The Last Post - yes wheelie!

Our journey completed!

A tricky backing challenge

This trailer has 9 lives to be sure!

Lovely billabong at Trangie

Our last Cabin at Cobar

I know you're going to find this hard to believe but we actually had a trouble-free day today!! We left Cobar at 7.15 this morning - the car started and kept going what's more! We arrived at Hubbards at 3.30 having travelled 14,000 kms in 63 days! A large proportion of these kms were on gravel roads including tens of thousands of corrugations!! We've seen lots of amazing scenery, met many interesting people, negotiated some pretty awful roads and discovered once again what a huge and diverse country we live in. Warwick also discovered that you don't have to go too far without finding some water to wallow in!! Someone once said "You'll never never know if you never never go" and that's VERY true. So start making plans!

Thankyou for following our travels and do hope that you enjoyed it as much as we did. Now in hind sight even the wheels falling off added excitement to our adventures.

This is your roving reporter signing off on behalf of the 4 Hubbisons

Yvonne

Last minute excitement!

Our Discovery doesn't look like this yet! An old Landrover at Woomera

What is this saying?

Sunset over Woomera

Some of the flora at Pimba,near Woomera, Stuart Highway

Bob and I talking to Ron Wallace, whose son knows Mark and whose wife I nursed.

First of all apologies to Matt Dickson (and Mark) for calling him Mark in the last post!! Yvonne

Things have not got any less exciting for us on our homeward journey! After finally sorting out the trailer wheel problem in Coober Pedy by putting smaller wheels on the trailer, the Discovery has decided to get in on the act and yesterday, after coughing and spluttering for some distance on our way into Port Augusta, Bob had to replace the fuel filter on the side of the road and we were off again! Spent last night in Broken Hill and met up with Bob's sister Carol and her husband Ian who have been travelling around the country in their Winnebago. Funnily they didn't want to do a swap with us! Can't understand why really!

A monster load on Stuart Highway - it absolutely filled the road!

Fay making sandwiches while Bob replaced fuel filter - Port Augusta

Warwick trying to look useful - he actually is most of the time!

The rear wheel had to come off to change the fuel filter.

This morning after a later start than planned due to the Discovery displaying one of it's idiocincracies, in that it sometimes starts, then stops and won't go again for an hour, we were going great guns until half way between Broken Hill and Wilcannia when it started spluttering again! :-( We couldn't believe it!! Bob nursed it along for a while but finally came to a halt and it wouldn't go any further! Bob was thinking at that stage that it must have been the fuel pump. A passing motorist took the details and was going to ring the NRMA for us in Broken Hill but after sitting for 11/2 hrs Bob decided to try it again and amazingly the car started and it hasn't missed a beat since!! :-). So here we are in Cobar instead of Nyngan but hopefully we'll still get home tomorrow pm!! Have seen lots of emus along the way since leaving 'Alice'.

Fay with Ron Wallace, Pimba

We had one of those amazing times of crossing paths with someone out of the blue at Spuds Roadhouse at Pimba. Fay struck up a conversation with an elderly gentleman who came in for some breakfast and it turned out that his son is a pilot and knows Bob and Fay's son-in-law Mark through MAF and RFDS. It also turned out that I had nursed his late wife at Old Timers and I remembered him coming in to visit her!! It sure is a small world sometimes!

Dinner with Carol and Ian in their Winnebago, Broken Hill

Darling River Wilcannia

New title for our travels - 'Wheels Across Australia'

BBQing at The Old Telegraph Station

Warwick and friend Rose from Yirara

We enjoyed dinner with Margaret and David Hewitt and our host Graham

Our friendly B and B in 'Alice'

No 4 wheel episode 120kms south of 'Alice'

You're not smiling Bob ;-(

Narelle and Mark Dickson - Bob and Fay's oldest daughter and son-in-law

Mark (no. 1 grandson and girlfriend Anita

Narelle, Mark and 3 handsome sons

Bob, Fay and the family

Y and W's gunya by the Stuart Highway

Yvonne's novel way of getting away from the flies - I had a good sleep like this!

Due to the regularity with which wheels keep departing from the trailer, I've decided we needed to rename our Blog! We left Alice Springs yesterday morning after 4 great days of relaxation and catching up with family (for Bob and Fay), friends and colleagues for Warwick and me. We were quite hopeful of reaching Coober Pedy last night but our trailer and one of it's wheels once again re-arranged our plans for us! About 120kms south of AS a wheel decided to part company and wander off through a fence and into the mulga! It took the 4 of us about an hour to find the jolly thing!! It was decided that it would be best to go back to AS to get the welding done so B and F set off at 11am and we didn't see them till 5pm!! Warwick and I made ouselves quite comfortable and the time passed quite quickly really. Two pleasant police officers stopped to see if we were ok just before B and F turned up.

So with the wheel back on I drove on to Kulgera where Fay had booked us into 2 cabins. What luxury! I must say we have all become much more aware of any strange sound or bump now! Anyway after a good night's sleep we set off again this morning hoping for a better day. All seemed surprisingly smooth sailing until leaving Coober Pedy after lunch when the dreaded wheel monster struck again! Yes, you may find it hard to believe but the opposite wheel (to yesterday) was almost off!! So this makes 5 wheel disasters now - 3 on one side and 2 on the other. We decided very quickly to stay here for the night so Fay and I booked into a cabin while Warwick stayed with the trailer and Bob did the business with the wheel. Hopefully that is the end of wheels falling off the trailer but who knows?

Getting the wheel back on at 5pm 5.9.11

Some of the pretty wild flowers along the highway

Oh dear - no. 5 wheel off at Coober Pedy today 6.9.11

More from Halls Creek - Alice Springs

Top Springs - a veritable oasis at the junction of Buntine and Buchanan Highways

Some of the highway signs we came across

Fay with Lucy and Frank from Gippsland - Lucy does all the driving in their 2-wheel drive campervan!

The junction of the Buchanan and Stuart Highways - the end of the gravel for us!!

W with a few Yirara boys at Elliott

Bob was not impressed with the Tennant Creek Railway Station!

Just to recap on our travels since we left Halls Creek: We stopped off at Kalkaringe where they were having a festival to celebrate 'Freedom Day' following the Aboriginal stockmen's strike and walkoff in 1967 and the handing back of the station to the Aboriginal land Council nin 1975. We drove on to Top Springs where we camped overnight. This place is a real oasis at the junction of Buntine and Buchanan Highways! That evening we watched the Wallabies beat the All Blacks in the Pub in the company of a young enthusiastic aboriginal couple. Next day we reached the Stuart Highway, completingthe 182kms in good time as it is an excellent gravel road!! We set up camp at Elliot with great difficulty as the ground was rockhard!! Yvonne and I went and visited 2 of aboriginal families and their sons whom we had known at Yirara College 2 years ago.

Next day we drove to Tennant Creek where we booked into 2 very nice cabins for a couple of nights - this could signal the end of our camping days (this trip). B and F commented that tennant Creek is looking pretty good now compared to when we were here 10 years ago. Y and F did 4 big loads of washing here. Enroute to Alice Springs we stopped at Wycliffe Well, the UFO capital of Australia. We passed the beginning of the Tanami Track which we had begun 7 weeks earlier, completing a very large loop through NW WA and NT! On then to our very comfortable quarters with our friends in 'Alice' where we have been relaxing and catching up with friends from Yirara and Old Timers. Bob and Fay have been spending lots of time with their daughter Narelle, Mark and the boys. We all went to the Opera for the first time last night!! It was a performance of 'La Traviata' by the Opera Australia's Oz Opera. It was excellent and surprisingly Bob and I are now Opera converts! It's now Saturday 3 September and we plan to leave here on Monday, planning to be home in about a week but we'll keep you posted.

BBQ dinner with John, a fellow traveller we have met along the way

Y and W up the only hill in Tennant Creek

'Some Mother's do have them' so they say! W in the dam at Tennant Creek

Relaxing picnic spot at Mary Ann Dam Tennant Creek

Interesting mural Tennant Creek

Who's left his glasses in an interesting spot!!? We got 10 minutes down the road before he remembered!

Some of the aliens at Wycliffe Well

This is what greets you at Wycliff Well Roadhouse.

This is the beginning of the Tanami Road

Fay offering encouragement to Bob as he valiantly tries to hammer in the pegs at Elliott!

Warwick playing Pied Piper to the Peacocks in the campground at Elliott

One of the bikers we came accross - his girlfriend fits on here too!!

A great mural at one of the roadhouses on the Stuart Highway

Having dinner at the Memorial Club Tennant Creek