In A Citreon... Part 2

We left Sydney in the bright morning and stopped off to admire the Seacliff Bridge just south of Coalcliff.  

From the Coalcliff public toilet block, and we hadn't even got to Seacliff yet.

I was excited: I'd wanted to see the bridge for quite a while.  Mind you, the bridge itself was constructed so that people like myself had to concentrate on their driving and couldn't get distracted by gawking at the views over the sides.  Then we parked and BD took one look at the walk down to the bridge itself and that was it for her.  "Are you walking all the way along it?"   Now 1.3km isn't far when you're the one walking with the sun sparkling on the sea, a cool breeze ruffling your hair, and a hundred tourists posing for photographs around you.  However, if you're the one sitting in the car waiting while your mother walks with the sun sparkling etc etc... yeah, that takes a while.

"Nah," said I.  "I'll just go take some photos at the start."

So I did.

There's always one photo bomber jumping in.

Now all this driving along beside the ocean and lunching in little cafes with views of the shining sea was all very well and good, but we were on a mission to find Big Things, and this mission led us to the carpark of a family-owned hardware store in Unanderra where we were most excited to meet the Big Hardware Man.

Not a Big Hardware Man. Lunch views.

Here he is!

Suitably awed, we took photos and lamented that we weren't on the other side of the road where the perspective would have been optimal.  And then we jumped back into the car to continue on our merry way down the coast.

And the car didn't start.

I'll spare you the gnashing of teeth, the calling of RACV, the very nice young man who came out and got quite excited about an interesting electrical problem, and the car that started perfectly when he started it.  And then it didn't.  And then it did.

"It's gonna cost you a lot of  money to find out what's wrong," he opined.  "They'll have to run tests on the starter motor, and it's really hard to reach the starter motor in a citreon..."  Yep, we already got that message.

Discussions were had.  We decided to ditch the long and winding coastal road and head back to the Hume Highway where we could roar along at 110km/hour all the way to Melbourne and not stop at all, except when we had to.

So we did.

Goulburn greeted me with bells at the Catholic Cathedral as I ran down to Woolworths for dinner.

There were lots of beautiful buildings to distract me from car woes.

I waited until all the respectable denizens of Goulburn had refuelled their vehicles and gone home for the night, and then I filled the car from the self-service bowsers at the fuel depot.   There was nobody else there and I could leave the engine idling while I filled up, thus ensuring I could get back to the motel without relying on the tender mercies of the NRMA.

I drifted off to sleep whilst making complicated plans around how to manage comfort stops whilst keeping engines running.  T'was the stuff of which dreams are made.