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We *had* planned to take our Cruiser to Vic River Roadhouse last Saturday and pick up the (quite patiently waiting for almost 3 months now), van and bring it into town.
But fate had other plans… the thrust bearing in our HD clutch has died and makes a sound like a wounded banshee that’s been snap frozen, and then cut with a band saw.
So one of the other teachers has very generously loaned us her ever trusty Prado. Previously owned by some grey nomads... it is set up for towing a van.
We left Yarralin at 4.50am and headed up the 126klm track to the Hwy (yes… in the dark). Thank Dog she has spotlights!
Stopped for some happy snaps along the way (many of these are Kyria’s pics)
The 126klm took 3 hours. (Not bad considering that 2 hours of the trip were in the dark). We pretty much did all of the early stuff that had been muddy in no more than 40kph, and some of the more open sections we edged up as far as 60kph. Most of the 26 creek crossings were at 5-10kph.
Then off to Katherine to pick up some car bits and do some micro shops at Woolies and Mitre 10.
Obligatory stop at Maccas (it’s been 3 months ok - don’t judge me) then on to Vic River Roadhouse to pick up the van.
Problem # 1: the ARK XO jockey wheel has a removable hand winder and it usually lives in the drivers door pocket… of the Landcruiser… well it turns out that it was sitting there still attached to the van. Now we could spend all day argue if it was brilliant planning from me… or blind arse luck. But I’ll take planning thank you.
Problem # 2: the Prado is about 8” - 10” lower at the towbar than our cruiser. PLUS… after all the rain, the jockey wheel has sunk into the ground. Now lowering the van down onto the towbar wasn’t a problem. But swinging the jockey wheel up… problem. Ended up backing the Prado onto a large rock and a (single) van leveling ramp. This got the jockey wheel off the ground and we could swing it up out of the way!!!
Problem # 3: while the Prado is set up for towing, the back end is lower (see above) and the chains on the van are long. So while driving they we jingling and jangling on the Hwy.
At 4pm we made it to the turn off to the Buchanan “Hwy”. (The dirt track to Yarralin)
At about 6pm, I noticed that the drivers side window on the van was open. Stopped, crawled inside and slid the latches closed again. At 6.15, noticed that it was open again. Gave up and carried on.
We’d already noticed that the rear door had let in a lot of dust around the seals.
At around 7pm the running lights on the van went out, 7 pin plug had fallen out half way (the Anderson plug had apparently come out many klms back)
Eventually... at 7.50pm we made it home… the van towed perfectly. The Prado was a lot lower in general, so the van was nose down. But the Prado rear springs kept the vehicle itself level
Unpacked (half) the van this morning and will finish the rest throughout the next week or two.
BONUS: the 1,000w of solar and 632ah of Lithium were both at 93% on Sunday morning and when I checked the contents of the 73L dual zone freezer… the 2L tub of ice cream that we left there in late January is still frozen solid and shows no signs of having melted then refrozen… how good is solar!
All in all, a massive day of driving.
About 13.5 hours of driving all up.
5.5 of that on very rough off road track. (that only week ago was impassable due to mud)
4.5 of those in the dark.
And 3.5 of those towing
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