A while back I came across a word that was new to me that almost perfectly describes the journey that we are about to undertake. That word is ‘Coddiwomple’. According to the dictionary it is defined as follows:
Coddiwomple (verb): To travel in a purposeful manner towards an unknown or vague destination.
With no fixed end date to our tour or any specific destination in mind, we have taken to referring to our journey as ‘Our Coddiwomple’!
Free to set out in any direction, we decided to initially head east and eventually turn onto a northerly heading seeking more tropical conditions as the cooler southern winter takes hold.
So it was with much excitement we locked up the house and drove away down the street to start our latest adventure.
The first day on the road was not without some minor vehicle drama. Shortly after setting off with the caravan in tow, the engine of our ute stalled for the first time in it’s life as we coasted to a stop at some traffic lights. It re-started right away so we weren't too concerned.
A bit later and a few kilometres out of town the diesel engine ‘skipped a beat’ much like a petrol engine might have one cylinder misfire then continued as normal. Now we were thinking we may have an issue with ‘dirty fuel’ and became a bit concerned but we continued in the hope that as we burned through the diesel in the fuel tank our ‘issue’ would also burn away.
No problems for a couple of hundred kilometres so we relaxed a little and began to think we were out of the woods. Not so!
The engine started to miss once or twice every 10 - 20kms. Things were getting worse rather than better! At this point we thought it would be really nice if there happened to be a Ford dealership in one of the larger towns we were approaching that we could pull into or at least breakdown close to!
We must have earned some 'good karma' points recently as the first thing we saw on the side of the highway as we approached the town of Bordertown (near the South Australia / Victoria border), was a big Blue Oval FORD sign.
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| A great sense of relief when a Ford Dealership sign came into view |
I pulled into the back of their lot, caravan and all, and went into the service desk. Fortunately they said they would take a look right away and if necessary (or possible) they would get to making repairs as soon as they finished the job they were working on. They plugged our vehicle into their laptop computer which revealed the engine to have a faulty crankshaft position sensor. They did not have a new one in stock but they were able to cannibalise the necessary part from a wrecked vehicle that had just come in. All-in-all, we were off the road for just two hours. Great job by the Ford folks in Bordertown to get us back on the road so quickly. All work was done under warranty so there were no out of pocket expenses for us. The technician did say that if we happened to have any more issues or if we wanted to get a brand new sensor installed rather than continue with the second hand part (it had done 75,000km of work in the 'donor' engine), we could drop into any Ford dealership and they would sort things out for us.
It was now getting late with only about half an hour left before dark so we made tracks for a nearby free camp to set up for the night. It was a great little spot located just off of the highway only 20 minutes down the road in a place called Western Flat.
With an eventful day one now behind us hopefully vehicle troubles would be a thing of the past. Only future instalments of WTF? - Where are The Farrows? will reveal whether this would be the case...
