Friday 11th June 2021 – Friday the 13th with slightly wrong date
Ever had one of those days when things just don’t go your way? Yep, that was today for us. As it was planned to be just a day around town we had a leisurely start and then Larry decided to have another go at fixing the dodgy headlight using the newly purchased soldering iron. Well it was a long and lengthy struggle but mission finally accomplished (Jenny managed two blog entries whilst it was being done). We then finally were ready to head out in the car to visit the camping store, do the grocery shop and so on.
We turned the car on only for the engine malfunction warning light to come on. Oh oh. We had a quick check of the manual but quickly realised we weren’t going to be able to work out what part of the engine was having a hissy fit so drove slowly into town hoping the light would go off and that it had something to do with Larry having removed the air filter box to get to the headlight. Not only didn’t the light go off but the very first left hand turn proved that the wiring to the left headlight still wasn’t fixed with the indicator doing double speed blinking. A profanity might have been issued at this point.
We drove to the camping store looking for a walking stick (found)and other bits and pieces and half way around the shop the strap to Jenny’s travel purse broke. I had tried without success to replace this bag back in Perth before the trip as it has seen me through many overseas trips and I knew it was failing and fail it finally did. Bummer.
We headed into Coles to do a grocery shop. The place was heaving and had a feel of another Covid shutdown about to hit but I think it was just all the caravanners like us doing massive shops having either just come off the Gibb or preparing to go on to it. Whilst in Coles L rang the mechanics in Knx about doing a diagnostic check on the engine (they wouldn’t have time to fix it though as they are completely snowed under with fixing cars coming off the GRR) but at least we would know what it was. Meanwhile Jenny was helping Ben with his Planning Law assignment cos there’s nothing quite like discussing zoning requirements whilst scanning the shelves for tomatoes.
L managed to find a spot early afternoon to take the car to the mechanic but when we piled all the groceries into the car and headed back to the van the light had magically gone off (and stayed off). PHEW!! No time to relax though, we hit a bump and one of the grocery bags flew sideways. Which one? The one with the eggs in of course and of course they flew out everywhere and didn’t stay in the carton like good little eggs. We stopped and collected them and, luckily, none had broken as they had fallen into a blanket but, mysteriously, one had completely disappeared! One last stop at the bakery for sausage rolls for lunch as we figured everything might seem a bit better with food in our bellies, then back to the van.
The final egg was discovered when we unloaded the car (it had gone into the cup holder in the car door and smashed), we ate our sausage rolls and figured the bad start to the day was done and dusted and we could deal with whatever else life threw us. I had managed to find a replacement strappy bag at a little shop next to Coles so I repacked that and then we headed off to the Sandalwood Factory and the Hoochery for a more touristy part to our day. Last time we visited the Hoochery in 2016 it only did rum but they have now jumped on the gin train and do two very nice gins – the “Argyle Pink” and the “Out of the Ord” both of which are very nice and all of their botanicals (apart from the juniper base) are sourced from their farm – so things like honeydew melon, ruby grapefruit, coriander, mint etc. We liked both but settled on the Argyle Pink to purchase and L treated himself to a new bucket hat also.
Back into town and we bought fuel and alcohol and tonic water from the drive through (neither Coles nor IGA had any – who knew that tonic water would be the one thing you couldn’t buy?!) then tried a few different places for a stopper for the end of the gas bottle lead but luck is not on our side today. The parcel H & M had sent to us with a new part for the awning finally arrived but that wasn’t quite the right part either. Understandable when we had tried to explain what we needed on our Optus phone in the middle of the Gibb. Oh well, at least we have it as a spare if that part breaks as well and Larry has reordered the correct part to be delivered to the caravan park in Broome so hopefully that arrives by the time we get there.
We treated ourselves to fish and chips for dinner from the Barra Shak which was very tasty although way too much fish and Larry did a bit of Googling of the headlight situation and will have another go tomorrow morning as driving back from getting fish and chips in the dark (at 6pm!) clearly demonstrated that we only have one headlight (although the spotlights work) so it’s either try to fix it or else no driving at night for the next few weeks.
Another tip down the drain with Hawthorn beating Sydney just topped the day off nicely.
No comments:
Post a Comment