We left my Uncle Marks after helping them move and started our drive towards Newcastle, to see Ants friend Johnny Vickerman, his wife Simone and their children India and Lexxy. After about 45 minutes off driving the van made a bit of a 'ping' and the battery light started to flash. The temperature also started to rise, so we decided to pull over at the next chance. Luckily, Ant realised the fan belt had snapped and turned all the heaters on full blast to get the temp. down a little.

We stopped in a town called Cessnock and called our campervan company. He said he'd call us back and after an hour, we got a bit bored off waiting so called again. He said someone would be with us soon, so we chilled in the van and waited for a few hours. When the tow truck arrived, it was 6.30pm on a Friday night and he asked where we wanted to be towed too. Obviously we had no idea, as we assumed (silly us!) that the campervan company would have arranged everything. When we tried to call them back, they had gone home for the night so we were stuck in Billy Bob teeth town with no vehicle and no idea what to do. In the end, we paid the tow truck guy to drive us all the way to Newcastle for an extra fee of $120 (GBP60). Johnny sorted out a garage the next day and the campervan company paid for it over the phone when it was finished on the Monday.

So, in the meantime we had a lovely weekend with Johnny and his family and didn't really notice not having a van. They let us sleep on the floor in the living room (where it was lovely and toasty!) and took us out all weekend.

On Saturday morning Ant woke me up to say we needed to drop the van to the garage, so I didn't really have time to get changed. Johnny took the kids to Ballet and other Saturday stuff and me and Ant went to the mall. We still had on our joggers that we sleep in, so it was kind of like walking around a mall in your pj's! lol... When Johnny picked us up later, we went to the park with kids and had another look around. Later on the in the day, Simone and Johnny went to a wedding and we borrowed their car for the day and had a drive around Newcastle. We grabbed some wine and beers and picked them up later on and then had a lovely evening with them, just chatting away.

On the Sunday, Johnny and his friend Paul took us to Stockton beach where we went driving around the dunes. Was pretty good fun, although I have to say there were a few points where my nuckles went white from holding onto the door handle but we survived so all good! The boys did some fishing after that and Ant caught an Australian Salmon which we ate on the BBQ later on.

We got our van back on the Monday, said our good buys and headed off on our way. We had a great weekend with them all and were sorry to leave. Luckily they are coming to Jersey soon, so we'll look forward to seeing them again then.