So after all the excitment of Charlotte's assembly and last day of school, we packed Char, Brett and the car up for their big drive. The plan was for them to get as far as Geraldton on the Friday night. Then do Geraldton to Carnarvon on the Saturday (around 500kms), and Carnarvon to Karratha on the Sunday (around 700kms). With Lucas, Freya and I staying on at the hotel and flying up Monday afternoon. We gave Brett and Charlotte heaps of time to get there not knowing how Charlotte would cope with being in the car for so long. Heaps of time, or so we thought...
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| Charlotte all set up in her seat |
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| The Skipper |
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| Off they go... |
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| A self portrait |
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| Geraldton |
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| Snacks LOL |
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| Another self portrait |
So they made it to Geraldton Friday night and had a relaxed start Saturday morning (as you can see from the previous shots). Then they took off for Carnarvon.
Approximately 300kms up the road in the middle of nowhere, the car died. They had no mobile service and it was about 40 degrees in the shade. Brett set Charlotte up in the shade with her DVD player and had a look at the car. He soon discovered that the Harmonic Balancer was shot (and we later found out it had broken the crankshaft too). It was not drivable. Someone stopped, and Brett asked them to go ahead to the next roadhouse, and get the proprietors to phone RAC for a tow. Not long after, another couple stopped and offered to tow the car to the roadhouse. As it was getting very hot, Brett thought this the best idea, instead of waiting for RAC to come up from Geraldton.Whilst they waited at the roadhouse for the RAC towtruck, Charlotte was spoilt rotten by the woman running the place, being given endless icecreams and packets of chips. Brett said they were incredibly accomodating (I think being a dad with a 5 year old helped) and offered them a room should they need to stay that night. All of this time, Brett was becoming increasingly worried that Lucas, Freya and I may in fact beat them to Karratha on Monday afternoon (and we nearly did).
Anyway..... finally a tow truck turned up and the car, and Brett and Char were loaded onto/into it and taken BACK to Northampton. Yes, they were heading south :( As it turns out this was a good move, as the car was assessed at Northampton and found to be completely stuffed, and would need to be sent further back down to Geraldton to be repaired. So off they went squished in the cab of the tow truck back to Gero. The driver even set up Charlotte's DVD player for her for the trip.
They arrived late in Geraldton and found a motel. In the morning (Sunday) they spoke with the mechanic, who gave Brett the bad news that the cranksaft was completely stuffed, and that it would take a few weeks to get parts and be fixed. As we were due to fly into Karratha on Monday, with Brett starting work Tuesday, Brett had no choice but to leave the 4WD with the mechanic and grab a hire ute, transfer all of our gear, and the trailer and head off north again.
They had another huge day of driving ahead to get to Canarvon. So they set off. Charlotte was apparently an absolute trooper, never complaining, and actually seemed to be enjoying their big adventure. Brett, not so much.....
I was so glad to see them all in one piece at the airport! As the hire ute Brett had was a single cab, Brett's boss Sean, helped out with ferrying us and all our luggage to our temporary accomodation. We also then had the problem of a 2 seater car, and there being 5 of us, so we had to swap hire cars that same afternoon. Poor Brett was completely over it all by this stage. But a small consolation was that our temporary house had a beautiful swimming pool. So when we finally unpacked all our gear we all fell in the pool. Much needed as we had arrived on a ridiculously humid 39 degree day!!! The first of many.......
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| Reunited at last!! |
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