Breakdowns and a New Car.

On our way to the Flower Show in Melbourne John's Ute broke down just outside of Yass. Actually it didn't have enough oomph to pull the van and luckily we managed to limp into the Yass Service Centre into the Truck area.

Glad to see this guy was just after lunch.

After much ringing around to NRMA we were finally towed into Yass and to a repair dealer whom we thought was going to look at it fairly quickly. 5 hrs. later they hadn't a clue what was wrong.!!!!

All by itself at the back of a pub.

Luckily we had already organized to hire a car a Izuzu MU-X  in order to take the caravan to Seymour where we had booked in for three nights.
 

Izuzu MU_X was powerful compared to Ute.

The Homemaker's Forum of which I moderate for was having a meet up on the Sat. and I was keen to attend. We ended up cancelling the first night, as by now we were at least 5 hours behind, so we traveled till dark to Chiltern rest area, not far from Albury/ Wodonga, so at least past the NSW border. Not the best of places as trucks were pulling in and noisy, but we managed to have some sleep. The weather had also decided to be considerably colder with 9C overnight.
 

Started off farly quiet at 9pm

 

Looked like this early morning.

 So after a couple of wonderful days in Seymour, and doing the International Flower show as I spoke about last week, we headed back to Yass to get the car or stay in Yass and find a new one, which was daunting as it is a small place and Canberra an hour away would have been the best place for choice.

 After we got back, the good news was they had found the problem and welded it back together, so we collected it, changed it all over at the rental place and stayed the night at the Yass Show grounds as the caravan park was full, and had been for a while. So much for thinking we would end up staying there for a week if the car wasn't fixed.
 

Relief that all was well and could start our way home a 3 day trip.

Next day, we set off confidently and planned to  stay near the Smiths Lakes and camp for 2 days, a change of plan as we were going to go inland and looping around to home, but decided it was quicker to go through Sydney. We got as far as Marulan, just South of Mittagong, and broke down again.We limped into the Service Station there. What are the chances of that a 2nd. time.!!!!

Marulan Service Centre.

More talk with NRMA, another tow truck, and we convinced them to tow us to our son's house, where we could sort out a new part that would have cost $1400 but John got on ebay for $97, but forgot to change the delivery address and so we waited for over a week for it to be delivered, back to Sydney.
 

 The truck did a great job of unloading as the street is quite small.

Our son calls his place Kookaburra Rest.

  It was lovely spending time with the grandchildren, doing my embroidery and knitting.They have a lovely bush outlook, so very relaxing. Had a BBQ with the other two "Sydney Children" also.

 

He sang to me one morning.

 John in the mean time cleaned and  polished his car, got the part and fitted it himself and got it working properly. Then we traded it in, as during the week John investigated every 2nd hand  car going that would pull the van.I didn't want to be stuck somewhere  again, either.

Out with the old.

 He chose a Jeep Grand  Cherokee Overland, a very classy car, 5 years old, all leather and every modern item going. We picked it up at Fivedock Sydney an hour away, it was shiny clean and in perfect condition as only been driven by a Chinese family, and low mileage. It was also a bargain.

In with the new

WE had lunch with Elvis on the way home.

Till Next Time.