Breakdown on the Barkley Hwy !!!

 
 
 

Today started beautifully – 7:30 on the road, 7:45 great coffee drunk and feeling great. We made some good ground and everything was going better than planned (ahead of schedule etc…). We were approximately 15 km before the end of the Barkley Highway (goes all the way west from QLD to what is called the Three Ways were you can head north to Darwin, or South to Alice Springs) where we were planning on turning left and heading 24kms south to Tennant Creek. At this point in time, the car miss fired a bit so I pulled over and added 20L of fuel from our jerry can (had travelled 616 on our tank of 180L) . Restarted the car, but the miss remained – got a further 8km down the road and it was un-drivable. I thought maybe the fuel filter was clogged (although it had been replaced in recent service) so tapped with knockometer to see if I could loosen any dirt, but still wouldn’t start.

After some helpful souls pulled over to lend us a hand, we called NRMA and waited about an hour. Brian was his name and he was a very welcome and helpful addition to our trip. He thought fuel problem as well and he pulled the fuel line off the filter but no fuel was coming out so we all thought fuel pump – so it was a tow to the Toyota dealership in Tennant Creek. Thankfully Brian is more than a roadside assistance tech – he is also the tow truck driver and he winched the Prado up onto his truck and we hitched the van behind and headed to town.

Toyota Dealer was helpful, but busy and said he wouldn’t be able to look at the car for a week !!! He thought fuel pump too, but suggested we fill it up with petrol and see what happens. BP station was next door and although Unleaded was priced at $1.47/L we excitedly filled it up with 157L – and that was after we had already put 20L from the jerry can in ??? That meant it only had 3L in it in when we originally pulled over. Hang on, that means I was out of fuel even though the gauge said about 1/8th left !!! Lets start it quick and see what happens I thought. Bingo, she sprung to life and we were all greatly relieved and back in action.

We hitched caravan back up and got to the park in about 5 mins. It was 5:30 (only about 3 hours later than predicted) and happy hour was just starting. We quickly set up the van, headed over to the refreshments and ordered delivery pizza –Mmmmm. The fireworks have just started as we write this (to welcome us to town I guess) and it is still 29 deg C, after being 35 deg C while driving – beautiful end to an interesting winter’s day.

Upon reflection, we have much to be thankful for through this.

1. We were in mobile phone range when we broke down.
2. Brian the NRMA / tow driver did not have another job on and got to us quickly (he has a big area to service).
3. Our problem did not take a week to fix or require any parts to be flown into town.
4. We are still on track with the schedule and spirits are high again.

Another jerry can will be purchased asap, and we won’t run down that close to “E” again.