Car troubles

Car troubles are something we had not anticipated after getting a complete overhaul from our local Holden dealer in Warragul. The old Jackaroo had been running great and our fuel economy was better then ever after I gave it the NULON E30 treatment. This bottle of magic reduces friction and frees up the engine and any sticky valves.
We had the Holden dealer replace the timing belts and the water pump. The other belts were also replaced along with new coolant and brake fluid.
The car was towing well except when there was poor fuel in the small petrol stations which we tried to avoid after getting really bad economy.
After leaving Yeppoon we headed for Cairns not expecting to arrive the next morning. We stopped at St Lawrence 226km from Yeppoon to find there was a rather large RV club meeting and the place was jammed and had big RV's taking up every available spot.
We gave the kids a break and decided we would just pull and overnight drive and get to Cairns. We got all the kids gear organised and headed away from the giant motorhomes.
I fell asleep through Townsville and Lil carried on along the Bruce Hwy expecting to fuel up in Ingham. On arriving in Ingham the 24hr servo was closed leaving us with a reserve light on the dash.
We jumped online and sure enough the Caltex in Ingham was advertised as 24hr but it wasn't
. We could head on and take our chance or head back to Townsville where we had passed a fair few.
We had just enough to get to Townsville and headed back for fuel.
After our detour we managed to get to the start of the Banana plantations and then the rain started. I remember it happened at the same place last time we drove to Cairns a few years back.
We arrived at a friends place at 6am and it was great to be able to let the kids out to meet their new friends and let Boo stretch her legs.
We parked the trailer up in the garden and got everything set up.
The following day I decided to take Hamish and Boo to the beach and off we went in the car.
It was really noisy, there was a metallic tapping noise that I didnt like the noise of. After some poking around and research I came to the conclusion that the timing belt tensioner had given up.
The guys at Holden said ours was in good condition and didn't need replaced. They informed us the part was no longer made and we where lucky ours was intact. Now I know a bit about engines and was a bit perplexed that a tensioner was not available !!!!
I called Holden in Warragul and let them know what had happened. The Service manager explained it was going to be pot luck if the tensioner held out anyway.
I was well beyond furious and hung up on them wondering what are we going to do now.
I noticed the belts had DAYCO written on them so I called them and spoke with Dave who informed me the tensioner is available and he had it in stock.
Dave told me that a timing belt should NEVER be replaced without a tensioner as the extra pressure of new belts would destroy an old tensioner.
Dave said he would give us a new kit and tensioner for free as he was very disappointed the HOLDEN had buggered up the job.
We where sent to a reputable mechanic in Cairns called Keith Wone.
Keith had a look and told us the noise was the valves and that the damage had probably been done and we now had scrap.
He said he would have a more in depth look and inform us the following day.
Let me tell you that it was the longest 24 hrs ever !!!!!!

We got a call and Keith said that the it was in fact the tensioner and that the car was repairable. The Jackaroo has a free spinning engine and the timing belt jumping a tooth was not enough to damage the valves.
This was great news for us and we where so relieved the Jackaroo was going to make it.
Dayco sent up the kit and keith had a chat to the mechanics at Holden and he lost his temper a bit i think as he was very animated in telling me about the conversation they had.
Keith also confirmed you would NEVER replace a timing belt without a tensioner and its best to not replace it at all.

So the car was fixed when Keith noticed a hairline crack on the timing belt pulley and gave it a wiggle to see if it was cracked, sure enough it snapped in his hand. Now Murphy's law enters the equation and sure enough this part cannot be purchased anymore and we would have to locate one from a wreckers.
3 weeks have gone and Keith located one. These pulleys are hard to find as the wreckers wont take it off a working engine otherwise they are left with a useless engine. We where lucky to get one and waited on its arrival.
Keith gave us a call to let us know the part had arrived and I told him we where so grateful for his amazing service........he interrupted me to let me know that the freight company had damaged it in transit and it wasn't going to work. After some more calls he has managed to locate another one thats made of metal and he is sure it will fit.
This is where we are at so far and now just waiting o the arrival of the new pulley so we can get our car back.

Once the car is working starts my battle with the Holden Dealer to have them pay for the repair that need not have happened had they done their job properly. They knew we where traveling in the car but where still content to do half a job and almost wreck a dream of a lifetime.

Fingers crossed the part arrives intact and fits...........




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Location:Cairns

Camping with a crawler!

Kids are grubby enough at the best of times and the amount of washing they generate in an environment with easy access to a washing machine is bad enough, let alone when on the road and your washing machine is a bucket on the roof of the car! A crawler just adds a whole new dimension to washing when living on the road. I never want to hurry the kids through developmental milestones, however I'll be one happy mumma when Matilda starts walking! I've always prided myself on whites being white and clothes stain free, but I'm finding that a massive undertaking these days. I've pretty well resigned myself to the fact that Matilda's pants will all be dark at the knees and her tops slightly stained around the neckline. Fortunately I've made some headway getting some nasty stains out of the sleeves of some of her tops. I have to fold the sleeves in on themselves a little before giving a really good rub and they come up pretty well. I'm using a home made washing powder, mostly for environmental reasons. I do much of the washing close to waterways and don't want to contaminate them with anything nasty.

My recipe is: 1 bar of Velvet Pure soap or Sard soap, finely grated 2 cups/500g of Borax (can have environmental impact, but in these levels is considered minimal) 2 cups/500g of Lectric Soda Powder (not the crystals!) Mix together well. Use 2 tbsp per normal sized load. Add a couple of drops of Eucalyptus Oil as a softener. White vinegar also acts as a softener as well as an antibacterial. For tough stains, I use a bar of soap rubbed into the stain and worked in a little to help with removal, though this takes a little more work to rinse out. This is Matilda helping me on washing day (which is most days, really!).

No more gremlins.

After sleepless nights with the fridge cutting out it turns out the setup you have been sold and recommended isn't quite upto sustained use. Sure it might be adequate for a long weekend but living from it is different.
After the fridge giving me errors I sent an email to Evakool and got some amazing tech support from Brodie. Turns out the wiring I had installed was not thick enough and I was getting to much voltage drop. After changing the wiring and leaving the fridge close to battery there hasn't been any dramas. We drove from moruya NSW to just past the QLD border overnight as it was cold in moruya and we had hoped for better weather.
After arriving at rocky hole camp spot the sun was out and the solar was going off it's cracker.
With the advice from Brodie at Evakool the gremlins have been laid to rest.
It just goes to show that sometimes the best gear isn't always the right gear and all you need is 6b&s all round. Shorter wire lengths and some decent bloody sun.

Stookie can now go fishing in peace.




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Moruya Heads, NSW

Sunrise

Sunrise over the beach is a spectacular sight here. Lil couldn't sleep and decided to go for a walk on the beach with the camera and take some pictures of the sun rising. The weather here has been a bit windy in the afternoons but nice before lunchtime.

Sunset over our camp

Moruya Heads Campsite

The Moruya Heads campsite is right next to the Moruya airport on North Head Road. There are four flights a day which land commercial passengers (Rex airlines) and is quite busy with smaller aircraft throughout the day. A skydiving operator has flights daily as well. It has very basic facilities with bore water taps placed throughout the area and a large concrete drinking water tank which was filled by a water truck during our stay. There are newish pit toilets and older flush toilets which, according to the caretaker, are more popular...I know which I'd rather use having seen them both! There are also cold water showers and a large skip onsite for your rubbish. Firewood is available for sale for $10 for a recycle box full from one of the 'permanents'.

Fishing is excellent with salmon, flathead and sand crabs able to be caught from the rocks and some success from the beach. There are plenty of boat launching points along the river and a jetty on South Head Road. Another camper had been fishing in his boat off Jimmy's Island and caught plenty of Snapper, Flathead, Moa and Pigfish. He offered us some fresh fish for dinner and we were quick to take him up on the offer. We'd never had Moa or Pigfish before, so Lil had the (unenviable?!) task of filleting her first fish and cooking them in the camp oven. Turns out they're pretty tasty fish ;)

About 25km north of Moruya is the pretty little town of Mogo, which has some kitschy shops and is also home to the Mogo Zoo. The Zoo has won several NSW Tourism Awards and is well worth a visit with big cats, primates, African mammals, reptiles and other animals.
Every Saturday there is a decent sized local market held in the Rotary Park on the banks of the river. You can buy some local produce as well as arts and crafts and other goods. The town itself is pretty well serviced by supermarkets and other speciality

Gremlins

The electrics on the CT have been driving me barmy.
I have wired up 2 x 80w Solar panels to keep the 120AH battery charged. With the nice clear days you would expect it would be a bother with 160w of solar power but its not proving to cut it at the moment.
The EvaKool fridge will run all day until the lights and music go on at night then it gives me a LOW VOLTAGE error and switches off.........
When I check the battery its got 12.4v with no loads on it and the battery indicator is full.
I plug the battery into the car and charge it off the alternator for 20 min and it seems to come good but its driving me insane. I think I need a multimeter to check what's going where and how much is getting sucked out the battery.
The fridge prefers being the only device hooked up to the the battery and dislikes anything sharing the juice.
But, the $299 cheap 3 way fridge is going like a good thing and is not proving to be any problems running on gas and 12v.

Surf Fishing

I've been fishing of the breakwall on the Heads and last night caught 2 Salmon. The only issue was how do you get them over the wall..........? After watching another guy lift it out with the incoming wave it certainly seems there is a knack to it....!!
Well I couldn't for the life of me get these fish over the wall as they where a bit large and in the end the line snapped.
I went back this morning for another go and the wall was mobbed with keen anglers looking to get some fish before work.
I caught a Flathead and threw it back as it wasn't big enough, but at least I got the bugger over the wall... ;)

Stookie

April 23 - April 25 Paradise Beach, Victoria

The day has finally arrived!! Monday 23^rd April. We stayed at mum’s place overnight to make sure we were well rested and left the trailer at Keith’s place as he let us use his garage for security.

Jay let me sleep in a little, so I felt as though I was on the back foot as I had planned on making lunches and still had to do a run to the shops! We left Glen Iris at about 11am, which was a bit later than we planned. By the time we loaded the bikes onto the trailer and changed the kids, it was 1pm.

We were on the road just in time…..for the rain!!

 

With our goal for the night being Paradise Beach south of Sale, we just drove until we arrived. We left that rain band behind, only to set up with the rumbling of thunder from a southerly band heading our way. The decision to put our big tarp over the whole set up was unspoken. Thank goodness Jay decided to buy it before we left! With two and a bit days of pretty constant rain, we had no leaks and were also quite warm.

As we were fairly well tent bound, we took full advantage of sorting through things again. I wasn’t happy with the way the kitchen was organised and went through it again. I found it very difficult to decide on things I would need to cook whilst on the road and now feel as though I’ve whittled the utensils and equipment down to things I’ll use regularly.

Paradise Beach was recommended to us by several people and also seemed good from the camping guides, websites and apps we used. One of our resources mentioned mosquitos. OMG we should have listened!!! They are FIERCE!! Poor Matilda was covered in them at one point while we were setting up. They were into everything! Fortunately, we seem to have come out of that experience relatively itch-free.

During the breaks in the weather, we would venture down to the beach. Paradise Beach is part of 90 Mile Beach. Matilda had her first beach experience here and had a ball!

We drove 7km west of Golden Beach to see the Trinculo wreck, though the weather and sea have taken their toll. There’s not much left!

Big Boo was happy to be at the beach again. She did an excellent job in her role as security, letting us know when people were nearby. 

We decided to pack up the bulk of our belongings on the night of 25^th April to try to get away as quickly as possible in the morning. This is our storage box fully loaded. Believe it or not, it's actually pretty easy to find things! Having bought the sensational Aussie-made Drifta kitchen with return (DPOR), the matching storage box was high on the list of things we wanted, but just wasn't absolutely essential for us to be able to travel. After talking to Jason at Aussie Jay's, he sold us this storage box as an ex-demo for a fantastic price and we just had to buy it! We spent a lot of time anguishing over the extra money to buy the box and are really pleased we did. No more piling stuff on the ground and waiting until the tent's packed. Now we can pack things straight into the trailer as we go. Having the food at the back makes the pantry relatively easy access and can be pushed out of the way when not needed.

The morning dawned overcast but dry and we packed up as quickly as possible as the mosquitoes were just impossible. Glad to be on the road, we were aiming for Moruya though would be happy to get to Eden.

We've left Warragul and spending the weekend saying final farewells

The car and the trailer is packed and we are out of our house in Warragul.
We need a little more time over the weekend to sort the trailer and the car out as far as packing it goes.
When your moving house you move A to B but when your travelling you need to load the trailer ad car and always have stuff left over and so a few trips to the Salvo's was needed.
On top of the car in the roof basket is my motorcycle gear, Sunday best and formal job interview clothes and shoes, the kids pram and the tag along skateboard, and a nappy bucket.
We have a long handled shovel which attaches via the Quickfist holders.
In the car we have a half shelf unit (poor man's home build) made out of 18mm MDF .
Instead of a slide out drawer we have another plastic storage container that has Lil's Uni books and the toiletries and swimming gear. On top is the 3-way fridge which plugs into the 12v for travelling.
Then we have Boo's bed and, of course, Boo.
There is an Anderson plug on the back to charge the CT while travelling and keep the batteries topped up.

Last night in our house.

The camper is packed, the fridge is packed, the roof luggage is loaded. Lil is busy cleaning stuff and I've been loading the car and camper.
We are hoping to have a little space left over which I doubt will happen.
Moving house is easy compared to getting rid of everything.

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