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Published: December 5th 2023
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We have decided to slow down the pace of things with our trips so planned a short drive to get us on the road, only as far as Preston Beach. Far enough to be clear of Perth but not too far to need us to get moving early or to hurry along. Finally left Bakers around 10ish all loaded and ready to go. We were very surprised at the traffic which was heavy until well after Mandurah turn off, road works on the north bound carriageway had the other direction a car park, must remember not to come back this way. Stopped off at the services to water the dog and the adults, still very busy I suppose it is Sunday. Uneventful trip down the highway to Preston Beach.
We missed the turn off into the free parking area which was not signposted at all, I had to ask numerous guys who were pumping up their tires after running on the beach. I finally found a local who pointed out a gravel area off to the left of the beach car park and apparently this was the are we had to use. Unfortunately as we had turned into the beach
car park we had very little room to turn the van around and or to reverse out, G attempted to turn around and managed to jack knife the caravan. Having forgotten he had installed the generator box on the drawbar of the caravan which had decreased the turning circle of the van. He ended up badly damaging the generator box and the back of the UTE, not a happy camper, a costly mistake of about $2k. The advertised toilets and showers ended up been the beach car park toilets and the showers were locked and closed. We camped up at about 2pm in the heat of the day and set out to extend the awning but Oh no that was now not working. G lost the plot and unscrewed the switch from the wall only to discover a mess of wiring that was unsupported and just pushed into the hole, however he did discover that whilst the car ignition was on the awning was wired not to work, was this in the manual Oh no, at least he found the issue another lesson learnt. Not done with us yet when I turned on the tap despite having two full tanks
of water none of it was coming out of the taps. It would appear that the water pump has packed in, great, drinking water has to be used for everything we do. After trying to get the pump moving the Battery Management System was telling us that all three batteries were now empty of power, bloody great. We gave up on the pump and turned off all but essential things and went to bed, within five mins the system told us the batteries were magically now full, looks like the monitoring systems has now crapped itself. Well this van is certainly living up to the Jayco Junko label, we are over it. G seems to be taking it in his stride and is leaving it all till we get home, we will just have to use caravan parks so we have power and water, ah well at least we are still smiling and keeping going south. The beach here is amazing and well used with the car park full when we arrived. The camp felt a little bit unsafe to me with some twelve maybe fifteen vans and cars with tents crammed into a very small space, it was an
unexpectedly quiet night.
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Arlene
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stuff going wrong
It will be funny to look back on this when memory dims the impact. G has the right idea leave it behind for now enjoy the trip instead.