The gods are on our side!

This morning first thing on the agenda was to arrange the repairs. I got on to King Springs and he arranged the part under warranty to be sent to Adelaide, the best bet for me was to see if the guy in Hawker could patch me up well enough to limp into Adelaide so I could be there Friday.

Once again I take my hat off to country folk. Nothing is a drama, there truly are still good people around & I have had a good look at myself on this trip in regard to a few things I can do a bit better in future.  

Chris (mechanic) had a look, took it off & welded it all back together. He felt that it will last me the life of the shock and only charged me $95 labour. I couldn't be happier. A good chat about life in Hawker, coffee, and I was on my way!

Ironically he is the agent for Star Track also, as I saw all of the freight on the floor. I said, "Chris, you do deliveries too mate?" he replied "yep, (thinking I was referring to possible delivery of the replacement shock absorber) do it all mate, but Star Track are unreliable, I wouldn't use them. If you need your part up here quickly then use Northern Cope.." I smiled and let it be, I wasn't at work and didn't care!

It was late morning by now so we still didn't get a chance to do the self drive, but we were able to go and have a look at a few places available to AWD vehicles and this was still fantastic.

There is so much history through this area, plenty of ruins of old homesteads that each tell a different story of life in the mid to late 1800's. The boys are only interested in wildlife, sticks and stones and getting the Prado on a bit of a lean (or bogged) so old decrepit houses don't  press their buttons, but Nat & I have come to appreciate these things. The same can be said with how current people on the land live and the daily battles they face after meeting many cattle, sheep & wheat farmers in parks and pubs.

Anyway, we will hitch up tonight and head for Trudi & Kim's house in Henley Beach Adelaide for 5 days in a home....with a washing machine, TV, heater, real food........Nat is not looking forward to it at all!

Jase