SH*T OR-BOST

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It was the hottest day we had ever experienced. Hotter than the outback. So hot that when you put your arm outside there was no cooling effect from the breeze. This combined with the fact that we were slogging up and down hills meant that Hilda was struggling again. We pulled over for an hour to let her cool, but as soon as we had to go uphill her temperature was on the rise again. With nowhere to pull over until we reached the top of the hill we had no choice but to carry on. When we finally reached the top we pulled into the rest area and poor Hilda was leaking once again. It was the final pipe that we had not yet replaced. Luckily we had bought it as a precautionary measure. We knew that with two new pipes and one old it was only a matter of time before it gave up, but we had put off doing the job as it was really awkward.

Now was not the ideal time to do it with the sun so hot, but we had no choice. My role is normally to pass tools and tell Andy what a marvellous job he is doing, but this time I had to get my hands dirty as his hands were too big to get in the space. Another couple were pulled over in the same lay-by and kindly offered help but we were almost done by then.

Job done we were finally back on the road. We saw a fairly new 4WD pulled over on the road side with its bonnet up and just as we were driving into Orbost we saw the couple who had just offered us help by the roadside. We couldn't stop as it was too early to tell if what we had done had solved the problem so we couldn't risk us both being stuck there too.

We were in search of someone to fix our exhaust. Andy went into the garage while I waited outside. I then saw the couple who had offered us help being towed into the garage opposite. The garage couldn't help us as they were unable to get hold of the man who did their welding. They pointed us in the direction of another garage, but they too were unable to help. The last garage in town told us that they wouldn't even be able to look at it for a week. All the garages were run off their feet because so many people were being towed in with cooked engines. We had been incredibly lucky to still have a working van so we decided not to push our luck and pulled over for the day and hope that the next day was cooler.

When we went into the butchers we found that we had no choice but to stay anyway. The Princes highway was closed due to a bush fire and it was the only way out.

The campsite wasn't too busy when we arrived, but as more people were turned back by the police the spaces soon filled up. We were sat having a glass of wine when I noticed a cloud appearing in the sky. It looked like nothing we had ever seen before so I went to investigate. I soon found out that this was the smoke from the bush fire which had been out about 30km away but was being blown closer by a strong wind. I asked a man standing next to me how far away if thought It was. His answer of "I don't know, but I'm sure they will evacuate if necessary" did not sound good.

Back at the van I couldn't take my eyes off the sky. It all kept changing so quickly. It was only 4pm but it looked like the sun was setting. The sky was gradually turning dark and the sun was glowing bright orange and red as the almost purple smoke engulfed it. Before long there was no sky left, the power went off and there was a eerie feel about the place. The only sound we could hear was of the planes carrying water.

We had also just heard that there was a category 4 cyclone due to hit Queensland in the next 24 hours. With bush fires in other areas across the country and the floods from Queensland moving south with many areas of Victoria now being evacuated Australia was really having a rough time of it at the moment.

We haven't had much luck with natural disasters delaying our journey. Thinking of it another way maybe you could say we have been incredibly lucky!

We woke in the morning to find that we were still without electricity, the bush fire was still out of control and the roads still closed. The fire now covered a 120 square kms and there was more bad news for Queensland. Cyclone Yasi had now been upgraded to a maximum category 5 and the eye alone measured something crazy like 50km across. No one was sure what a cyclone of this magnitude could do. Everyone was preparing for the worst by either moving to an evacuation centre or taking their emergency supplies in the strongest room of their house and hoping for the best. The latest news was that it would destroy from cooktown to Townsville - were we were glad we'd left.

With no way of moving forward we decided to explore our surroundings. Marlow was our nearest town but without electricity what little that was there was closed. We carried on to Cape Conran where we found lovely beaches to walk along and sat and ate lunch by the rocks.

We made our way back to Orbost in hope of good news. On the journey back you could smell the smoke in the air. The mountains, which were not too far in the distance, were disappearing behind a smoky haze. When we arrived back in Orbost the news was getting better. There was now a detour. It would be a four hour wait to be escorted by the police for a further two hours. Now all we needed was petrol. The town was still without electricity which meant no petrol pumps were working. We had heard that some generators were being brought in to power the town, so we sat and waited, and waited some more. By 15:30 the estimated time of arrival for the generators had been changed three times. We were now told that they would arrive at 18:00. They would take time to sort out so by the time we waited, got petrol - along with the hundreds of other people wanting petrol - then queued for the detour it would be morning and we would have been up all night. We checked back into the campsite and waited for further news. Another night in Orbost would not go down on our list of amazing things we have done on our trip. With electricity it would definitely be in the running for dullest town award ao you can imagine what it was like without power!

The British girl we bought Hilda from lives in Orbost so I decided to text her to see if she knew anyone who could fix our exhaust. She could only point us in the direction of the places we had already tried, but she did very kindly offer us a free place to park Hilda if we had to stay any longer. We could have stayed in a free camp spot just outside town but there was no phone signal and nothing around and we didn't want to get left behind if the town had to be evacuated.

We walked into town to get some ice. Un-surprisingly they had sold out but our trip to the shops was not a wasted one. Chatting to the locals we found that power was now not expected until 18:00 the following day. Spending another day and night here would drive us mad! As we walked back we saw the huge generators arriving. We could only hope that this meant good news.

We had just enough battery to listen to the news about cyclone Yasi. The coverage was so sad, listening too all those poor people explaining how frightened they were and what they had done to prepare. It was due to hit in the next few hours so we switched off the radio to conserve the battery for later. When we switched it back on we were shocked to find that even though the cyclone was now imminent all the radio stations we could find were transmitting cricket. Now I know the Aussies love their cricket but here we had the biggest thing to happen to Australia in decades - the top story in the world news and you are telling me about the cricket - talk about messed up priorities.

During the night I was woken by the sound of the fridge coming on. It was music to my ears. With power back on we would be out of here in the morning.

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Photos

This is not a sunset!
The smoke from the fire made it look liike sunset at 4pm