Dan
Cam
Overnighter on the Carpentaria Highway

Steve and Dan checking out the car

19^th June, 2011

Trouble is on its way. If only we knew.

Today we got onto the Carpentaria Highway. We find ourselves on the unsealed road again with water everywhere. The floodways and culverts are beautiful waterways and as we enter the Gulf area we again start seeing the croc warning signs. Feels like home.

Just as we start enjoying the water crossings, we find that the car won’t go into 4WD anymore and we have to start traversing in 2WD. One of the crossings was over our bonnet with a steep exit that had us gritting our teeth, but we made it. After a bit of figuring about the 4WD, Steve pulled over deciding to disconnect and then reconnect the battery. Our thinking was that it would re-start the computer systems. It worked – BUT we discovered at the same time that we had done a diff seal. Oil was dripping slowly and after an hour under the car we decided to keep going but check the oil level every 15 minutes. Travelling was slow so we pulled over into a paddock for an overnight camp. This turned out to be a gift really, as the campfire was brilliant, followed by hot embers to cook our barbecue on. Wide, starry skies and not a sound to be heard for miles led to a peaceful night sleep.

20^th June, 2011

An early start for Steve as he worked under the car to determine if we should keep going. Our plan was to just keep on and continue checking the oil every couple of hours. It was clear that we were not going to make it to Cairns as scheduled, and rang Terry on the satellite phone to give them the bad news. In hindsight, I don’t know what we were thinking really. We never have been the type of traveler to do 900km days, let alone 5 of them in a row!!! Also, the state of the Carpentaria Highway also led to slow traveling with the amount of washouts. Although the Savannnah Way as a whole is an excellent trip with many things to stop and experience along the way, this will all have to wait until our return trip to Broome. For now it’s just MAKE IT TO CAIRNS. We stayed at Burketown this night, took a cabin again, started the morning under the car and drove like hell all the next day.