A SAD END TO OUR TRAVELS
This is a sight that no caravanner wants to ever see! Yes, it was very disheartening, and extremely disappointing.
It was a pleasant Sunday, and we decided to head to Nyngan, from our overnight stop, Dunedoo. One minute we were travelling along the Oxley Highway and then, with the comment, "We have lost all power" we were on the side of the road.
Thankfully we had a large driveway to pull into, and we had phone reception.
We did have other motorists pull up to offer help, with one lovely gentleman with mechanical knowledge spending quite some time exploring a variety of possibilities, all to no avail. Thank you to everyone who offered help.
It did not take long to get through to NRMA Roadside assistance, and for them to locate us via their mapping systems. The patrolman was sent out from Gilgandra, and arrived within the hour. Unfortunately, the Ute's problem was not a quick fix, so off he went to return with the tow truck.
After the ute and caravan were all hooked up, the most difficult part was climbing into the bloody tow truck. Now just visualize a push/pull exercise, as that is what it probably looked like. I'm glad there was not an audience armed with mobile phones as I would hate to end up as a Youtube video. I'm definitely not the fittest person and undoubtedly not a slim size 8, so doing some exercises to make getting into a truck easier certainly was not on my "to Do" list. I did feel sorry for the poor patrolman who had to help me get up those damn steps. When I was relaying the story to a friend later, we could see the funny side and had a huge laugh with all of us left with tears streaming down our faces.
Yes, laughter is the best medicine.
We were roughly 30 kilometres from Gilgandra so us and our caravan were deposited at the caravan park. Now to wait and see what the outcome of the mechanical check brings.
Prior to the ute being loaded up we made sure that we had taken what we assumed we would need for the duration of our stay at the caravan park. The main thing that we now needed was some food so after we were all connected up, a walk over the bridge to the local IGA supermarket was a necessity.
The unknown was, how long are we going to be here?
But come Monday morning and some answers were arriving.
The mechanic rang with the news that the ute should probably be euthanised. He was unable to repair it.
Now all those little asterisk's that show the Terms and Conditions on RACV top cover roadside assistance will come into play.
Firstly, the ute cannot be repaired within 3 days, so the choice is to stay or head home. We chose the latter, as it was unrepairable. Generally, the phone service that I received from RACV was acceptable, but after I made an initial complaint, things improved. Trying to decide how to get everything back to Victoria was stressful. It was not sit back and we will organise it for you. There is a budget of $2400 that RACV have, to return you and your vehicle to your home. My concern was that I wanted to know how much out of pocket we would be once we were back home. So, figures were being thrown around which only added to my stress. A hire car was a possibility, but one to tow the caravan back was not an option. Air fares would have eaten the budget completely so that option was also gone. Thankfully a friend organized a ute to be delivered to Gilgandra for us, complete with the requirements to suit our caravan. We were able to head to the NRMA yard to retrieve more of our property from our ute as we knew it was going to be a little while before it was delivered back to Victoria. Hopefully it will go straight to our mechanic so decisions can be made as to a resurrection or a final goodbye.
Will we continue with top RACV Roadside Assistance? Yes, most definitely. I hope we never have to use it again but it did cover some expense: the initial tow back to Gilgandra and the mechanical check, our stay at Gilgandra caravan park, and our ute will be returned back to central Victoria.
Our friend who organised the supply of a ute so we could bring the caravan home was a god send.
https://www.gilgandracaravanpark.com.au/
Travel safe everyone. Hopefully we will get out there once again.
🚙🚙🚙🚙🚙