Kombi Break Down... Noooo!

Okay, so for those of you keeping an eye on our travel tracker, you'll be no doubt thinking to yourselves, "Why the hell have Odette and Luke decided to stay five nights in Tennant Creek?" and the answer to that is not that Tennant Creek has a secret five star health retreat hidden behind the local Food Fresh supermarket that is T.D.F (to die for, for all your oldies), the simple reason for our extended stay in the middle of freakin' nowhere is that poor Jefro the Kombi has broken down.

It's a dramatic story, and one that I'm sure is getting a little more animated with each telling but believe me. It really was as bad as it sounds. Here goes:

So we had left Alice Springs, excited to get on the road and back track the 500km to Tennant Creek (where we intended to stay the night - just ONE night) so we could continue our travels east to the QLD coast. After passing through Barrow Creek and laughing about how terrible it would be to break down anywhere near this remote roadhouse and imagining the scary things that went down ten years ago on the night of the Peter Falconio murder (who along with girlfriend Joanne Lees, were also travelling in a kombi let me remind you), guess what happened? We heard a terrible scraping noise. We pulled over and Luke quickly diagnosed the problem. The gear box was screwed. I think that's the technical term but for all you mechanical novices, basically we'd lost fourth gear and oil was starting to leak from the gear box all over the road. Jeepas! Noooo!

In the middle of nowhere and seriously ten kilometres from where the Falconio incident occurred, we had no choice but to drive another 80km to the next roadhouse at 60km an hour. Either that or wait for some kind soul called Bradley Murdoch to pull over and kindly offer us a lift... Okay, enough - but this is pretty much exactly what was going through my very vivid imagination. But we managed to make it to the next roadhouse, still some 125km from Tennant Creek, and Luke and I just looked at each other as if to say, "Haha, what a HILARIOUS joke! I wonder where the hidden camera is and all the people to jump out and say "Surprise! You're on candid camera!" But, alas, our nightmare was just beginning. (Gee that does sound terrifying doesn't it!)

Stranded at Wauchope Roadhouse, we walked into the petrol station (which doubles as a seedy-looking bar) and about ten filthy dirty men, straight from the bush, all looked at us as if we were aliens or had three heads - whatever was more foreign in these parts. When we told them that we had broken down in our VW, they all cracked up in hysterics and said "You guys are screwed! The last guy to break down in a kombi in these parts was that Flaconio bloke and look how that ended up!" HAHAHA. Um, again, not funny. With tears in my eyes, we made our way to the phone box and called the NRMA, who were great, and immediately sent a tow truck out from Tennant Creek to pick us up. But 'immediately' in Northern Territory speak, means hang tight, have a few beers and we'll be there when we can. Almost 2hours later and our knight in shining armour arrives - Brian, a young bloke with a ciggie hanging out of his mouth and covered from head to toe in oil and grease. Even so, I wanted to hug him for rescuing us from the sticks.

Now new laws in the Territory mean that instead of no speed limit (this is how it used to be), you now have to drive at a very sensible maximum speed of 130km an hour along the main roads. But in a tow truck that looks like it may be in need of its own tow in the not too distant future, with our kombi strapped to the back by two flimsey looking chains and not a seat belt in sight, 130km feels very, VERY fast. We arrived in Tennant Creek in darkness with the rain pelting down and the desert temperatures dropping fast. Yep, this is EXACTLY how I'd imagined our return to one of our not so favourite towns in the N.T.

And it seems we should have bought a lottery ticket that morning before leaving Alice Springs because our luck couldn't have been better. Not only were we stuck in a town with a population of 3000, at a pretty crumby caravan park called The Outback (I've never wanted to be in Sydney more than now) but there was a public holiday on Monday, so no one was going to be able to even look at the van until Tuesday - and that's if we were lucky according to our new mate Brian (whose wife drives the local icecream van and whose father-in-law was the town undertaker).

So we had a few days to kill in Tennant. Now a day in Tennant Creek is not so bad - there's a tourist info centre to look at, a great Aboriginal art centre and a recreational dam just out of town that we were told was worth a look. Oh and we found a BP petrol station that made a very average cup of coffee to satisfy Luke's caffine addiction. But now what?

Tennant Creek doesn't really have too many shops (they have an IGA sized supermarket, a butcher, a newsagents and a few pubs) and the town population is about 80% Aboriginal and 70% of those people tend to hang out on the streets or under trees, just cruisin'. I must admit, it was initally pretty confronting and the first day we weren't quite sure what the go was, but after spending almost a week here, it seems like these guys just love being outside with their family and friends. And the kids are just so beautiful and curious about everything that's going on. They ask 100 questions and want to know all about where you're from. It's been interesting and quite good to get to see this little town for what it is and it turns out that it's not such a bad place. Although five days here with nothing to do has been far too long...

There are some sad areas though, where you really can't believe the state of some of the houses. It's like a third world country. Again, the problems run deep and aren't easily fixed but whatever the case, it seems living a half/ half existance for most of our Indigenous people just isn't working. Staying here makes you think about what the answer might be - maybe our politicians need a little breakdown stopover out this way as well?

So after this break down, all I can say is that if you're planning any kind of extended trip, it is TOTALLY worth bumping up your roadside coverage to the premium package. Luke and I signed up to the top NRMA cover before we left (it was like $40 extra for the year) and the NRMA looked after us so well from the moment we broke down. They covered the tow into town, up to $700 worth of accommodation (not a lot to choose from in Tennant so we stayed in a cabin for a few nights and a motel for our extra, unexpected night) and gave us a brand new Mitsubishi Lancer to drive around in until we were sorted (rememebering that there are about 5 streets in Tennant but so handy to have in case we decided to ditch our broken kombi and flee across the border).

Anyway, Luke just spent 3 hours with his head in the engine bay of our kombi, playing apprentice to our funny mechanic Les, who has already spent two days putting in a gear box, only to find out it was the wrong one (an 1800 instead of a 2 litre - NOOOOO!). He has promised to meet Luke back at his very organised, very tidy car yard (see pics below...) tomorrow morning at 8am to put the motor back in and make the final touches. Fingers crossed we will be out of here by mid morning.

We will keep you posted...

Yours really looking forward to hitting the QLD border and getting ol' boy Jefro back,

Odette