Yeah I caught it. Its the first time my pair (5 and 2 ) have watched Mr Bean. I let them stay up especially to watch it. They were riveted!

Yes, the demise of the mini comes quite abruptly..

I used to get scared at Holsworthy army barracks in my brewery truck years ago. I could hear the tanks thrashing around in the bush and I was always waiting for one to pop out of the side tracks into me.

I used to get scared at Holsworthy army barracks in my brewery truck years ago. I could hear the tanks thrashing around in the bush and I was always waiting for one to pop out of the side tracks into me.

That would be ambush training wouldnt it? Or a smash and grab mission?

Back in 2002 I was working up in the NT not far from the huge Robertson Barracks near Palmerston where 2 Cav and 1 armoured like to park their junk. We guys used to get into the station car when we had a chance and go and see what it was exactly the Army did all day. We would buy an NT iced coffee and watch the blokes run and jump and dig holes while we sat in the air conditioned car and watched as gloating interservice spectators.

One day half a dozen leopards and a M113 rolled past on their way out the scrubland next to the base to do some field exercises close to home. We knew the area a little as it backed onto the Howard river where we used to fish for Barra at the right times of year. So our adventurous curiosity got the better of us and we followed them out into the scrub at a distance to see what tank guys did.

It was cool enough, but we lost track of them in the long build up season spear grass which was taller than the car (a tarago). We stopped for a while and would listen, but the Leopards put out a noise which is really hard to track in the woodland. You can't really tell the direction and distance at all with any accuracy beyond anywhere within a 90 degree arc. .

They all stopped for a fashion, we could hear the engines idling (boik boik boik boik boik boik X 6) and on the other side of us we could hear the sound of the M113 darting off somewhere.

It occurred to us all at once that this was not such a good idea...all the tanks flashed up and started roaring as they obviously took off , and they were headed for us as the noise got loud, really loud. We clicked straight away (wtf were we doing! 45 tons X 6 plus no visuals = danger X lots), ditched the iced coffees and climbed back in the car. We throttled the bastard and flogged it down this road. Nothing could be seen either side of the road because of the long spear grass which was taller than us. Even with the windows up and the AC flat out (escaping in relative comfort) all we could hear was the roar of these bastard tanks and it was LOUD. It was like this for a kilometer or so as we screamed like girlies and trashed the car. We bounced down a lot of rough tracks and power slid out onto the road. We flogged it back to work and hid under our desks for a while..

True buzz