3rd leg

Like Jake the Peg we are now on the third leg of our Oz Odyssey, heading north from Perth into the Never Never where there are crocodiles and all sorts of other nasties. 8000km in about 10 weeks through to Cairns, and not much in between.

Tigger has all new wheel bearings, the truck has been serviced and fingers crossed nothing else breaks as we will be fairly well buggered if it does - lucky to find a bakery up Here let alone caravan spares. 

Back in WA where we started

The last three weeks in the south of Western Australia has been fairly full on. We visited the couple in Esperance who we bought the van off and had a look around that part of the world as we didn't get a chance to last July.

As you will have seen from previous blog posts, we've had some fun with Tigger’s brakes, but Mark fixed them when we were in Albany.

My friend Jenny had her 50^th birthday on Good Friday, so we left the van on a caravan park in Albany, drove up to Perth (a mere 480kms) and went out for dinner that evening. On Easter Saturday, our friends Knees and Clive arrived, so we picked them up at the airport and after a brief stop at Jenny and Harry’s, set off for Albany. We then spent the next week touring (and drinking) our way around the south of WA. From the Natural Bridge in Albany

to the Valley of the Giants and the treetop walk in Walpole

to wine tasting around the Margaret River region and a couple of spectacular sunsets in Busselton

We made our way back up to Perth. Jenny and I had a joint birthday party (even though it’s not mine until July) and a great time was had by all

A big ‘thank you’ goes to Jenny for organising it and her friends for the lovely gifts and cards I received too.

A hair of the dog was provided on the Sunday afternoon with a tour of the Little Creatures brewery in Fremantle. It was lovely having Knees and Clive here and we did get through the wine we had collected along the way from our visits to the wineries around the country, together with a few bottles of beer as we chatted late into the night. We were sad to see them go and hope they enjoyed it as much as we did.

This weekend, our other old school friend, Vicki (who’s 50th birthday was earlier in March), Jenny and I had a ‘girlies weekend’ and had a great laugh and catch up.

Tomorrow we head up north of WA and into the unknown.

we are not alone....

picked Knees and Clive up from Perth airport on saturday. They had flown out via HK, Melbourne and Ceduna where Knee's (second?) cousin Bev lives that we saw a week ago as we drove through. They are with us now for 11 days before they fly on to Bali and home via Dubai.

Drove down to Albany where we left the van and had a couple of days exploring the southern ocean  coastline and eucalyptus forests, then yesterday towed up to Busselton on the Indian Ocean coast for a couple of days wine tasting round Margaret river. Friday we will head into Perth for the weekend and Jenny and Maria's 50th party

As well as being great to see them again its so nice having someone else to talk to. I've drunk more beer in the past 3 days than in the past 3 months, and we are making a nice dent in the wine collection sitting under the starts in the evening talking bollocks. Good times

3 wheels on my wagon

and i'm not going anywhere quickly. 120km outside Albany the brake controller starts flashing again, only this time its a short circuit rather than disconnected. ok, here we go again. pull over, check the wires to the van...hmmm, look ok. check the connections to the wheels...hold on, why is this wheel smoking? grab the fire extinguisher just in case and start taking it apart. its wobbly...that's not good :-(

Turns out the inner wheel bearing has collapsed, the wheel is therefore running out of true, and has heated up so that the electrical brake actuator inside the drum has burned out, hence the short circuit. ok, panic by the side of the road. Make a couple of phone calls, detach the truck and drive into Albany via a detour because of an accident, where luckily a bearing place has what i need. Drive back, fit them in the dark and limp into Albany that evening.

had to run up to Perth next day for Jennie's birthday, so managed to find a new brake and drum at a spares place saturday morning, got back down to Albany and decided to dry and fit them tuesday morning before towing on

what it should look like, and what it did look like. "worse than one of Lister's drunken fry-ups"

bolts on the new brake don't line up with the axle mountings as they are not the same as the old one. Bugger, OK, canabalise the new one for the actuator, shoes and springs, then try and remember how this burned out rusty mess goes back together. ok, got that. Offer up the new hub. Bugger, front bearing size is different and won't go on. clean the old one up of burned electrical insulation, grease and other assorted crap, stick it on and hope. Try the brakes - yay, it works. Made it the 360km to Busselton with no dramas, so guess i'll be replacing the other bearings next week in Perth, and explaining to the brakes people the subtle differences between what i needed and what they sold me

Turns out the accident that detoured me into Albany was another caravan. Looks like they had a problem with the tow vehicle and rolled it, and then the caravan landed on top of them, killing the driver. Not a good start to the easter weekend - could have been us :-(