Monday the 22nd of October, 2007 saw the herd dispersal sale of Halcyon Alpacas.  Halcyon Alpacas are a business from the renowned Dowd family who traditionally found fame with Textiles, more famously the Mitch Dowd range of boxer shorts.  It was a large and stylish auction conducted by Landmark.  There were just over 100 alpacas of very high quality up for grabs.  Joanne added the values with the alpacas grossing around $850k.  There were some animals going for sale at $60k for a stud male and $50k for fully imported females.  There were animals for all types of buyers.  It just goes to show even in drought conditions that high quality alpacas will get what they are worth.  It was good to catch up with some breeders and here about whats been going on in the industry.  It keeps you motivated to keep to the plan and breeding higher quality animals.

Rod (VRMM 4x4) was back at it recently with some further modifications to "Project 80" and again I was there to assist with the consumption of beer.  I think it was after the viewing of a 4wd Action DVD that came the inspiration to finally attend to accessorising the truck.  First things first was to whack a slab in the "Trailblazer" fridge, not sure who's fridge it was, you can't beat a Trailblazer that's why we both have one, better than those plastic fridges when you go 4wding.  Anyway, off came the touring bull bar and on went a slim line semi-competition bar for better approach angles while 4wding.  Next the slightly harder accessory being the Warn High Mount winch, a few modifications to the grill to fit it in and away we winched on a test hill at our farm "Kingsview".  The final accessory for stage 2 are the driving lights, taken off the old truck, the Cibie Oscars work a treat during the night time drives.  Funny that when we are on a good thing we all get on it, I too love my Cibie Oscars given there performance and price.  After all that and a few cans later we decided to try the ow famous travel ramp.  A tree trunk leaning on another trunk.  WOW what a difference the suspsension makes and we nearly drive off the edge.  We can't believe how far it travelled...that's right...I cut off the end of the tree trunk when I needed firewood.  All in all there was seriously further travel...next up lockers eh Rod. 

Stage One of "Project 80" began last week.  See the before photos of the 80 series Landcruiser in the photo album section.  This project is being undertaken by Rod @ VRMM 4x4 and I have assisted where required, usually just to drink and monitor the beer intake!  This vehicle started life with standard suspension, 33inch all terrain tyres and not much else.  Stage One would see the suspension lifted approxiamtely 4 inches in the springs and the tyres were upgraded with 35inch tyres for added diff height/clearance and increased traction on the tracks.  Overall the lift has increased the aggressiveness and stance of the vehicle.  The tyres and suspension were tested over the weekend at a special location around Lake Eildon, Victoria.  All started well up some steep rocky tracks, with the increased suspension height it seemed too easy.  Then the rain started and the track became a "slippery" track that really challenged the big tyres and traction.  After some repeated attempts on a rock ledge "Project 80" got up after a rethink of Rod's driving technique.  All in all the new modifications performed very well during the test.  No doubt further modifications will be occuring in the coming weeks.