Adelaide to Sydney - Day 5

  Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Little did I know, when I woke up on the morning of the 28th Jan '09, that it was going to be one of the hardest, scariest, longest, most exciting days of my life. I'll start from the start so bare with me this might take a while!!

Approaching Melbourne City

So I woke up in Geelong, got ready then toured around a bit, stopping at Ocean Grove, Point Lonsdale and Pointarlington (all very disappointing), before heading back through Geelong and to Melbourne. On my way to Melbourne I have a feeling I set off a speed camera, it definitely flashed but it could have been for the lorry next to me, still waiting to see if I hear anything! After somehow navigating my way around a crazy network of big roads, I managed to find myself in THE CENTRE of Melbourne, which is where things got a bit worse... I had a nose bleed. I was in the centre of this big city I didn't know, surrounded by people,  trams, buses and cars, trying to squeeze a huge campervan between all the traffic... whilst bleeding everywhere. Not wanting to bleed all over my new 'singlet' and surf shorts I grabbed the nearest thing I could to put on my lap. I'm not someone that always has a tissue or hanky to hand, the best thing I had just happened to be my map!! After a minute or two of this I found a place by the side of the road to stop and clean myself up. OK I was sorted, time to find a proper place to park. Only problem was, if I had used any of the car parks in Melbourne, The camper would have been made roofless. A few kilometres later, I found somewhere to stop. By this point I decided I just wanted to get out of Melbourne.

Whilst rummaging through cupboards looking for something to clean up my face, I had managed to stumble across a satnav!! I'm glad I hadn't discovered it before but I really wanted to use it now!! It took me along a toll road, signs gave a number to call as there were no booths to pay. I pulled over and spent a few minutes arguing with the woman on the phone. It was an automated service that I believe can only understand Aussie accents! Anyway I got there in the end and carried on.

I had originally planned to stay at another campsite, somewhere not too far from Sydney, but kind of decided if I just kept going I'd make it all the way back. The satnav told me that I could get back by about 11pm, which was fine by me. I had about 747km left to travel. Shortly after I passed Albury I realised how low my fuel gauge was getting. I thought to myself "ahh it's a diesel, plenty of km's to go". Turned out the dial went down quicker as it got lower and very soon the warning light came on.

Dashboard

I tapped a few keys on the satnav and it said the next servo (service station) was only 10km away. Brilliant I was safe, or was I? The bloomin' place was closed!! The next servo was just over 20km away. Now I've had my fuel warning light come on many times in England before and not cared, still even made it to work and back a couple of times, but this was different. I had to make it this next 20km or I would have been stranded. The fuel economy of the campervan was far from impressive, quite the opposite in fact - 2km further, halfway up a hill I ran out of diesel, a big judder and loss of power left me at the side of the road with my hazards on.

Now I was a little worried, I rang the number I had been given by the rental company... "our office opening hours are 9am till 4pm", what use is that I thought! So I ventured down another route. The Aussie's must be prepared for things like this surely someone passing would have some spare diesel?! I wrote 'HELP, DIESEL $$' in the dirt of the back window and pointed at it each time someone drove by. No one really paid any attention, I think the sun was stopping it from being readable. Right, I thought, I need a better sign. I had no pen which didn't help. I considered making it out of sticks but ended up opting for using a steak knife to cut the letters out of what was left of my blood-stained map. Not wanting to miss the kind person who would stop and help me, I rushed. Not leaving enough space for all the letters. My sign said "DIESL" - the S was the wrong way round... and the L... well that was upside down!!! I didn't care I was going to give it a try.

DIESL!

Half an hour after having ground to a halt, a car stopped. I was greeted by a teethless, heavily-tattooed guy with a pig tail. There were a couple of women in the car too, they sat there for a moment and asked what was going on. After explaining my story they got out and seemed keen to help. After making a large number of calls getting nowhere, they got hold of a breakdown recovery company called NRMA. They had been there for an hour at this point and it was getting dark. Getting a little worried I asked for the number so I could call them myself. One of the women called them again to see what was going on, she managed to arrange for someone to come out with some diesel and they said they'd be there in half an hour. Half an hour later it was even darker and there was still no sign of the diesel! I got the number from the people who stopped and gave them a call. True enough, they were coming, only 15 mins to go. The people who stopped were satisfied help was on it's way, and after having stuck around for about an hour and a half, they were happy to go.

Sure enough this guy arrived in his van and popped in 10 litres of diesel. He was like a guardian angel, I could've hugged him! I didn't though because when I tried to start it, it wouldn't start! A couple of minutes later, after trying a jump start too, they guy disappeared saying he needed to get something. Another half hour or so I was sat there! He came back with another guy and some air pump that was designed to encourage the diesel into the fuel pumps. It didn't work... well half an hour later it did anyway!! The NRMA guys were really nice, they lead me to the next servo, waited till I filled up and started the engine again. Waving goodbye I had a decision to make, find somewhere to stay or drive all the way back. 6 hours, over 500km and 4 energy drinks later I was back in Sydney.

So after having set off at 9.30am, 18 hours, 1,050km, 4 energy drinks and 2 McDonalds later, I was back. In 3 days I had driven 2,050km (1,273 miles) that's Newbury to Newcastle and back.... TWICE and with a bit left over, and I'd only covered this small patch of Australia. Crazy really