Monday 26 March 2012

Day 2 - Adelaide/Balgowan (Australia)

Thankyou to everyone who joined us at our send-off BBQ yesterday. Your presence was greatly appreciated, and to all those who couldn't make it, you missed a thoroughly enjoyable event.

We ended up making it to Green Lake Recreation Reserve last night after stopping in Ararat for dinner with my dad, who followed us for our first leg on his newly acquired motorbike. Unfortunately the only place open in Ararat on a Sunday evening is the RSL club, but fortunately they put on a great feed.

Despite spending most of today driving through 40 and 25 km/h speed limits in country SA, we eventually made it to Adelaide in the late afternoon. Ben and I dropped the Toms off in Adelaide to spend the evening with their friends, and we drove on to see our friends Cate and Ryan in the lovely town of Balgowan on the Yorke Peninsula.

But not before our first car trouble. Poor Trevor spluttered a bit whilst turning a corner in the CBD of Adelaide, and then just wouldn't start again. We saw the next twelve months of driving flash before our eyes, and then realised that we'd run out of LPG. Turns out the gage doesn't really work properly. We learnt it the hard way, but at least we learnt it.

Tomorrow we have a two hour drive back to Adelaide to pick up Tom and Tom before embarking on a sixteen or so hour drive to Alice Springs.

Because our shipping dates have changed, we have to be at the docks of Darwin by Friday morning. As a result, the Australia leg of our trip is sadly being cut quite short, and we have a couple of big days of driving coming up.

2 comments:

  1. Re. running out of fuel: Obviously your Engineering Officer is at fault. When he said Trevor runs on gas he forgot to explain that does not include fresh air! We know Ben is always looking for a low cost solution, but.....

    Steve D

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  2. All the best drivers in the world do this. Ask Grandpa Ian how often he had to remind me that I couldn't have made that mistake even once in a plane, let alone four times in a car!!! And one of those times was indeed a faulty petrol gauge!! I'm sure that between the four of you you won't have to learn by repetition the way I did!!

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