tramping new zealand

Yeah. The car was wedged between a major camping encampment with the pergola, children’s bikes, two cars, and a boat needing to be relocated for me to emerge.

If I didn’t mind driving over a low matagouri bush, I’d be able to get out. I just needed a small two-person tent to come down, with the occupants woken.

Eventually, I was extracted, and I was on my way to Hamner for an early breakfast. Just the 38 km of gravel road, over 600 m Jacks Saddle and I’d be speeding on towards my dry bed.

Then, on a shallow uphill, the car stalled. Then it wouldn’t start. This had been an inconvenience on a few occasions over the summer, but not often for long.

This time it was different. Oil pressure was good. Water topped up. Battery well charged.

I could get it to turn over, but it just wouldn’t start.

I fiddled around. 40 minutes later, I was on my way. Maybe the choke had been jammed on, and the car had been flooded.

I needed to change my driving style to keep my revs up, an issue on a winding dirt road with a few ups and downs. But after a few similar inadvertent stops, the car was moving consistently, with the engine working at around 5000 revs.

It was a wild ride, and fortunately I didn’t meet other traffic at inconvenient locations.

Eventually, I was down on the flat and at 80 km/hour or more, any issue disappeared. Actually, I made it all the way home without further incident.

Lucky.

I’m saying that because I quickly got the issue fixed. Carbonisation of the air intake was the diagnosis.

Except, when heading over the steep and windy Takaka Hill, a 1000 m climb, the accelerator cable lost its end stop, and the pedal went floppy on the car floor. A hour or two went by until the AA mechanic from Takaka turned up and fixed the issue with some cable ties.

The AA mechanic helped me out while I walked the Heathy track, but then we realised the issue was in fact the distributor.

He cleaned that up sufficiently for me to get home, but we had found the points were worn out, and the whole distributor needed to be replaced.

I got a third issue fixed. The hole in my muffler really made my 38-year-old car sound sporty. The muffler had been occasionally dragging on dirt roads, so not only the front muffler needed replacement, but the back one did as well. It was full of stones and soil.

No wonder the poor car had been struggling.

Considering the crazy places I’ve been taking my car – down the Skippers Road, Lake Taylor, etc.- I was lucky not to have been stranded.

Lucky, indeed.

Now, good to go.