The Demise of the Crownie - a change in itinery

Fri (6/9) I started to wind up the roof of the van at the Palm Valley campground. The winding mechanism malfunctioned. A spot of bother! The van is not usable and we are 150km from Alice Springs up the Finke River surrounded by amazing rock formations in the middle of nowhere.

We sat down and had a think.......

We decided to try and get back to Alice Springs - the van was still towable, but we needed to clear out the fridge and get some clothes, food and other stuff out. Mike managed to get the roof up a few centimetres so that we could open the door. We then chocked the roof and I crawled in and began the "retrieval".....

Of course we prioritised!

We then hitched her up and banged our way back down the track to Hermannsburg and then back to Alice. We got there at about 6pm and checked in to a cabin at a caravan park.

Sat (7/9) We called Goldstream in Melbourne. They recommended that we bring the van to the factory, so we agreed to bring the van back to the Melbourne factory. 

So instead of Kings Canyon, Uluru, the East MacDonnells and home via the Plenty Hwy, it's down the Stuart Highway into SA and across to Melbourne. Not sure how far, but it's well over 2000km.

We checked out of the cabin and found a shady spot to park the car. We got the van door open again and we organised ourselves for "plan B". After a few phone calls to let people know what was happening (and to let Mike's sister Claire know that she was about to have house guests!), we left Alice at about 11am and headed south.