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Location Date Oceania 
1441580400 1376089200 -
Location Date Victoria 1441580400 South Australia 1441494000 Queensland 1441407600 Northern Territory 1440111600 Western Australia
1438470000 New South Wales 1380495600 -
Location Date Kununurra 1438470000 Palm Springs 1438124400 Karratha
1437951600 Hamelin Pool 1437778800 Denham 1437692400 Steeppoint 1437692400 Cape Cuvier 1437519600 Perth 1437519600 Carnarvon 1437346800 Coral Bay 1437174000 Exmouth 1436655600 Karijini National Park 1436482800 Eighty Mile Beach 1436223600 Quondong Point 1435791600 Chile Creek 1435532400 Broome 1434754800 Fitzroy Crossing 1434582000 Wolfe Creek Meteorite Crater 1434495600 Tanami 1434409200 Musgrave 1374620400
On our way to warmer days and warmer nights, we are sick of the cold 24 C we need 30+ C. Our intention is to drive long days until we get to Kununurra. We were up early and left the Hamilin Homestead campsite by 7:30 am. This is a long boring day where the scenery does not change much broken up by the odd animal, mostly dead. JOES4B had increasingly noisy belts on start-up which would need attending to next opportune time. At the end of the day we pulled into Karratha for a well earned rest.
While parked over concrete, Joe thought it best to investigate the noisy belts. Initial examination showed that he only had one of the two alternator belts left, luck he has spare belts. So under the vehicle to remove bash plates and inspection covers to change the belts. Even when you can see the job right in front of your nose it's not easy to do lying on your back, Japanese hands must be small. Eventually all the new belts were in place and all we had to do was tension the belts. This proved very difficult as we couldn’t work out how it was supposed to work and it appeared to have too many parts. Joe finally diagnosed it as broken, the adjustment bracket needed to be repaired/replaced, the job just got much bigger. Joe thought best to find a Toyota workshop in the morning.
A relaxed start to day two in Karratha as we had to wait for the repair shop to open. After a couple of phone calls Joe’s smooth talking got his vehicle booked into a Nissan repair shop, apparently this problem is reasonably common. Why a Nissan workshop you ask, could be one of two reasons;
a) Nissans never breakdown so plenty of room
b) No one owns a Nissan in Karratha and again plenty of room
Needless to say the bracket was taken off welded up and put back on. Thank goodness this didn’t happen out bush, there would have been some serious improvisation to get the vehicle back to civilisation.
After dropping JOES4B off, Joe and I went for a drive to Dampier to see all the industrial stuff. We had to stop at the gas plant visitors centre, it was a must do. After a 15 minute propaganda video we both understand how green gas is and how Woodside is helping the planet out. Back to camp where the girls were bemused by the time it took to drop a car off at a workshop. The rest of the day was spent fluffing around at camp and a little bit of shop therapy.
While parked over concrete, Joe thought it best to investigate the noisy belts. Initial examination showed that he only had one of the two alternator belts left, luck he has spare belts. So under the vehicle to remove bash plates and inspection covers to change the belts. Even when you can see the job right in front of your nose it's not easy to do lying on your back, Japanese hands must be small. Eventually all the new belts were in place and all we had to do was tension the belts. This proved very difficult as we couldn’t work out how it was supposed to work and it appeared to have too many parts. Joe finally diagnosed it as broken, the adjustment bracket needed to be repaired/replaced, the job just got much bigger. Joe thought best to find a Toyota workshop in the morning.
A relaxed start to day two in Karratha as we had to wait for the repair shop to open. After a couple of phone calls Joe’s smooth talking got his vehicle booked into a Nissan repair shop, apparently this problem is reasonably common. Why a Nissan workshop you ask, could be one of two reasons;
a) Nissans never breakdown so plenty of room
b) No one owns a Nissan in Karratha and again plenty of room
Needless to say the bracket was taken off welded up and put back on. Thank goodness this didn’t happen out bush, there would have been some serious improvisation to get the vehicle back to civilisation.
After dropping JOES4B off, Joe and I went for a drive to Dampier to see all the industrial stuff. We had to stop at the gas plant visitors centre, it was a must do. After a 15 minute propaganda video we both understand how green gas is and how Woodside is helping the planet out. Back to camp where the girls were bemused by the time it took to drop a car off at a workshop. The rest of the day was spent fluffing around at camp and a little bit of shop therapy.
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