What a drama leaving Winton was! We were aiming to get to Charters Towers with a couple of hours at Hughenden on the way. Not a huge thing to do since it's only a bit over 250km. We couldn't have been more wrong! The Kennedy Development road was quite bouncy, lots of drains and we had a reasonable cross wind. Not wanting to lose any more crockery, we were taking it nice and slow. Passed one van, the road was pretty quiet as we had got away early, before all the grey nomads. About 45 minutes down the road, we kids were bopping along to some tunes, and then, without warning, the engine just stopped, after a short sharp hiss from the stereo. Rolled silently to a stop before trying to turn the engine over....nothing, just wouldn't fire. I tried a few things, and there was nothing obvious, no burning smell, no loose wires or hoses. Before we left home I had grabbed a couple of Aldi sim cards so we had Telstra coverage where our optus phones wouldn't work. Bahaha! the missus was right, they don't access all Telstra towers and we had no service. And with our early start, no stream of retirees and their vans going by. Megan was getting upset 'I'm freaking out! What if we perish and die in the middle of the outback!' I never realised just how dramatic 5 year olds can actually get!
Emma was about to flag someone down(she didn't tell me the UHF wasn't working and thought is was because I had disconnected the battery). A couple with a Jayco had just gone by but decided to turn back and make sure we were OK. Lucky for us they had just enough service for us to contact RACV and Em had signed us up for top cover the day before we left. Marlene and Russell stayed a while and the kids enjoyed playing with their little dog.
Soon enough the RACQ arrived with a clapped out Tarago to ferry Em and the kids back to Winton and a tipper for my ute and the van.
2+ hours of phonecalls and head scratching, and we finally started testing fuse by fuse. Fuse to foglights-blown, funnily though, fog lights still worked. Still unable to access the ECU. Replace 'foglight' fuse....and away she goes!
Emma found the local library to entertain the kids but was over the moon to be getting back on the road.
We were minutes away from loading the car back on the truck and heading to the dealer back in Longreach. But with a newly purchased test light, we were back on the road and headed for Hughenden.
Marlene and Russell were thrilled to see us pull into the caravan park at Hughenden that night, as much as we were relieved to get there without any further drama
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