Major Moke Trips
These are just the major trips I've done and don't include the numerous bush trips and touring trips around Victoria and Southern New South Wales. Each of these trips was four weeks and averaged around 10,000 km (6,000 miles). The first main trip I did, The Circumnavigation Of Southern Western Australia (COSWA) was in January 1983, with six other Mokes and 11 other Mokees. That was the worst time of year to travel into the Outback. On the hottest day crossing the Nullabor Plain the temperature reached a staggering 52 degrees C and even the water-proofing on my roof was melting and dripping off in the breeze.
Without doubt the best trip I've done was to Cape York in August 1986 with four other Mokes. One Moke blew its differential in the Wenlock River, but this only held us up four hours as we changed the diff by pulling the engine out on an obliging gum tree, using a hand winch. It was on this trip that we floated Missy, a highly-modified 1966 little-wheel Moke across the Jardine River.
Another highlight was the trip to Darwin, when we caught the Ghan from Adelaide to Alice Springs (20 Hours) then drove straight up to Darwin and spent the next three weeks meandering back to Melbourne, via Kakadu and Litchfield National Parks, Ayers Rock, part of the Gunbarrel Hwy and the southern edge of the Flinders Ranges. At Batchelor, near Litchfield NP, we again had to change a diff on a gum tree. We started after lunch and finished in time for dinner at the pub.
In 1994 I took the Moke on the Camp Quality Caper, from Windsor to Wagga Wagga via Lightning Ridge, as a support vehicle for Missy. This rally covered about 3,000 km in eight days, with a lay-day at Lightning Ridge. I had competed in the Caper the previous year in a mechanically-standard 998cc Moke and finished second outright. In 1995, 97, 98 and 99 I was the official photographer for the Caper, doing 97 and 98, Coffs Harbour (NSW) to Cowes (Vic) and Milawa (Vic) to Mudgee (NSW) in my Mini Van.