Day 184 - Swan Hill to Kerang (flat tyre)

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We were keen to get away from Swan Hill early but we were visited by fellow Coaster owners who wanted to have a yarn (so we ended up leaving about 11 after a morning tea coffee in the Caravan Park cafe).

The Coaster owner was bemoaning the fact that he had come back to his bus from a sightseeing trip to find that he had a flat tyre. Unfortunately, some of his bad luck must have rubbed off on us as just out of Swan Hill we noticed a vibration in the Coaster. We continued on for a little while trying to identify what the vibration might be and looking in the rear vision mirrors at the tyres. Eventually, we found a wayside stop so that it would be safe to pull over and make a closer inspection of the bus.

Georgi soon discovered we had a flat tyre on the inside wheel of the rear. Of course, you can only see the outside tyres when looking through the rear vision mirrors.

All of the stuff we needed to change the flat tyre was in the boot .... and the bike rack and bikes have to come off first. We got all the gear out but the jack wasn't high enough at full height so we had to find something to boost it a bit. Georgi found a nice flat rock but when we got it settled under the jack and jacked the bus up the rock started to split!

The whole thing looked quite unsafe so we decided to call the RACT and see if they might link us up with the local RACV. Last time we had used the auto service it hadn't gone so smoothly, so we had our fingers crossed. This time it worked a treat. A young guy came out from Kerang immediately and between us we had both wheels off and the spare back on and the other wheel on again in an hour or so. He wasn't promising that we could get a replacement tyre at Kerang if we needed one but there was a tyre repair service in the town so that was good.

Given it was Sunday afternoon we decided to call in to the Kerang Caravan Park and see if they had somewhere for us to park the bus for the night.

After we had settled in to the Caravan Park, we had a chance to talk to the neighbours and we had a lovely time. We decided to invite them over for cheese and bickies but they told us that they had eaten all of their cheese for afternoon tea. Not easily put off, Georgi decided to make strawberry crepes instead which were delicious. David and his wife Helen joined us after dinner and we solved all of the world's problems and found we had lots in common. A fun evening which we wouldn't have had without that flat tyre.

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Photos

Flat Tyre
The inside wheel had the flat so both wheels have to come off to change the flat (tricky).

Kerang Caravan Park
Our campsite on the banks of the Loddon River