Bertha has a fever… :(

Our dear Bertha isn’t well. We’ve had a significant and unwanted change-of-plans in the last couple of days. I shall catch up with entries on our day at Cradle Mountain and our time in Queenstown and Strahan later, but now I have to write about our poor dear darling Bertha’s illness. Duncan and I have really gotten to feel quite close to Bertha. She responds well to our compliments and whistles at us when we drive. The driver’s window has a most musical and conversational tune when it is open and she’s starting to develop a personality as we get to know her. And just as we began to truly bond, she got sick!

We took her from Waratah to the West Coast and Dunc and I had many discussions as to whether to go to Queenstown or Strahan. In the end, we chose (wrongly) to go to Queenstown as it was an A road, as opposed to the B road leading to Strahan. What a mistake that was!! The B road has been recently upgraded and the hills are significantly lower and more spread out. The hills leading to Queenstown were extreme and insane. It was also the hottest day – the one that was 47˚ in Melbourne and was 34˚ in the hills of Tasmania. We hadn’t had ANY issues with Bertha so didn’t really give the temperature any thought – another mistake!

We had a long and difficult drive through the hills. I did not enjoy it at all and Dunc was sick to death of 1^st and 2^nd gear. He had to constantly change up or down gears as there was either an extreme corner (including faaaar too many hairpin bends) or an uphill stretch or a steep downhill stretch. After a good 2.5 hours or so we came to the last uphill stretch into Queenstown. Dunc was watching the temperature gauge and he had just mentioned that it was starting to go up when it suddenly skyrocketed and Bertha stopped. We weren’t going anywhere! L Dunc got out the safety triangles and warned all the truckies over the UHF CB and we waited for her to cool down. We didn’t realize it was the final stretch until we eventually started up again after 40 minutes. It was a bit uncomfortable as there was nowhere to pull out and we were basically stopped with half the bus in the traffic lane.

Once the temp dropped well into the green zone, Dunc felt comfortable starting her up again. We drove down into Queenstown blowing blue smoke the whole way which was a MASSIVE concern. We cruised into the free-camp Sportsground and covered the one caravan there in smoke before we were able to turn off – how embarrassing!

We spent 3 days in Queenstown, during which Dunc spoke to or rang every mechanic and diesel mechanic he could find for advice. We finally had one guy come out on Saturday morning to look her over. Dunc had put a heck of a lot of water and 7lt of oil in the engine, and some of both had leaked out – which we didn’t like at all! The car mechanic recommended a mining diesel mechanic who didn’t know busses and the diesel mechanic in Strahan recommended a local guy called ‘Speed’ who came out on his Saturday morning to look her over! He could find any reason for the leaks and thought the issue was just the extreme heat affecting the engine – the exact advice our own Melbourne mechanic had been giving via phone.

We had been told that the road to Hobart was worse than what we had driven and that we should go Strahan and then back up to the North coast and then down to Hobart that way. We went for a drive in Baby Bertha to check the conditions and were KICKING ourselves that we had chosen to drive to Queenstown instead of Strahan.

All the mechanics recommended giving it a go and seeing how Bertha went. I drove in Baby Bertha so she wouldn’t have to tow the extra 1.5 tonne and we drained the tanks to take off all the weight we could. Dunc did his best Macguyver-ing and jerry-rigged a bucket scoop to push cool air into the engine to avoid a vortex that can form due to the trailer.

 We made it up the big hill, but as soon as Dunc hit the level straight, the temperature skyrocketed again and Dunc pulled the pin. Driving in front with the radios, I was able to direct him to a lovely large pull-out and we rang the insurance company.

According to our policy, our motorhome insurance covers roadside towing, SOME mechanical repairs and accommodation so we felt reassured with that. Of course this all happened on a weekend and we are yet to actually speak to anyone from the insurance company!!

The roadside assist was wonderful though! We ended up needing a massive tow truck from Hobart, which took 4 hours to arrive. At least we were able to make lunch and hang out ‘at home’ while we waited. I even hung out the washing and cleaned the bathroom! I also packed for a few days, which was the weirdest feeling in the world. Usually I love preparing to stay in a holiday park, but this time I hated it!

Watching them attach Bertha to the tow truck was amazing! She was lifted a good metre off the ground at one stage, but we were too busy watching to get that bit photographed.

So here we are, staying in a cabin park in Hobart. My Mum and Dad arrive tomorrow for 4 days. Hopefully they will get to stay in Bertha, but we may be stuck here for a bit as the mechanic she’s been towed to can’t look at her til Tuesday. Dunc is going to swing past and see them tomorrow.

Sigh… this is one of those “unplanned changes” that is not so good. We fully expected to experience this sort of stuff during our trip. We just didn’t expect it to be within the first few weeks!