And back; sighed, greased my wrists and slipped on the golden handcuffs.
Return leg was driven overnight, it was very hot on the day of departure and my PAS regulation electrovalve jammed in the fully bypassed position - rendering negligible assistance to steering for the entire trip. Fun, fun, fun. I fitted my fabricated top radiator hose a few days prior and found that although it works, some fettling is in order - needs a good 5/8" taking out of it. Better than too short.
Drove into a dusk thunderstorm and modest rain, the temperature dropped as I kipped in a layby between midnight and four, then heavy fog came down.

It was followed eventually by muggy heat, the temperature and humidity rising sharply as I travelled north. A feeble alternator output had made for 40MPH night driving - too many roos about for luck to be pushed on the back ways.
Today I gutted one of the dual mufflers so there was less restriction - it had completely jammed up again with loose fibreglass - and drove the car some more to see if the steering freed itself (which it promptly did

).
Overall the car desperately needs the front dampers rebuilding, I expect this will be a "world first" for 605 owners but my machining expert reckons they should be not too hard to rebuild. It bobs and skitters like a lowrider, already have the bling wheels - I just need the Zapp & Roger tunes to go with it...
Fuel consumption - taking into consideration the failing head gasket - wasn't too bad, around 9.8/100 or 28MPG. Remember; heavy car, a shedload of tools (approx. 150kg), one up plus luggage, super hot weather and hilly roads.
The highlights of this trip (other than arriving successfully) were afternoon/evening swims in the river to cool down. Just brilliant, and the late closing ice creamery rated darned high as a chaser to it all. If you stay still in the water too long (a minute or less), the yabbies start to bite. Kind of bears out the ideas that everything wild in Australia wants to eat or poison you.