The week leading up - Sun 5 Feb 23

 Sun 5 Feb - Albury to Home

We haven’t even started our trip proper yet, and already I’m thinking about my comment about needing to remain flexible. We got away from Albury at about 0700h on a very foggy morning. It was a very quiet Sunday morning drive along the Hume Highway without any issues before stopping at Gundagai for breakfast and coffee. Then we continued along the Hume Highway with another 150km to home. At 1030h north of Gundagai I started noticing the automatic transmission was not moving through the gears as smoothly as usual, and it started struggling more on hillier sections. Eventually it started to shudder badly and I lost engine power a few times when overtaking trucks in hills. I pulled over, and noticed oil splattered along the underside of the car which appeared to be coming from the transmission. With 80km to go, I tried to nurse it slowly back home, but it was getting worse and I didn’t want to risk any further damage. So we found a spot to pull over along the highway and called for Road Service. By now it had become a very hot day and we waited for almost 2 hours before the tow truck arrived. After a quick inspection, he agreed that towing was the best and safest option to avoid further damage. The towie was from Yass, the nearest town, so he dropped us off in Yass with our essential belongings and we waited another hour for Chris to drive out from home and pick us up to take us back home. The Ute was to be held overnight at the NRMA compound in Yass and towed to the Ford dealership in Belconnen the next day. We eventually arrived home at 1430h a bit hot, dry and frustrated. By now we were wondering how long our delay might be, or indeed if the damage would prevent us from even leaving for our trip to SA. It was a very frustrating day, but we also think how lucky we are not to have had the van with us, or that it didn’t happen on our QLD trip last year, or more recently when we towed the van over the hilly Clyde Mountain to and from the coast.  A few beers in the afternoon settled me down until we hopefully get a diagnosis tomorrow.







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