Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Back to Port Augusta

Stansbury Beach
After a very enjoyable few days at Stansbury we made our way back up the Yorke Peninsula heading towards Port Augusta.  We stopped off at various towns including Kadina, Port Pirie and Port Germaine.  At Port Germaine we went to see Australia’s longest wooden jetty but it was extremely windy so chose not to walk out on it.
Cleaning time at Port Augusta

On the way into town we stopped off and gave the caravan a good clean as we will leave the caravan in storage in Port Augusta.  We checked again into Port Augusta Motorpark.  Monday while the car was in at the Nissan dealership for it’s 40,000 km check we spent the day packing up the caravan deciding what we need to take back to Melbourne then New Zealand with us, and what would be left in the caravan.  We could think of no reason why we wouldn’t be heading out of Port Augusta the next morning.

However our plans were soon to change – a phone call to Nissan advised us that there was a problem with the fuel injectors.  We had mentioned when we took the car in that we were concerned about the amount of fuel the car was using.  We were soon told that the cost was $12-$15,000 and that we would need to make an insurance claim as the problem was caused by faulty diesel as we had water in the tank.  We were obviously not heading out of town the next morning!  The car wasn’t going anywhere.  Fortunately for us we have RACV ultra care and between them, our car insurers AAMI and the Nissan team at Augusta Automall we have been very well looked after.

With a rental car and the caravan at Shoreline Caravan Park we commenced our unplanned extended stay in Port Augusta.  We were pleased to have a visit from Julia and David as they passed through Port Augusta heading to the Flinders Ranges for a few days and then they returned and stayed overnight giving us more time to catch up on the last few weeks.  We had a special task to complete – David had put the first sticker on our car when he along with Peter and some friends had travelled to the outback in April.  I was not impressed so it was now time for pay back.  David and Julia had broken down on their way to Central Australia a few weeks ago and had to be towed from Kulgera Pub.  As we passed through Kulgera a few weeks ago we purchased a sticker from the pub there as a reminder of Julia and David’s stay.  At the end of our evening when Julia and Dave had headed to their caravan for bed Peter placed the sticker on their back window – shame it isn’t straight!

Julia and Dave headed off towards Broken Hill and we settled back to our wait for a repaired vehicle!
Mt Remarkable National Park
Self registration at Mt Remarkable National Park

 Our rental car at Mt Remarkable National Park
 Walking time again!

At least they warned us!
 Mt Remarkable National Park

Alligator Gorge at Mt Remarkable


Choices
With David and Julia at Port Augusta
David and Julia are mobile again
 Julia
Our rental car
 A sticker for David's car
Not straight but still a reminder for David and Julia of Kulgera
 Dave and Julia
 Saying farewell to David and Julia

 At Port Augusta





























2 comments:

  1. Pete was blaming Gill for the stucker and now we know - the reason it wasn't straight was possibly the three glasses of port Pete had at the END of the night.

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  2. though it did take over an hour to realise it was on the window

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