Point Gibbon to Whyalla and on to Port Augusta
Well if the night before was cold and windy, good old Whyalla gave it to us in bucket loads. With all the van legs down we still rocked and rolled all night. The only time we had felt cold like it was the last time we were in Whyalla. The love, hate relationship continued.
Some more running around located a brilliant café, sort on in, sort of out of the University grounds. We figured the parking situation would be in our favour as we both look semi-educated on a good day.
Shopping done, we retreated to the van for the afternoon as there was honestly no other place to be that was comfortable.
Trev and Sue let us know that their trip from Cowell to Port Augusta went well, although still on reduced power. They had ordered a new MAF sensor from Adelaide with an expectation it would arrive tomorrow. We asked them to order an extra for us as well…..just in case.
We had fully intended to walk out to the whistling jetty again for the wind tonight would surely make that puppy sing like Tom Jones on a good night. Intentions abandoned; we scurried inside for an early night.
Heading out fairly early we made it to Port Augusta by 9.30am heading straight to a café with a few stars on review. When we saw the Ambos, then the Police arrive we knew it was the best in town. I had a yarn to two bike riders drooling over their BMWs before realising one of them was an ex-Queensland bike rider from a few years back.
After some messing around we headed north with Quorn in our sights. Sue’s Discovery, now equipped with a new MAF sensor went like a rocket for not long at all. Some roadside technical work with the original two MAFs, and the two new MAFs saw us do something like this.
MAF B which is where MAF A would rationally be was replaced with a new one, MAF C. Test drive; fail. MAF A was replaced with the other new MAF, MAF D. Test drive; fail. In the end we think MAFs A, B, C, D all had a crack at making the car go but failed. We had pretty much hit the same success rate as the TV program by the same name. Maybe it was not a MAF issue. We limped back to Port Augusta for the night pending a tow truck trip tomorrow to Adelaide to get it fixed. Thankfully we are a bit ahead of schedule so all should be well.
To top off Sue’s rotten day, her car phone holder broke just for effect. Back in the van Henry the travelling dog scoffed Sue’s lunch when she turned her back. We laughed with her not at her. Funny but!!
Throughout the day I got as sick as a dog with the flu. I self-diagnosed as Man Flu Grade Three. The worst kind. Codral tablets by the bucket load at least dulled the sinus effect to where I was tolerable at best. I was able to scientifically determine a correlation between the flu and chocolate. Apparently following extensive testing, if the two are put together in the one host, the chocolate disappears at an expediential rate. Who would have thought.
G, Sue and Trev let me sleep whilst they chatted and worked on opening bottles. When I dropped over to their van a few hours later it was obvious they were very successful at the endeavour as good sense and rational argument was being slightly challenged but gave me some good belly laughs despite feeling like a cold corpse.