Number Three

Ivanhoe Caravan Park, Kununnara (not Katherine!)

You know how I’ve been wondering what the ‘third’ bad thing would be. Well, when Mark and I set off this morning, I was feeling so positive; confident this idea that ‘all bad things come in threes’ was just a silly old wive’s tale. 

Before heading to Kunnunara, and after saying goodbye to Faye and Ron, we nipped into Katherine to empty the toilet as there was no dump point in the park. Driving up the main street, the man in the car next to us was waving and mouthing something at us. I wound down my window: 

“You’ve got a bubble in your inside right tyre” he yelled. 

I had no idea what this meant but I knew for sure it was not good. 

I quickly googled tyre places in Katherine - there seemed to be at least five. Maybe we can just quickly get it sorted, and get back on the road, we thought... The first tyre place - non existent. Second place - closed. Third place - closed according to sign - but there were men in there so I went in anyway.

“Nope, we are closed as we are relocating - you won’t find a tyre place open till Monday” (Saturday today), said the man.

F**!!

I don’t know where this foresight came from but we were surrounded by hundreds of tyres so I asked "Can you at least sell us a tyre?”. I thought if we had the tyre that would be half the battle. The tyre-man found two in the shop that fit the van on the computer,  but then couldnt find them physically. I was so desparate I offered to look and started poking around... Sure enough, we found them! We quickly bought one. 

Our plan was this.... Put on the spare wheel, drive to Kununara, then get the new tyre put on Monday. But putting the spare wheel on is no easy thing on a campervan - especially in Katherine with hooligans everywhere on the street. So we thought, "where can we go to do this?" You can guess.... there was really only one option... which was to go back to Jun's garage.

Jun's garage again

Some of Jun's 'projects' (a bit like mine, albeit larger in size)

Once again, despite a huge backlog of jobs, Jun agreed to help us. His mechanic helped to get our spare tyre out (no easy job as its tucked up in a strange place under the van). But when he saw the spare, Jun said ‘no way can you drive that to Kunnunara- it’s too bad’. It was looking like another weekend in Katherine until.... they realised we had a tyre! They had a mate with tyre-fitting equipment and we had a tyre, so then it was all go - getting the mate over and getting the new tyre on. 

It was great to be on the road again, with just a few other minor events enroute. The air con fan has stopped working, and we had to throw out all the fruit and veges we bought in Katherine when we crossed the state border (I went shopping with Faye yesterday and bought herbs, salad, bananas - all had to go). We also left one of the keys in the side flaps on the van - which we discovered when opening the flaps for the custom's inspection. Aah.

But- miraculously we are in Kunnunara. Returning here, we were struck by how beautiful it was. Although it was only ten days or so ago we were here, we had already forgotten!

Just outside Kunnunara

Although exhausted, as Mark observed - we are having the luckiest bad luck in the world. Thank goodness someone pulled us up with the tyre before we set off because a blow out enroute to Kunanara would have meant another tow (also no phone/internet connection for most of our trip so how we would have called anyone, I dont know), plus could have been very dangerous. Thank goodness Jun was working and dropped everything to rescue us! Thank goodness we bought the tyre when we had the chance! Thank goodness the key did not fall out!

Anyway - that's three bad things now (food poisoning, water pump, tyre). So now I find myself hoping the old wives tale is true because that would mean the end of the bad luck for a while.