18th Sept S**t and more S**t (Victoria Bridge)

Ha, this time the birds done us a favour and we're up nice and early, putting away the last of the bits and saying bye to new friends. 6.30 and we're on the road. 53klm further on and we pass into the Northern Territory's where the speed limit changes from a max of 120klm to130klm so I'm off, don't have to tell me twice. An hour later, we're zipping along quite merrily when ... nothing!, the engine dies. Now by this time the suns come up and its bleeding hot out here and guess what?, still no phone signal. Oh well, here we go, a bottle water and start pulling bits off. Next thing, one of the people who had been on the camp, pulls up and I get "want a hand". Anyway he makes a few suggestions and we end up changing the fuel filter (thank you Kouy), Turn the key and off she go's. Right, we put it down to bad fuel at the last fill up. Lin's growling away and gonna send off a nasty e-mail to the owner of the camp site where we got the fuel. (as soon as we get a signal)... So its bits back on and off we go. Finally we make it to Victoria Bridge, our destination for today. Victoria Bridge turns out to be little more than a gas station so we book a room for the night to save unpacking all the gear. Nice room, Good shower, air con, tea and coffee and T.V. (its linked to the bar so we can only watch whats on in the bar). Bugger me, Their messing about with the time again, so now we've lost another hour and a half.

I decide to take a walk down to the river for a look and see if its worth getting me rod out. On the way I pass a deposit that only an elephant could have made, its eighteen inches round and eighteen inches high. Well I don't know if they got elephants out here, but I'm keeping me eyes open cos I really don't want to bump into the owner of that turd even if it is Nelly the elephant. A quick peek at the river, its too low, and I'm hot footing it back to the room.

Sitting outside in the cool of the evening, after a really nice meal and a cool shower, the manager comes past and I cant help mentioning what I found while out walking. Oh that's probably the Brahma bull we had wandering round here, had to shoot it last week, kept getting into the camping area and tossing the tents. Mystery solved, but from what I saw, I recon he still had to grit his teeth when he left that momento.....

On the road to Victoria Bridge.

 More road....

and more...

and we break down... Ruby plays up for the first time..in 11500kms...bless her.

and she breaks down again, so its tools out and seats off...

The man and his plan... we get going but have to take it easy as Ruby is clearly not very well....

More bush fires, luckily we missed this one as it was right up to the road edge..

Ahhh we arrive at Victoria Bridge roadhouse...

This is our 'motel room'.. I got told off by the lady who runs it when I asked for a 'cabin' as she 'dont do cabins'... she only does motel rooms... lol... that told me. actually the room was spotless and very big....and the lady turned out to be very nice...

A view (sat at the front of the Victoria Bridge Roadhouse).. and yes thats John sat on Ruby....