This past weekend Katy and I took a trip up to Alice Springs. It was a great trip overall except we had a little hiccup at the beginning and end of the trip.
So when we booked the tickets I booked the flights up (from Melbourne to Alice Springs) on Friday and then for the return flight on Monday instead of booking it from Alice back to Melbourne I booked our tickets for Melbourne to Alice Springs.
Our coaches said we could miss a practice and were able to change our flights to coming back on Thursday. So that was one little problem.
When we got up to Alice Springs we called the company we had booked our campervan through to just confirm where we had to pick it up. They then informed us that the campervan we reserved was no longer available....great. They told us that there was another campervan available. It was a little bigger, sleep 4 people instead of 2. It was a little bit more but we really didnt have another choice as we were already there and needed a vehicle. We looked into renting a car and taking a tent with us, but since all the car companies in Alice only give you 100 kilometers a day and one of the places we wanted to go was over 400 kilometers away. We would have went way over in kilometers and they said that extra kilometers a day would be $.27 each kilometer . So that was out of the picture. We really had no other choice but to except the bigger vehicle. So we told them to go ahead and book it. The lady on the other end of the phone then told me that they did not have that vehicle either. ????? I was so confused and a little upset. How can they tell us they had a vehicle and then not have it. The lady then went onto say that they had a a 4X4 for over $800 for the 6 days. We decided not to do that as that was way too much and who knows if they would have actually had the video.
I called a couple other companies and they said that they did not have anything available as this was the biggest weekend of the year in Alice Springs. They had a big race called the Finke Desert Race. It was a buggy race with high performance buggys that go very fast. Many people fly up for the weekend.
So we called around and finally got onto a company called Wicked. They said that they had one campervan available. It wasn't cheap but because we didn't have any other choice we had to do it. So we booked it. When we picked it up it turned out to be...no joke...a model from 1980 or so. The thing was old. It had well over 300,000 kilometers (200,000 miles on it). So we picked it up and went on our way.
The campervan we had originally booked came with all the linens and bedding and warm stuff we needed to be comfortable. This one was different...we had to struggle to get two pillows and it came with nothing for covers or to stay warm with.
So every night before bed we put on every piece of clothing we had. The first night we froze and decided we needed to buy a blanket. At the caravan park we stayed at they had one blanket left and we bought. It was a fleece flannel thing and it helped a little but not a lot. The rest of the nights we crawled under neath it but still froze. It was very cold as it got down to just a few degrees above freezing. We tried to do everything we could to stay warm, a couple nights we even started the van a few times to try and warm it up, but since there was no insulation in the van it went cold within a matter of minutes.
It was cold but we made it through the middle of the trip with nothing really going wrong. The last day was a different story. We woke up early, made breakfast and cleaned up the campervan early to make sure we had enough time to go get the thing washed and vacuumed out. As we were leaving the caravan park we get halfway out and our van stopped. We thought oh great, why does it have to happen on the day we need to be at the airport in a little bit. We saw that we were low on fuel, as we rented the thing on empty and were trying to bring it back on empty as well. So, no big deal-we'll just get some fuel and it will be alright. So I asked the owner of the caravan park for some fuel and he gave me some. We put it in the van and started it up...at least we tried to. Nothing happened. By this time an older man saw that we were struggling and he came over to try and help. He said we were low on oil so I went back into the camp store and tried to buy some oil. The shop didn't have any small containers or regular size containers of oil all they had was a huge container that would last you many oil changes. But, since we needed to be at the airport in a little bit I had to get it. So I paid $35 for oil. We put in the oil in the car and filled it all the way to the top. Then we started it up....or tried to. Again nothing happened. We were starting to get a little more nervous as we got closer and closer to when we needed to be at the airport. The man said if we poured gas down the carburetor it should start right up. So we tried it and wallah it worked. It started for two seconds and then stopped as fast as it started. It did this not only once but tricked us and gave us false hope a couple of times.
By this time we really starting to get nervous that we would not make it to the airport so I called wicked and tried to get the number for the office in Alice Springs. since it is a small office the number is for a personal mobile and they couldn't give me the number. Go figure. So I got transferred to Roadside assistance after explaining the problem. The lady at roadside took my number and said she would call the man at the Alice Springs office and get him to call me so we could work out what to do. Whether we could just leave it there or if we had to organize a tow truck to tow it back to the Wicked shed. While we were waiting I thought lets try it one more time. This time we were in luck. We got it started. We quickly hopped in and did not stop until we got to the shed. We were able to turn the van in and catch a cab in time to make our flight. I have to say it was a very interesting day, but at least we made our flight and got home safely.
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