Laura to Musgrave Roadhouse

Well today started out like any other day ... But weren't we in for a shock! Took off from Laura and a while later Stewy announces that his car is making a pretty bad noise, so we pull over to the side of the road to check it out. We decide to press on and see if there is anything at Hahn River Roadhouse to help out. No luck! They do, however, give us a tin and tell us to head up to the track beside the property to drop the oil and do an oil change. Oil is black, never seen anything like it! We do the oil change, sound is slightly better so we try to make it to Musgrave Station where we are staying the night and will have more time to look at it or possibly even have someone else look at it ..... Again no luck!

A little while up the road we hear over the CB that Stewys car has decided to completely stop, something made a huge noise and then the engine stopped.

The next few hours were spent ringing for a tow truck and waiting for a tow truck! Luckily we had our satellite phone with us (and luckily it still had some charge in it!) otherwise we would have been stuck. In about 4 hours of sitting on the side of the road, only 1 car asked were we ok! Even two cop cars drove past and waived!!

It was a long day, sitting in the sun (under Stewys car awning), but the heat was horrendous - cant believe how sunburnt I am now. One thing we were lucky about is that they managed to break down on one of the small bitumen patches of road, which was a lot better than being on dirt as the cars and roadtrains drove past.

We ended up leaving Stewy, Kristy and Rori at around 4pm to head off to Musgrave to set up camp, but we left them with our sat phone in case they need it or the driver needed to get back in touch with them. As it turned out, we passed the tow truck just a few kms up the road so we knew they were being picked up.

A while later they pulled into Musgrave Roadhouse to drop off our sat phone and have some dinner. They were definitely the talk of the campsite after arriving on the back if a tilt tray! As it turned out, the driver was the owner of Archer River Roadhouse, just a short distance north, so he manged to get them a room there for the night and then head off to weipa tomorrow morning.

It's been a long day for all involved and we can't be bothered cooking so we are off to grab some dinner in the cafe and head to bed!!