Forumites,
Been on a whistle stop tour of the
Pilbara, met a couple of EO drivers plus saw a couple of EO stickers on vehicles out and about.
Karijini was a spectacle,
Tom Price was better than I expected, Mt Augustus was hotter than expected,
Coral Bay was a bit crowded after Karijini as you would expect during the school holidays, we'll be going back there, lots to do and see.
Main mechanical issue was the N/S wheel falling off my camper trailer, all the wheel nuts worked loose and fell off, closely followed by the wheel. Daughter retrieved the wheel from the bush and I used three wheel nuts from the other side to get me safely to
Tom Price to effect repairs. One thing I found out was despite the axel on the camper trailer having the same
wheels as my Nissan and the same PCD the stud diameter was different so the spare wheel nuts I carry in the vehicle for such an occasion were useless.
Stopping and seeing my wheel bouncing off into the bush engulfed in puffs of red dust has got to be the funniest things I have seen in years, understand this obviously is serious, the situation at the time and my wife's comments just sent us all into fits of laughter. Me looking out of the window thinking "that can't be my wheel".
My daughter retrieved the wheel and also luckily found the grease cap which had also fallen off a way up the track. We hadn't seen one vehicle all day up to this point, we were about 10 klms past the Ashburton Downs
homestead between Mt Augustus and
Tom Price when the incident happened.
Whilst my daughter was pushing the wheel back through the bush and the trailer was leaning at a rather strange angle a fairly new Jeep Commander passed us, didn't even bother to stop and ask how we were going, I didn't get the rego or I would of posted than on here to. "every dog has his day", I hope yours comes soon mate and I hope I'm driving past. Being the person I am I will still more than likely stop and offer assistance.
Two days later I check the wheel nuts and found again this axel on the trailer had loose nuts, not sure what's going on here, I suspect it's to do with wheel rotation and vibration etc etc.
Lots of tyre damage luckily only two punctures, the shires are repairing the roads with some pretty sharp rocks at the moment, lots of people changing tyres on the roads.
Weather was great, a bit warm in spots but hey what a trip. Just thought I would let you know about my little adventure.