Coober Pedy and turn left: Mt Dare auto repairs - July 30

STATS: back from Alice with spare parts and new broken bits on the Disco.

Today was repair day. We watched the stranded plane towed out to airstrip, where is eventually took off, despite boggy and windy conditions. There were stacks of people in the campground, all the cabins were booked out and the staff of Mt Dare had served 60 meals the night before. The wet weather had stranded many travellers.

The morning after the night before...mud - everywhere...NB lights, no wonder we struggled to see where we were going.

Is it a green or brown ute?

the plane we bought the fuel for, being towed up to the airstrip.

Repair time, Ska pulled to pieces...again.

New bits.

Now how the hell do we compress the springs OFF the old struts and onto the new struts...

...use the ratchet tie downs holding the spare tyre on the back of Ska.

There are no more photos of this procedure, as I was actually working too, I am sure Dad has a few, but I don't have them yet.... Let me assure Stef worked bloody hard to get old springs off and on and replace both struts. The car drove well and wheels seemed pretty well aligned too. After a quick/short trip around the campground Ska was "on the go" again...now it was Disco's turn.

Again very few shots of this....I was busy helpfing. Here is Stef using the camp anvil to re shape the bracket off the wishbone, prior to taking it over to Jeff at workshop for welding.

Stef with the broken wishbone.

Meg was talking to some folk around the campsite and mentioned my name in passing, the lady she was talking too, looked strange at the name, her name is Nicola too and we both pronounce it the same. I have NEVER met another Nicola, (plenty of Nicccola's) she hadn't either, so we took the opporunity for a photo op during the day. We were both in the pub that night and amazingly not only shared the name, and the pronunciation but we had both bought the same jacket at Uluru - had to be another photo here.