day 2
The plan today: get to Fowlers Bay, SA, west of Ceduna.
After a sleep in til 730, warranted after yesterday, Jeremy conducted a visual inspection of the car and camper to make sure everything was in its place. He found a hose that was loose on the car and a cable tie where there should’ve been a metal clamp. So we popped off to Toyota for the fix.
On the way out of town we picked up a great coffee from The Silly Goat cafe (and a ham and cheese croissant).
Farewell to NSW for a few months. Driving into South Australia is stunning. It is flat country. There are a lot of long straight stretches of road with little traffic. The hills when they appear create an interesting diversion from the space and distance. The grey, pink, red, brown, yellow are highlighted by the occasional creek bed with sculptural ancient eucalypts, branches twisted and bark like skin hanging, scattered on the parched dirt. Leaves shimmer silver and sage, against the tree bark which pops with colour.
I read recently about the white settlers’ perspectives of these landscapes (I think it was Kim Scott’s “Taboo” - I will dive back into my brain archives in another post), the evidence of which is on our maps and signs scattered from west to east. I saw another such example today: Dismal Bridge over Dismal Creek on the Barrier Hwy.
Realising we couldn’t take some of our veg across the border, we improvised a solution: slow roast the zucchini and tomatoes in the travel buddy with onion, garlic and Marrickville Metro Lebanese spice mix. This would also give Jeremy the opportunity to put the drone up.
We stopped at Yunta two hours later and as we did the engine oil warning light flashed on. Opening the bonnet, oil had vomited over the engine bay, down the sides of the car, even onto the camper. The dipstick had blown out for some reason. A kind diesel mechanic nearby came and had a look. We replaced the oil and went on our way rather anxiously.
At the quarantine fruit fly inspection station, the same thing happened. We bought oil in Yunta, refilled and headed tentatively to Kelly Toyota, Jamestown. The dipstick stayed where it was supposed to and Rick the mechanic scratched his head at the problem. After a bit of a brainstorm and discussion with another mechanic, Dave, they fiddled around with the catch can and blew air through a few hoses, suspecting a blockage somewhere. This was the simple first fix.
We made a plan: take the car for a drive over night, come back tomorrow and reassess. See how the engine goes, hoping it wouldn’t blow the dipstick again.
We camped at Appila Springs. Beautiful galahs and crimson barked eucalypts and gusting wind until well after sunset.
