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Todd & Fletchers Travels
Lindsay....Get the shotgun!?
Hello again, now we did say on our home page we'd take you through the highs and lows, it appears we hit a low. Leaving Airlie Beach and heading in the direction of Mackay all fully loaded and excited we managed to get an hour and a half down the road, close to Mount Ossa, when Stanley decided to have a hissy fit! In true Pommie style my phone had no credit and Nathan's had no signal (bizarre seen as we are on the same network?) so we had no choice...Nath had to walk to the nearest town and phone the RACQ to come and rescue us. The first time Nathan went it only took 15 mins and he arrived back safe and sound with the number for the RACQ....now here comes the problem with living in Australia, getting a mobile signal can be quite difficult, and after 20 minutes of standing in various positions we gave in and off Nathan went again. This is where i admit again how i've watched too many horror movies, Nathan had been gone for at least half an hour longer this time, i was hot, stuck in the middle of what seemed like nowhere and thinking the worst as lots of rather large trucks hollered past. So needless to say when a car pulls up innocently checking i have water i'm afraid i was a little standoffish and waved him on rather quickly when in actual fact the water would have been a nice refreshment seen as ours wasn't cold. Still 45 minutes later, and not soon enough Nathan arrives back with the rescue truck and off we are towed to the garage in the middle of no where for a long awaited verdict.
Bad news, the car needs a new radiator which wont arrive till the next day, as a good will gesture they offer us the backyard to camp in (your thinking not so bad hey?)...a new radiator is the first thing Stanley needs as this will allow them to test if if the head gasket has blown? Now those of you that know Nathan will know that Shane has nicknamed him Jonah, something to do with every car he touches eventually has a rather big problem with it, well Shane i'm starting to believe this. The only good thing about this day was that we'd bought fresh steak and potatoes earlier, so with nothing else to do but camp out at the back of the garage we ate and caught the last of the days rays.
Even more bad news...its the head gasket-arghhhhhhhhhhhh, and the mechanic at Calen(the place in the middle of nowhere) is telling us between $2000-3000 to fix (remember this is Australian dollars). So thinking straight away that we can probably pick up another car for cheaper we abandoned ship as the saying goes. Now you have to imagine here that in the months that we've been here and all the camping gear we've acquired trying to decided what to take and leave was somewhat a nightmare and we were quite laidened down with various accessories! The mechanic dropped us off in Calen, and when we say Calen please imagine with us here-a shop and a pub! We agreed that we would call him in a few days after we'd arrived in mackay and decided what to do. Discovering that next bus available to mackay was lunchtime tomorrow (its only 11am!) obviously we retired o the pub. Up until this point we hadn't really felt like traditional backpackers and the thought of having to bus the rest of the way round Australia with our bags was not appealing.
Remembering tony and Lenore's last words, ' if you are ever in trouble give us a call', i figured this might class as our first bit of trouble. Tony, ever the wise one with words told us to get a beer and leave it with him, apprehensive and tired we befriended a fellow traveler from Newcastle in new South Wales who gave us a lift to the closest caravan park, St Helens. After a short wait for the owner, Dennis, we awaited a verdict of fully booked up! But as we are discovering over here, at first i thought it was something to do with mine and Nathan's faces, but im slowly changing my mind and thinking that the sun makes people a lot friendlier and therefore willing to help you out. He did a little phoning around and managed to persuade a regular couple who were due to hang off one night so we could rent the cabin-perfect. Now here comes the highs again, as we are paying for the room the phone rings only for Dennis to pass the phone to us, how bizarre-who would know where we were? It was Tony, i told you that Calen was a small town, it wasn't exactly difficult to find us lol. Well not before Tony had called the number i'd left as my contact when we arrived at the White Cockatoo- Tony meet my mum, mum meet Tony-just a shame it was 5am UK time hey lol. Besides all this top news, Tony's managed to find a place in Mackay that can tow the car and fix it for $1000-lets have a beer :-)
Dennis dropped us at the bus stop, the Greyhound bus arrived, luckily the driver has just dropped 40 backpackers back at Airlie Beach so it was pretty much empty, 40 minutes later we arrived at Mackay. After sussing out a place to stay (quite difficult as it had to be close by as i wasn't dragging the bags too far!) we found ourselves at YHA Larrakin Lodge. What a dump!!! Dirty and crowded, plus we had to sleep in a 12 bed dorm which was an experience in itself(one guy came to bed drunk and somehow managed to fall into my bunk??). Kind of like being on a school trip where you have to whisper as you dont want to be told of by the teacher...i actually did get told of for having the light on to read my book when apparently people were wanting to sleep-they only had to ask! Next day we went in search of the highlights of Mackay (there aren't any!) and to find Stanley. A 40 minute walk later we found him, all lonely in the garage who were telling us we are looking at at least a week, time to find new digs. A walk back through the botanic gardens we landed ourselves a small cabin at Premier Cabin Park, closer to Stanley, a reasonable price-cheaper then the hostel, and bonuses that included Rainbow Lorikeet feeding twice daily and a pool. Can you imagine 35-40 small parrott looking birds flocking around your head-interesting. So as we said earlier mackay really doesn't have much to offer, and what is does have to offer is in driving distance-we don't have a sodding car!!! Dad this place is on par with Hale!
Ok so enough explanation marks-we found a semi professional tennis tournament happening not so far away so managed to watch a few games (KIA TOURS, if that means anything to you at home?). On the way back after sussing that the marina was little more than a smelly fishing hole we thought it best to get some food. This where we get this journal entry's title from. As we left with shopping preparing for another night of nothingness, a bird somehow took a nose dive straight at Nathan's head, oh how he bled, and all i heard was...'Lindsay!...get the shotgun!' I wasn't sure if he meant for the bird, anyone in shooting distance of Mackay or ourselves. What i did know was that it was time to move on.
After a few days of lounging round the pool (what else are we supposed to do) which was followed by a few days of rain (out come the cards, and thanks for the rules website Dave-much more interesting now lol) things finally take a turn-Stanley is ready. As our first years anniversary it seems the obvious present was a new head gasket-and not each either. We did go out for a meal though after Nathan had found $20 at The Shamrock hotel where we were relieving our pain over a schooner also we fortunately met a woman who gave us a contact in brisbane for Nathan for Scaffolding and bought us the bottle of wine-i just don't know how we meet these people. We collected Stanley, paid the $1000 which we thought was a little odd as the bill came to this exactly and took him on his test run. Now do you see rach why we so excited when you called-good timing on your part. Back to the caravan park to pack up and let Mel now we are finally leaving and a call from Tony comes. It seems we really did do something right in our first few weeks here in Australia as Tony and Lenore had agreed with the garage that whatever the excess over $1000 they would pay-cant grumble at that and cant thank you guys enough...we're on the open road again :-)
The next installment will follow shortly and will include our journey all the way to our helpx job at a farm stay in gatton where we are staying at the moment. We hope all is well with everyone and a final note to you mum...no liting to early i know what you are like...little bits at a time.
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