Bad News for Big Ears

1^st August   – 15^th August 2024  

Kingaroy, as always, was wonderful. It was great to catch up with the family and we ended up staying longer than planned.

Hazel, (my sister-in-law) took me to a fantastic garden centre, though to call it a garden centre is a bit of a misnomer. It’s like walking through a village in Middle Earth, or, if you’re not a Tolkien fan, some sort of elven grotto. It truly is amazing and well worth the visit. This is just one small section of a living breathing, work of art, and the biggest chooks I have ever seen.

We even did a spot of sightseeing while we were in Kingaroy. In all the many years we’ve been visiting Kingaroy, we’ve never been to the lookout. Below is the view of Kingaroy from Mount Wooroolin.

Now, to answer the question on everyone’s lips:

“Did they weigh Big Ears and Chunky Bum?”

The answer is yes, and the news is not good. Even though both Big Ears and Chunky Bum were well under their individual GVM (Gross Vehicle Mass). When weighed together, they still exceeded the GCM (Gross Combined Mass). With no water in her tanks Chunky Bum was still 80kg overweight. Put the water in the van and we’re suddenly 240kg kg over. By the time we topped up our groceries, maybe a slab of beer and some wine, we’d be close to 300kg over the limit. ☹

This is one problem Jenny Craig cannot fix.

We have stripped down to the essentials and cannot, without impacting the way we travel and live, remove any more. Besides, we can’t fit anything else into our storage room.

So, it is with sad hearts, and shrinking wallets, that we must find a replacement for Big Ears. We need a vehicle with a bigger towing capacity, and more power and more torque wouldn’t be wasted either. It really is quite sad because Big Ears has performed remarkably well, and the canopy is just perfect. We’re not sure what the solution will be, but we will have to seriously rethink the way we operate.

We had planned to travel inland (New England Hwy) back to Port Macquarie when we left Kingaroy, but in a last-minute decision we took the coastal route (Pacific Hwy). This allowed us to overnight with my brother in Kingscliff. Only the overnight turned into four nights and led to us buying a new car. Talk about impulse buying!   No, not really. We’d been pretty sure what the outcome of the weigh-in would be so had been researching possible vehicles for some time. Without going into all the details, we had decided that a Nissan Patrol was our best option, mainly due to its 7 ton towing capacity and buckets of grunt.

The Nissan Patrol is a great car but there were a few negatives. It’s huge inside and super comfy, but it just didn’t feel right. On top of that, everything from our canopy would have to be carried in the back of the station wagon. We’d hear every rattle and bang as things moved around, and it would be hard to stop the interior from getting damaged as we dragged boxes and tables and chairs and God knows what else, in and out all the time. On top of that, the car’s on a constant pump crawl. The big V8 petrol engine wants to call in for a drink at every servo it sees.

Then someone had a bright idea. Let’s see if Ford has a more suitable vehicle. Guess what? They did. The newly released (2023) Ford Ranger Platinum. It has a 3 ltr V6 turbo diesel engine, (Big Ears is a  2.2ltr bi-Turbo) 600 Nmtrs torque (ours, 500) and GCM 6.4 ton (ours, 6 ton). In short, the new Ranger Platinum has a lot more towing power and fits our spec.

Now, you might think that the 6.4 ton towing capacity is still a bit lean considering we are currently at 6.3 ton. But consider this. The Ranger Platinum doesn’t have a canopy. So, when we deduct the weight of the canopy inc. solar panels, (approx. 300kg) the 70ltr water tank, the 2 x AGM batteries, battery management system and inverter (65 kg,) 40 ltr Engle (24 kg,) and the long-range fuel tank (an extra 60 ltr), and 25kgs of canvass, we are shedding over half a ton. Carrying what we have now, we approximate the GCM of Chunky Bun and the Ranger Platinum will be around 5.9 ton. And yes, we’ll go back to Kingaroy to weigh in…hopefully for the last time.

Our big question was, would we be able to fit everything into a Ute? After a good look at what was in the canopy, and discussions over what we could or could not live without, and decided that, even though we would greatly, and I mean greatly, miss the convenience of the canopy, we could indeed fit what we needed in the back of a Ute. More importantly, if we wanted to continue to travel, and do so safely, we had no choice.

One of our catch phrases is “Nothing’s ever easy.”  Finding a Ford Ranger Platinum came under that category. They are rare as hens’ teeth. Peter spent days while at Kevin and Gabriela’s place calling dealers and brokers to see if he could find one. We were told, six to twelve months wait. Or they could be in by November. Or we’re not sure. But nobody had one.

We finally contacted a Ford Dealer in Caboolture, who had a couple in stock, both had been sold, but they said we could come and look at one. We thought…why not. We hadn’t seen one in the flesh yet so off we went.

When we arrived at Nova Ford we were met by Mandy, who I had spoken to on the phone. At first, there seemed to be an issue with locating the cars and we began to think, hello, they don’t have any. All this way for nothing. Then we hopped into Mandy’s car, and she took us for a short drive to Ford’s pre-delivery area and there, two rows back and squished amongst other cars, was a Ford Ranger Platinum. We were able to open the door a bit and have a look in. The interior was still fully wrapped in plastic, fresh off the boat, so we couldn’t see too much detail. Even so, we fell in love with it there and then.

Back in the showroom with Mandy, we were wondering how long the wait would be, and if we should indeed wait until they became available. Then a gentleman walked over to us and declared… “The sale just fell through on the dark grey Platinum, so it’s available if you’re interested.”

We left there an hour later, paperwork signed, deposit paid and elated. This was on the 5^th of August, the following day we left Kevin and Gabby’s place, and made our way to Port Macquarie for my checkup (all good again 😊). On the 13^th we were back in Caboolture and waiting to pick up our new car at 11am on Thursday 15^th August.

See you out there somewhere

On tow and on the go!