As Fast as a Speeding Frog(van)

Since I haven't mentioned my frog van since Rose and I's trip to Mannum I know you're wondering how it's doing and whether I drove it the 90 minutes each way to and from Burra?

As you can see from the photo on the right, this is my van parked outside the old Burra historical railway station. No, really, I didn't photoshop the van in, it's really there!

The van traveled to Burra in 100 minutes (give or take a minute or two) reaching speeds of up to 110kmph (that about 68mph in old 'money') without so much as raising a sweat i.e. the engine stayed at normal temperature the whole way.

At about 110kmph the vans roof begins to vibrate in the wind. Nothing serious, it's a commercial style van, it doesn't have roof upholstery like your people movers just the thin sheet metal that is the roof. Since the speed limit in most places was 110kmph the vibrations are quite handy for letting you know you're going too fast.

As well whenever an oncoming eighteen wheeler went past we'd suddenly be driving in the fields along the road side (not really but it was hairy all the same). I learnt to give myself as much space as possible when a truck was coming in the other direction to reduce the wind blast on the van.

Burra was Rose's last tourist stop in South Austalia. She'll be returning to Perth in a couple of days time. I know the van will be happy for the rest.

It's still not one hundred percent right as a mechanic friend of my partner's looked at it and immediately noticed it had an exhaust manifold leak 'somewhere'. I'll have to look into it more to see what I can find.

The Van still occasionally 'runs on' a bit and backfires too, though not as much as it did. I'm hoping a professional tune up at some point will fix that.

In the meantime it's back to normal posting of whatever happens to be interesting to me at the time. I hope you've enjoyed these travel diaries and no doubt you'll be hearing more about the Frog van in the future.


The Frog Van - it's not easy being green!