The soothing noise of gluping airlocks on our gently fermenting plum wine.

Twelve members of the Surfing Africa team met up in late July to spend a couple of days driving off road in the Scottish Highlands.

Lessens learnt:

1. Just because someone’s pointing a camera at you, doesn’t mean it’s recording.
2. Don’t run out of tape at the exact moment the big boulder is pulled out from underneath the truck.
3. Remember candles when staying in a bothy.
4. When the truck won’t start, go back to basics – check the battery first.
5. Offroad driving is fun!

Posted on surfingafrica.net.

Last week we had a chance to take the Hilux to Scotland and meet up with the second vehicle for the first time, for a few of the Surfing Africa crowd to have a chance playing in a beautiful offroad setting around Fort William and the Ardnamurchan peninsula.

All went well until we were half way to Edinburgh for a wedding later in the week. We pulled into services to drop off a hitch-hiker and get some fuel, and when we re-started the engine it was spewing out white steam from the exhaust, pressurising the coolant and, within seconds, overheating.

Sadly, that indicates a common fault with these engines had occurred. At 100,000 miles near enough on the dot, the cylinder head had cracked.

We abandoned the truck and continued in Henry and Kathie's car, and the wedding the next day gave the chance for the AA to tow it to my dad's house and for the new cylinder head assembly to be ordered.

The change over was a big, but relatively un-technical, job. The old one comes out, all ancillaries are removed and installed on the new one, and the new one goes in. Working to the deadline of a ferry home to Northern Ireland, the process filled the days available to within the hour.

Dad and I remove the old cylinder head at the end of day one

The block after the head came off, with coolant in cylinder 3 - bad news; Russell helping clean off the top of the block

The new head with the manifolds fitted on the bench, old one on the ground; finishing touches on cleaning the block

The new head goes in and initial torque is applied to the head bolts; the exhaust manifold is torqued into place. Applying final torque to the head bolts involved walking round the bonnet using a washing line stretcher as a lever.

Ready to put the covers, air-pipes, filters, etc back in place; the crack that caused the problems

The new cylinder head fitted, we had a whole hour to wash, pack, shower, drink a cup of tea and leave, and arrived at the ferry terminal 15 minutes early.

Many thanks particularly to Dad and Russell for hands on help, Susan for hours of driving places looking for things, and Adrian and Leanne for AA membership.

Sometimes, having a heavy camera with you, just in case, pays off. Just occasionally, it pays off enough to make it worth carrying it for all those days when you didn't even take it out of the bag.

I love this time of year. And thanks to a certain thesis (44,528 words and counting), we're not taking a long holiday this summer, meaning we can make the most of it! Yay for looking on the positive side!

I'll be impressed if anyone can name everything growing - comments below (if anyone still reads this after my appalling lack of posting dedication).