Saturday, July 6 - Day 18
We travelled a short distance from Saint John, NB to a small campground outside of Sussex, NB called the Lone Pine Campground. Their mailing address is Penobsquis but they are located in Cardwell...go figure. Anyway we were going to use this as our base camp to explore the area. The campground owners Cindy and Leon Hillier were more than accommodating as we arrived on a Saturday without a reservation. They were able to put us into an un-serviced site and Leon filled our water tank and then brought a huge generator to the site. On Sunday we were going to move to a full service site for the duration of the 3 nights we were going to spend in the area.
After we got settled we thought that we would go out and do some exploring in Fundy National Park. Cindy had given us some detailed information about what to see and do, so we were ready to go. As we were driving down Route 114 towards Fundy, we saw a sign pointing to a covered bridge; (Kings County, where we were camped has 16 covered bridges), so we took the dirt road leading to the bridge. About 2 kilometers down the dirt road we heard a growl and grind from the front of the truck. I thought that perhaps we'd hit something on the road and it was caught in the running gear. I finally found a siding where we could get out and check. Nothing caught and seemingly nothing loose or broken. We had an "oh Shit" moment when we realized that we'd left the smart phone at the trailer and had no communication with the outside world. (Did I mention that we hadn't seen a vehicle on this road in the two kilometers that we'd driven?) The truck was still drivable although it was grinding and groaning and squealing mightily, so we limped it back to the campground.
Leon tracked down one of the seasonal residents, Bryce, who is a big-rig technician. He spent about an hour looking under the truck, checking for broken bearings or broken brake shoes. He determined that it was likely the transfer case and it would be best serviced by a dealership. We hung around the trailer the remainder of Saturday and moved the trailer onto a fully serviced site on Sunday afternoon. Isn't it always the case that your vehicle will break down far from home...I suppose that it can't really break if it is in your driveway!
Monday morning (July 8), I was on the phone trying to arrange a service appointment in Moncton;
Our Service Consultant was Brian LeBlanc, who phoned around to several car rental outlets looking for a vehicle for us. He finally found an available rental from Discount. They picked me up from the dealership, I signed some papers and I was on my way back to the Lone Pine Campground in a shiny, candy-apple red, Kia Sportage. While I was out Janet had cleaned the trailer and we decided not to waste our time sitting around waiting for a call from the dealership so we drove to St. Martins to see the sea caves. We spent the afternoon waiting for a call from Brian which didn't come. Hmmm.
Tuesday Morning (July 9)- Apparently Brian had left a message yesterday afternoon when he couldn't get through on the cell phone. They had diagnosed the problem as a faulty transfer case and a new one would cost about $3400 installed. We were basically "dead in the water" without a truck so I gave him the go ahead. They happened to have one in stock from a previous job that had been cancelled. He told me that it should be completed by later in the afternoon - Finally some good news! We celebrated by driving to Fundy National Park, and along the Bay of Fundy to the Hopewell Rocks at low tide. Around 4:15 I started to worry as Brian hadn't gotten a hold of me. I looked at the call log to see that there had been a number of "bounced" calls on the cell phone. When we got the phone last month, I had set up "call blocking" on ALL area codes outside 204; it just so happens that New Brunswick is area code 506 - Duh! I called Brian and he reported that the transfer case was not the problem after-all - they had installed it and tested the truck to find that it was still making noise, so they pulled the transmission pan and "a bunch of metal came out" - this was not good!! Oh yeah and there are no replacement transmissions in Canada. Expected delivery from the USA would be at least a week but there was a used one available from a wreck. Somewhat reluctantly we gave him the go ahead to do the transmission transplant.
Wednesday (July 10) - Off to the Hopewell Rocks to see them at high tide this morning. Tides here are amazingly high. Will blog them in another post. At 1:15, I phoned Brian for an update. The new tranny had arrived and it would not be until tomorrow before it was installed and fully road-tested.
Thursday (July 11) - Our campsite that we were in had been reserved for someone else for tonight and they arrived at exactly their check-in time at 1:00 pm. We had made arrangements for someone to come out and move our trailer to another site, but they got hung-up and wouldn't be there till around 2:00 pm. We decided that I would go and get our truck which had been tested and deemed fit for duty. By the time I returned from Moncton the trailer had been moved for the final night in Lone Pine Campground. The truck seems to be OK but we'll give it the true test when we hook up the trailer and head for Prince Edward Island on Friday.
The transplanted tranny has a 90 day guarantee – more than enough time for us to get home.
Right now we are debating whether or not we will forgo the crossing to Newfoundland. Extremely disappointing for both Janet and myself, but maybe we will try a Bread & Breakfast trip to the “Rock” another year.
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