It had to happen sooner or later. And do you know, the oddest thing is that I had only been thinking about the probability of this event on the morning we left Kurrimine Beach.
After a very peaceful night in our new found park in Charters Towers, we were up and and at it first thing in the morning....Winton (via Hughenden) was in our sights for today. This was to be a long haul, but this was a promising start at least.
And so things continued for the first hour or so as we toddled westward over the Barra Range under most welcome clear skies. We were on schedule, the immediate forecast was fine, the Ship's Cat was silently snoozing in his cage and the road ahead was smooth and accommodating. Life was good.
Until.....whoomp.....thump, bump, bump. It felt as though our road surface had all of a sudden taken on the characteristics of the roughest of corrugated bush tracks. The navigator's call of alarm was instantaneous........"what the hell was that?" I had no doubt as I wrestled the rig to a standstill with a significantly elevated heart rate. Blowout!
Indeed it was. Our forward starboard tyre was shredded. And we were in trouble.....there was absolutely no shoulder on this stretch of the highway which we could limp onto to effect a wheel change.
As I flicked on the hazard lights and looked up I could not believe our luck (which probably sounds an odd thing to say at this juncture). There, within 20 metres, was the most welcome highway sign I have ever seen......'Parking bay 500 metres on right'.
Our collective relief was palpable. As we limped to our place of highway refuge and ground to a halt, we reflected on the though that I may have had to change the wheel on what can be a quite busy highway, taking up the entire width of the left hand carriageway, with me working well out into the lane carrying the oncoming traffic.....it did not bear thinking about and, frankly, would have been downright dangerous. Despite the travails of our immediate future, we agreed we had dodged a very large bullet indeed and did catch our breath for a minute or so as we contemplated the apparently compensating vagaries of fate.
I have to say that I have rehearsed a wheel change in my mind on a number of occasions, not least when thinking about the increasing age of the tyres two days previously. Now for the acid test.
The first relief....the key for the spare wheel padlock was where it should have been. Good start!
Then came the next challenge. With the trolley jack in place it was time to undo the wheel nuts. Now this might look a most unconventional way to do this, but I had no choice. And here was another instance when I rejoiced in the fact that I had made a critical discovery when we first took delivery of the van.
I had not been happy with the apparent space between the hub cap and the nuts themselves. It just looked tight, and so it was. My large wheel brace would not fit. Fortunately, when I broached this design fault with our friends at YP Caravans, the redoubtable Matthew came up with an alternative which did fit....the only snag being that it was mounted on a very short shaft. No leverage!
But it least it fits over all the nuts, and with the assistance of my trusty, and surprisingly oft used rubber mallet (don't leave home without one.....and crossed fingers that I would not shear off any of the holding stubs) I finally managed to remove the stubbornly tight wheel nuts.
Right, now to fit the spare. I was now concerned that the shock absorber had dropped alarmingly and taken the wheel hub and axle with it. There was very little clearance between the bottom of the hub and the ground.
But before tackling that problem, there was one more pressing.....a strand of the shredded rubber from the tyre wall had wrapped itself around the axle. Left there, this had the potential to cause further mischief, but there was no way on God's earth that I was going to crawl under the van without supportive jack stays in place. so in they went and out come the offending rubber.
I had just decided that I would have to dig out the Cruiser jack and raise the axle when a couple pulled into the parking bay. My newly found best friend, Ray, was a corker, and no stranger to roadside repairs, having worked on trucks all his life. He agreed with my plan, and in no time had his jack out and in place. Up went the axle and on went the spare wheel,
which I thought (and I had given it a good, but clearly ineffective and misleading prod quite recently) had good pressure. Wrong. Before I could blink, or more importantly, break out our compressor, Ray was on the job again. "We'll have this up in no time, Pete."
So, with the new wheel in place, the tyre inflated to its operating pressure, the wreckage reattached to the rear of the van, and our profuse and heartfelt thanks to Ray and his wife (who were just returning to Charters Towers from the Birdsville races) we were again on our way some hour and a half later.
Whilst I had been involved in all the mechanical stuff, Liz had been on the phone to Hughenden. By the time we were again mobile she had booked us into the caravan park there for the night and been in touch with the recommended tyre service in the town. They had a replacement in stock. Good start.
But then Ray dropped a bombshell. "Did you know these tyres were made in 2009?" "No, mate...we bought the van in late 2011 and assumed they were brand new." Bloody wrong again, and decidedly unhappy, Jan! There it was in tiny print, stamped on the tyre wall, the indisputable and damming figures...'2009'. I was furious. It is now clear that the tyres fitted to our van were two years old at the time, and, we assume, much cheaper than those which were current when the van was built. Some serious words will be exchanged in due course, believe me, but for now we had to deal with the present situation.
The truck tyres with which vans are fitted have a functional wall life of about five years. What was now clearly evident was that not only had our tyres completed 50,000 kms, and despite the fact that the tread was still quite adequate from a legal perspective, the walls had passed their practical use by date by about two years. The evidence of the shredded tyre confirmed this. In hindsight, we should have probably have had a blowout well before this.
Needless to say the remaining 100 kms into Hughenden did not pass quickly. The thought of another blowout was altogether too much to contemplate. The highway distance signs passed agonisingly slowly and each bump in the road created disturbing mind pictures of tyre walls flexing beyond the limits of their endurance.
We limped into town at less than 80 kph. The distant horizon remained stubbornly devoid of any hint of civilisation.
And finally....what a welcome sight this was. Hughenden was suddenly my favourite town in Australia. And by the time we arrived, a decision had been taken. We would not leave until the van had been completely re-shod.
First stop, the Hughenden Tyre Centre where the unfailingly helpful Lyndsey assured us that, although they did only have one tyre in stock, she could arrange for a complete set to be delivered overnight from Townsville and fitted within an hour the following morning.
With that good news under our belts we made our way to the local park (where we were return guests), and were soon comfortably set up on the drive-thru site next to that we occupied on our last visit.
As luck would have it a delightful couple pulled in next to us later in the day, and I can tell you there is nothing like the sight of wreckage to start a conversation. Our day from hell ended with a most entertaining happy hour....it was just what we needed.
Needless to say, we were on deck at the appointed hour of 0730 hour the next morning.
The tyres arrived as promised shortly thereafter and the boys got to work. What I would have given yesterday for a long handled heavy duty trolley jack and a rattle gun.
Within less than an hour, the four brand new tyres were gleaming comfortingly on our hubs and we were again on our way, slightly behind schedule, but with a reassuring peace of mind. I cannot speak too highly of the Hughenden Tyre Centre as a place of friendly and efficient service.
And it was just as well we had taken the decision we did. Our chosen (and new for us) route south-west to Winton was, for the first 120 kms or so, an absolute shocker, but more of that in my next.
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