(Daniel) I had already opened my eyes earlier, to a beautiful pink sunrise, but not wanting to wake the others dozed off again, then got up at around 7am. The wind had disappeared entirely, leaving only the most beautiful piece of desert. If only it had been like this the night before, we would have had a much better time! I walked out to the spot where the trailer lay stricken, as Bobek came to join me. Unfortunately, the wheel hadn’t miraculously got better in the night, and we removed the hub again to take another look at the damage. I had a few ideas in the sleepless night, of temporary repairs that we could make to try and ease the limp home, in practice none of these worked. After scratching our heads for a while, we put the wheel back on and decided that this was as good as it would get. Interestingly the wobble seemed to only go in two directions out of four (up and down instead of left and right), and this looked as if it would be our saving grace, although at what cost, I really didn’t know.
Rowan and Gabby woke up, (with some assistance) about now, and Rowan started to prepare breakfast while we cleared away the camp. This meal was labelled “Gabbies late birthday breakfast,” and was especially good. Grilled tomatoes with cream cheese and pesto, chilli baked beans, toast and more cream cheese with mushrooms. We wolfed the food down, and I explained as carefully as possible that today would probably be spent stopping and starting all the way back to Yazd. I armed Rowan and Bobek with winching gloves, and a sand ladder each, and instructed them to put them down whenever the tracks that we would retrace looked too rough. Then we headed back across the desert towards the road.
It was slow going, and had it not been for everyone working so well as a team we may have encountered mechanical failure, but after about an hour we made it back to the main road. The hub was only warm indicating that it wasn’t rubbing too badly, and the unwanted movement in it seemed about the same, hopefully a sign that the problem was not getting worse…yet! We crawled along the main road another 30km, stopping every 5km to check the hub, it was getting very hot, and I was worried that it may crack or warp. When we got back to the village with the police station, I stopped the truck, and discussed our options. We decided to ask the police to look after the trailer while we went to try and get parts or a low loader.
The first police chief who we met was very rude, and told us to get lost, but Bobek would not give up, and got talking to some of the policemen who were admiring the vehicle. These guys told us that there was another Chief, and that he was much nicer, so we waited around until he arrived in a pickup truck. Bobek then sprang into action, delivering to the chief through his window, a story of hardship and tourists, stranded in the desert. The Chief looked concerned and agreed to store the trailer. So we followed him to the main police station and parked outside the watchman’s hut at the front gate. This was manned 24 hours, and the occupant told to watch the trailer carefully. The Chief even come out with a number of a local mechanic who could possibly help us. We called the mechanic, who asked us to remove all the parts and bring them with us. Bobek and I did this, and we were soon heading back to Yazd and the mechanics house.
When we arrived in Yazd, we looked for the mechanics house, but a local told us that the best mechanic around lived in another area, so we headed over there instead. He certainly was good, taking one look at the parts that we had brought, and just writing down the name of the bearing in Farsi. Thus armed we took this to a shop in Yazd, dropping Rowan and Gabby off at the Hotel on the way.
We travelled with the bearing, back 60 km across the desert to the police station, where we faced heavy questioning before being allowed to work on the trailer again! It took about 30 minutes to fit the new part, and once this was secure we took the trailer back to the mechanic and left it with him to check my work, and reseat the brake shoes.
After leaving the workshop at 8pm, Bobek and I headed back to The Silk Road for dinner with the group.
Distance driven 220kms