STOP PRESS - Mmm aint life funny - STOP PRESS OR IS IT DELAYED!!

We arrived back in Port Augusta again on Saturday night with the intention of being here until Tuesday when the caravan was to go into storage and we were going to head out of town with the tent on the last part of stage two.

Well as you know plans sometimes change – we had the Nissan booked in on Monday for its 40k check.  We had noticed that it was not running right on the last part of the journey into town so pointed that out to Nissan when we dropped the car off.  Long story short I rang Nissan mid afternoon to see how the service was going and when it would be ready to pick up.  That’s when they dropped the bombshell - we had apparently picked up a bad batch of fuel somewhere that was contaminated with water.  In the olden days that would have been a so what, drain the water out refill it and off you go.  Well believe it or not, that’s not what happens with Hi-Tech motors.  What happens is the engine management system somehow allows the motor to destroy itself!!  And yep you guessed it, that’s about what it has done.

So now, as this is considered an accident, it is covered by insurance.  That’s the good news as the quote to repair it is probably in line with refloating the Rena – for those of you that don’t know about the Rena just Google it.  The insurance at this stage are still deciding if they will repair it or write it off we don’t have any feelings either way but assume that they will more than likely repair it – we should know this in the next couple of days.  So assuming that they will repair it we will be in Port Augusta for at least the next 10 days before travelling direct to Melbourne.  Not the end of the world just a pain in the @#@$%$.

The second round of good news if you have the RACV total Care it rocks.  Their care and service is just unbelievable.  We have been provided with a rental car at no cost and the cost of our accommodation and any other incidental costs are covered until “this incident” is completed up to $2,400.  So once we have the insurance company decision i.e. whether they will proceed to repair the Nissan (that as we understand it, will be better than new with its bright shiny new motor) or a new car we will then update.  In the meantime we will be hanging around Port Augusta!