Its been a while, May 2015

Its been a year since we Nicked Off with the van, after coming home a year ago we have concentrated on doing some much needed maintenance around our home plus a 3.5 month trip touring UK & Europe with good mates Geoff & Vickie. Also i have undergone another spinal fusion at two levels so that brings my tally to 3 fusions and 2 hip replacements, talk about bionic man ! i certainly set the metal detectors off at the airports. :-)

Recovering from surgery gave me time to reflect about our choice of vehicle, i absolutely love the Toyota VDJ79 Ute we have but we were again in a dilemma of not having a rear seat and having decided to share our time between home and away we really needed a family car so why not get one that can tow the Van, hence i started inquiring about a new 200 series Landcruiser. Sixty minutes later i had decided and had contacted a few dealers to get a price.

To shorten the story, i was happy to do a deal with Bunbury Toyota whom we have purchased vehicles from in the past and we had a 4 month wait for our new VX 200 to arrive. Not having won lotto it meant selling my Ute, i wasn't expecting to sell it within a fortnight but sell it did, a nice young bloke took one look and bought it, he was very happy.

Fast forward 4 months and after a slight delay in delivery we were the owners of a shiny glacier white VX, 1st impressions were its very flash but what i liked in particular was the smoothness and quietness compared to my old 'farm truck' of course compromises had to be made because it did not have a large alloy canopy to load all my gear and it also meant i had to spend more money to add some basic extras such as Bullbar, winch, storage drawers, UHF and the most important a GVM 3800kg suspension upgrade consisting of Dobinson springs & Bilstein shocks.

At this time of year we are normally sitting at Ningaloo but with the delay in delivery and then the time spent getting the extras added to the car we hope to be leaving in a couple of days time. It will be a new experience cruising up to Ning in luxury, I am sure there will be times i wish i still had the ute especially when fishing on the beach, this 200 seems just to nice to even get sand between the tyres but it will :-)

Stay tuned for updates as they happen.

The jury is still out on the bull-bar, i was supposed to get the ARB Deluxe bar fitted but a mistake was made and a Sahara Bar was fitted, the company Ultimate 4WD have offered to replace it when we get back, they are an excellent company to deal with and can recommend them.