Thank god for the RACV

Wednesday 9th October, we left Coffs Harbour at lunchtime, after making the decision to head to Victoria. After four & a half hours of driving, we were cruising up a hill on the Pacific Highway, halfway between Taree & Newcastle, Mark was changing down from 5th gear to 4th. Yes, the bus got stuck in neutral. Not a good feeling sitting on the edge of the highway with no gears, the semi's flying past only inches away and we knew we weren't going to get very far.

Yes, another call to the RACV.

Broken down on the Pacific Highway, near Bulahdelah

Here we go again.

The RACV and the NRMA were fantastic. The RACV arranged two nights accommodation at a motel in Bulahdelah.

As the NRMA mechanic couldn't get us going on the side of the road, a tow truck was called and the bus was towed into the nearest town, Bulahdelah. The mechanic where the bus was taken couldn't fix the bus for at least 5 days and we needed to get back to Vic, so the RACV then arranged a chauffeur driven Fairlane to pick us up and drive us 70km's back up north to Forster to pick up a hire car. A total recovery was then arranged for the bus and trailer, which involved both being pick up and taken back to Mum & John's, for John to repair.

The alarm was set very very early on the Thursday morning, so we could head off before 5am, did I just type 5am. Yes, earliest time we have been up on the whole trip, but we wanted to get an early start as we were aiming at reach Beechworth.

Thank god for the RACV and Total Care.