Moe and I went collecting firewood in the dunes nearby and we came across a pre-burning log which was a new one to me so carefully carried it back to our fire pit and that became the start of our Bush TV for the evening.
Thursday morning the roads down the Border were open so we decided to give it a go and see how far we would get. Back down the main track for 60km and then we turned off towards Lake Stewart Station for the 370km drive to Silverton. The track was better than the main road, a few patches of corrugations and some soft sand over the dunes, but otherwise a good run for most of the day. The only other vehicles we saw were two farm vehicles moving Sheep to another part of the property or maybe it was a short cut to the main road, but we only followed them for 10 minutes.
We never saw Hawkers Gate, the locked gate into South Australia, but we think we know where they hid it and the flies were wherever we stopped so no lunch just kept driving finally getting out of the dunes about 100km from Silverton around onto wide open rolling hills country about 4:30 when the fun started. We travelled 340km in around 8 hours, we covered the next 90km in 8 hours.
Team Mazy called up and said they were making funny noises which we determined to be a blown head gasket so in a matter of two hours we had the head off, new gasket in place and head back on the and ready to roll just after the sun disappeared. We moved off in the dark and made about 50 metres before Team Mazy shuddered to a stop with a strangely intermittent electrical issue that that would go on for the rest of the night.
Travel in the dark was slow, when were weren't stopped, and then it got slower when Team Mazy lost power for the headlights due to previously mentioned alternator issue. At sometime in all this we fitted some magnetic base LED camp lights to their front guard and that improved things a bit. Able to travel a bit faster was perhaps not a good idea as it turned out.
Smithy at the tail end called on the radio that he had lost his trailer, as it turned out he lost everything back there. His little camper trailed broke a spring on the left side which fell to the track and then dug in and flipped the trailer dumping the camper/tent thingy on the road upside down, his belongings along the next 20 odd metre and then a bit of a gap to the upside down trailer still attached to the Moke.
I don't think anyone took photos of the carnage but a spare wheel above the axle and lots of rope holding it all in place and Smithy was able to crawl along the road to keep moving. Neil was following behind with his lights and spotties on the trailer to make sure it was okay until his battery ran out of juice, another alternator issue, and the electric fuel pump stopped working. Smithy kept rolling along with Moe providing the trailer lighting while we got Neil going again.
With another Moke without headlights, we cable tied a LED camp light to the bumper and 'cyclops' became another of the wheeling wounded just keeping ahead of Smithy each time Team Mazy had to stop. After awhile Peter, who was having radio issues, took over from Moe on the spectator lights while we traveled the last 20km of corrugations and bulldust holes that bad I had to just stop and wait for the cloud to clear as I was totally disorientated.
We rolled into Silverton on midnight and found a little piece no-mans land to camp for the night while Smithy now on the black stuff heading into Broken Hill to camp outside a Trailer Repair place until they opened.
Terry
Topic: A trip to the Corner Store. (Read 2145 times)
