Who says Ozzie Motors Don't Like Water? (not 56k friendly!)
Discussion
Hi crew - Here's a travellers tale. If this isn't testament to Holden reliability I don't know what is, but it's a lot more emotional than that!
The background:
Won a CBR1000F motorcycle from ebay and told the dealer I would pick it up from his shop yesterday. I had my mate with me to drive the Holden back while I rode the bike back. Seemed like an easy plan at the time. So we set off from Hayes Mddx at 12pm. When we reached J10 of the M40 the traffic brought us to a complete stop. It took us over an hour to get to J11 and we came off and asked for 'Alternate Route' from the GPS, which it did by sending us down single track roads where we started to meet more and more traffic. I didn't have the radio on nor the traffic updates so we had no idea what was going on.. Then we came to a stationery traffic jam on a single track road and people squeezing past on the return declared the road closed due to flooding. Not being the defeatist type (by mate had other words) I decided we should have a look just how flooded it was.
We initially followed quite a few 'excitement warriors' and joined several convoys like this one with flood waters by the side of the road but in the main we could see where we were going.
On a few more occasions we were met by people driving back the other way saying the roads ahead were closed due to flooding... but I had given my word that we would pick this bike up so we continued. Unfortunately we became stranded and couldn't get back because the flood-tide was coming in so fast from the fields that our previous route in was now completely underwater.
We were often greeted by scenes like this:
We would get out and work out how high the water was.. the guy taking the pic was the passenger in a transit luton which pulled up behind us wondering if we were 'going through'. It's alright for him to suggest that in his DI diesel
..
I don't know if you can see this or not, but in the above picture, just to the right of the arch of the bridge was a flood depth indicator on a 6' white pole. When we first pulled up the water height was 5'
In the next ten minutes we witnessed the water rise by another 6" Needless to say this was a turn-back moment. I lifted the bonnet and tried to calculate the 'safe working height' Fortunately the mission critical components are all mounted up high - the coil packs being mounted on the top of the rockers, and one coil per spark plug so I figured there was redundancy built in and having just changed the plugs myself and thoroughly applied WD40 to the caps I was confident on them holding out. The only dangerous area was the cold-air intake as it is quite low in the front n/s wing, so I disconnected the maf pipe from the filter box (I have maffless remap anyway) so that the water could not be sucked up into the throttle body and pointed it up as high as I could so it was hitting the bonnet.
It was quite exciting at this point and the comradely was good from every one we met all working as a team when required. The questions asked were almost survival based although it was bloody serious business. We witnessed several 'incidents' - a couple of examples were Mr Rep mobile in a new 3 Series BMW, who approaching a serious flood drove almost flat outstraight through it The nearby crowd that were watching this new spectator sport cheering as the idiot ploughed through - the wake wave went right up over the roof of his car, I kid you not, and he got through and would down the window saying, "German engineering isn't it great?" To which a stander-by countered, "No, mine didn't make it" referring to an older BMW that was about six inches into the water in front of us. Then we followed a young lass in a Vectra who roared around the corner and ploughed straight into a flood.. she conked out on the other side. We asked if we could help but she declined the offer - we think she was intimidated by two males (and my mate is a fair size) so we went on our way. The further we went the more people we met stranded. We asked them too but everyone was waiting for recovery..a long wait I feared.
Eventually we became isolated from the rest and there was only us going on and were relying on tomtoms' directions. We were trying to find Alcester, in Warwickshire.. and now that we had the radio traffic reports on the consensus was the most of this area had been hit really bad and was under water - no shit sherlock?! Before long we were meeting sites like this
By continuing asking tomtom for 'Alternative Route' we managed to stay on course, and lots of calls to the bike shop that was also feeding us info from various local sources we were able to circum-navigate in a rough fashion. It was now a battle as the water was getting so high we couldn't even see the roads nor the curbs. The pictures you now see could easily be mistaken for rivers, and river banks on either sides but they are not they are roads and this is not a boat; this is a Holden Commodore
We did have a funny moment which helped ease the stress. We drove through a deep part where the water was level with the door handles
and I was revving the nuts of the V8 trying to stop the water from going into the exhaust and slipping the clutch at the same time to keep the vehicle speed really low to minimise wake for those unfortunate house which we drove past underwater and also to prevent a tidle wave which could reach the ignition system.
We were on our own now, driving down a road which was a river. No curbs, no roads just gushing water entering the road from both sides - it was a scary time because we had no idea where we were
The only funny moment was when I was beginning to lose the plot (and Mick was close too).. we couldn't even see anything but flood torrents, we had no idea where we were, no-one else was with us, we driving through 30" of water, the clutch was smelling real bad and smoking like crazy (driving through water this deep has MASSIVE drag and is hard work for the engine yet you cannot speed for fear of wake taking out the ignition) we were desperate.. and then we came to a T junction were we could only see water; whereby tomtom jumped in, "At the end of the road turn left" and both Mick and I said in unison, "Where the
is the road!" 
We were met a Discovery coming towards us on the other side of the road (river) who thought it funny to drive at 30mph and watch a struggling saloon trying to make it through the ordeal of his wake. As we crawled past we watched his wake wash under the doors of the local houses in the village and I silently prayed for them and us. This was no quiet river like before, this was a violent torrent
After about 5 turnbacks due to 5' floods we eventually found our personal canal which would take us to our destination
although it was littered with casualties along the way..
just remember this is a road. This van was a diesel when we passed it. The driver was not there.. it seemed like a nuclear war had happened seeing all these vehicles abandoned. We passed a lot of emergency service vehicles coming the other way with thumbs ups along the way - not sure whether it was due to our stupidity or achievement for keeping going.
Finally got to the bike shop at around 6pm, the owner just receiving a call and anxious to get off the rescue his wife from a nearby village. We shook hands and I picked up my new toy
Going home was another story, a few deep sections up to my boot tops (but not over fortunately!) but by now all the traffic was gone and the return trip was uneventful albeit wet.
When I got home I was totally emotionally drained. I saw devastation on a level I had never seen before. I witnessed fantastic teamwork from people that had never met their colleagues before, I saw bravery, stupidity, and desperation. A simple every day quest turned into a mammoth challenge, but in the end we succeeded but by luck not judgement. My heart goes out for those whose houses we saw underwater, and the communities who's lives must have been scarred by these floods.
We can control to a certain extent; our lives, our politics, and our self-being - but we cannot control the weather!
All the pictures were taken aboard the SS Simon, and many courtesy of Mick who say in the back. At one point he was somewhat stressing because I was taking pictures instead of driving through the quagmire.
The background:
Won a CBR1000F motorcycle from ebay and told the dealer I would pick it up from his shop yesterday. I had my mate with me to drive the Holden back while I rode the bike back. Seemed like an easy plan at the time. So we set off from Hayes Mddx at 12pm. When we reached J10 of the M40 the traffic brought us to a complete stop. It took us over an hour to get to J11 and we came off and asked for 'Alternate Route' from the GPS, which it did by sending us down single track roads where we started to meet more and more traffic. I didn't have the radio on nor the traffic updates so we had no idea what was going on.. Then we came to a stationery traffic jam on a single track road and people squeezing past on the return declared the road closed due to flooding. Not being the defeatist type (by mate had other words) I decided we should have a look just how flooded it was.
We initially followed quite a few 'excitement warriors' and joined several convoys like this one with flood waters by the side of the road but in the main we could see where we were going.
On a few more occasions we were met by people driving back the other way saying the roads ahead were closed due to flooding... but I had given my word that we would pick this bike up so we continued. Unfortunately we became stranded and couldn't get back because the flood-tide was coming in so fast from the fields that our previous route in was now completely underwater.
We were often greeted by scenes like this:
We would get out and work out how high the water was.. the guy taking the pic was the passenger in a transit luton which pulled up behind us wondering if we were 'going through'. It's alright for him to suggest that in his DI diesel
.. I don't know if you can see this or not, but in the above picture, just to the right of the arch of the bridge was a flood depth indicator on a 6' white pole. When we first pulled up the water height was 5'
In the next ten minutes we witnessed the water rise by another 6" Needless to say this was a turn-back moment. I lifted the bonnet and tried to calculate the 'safe working height' Fortunately the mission critical components are all mounted up high - the coil packs being mounted on the top of the rockers, and one coil per spark plug so I figured there was redundancy built in and having just changed the plugs myself and thoroughly applied WD40 to the caps I was confident on them holding out. The only dangerous area was the cold-air intake as it is quite low in the front n/s wing, so I disconnected the maf pipe from the filter box (I have maffless remap anyway) so that the water could not be sucked up into the throttle body and pointed it up as high as I could so it was hitting the bonnet.It was quite exciting at this point and the comradely was good from every one we met all working as a team when required. The questions asked were almost survival based although it was bloody serious business. We witnessed several 'incidents' - a couple of examples were Mr Rep mobile in a new 3 Series BMW, who approaching a serious flood drove almost flat outstraight through it
The nearby crowd that were watching this new spectator sport cheering as the idiot ploughed through - the wake wave went right up over the roof of his car, I kid you not, and he got through and would down the window saying, "German engineering isn't it great?" To which a stander-by countered, "No, mine didn't make it" referring to an older BMW that was about six inches into the water in front of us. Then we followed a young lass in a Vectra who roared around the corner and ploughed straight into a flood.. she conked out on the other side. We asked if we could help but she declined the offer - we think she was intimidated by two males (and my mate is a fair size) so we went on our way. The further we went the more people we met stranded. We asked them too but everyone was waiting for recovery..a long wait I feared.Eventually we became isolated from the rest and there was only us going on and were relying on tomtoms' directions. We were trying to find Alcester, in Warwickshire.. and now that we had the radio traffic reports on the consensus was the most of this area had been hit really bad and was under water - no shit sherlock?! Before long we were meeting sites like this
By continuing asking tomtom for 'Alternative Route' we managed to stay on course, and lots of calls to the bike shop that was also feeding us info from various local sources we were able to circum-navigate in a rough fashion. It was now a battle as the water was getting so high we couldn't even see the roads nor the curbs. The pictures you now see could easily be mistaken for rivers, and river banks on either sides but they are not they are roads and this is not a boat; this is a Holden Commodore
We did have a funny moment which helped ease the stress. We drove through a deep part where the water was level with the door handles
and I was revving the nuts of the V8 trying to stop the water from going into the exhaust and slipping the clutch at the same time to keep the vehicle speed really low to minimise wake for those unfortunate house which we drove past underwater and also to prevent a tidle wave which could reach the ignition system.
We were on our own now, driving down a road which was a river. No curbs, no roads just gushing water entering the road from both sides - it was a scary time because we had no idea where we were
The only funny moment was when I was beginning to lose the plot (and Mick was close too).. we couldn't even see anything but flood torrents, we had no idea where we were, no-one else was with us, we driving through 30" of water, the clutch was smelling real bad and smoking like crazy (driving through water this deep has MASSIVE drag and is hard work for the engine yet you cannot speed for fear of wake taking out the ignition) we were desperate.. and then we came to a T junction were we could only see water; whereby tomtom jumped in, "At the end of the road turn left" and both Mick and I said in unison, "Where the
is the road!" We were met a Discovery coming towards us on the other side of the road (river) who thought it funny to drive at 30mph and watch a struggling saloon trying to make it through the ordeal of his wake. As we crawled past we watched his wake wash under the doors of the local houses in the village and I silently prayed for them and us. This was no quiet river like before, this was a violent torrent
After about 5 turnbacks due to 5' floods we eventually found our personal canal which would take us to our destination
although it was littered with casualties along the way..
just remember this is a road. This van was a diesel when we passed it. The driver was not there.. it seemed like a nuclear war had happened seeing all these vehicles abandoned. We passed a lot of emergency service vehicles coming the other way with thumbs ups along the way - not sure whether it was due to our stupidity or achievement for keeping going.
Finally got to the bike shop at around 6pm, the owner just receiving a call and anxious to get off the rescue his wife from a nearby village. We shook hands and I picked up my new toy
Going home was another story, a few deep sections up to my boot tops (but not over fortunately!) but by now all the traffic was gone and the return trip was uneventful albeit wet.
When I got home I was totally emotionally drained. I saw devastation on a level I had never seen before. I witnessed fantastic teamwork from people that had never met their colleagues before, I saw bravery, stupidity, and desperation. A simple every day quest turned into a mammoth challenge, but in the end we succeeded but by luck not judgement. My heart goes out for those whose houses we saw underwater, and the communities who's lives must have been scarred by these floods.
We can control to a certain extent; our lives, our politics, and our self-being - but we cannot control the weather!
All the pictures were taken aboard the SS Simon, and many courtesy of Mick who say in the back. At one point he was somewhat stressing because I was taking pictures instead of driving through the quagmire.
I left Newbury after lunch, nearly got stuck in Oxford a few times and made it home to Cambridge at nearly midnight.
I was traveling up the A34 having just spent 4 hours going around the second road closure doing about 90 leptons on a empty road when I encounter a SEA of water across the carrageway. ABS & brown trousers later I manage to skim the barrier on the outside and make it through.
I didnt do many leptons after that little encounter.
I was traveling up the A34 having just spent 4 hours going around the second road closure doing about 90 leptons on a empty road when I encounter a SEA of water across the carrageway. ABS & brown trousers later I manage to skim the barrier on the outside and make it through.
I didnt do many leptons after that little encounter.
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