We had to move camps to a powered site after one night in an un-powered site as I needed to take the camper off to get to the fridge ‘bits’. We arrived at our designated camp and there was a tent on it! I nearly drove over the top of it in frustration but managed to get beside it and get the fridge on mains power to see if it was going to work at all. My stress levels were getting higher as the morning wore on! Luckily the guy in the tent turned up and I took him to reception and sorted things out. We ended up in the site next to them under the palms in a very shady spot. Their booking was a day short and reception did not think we would fit in site 134 next to them but it is just perfect. We lost our view but have the pool over our back fence now.

I got the camper off the truck and setup on it’s legs in 40 minutes. Had the vents off the back of the fridge and everything looked Ok, nothing has snapped off anyway. The fridge needed a few hours on mains to cool down so we went off to find some metho and a tooth brush to clean all the gas jets if it worked on mains. Can’t buy metho here unless you ask for it and it can only be sold at one counter of the supermarket. Still getting used to all the rules up here, no alcohol sales on Sundays and with no fridge we could not get a cold one in the fridge yesterday!

While out everything was shutting at 1PM so getting food was impossible. We ended up at the local pub for a counter meal and on tap Matso’s Ginger Beer. We had lunch with the rest of Kununara on a Sunday arvo. Alcohol can only be served with a meal or at the bar on Sundays.

Got back to the camper after lunch and the fridge was cold, a real relief as that means it is only a gas issue and the internals are still Ok. The mains uses a separate thermostat element than the gas. I removed the fridge from the cabinet to get access to the gas components and had a quick look at the manual I had on the computer. The fridge is heavy, 29Kg! Cleaned the gas jet with the metho and brush and blew it out. It looked fine but what else could it be? I disassembled all the heat exchanger and flu system and ensured everything was where it was supposed to be after the Tanami corrugations. The flame looked like it said in the manual after cleaning it and the thermostat was changing the flame height. I put it all back together and it seems to be working for now.

It’s bloody hot here, 30 something today and 14 overnight. Forecast is about that for the next week. We last saw a cloud about two and a half weeks ago on our first day in Alice Springs. Sharon had a swim today in the pool while I was working on the fridge and giving some advice to the Canadians in the campsite next to us.

Now I can add ‘fridge mechanic’ to my list of trades used on this trip so far!