Not with a Bang but a Whimper…

gomezhome ♦ 23/08/2022 ♦ 4 Comments

Was not how our journey ended! We’ve done the Nullarbor. Tick. We drive from Norseman to Kalgoorlie. Two nights with friends in Kal and we head home. Yeah! Only 600 km to go.

We go to to meet our friend, Ps. Bill for a coffee in Kalgoorlie. By the way, Queen Bee in Kalgoorlie does seriously good coffee.

Our bus is parked. We walk into town to do some shopping. Back to the bus. Start Tank up, drive off and there’s no power! Not again! We can drive but it seems to be in limp mode again. No!!

We drive to Ps. Bill’s home. He comes with me for a drive, to see if a longer run might clear any blockage in the fuel. No joy. Bill recommends a mechanic. We take Tank there. The mechanic, Peter, is really busy but he drops everything to look at Tank. He runs a monitor to diagnose the problem. There’s a fault code that the ECU is showing – different to last time though. Peter finds a broken wire, solders it and the fault code is still there. He tries to delete the code. ECU won’t let him. He has to get back to his other work – fair enough.

Ps. Bill and his wife, Helen, graciously allow us to stay at their home “for a long as we want”! So we’re not homeless, just no transport now. Wait! Bill gives us the loan of his car! How great is that?!

Tuesday, 16th, we explore Kal a bit and check out the museum – interesting.

We check with Peter the mechanic. He hasn’t had a chance to look at Tank.

Wednesday, we explored Boulder and the Military Museum – oh and the local Queen Bee 😉.

Jeannie enjoyed the Military Museum, even though that’s not normally her thing. We were very grateful to have the car as well as it chucked it down with rain.

Peter still has not looked at Tank, but he promises “first job tomorrow”.

Thursday, the sun is shining and we go to Queen Bee then to Peace Park. It seems appropriate. Beautiful place it is too.

We check with Peter. The fault code has “gone away”. He’s taken Tank for a short drive. It seems ok. He’s going to take it for a longer drive. We don’t know what to think.

Peter takes Tank for a long drive and it’s still ok. Amazing! Perhaps even more amazing, Peter does not want to be paid! We have a discussion about it. Peter suggests that I talk to “the Man upstairs” about it! We agree to disagree, but we organise a gift voucher for Peter.

Saturday, 20th, with cautious optimism (with emphasis on the cautious) and grateful hearts, we leave Bill & Helen’s at 6.10 am and intend to do the 600 km in a day. The biggest day of our trip.

Well, we made it! Tank was well behaved and flew along. Back home after nearly seven months. What an epic trip!