Mechanics on to go ...

From a special guest writer:

The roads in Timor Leste are pretty rugged by anyone's standard and transporting delicate machinery to such beautiful but isolated locations is always something of a worry (check out the road on the map above !) In these photos Leland is preoccupied with the exhumation of the instrument in Same (in central TL) somewhat concerned that the original road trip might have been a bit hard on it and we had to work some mechanical problems ... who knew this would be foreshadowing ....

On the way back to Dili from Same, the views of the topography along the main highway are perfectly spectacular with many opportunities to look down shear drops from the window of the rapidly moving car. Two intense days of driving were beginning to wear on everyone and everything. The Land Cruiser was flashing oil-pressure warning signs as our driver raced up the hills. With a nod to the medieval surgeons, the driver decided that this meant we should bleed off some oil. Having pulled out the oil filter and run the engine for a while, splattering oil everywhere, and satisfied himself that the car was cured, he drove a few hundred meters before the engine threatened to die. We coasted to a nearby house and transfused a bottle or two of fresh oil.

But there are spectacular views as the road hugs the mountainsides and crosses the high passes between broad valleys.  This south-looking photo brilliantly captures the dynamic geology of Timor - on the left, the Cablac Mountain front is formed by an active normal fault, while the topography on the right leads to the highest point on Timor (Mt. Ramelau).  The structure of Ramelau is composed of variably faulted sedimentary sequences of the Gondwanan and Australian margins whereas the Cablac (broken?) Limestone is associated with the Banda terrane that has been thrust over the top of Timor.  Two drastically different origins, multiple phases of deformation and structural geometries,  one dynamic landscape...