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Back to Adelaide, SA AU

September 29th, 2024

Today we had no reason to be up early, but were anyway – ha ha. We wanted to get some miles done today as we plan to be back in Adelaide at John & Pam’s by Tuesday afternoon. We have some deliveries coming, some mail to pick up and of course, get the sale proceeds from their sale of Tassie for us!

We only had one stop to make today and over 500 km / 300 mi to get to Coober Pedy back to the camping outside the museum.  We quite like this little town.

We stopped at the tiny town of Erldunda which is the closet locale to the centre of Australia. There is a monument and a plaque which explains how the actual centre is hard to determine but they’ve chosen this stop to mark it.

We stopped for gas in Marla after crossing the state line back into South Australia and to have brunch before pushing on to Coober Pedy by 2:30 ish.

The parking at the Old Timer’s Museum where we’d parked before was getting full and we got the last decent sized spot but even a few more RV’s crammed in later. We took care of a few things, Doug went to get beer and then we relaxed some. As we did so many kilometres today, we’re going to take tomorrow off.

Tonight it rained on and off as forecast and cooled down quite a bit. Saturday it reached 32C / 90F and today the night was only going to be 23C / 74F.

Doug went for his long run on Sunday here in Coober Pedy, Fran did yoga and we both did a few chores and enjoyed the day off driving. We heard from John and Pam that they have begun the drive to Melbourne to drop off Tassie with the buyer. They will do it over two days and fly back.  So very much appreciated and above and beyond – what great friends we’ve made.

We also heard from Serena that she’d received Fran’s ATM card and Fran went into her account and changed her mobile number to Serena’s and was able to access funds and do a transfer of half of the money. Phew! This bank account has been a huge PITA and we’ll close it once we get all the money transferred out.

We had a quiet Sunday and it really cooled off nicely and the night was actually quite cool and we had to use blankets all night, unlike the past few nights. But it does make for better sleeping.

We left Monday morning after filling our tank. We knew there was a place down the road a ways that was $2.029 for diesel and here it’s $2.139 but when Doug told the attendant we only wanted 12 litres to get us to Glendamba, he offered to match that price if we filled up – so we did!

We went to check out the Boot Hill Cemetery as Doug had heard there were some weird grave stones but we saw nothing that odd.

This grave marker said “have a drink on me”!

We did end up stopping in Glendamba to top off the tank with enough to get us all the way to Port Augusta and they have the sign at the top of this post.

Today was pretty much just driving and we have to say it is DAY 3 of no new issues – YEAH – a new record since we’ve reached this country!

One unplanned stop we made was at the Lake Hart rest area with grand views over another salty lake/pan:

We had our brunch here.

We drove nearly as much as Saturday and made it Port Pirie where we stayed at the pub here on the way north so we knew it well. The other options were just highway rest areas and they would be noisy at night now that we are in a more populated part of the country in South Australia.

When she had cell reception on the drive today, Fran called a Nissan dealer to find out how to get the code for the radio and they helped her right on the spot by just providing the registration number of the vehicle (the license plate!). So the radio no longer flashes “CODE” when you turn it on. We also discovered that only the passenger door speaker works. Add it to the list. It’s kinda like when we drove around in Tigger – there’s always something to fix.

We drove past Loch Eil where we stopped before – a very long salt pan lake if you remember with its own Loch monster:

We went into the pub where we met Mark (whom we spoken with on the phone) and asked about dinner; turns out they don’t serve dinner but there were two options for delivery so we chose one and ordered food.

We had a very quiet but quite cool night and a decent sleep. We’ve now been 3 days issue free!

We are now across the Goyder Line in Australia as we head back to Adelaide.

Goyder’s Line is a line that runs roughly east–west across South Australia and, in effect, joins places with an average annual rainfall of 10 inches (250 mm). North of Goyder’s Line, annual rainfall is usually too low to support cropping, with the land being suitable only for grazing. Related to that, the line also marks a distinct change in vegetation. To the south, it is composed mainly of scrub, whilst saltbush predominates to the north of the line.

We planned to arrive at Pam & John’s by mid afternoon and had a few errands we wanted to run. Doug had been trying to book our first trip out of Australia yesterday with no success. Our first entry of 90 days ends November 17th so we have decided to fly to Vietnam from Melbourne for a few weeks and then return. Done.

So this morning, with much of the remaining drive done, we stopped in Salisbury at the McDonald’s to get online and get that sorted – done! We fly on November 15th for about 4 weeks. Next Doug booked our flights to Tasmania from Melbourne for a week as we couldn’t get the ferry crossings.

Fran spotted ONE kangaroo in a field today just north Port Wakefield – all those hundreds of kilometres in the outback and NO live kangaroos and only ONE emu the entire two weeks!

We finished the drive to Adelaide stopping at an RV shop to pick up a few parts (we’ve managed to lose our only sink plug for the kitchen and we needed a part for one of the window winders), then a quick stop at Costco to fill up since it was near by:

This is the fourth country that we’ve shopped at Costco in (Canada and US of course, then Mexico and now here – we could have gone in Iceland but Fran did not bring her card on that trip.)

Next two stops were to return items we no longer needed before getting back to John and Pam’s where we had several packages awaiting us including laptops (Doug bought his in AU and Fran had hers shipped from Amazon in the US – with no import duties and fast delivery!).  We arrived mid-afternoon about 15 minutes before Pam got home and John arrived shortly afterwards from playing golf.

Parked back at John’s:

We organized a few things inside Matilda and then joined them up at the house, opening our mail and parcels. Doug and John went up to John’s mechanic to talk about bumper installation and checked out a place or two and then dropped John back at the house and continued looking.

We’ve been thinking about adding a bumper to Matilda and John took Doug over to his mechanic in the hopes that he can help us – we recall that we used to hit Minou’s bumper often and spent a lot of time, energy and money repairing it.  Later at the house after failing to find something suitable and that could be done in the next couple of days, Doug and John installed this on the steel plates sticking out of the back of the rig that were leftover from it’s days as a slide in camper:

Today John arranged to have the funds from the sale of Tassie transferred into our account. It was very nice to have this done and we appreciate so much the effort and time that they put into getting this sold for us.

In the meantime, Doug went to have the suspension looked at as the ride has been quite harsh at times, and it turns out the leaf springs are shot. He found a shop that could do the work on Friday but Doug had to go get the parts. He took care of that.

Wednesday, Fran took care of getting the new laptops set up and restoring our data from the cloud back up that we use. This was very slow and it was a good thing we were going to stay here a few more days to continue to do this on Wi-Fi. Both systems seemed to stall over night so Fran restarted them and by next day late morning Doug’s was done and Fran’s finished a couple of hours later. So it was just getting programs installed and set up.

Doug took care of installing some of the items we purchased:

a USB port socket for Fran’s bed:

a shoe rack for near the door since we no longer have a gennie:

used his new endoscopic camera it take care of a few repairs that have been plaguing him (bathroom window) and installing a new winder on one of the bedroom windows. Now all the windows are functioning properly.

Pam and John had a golf tournament that day and when they returned home we chatted a bit.

As mentioned before, the radio is finally working but it has no USB or headphone jack so we are trying to find a way to play our own music as we have no CD’s. Fran ordered a portable speaker with a USB port in it but it doesn’t work to play music from. So that’s going back as well as a pair of sneakers Doug ordered as they are way too wide.

We are now on Windows 11 and without Microsoft Office – we would really rather not have to pay for this so Joshua found us software called “Office Libre” which is quite similar and we’ll try that out. To complicate matters, the VPN service we’ve been using has been bought out and the although the download would work on both our phones and Doug’s laptop, Fran could not get it to install on hers. After two hours with their support team using TeamViewer to remotely work on her laptop, they virtually gave up and told her to updated Windows and try again.

Of course that didn’t work so she contacted them again in the morning only to be told they are on GMT and cannot help again until late this afternoon. After chatting with Josh and Doug about other downloads, she tried this: downloading the set up file; getting off the internet and then installing it – that worked! WTH!?  So she reached out and told them this and they said they were “happy to have helped” – helped my foot!

Doug had left early to head to the mechanic’s to have them work on the suspension; by early afternoon they had finally removed the old ones (they had seized up – of course) and discovered that the ones they had told Doug to get were the wrong ones and that dealer did not have the right ones. They found others that would be there by 3 and they gave him a car and told him not to come back until they call him.

Fran walked over to the post office to return the things to Amazon (free of course) and then went to get a pedi before returning.

Doug returned to John and Pam’s using a loaner car from the garage and in the meantime, they had gone out to take their dog and his son’s to the beach. When they returned John gave us an MP3 player and then a car radio he had lying around both new in the boxes; we’ll need to fix speakers still but hopefully the radio will pan out as it has a USB port.

After watching The Chase we took them out for dinner. We went to a Thai place and just after we ordered our food, the garage called and said the vehicle was ready. Doug told them the situation and after he ate his dinner faster than we would have liked, he went over to get it.

Doug joined us at the house shortly after Fran, Pam and John got back in Pam’s car and then we all watched Ep. 3 of Survivor before going to bed. Saturday morning, after showering and Doug spending sometime online (he’s not a lot of chance to do that lately), we said our goodbyes and hit the road, to head east towards Melbourne after stopping to do a grocery shop. The day was overcast and we had some misty rain which turned into much heavier rain when we got out of the Woollie’s.

No sooner had we gone a mere 8 km / 5 mi and were slowing down to a red light, when we heard and felt a thud! It felt like someone ran into the back of us. Fran thought it was a good thing Doug and John had installed a bumper. Doug limped the vehicle over to the left, through the light and we saw the pick up behind us leave! We went to the back and saw there was no damage; turns out the BRAND NEW SUSPENSION had collapsed! Instead of having a nice curve upwards, it was now a wavy line! Doug called the mechanic (luckily he answered on a Saturday morning) and he said he’d get a tow truck to come get us. It showed up in about 75 minutes and Brendan began the process of pulling Matilda onto the flat bed.  Well, it began to making loud cracking sounds and we saw that the back tired was twisted a bit and it sounded awful every time it moved and kept making more loud cracking sounds. Turns out when the leaves fell, they pushed on the differential at the back wheels, pushed it back which pulled the drive train shaft back and it was in two pieces!

Stopped on the corner of a busy intersection – you can see how the front end is lower than the back – it should be other way around!

The damage

Brendan spoke to Mark, the mechanic twice apprising him of the situation and after he got the truck on the back, we all piled in the tow truck and just drove around the corner where he lowered it again, Doug backed it off and then drove it more straight onto the flat bed before we drove to the shop.

Mark told us that the joints that held the suspension must have been unable to hold the suspension despite being “designed” to hold 500 kg more than the suspension was designed for and this caused the issue since Matilda is no lightweight. He told us that he would have to add “plates” and would not be able to work on it till Tuesday or Wednesday (this is a long weekend in Australia) and we should get a hotel or cabin nearby. After checking out the prices, we said it’s too expensive and he said we could stay in the parking area of the garage and he would give us power, access to water and a toilet as well as letting us use the loaner car he’d give Doug yesterday. It’s not ideal, but the price is right and we don’t have to impose on Pam & John again (although they did offer their home and said it was no bother – we felt we’d imposed enough over the past six weeks!).

Matilda was lowered off the flat bed, we got plugged in and we’re here until it’s done. Doug asked how much this was going to cost us, and he said nothing as he’d file an insurance claim because this type of situation is exactly why he has insurance and has thus far, never had a claim. Phew – so it’s only time and an inconvenience for us. Doug also asking about installing the new radio John had given us and Mark said he’d take care of that too.

The weather had cleared fairly nicely by this time and after they closed up shop at 2pm, gave us a key for the front door to access the bathroom and the loaner car key, they left and we both went for walks. It’s cooler today than it’s been lately but we’re safe and sound and really, that’s the important part. If we had been hit, dealing with a vehicle insurance claim could have taken months so hopefully this work doesn’t take more than a few days next week but only time will tell.  We were SO lucky the vehicle was coasting; if we’d been further out of the city on the dual carriage way doing 100 kmph – the situation could have been disastrous and deadly.

The rest of Saturday and all of Sunday, we went about our business at the camper. We both exercised daily, went for walks, read and caught up online. Thank goodness Fran has a lot of data in her plan to run our laptops online. The weather was reasonable, very spring like with warm days and cooler nights.

Monday, (which is a holiday here) we decided we need to get out of the garage and used the loaner car, an older red Ford Falcon:

to head to what is called the best beach in Adelaide: Glenelg Beach. It was over 20km from us but we found free two hour parking two blocks away and went for a walk. It clouded over some but was a comfortable walking temperature.

It is a lovely beach with nice sand; it really is not on the ocean itself but on a bay.  We walked along the boardwalk for a while.  There are some pricey homes in this area.

We returned to Matilda, got the rest of our steps upon returning and had another night at the garage.

Tuesday morning the garage reopened, Mark asked us to leave for the day so they could jack up Matilda and see what’s what and assess the damage and diagnose what needs to be repaired/replaced. We packed up a few things and drove the loaner car over to Mount Lofty stopping at Mickey Dee’s for breakfast (they have a two bacon egg McMuffin meal with hash browns and a drink for $13 deal – the best value) enroute and to get online for a bit with our laptops.

It was a gorgeous but coolish day for a drive.

Pam and John have reached out saying we can stay with them but we feel we’ve imposed enough and to be honest, having everything we need/want with us in Matilda is really just easier. We expect the time will come when they need to put the rig on the hoist and then we can’t sleep in it anyway so we’ll take them on their offer when that time comes. We really just hope we can be out of here within the week and hope that “Mr. Murphy” stays behind in Adelaide!

The parking at Mount Lofty was not free but the viewpoint was. The views were quite amazing – we could see to the sea across downtown Adelaide. It was a great day for this:

We took a short walk in the woods around the viewpoint to get some steps and as the windy was really quite cold up here, we left after that. Mark the mechanic had recommended that we check out Australia’s first German town near Mount Lofty so off to Hahndorf we went. It’s quite touristy and there are some German hotels/pubs/shops but it was pretty busy. This week is school holidays for the children in this state. We managed to find parking and walked the entire Main Street in both directions. It’s quite cute but we are not shoppers nor was it near a meal time so we did not leave any money behind here.

As we’d had a meal earlier than usual today, we were not eating at noon and instead drove into Adelaide to find a park with restrooms to sit at and read. Fran found a cricket oval with a park around it and we drove over there where we were able to park for 3 hours. It was around 1pm now and after finding a nice beach to sit at (we’d brought our kindles) we sat down and read for that time. Just before 4 Pam called and invited us to dinner and to use their shower. Sounded like a great idea but first we wanted to go to the garage to get an update on Matilda.

Mark advised that the had refitted all the suspension with the modification he felt was needed and they had taken the tail shaft (what we call the drive shaft) to a place to get it “reconditioned” as they could find no used ones at any wreckers. This will take about two days more or less. He also said he’d deal with the company that sold us the wrong parts to get the refund sorted. We have to say while that is quite kind, we cannot help but think there’s something he’s not telling us…..like may they installed it incorrectly….? Well as long as it all gets repaired, is working and there is no added cost to us, that’s what matters.

We had a lovely dinner with Pam and John and after hot showers were returned to the garage for the night. During dinner, Pam asked how we were coping with the time change – apparently daylight savings time started on Sunday, totally unbeknownst to us! Our watches, phones and laptops all change automatically, so we didn’t even know!

Wednesday, we awoke to a beautiful sunny day that promised to warm up some (at least for one day) and Doug left early to do one of his marathon walks. Fran stayed behind to get a few things done and enjoy some alone time.  She later walked over to the mall about two klicks away and upon her return the vehicle had been re-parked. This was quite puzzling as there is no drive shaft. There was no one around so she told Doug and when he returned a bit later, he found Mark and asked. They needed the room so they moved the vehicle by hand in neutral!

So on Thursday morning, we were still awaiting the drive shaft to be ready; we left the garage in our loaner car and went over to Pam & John’s for a few hours, used the Wi-Fi, had showers, did laundry and left after lunch. Pam is away visiting her daughter in Sydney and John went out shortly after we arrived only to return just as we were leaving.  They have told us to use their house as much as we’d like.

Upon returning the garage, there was still no news. Doug went to the suspension parts place to see about a refund for the difference in the price between what he’d originally bought and what was actually needed – no luck. In the meantime, Mark told Fran that the drive shaft was ready and he’d sent someone over to pick it up. They installed it right away. Keep in mind that all the work they’ve done on Matilda has been in their parking lot as the vehicle could not be driven inside to get on the hoist. When they did the suspension work, they’d jacked up the vehicle and took care of it. Installing the drive shaft was done without raising it up and was done in about three quarters of an hour.

Mark wanted us to take it for a test drive of about twenty kilometres. No problem! The ride was much smoother and Doug felt no issues with the driving. Yeah!

We returned to the garage, where they hoisted Matilda onto a lift so the underside could be better seen and anything that needed tensioning could be dealt with.

Doug took these photos of the suspension and the drive shaft:

It was now around 5:45 and Mark said we could spend a final night in the parking lot and leave in the morning. He re-parked Matilda and they closed up shop after we enjoyed a couple of Corona from their office fridge.

Looks like we should be good to go; Mark “guaranteed” we’d have no issues with the new suspension and we sure hope that holds true. The new suspension lifts Matilda up another two inches or so so Fran is sure glad we have steps into the back! It’s a biiiiiig step inside without them!  We are cautiously optimistic.