1988 Nissan A31 Cefiro

[rohan]

didn't really have a particular destination in mind for the day, so I just turned down whatever road I fancied, enjoying the improved induction and turbo noises with the new aluminium intake pipework.

While I had generally stuck to bitumen roads, the different scenery and grip on some of the gravel and dirt roads was tempting, so I turned down one that looked interesting to see how it would go.

With a dust cloud trailing behind, I had a bit of a random drive around for a while, the loose gravel surface and 1.5 way mechanical making corners more entertaining. Trundling past a few properties, I spied the cab of a dilapidated old Bedford just sitting by the side of the road. I couldn't pass up the opportunity for a few photos, particularly as I didn't really know where I was, and would have a lot of trouble finding the place again; I learned that the hard way.

[rohan]

After driving through dirt and dust for quite a while, the Ceffy was looking none too clean.

[rohan]

While the Bedford cab was the only bit of machinery next to the road, the property itself was an automotive graveyard; with numerous cars, trucks and trailers sitting around in various states of disrepair.





This old Mercedes 1418 looked quite interesting, and I would have liked to get closer for some better photos, but with the fence and no people around to ask permission to go in, I stayed outside and got what I could.



















Tired and with the Ceffy coated in dust, I called it a day and went back home.

[rohan]

A couple of weeks earlier, I'd noticed a funny looking turbo plush toy on the Sleeka Spares facebook page. I hadn't seen anything like it before, and got them to reserve one for when they came in to Australia.

After being told they had come in, I made my way over to their shop, stopping for a few photos near the wetlands on the Salisbury Highway connector.

[rohan]

It's a good bit of road to use for photos as it's fairly quiet, and no reason for the vast majority of people to head down there, aside from the odd birdwatcher you can see above. I've done quite well taking photos in exactly this spot, the main achievement being a Truckin' Life magazine cover photo and lead article that I both wrote and photographed...











...as well as a feature on this cool Ford XC ute in Extreme magazine.

[rohan]

Parking up at Sleeka Spares, there were a few interesting cars scattered around the street.





I made a beeline for this tough JZX90 Toyota Chaser after getting out of the car. I've seen a few of them used as drift cars, but it's very rare to see one on the street, particularly compared to the number of newer JZX100 Chasers kicking around.

[rohan]

This Mk3 Toyota Supra wasn't bad either.




Less cool was this newer Mk4 Supra, with an overly ornate bodykit.





Just outside the office door was this bright yellow 1970s vintage Celica.



As well as another MkIV Supra, albeit a somewhat singed shell.

[rohan]

Inside, I picked up the turbo teddy, walking past some more sad looking vehicles on my way back to the car.

[rohan]

I then amused myself taking photos of it in different places on the Ceffy.

[rohan]

The Ceffy was due for another wash, although being clean wouldn't last too long.





I was nice and let Sally do the grunt work with the scrubbing brush.

[rohan]

Then she took a few photos of me rinsing the car off.



While I'm obviously aware of the fact I don't weigh very much, due to the 'no food for a year' thing, this next photo surprised me a bit with quite how skinny I look. Considering I weigh about 10kg more than at the same time last year, I must have looked like a skeleton in hospital.

[rohan]

For a change of pace, later that week I made a random hills run down south, as I don't tend to go down that way very often.

I was thinking that it might be interesting and a bit of a challenge to shoot some photos on 35mm black and white film. While digital stuff is really good and more practical, you lose some of the mystery and guesswork by being able to see the photo straight away. And since you don't have a lot of photos to work with on a roll of film, I tend to be much more careful before hitting the shutter button. Instead of spraying 10 photos of something like I can do on digital, I really make sure the composition is exactly right before I take a photo, rather than several that are almost right.

Waiting another couple of weeks to see the photos is interesting in its own way as well. So along with my Nikon digital SLRs, I packed my old Canon EOS 33 with a 50mm f/1.8 lens, and picked up a couple of rolls of Kodak T-MAX 400 in Blackwood.



So the next few posts will have a mix of the black and white film photos, as well as the colour images from my digital SLRs.

[rohan]

Heading further into the hills, I stopped along a nicely tree-lined bit of road.

[rohan]

[rohan]

Following that, I undid all the cleaning work with more random dirt road explorations.





The dirt track wasn't as quiet as it first looked, with a livestock truck passing by...



...as well as the incessant humming sound of thousands of bees.

[rohan]

The next day I still had a hankering for more random hills and dirt road explorations, so I headed south, with no particular destination in mind.

Driving down Military Road, a bright red Ferrari F430 turned at a roundabout in front of me. The driver wasn't giving it much stick, but even at low revs it sounded pretty sweet.



I grabbed a couple of shots as it pulled away from a set of traffic lights, next to an old Hyundai Excel. It's kind of funny seeing them side by side; both will get you from A to B, but in very different levels of speed and dollars.

[rohan]

I then continued heading south down Tapleys Hill Road, and kept on it for quite some time, until reaching a turnoff for the Myponga reservoir. I remembered from a previous visit years ago that you can actually drive across the dam wall itself, which was kind of cool.

I pulled up to take a few photos of the car and rolling landscape.





A ute and trailer going past caught my eye, mostly because it was loaded with what looked like a Datsun 1600 rally car.

[rohan]

Meandering up the road a little further, I stopped at the lookout area.

[rohan]

I then drove over the dam wall which had a nice view, but you're not allowed to stop on it, so I couldn't take any photos. There were plenty of nice dirt roads around, and I started to try and make my way down to one of the beaches.

Like in the previous post, I alternated using my Nikon digital SLR and Canon 35mm SLR with black and white film. After a few twists and turns, I found a picturesque dirt road winding its way through the slopes and down to the shore.





The road itself largely consisted of very fine bulldust on chunky gravel, which meant the dirt got everywhere.

[rohan]