Tuesday 11th May - Fremantle

We’ve seen him.  We’ve sat in him.  We’ve even driven him (even if it was only 100 yards).

We were relieved to see that the container had made it all the way to the logistics company without incident, and they had opened it up and removed the tie down straps.  The actual removal from the container had been left until we arrived, not least because we had the keys (which is apparently illegal as we were meant to have left the keys in the ignition and doors unlocked once loaded - nobody told us).

We aired down the back tyres and attempted to start the engine.  Flat batteries unfortunately prevented any sign of life so brute force was called for, and with the help of a couple of the logistics men the Land Rover slowly emerged into daylight for the first time in almost three months.

The cabin was musty and a bit of mould had started to grow on a few of the surfaces - lovely.  We were told that this is apparently quite common, especially on vehicles transported by container from the northern to southern hemisphere, as changing temperatures cause condensation to form and, combined with a lack of ventilation, mould forms.  Once we have the vehicle in our possession we’ll have a proper examination of the extent of the infestation.

After a jump start from a fork lift truck (how embarrassing for the Land Rover), we drove over to our allocated spot for the quarantine inspection tomorrow at 10am.  We left the engine running for as long as possible to put some charge back into the batteries, also taking the opportunity to re-inflate the tyres.  We sat and watched a man collect a Jenson GT car which had also been shipped in from the UK, and there were a couple of old Cadillacs waiting to start their new life in Australia.  Eventually we were kicked out as officially the vehicle is still under customs bond so shouldn’t be tampered with, and we arranged to be there tomorrow when the AQIS man turns up.

Stopping at a shopping mall on the way back from seeing the Land Rover, we experienced the somewhat strange phenomena of all the shops starting to shut up shortly after 5pm, with definite attempts to evict people by 5.30pm.  We’ll have to get used to these earlier closing times in order to avoid getting caught out.  This must have been what shopping life was like in the 1950s (minus the mall).