don’t like Australian heat at the best of times, and towing Edelweiss had the engine cooling system working to maximum capacity the whole way. When we encountered a hill, the temp rose up and even if we had a bit more power to pull, we just had to back off and let her take it easy. Down past the turn off to Byron Bay, there is a long steep climb. Even the trucks were doing it tough as the workmen beside the road constructed a new flat bypass road that entered to massive tunnels under the hill we were crossing. We tucked in behind a truck, but eventually the temp gauge was off the dial even with only a couple of hundred metres to the top, we just had to stop for a bit. Then had another bite at the cherry until we reached the top and pulled off onto the side road to let the old girl cool right down.

The view was great looking back over the Northern NSW landscape. I got some photos of Edelweiss as she admired the view. Had she ever been to this altitude in her 106 years of life? John came up with an idea that we pull the grill out of the Landrover to allow even more air into the radiator, and we sat for a bit while workers coming in and out of the road construction area stopped and asked if they could take a photo of Edelweiss. So much interest from people!

Back on the road

John figured out a new way to get up the hills. You just let the speed drop right back to 50 kms/hr and the engine kicks down to low gear. The higher revs pulls more air through the radiator and it still gets damn hot, but continues pulling without boiling. We managed to average 85 kms/hr and at time down hill we got to 100 and Edelweiss swayed a little but not too much. It was worse when a big truck passed us and the wind pushed her across the road and you had to steer hard to keep her straight. Although our unregistered permit was for daylight hours only, we forgot and kept driving into the cooler night. Nobody bothered us. We pulled up in a truck stop and tried to fit under their low roof to fuel up. Whoops… just made it under with the funnel, but there were lower handing beams, so we had to back out and stretch the diesel hose. Then we had some junk food and a couple of hours sleep; me in Edelweiss, John in the passenger seat. It was the only stop we really made and headed back on the road around 2am.

The towns rolled past and soon we were crossing the Hawkesbury river and on with the early morning commuters going into Sydney. I was so worried about us holding up traffic, but cars that finally got past tooted, waved and gave us the thumbs up in support! John, while bored posted a photo and little story about us on WasteBook and while negotiating the busy roads into Sydney showed me a photo of us, taken from the rear posted back to us! A white ute in particular tooted and waved lots. We later found out it was one of John’s old MOBI, pusser, navy buddies on his way to work, which we found out after he too posted a greeting and photo on WasteBook! How good is that?

Submarines on the horizon!

Onwards, making better progress than expected. If we keep on trucking, we might make it home by midnight! South of Sydney and we could not help making a detour off the Hume and into the little town of Holbrook. This town used to be on the Hume motorway, but has been by-passed for a couple of years now. It was named after Australia’s first ever submarine commander so this little town, located so far from the sea is the home of the huge HMAS OTWAY submarine. (Well actually, they cut the bottom half off and sat her on concrete in the park. Well Edelweiss would have to go and meet this much younger sea dog.

We did make it across the border entering Victoria just after dark and continued all the way home. We did it!! Can’t wait for sunrise to go down and launch her in the sea. Down to St Helen’s boat ramp in North Geelong early next morning. I did some preparation and lit the fire before leaving home, and she was blowing off steam when we arrived. I had rang everyone to come down and see her launched. My old mate Rob Craddock turned up with a couple of boxes of wood, and my Mum and Dad too came down. We backed her in and she glided off her trailer with a smile, finally tasting salt water after being so long in fresh. I got a bucket and swished salt water around her bilges and pumped them out, just to freshen her up a bit. She would love that! She is made for salt water where dry rot and wood worm don’t live.

John and I steamed over to Western Beach boat club, and there was such a fuss made by everyone who wanted to come aboard and see such an interesting vessel. We went up to the bar after mucking about and had some light refreshments while looking out the panoramic window at the lovely sight of her sitting by the pier. We were having trouble with the vacuum in the condenser, or lack of it actually. John and I chased down air leaks in the system and found leaking gaskets on the condenser. So we pulled the condenser apart and took it down to a workshop in Moolap where we repaired a stripped thread in one of the bolt holes and cut some new gaskets. But it didn’t help. Eventually we found the air pump to be worn out and would need an over haul.

After work that evening, all the mob came down for a look. Goofa, Pete, Tommy, and a few more. The whistle sounded very sick and Tommy did a quick adjustment and had it working better. I have a better whistle that I have had on the showgrounds boiler waiting for my steam launch to come home, which will get mounted up soon. It’s a proper organ pipe whilst like you would have on a steamtug. Proper marine organ pipe whistle! We hoisted the British flag on the pole on the stern, and took a test run for everyone around Cunningham pier, past the boys from the Geelong Yacht club and down across the waterfront of Geelong with whistle blasting. It didn’t take long before someone had taken our photo and posted it up on WasteBook. 5 minutes in town and we are famous already! I hope we can make our debut on the Barwon River over the Easter weekend. So look out for us!

Welcome to Geelong Edelweiss!!!