That old Subi was a great thing for us - down to three bears to watch a mate surf, taking the short cut dirt track back to home instead of taking the long way around paved roads - it was a gazetted road so it was not actually illegal.
We saw an echidna along that track one day.
So many trips around the place and onto as many tracks as I could find.
We went on a "youth and young adults camp" one time, which was supposed to be camping in the bush - we decided to put a mattress into the back and slept in the car. The funniest part of that was that the hosting Pastor of the camp didn't realise we were married - I am not sure how he missed out on that piece of information, but we found out later that when he saw us both get into the car for evening, he just wasn't sure what to do - but his wife cleared up the misunderstanding, and he relaxed.
Our first anniversary also has a story with this car - We went on family camp down in Busselton, but while we were there, one of the core plugs in the engine blew out and we cooked the little thing before I realised it.
This was half way through camp and I had booked us into a nice hotel after the camp and we were going to spend a week in the area for our anniversary.
Well, one dead car put an end to that. We ended up going home in the back of our friend's ute at the end of the camp, and I used the money intended for our hotel stay to go and get the car a day later.
The trip back was great fun actually, because we rugged up in a sleeping bag in the back of the ute and watched the stars for the trip back. It was a lovely way to travel really - nice and cuddly.
But the next day I hired a car trailer and my brother and I went down to Busso and picked up the car.
The problem was that it was our anniversary that day.
I drove my brother mad getting him to stop at every petrol station so that I could try to buy a card and some small gift, but almost none of them had any cards at all, and none of them had anniversary cards, let alone a nice one.
So our anniversary day was ruined and I couldn't even find a card - in those days shops here were shut Saturday afternoons and some just didn't open at all.
So our first anniversary was ruined by this car, and to make it worse, my wife thought I had forgotten our anniversary. I think in fact she still thinks that deep down, although I have tried to explain it over and over.
I didn't forget, but the Anniversary present I had organised was no longer affordable or do-able, and try as I might, I could neither afford nor even find anything reasonable to give her.
I now know that even a nice bar of chocolate would have been better than nothing, but that was a lesson I had not yet learned. At the time I thought that such a chintzy present would be worse, but I now know that even that would have been at least an indication that I hadn't forgotten.
Anyway, as much as it upset her at the time, she stuck with me for some reason - and I still don't understand why.........
But we are 25 years married now, and she still puts up with me for some reason I don't understand.
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