After a very cold night with a heavy frost and little sleep worrying about the car we were contacted this morning by Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) to start an action plan to get us, the car and caravan over to Orange – the location of the nearest JLR dealership. We also received a call from the Regional Service Manager to offer what assistance he could, which was a nice touch.

After many hours we finally got a plan together; a hire car would get us to Orange, a tow truck would take the caravan to our pre-booked site and the car would then be dropped at Tony Leahey’s JLR service centre in Orange, coincidentally just a few minutes walk from the caravan site. Grant, the tow driver was superb and was soon following us to Orange, though it was a deeply depressing sight to see our new car being towed on the first day of our Big Lap around Australia. It didn’t bode well.

At least today we got to setup the van in daylight… just, and watch a typical central New South Wales sunset. Not to mention the dark skies and all those stars! How many city dwellers have ever experienced clear night skies like these? There was only one thing left to do today and that was to wander down to the local pub for a drink and enjoy our first proper meal for two days. If anyone happens this way we can happily recommend the Ophir pub, their friendly staff and the huge meals they serve.

Hopefully, still wondering if we have been supplied a lemon, we’ll sleep more easily tonight.