[Darrin Wright]

The recovery of this vehicle was a fantastic experience, over 3 days (Easter 2001 I think), myself and now 2 very close friend set off from Darwin with my Pajero 4WD, car trailer (heavy duty- used to cart a small bob cat), 140Lt fuel, tools, blocks & straps, turfor hand winch and camping gear; to central Australia- approx 1400km one way. We left at about 0300hr and headed straight down arriving early evening with the sun still up. Staying at a nearby camp spot. Had tea at the local road house and camped in swags next to the trailer for the night. While having tea found out the local grader driver, who I had organised to push the BGC onto the trailer had gone fishing for the weekend.
In the morning up, had breakfast and adjusted the wheel bearings on the trailer as they had all come loose from the trip down. Also added air to the rear tyres on the 4WD. Went over to the BGC where we emptied out rubbish and junk, hooked up the hand winch and set about winching it onto the trailer. Half an hour later, swapping winching duty with one another, we had it on. Re-packed the BGC with tools etc and strapped it down. We then proceeded out of the bush and onto the dirt track, conducted a quick brake test to check that we had it tied down. Best not to stop suddenly as the whole hull rocked on the trailer. Re-adjusted the straps and bent up the mud guards as they were rubbing on the tyres. We then set off, north on the highway, back to Darwin. Found out we could only sit on approx 75kph. We had plenty of time to get home- 1400km at 75kph.
About 30min into the homeward trip, the car trailer blew its first tyre. Pulled over an put the first spare tyre on. Found that was flat, so put the second spare tyre on. Continued on up the highway. At the first roadhouse, we stopped and bought a new tyre tube and fitted it to the flat tyre. Unfortunately their air compressor did not work, so we set off again. At the next road house we were not allowed to use the air compressor to inflate the tyre, so continued on driving.
Next stop was for lunch (Barrow Ck), this is where we inflated the tyre, bought lunch, had the local donkey or camel steal someone's lunch from the dash of the 4WD. Kept of driving. Great road trip, swapped driving from time to time, heat of the day, windows down talking trucks and cars.
Managed to make Renner Springs at night fall where we stopped for a break, get some tea and check the load. This is where I found the trailer lights did not work, not to worry, I bought a flashing LED light in case we had an accident. Managed to tape this to the rear of the trailer so vehicles coming up behind would see us. Also lost a hub cap off a trailer wheel, cut a coke can in half and taped it over the greasy hole. Set off again towards Darwin.
Driving north in the dark, you see some funny sights, we actually overtook a car. It was driving on the edge of the highway in the dirt verge, with both rear tyres blown out. Made it to New Castle Waters that night and pulled up on the middle of the WW2 airstrip and camped. During the night we were attacked by mosquitoes.
In the morning, packed up and headed up the road to the next road house/pub for breakfast. Big breakfast of Eggs and bacon, having the BGC on the trailer was a good talking point as we got to check out the road house's tip where there were many old cars & trucks. After that we kept on driving back to Darwin. At one of our stops I discovered that the RHF tyre was scrubbing out, so changed that. I think we may have started to bend the axle. Only a couple of hundred more km to go. Later that afternoon we eventually made it back to Darwin where we took the BGC to a storage location and unloaded it. That was the easy bit, undone the straps and a little push and down it went to it's resting place.
In the coming months I washed it out, put it up on blocks and placed a tarp over it.