Sep 2008

Spent the night at our usual spot and woke to find our inverter had failed. Had to get a new one. Headed north to Port Douglas. What a relief it is to be out of town. With the weather now cleared, we were in for a nice few days away from Cairns.

View from hill Cairns - you might be able to see our van at the bottom of the hill parked in a park - our home whilst in Cairns.

Had a quick walk up and down the main street, and then found the lovely beachfront with lovely large shady trees. Stopped there for the evening and set about catching up on blogs, emails and setting up my new iPhone (birthday pressie). Not long into the process we met Sharon and Wayne from Wollongong. They were a lovely couple who stopped to ask about getting the kayaks on and off our hugely tall roof. An hour or so later, we were still talking so I invited them over for a drink. They’d both recently suffered separate bike accidents where they were knocked off their bikes. They had both had nasty surgery and were depressed about not being able to ride, so they flew up to Cairns and rented a cheap campervan. We chatted for hours about properties and the like and just had a great time. We then went with them to the pub to watch the Wallabies VS All Blacks game on the big screen. What a great night. I don’t remember getting home. Hangover tomorrow!

Really want to get out of town. Feel ripped off and trapped by people ripping us off and not caring to do a job properly. Another day spent killing time around Cairns, but we did manage to find a nice Swiss Restaurant that we visited last time we were in town 6 years ago. The Swiss Inn made beautiful food, just as we remembered it last time. I had a lovely Onion Tart on a bed of salad and Steve had a smoked salmon pasta, and of course Rosti on the side. Yum! Kind of made up for the shit from Ford.

Arrived back to find, that yes, the water pump had in fact failed. Given we’d gone over 100,000kms we weren’t covered under warranty. So we’d been given a quote of $950! Called Glen to get his advice, and we contacted KEA and they agreed to go halves in the cost. Called Ford back and we’d missed the cut off for Monday delivery of the part, so would now be Tuesday before we could get the job done. Decided we had to get out of town.

Had no sleep. It turns out commercial districts seem to be busy all night long! Got the part replaced quickly and efficiently by KEA. They even made tea and coffee while they were doing it! We spoke to them about the water pump problem and they put the van up on the hoist and found the leaks really easily. Steve took pics and the KEA mechanic called Ford up and asked them to re-look at the problem. They said they couldn’t re-look at the problem till tomorrow as they were light on staff. Another day to kill…

Happy Birthday Glen – 38 today! He and Sandy are off to the Hilton for the night, and The Globe for dinner. Well done! Cheers from us!

Decided it was time to get out of here. Went up to Kuranda for the day. Probably not such a great idea as the hill climb was murder on the poor van... But despite the drizzle it was lovely. Better than being in Cairns any day...

Went back to our park just out of town for a quiet night.

Got up early and headed into KEA to have our power charger replaced under warranty through KEA. They were really wonderful, and had ordered a new one in for our arrival and arranged to install it later that day. As we were booked in for the service we had to re-schedule for Thursday.

Dropped the van off at Ford and walked around town for 4 hours while they attended to the repairs and checking out our water pump problem. It was difficult as the central mall area of Cairns is Dog Unfriendly so we had to skirt around the malls to find somewhere for lunch and to get out of the rain. We also discovered that it was going to rain for the next few days.

Back to Ford later in the day to a $750 service and repair bill to find the problem wasn’t fixed. Really pissed off. Ford just ripped us off and didn’t fix the problem.

Spent the night at KEAs carpark waiting for them to open first thing in the morning to replace the broken charger.

We got an early start and made it back to Mount Molloy for one of the world famous hamburgers (see pic) before heading in to the coast. I had a burrito, which I’ve never had one like this before. It was I would have said a sausage roll filled with spicy sweet meet and cabbage. It was really delicious.

When we returned to the car we saw the contents of our coolant that we’d installed in Mount Isa had just been dumped on the road. We put a litre of water into the tank, and carried on.

What a fabulous trip it is driving to the coast. Full of windy meandering narrow roads climbing up and down the edge of the ranges to the coast. As soon as we hit the beginning of the descent it started to rain. In fact it didn’t stop!

Given our water loss problems, and the fact that we were 2,300kms overdue for a service, we thought we’d give Cape Tribulation and the Daintree a miss and head to Cairns and the Ford shop. Went straight to Ford and booked the car in for the following day for its service.

Found a quiet park just out of town to call home for the night.