Day 4 Kooroorinya Reserve to Julia Creek

 We woke to the sound of the rooster crowing and no power to the van.  Damn.  We will be relying heavily on our solar system for this trip so this was really bad news.  Fortunately for us our friend Kevin is a bit of a wizz at everything and after an inspection of our system he suggested that one or both of our two batteries may have lost a cell.  The plan today was to take the tourist drive around Eramanga Sea back to Hughenden but we decided that we would take the more direct route.  We didn't know if we would find an auto electrician in Hughenden or the required replacement batteries.

It was a fairly strained drive towards Hughenden.  I undeservedly kept pointing my finger at my husband and telling him he should have had all the electrics checked before we left.  We had actually had a couple of problems with battery drain on previous trips so we knew there was a problem.  We kept telling ourselves though that the batteries were only two years old and they usually have a life of between 5 - 10 years.  Lesson learnt.

Finding a battery dealership was easy and lucky for us they had two replacement batteries on hand.  The only problem was that they didn't have the correct machine to test the old batteries so we didn't know if that really was the problem or if it was something more substantial. We took the gamble and purchased the two new batteries.  At $400 each if was an expensive mistake if the batteries weren't the problem.

While the new batteries were being installed Philip rang ahead to our electrician friend in Julia Creek to see if he could have a look at the system for us.  We weren't going to get to Julia Creek until late in the afternoon but Trevor said he would hang around for us. Thank you Trev. 

We stopped for lunch at Fred Tritton Park in Richmond.  It is a lovely place but we didn't get to enjoy it as we knew we had a deadline to meet.  So after we gobbled down our salad sandwiches it was back on the road.  Honestly I feel like we are rushing all the time.  I hope this stops very soon.

The drive from Richmond to Julia Creek is a very long two hour drive and when we were living at Julia Creek I really disliked this section of road.  It just seems to go on forever.  It was always my happiest moment when I spotted the twin radio towers near Julia Creek but because the country is so flat and treeless you see them from a long way back.

We found Trevor almost straight away and in less then 20 minutes he was able to run tests on the old batteries and declared them both to be almost dead.  Thank goodness that is the problem.  While Trevor was doing the tests I went inside to talk to his lovely wife Janene who invited us around to their place for drinks after work.  It was great to catch up with old friends and these two are Mr and Mrs Julia Creek.  We chatted for ages about all the comings and going in the Creek and the time raced.  We will catch up with them again tomorrow at "Spoonbill" that is our next destination.