Breakdown Blues

Just 8km outside Ravensthorpe on a Sunday afternoon, we heard a thrashing sound in the engine and managed in 45 seconds to crawl to a wider layby before the engine gave up. 

Temperature 44C outside, bloody tons of insistent flies, scorching sun between the sparse tree cover. Boiling hot inside vehicle within half an hour. Wait outside on campchairs for breakdown tow vehicle. 

Two hours later the cavalry arrives and tows us to outside a repair shop.

In another hour, an amazing cool change roars in to blast us with such welcome cool air from 44C to 24C just like that.

The repair shop is fully booked for two weeks, but kindly takes a look. The fan belt has ripped itself apart and created carnage with a broken radiator t-piece and chopped a 6-pin plug in two.

The friendly repair shop offers to order parts and hook us up with a mechanic 4km away on a bush block.

Next day, the new t-piece arrives, but no fan belts. However, I suddenly remember we just happen to be carrying spare belts.

The bush block mechanic turns up and tows us with a thin rope tied to the back of his Landcruiser with 1million kms on the clock.

Our engine doesn't work, so the brakes don't work, just judicious use of the handbrake, and the steering is really hard, whilst a shrill warning alarm won't stop. The rope breaks as we go uphill. 

We retie, then it breaks again. I offer our 16-ton snatch strap and we are off, but our brakes are smelling burnt as hell. As we reach the gate, we turn wide, but I drive over the strap and struggle with the steering of our 5.7 ton vehicle so I damn nearly take out the gate. At this stage, my nerves are pretty much burnt out as well!

Phew! We make it into the shed, take a look around, then gulp down wine as we share our relief with a mob of randy roosters and their harems.

The mechanic can't start today because it's the day he goes for a drink with his mates.

Enough action for today. Tomorrow suits us just fine.

The sun rises next day with ecstatic crowing from the cockerels. Our mechanic rides to town on his Harley for a takeaway latte. Then the fighting and swearing begins with the fiddly parts, belt assembly, aircon tensioner...fill cap T-piece,,,broken plug with mystery wires and a frantic search to source a photo of what the intact plug should look like. The mechanic's mate has a Coaster, so we solve the puzzle, splice the blue, blue-green, red, etc wires into each side, then stick them together with Sikaflex.

Then it is time for our hero mechanic to share a bevy with us and recount tales of his life as a diesel fitter in the mines, manager of the local heavy duty repair shop, and a thousand adventures from the bush. He fields phone calls from mates seeking advice on cheap deals for dozers, ancient trucks, and someone in Kalgoorlie who is airbrushing memorial pictures of his tragically departed relatives onto a royal blue Harley.

Next morning, the sikaflex has dried. We cable-tie the errant plug and finally close the engine cover. A fond farewell to our valiant mechanic and we turn out the gate bound for Albany and new farmsitting adventures.

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Raventhorpe, Breakdown, Hughie Breakdown, Western Australia