Good morning! We were posh campers with a mattress and a shower block a stone throw away so we woke fresh and early. We eat philadelphia on toast then headed out.
The Plan for the day was to head as close to Melbourne as possible via Adelaide. It's over 1500km so we broke it down town by town. The next town of Glendambo was 255km away... we thought the 4/5ths of a tank of petrol was enough to get us there. WRONG! There was a strong head wind that used more petrol than normal so we broke down 20kms away from the petrol station.
Lee was freaking out but I held it together. Lee jumped out the camper, grabbed some water and said 'are you ready?' I said ready for what? He said 'we need to walk to the petrol station'... My queue to freak out. What do i need to bring? I needed to change my outfit!... What do you wear to walk 20km in the desert? The desert aaahhh we had seen dead animals feeding vultures. Vultures! There's no path. Is it safe to walk on the road. Is there scorpions? My feet would be too hot in trainers but flip flops are easy access for creatures. Whilst all this was going on in my mind I spotted a car. I threw some leggings on and told Lee to lock up the van as I waved my thumb around (I'd never hitch hiked before).
The car looked like it was about to drive past but last minute it pulled in. I explained our petrol situation and he let us jump in. There was only room for one so I had to contort myself between his bags and power tools. POWER TOOLS! (Breath... In and out)
The non english speaking boy in the front seat, next to the driver, looked like a hitch hiker so I was thinking either the man was a super kind person OR he was collecting meat for his stew....
Oh yeah as he'd opened the door to let us in he threw his empty wrappers on the floor. Lee gave me the look to emphasis sssshhh. It wasn't the time or place so I let the litter bug off and kept my mouth shut as I stepped over the chain saw....
10 mins later we were at the petrol station, diving out the car saying fanx. Turns out he was the super kind type. Phew!
The lady at the station was really understanding and let us lend her canister to fill with petrol. She was telling us it happens all the time. She was saying it happened to her and her husband last week!
You have to Make sure you have a full tank when you leave Coober Pedy.
As we were paying, a man paying for his petrol asked us if it was our camper a few k's back at the side of the road? When we said yep he told us a 4x4 had been parked next to it when he'd drove past. Me and Lee looked at each other. We hadn't thought about anyone stealing anything! I had a flash back of the rusted cars on the way down here, the ones left in the bush land with their parts missing.... We both took a breath again when we realised the 4x4 was the mans who'd picked us up and this man was from the car that had been in front of us on the drive to the petrol station.
The ladies husband came through with his keys and offered us a lift back. I'd already asked a lorry driver so I ran out and told the lorry man we were sorted, thanked him never the less and me and Lee jumped in the petrol mans jeep.
We were holding our breath around every corner for the 20km drive, stressing a little when the camper wasn't there. Finally we arrived where we'd left it and it was still sitting there untouched.
The petrol man was telling us if we'd used all the petrol we'd need to bleed the engine for it to start so I stood with my fingers crossed as Lee and the man emptied the canister into the tank. After rocking the camper it only took Lee a few attempts before the engine started! Woo hoo!
We drove back to the petrol station to fill up and give Ros and Rich (the petrol people) a huge hug then we were back on the road; after i'd eat an avocado salad and lee had his avocado, lettuce and tomato butty.
The whole ordeal had only put us back half an hour!
After that the drive to Adelaide was pretty uneventful!