And then this Happened...

So we left Normanton at about 7:30am to drive to Cloncurry. We worked out it would be about a 382km drive, and it would take us 5 hours plus a half hour rest stop, so we'd get to Cloncurry about 1:00pm. We were a little too excited about the fact that Cloncurry had a Woolworths (the other 2 towns we stayed at didn't have any well stocked and well priced grocery stores), we wanted to buy some icy poles and a few other things, then have a little explore around the info centre and town before we get to our site, set up, get refreshed in the pool, eat some dinner, and hit the sack for a good nights sleep. We then would wake refreshed in the morning and head towards a free camp in Camooweal for one night which is just under 3 1/2 hours away from Cloncurry...So that was the plan!

Well as we all know not everything goes to plan and this day certainly did not...
This is our drive to Cloncurry...

244km to go...

Just under 3 ours into our drive we stopped at our first ever Roadhouse for a rest and refresh...Burke and Wills Roadhouse...

More outback, Red dirt Scenery...

And then this happened! We were driving along, doing well we thought. I looked down at the Nav man and seen that we had just 46 minutes until we got to Cloncurry, we were excited because we wanted to go to Woolworths and get some icy poles and a few other items.

Just before this happened, maybe about 5 or 20 minutes earlier we discussed the rules of the bush that we had read about the day before (see pic above). We have discussed travelling/driving rules with the girls many times, however, I just felt to have another discussion about these things on this day. We discussed how we are very prepared if we ever got stuck on the side of the road again (we got stuck on the side of the road on new years eve 2015 in Lismore, Victoria). We discussed how we all would need to stay calm and remain with our caravan and vehicle, and that we had plenty of supplies if we were stuck for a while. I thought we had a good chat!

As we were driving we suddenly heard a loud thump sound and are grinding sound, I actually thought we had run over some metal. I looked directly at Shane and I immediately could tell by the look on his face something was wrong. Shane had just enough time to pull over to the side as the vehicle DIED! WHAT, OH NO NOT AGAIN! My heart started beating quickly, I asked Shane what happened? Did it die? His response was YES! I turned to look at the girls, their beautiful faces just dropped..I quickly turned into Mama Bear and concentrated on reassuring them and making them feel that all would be fine, and made them feel comfortable. Shane looked over the vehicle but didn't know what was wrong. It was a stinking hot day, thankfully I had put some primas and zooper doopers in the freezer the day before, so I gave the girls the zooper doopers to cool down, and made sure they felt reassured. The girls began praying while Shane and I prayed and worked out what to do next. What was quite Amazing was that we actually had somewhere to stop safely, and we actually had just a couple of bars of reception on our mobile phones...THANK YOU GOD xo 50 meters back and about 50 meters in front of us there was no where to stop and no reception. In fact, everyone who stopped to ask if we needed help, asked us how do you have reception...THANK YOU GOD xo And that is another thing, so many people stopped, so many other travellers and people driving along that road stopped to ask if we needed any help. Every time someone stopped I got a little emotional (but I sucked up the tears so the girls wouldn't see me emotional and get more emotional themselves) because it warmed my heart to see so many people show such care/love/compassion to strangers. One couple in particular that stopped, we had met back at Normanton, they were our neighbours at Normanton. They stayed with us a while until they found out that RACV was coming to check out our vehicle.

That was the other thing...We were on the phone to RACV for quite some time. We were thankful we had reception to call them. Shane told RACV about the situation we were in, Shane told them we had full total care with them, RACV told Shane that our names were not coming up, which meant we had no cover, WHAT! My heart beat raced that little bit more once again. How could we have no cover, we arranged FULL total care cover before we started our trip (we'd be crazy not to), in fact, we had used our cover back in January when they again made a mistake and let us stay on the side of the road on new years eve for 10 hours because they had mixed us up with another couple in Lismore, N.S.W, we were in Lismore, Victoria...Anyway we remained calm and just did what we had to do to get us and our beautiful girls in a much safer situation. We were told over the phone we would have to sign up there and then to basic cover for 2 years and pay for it over the phone, so we did, we were told we would not have total care and that someone would come out and asses our vehicle and may tow our vehicle but possibly not our caravan. We accepted what RACV said and decided we would deal with it when we and our children were safe and sound at the caravan park.

A little while after our neighbours from Normanton (Doug and his lovely wife) left us, they had called us to see how we were doing. They were actaully going to go and stay at Julia Creek (about 1h 40m drive from Cloncurry), however, they decided to wait around for us at the caravan park in Cloncurry, so that they could drive over 45 minutes back to us and tow our caravan back another 45 minutes to Cloncurry using their vehicle, WOWSA! 
These people we had met the night before paid to stay at a caravan park they hadn't planned on staying at, just so they could drive 45 minutes back to where we were stranded, so that Doug could hitch our caravan to his vehicle and then tow our caravan back another 45 minutes to the caravan park...THANK YOU GOD for GREAT, Compassionate, Beautiful People. Thank You to Doug and his lovely wife xo We appreciate You xo

Well, 2 1/2 hours after our vehicle died on the side of the road a tow truck arrived and picked up our vehicle and caravan and gave us a vehicle to drive ourselves to Cloncurry, YAY!

We arrived at Cloncurry at about 3:30pm. We unpacked our vehicle, and watched our vehicle get towed away once again to the tow truck depot.
We have now been here in Cloncurry since Saturday (nearly 1 week)...We still don't know what is going on with our vehicle and we don't know if RACV is going to cover the tow and our accommodation...We don't have a vehicle, so we are walking everywhere..it's great exercise! We are just waiting and praying. 
Shane has made many phone calls to the mechanics, RACQ and RACV, but we really aren't any closer at knowing what's going on. We were initially told the problem would most likely be the crank shaft which could cost us in excess of $10,000 with many labour hours to fix it...(Please God No)...and last we heard, we were told it could be the drive plate which could cost in excess of possibly $3,000 to $4,000 with many hours of labour to fix that, Oh No!

You know what..I may sound crazy, however, in all of this drama going on around us we are all handling it very well. I am proud of our girls, they have learned to cope well and pray in times of difficulty. Shane and I have become better at handling difficult situations also, I think that comes with practice and most of all Trust and Faith in GOD...Our FAITH in GOD has seen us through many things, and Our FAITH in GOD will see us through many more.
We truly believe God has us in the palm of HIS most Beautiful hands xoxox

Please pray with us! Pray for all things to work out well regarding our vehicle, our finance, RACV and RACQ. Pray for God to use us while we are stuck here in a small mining town, with nothing much here. I know we will make the most of our stay, we always do. So please cover us in prayer during this time xo
Thank You in advance for praying for us we truly appreciate it xo

So we will see how things turn out and I'll update you all when anything changes...For now we will make the most of being here in HOT Cloncurry :-) We will still smile and laugh, have fun, explore and make the most of this time here together...It's not the end of the world, it's a Hiccup!

Hoping everyone has had a great week xo
Take Care and Tell your loved ones you Love them :-D
Love Dimi xo