‘Murphy’s Law strikes! How we handled our caravan and 4WD misadventure’

Travelling is wonderful and we prefer to do it with our caravan towed behind our Land Cruiser. Quite a few Januaries ago my wife and I drove from home, near Perth, Western Australia to Geelong, Victoria to attend the wedding of one of our daughters. We stayed in Geelong six weeks all up and thoroughly enjoyed it. We have done a lot of caravanning around Australia without significant problems. But, any form of travel entails risks of some sort or other. Murphy will strike when ever and wherever the whim takes him.

We were going to stay a bit longer in Geelong, but the storms in Melbourne, and developing around Geelong, persuaded us it was time to go. Thoughts of going up to Coffs Harbour, New South Wales to visit another daughter, were dashed by the weather and resultant floods.

We left Saturday morning, March 6 with more than the occasional tear shed (by the others of course not tough old Grandad). First night in Mount Gambier, a city in the south-eastern corner of South Australia, after an excellent day’s travel.

The plan was to then spend a week in Port Elliot, but yet again the weather turned foul and we went to Adelaide. Bad blue! Long weekend and first three parks booked out. Bucketting down rain. We finally got into a park well south of Adelaide and spent two days cooped up in the van while the tempest raged around us.

Then we were off to Port Augusta and Ceduna — no dramas. Made it to Eucla (the easternmost locality in WA) and fine, great sunny weather but not too hot. After two days in Ceduna it was a relief to have a trouble-free run to Eucla. We devoured all of our vegetables — and any foodstuff that couldn’t be taken across the border into WA — in a nice old cook up that night. The last remaining tomatoes were grilled and eaten on toast for breakfast.

We decided to go to Norseman in one run from Eucla, a distance of around 700 kilometres and around 7.5 hours driving time. Early start, brew at the top of Madura Pass where I took photos before having another brew and lunch at Caiguna. At Balladonia we stopped for a cappuccino and an ice-cream. The temperature was rising and got to about 36C, but all was going well until at about 4:30pm and 50km short of Norseman, everything, including the engine, shut down and the trip rapidly turned to mud! Fortunately, I was able to let the rig coast off the highway onto flat ground and stopped. Bewildered, I opened the bonnet and was dismayed to find the engine hissing and everything covered with pink stuff. We had lost all the engine coolant and it had obviously and literally hit the fan.

We were so remote there was no signal on the mobile phone. We did however manage to persuade a couple of young blokes in a ute to stop and they agreed to take a message for the RAC into Norseman. Then we waited as the road trains roared past, one after the other, in both directions. The sun set and the mozzies came out. We had no idea if those blokes had passed on our message. Then, at 7pm, the RAC truck loomed out of the blackest of nights. There was no mucking around. The van was unhitched and the Cruiser winched up onto the truck. We hitched the van to the back of truck. Getting into the cab with the RAC man, we roared into the night and dodged the camels and kangaroos all the way into Norseman.

“Can you drop us off with the van at the caravan park, mate?”

“Nuh! Can’t get me truck into that park even without a van behind — big tree right at the entrance. Drop you and van and Cruiser outside our workshop.”

That was exactly what he did. He failed to mention that it was to be, literally, in the middle of the very wide main street of Norseman. That was where we spent a sleepless night, but not before we got the fold-up table and chairs out and had dinner and a few drinks — smack bang in the middle of the street. A bunch of locals turned up and stayed to chat for a while. They even took some photos for us.

The RAC mechanic turned up on Sunday morning and diagnosed a busted spigot on radiator top tank. As expected he announced it couldn’t be fixed in Norseman. Then began some haggling with the RAC in Perth and their agents in Norseman. I was informed they would take the Cruiser to Kalgoorlie, about 200km away — the nearest Toyota dealer, but would not provide me with a hire car or accommodation despite my policy clearly stating they would. Accommodation was not a problem, we had the caravan but couldn’t tow it and didn’t fancy spending any more nights camped in the street.

The tow truck people very kindly gave us their small Ford sedan to drive to Kalgoorlie. They even allowed us to keep it for as long as it took to get the Cruiser fixed, gratis. The Cruiser was again winched onto the tilt tray and the van hooked on behind and they set off to Kalgoorlie. We booked a site at a caravan park in Boulder and the van was delivered there — right to the site.

The arrival of our van in the caravan park behind a truck with the Cruiser on the tray aroused considerable curiosity by the inhabitants. I had to relate the sequence of events half a dozen times and was given a dozen or so conflicting pearls of wisdom on how best to deal with the circumstances.

The Cruiser was delivered to Toyota first thing Monday morning. They informed us it required a complete new radiator which, as feared, had to come from Perth but they ordered it and assured us it would arrive in time to be fitted Tuesday. So it was, but the Cruiser was not roadworthy until 5pm. During the afternoon heavy rain and thunderstorms descended upon Kalgoorlie and persisted through the night. This made it a bit awkward to pack up and get everything ready for an early start on Wednesday — but we managed and got away at 7:30am.

We stopped at Southern Cross, had lunch at Corrigin and arrived home at 3:30pm without further event and two days late. Murphy had struck but, fortunately, not with vengeance and we managed the problems. The episode had shaken us out of complacency about the risks inherent in travelling.

As for Toyota’s, “Oh what a feeling!” my version is quite different to that promoted by Toyota. The cause of our breakdown is another story entirely.

Has there been an occasion when ‘Murphy’s Law’ has struck while you’ve been travelling? How have you managed the situation?

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