Kath and I planned to o'nite at the Burkett Rest area and move on to Exmouth tomorrow, all went well, we pulled in and parked up, I asked Kath to move the truck back a bit to clear a bush when it made a clunky grating sort of noise from the gear box.
Now that doesn't sound good so I tried to use the front wheel drive in case it was the rear diff, no different - grate crunch.
Luckily we had mobile service there and so a call was made to RACQ for assistance, yes no trouble Madam, we will look after it and you.
Now this entailed a 240k tilt tray transport to Carnarvon for repairs.
Long story short, tilt tray arrived at 8am next morning, 3hr drive to Carnarvon, booked into the Best Western and a hire car, all covered by our RACQ Ultimate Membership ! Huge relief and thanks to RACQ for their help.
That was Tuesday, Wednesday the box was removed and cleaned, Thursday to Perth for assessment - box totalled U/S. New box required with the uprated transfer spline. Oh well nothing we can do about it so we left it in their hands and visited the Space and Technology Museum, this showcases how the town was involved in all the Apollo Missions etc, OTC broadcasts etc, brilliant displays, huge dishes and associated electronics - some of the old valve type stuff. Easily spent 4 hours there before we took a stroll along the town walk and ended up at the Harbourside Restaurant for dinner - bloody awesome seafood there.
Checked in with the RAC about time frames for the repairs - next week at the earliest so RACQ extended our Accomodation so we decided to have a look at the Quobba Blow holes, not as big as the ones at Steep Point but very impressive none the less, spent a few hours up there, stroll along the beach and enjoyed the views from the light house. Pub Grub tonight - average food.
Advised by Terry (RAC boss) the box will cost $6300 to replace, may be a bit more if the clutch requires any parts - it is the original as is the throw out bearing. Wait and see now.
Visited Miaboolya Beach this morning (Sunday) it is about 30 minutes north and is clothes optional, windy and cool so we we had the place to ourselves (clothes and all) went for a 3k stroll along the beach, very clean and found some nice shells and Kath came up with a well used bong on the high water mark! Best I could do was find a small sea snake (Yellow banded 50cm) on the beach, it had been washed ashore with the rough seas so we returned it to the water, beautiful little creature.
Quiet afternoon with little else to see or do until tomorrow, hopefully some news as when we can get mobile again. RACQ has extended our accomodation to Wednesday. We are so glad we upgraded our RACQ membership to Ultimate Cover prior to leaving home. Would have been a great deal more expensive otherwise.
We will keep you posted.
Few photo's from Carnarvon.
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