Day 34 - The Beast is back

Date: 
Wednesday, July 24, 2024

This morning, we went to see Mick to pick up the Ranger, now that it is fixed. According to Mick, the bushes on both sides of the rear suspension were stuffed, and this would have happened well before our trip. I did put the car in to ARB before we left to get the suspension checked out, but I am buggered if I know what they actually checked, because they should have picked this issue up. NOT HAPPY AT ALL!!

We chatted a bit with Mick, who told us the repair was not too difficult, but Pedders had supplied the wrong sized bushes yesterday, so he got the correct ones from them. Apparently they are the same as the Toyota Hilux parts (40mm instead of 55mm). We dropped the hire car back and then caught up with our niece Nicole for lunch, as she has been living in Alice Springs for about 6 years now. She is currently pregnant with her fifth child.

We took the car to the car wash to try and wash some of the mud and dirt off it so we could now get into it without getting filthy dirty. As we had to move caravan parks today, we arrived at Wintersun Park a bit earlier than our check in time, but they let us use the washing machines, as we had quite a bit of laundry to do. Whilst we were waiting for the load to finish, both of us did a bit of internal detailing of the car, to try and get rid of a lot of the dust inside.

We decided to cook dinner in our cabin tonight, as we will be out for dinner for the next 2 nights, before we leave Alice Springs. We also need to stock up on alcohol now that we are back in "civilization".