Denise and Barry's Caravan Travels: July 3, 2016

Tuesday, July 5, 2016

Tannum Sands

We have been here at Jason & Neats home in Tannum Sands now for bit over two weeks. It has been lovely catching up with them and the grand-kids, seeing where Livie goes to Kinda, dancing & swimming, hopefully we have been some help to them and not too much of a hindrance! The time here has raced by, I enjoyed a day out with Neat and the kids at the Mt Larcom Show a great country agricultural show, while Baz had a rest day at home. Last week a Cruise Ship came into Gladstone and the precinct along Flinders Parade certainly came alive with market stalls and entertainment for the passengers and locals to enjoy.

Saturday was Livies 5th Birthday with a party planned for 9.30am in a local park, it was all hands on deck to get all the party food cooked packed and to the park on time. At least it was all over with by lunch time, home for a short rest before heading out to Tannum Esplanade to Tannum's monthly market with live entertainment and its many food stalls. It reminded me of the Mindil Market in Darwin where families and groups meet to enjoy the local art, crafts, music and food.

Sunday it was time to say goodbye to the kids and head south to Burrum Heads where we would once again meet up with our friends Maree, Brian, Christina, Eddie, Judy and Merv. First off we needed to get the van out from beside the house, with Jase doing some major trimming of his tree we managed this without too much trouble. Hopefully the tree recovers, looks OK from the neighbours side. We were cruising along nicely for about 30 k's when without any prior warning the Paj started shuddering, blowing smoke and loosing power. We were on the Bruce Hwy nearly to Miriam Vale with cars, trucks and caravans streaming past us, lucky we were able to limp about 200 metres to a safer spot to pull in, hopeful that Baz may have been able to fix our problem. No such luck, so then it was time to ring RACQ and arrange for them to send out a tow truck, the only problem being I had very poor mobile phone cover with the signal dropping out all the time. Baz was able to contact Jase and he was on his way, so when he arrived he was able to take me where I had a better signal. RACQ said to leave the vehicle and put the keys on the top of the passengers side wheel, as it was going to be a couple of hours until they could send a Tow Truck. We were not comfortable with that as you were able to see the keys quiet clearly, we thought that the vehicle would be stripped clean if left it for too long. We did return with Jase to Tannum Sands with the caravan behind his car towing with no brake controller or mirrors, felt very sorry for anybody that was behind us, I am sure they were cursing the steady speed we were going. We then returned to the Paj to wait for the tow. We had to wait until today for anyone to to look at the vehicle, only to receive the news that we have major compression problems with the engine. A second tow was arranged to the Mitsubishi Service Centre and we are now waiting on their diagnosis which should be sometime tomorrow. Feeling very frustrated at the moment and dreading the cost of getting us back on the road.