Day 2: Mon 11 Dec - Allora to Fassifern, 598km; total towed: 1,016km

18-31 deg C, sunny and windy

What an adventure we had today; when you are caravanning, there is always something to keep you on your toes. We left our mostly quiet free camp at Allora a tad after 7am and arrived at another free camp a tad before 5pm, after a longer drive than originally planned. 

Back to the "adventure". We stopped at Wallangarra for mornos and whilst Wendy made the brews, Greg checked the brakes, suspension and shockies as we have had some problems with them in the past. He was shocked (excuse the pun) at what he found, the top bolts were missing from all four shockies and the said items were hanging down like a you know what. More surprising because we had all the shockies, brakes and assembly replaced last Sep. Upon closer inspection he found that the top bolts had fallen out because they had all sheared off where they screw into the chassis mounting. Of course because all the bolts are now missing we can't establish if they used incorrect speced items. 

So, we rang Majestic, Caboolture (who had sold us the van and done all the extra work), lo and behold, they no longer answer the phone, they ask you very nicely to text them or send them an email with all the details; not even the sales person answered the phone! We rang a couple of places at Tenterfield and Warwick, and as expected they were all booked out until the New Year, with no chance of being able to even have a look and advise accordingly. So, we had no choice other than to drive back to Majestic at Caboolture and see what they could do for us. As it turned out, not much of anything. There was one person on duty, a salesman. Allegedly, all the service staff were sacked six months ago due to shoddy workmanship and they have not been able to find any decent mechanics/service personnel since. Really???  Anyway, he was helpful in that he took our names and numbers and got underneath the van and took photos to show to the service supervisor who calls in on Wednesdays. Wendy asked if we would do any damage to the suspension if we drove to Canberra without the absorbers, and he said that absorbers are just that, they absorb so make the ride smoother, and have no bearing on the suspension. So, off we drove to restart our journey to Canberra.

We backtracked over the Gateway, along the Logan Motorway and Ipswich motorways almost back to where we were camped last night. We were hoping to make it back to Allora, as it is a great one-night stopover, however, Greg was feeling a tad weary, and we found this place on Wikicamps. It is just as nice an area as Allora, however, it is on the Cunningham Highway, and there are a lot of trucks. The reviews did say the noise calms down after a while. 

Tomorrow, we hope to be at Tenterfield or Armidale. Stay tuned.  

We've decided that there's no point in getting worked up about things going wrong with the van anymore. There's a very good chance that something will give way every time we take the van out of the shed.  In the whole scheme of things a little problem with the van is nothing compared with what other people are experiencing presently. We remained very calm and just worked through the various options.  

A solar farm near Warwick

The Big Apple

View from Cunningham Gap Highway

Us at Fassifern Memorial Park

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot????

Where we are camped

Wider view

Where we were last night (red circle) and where we are tonight!!