Waking up late, we made some breakfast after spending an hour cleaning up a bottle of spillt thai sweet chilli, and then was ready to get on our way… but the mystery machine failed to start.
A local resident decided to pile on the pressure claiming she’d call the police if we didn’t move within 30 mins due to illegal camping overnight (every proper Australian I met despises her doing this as it’s spoiling the spirity of Australian hospitality), I spent a good 2 hours trying to fix it (starter motor failure as it happens) but to no avail.
Queue joining a breakdown recovery company who just told me what I already knew – the starter motor is f**ked. So he helped with a push start and gave us a sheet of places we could get it fixed, at least this happened in a city and not somewhere in the outback. The first place was closed, and the 2nd place was closing as we arrived.
I decided to pull off the starter motor and see if I could repair the insides myself, a lot of struggle with poor tools and the mechanic Darren had pity on us and got it off to have a look himself over his usual working hours.
Auto-electric specialist, he looked inside the starter motor and was said it certainly was a bad one! He couldn’t do it then but would get in tomororow morning (a Saturday) to have a look, as it turns out he was well travelled himself and a few Brits helped him out in 1987 when he got in trouble so he felt he was repaying the favor 22 years later!
Adelaide University at night
Kangaroo Tally:
Alive: 0 Dead: 0
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
But you are really luck it didn’t happen somewhere in the middle between Perth and Adelaide.
.-= Vi´s last blog – Things to do in Sydney in January =-.
Yes, very happy with the timing! The mystery machine seems happiest in the middle of nowhere and doesn’t like cities from what I can tell :-)
I would say it is perfect machine for exploring Australian outback :)
Did the miserable neighbour get you into trouble in the end? I hope not.
In the end we got out in time, it was probably an empty threat, although I guess she would have followed it up if we stood there another night.