So I’m I’m a town that I didn’t plan to be in, for a reason that I wish I had avoided, waiting for things to happen, so I can at least get to where I am going. Welcome to Whyalla.

It all was going along nicely when I drove off this morning, but five minutes down the road, and a kangaroo decided it wanted to be grilled, but instead of choosing a barbecue, it chose the front of my car. Thankfully not too much damage, but enough for a panel beater to make a lot of money, and my insurance company to shake their finger at me.

After checking for damage, I could see most of it was minor stuff, so I got out the roll of 100 miles an hour tape, patched things up and got going. My only concern was the couple of drops, and by that I mean two or three, of coolant I could see. I looked around for a hole, but couldn’t obviously see anything, and I even went as far as to check with a torch, even though it was bright and sunny. My guess was it had come out of the overflow, caused by the big bang, theory as it was.

With the kangaroo checked for deadness, and to see if it had a Joey in it’s pouch, or even better a golden ticket, off I drove…, for a short time.

Before you panic though, this is my standard practice whenever anything out of the ordinary happens. It’s my way of making sure I did check everything correctly, and there are no issues, that I may have missed while the adrenaline was going through my system. It was at this point I could see more coolant. Yep, I had a leak in the radiator, but from where? Well after more searching, I found a small error in the top of the radiator. Not an all hell is breaking loose situation, but enough to be a concern.

I kept checking and checking but couldn’t see any more issues arising the car was running fine, there was no heat in the radiator, so I decided to limp through the next 200km to Port Augusta to see about getting a fix.

While on the way to Port Augusta, I had Mrs. Green Cow check online for where to get things fixed, and it turned out that Port Augusta lacks the very places I was looking for. So onward to Whyalla I went.

Now Whyalla is one of those towns that has sort of always been on my “to do” list. I don’t know why, it is just one of those places, so in a way this was a good excuse to go there. It wasn’t until I found out that a new radiator was required, and that I was lucky to get as far as I did, because the seam on the top was splitting apart, that I realised I would be here for the night. That’s because parts need to come in overnight, for either the radiator place, or for the dealership of the type of car I drive, that also happens to be in town. Grrrr.

So what about Whyalla? Well for the parts I have seen, I would have to say, nice place. It’s a quite place, friendly locals, very clean, a good little town. I like the street art about the history of the place. All the buses seem to go to a place called “Route”, but in different ways, depending on the number they have listed, and apart from the two pigeons that are trying to do a live version of the film Eyes Wide Shut outside my window, I’m enjoying the relaxing day off.

But tomorrow it’s back on the road, and hopefully no more animals crossing, and on to the new life in Perth. Goodbye Whyalla, I’m glad to have been in you.