Day 17 Monday

Slept in car 100km out of Broome

ROEBUCK PLAINS:
Back to Roebuck to check the water level over the road..
well bugger me, it didnt change over night at all. still mighty deep in places.

BROOME - BOGGED:
So back into Broome, waste some more time, had a decent walk around the town, theres plenty of shops.
Then I went for a drive, might check out Cable Beach that I keep seeing signs for. so I followed the signs, out into the middle of nowhere, I can smell the ocean so thats good, ahh yeah down this little road here that says beach access and around the corner, straight onto the beach with the car! NO!, quick, some hard pack sand there, hang a u turn and nope, bogged.
So I left the car there and had a walk along the beach, when I came back to the car there was a man driving a emergency services 4wd, i asked him for a tow and he dragged me backwards out of the couple of big holes I had dug myself - it was sitting on the diff, lol.. One of them 10 tonne ratchet straps courtesy of Rory came in real handy! Thats when I noticed how bald my back tires are!
I got the fuck off the beach real quick and went back to Roebuck Plains to check on the water. Yeah still hasnt changed, actually looks worse! but while I am here all this nice fresh water will wash all that nasty orange sand off.
Ohh yeah after the bloke unbogged me, we were chatting and he said if it doesn't rain the plains will take 3-4 days to dry up BUT they were expecting rain tonight and tomorrow so it could be a week.. Then when I went for fuel at Roebuck the lady behind the counter confirmed that the road wouldn't be completely clear for days, maybe a week AND theres further road closures the other side of Port Hedland as well and they aren't expected to be completely clear for a week as well.

DECISIONS:
So that made up my mind to head back inland and then on the radio they are talking that Perth and the surrounding area are expecting flooding from the remnants of that cyclone, so maybe I head homewards instead.
Something tells me a lowered ute is not much good in WA in the wet season!

ARRIVAL midnight Monday:
So I am a long way from Broome now near Kununurra, see how much of the stuart hwy I can eat up tomorrow! Slept in car.

Fuel
$50
$67

Trip Meter 14044

THE CAR - TROUBLES!: (most of this happened on Tuesday!)
The car is playing up pretty bad, twice I have come to a complete stop and had to wait 5 minutes or so before the car would run for more then 10 seconds.
So on Tuesday I called into an auto elec in Katherine (yep Katherine again, must like that place, 3rd time I been there!), and the auto elec said we only deal with diesels, try the mechanic 3 doors down..
So at the mechanics, I explain what is wrong and tell him what I want done and he says - never heard of that happening, dont really have time to chase electrical gremlins, cant get you in for at least 3 days anyway - so he obviously didnt want to make a quick buck so I left.
I drove down the road to the car park, parked the car in the shade of a tree and grabbed me jack, jacked the car up and just as I was about to climb under, a bloke in a red ute pulls up, whats up? so I tell him theres water in the crank angle sensors connector and he says, yeah that happens - makes em splutter and stall, ohh yeah I am a mechanic, I worked for a bloke on the other side of town, heres his card, cheap tow if you need it too.. AND then he reached under the bonnet and went click and said its unplugged, do your best to get the most water out you can, good luck.. then he jumped back in his car and drove off.
So I jammed a tissue in both ends of the connector and then blew into them and sure enough there was definitely moisture in there.
Plugged it back in and started the car, seems fine. I drove 265kms before it spluttered a few times and started jerking and carrying on, then it went away and came back a minute later just as I was pulling into a servo for fuel.. It didnt play up for the rest of the night (and it was a long night!)