A road trip with Billy and Wombats new D8 15A

I had one of our real nice interstate members come visit me for a few days this past week, young "Billy" (Billy Pedler) who was over my way looking to buy a John Deere header for his 5,000 acre family farm which is located about 700 miles west of me near Port Lincoln in South Australia, Billy has a nice collection of old Cats from D7 17A down and is always keen to go on a road trip when time permits so I took him up to the mountains 4 hours east of me at Corryong to meet with our resident ratbag Ol Mr Wombat to have a look at his collection of imported Cats. Before we left on our road trip another well known Aussie Bruce Colyer ("BruceOz") joined us for dinner Sunday and stayed the night so we had a good catch up over a few beers, it's been about 4 years since Billy last visited and he is just about to finish his 3 year Mechanics Apprenticeship with a John Deere Dealer so a lot of water has passed under the bridge since his last visit.

Monday morning we hit the road after farewelling Bruce who had a 6 hour drive home and on the way to Corryong Billy and I stopped by a friends 1,000 acre irrigated vegetable farm at Yarrawonga to show Billy a different type of farming to the dryland cropping he and his family undertake, Billy has just bought a 12E Cat grader to clean up the tracks around their farm and was happy to get his photo taken alongside the 12E owned by my mate Leo, and after a few more hours driving we arrived at Corryong at 8pm and had dinner with Neil and his long suffering wife Marilyn (known by Neil as "The Dragon Lady") plus another Forum regular Andrew Jackson ("D23J") who was visiting Neil at the time.

Neil and Andrew had been busy the previous few days dragging 2 dead D8's out of the hills they had recently bought, one was a 2U now owned by Andrew, the other a 15A bought by Neil and during our visit it was the turn of the 15A to get dragged off the side of a hill and loaded onto Neil's lowboy, they had borrowed a 955 which made the job a lot easier and on the way up to the 15A we stopped by a property where we saw a Aladdins Cave of old machinery treasure including four or five dead D7's and a really nice D11000 generator now owned by Andrew. The 15A has a locked engine and the torque converter out so I'm not sure what Neil's long term plans are for the tractor, initially he bought it just for the tracks to replace the worn out one's on his Diesel 60, but he doesn't have a 15A in his collection so I suspect there is a chance this tractor might be brought back from the dead, Neil is planning on living till he is 173 so there will be plenty of time yet to get that job done!

On the way home from Neil's I showed Billy a decent set of D6 8U chains I'd been offered years ago and had passed on as they wouldn't fit my RD6, and $200 lighter in his wallet the next day we had them loaded onto the back of his Landcruiser ready for the 16 hour drive home, later that afternoon we fired up the RD6 and Fifteen and did a river cruise through my farm with a couple of cold Corona's which Billy really enjoyed, most times when he is driving his Cats on their farm it's for a purpose and it is a unique experience just to goof off for a hour or 2 and just enjoy some beautiful scenery from the seat of a slow revving 3 cylinder Cat., Billy has a Diesel Forty at home waiting for a engine rebuild but up till now really hadn't had a chance to experience that unique sound from the drivers seat.

So there you go, more good companionship in the old Cat family, next week I have a gentleman visiting from Ireland who apparently has done a full restoration on a old D4 that included I believe making new pistons himself using a CAD program on his lathe, I've never met him but he is in Australia on vacation visiting one of my business partners a few hours drive north of me and they asked if he could come along and see my old rubbish so I better reload the ice chest before he arrives because the forecast is over 100F and I think that may be a wee bit hot for a Irishman used to maximum temperatures no hotter than 80F.
Regards
Mike

Great post Mike. Thank you for taking me along for the ride. Is the Corona in picture 29 imported from Canada or do you Aussies make it there also.

The Corona's are imported from Mexico and I was told the same guy has had the sole licence from day one for Australia to import them, he started about 30 years ago and it has been a licence to print money as Corona would be the #1 imported beer drunk here in Oz, every Bar stocks them even out in the bush, you rarely ever see a Bud or Coors.

And here I thought you down under guys drank decent beer! That stuff ain't much better that Budweiser.

Looks like a good time.

Rick

What was I blubbering, Canada. It is a Mexican beer here also. Must have a bit of brain freeze. Always did like a Corona with a bit of lime shoved in the neck.

[quote="oldtanker"]And here I thought you down under guys drank decent beer! That stuff ain't much better that Budweiser.

Looks like a good time.

Rick[/quote]

There is nothing better than an ice cold bud!!!:usa2:

I am all for Bud its known as the SMART beer for it truly did make bud WISER

[quote="oldtanker"]And here I thought you down under guys drank decent beer! That stuff ain't much better that Budweiser.

Looks like a good time.

Rick[/quote]

Hi Rick, yes, lots of good Aussie beers to enjoy though every State has it's own unique brands so a fist fight or argument is likely when "foreigners" from interstate come to visit and start blowing their horns about "their" beer and their football team, problem is half the country, the southern half plays proper football (Aussie Rules), while the northern half play something akin to crotch grab and sniff which I suspect was invented when they came out on those convict ships in the 1700's, 3-5 months locked up in a stinking rat infested sailing ship will do strange things to some men when there are no decent women around!😞

Great pictures and good to see these machines being saved.

Looks like they have been beaten to death tho.

PS Corona has been faked in China and sold in Australia by the truck load. For a while it was difficult to tell which one was original with the fake by all accounts tasting just the same. The importer was naturally very quick to engage the Australian Government in preventing the import of non-certified Coronas.

Wombat I will talk with you about those parts early next week - it was difficult to hear your mellifluous tones over the mooing yesterday😄

Isn't Fosters popular over there? or is that "city folk" beer?

Not many Aussies drink Fosters but for some reason it has become the internationally known beer of Oz.