Tuesday, Jan 01, 2008 at 20:48
I was stuck out by the
Kintore turnoff for two reasons. I had a flat tyre that needed fixing if I were to go any further, and the sky had fallen in. The Gibson was fast becoming a
lake. A mystery knee affliction was getting worse.
The local police couldn’t give me a forecast, but they could point me towards help with the tyre change. Took the
young bloke about 5 minutes and he commented that I could do with better springs.
Being the lone hero that I am, I struck out, back to the Tanami as soon as the track dried a bit. Wash a ways across the track, great bottomless lakes, rough as guts track surface.
Seat belt the only thing saving my head from the roof. I could have kissed the Tanami tar as I struck it about 8pm, along with nearly striking every bit of wandering wildlife at that time of the night.
With the
suspension and knee, the Plenty wasn’t an option so it was up to Three Ways for the night. The next morning was extremely painful as I drive a manual. Took me several km to get into second, and later to third and fourth. I kept wondering how good bush hospitals were as I passed through civilization. I now know exactly how many traffic lights, round a bouts and crossings there are in Mt Isa. The knee didn’t get batter, but it didn’t get any worse.
The vehicle was all over the road at anything over 80k. I only passed a
grader from the Alice to the
Gold Coast and that was a bit of a drag race.
Once
home, the mystery knee just went away…a bit of a worry but a giant relief.
Unloading the vehicle didn’t fix it, and my “specialist 4wd” mechanic (at least he charges like one!) drove it and said nothing wrong.
When recovered from the trip a bit (i.e. awake) I noticed that even the smallest bump would make the vehicle unstable. I didn’t feel safe (and no wonder).
I thought it might have been my imagination, but finally told the mech to change the lot. A small fortune later, he does the
test drive and assures me it drove like a different vehicle.
On the way
home I thought, “I can still feel the bumps, a lot of money for nothing”. There was a truck in the left lane and I accelerated to pass it. Then I looked down at the Speedo; 130k!
Whoopsies, it’s a 100k limit.
“Ahhh” thought I.
“THAT’S the difference.”
FollowupID:
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