From Table Top to Tamworth, Towards Toowoomba

" Aim for the stars. If you only make it as far as the moon, at least you've got further than staying on Earth!"

So, we had our Tourer (or at least Bruce Perry's convertible!) now for the next and possibly the last step towards the dream.
John Dobson is a Kiwi and Morris enthusiast, living in Toowoomba. In 2008 he imported from New Zealand a 1954 Traveller, partially restored. The body was in good condition, in need of some cosmetics in some places, with new wood work. Work had been done on the 850 motor and other mechanicals. The seats had been re-upholstered. All it needed, virtually, was to be re-assembled as most of the bits and pieces were in the back.
Since the purchase of Lucy, Doug's brother, an A30 enthusiast, had had one of Bonnie's motors rebuilt for us. Now, Bonnie's present motor was in good order and there was certainly nothing wrong with Lucy's, so we had a spare motor which we were assured would go like a beauty with nowhere to put it! All Travellers at the time were either fully restored and available for between $21000 and $36000 or needed too much work for us to handle. Recently retired, we decided to take the plunge with John's car, which had not been registered in Australia, for fear that we may never have the chance again.
After consultation with club president Bill, who has a woody himself, and who offered advice and help if needed, and a car trailer, we were off to Toowoomba. The floods had gone but we hit a heat wave which delivered 40deg temperatures for a week. We made camp at Tamworth after 12 hours of travel and headed off bright and early to Toowoomba. It ended up being a long day but well worth it. The scenery was beautiful compared to the 15 years of drought that we were used to (Doug and I used to live in Muswellbrook when we were first married). John and wife Leslie were a lovely couple and they used to have a Pug (dog, we have 3!!) called Rangi!
Euphoric after our purchase, we stopped at Warwick for a coffee before we started the long trek back to Tamworth. There we sat, with silly smiles on our faces. Should we name this new addition to the family? Originally we thought we were going to have to respray this woody and we thought light blue would be suitable and then a good Aussie name, "Blue". Then we'd be taking our Bluey when we went Travelling. But the dark Clarendon Grey was starting to grow on us and we were thinking we should honour its Kiwi heritage so we started going through some Kiwi names. Bruce?...no! Ian?...no, (that's my brother's name)  Hugh? Evan? Kiwi? How about Rangi? A pug is cute like a Morry!...hhmmm! Maybe!! What was the name of the fellow in Footrot Flats?? Not Pew, that was the Magpie! Not Cooch, that was his mate. Not Murphy, they were nasty! What about Maui?  That's one of the Maori peoples' legendary characters after whom we had named our toy Kiwi and who the chain of campervans were also named. Hmmm! Possibly!

Back on the road and heading out of Warwick, the Navman advises "in 500 metres, at the next intersection, turn left. Wallace St" ...WALLACE!!! WAL!! Where's Wally?!! Wallace and Grommit! The name, like the colour, slowly grew on us during the long hours (7) back to Tamworth in the still 28deg heat at midnight!