Our trip south started at around midday once we were all packed up and ready to leave Darwin, south back through Katherine where we noticed the sign announcing that Cadel Evans was born here. Of all the northern towns Katherine had the most number of Aboriginal people just sitting around the city centre under trees. Only another 300ks to our destination of The Daley Waters Pub.

The Daley Water Pubs is in the middle of nowhere or close to it and only 4ks off the Stuart Highway you can find the tiny town that is only a pub and a campground that belongs to the pub. Its an iconic pub and not to many who pass this way who don’t drop on to check it out, like most outback business its employees are mostly backpackers.

This was no ordinary pub its full of crap, crap ranging from bras to shirts, stubby holder and plenty of licences and cash from all over the world is hanging from every inch of this place. We sampled a couple of beers before setting up our penthouse and heading back into the pub for a couple of games of pool and a feed, the camp ground only had around 8 vans and tents but had plenty of room for more, the picture inside the pub showed times of hundreds of vans in the camp grounds.

The feed was ok and I won the pool easy but I didn’t have much competition, only had to beat Shelly and some old grey nomad who was keen to see Shell clean me up. A Greyhound bus pulled into town at around 9:00pm and the locals came from everywhere, this was no small occasion the arrival of the greyhound, it was the biggest thing to happen around here since the last bus came through town. The air breaks of the greyhound made a loud noise at the front door of the pub as it came to a stop just as the barmaid wondered past us with a mail slung over her shoulder like Newman on his mail route around New York.

The driver jumped down three steps from the bus before his work boots hit the warm dirt next to the backpacker mail girl, he opened up the cargo door under the bus and started tossing out all kinds of packages and supplies for the pub and the few locals who had come out to greet him. After they handed out a few parcels to the locals like Santa they swapped mail bags and the greyhound was on its way leaving the locals to open the mail and parcels like 5 year olds on Christmas morning, we had a feed and a few more beers before heading home to the penthouse and a very warm night ahead.

Up early and on our way south we were into our 1000k day to Mount Isa, we made great time with the 130k NT speed limits before we came to the Queensland border marked by a sign full of graffiti and a 1000 head of cattle on the road, with only a couple hundred kilometres to go we were back in our home state for the first time in over 12 months.

As we passed the 60ks to Mount Isa sign the Prado failed for the first time since we purchased it new 6 years ago, we had ran out of fuel, all power had gone from the vehicle, then it came back before leaving us again, we can’t be out of fuel the gauge shows 40 litres remaining plenty to make it to Isa. Then the power drained out of my foot on the accelerator, out of the motor and out of the wheels…

Not knowing much about cars we checked out the basics and tried to start it again but this Toyota that had been so good for so long gave us nothing as did our phones, stranded with no phone service in 42c heat of the outback isn’t great. Shelly jumped on top of car to find phone service and rang the RAC who organised a tow truck to come and collect us. The wait was hot but not so uncomfortable and as we finished the last of out very cold beers in the fridge the tow truck appeared in front of us. It was near dark by the time we checked into the Bourke & Wills Motel in Mount Isa.

The next morning we rode the scooter out to the mechanics to grab some gear out of the car and see if they had done anything yet, the guy who towed us was working on a truck and said he could have a look until he finished with the truck, we grabbed our gear to headed for the Mount Isa Bowl to do something we hadn’t done in many years. We are possible the worst ten pin bowlers of a generation even the guys in wheelchairs using a ramp to roll the balls topped our pathetic scores, after leading for the entire game Shelly lost after the only 3 bowls I got near the pins for the entire game.

Bad news from the mechanic, he found the cause of our sudden power loss but he had no clue how to fix it, come and get your car we can’t help you and we can’t find an Auto Electrician for a week! “You have no power at the relay to the fuel pump” they told me.

I arranged to have it transported whilst Shell hit the phone to find someone who could have a look at the car inside a week, she found someone who could look at it that afternoon if we could get it there now. The tow truck driver had only had his truck a couple of weeks and we were his first tow so it took forever to get it loaded, we made it on time and a young guy was waiting for us but we couldn’t get it under cover until a truck moved out, the same truck as this morning was now stopping us again.

I had a chat to the trucks owner he was from Toowoomba on his way to Kakadu with 6 other trucks to collect a temporary camp and deliver it back to Brisbane, his A/C had packed it in so he spent the day in Mount Isa the same as us, Kakadu is no place to be without an air conditioner I told him. He had never been to the NT so he was keen to hit the road, he told me most of work was for Santos out at Moombah on the SA/Qld border that place get hot but also very cold in the evenings. The trucker made room for our Toyota as he pulled out and headed north after giving me a big smile and a wave.

Peter the young South African guy assigned to check out our car had it running within 10 minutes but my excitement from this was short lived when he tried to drive it where the truck had been in the shade of his shed, whilst it idled well the fuel dried up once he hit the accelerate, we had to push it into the shed not an easy task considering the huge load its carrying.

I left him with it and we agreed to talk in the morning, he would keep working on friday night then come in again on Saturday morning to continue. We hit the Buffs Club across the road for dinner and its 1980s drinks prices. I arrived back at the car around 10am the next day to find Peter and the car in 1000 pieces, he said he had found the fault but couldn’t fix it, “I rang Toyota and they can look at it on Monday for you” he said. He traced the fault down to the fuel tanks and the fuel pump that transfers fuel between the two tanks. I didn’t even know I had two tanks I was told it had one tank of 165 litres when we purchased it.

Being Caulfield Cup day and nothing else to do in the 40c heat we headed to the Mount Isa Races, a race meeting on a sand track with 5 races and fewer horses in each. We got dressed up Mount Isa style and rode the scooter to the track to join the 80 other people silly enough to be out in the heat. With the horses for race 2 parading in the mounting yard we used Shells method for picking winner “that one looks good” so we backed one each and settled in with a cold beer to cheer home our winner.

Race 2 was a 1200 meter race and the horses ran out of sight not long after the start, we had forgot the direction they run and a large shed blocked our view until the first 3 horses appeared again 60 meters for the line, we found a problem with this thou none of the horses were ours! some time later Shells appeared then some later again mine wandered past the shed and into sight, its 42c we can’t punt so we checked out of the Mount Isa races and headed for the comfort and 1980s prices of the Buffs Club.

Monday morning and I helped the truck driver load our Toyota for the third time since Thursday for the short trip to the local Toyota dealer, The guys at CAVA were great and only charged me for the tow and not for the time spent looking at it, I was shocked and grateful for this, if anyone ever needs an auto elec in Mount Isa try these guys first, great service and friendly people who sent me to Toyota knowing it would be my cheapest and quickest option to get back on the road. Maybe we should have just gone to Toyota from the beginning but the original tow truck driver never gave us this option last Thursday night.

We spent the rest of the day doing a Mount Isa pub crawl, Google told us we had eight establishments to drink in so we started with the Barkly on the outskirts of town, the Barkly was a large pub that needed a couple of million in repairs done to it and the bar only had a few locals staring into the bottom of there pots at the bar. By the time we went to the Overlander, the Club, the Isa and the Red Earth we had drank the town dry of its six drinking holes, we searched for the other two but they are long gone and only vacant land exists on the sites.

My phone rang at 5:00pm on Tuesday afternoon with news the car was fixed and ready to go we collected it first thing next morning and packed up to depart Mount Isa, it was a costly stay dropping near $3000 into the local economy and we were very happy to leaving town. Within two days we will be in Tannum Sands with the 3000ks from Darwin complete.