It was the best of times, it was the worst of times

I'm writing this blog post on a public computer in a library in Port Augusta, South Australia. Unfortunately, I cant put a photo at the top of this post.

Since our last post we have had some big adventures. The drive from Melbourne to Adelaide was amazing. The Great Ocean Road had many sights to see. There were beautiful beaches along unique limestone coast with magnificent rock formations. We also had the very good fortune of having sunny skies for the entire drive. So our pictures turned out very well.

We arrived in Adelaide feeling pretty tired after sleeping for two nights in our rental car. But we decided to skip sleeping and go out to see the city. It was the last day of the Adelaide Fringe Festival and also the final day for a grand touring car race in the city (Clipsal 500). So the city was very busy. We wandered down a street where we took in a few street performers that were in town for the Fringe festival. One of the performers, an acrobat, used me as a volunteer. It was a little unnerving when he had me and the other volunteers lay on the street and cover our crotches, "just in case". I came out unscathed, thankfully, after the performer did several back flips over a row of us lying on the ground. It was a fun experience.

For our second day in Adelaide, we went on a wine tour in the Barossa Valley. The area is a 1.5 hour drive outside Adelaide and is famous for producing Shiraz. We tried some very unique wines and bought a couple of bottles. We had one particularly good wine called a "Shiraz Rosé". It was like drinking the nectar of the gods.

We spent a couple more days slumming around Adelaide without too many adventures to speak of. It was getting out of Adelaide where our real adventures began. (Jenn's note: We actually did a 38km bike ride around Adelaide and surrounds, on one of our days there. The city offers a free bike hire (rental) service, using a piece of i.d. as a deposit for returning the bikes at the end of the day. It was pretty awesome and was an ecologically- and budget-friendly way to get around!)

We were considering several options for leaving Adelaide to go see the outback and the famous rock known as Uluru (or Ayers Rock). The first option was to take the bus. A 10,000km ticket would have cost about $1800, would only be good for 30 days, and we would have had to pay nightly room fees and food costs separately. Not to mention that the bus runs through the red centre at very inconvenient times. The second option was to carpool. We tried several people who were offering trips our way. But they were all full. So we moved on to the third option. To buy a cheap car and use it both as transportation and accommodation. We found one for private sale in a suburb just outside of Adelaide, and decided to take a look. The car was a 1983 Mitsubishi Sigma station wagon with 116,000km on the motor. We took the car for a test drive and it seemed to run pretty well. It was by no means perfect. But it ran, and everything in the car worked. It seemed like an incredible deal. Only $650, much less than the bus option. We should have expected something when we were pressured to buy the car before someone else took it (there were, apparently, others interested in the deal). So we took the car on good faith.

The problems with the car began after the first night of driving. It took a good two minutes of cranking the car over for it to start. A sinking feeling began to grow within me. After the troubled start, I noticed that the temperature gauge in the car was beginning to rise. The car had begun its downward spiral, and now, it was only a matter of time. As the temperature needle continued to rise we pulled over and let it cool off. Steam was billowing from under the hood. All hope was now lost. We allowed the car to cool off and drove 5 more kilometers to the small town of Port Augusta. The car managed to limp its way to a wrecking yard in the town where we had a mechanic check the car over.

The blokes in this wrecking yard were a rough bunch. Beluga fat bikers complete with swastika tattoos. Oh, how lovely. They checked the car and gave us the diagnosis. Blown head gasket. For those not mechanically inclined, that's like a person having a diagnosis of a massive heart attack. The car was dead. We were now stranded 300km's from Adelaide. My reaction at first was rage, followed rather quickly by a feeling of being used and now, at the time of writing this, I find it pretty funny in a way. It will make a great story in our future. Jenn is understandably a little more upset; I seem to be able to shrug things off a little more quickly. Perhaps too quickly. Trying to get Jenn to laugh about it before she was ready to wasn't a great idea. (Jenn is now ok about it; she just requires more time to get over things.)

Luckily, a phoenix has risen from the ashes. We were just contacted by a group of travellers who are able to pick us up in Port Augusta on their way through to see Uluru.

So in the end all is not lost. The car experience left us with a $680 expense that took us only 300 km. Our pride has been shaken but our spirits are not broken. This trip is still one of the greatest experiences of our lives.

G'day