10^th Leg

NEWCASTLE OR BUST

The days are just flying past and we are becoming more and more committed to completing each stage of our journey on schedule. This can be exceedingly difficult for many reasons not the least of which is the wonderful age of our darling Matilda. As we left Noosa Heads on Wednesday we had set a goal of reaching Newcastle by Friday evening. We had envisaged an easy trip to Brisbane, an evening with friends and family and then two fairly easy days of about 400kms each. If it was that easy what on earth would I have to write to you all.

True to form the dramas continued. We left the Citroen dealers with the valve problem fixed and in good spirits. We had left my cousins house earlier that morning in rather a hurry and as we had to go past the door on the return trip to Brisbane we had left a few articles there to pick up as we drove through. It was almost midday when we called in and Margaret had lunch ready for us (a very pleasant surprise I might say). Consequently it was a little late when we set off towards Brisbane. We were no more than 15 minutes down the road when it all started. Suddenly the rear left tire was gone. We pulled over onto a very rough hard shoulder and climbed out. NO JACK!!!! What to do? Rather reluctantly we rang my cousin and sat back to await his arrival. He did arrive and the wheel was quickly changed. Oh no, the replacement tyre was soft, really far too soft to drive anywhere but we no alternatives. I climbed into Mikes car to lessen the load for Matilda and we gingerly drove back Eumina. The little community was still buzzing from the day’s markets and the petrol station was down the bottom of a fairly steep, rather congested, windy little street. Tom was already at the bottom of the hill as we looked down to appraise the situation.

"Mike you have been wonderful. Thanks for all of your help but to make things easy I’ll just walk down the hill and you can avoid the congestion" was my thoughtful (or so I thought) suggestion.

"Are you sure?" he asked in return.

"Sure, no problem," I assured him climbing out of his car to put action to words.

Farewells exchanged, again, I set off towards Tom and Matilda.

"Where is Mike?" were Tom’s first words.

"Gone," was the reply.

"Oh no! He can’t be. I need him. Why did he leave?"

I had to confess that it was all my fault. Was I in trouble or what!

What had happened was this: the inner tube was not properly inflated and had walked around inside the tyre and was now pulling on the valve and at extreme risk of tearing the rubber away from the metal of the valve. The solution was to jack the car up again, deflate the tyre, move the inner tube back to it’s correct position and then repump the tyre. The key word here is jack.

We rang Margaret but she was unable to raise Mike on the mobile phone. We had to find an alternative answer to the problem.

Again we had help from an unexpected quarter. Peter Laughton from the little service station lend us, or should I say Tom a hand and even more importantly lent us his jack. Nothing was too much trouble and we were soon back on the road.

We finally made the outskirts of Brisbane at about five o’clock and began to fulfill some of those commitments. A call to visit a much lovely elderly aunt who has been unwell and then a visit to vist yet more of my large extended family. It was wonderful to catch up with my cousins Graham and David, David’s wife Lesley and their children, Chelsea and Catlin. After a very brief visit we waved goodbye to the men and children and followed Lesley who very kindly escorted us into the city and to our final destination, Steve and Leanne Mortons house near to the centre of Brisbane.

Here, a group of about 20 Citroen and Austen Seven friends were patiently awaiting our arrival. We were greeted with great enthusiasm and spent a wonderful few hours retelling many of our adventures. A real highlight of the evening was the presence of Jim Reddiex and one of his crew, Patrick, from the 1975 re-enactment. The stories really flowed when he and Tom got together.

Finally at about 10 o’clock we sat down for tea and a chat with our hosts. Another late but enjoyable evening.

Thursday morning it was up early and over to John Cant Motors Brisbane. We were made very welcome by everyone at the agency that we quickly felt right at home. The lads from the workshop took our flat tyre and had it mended in a flash. We then met and were interviewed by Bryan Hansen from the Courier Mail.

Finally we were on the road again. Down towards the gold coast and another newspaper interview. This time because of our lateness the reporter asked us to meet him at two o’clock a delay of nearly 2 hours. We ummed and arred but finally agreed. A quick lunch of fish and chips and for Tom a real treat of reading the newspaper. A quick radio interview with Brian Bury was slotted in to the period and finally at about ¼ to 3 we were back on the road again. What should have been a pleasant day of 400 kms now became a mammoth task of get at far as you can before you drop. We set our sights on Grafton and soldiered on. I hadn’t factored the hills into the time equation and although little Matilda kept climbing them over each one there was always another waiting on the other side. As the night rolled on the number of trucks was unbelievable and as they thundered past us on the narrow windy roads I began to get jumpy, very jumpy. Try to remember that I have absolutely no way of knowing what is happening behind us and as each set of headlights came up behind I have to wait until the vehicle passes us before I know what it is. It is very staining on the nerves and by 10 o’clock I had, had as much as I could take. Tom was still keen to get to Grafton, 30 kms ahead but I had reached my breaking point. A 24 hour Motel loomed ahead and Tom pulled in.

A good nights sleep and I was back on track. 7am and we were back on the road again.

Very shortly after we started out just as we were going up a really wicked hill Tom and I just started talking about how long it had been since we had filled up and we decided that at the next opportunity we would fill up at our convenience. It was at that exact moment that the car came to a grinding halt and it was on again. Tom backed back as far as possible which put him within inches of a great drop on the side of this horrible hill. We filled the car in double quick time and climbed in to start again. The surface under our wheels was loose stone and the wheels just would not grip for a clean get away. Being so close to the drop we could not afford to roll back at all, so once again I climbed out to give her a bit of a push. It didn’t take much (and I’m getting to be a real expert at pushing) and we were off again. The places we have run out of petrol!

The daylight trip was much less intimidating and the morning was quite pleasant. Tom became a bit concerned about a noise in the front left wheel (everyone else was concerned about the wobbly right one, but Tom says that it is no problem at all) and we pulled off the main highway at Nambucca Heads to check it out properly.

After two laps of the town we finally found the tyre specialist and asked their advice. Keith kindly jacked up the car and together he and Tom decided that the problem was likely to be a bearing, not available at Nambucca Heads. We decided to push on and solve the problem as soon as possible. A phone call to Ralph and we had the measurements of the bearing so that at least when we found a bearing shop we would not have to pull the wheels off to measure the bearing size.

We were back on the road again and facing the road ahead. The rain started, lightly at first but with increasing force accompanied by increasing wind.

 Did I mention rain and of course wind, not to mention the lightening and thunder show we were treated to. Despite our waterproof poncho’s we were soon wet through. Just to add to our misery Matilda had developed a wicked oscillation of the front left wheel when we hit a patch of rough road at a particular speed. Tom climbed out into the rain and tweaked one of the kingpins, which tightened just a little. It seemed to help a bit but did not really answer the problem. With this new oscillation and in the back of our minds the worry of that front left bearing we were feeling more than a little worried.

We drove on and on and on. I’m sure I don’t remember exactly how far it is from Grafton to Taree but it took hours and hours. The funny thing was we actually missed seeing the turn off and suddenly it was 30kms in the background. Night fell and we felt as though we were no nearer to our destination than we had been about lunchtime. We were feeling pretty grim when suddenly we noticed that we had a car tailing us. We drove on the hard shoulder and so did the tailing car. When we slowed so did he, when we moved to the road proper so did he. We talked through many scenarios, but finally we decided that the most likely solution was that our ‘Guardian Angel’ had obviously seen us and decided that in the appalling weather condition his lights were more effective than ours were. He followed for mile after mile. In total he remained firmly behind us for at least an hour. It felt good to think that someone, a perfect stranger in fact, had decided to help us on our way. Finally the oscillation in that front wheel returned at such a level that Tom had to stop to re-tweak those front king pins. Our escort followed and we were finally able to meet our helper. His name is Cliff Warburton and as we had suspected he had seen us on our way and decided to give us a little extra lighting. We had a great chat and then reluctantly we had to be off on our way. At the same spot we met a truck driver who had passed us in the morning on the way to pick up his load and was now about to pass us on his way home again. As we pulled out onto the highway the truck driver pulled out too and then escorted us about 5kms up the road to the beginning of the double lane freeway. Once he felt we were safe he gave a friendly toot and he was off. How good we felt about the world after meeting these two gentlemen.

Finally wet and very cold we drove into my friends house at 10 minutes to midnight!

Of course the most important thing to do was talk and so we did long into the wee small hours of the night. At last it was bedtime and we snuggled in to a comfy bed knowing that no matter how that storm blew outside we were safe and secure inside.

Wouldn’t it be nice to sleep in but that was not to be. 6am and I was up. Grant (my friend’s husband) washed Matilda while Gloria and I did a bit of washing and a lot of talking. Our bedroll was filled with water so we had to unroll it and put it in the sunshine to try to dry it. Tom was up shortly after to find everything shipshape and in order.

After breakfast we had to drive back to Newcastle to visit the local Citroen dealer, Paul Skews. Grant went with Tom on the inward journey and Gloria returned with him. Finally all of our duties done we could relax and catch up on old times. Grant and Gloria’s son Shane and his wife and children visited, as did he youngest daughters (Leandah) boyfriend. The men fiddled with the car while I took up the trouser hems of a pair of jeans I had purchased. We went out for a Chinese tea and then home and write the report. All in all a successful day.

Sunday morning and I was up pretty early. It seemed to be one of those days when you just can not get moving and we really dragged our heels. Finally we were ready to leave and we set of for a short visit with my cousin and then on to Sydney. Before we managed to get to Elizabeth and Dennis’s we were flagged down by a passing motorist. It turned out that he was a fellow Citroen enthusiast and he offered to help in any way he could. Tom had a chat to him about our problem with the front wheel bearing. He was on his way to an appointment, but he promised to return after keeping it and then in the meantime he called up another friend Nils who then escorted us to my cousins. My cousins Dennis and Elizabeth were delighted to see us and our escort and we were soon sipping tea. As we did so there was yet another arrival of a passing Frenchman, Bernard who was delighted to see the old Citroen and wanted a chat. Together the men decided to go to Nils place and fix the problem there while Elizabeth and I had a good old chat and could up a few years of family happenings. And so that is what happened. It was delightful. About 1:30 the men were back with (hopefully) the problem solved. A quick bite to eat and we were off again this time Sydney bound.

It was a delightful journey and just for once no real problems. If people just knew what a 1923 car brakes are really like I’m sure they would stop pulling in front of us just before the traffic lights. Anyway here we are safe and sound at the Airport Hilton, washed and fed and ready for bed. And so that is where I’m headed now.

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