Halls Gap

After a second night camping in the National Park we were ready for a shower so we moved to Parkgate Resort caravan park in Halls Gap. After setting up we spent the day doing ‘housework’ – washing clothes, checking emails, showering! We met Hans and Connie again! This time we were expecting to see them as we knew they were booked into the park. In the afternoon we walked into Halls Gap for a look around. It’s a quaint little town but the prices were high in the supermarket and other facilities were minimal.

On Tuesday we had a bit of a sleep in, and then planned to do the Grampians National Park ‘Top 5 Sites’ drive. It was not to be. The Troopy started fine, we drove about 15 metres, and spluttered to a stop. It wasn’t going anywhere. We weren’t out of diesel, but the car wouldn’t start again. We called RACT. I was feeling very lucky we’d got RACT roadside cover before setting off! They organised for someone to come and help us, but we would have to wait 2 hours as they were driving from a few towns over.

We had not made it out of the caravan park, so we waited back at our tent. The weather was great – sunny with clear blue skies - so I was disappointed we were stuck at the caravan park. RACV took 2.5 hours to arrive. The guy brought a truck capable of towing the Troopy so we were not sure what would happen when we saw the mechanic pull up. He fiddled under the bonnet, asked some questions, and looked under the car. After a few minutes he said there was some air blocking the fuel line, but he had ‘bled’ it out so the Troopy started again. Relief! But the mechanic couldn’t tell us how the air came to be in the fuel line.  He told us he had done all he could, and we would just have to call RACV again if it happened again.

We went for a short drive into town and the Troopy stopped again. Luckily Brendan had watched the mechanic and ‘bled’ the line himself to get us back to the park. We decided to spend the night at the caraven park and call RACV in the morning.

(Don't worry... we are fine now.  The car was fixed the next day by the same mechanic who came to look at it!)