Oz Trip - Day 97

Day 97 – 6/8/2012 – Disaster Strikes!

We left Mornington Wilderness Park at about 9am and made it back to the Gibb River Road at about 11:30am. We stopped in at the Imintji Roadhouse to fill up with diesel. In the shop we stocked up on the standard road trip food, ie chips and drinks, and I also bought a “I survived the Gibb River Road” sticker. Little did I know that was going to be our downfall!

The cursed sticker

As I was pulling away from the diesel bowser I noticed the wheel on the Quantum looked like it was on a strange angle.

So I pulled over to check it out. I was devastated with what I found.

After speaking to Nev, the resident mechanic of Over the Range Mechanical at the roadhouse, he advised that it was a waste of his time and my money trying to brace it by welding some bits on. I then spent the next couple of hours on the only payphone for miles around to RACQ organising the towing and also the manufacturer of the camper, to organise new parts to be shipped.

We were counting our lucky stars that it happened where it did. We were only 236km from Derby. It could have happened in a place that we had just visited and was a lot more remote. Also Imintji Roadhouse had a payphone. It was a lot cheaper to use the pay phone to organise everything then trying to do it via a satellite phone! I was on the phone to RACQ for over an hour.

We couldn't get towed out until the next day. The operators of the roadhouse said that we could camp down the road at Saddlers Springs until we get picked up. They said that it is quite often used by people that have mechanical problems and are waiting to get towed out or parts shipped in.

Saddlers Springs

Despite the circumstances it was probably one of the nicest camp sites that we have had all trip.

We weren't the only ones stuck at the roadhouse that night. We met a couple of French guys that rolled their rental Prado about 50km further up the road in front of us. They managed to get a lift back to the roadhouse to organise their recovery. They were pretty lucky as the Prado was a write off and they escaped with only a few bruises and scratches. They spent the afternoon trying to wash diesel off their swags. They were also scheduled to get rescued the next morning.