…Pear Shaped

26^th June 2024

When I wrote last, Peter and I were driving along the Oxley HWY talking and laughing, happy in our ignorance of what was about to happen. About forty minutes into our drive, we came to the junction of the Oxley HWY and Wollun Rd. We slowed down, checked for oncoming traffic and…stayed there.

Big Ears refused to move. After ten minutes of encouragement, he managed to limp almost around the corner but not quite – and that was that. So, there we were, stuck on the Oxley HWY with Chunky Bums big butt almost touching the double white line and we were going nowhere! Nor was anyone else travelling our direction on the Oxley Highway! At least not on our side of the road.

Flash back; you may recall that for some time we’ve been concerned about the Gross Combined Mass (GCM) of Chunky Bum and Big Ears. This was in fact, the main reason we came back to the east coast.

We did shed some weight, but didn’t think it was enough so, you can imagine are pure joy when a NSW Roads, Safety & Compliance vehicle, pulled up just minutes after we broke down.

As Peter wandered over to chat to them, I hid in the car and watched through the mirror. I said to myself, “Oh dearie me. We are in trouble now.” Except, I didn’t say it in such a lady-like manner. Anyway, both Peter and I could see they were giving Chunky Bum a good look over, all the while Peter kept an outwardly calm and jovial demeanour. After about ten minutes the Safety and Compliance chaps, got back in their car. Phew! They wished us luck and went on their merry way.

That crisis averted we got on the phone to RACQ. They, as always, provided very good service and promised us a tow truck within the hour. Soon after we had arranged the tow truck, a police vehicle pulled over to see what was happening. We told them the same as the Safety and Compliance guys, except now we had a tow truck coming for us. The police chatted for about five minutes, then wished us luck and went on their merry way.

Forty-five minutes after we had called RACQ, another police car pulled up to see if we were ok. They stopped and chatted for about five minutes, then wished us luck and went on their merry way.

But…a couple of minutes later they returned to help with traffic control. We were very thankful to them for that as it was a surprisingly busy road – cars, caravans and big stock trucks. I had a lovely long chat with one of the officers, it turned out that they were partners in life as well as the police force, and they were dog lovers. In fact, she spent a lot of time trying to convince me to take a puppy… or two, but I resisted.

It took about an hour twenty minutes for the tow truck to get to us, that’s pretty good considering where we were. Half an hour later, Big Ears was on the truck. Chunky Bum was hooked on behind and we were sitting in the cab with Gary. We waved farewell to our friendly officers and we went on our merry way.

Next stop – Tamworth.

See you out there somewhere

On tow and on the go!