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Published: September 3rd 2010
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Early on Monday, 30th August Graham, as he had promised to do, took David’s work van down to the Ford garage in town. David had arranged for it to have work done on the gear box while he is away. Graham asked the mechanic if it would be ready in a day or two but he was cheerfully told “it’s a gear-box mate - it’ll probably take a bit longer than that!”.
Graham walked back to the house for a bit of exercise then we both set off on the long trek back to Dubbo to return the hire car and pick up PIE, leaving Daphne in charge of the house for a couple of days. Fortunately the Toyota Aurion was very comfortable and, being an automatic, was very easy to drive so it wasn’t too arduous for me to help with the driving for an hour or so -Graham does soldier on with the driving a bit too long sometimes. We didn’t quite make it to Dubbo that day and stopped overnight in Coonabarabran. We had a pleasant meal in the local Bowls Club which was just across the road from the motel.
We made it to Dubbo
fairly early the next morning and duly reported to the garage where PIE was waiting for us. We settled the bill (gulp) and went to drop off the hire car but it was there that Graham noticed a drip of coolant again - it was so disappointing. We went back to the garage again where a perished hose was diagnosed - what a shame the mechanic who checked the car over and pronounced her ‘good to go’ hadn’t noticed. But we know that when new parts (like a water pump) are fitted to older cars this sort of thing can happen. The parts assistant was confident that they would get a new hose and fit it ‘within the hour’ so, as with last time, off we went to the nearby shopping mall for a ‘brunch’. We managed to pick up a brilliant Australian Road Atlas from the Reject Shop for just $5 so at least something worked in our favour. Of course, when we got back they were still “sourcing” the appropriate hose although they thought they knew were they could get one (where have we heard that before?). So after another hour or so, we eventually saw PIE going
off on a road test. When she got back it was clear that the leak had been fixed, so we paid yet another bill and finally set off for Warwick with PIE a lot later than we had planned.
We made it as far as Narrabri before it got dark so found a comfortable motel and hit the sack. We were on the road by 7:00am (very early for us!) the next morning but made excellent progress so we diverted to Goondiwindi again, this time for a naughty but delicious ‘Country Breakfast’. We had been carrying two bikes with us on a specially designed bike-rack which fits over the spare wheel suspended on the back door. They had stayed with the car throughout it’s ordeal. The bikes wobbled about a bit but seemed reasonably secure even though some of the road surfaces left a lot to be desired. Imagine Graham’s surprise when, after a particularly rough piece of road, he looked back through the rear view mirror and could only see ONE bike!!!! Thinking one must have fallen off and dreading what the consequences might be for following traffic, he did a quick U-turn (or “chucked a uwey” as the Aussies would say) and began to re-trace our steps. But as we swung round, the other bike came into view!! It had slipped off the rack and was suspended by one strap and a couple of elasticated “ties” and was bouncing around just a few inches off the ground. With no harm done, Graham re-loaded the errant bike, secured it with an extra strap, and off we set again. We were back in Warwick in the early afternoon but Daphne had gone for a walk so we let ourselves in and flopped down exhausted.
The countryside we had passed through was, in the main, typically Aussie, long straight roads, some cultivated land but plenty of “bush” type areas with quite a lot of wild life (and, sadly, plenty of “road kill”). It was extremely pleasant around Coonabarabran where the hills and forests of the Warrumbungle National Park are spectacular. It was one of Sarah and Darryl’s favourites so we vowed to go back that way with the caravan and explore the area properly. We saw quite a few interesting birds - lots of Emus, a Rufus Night Heron in Moree and a couple of Spoonbills.
Now we have PIE back we can, hopefully, get on with our trip as planned but first we need to spend a few days relaxing.
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Darryl and Sarah
Wallaby Wanderers
Too scared to open the credit card statements!
Great news that you got PIE back to Warwick, eventually. Coonabarabran - we're really envious. We never made it there but Kangaroojack loved it and we've got details of the observatory you have to visit when you do go there. Oh and ask us about the box in the back of the car that you might have unloaded into the caravan ..... guess what it's got in it ..... go on, guess! x x x x x