Nuccaleena

THAT BLOKE ‘MURPHY’!

In our December blog I mentioned we were heading to the Eyre Peninsula to plan a new trip. We were going well prepared as there was some quite remote travel and we were on our own. Well, I probably should not have mentioned that because our irregular traveling companion, one Mr Murphy, decided to pay us a visit around half way along Googs Track. For those who don’t know the area, picture yourself some 120 kilometres north of Ceduna on a remote and sandy track where only 4WDs go with a car that doesn’t go.

So what happened? Well, we were wandering along doing it easily regardless of the soft sand and enjoying the views when there was an almighty bang from under the car and we stopped. Dash lights lit up and no engine noise at all, along with that a very strong smell of fuel. We coasted to the bottom of the dune we had just crested, grabbed one of the two fire extinguishers we carry and checked underneath. All I could see was fuel running out of an area not associated with the tanks so we grabbed the washing up bowl to catch the fuel and began to assess the situation. Why save the fuel? Well, that is pretty obvious but given we had no engine power, fuel pooling in the sand under the vehicle is a very nice vapour bomb and with no way to move the car, we would have exacerbated an already challenging situation.

I dragged myself in under the car and found that both the fuel lines had been broken, not a good feeling. Something had shattered the connectors that join the inlet and return lines from the tanks and then back from the engine. I had looked at this spot every time we did an underbody risk assessment and given they are up out of the way and solidly mounted to the chassis rail had decided they were OK. Given the car has covered many thousands of off-road kilometres I was pretty happy with the decision.

We were well prepared but the only thing I had not bothered to pack was some high pressure fuel line so we had a problem. A chat to the RAA confirmed that their emergency road service did not pass our way but we had a chat to their Ceduna contractor and, for a price, he was happy to come out and fix the problem which he duly did, also bringing some extra high pressure fuel line for my repair kit. After a while we were on our way again and some 10,000km later, still not a problem.

So what had happened? It took a while to figure out but what we found was that a large dry branch had done the damage. It was buried in soft sand in the wheel tracks on the top of the dune. A branch that large would not normally be in such a place so we figured that some wally had put firewood on their roof rack, not bothered to secure it and so some had dropped off as they bounced their way over the dunes. After walking forward a couple of dunes we found several small deposits of firewood in the track so that looked to be the cause. We figure it was our mate Murphy driving that 4WD for sure.

So what did we learn? Well, it will not stop us from traveling alone in remote areas but the fuel line is now definitely part of the repair kit along with some extra clamps. What it did reinforce is that detailed trip preparation is vital along with the right communication gear. A UHF radio or mobile phone would have been useless. Our satellite phone worked perfectly and we had our remote area telephone numbers so knew who to call. Given it was a Saturday afternoon, the Ceduna Toyota dealer was obviously not open. We could have comfortably camped there for a week or more so were under no threat apart from a possible attack of boredom.

The bottom line is that regardless of how well prepared you think you are, there is always the risk of something abnormal happening. That is what happened to us. What is vital is that you have the skills and equipment to deal with the situation which is often where folk are often unprepared. It also points to the value of newcomers to remote area travel getting some training and experience from someone who has a strong background and experience in remote area travel.