Day 3

Tue 9th June 2009

Caught up with Spida and Sheree Everitt at the Pembroke Caravan Park in Armidale.

Found the Spida was heading off to Melbourne for practice for "Dancing with the Stars" on the television and the Sheree was flat out with filming the series.

We decided to head off out of town and look for a good campsite for a couple of days.

Picked the Dangars Falls and Dangars Gorge as the spot.
It is a campground in part of the Oxley Wild Rivers National Park.

We arrived, setup camp and then I took a look at where the petrol was leaking on the car.

As the tank was near empty, there was little to find and I decided to focuas on other things until we had more time and a better chance to examine what was wrong.

The gas mixer was found to be loose on the carby and needed to be reseated.
It is held by tiny grubscrews that defied being tightened suitably to stay firmly fixed.

I had no power for tools and used a screw driver and metal screw to bore a hole through the aluminium throttle body of the air intake of the Magnas intake manifold.

It took ages to get a hole through, but I managed to self tap a screw to better hold the mixer in place to avoid it leaking air and backfiring fiurther on gas.

After the mixer was in place, I set about getting my trailer power into the van from a battery that was secured into a box on the front of the Camper Trailer.

This battery was to supply our 12 volt power in the tent and is charged by a cable that I set up earlier running from the alternator and battery in the car.

Thankfully, I found that the battery in the Camper Trailer had not been charging as we were travelling and I was able to work out why and fix it so we could use some 12 volt power on our travels.

After sorting out the power stuff, I set off to photograph the falls whilst Jennifer prepared our evening meal of steak and hot vegies.

It was starting to rain off and on and the weather was really freezing....

I managed to get a few shots in from the falls and river rock pools before the dark of night and the continuing bad weather really set in...

Jennifer had prepared a full meal as a MasterChef using just the open fire and the simple facilities that were at the campsite..

The people at the National Parks have done a great job of providing toilets and camp fire spots that include steel stands for balancing pots, billies and hotplates for grilling meat and fish.

They even supplied an ample supply of freshly cut firewood for use as well..
I commend them on their efforts in making the camping activity and enjoyable one...

We ate our tea under flood light from our tiny $5 LED ring light that runs on AA batteries and a little after 7.30pm, we hit the sack....

End of day 3...

Day 2

Mon 8th June 2009



Awoke to a very cold morning...

Rain and wind had been hammering us all night, but no leaks at all in the Camper Trailer.



Had breakfast at the sheltered area of the Rest Area and pondered how far we would travel today.



I found the car and trailer ran well on the flat road on gas and it was easy to maintain a good 100-110 kmh.



I knew it would be different from Tamworth on as we then would have the Moonbi Hills to get over...



The idea was originally to use petrol for pulling power, however, with the issues with the tank or fuel line leaking, it meant that we would have to run the gauntlet on gas and hope and pray that the roads were not busy and the running was dry and not wet.....



The day progressed well and we managed to run over the Moonbi Hills at falling light .



The car struggled up and down the hills carrying the heavy trailer load without blowing the gas mixer off the carby throttle body and we managed to use the last of the fuel in the tank getting through to Armidale by 11pm.



It was late and starting to rain so we travelled a little way out of town and camped on the side of the road at an abandoned truck weigh station.



Thankfully, ity only takes a short moment or two to undo the straps on the Camper Trailer and flip the tent part over to make it into bed...



End of day 2

We are off...

Sun June 7- 2009

We are off....
After a week of rain at Rupanyup and very cold weather, we are finally packed and ready for a trip up the East Coast to Cooktown.

Before we left we did some running repairs on our car so that we felt a little more confident that we could do some long miles...

On our last trip to Brisbane, we hit a large filler connection on the road and it had punched a hole in the tank and crushed the exhaust flat...

We replaced the fuel tank and the exhaust as well as replace brakes, discs and cv joints on the old Magna and I made sure that everything else was ship shape as best a bush mechanic could see..

Left Rupanyup at 2pm with the car running well on gas but with a suspicious leak appearing in the petrol tank that emptied 3/4 of a tank in about 40km, whilst it was running on gas...???.

We had filled everything at Horsam before leaving so as to have sufficient supplies of all fuels and the leaking tank was a worry from the start...

First real stop was at Charlton...

Victoria Police stopped us of for a breathalyser (It is Queens Birthday weekend)

We decided to pull in for a feed of fish and chips and to check everything was travelling ok!

Next step was just over the NSW border at Barham.

NSW Police stopped us for a breathalyser (Still Queens Birthday weekend)

Stopped at Deniliquin for McDonalds meal and to set up internet access.

Managed to just get a gas fill before the last garage closed at Finley (6pm)

Their gas price was 61.9c a litre

Passed through Jerilderie and at the BP garage the gas was only 49.9c per litre...

We should have missed the garage at Finley and limped through to Jerilderie...

Never mind... once bitten then twice shy..

We made it through to thge Sandgate Rest Area that is 45k South of Narrandera.

It has toilets, water and a covered picnic area as well as big rigs parking which seem to keep coming in and out all night.. Sleep is a little hard to get but it will do...

Camper Trailer was erected in 2 minutes and in 5 we were in bed...

End of day 1.......