Are you all sitting foursquare cumftibold? Right, then I'll begin. So, once upon a time - a recent time - I bought my mate Bill 's spare water tank. A win for me, and a win for him I hope... with just one small, trifling detail in the way. Like, it's in his back yard, and I want it out at the new block. Oh. And Bill has built a carport since the tank went in. Needless to say, the tank doesn't fit past it. Only just doesn't fit by an inch and a half.
But never fear! We are bold, resourceful or at least pig-headedly stupid (pick the latter, trust me). It came upon a morning clear that I had arranged to borrow the beast of bashan (AKA the huge heavy twin-axle trailer) and from yet another friend, Peter - a 4x4 Hilux to tow it. Because, in the way things in my life, the trailer's home is on the other side of a flooded road, and anyway my blue slug (ute) would just die if I asked it to tow the beast.
I drove into a swamp the color of stout, faithfully following the marker poles that said 'there is a road under here somewhere. It must have been true because i got out the other side. My plan was to get there good and early because the loading might take a while. And the plan went well - until of course it didn't. I reversed with great care and frequent getting out, because 1)it's not my ute, or my trailer, 2)the beast is so heavy I literally cannot budge it. I lined up perfectly and went to hook the beast up.
The Hilux's tow hitch is an inch an half higher than the trailer's jockey wheel will lift it. The jockey wheel is of a frail and retiring nature totally unsuited to the beast - it can hold the beast, but not raise it. The beast weighs tons. I - among my myriad other faults, am not large or very heavy. No way I can lift it. What to do? Give up would be sensible option.
But this is me. I look for the jack in the truck. Can't find it.
I search my absent friend's new shed. No jack. I do find a crowbar. And a round rock. Ha! Archimedes! "give me a long enough lever and somewhere to stand and I will move the world." I have a crowbar. But, as I soon establish, it's not long enough. Aha! But have a pipe that will fit on the end...
Look, will someone tell that dead Greek that 1)the lever has to stay on top of the fulcrum or you will fall on your butt (trust me on this. I have the bruises to prove it.) and... 2) even if this does not happen - you are at one end of the lever 5 yards from the tow hitch, quite unable to do anything about it.
Now, let me explain the evil nature of Jockey wheels. They have a mind of their own and a passionate fear of ramps. Trust me on this. You don't even have to prove it with a snatch strap and building a ramp. It just is, the way Mount Everest is
It turns out that the Hilux's jack is hidden under the back seat, in a covered inset under the carpet, as I found out after 2 hours of sweat, and increasingly more bizarre plans. Fiendishly clever these Auto designers. I'd like to pack a parachute for them, in the same way they hide essential bits, before assisting them and the essential parachute into a little 5000 foot test of gravity.
With the beast attached, we brave the flooded road again. It's blacker an bubbling ominously. Some of the sticks seem to have fallen over... The ute goes in... and the beast hits it, and for that heartstopping moment we slow suddenly and... nothing happens. Well nothing bad anyway. We go forward and not sideways. After that little moment of terror that was nothing, we go to Bill's place without further drama. I know. Disappointing for you, great for me.
Did you know that many access problems can be solved by cutting down your neighbor's fence with a chainsaw? A sort of de-fence.(Do not try this unless you have a nice kind neighbor who has agreed to this. Or you may need the chainsaw for self-defence... )
The tank rolls quite well. So the crushed people in its wake tell me... nah - not quite. I discovered the fins on the top made reasonable brakes. So after a few minor, really irrelevant epics with gates and trees, we get it onto the roadside...
To discover it won't fit on its side on the beast - a matter of about one and half inches (as with the tow-hitch...)
Now we have a tank on the roadside that probably won't go back. Once again, I'm stuck.
Hmmm.
But with some extra man-power it will go... on top. We tip it and shove and haul. Frankie says 'I think it would be better the other way around. This is not happening. With careful alignment and four of us shoving... it gets only overlapping the mudguards - about an inch and a half (and that's my story and I'm sticking to it). I tie it down. Now, this is a round object with a smooth bottom, but there are lifting holes on the strengthening fins on top. We use a lot of rope...
This is Flinders, just after the shops close on a Saturday - ergo, most graveyards are livelier. Not a car or person to be seen.
I trundle slowly and cautiously toward the block, along the back road, where I see precisely one vehicle, and get off the road and let them pass.
And then there is just last mile to the block along the 'main' North-South road - which can be oh, 2-3 cars an hour on a normal day. I turn the corner onto it...
And the tank decides this is such fun it'll do that too, and slides sideways.
Now, the ropes stop it sliding right off, and beast is so big and heavy it is not affected. But instead of being in the middle - the tank is now inside the mudguard one one side and has got about an inch and half spare from the edge of the trailer. It now protrudes generously into the road on the other.
The ropes are now super-tight, as it sort of swiveled to do this. It took us four people to move it on and I can't budge it. The beast is still level. It thinks the tank is light. I'm close to my destination and machinery. Oh yeah, and my mobile phone says 'to recharge your credit'.
So... I drive on cautiously, ready to get off the the road. if there's a car - maybe I can ask for some help. And about a hundred yards from my place there is one, and I do. It's a police car (and the two local coppers would help. They're country coppers. This is not Africa). But we live on an island where everyone waves. So they see me wave... and give me a wave back, and drive on. Ah well. I'm close.
I haul through my gate and into the paddock and walk off to fetch the liddle tenk AKA T.rex the Terex - which I borrowed for this exercise. I've driven T.Rex a long way before this, at least 10 feet (or maybe an inch and half, it just felt longer). It's a joystick drive - and I have to reverse it out of my tractor shed, going meep meep like a cross between a banshee and a chicken. I didn't hit anything important that can't be replaced (not really, but it came close). Some very nervous driving followed given the sort of day I'd had... I can't afford to replace the tank and certainly can't afford to replace the T.rex. I lifted jawed bucket and ever so slowly sidled up to the tank on the beast.
Liddle tenk meets liddle tenk. It was love at first sight
and this is the charming wedding picture. Just after the knot had been tied.
That was another little adventure which involved pulling up on the T.Rex's jaws (motor running to keep the hydraulics running, and a great deal of balance on a slippery sloping surface, now well lubricated with spare sand from the T.Rex's bucket, with nothing much to hold onto. Rock-climbing has been a lot more useful than anyone could have guessed.
There is no next picture, on account of the fact I was inside the T. Rex's safety cage, and... um, I might still be there. On account of when the tank gently swung off, it did so without any drama. Only it was also almost flush with the cage - like maybe an inch and a half gap. I've gotten too fat, mostly between the ears, to fit out. Like Pooh Bear I'll be out as soon as I slim down.
OK I did figure it out before I got hungry, reversed and put the tank down, and re-rigged the ropes.
And lo, things actually proceeded according to plan, even though I expected them not to. This was a reasonable expectation because I couldn't see past the tank, so I kept having to put it down and have a look.
Still, I got there. The tank is in place, on the bench that Mark cut for it, next to where the house will be.
I was on Ambo call last night and I am very grateful no one needed us, because I slept the sleep of the tired little monkey.
But an inch and a half... sometimes it really feels a lot longer... or shorter.
