A Trip Report (of Sorts)

[Chris]

As many of you know, we recently were headed for Gregory and Keep River NP's, in the Top End. On the day before we departed, I rang the rangers at the parks, and she said it was as busy as hell out there, and we would be lucky to get a spot with an 18 foot (internal) sized van. She also said they had bollarded the areas so that only small rigs can fit. AND they were fining people who just pulled over into the bush. We had a long hard thought (doesn't take long in my case) and decided, nope, that's not my idea of fun.

So we went to a billabong on the Jim Jim instead, out in Kakadu. Lovely spot, nice weather, not too crowded. And then disaster - the fridge started losing temperature. So we left and went down to Katherine to get it fixed. The mechanic said it simply needed re-gassing. He did that. Back to Kakadu - we are sticklers for a good camping experience! Two days later, the same problem again - fridge getting warm.

At that point we gave up. Came back to Peppimenarti, the community where we will be living for the next six months.

Val has taken the fridge out of the van, on advice of someone he spoke to on the phone, to see if he can find the gas leak (if that is indeed the problem). He can't see anything obvious.

I think we will have to buy a new fridge, and they are quoting us $2,400.00. Plus freight. Sigh.

The other thing is there appears to be no one in Darwin with expertise in these things and we will have to take it back to Katherine to a mechanic we know there.

Chris