Oz Trip - Day 92

Day 92 – 1/8/2012 – Rest day at Drysdale Station

Basically just a bit of a rest day with a few small jobs thrown in and checking the camper and the Pajero for any broken things. Luckily none found. The battery tray seems to be holding up ok, but the camps book wasn't!

The corrugations undid the spirals!

Oz Trip - Day 91

Day 91 – 31/7/2012 – Return to Drysdale River Station

We were packed and pulled out of the camp site at about 8:30am. We knew it was going to be a big day. A family that we were playing leap frog with on the way in were also packing up but we pulled out before them. At the same time that we were leaving was the group that had the broken suspension on the camper trailer. They wanted me to go in front but seeing the speed that they drove in, I knew that they would be over taking me pretty much straight away so I let them go first.

After about an hour or so the family that was leap frogging us on the way in had caught up to us and passed us. The camper trailer that they were towing also had a broken shockie. Interestingly enough, both of the camper trailers with the busted shockies had been on the drivers side. We put this down to the drivers side having to work harder due to the corrugations more in the middle of the road. Everyone was tending to drive as far to the left as possible to find as much smooth road for at least one side of the vehicle.

Smoko stop

Oz Trip - Day 89

Day 89 – 29/7/2012 – Mitchell Falls National Park

We left Drysdale Station at about 8am and didn't get to the camp grounds at Mitchell Falls until about 2:30pm. The first 100km or so was pretty good, although it was hard to believe that they had only just finished grading some of it as there were still very rough patches. Once we turned off the “main” road, the last 80 odd kilometers took us about 4 hours. We could only do between 15-30kph and 20kph was probably the average. It was mainly due to the corrugations. A lot of people passed us.  We were also stopping about every hour to give the shockies a bit of a rest and a chance to cool down.  When I felt the temperature of the shockies I could hold my hand on them for quite a while so it was good to know that they weren't getting too hot.

Drysdale River crossing

Oz Trip - Day 88

Day 88 – 28/7/2012 – Drysdale Station

We were packed and hitched up early. The only problem was that I wasn't getting any charge from the Pajero back to the camper batteries and the volts on the battery monitor in the Pajero still didn't look right. There was still too big a voltage difference between the two batteries. On closer inspection I found that they hadn't connected the batteries up properly after putting the fixed tray back in! A negative lead for the auxiliary battery wasn't connected and it was wedged in with the positive leads on the starting battery. Once I connected the negative lead to where it was meant to be connected, everything was working and back to normal. I am still pretty annoyed that when you are paying someone to do a job that it isn't done properly!

We were pretty lucky as the grader had just been through the section from Home Valley to the Drysdale Station turn off so it wasn't as rough as getting to El Questro. Even the section of road up to Drysdale Station was pretty good. We arrived at Drysdale Station at about 1pm. This gave us have a bit of time for a relax.

Approaching the Durack River crossing