In the early morning I checked the fridge. The temperatures were -0.7°C in the freezer and 5.9°C in the fridge. I switched back to mains power to see if it made any difference. My feeling is that there is something wrong with the chilling process. I'm not sure that I want to go back to the people who charged me $66 to clean the gas jet but I have to do something.
We went into Dandenong to check out prices for replacement fridges. I had wanted to buy a portable 12V freezer to act as a backup but the price was over half the price of a new fridge so I canned that plan. We need a new compressor fridge but I would have to put more solar panels on the roof so it will be pretty expensive. I decided to live with what we've got and see how it goes.
While we were still in Melbourne, Rachel rang to give us the great news that she is expecting another child in November. Jean is already doing initial planning for a possible trip to San Francisco.
I rang Alain because he had sent us an text message saying that he'd been retrenched. He was pretty chipper because they paid him five weeks in lieu of notice and he was asked to apply for a job by the guys next door. He will need to upgrade his driver's licence but he thinks he could cope with driving truck around Brisbane doing pickups and deliveries. He has an "interview" on Thursday and might well be employed again next week.
I also rang to find out what the board had done about the Self-containment Scheme. As predicted by Ross K, they sat firmly on the fence, saying that we should launch and operate the scheme at the Horsham Rally and they would decide afterwards if they thought there was a sufficient response to justify formally implementing the scheme. This leave Ross and I in quandry because the scheme, being an important technical effort, needs firm foundations and the present documents say that the authority for the scheme comes from the board, through the National Rest Area and Environment Committee, to Ross and me. I'm not sure what to do next but Ross has said he won't come to Horsham if this issue isn't resolved.
We decided that we had enough of the big smoke so we headed for the Great Ocean Road. We didn't find anywhere suitable to camp so we booked into a caravan park in Geelong for a couple of days.
In the evening, we decided to have a night out. We checked all the restaurants in the tourist directory but none seemed suitable. As we were walking around the city, we saw a sign for the Khan Curry Hut Tandoori Restaurant. It looked interesting so we chose it for our dinner. It was excellent with the highlight being the Onion Bhaji. These are very different from the ones I cook. They have no batter and are very large. The have seven spices including saffron and white pepper, potato, and a little flour. The proprietor told us that he hates cooking them because they can explode when put in the deep frier if there is too much moisture in the onions or the potatoes. We had the Vegetable Platter for starters. This comprised Onion Bhaji, Bonda, deep fried crumbed spiced mashed potato, and Samosa. Only two portions of each but it was so filling that we couldn't eat all the food we had ordered. We finished with lahsi, Jean had mango and I had rose, a very interesting flavour.
I was out early to do the laundry. We went to town to shop because we had seen a Rivers Superstore. I got new shoes and socks. I had checked entry in "The Book" for the rest area at Avalon and found that it hasn't been visited. We drove back there to take GPS co-ordinated and photos. On the way back to Geelong we were held up by a motor vehicle crash on the freeway with one of the vehicles losing most of the off-side front corner.
The fridge has finally failed completely. I thought about what we should do and realised that we haven't room for enough extra solar panels to run a compressor fridge. It is also true that we have to get the present fridge out of the Motley whatever we decide to do. Given that, it seems wise to find out if the present one can be resurrected in somebody's workshop.