The Gear Box

The gearbox in the van has been making a bit of a noise when in fifth gear. When we arrived at Tom Price it decided that it was going to get a bit worse and that in order to change gear Graham would have to double de-clutch. We thought to start with that with a bit of luck it was only playing up due to the long drive and the heat but no it was on it’s way out. There was nothing in Tom Price to help us so we decided that we would go on to Port Hedland in the hope that we could find a wreckers and a replacement box. That turned out to be the easy bit. No problem getting a replacement box getting it fitted was another story. No one was able to do it for at least a week and it wasn’t the sort of place that you would really want to spend a week. So once again we decided that we would risk it and drive on to Broome 600k away. We got to within 200k when we slowed down to see if a car parked at the side of the road need any help. It didn’t but we did fifth gear decided to go so we limped into Broome in fourth gear hoping that it would last just a bit longer. Managed to find a repairer who could fit it the following day.

Graham took the van to the repairers and walked the 8k back to the site while yet again I sat homeless with all our worldly goods in a heap on our campsite. A very nice Australian man in the caravan next us was going out for a while and said that I could sit under his awning if the sun got too hot and I lost what shade I had. When Graham got back from dropping the van off he said that they were going to phone when it was ready and that it would take him about and hour and a quarter to be back to them. He then realised that his phone was dead and the charger as you can guess was still in the van. About lunchtime he walked back to pick the van up. When he got back the first thing he said was ‘How long do you want to say here?’ It turns out that the gearbox that he had got from the wreckers was the wrong one. Oh shit shit shit!! He has now ordered a new one but it won’t be here till Weds 25.10.06 as it’s coming from Perth and today is Friday. Still the sun is shining and Broome is a lovely place so it could be worse.