I missed my usual weekendly update as I was on holiday down in Hervey Bay. We decided we may as well stay somewhere nice, as last time we were in Hervey Bay we stayed at the cheapest motel possible and it wasn't ideal. We may have overdone it on the other end of the scale this time, this place had a bit of a "Hotel Babylon" feel about it. Not that that was a bad thing of course. I had to laugh when I saw the receptionist's name tag though... Manuel. Marvellous.
It was over all a pretty good hotel, excellent views, I'll attach a pic or two. We explored Hervey Bay a fair bit, went and saw the museum which was very interesting. On the Sunday we decided to head over to Fraser Island for a bit of a look, what a brilliant plan that turned out to be. It started with an early start unfortunately for a Sunday, but it was going to be worth it to get time to see the Island. We went to the collection point and we were picked up by a tour bus. The day was getting better, as the tour bus was well stocked with young attractive female tourists. The odds were certainly in our favour for once. After a short bus trip and a detour or two, we finally made it to the barge terminal where we boarded the barge which takes everyone out to the island.
The barge trip was excellent, mostly because I managed to befriend a selection of backpackers and spent the 45 minute crossing talking to them. One from Florida, one from Italy, and 3 from Ireland. All good lookers too I must say. They were staying a couple of nights on the Island, I was very tempted to extend my one day stay and take some sick days from work, but I doubt I would have lived that one down.
Once we arrived at the Island, we decided to hire a 4WD to get out to one of the large freshwater lakes which are in the middle. This island is quite long, over 100 KM tip to tip. I asked the lovely young lady behind the counter if she had a landrover for hire and she said that they did. Growing quite excited at the thought of being able to finally get behind the wheel of a landrover again we sat through their half hour training session and then went to jump in the vehicle... to find it was actually a 100 series cruiser instead. Feeling somewhat dejected, we accepted that was the only option and decided to make the most of it.
We drove an hour or two inland to the lake, luckily not getting too lost in the maze of sand tracks all over the island. By the time we got to the lake we realised it was well time for us to be heading back, as between the briefing and the driving to the lake we only had 2 more hours before the return barge left at 14:00. So, back into the truck and this time Ryan was driving. I may have navigated us into a track which we didn't recognise, so we decided to turn around. We turned around and started to head back to a known signpost when the engine stopped dead. Thinking he had stalled it, Ryan proceeded to wind the motor over. Nothing. Great. Stuck in the middle of a sand island with no comms and a broken vehicle.
We popped the bonnet and had a bit of a look at the situation, after half an hour or so I had come to the conclusion it was a lack of fuel getting to the motor. We had tried all the usual solutions, bleed the fuel lines etc, to no avail. Luckily at this point a vehicle arrived behind us, and also luckily for us he happened to have a tow strap. He pulled us backwards out of the way so he could get past, and then manoeuvred himself in front so that he could tow us back to the main central point where there was a public telephone.
Once we reached the central point, he dropped us there and continued on his way to the other side of the island. We went down to the public telephone to find... it was out of order, with the main lines cut. It was unable to easily be repaired, so I decided to have another look at the truck instead. After much mucking around I managed to knock a piece of plastic conduit near the motor, out of which dropped a wire which wasn't attached. Sensing I may be onto something, I looked at it further and found the wire went to the fuel shut off solenoid. The old cogs in the brain started ticking over at this point and I managed to find another orphaned wire. I switched on the ignition and touched them together, which produced an audible "click" from the fuel solenoid. Feeling I was onto it we cranked over the motor, and bingo! she fired up.
The next problem I had was how to fashion a fix which would last long enough to get us the 16 KM back to the start. We had by now lost all hope of meeting out 14:00 barge cutoff of course. Resigned to the fact we were now here until 17:00 there was no longer a hurry. Now, I religiously carry a leatherman tool over here, I am very rarely caught without it. Well this one day I had changed into a more tidy pair of trousers and of course left my leatherman on my other belt. Big mistake. The one day that I needed a knife to strip the wire... We managed to flag down a passing 4WD and asked if he had a knife or something similar, and he produced a 12" bread knife. It was the best thing we had, so I proceeded to strip this 3" piece of wire attached to the engine with this ruddy great knife. This was no easy task. Eventually I managed to strip enough back to twist the wires together. I then had the problem of insulating the join so that it didn't short out or come undone. Luckily, I always carry a band aid in my wallet. So, out with the band aid, and used that to tape up the join. I tucked the whole contraption back into the plastic conduit and crossed my fingers. Wound over the key... and we were away laughing like a mad kookaburra.
We drove the cruiser back to the hire depot, where we left it with a note explaining the situation as the office was unattended. I managed to raise the young lady on the telephone so I explained to her how we had averted a recovery for her. She was most impressed, I told her it was good old Kiwi ingenuity. The Auzzies try and tell you that that phrase is an oxymoron, but they are just jealous. She must of been more reasonable however, as she offered me a job working for them on the island. I told her it was tempting, but they would need to get landrovers.
After that the rest of the day was pretty straight forward, we worked our way back down to the barge and waited for the 17:00 sailing. This was actually a good time as we caught the spectacular sunset. Shame those backpackers weren't on this trip, as with that sunset as a backdrop, they would have been been but putty in my hands.
There's always a next time...
By the time we got back to Hervey Bay and took the bus back to our car, it was well dark, and by the time we got to Gladstone it was after 22:00. A very long weekend, but one well worth the effort. I shall definitely be returning to Fraser Island, there is still so much left to explore.
After that weekend, the work week is going to be pretty uneventful I hope, we have a two day training course in Rocky on how to rescue people from towers so that should be interesting.
Here's some photos for the record.
TTFN
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