Kelly's World

What a weekend! Mat and I left Friday night straight after work to go camping for the weekend, and only got back at about 4pm this afternoon. We went to Landcruiser Mountain Park, one of the places that we consider “home away from home”. It’s a massive property full of 4wding tracks, where the newbies join with the ultra professional to push their vehicles to the limits. Given that Mat and I both enjoy 4wding it makes sense that we love the park so much.

It was the first time we have taken our new Nissan Navara offroad properly, as it’s touched dirt roads before but had never been transferred into 4wd mode. After a weekend of taking it down some of our favourite tracks, Mat and I were both blown away by just how well it went. It did everything we asked of it and more. Wow.

I videotaped most of the weekend, and tomorrow night will be compiling it all together to upload. There’s some keen (vain) boys eagerly waiting on the footage so they can see their trucks on the screen. I’ll be sure to post it here as well so that you can get an understanding of what we do when we go 4wding exactly. It’s a lot more than just dirt tracks! Throw in a bit of crazy angles and wheels in the air, and you’d be closer to the mark.

So now I find myself sitting at home on a Sunday night, wondering how the weekend just blew past so quickly. Another working week is ahead of me, and then a weekend that will be dedicated to putting together my first uni assignment for my forensics science module. Given that one of my resolutions for next year will be to get a High Distinction in this subject, I need to make sure this assignment is pretty awesome.

So what did everyone else get up to, and what’s planned for the last weekend of November?

I recently discussed the fact that we got a brand new 4wd, a Nissan Navara, and so far there’s only one thing that troubles me about it. I don’t know what to call it!

I have always named my cars. I’ve had Sally (saab), Gwenny (festiva), Charlie (corolla), Suzi (vitara), and most recently, young Suzi (swift) (side note – geezus I have had a lot of cars, no wonder Amy teases me about it). Mat’s not a big fan of the whole naming thing, and thus his vehicles have never had a name. He reluctantly put up with young Suzi, since we were sharing the car. This time however, he’s insisting on not having a name. But I say HA! to that, since I’m not breaking my routine now!

I’ve thrown plenty of names around, and typically they all start with N. N for Navara, geddit? I’ve tried Nessi, Nissy, Nissa, Nelly and Nora, but nothing seems to fit. At all. I should probably be going for a tough name, since it’s a 4wd and by no means a little girly car. Yet I draw a complete blank.

Does anyone have any suggestions for a name for a silver Nissan Navara? Feel free to suggest them and put an end to my anxiety!

**disclaimer – I wrote this on my iPhone earlier today, I just forgot to post it**

Our new rig

So I’m typing this into my iPhone while I sit in a park in Maroochydore. I’m currently waiting for a phone call to tell me that the new tyres for our 4wd have been fitted, and thus can walk back to pick it up.

I hadn’t blogged about this yet, but we sold my favourite little car, my Suzuki swift sport. Well, traded it in rather than sold it. As well as committing ourselves to some more lack of funds, we walked away with a brand new Nissan Navara.

What caused this? At the beginning of last year we had 3 cars in our possession. My swift, a vitara, and Mat’s Nissan patrol ute. For two people, that’s a bit much. At the same time my family was planning a holiday to the US for my mum’s 60th birthday. Mat and I decided we would sell the patrol (that was rarely used) and use the money to join the family on holiday. When the time was right, we would sell the vitara (which we used as our 4wd in the meantime) and buy a new 4wd.

Flash forward to two weeks ago and we only had one car – the swift. We had long since sold the vitara (as it was on it’s way out and becoming expensive to maintain). Financially, it was better to use only one car between us, since I could ride a push bike to work anyway (benefits of working in an office by yourself and only 5km from home). Yet Mat was feeling the strain of not owning a 4wd, since camping and offroad driving had been a major part of our life prior to selling both 4wds. I had kept putting off buying a new one, instead insisting we were better off saving money in the short term.Yet we had always discussed buying a new 4wd eventually, and one that we could use to drive to Cape York.

Well, a promise is a promise.

You can argue whether I should or shouldn’t have given in, but that’s entirely a matter of opinion. Fact is that I did, and we now own a 2010 Nissan navara. We got a few accessories in the package, including the tyres that are in the process of getting exchanged. Overall, the deal was worth just under 40,000, but it’s a vehicle we plan to keep for a long, long time.

We have already got our first camping trip planned; it’s in two weeks with some friends of ours. Given that we are only a few weeks away from spring it also seems like it was the perfect time to get a 4wd. I’m looking forward to going for weekends away over the next 6 months, cheap camping trips for the night. After all, what’s so expensive about sleeping in a tent??

But back to the here and now. I’ve been sitting in this park for an hour; I think that’s enough time to change tyres over. Thus, I will head back to the store and hope they’ve finished swapping the tyres over, and besides, it’s getting cold! Hurry up spring!!