Monday 6th February to Wednesday 8th February 2012

Monday 6th February

Up really early today... 6am as we wanted to get to Australian Motor Homes as they opened so they could start work on the trailer asap...

Once we unhitched we headed to Iveco Service Centre ... John was concerned that something was wrong with the Iveco as every time we came to a hill it flashed " engine failure" only for a short  while then went off, and as I said in earlier blog we hit some steep hills and could not get it to go any faster than 20 kph..

Lucky for us, they had a look at it when we got there... and are we glad  we went... apparently when we had our Polaris reverse camera system put in they had wired it wrong and also not coded the computers and it was all stuffed up...so Iveco mechanic had to re install the unit and re program everything..I was on to the company who fitted it and they footed the cost of the repair .. thank goodness as that was not under any Iveco warranty...Mind you we had to sit around for 3 hours and wait for it to be fixed, lucky they had a nice comfy lounge to wait in...

Once all fixed we headed back to AMH to get our trailer... because it was so late in the day we decided to stay over night in the paddock next to the workshop...

Tuesday 7th February

Well today is the test to see if all is well with the Iveco, we set off heading towards Dubbo, not expecting to get there tonight as it's too far...

Great success with the Iveco.. pulls much better now and much faster up hills and no nasty messages !!!

We travelled the Golden Highway...it was pouring with rain once again when we set off but cleared as the morning went on... such pretty country side...and a lot of activity on the road... We passed two wide loads... and when I say wide I mean wide !!!

The first one had 2 police car escorts and at lease 5 or six other vehicles..stopping traffic and supporting it...We pulled over on the side of the road with just enough space for it to pass us...

Then about another 10 kms further on we come across another one going our way this time... and it had to pull over to let us pass...

We pulled up at a place called The Battery Picnic area just outside of Merriwa for lunch.  We had no idea that we stopped at a place of significant history. We went for a walk around and we noticed this strange rock formation, apparently it is spectacular basalt rock formations estimated to be around 35 million years old.

These rock formations are a fairly common natural phenomenon, known as columnar jointing. They are basalt rocks formed from volcanic lava. The basalt lava initially erupted at about 1,200 Degrees and solidified as it cooled. As cooling continued to the normal surface temperatures, shrinking of the basalt led to a pattern of fractures, fascinating ...amazing what you find when you just pull over for lunch on a country road.

After travelling another 100 kms we finally pulled up at Cassilis Rest Area... where we had the place to ourselves..

John cooking dinner