Day 26: Today started well, but things started to go wrong pretty soon. Not long after setting off we noticed that Buddy's temperature and fuel gauges weren't working. No big issue, we filled up with petrol last night and we wouldn't be doing any hard driving today. Just as we were entering Maitland Caroline noticed that the situation was worse than that and in fact the indicators had also stopped working.

We pulled in and Gareth did his best auto DIY, and replaced the fuse that had blown. Turning the car on, but not starting the engine and everything was back to normal. Simple. As we were parked behind an Supercheapauto store (bit like a Halfords), we took the opportunity to buy some spare fuses to replace the one that we had used.

Setting off the new fuse popped about 10 seconds after setting off. We resolved to drive to the next town and to find a garage. So we ended up in Dungog. We found a garage, even a Misubishi Garage, and left Buddy in the care of the mechanic. 3hrs later we returned to find the mechanic scratching his head. He couldn't find the problem. We need an auto-electrical specialist, and there aren't any in the town. Oh joy.

We decided our route was going to stick to one road so we would plough on and see if we could find somebody in the morning. It was already late in the day, so we made it only as far as Gloucester before stopping. Third attempt and we found somewhere to stop. The first required us to cross a ford that was running deep following the rain last week, the second didn't appear to have any toilets and we haven't brought a shovel.

Hopefully tomorrow will be better and we can get Buddy working again, and catch up some miles after today. Tonight we are grumpy.