Day 171 Yesterday morning it was time to make a move. Did some final cleaning of the house and caravan and headed over to the Evans to say good bye. Our stay here has definitely been awesome and an eye opener on how a true Aussie family live. We have learned a lot and our time in Chinchilla will for sure impact the rest of our trip. Thanks again to Gevans and his family!
Our next destination is Cairns and northern Queensland. We left around lunch time and headed up to Miles where we took the Leichhardt Highway towards Rockhampton our goal for the day and the coast. We were an hour into our trip when the radio started cutting in and out. Not thinking it was more than a loose connection we kept on driving. A mere 200kms later the radio died quickly followed by the rest of the van. We halted to a stop somewhere halfway between Taroom and Theodore. Tried to start the van...click, click....nothing. Then it hit us, something like this happened in the Volvo back home and it was the alternator. It was nearly dark and the road wasn't busy so I was glad when the second car I tried to flag down stopped. After telling them what I thought it was, they thought for a second and said no problem. They just happen to have an extra battery in their ute. So we put their battery on the passenger side floor (our battery and engine are under that seat) and connected it to ours with booster cables. It was dark now and I couldn't use my lights as that would drain the new battery. They led us the 35km or so to Theodore. We parked the van in town gave them back their stuff and they were on their way. What nice people and what luck that they had an extra battery.
We spent the night here and ordered a new alternator from the only garage in town this morning. It should be here by 4 this afternoon, as its coming in from Rockhampton still 250km away. Not the way we wanted to start our life of leisure but hey, it's not always gonna be smooth sailing.