Moving forward 3 days and the situation changes a little bit, but to take in order of it happening........

Monday we depart the river with some misgivings, partly because we haven't caught up with Tom & Laureen. At camooweal we fuel & water up and head off along the Barkley highway towards threeways. Quite an interesting journey we pass lots & lots of motorbikes, some very fancy, some with trailers attached and some 3 wheelers. At lunchtime we park in a rest area and meet some of the bikers, it appears that the Ulyssees club had an gam at Alice springs and these are part of the 3000 strong membership heading home. We park for the night at the Wonara Bore rest area with 3 other vans. During the day we have decided to take a different route up to Daly Waters and to go via Cape Crawfrord. The road looks good and it will be some new territory and we intend to do the Stuart Highway north to south next year. 

So Tuesday dawns and we eventually get up and head off. First stop will be Barkley Homestead for fuel. On the way we pass lots more motorbikes and when we get to the homestead there are maybe 100 of them queued up for fuel. As none of them took diesel we were able to jump the queue and get our fuel. Yippee! Then we turned right onto the new road and headed north stopping for lunch at a rest point 150km up the road. Then Murphy stepped in to keep us on our toes, the clutch pedal wasn't resetting properly. This continued to be an issue all day, culminating in complete failure just 50km short of our destination, Heartbreak Hotel at Cape Crawford. I should add in at this stage that there was nothing special to see on this road. So we arrive fuel up, ascertain that the clutch fluid has all decamped and that the shop does not have any to fill up again. So we book in for the night and begin the process of claiming under our warranty. 

Jump forward to Wednesday and I spend most of the day on the phone, as there is no mobile coverage this means using a phone card in a dirty, hot phone box and getting messages sent to the hotel! In the end I arranged for the RAC WA to tow ( read on a tilt tray truck) the van to Katherine, a recommended repairer in Katherine to have a look when we arrived and to organise repairs. The warranty provider had found an out, so that will be an ongoing conversation. Then we relaxed for a short while and went to bed.

Now to today Thursday May 22. We were picked up at 6am, loaded onto the tilt tray, that is the van on the back and us in the cab with the driver, and headed off. It was a 530km drive to Katherine after which the driver had to take his truck back plus 100km in the opposite direction. It was an up eventful drive, not much to see unless you stop and spend time at the towns on the Stuart hwy, which we will do next year. In Katherine the repairer confirmed the diagnosis, ordered the parts and collected a deposit. As the parts won't arrive until next Monday or Tuesday we had the van towed to a caravan where we will await his call!