We had a solid night sleep after our big day yesterday. We found another leak this morning, with a John Guest fitting near the hot water system, this is more of a specialised part, so we had to do some looking on line and make some calls this morning to find a place that sold it somewhere near or on our route. We ended up having to do a detour to Port Pirie on the Spencer Gulf North of Adelaide. We filled up the Auto Gas at Leigh Creek before we left at $1.08, ouch. When stopped for lunch we found the van fridge was drawing a lot of power from the van’s batteries and they were dangerously low. The fridge usually runs of the car through the wires that got torn up from the gravel. So Chris put the genie on and then fixed up the wires, all ok and running well now.
It was a long drive from Leigh Creek but we made good time getting there. The place sold the part we needed, and just around the cnr was a hardware store for the T piece we needed. Also got more duck tape, and other supplies should we have any more mishaps. We were in and out pretty quick. At least all the things were relative small things and things Chris could fix what a handy man. We heard of one person that snapped a stabilizer bar, which is not supposed to be possible. We also saw several road vans heading in to the track; they won’t cope well at all. Chris already had plans going through his mind on ways to stone protect the van.
The road down from Leigh Creek is very picturesque as the road follows alongside the lower part of the Flinders Rangers. Not for us this trip, we were told the best bits were up further north and we don’t have time to do them this trip. There are also many ruins along the road.
We have stopped somewhere east of Port Pirie heading towards Burra as we make our way to the Murray River region. We hope to be in Wentworth tomorrow, after we have eaten any fruit and veg that are left. All water leaks are now fixed.