Friday 7-Mar
Last night we arrived in the Barossa where we will leave the caravan for the weekend while we will be flying to Hobart.
But first we are expecting a fridge technician to have a look at our fridge. Arno suspects that the cooling fans in the back of the fridge stopped working. That is why the inside of the fridge got to 19 degrees while we were travelling on the Nullarbor with 41 degrees outside temperatures. Hopefully we can get this fixed!
The technician agreed with Arno’s diagnosis and for now connected the fans (there are two) direct to 12 Volt. This will keep the fridge on temperature and we can leave the caravan behind without having to worry that all our food will go off while we are away.
Tuesday 11-Mar
After a great weekend in Hobart Tasmania, where we attended Kendy’s 50th birthday, we restarted our travels. We pickup the caravan from Monique and Leigh at their property in the Barossa. The fridge did manage to keep its cool 😎 so off we go towards the Flinders Ranges where we will be for 4 days.
Our first stop is a little town called Quorn. This town has been the backdrop for many Australian films, including Sunday Too Far Away, The Shiralee, Gallipoli, and The Water Diviner. Its also know for The Pichi Richi Explorer and the Afghan Express, however they were not available at the time we were there. What we did see was the Silo Art Light show. This was very impressive and we enjoyed the trip back in time that they projected on the silo’s.
Wednesday 12-Mar
Today is only a short drive to the Wilpena Pound camp ground smack in the middle of the Flinders ranges. We decided to go for a power site as the temperature for the next few days is expected to be around the 36 degrees. So running the air-conditioner is a must.
The Flinders ranges are quite stunning, completely different to what we have seen so far. Some of the mountains look like stacked pancakes. We took the car for a long 4 wheel drive to have lunch in a highly recommended restaurant about an hours drive. And we agree that the food was delicious!
When we got back to the camp site, Arno topped up the washer fluid of the car, and while he had the bonnet up he noticed there was a lot of oil on and around the engine. Something that wasn’t there before.
Thursday 13-Mar
After many long phone calls and a post of Facebook the result was that the car would be picked up by a truck to take to the nearest mechanic to check the oil leak issue. The truck took us (and the car) to Hawker to the mechanic. We spotted a few emus on the way which we’ve seen before but they disappeared before we could take a picture.
The car has a leaking rocker cover gasket, most likely caused when they did the 60K service in Rockingham, 3500 km ago. It is okay to drive, it will get messy underneath as it spits out oil, but as long as we top it up if we get an alarm we can drive it until we can get in to a service centre to get it fixed in a week.
We had quite a few, let’s call them challenges on this trip, and we both hope this was the last of them. No more issues and smooth sailing (sort of) till we reach home in April.