After our first night on the road, we all had a bit of a sleep in (6.30!) and were up to have brekkie. We were all ready to leave Goondiwindi at 8.30am (Qld time). However, a quick push start of Steven’s car was required by Neil & Tamara while Kelley and William watched on. Laughing of course. Finally we were on our way heading to Moree. We had our first ever clean run through Moree and onto Narrabri.
After a fuel stop in Narrabri we thought we’d head toward Coonabarabran while the kids were still in a good mood and we’d stop for lunch there. About halfway there Neil had been feeling the occasional cough of the car when we were climbing the hills. Eventually, of course, the car coughed and spluttered more and more and we had to pull over. Once again, Steven had to come to our rescue. We powered on bit by bit and eventually had to stop again where the boys jacked the car up and had to clear the fuel filter.
Once again we were our way and made it to Coonabarabran about 3pm (NSW time). We pulled into the park where we had previously met a friendly local native, a fellow valiant enthusiast, on our trip to Bendigo. Unfortunately he wasn’t there to greet us this time. After having lunch and the boy’s having a further fix of our car we noticed that William had a temperature. He was wobbly on his feet and extremely hot. We managed to cool him down with wipes, but he definitely wasn’t well. We thought we’d try for Gilgandra as it was only an hour away. We pulled into Gilgandra about 4.30pm to a nice Caravan Park. William was again wobbly and was still on fire. Neil set up the campsite while Kelley tried to cool William down and force panadol into him. He was very lethargic and all he wanted to do was sleep. We gave him a quick shower and put him to bed. Neil & Kelley had their dinner and the boys once again played around with the car.
About 9.30pm William woke up and was very unsettled. He was vomiting and his fever was through the roof. We made the decision to go to Gilgandra hospital. We had to take Steven & Tamara’s car as ours was hooked up still. Upon arrival to Gilgandra hospital Will was taken into triage and given a suppository of Panadol. We finally saw the doctor. She wanted us to drive to Dubbo hospital as they didn’t have the provision to care for us. Considering all the dead kangaroos we had been passing and it being nearly midnight, we didn’t want to take the risk of driving. We were going to go to Dubbo hospital first thing in the morning, but the doctor wanted us to go now. His fever wasn’t dropping after the panadol and they wanted to do a chest x-ray. They arranged an ambulance to take Kelley & William to Dubbo. William didn’t want to get into the car seat that was attached the stretcher. He has to be forced in and restrained. This upset us tremendously. He calmed down about 10 minutes into the journey and managed to sleep part of the way. We arrived at Dubbo hospital at 1.30am. In the meantime, Neil had to get back to the Caravan Park. He jumped into Stevens’s car and wouldn’t you know it. Flat battery. Lucky it’s a manual. He had to push it to the speed bump and as it rolled down the othersider jump in and roll start it. It took three goes for him to get it started. He got back to the campsite at the same time Kelley was pulling into Dubbo hospital.
Arriving at Dubbo hospital, William finally realised he had been in an ambulance and was pretty impressed. We went into the triage and his temp had dropped and he was running around. I’m surprised they believed me that he was sick. We sat in the paediatric triage for a few hours and saw a few doctors who decided to admit him and watch him for the next few hours. We were finally transferred to the paediatric ward at 4.30am. We shared a bed and were soon fast asleep and before we knew it, it was 6.30am. Continued in Day 3.