Vin parked up after day one of the repair process. He was pushed out.

Well we are still in Harstad, Norway. Well at least one of us is anyway. We were up early and at the Mercedes dealers located behind where we has been parked up for a couple of days for 7.30am. Let the diagnosis begin again. The good news was the problem part had been delivered. ‘Knut’ the very pleasant service guy at Mercedes told us they would also investigate if anything else was wrong, which could cause the other parts to fail, so with that we went for a little walk over the headland to exercise the dogs. An hour later we got a telephone call.

First the good news was nothing else showed up on the diagnostics, the bad news was that this pain in the arse part was located in a position normally accessible from the top of the engine. But as it is a 3 litre engine space was more limited and the fact it no longer lives inside a normal Mercedes Sprinter the camper body made access a nightmare.

The exhaust system and cat would have to be removed first plus all the usual bits and pieces.  Oh and the little old gearbox had to come too. This dissasembly made a time frame to get the job done hard to predict. Even some of the parts being removed are normay accessed from the top of the engine bay, so nothing normal in this job and after all this it would still be a case of, could the bloody part be accessed. Oh and it was all adding up to be very f’ing expensive.

Our options were limited, do we get the van back to the UK for repairs (we have breakdown recovery even here) but the time and logistics would be a nightmare, plus we’d still have to get it repaired at home. We preferred Mercedes making the repairs, even in expensive Norway. We chatted through every option as we hurried back to the dealers and told ‘Knut’ to go ahead even though it could be well over 30,000 Nok and still not be any closer to getting it fixed. (not good news to me being a tight arse but sometimes you have to bite the bullet as they say).

The plan was now set, I would wait here in Norway for the repairs or should I say, more like disassembly of our home to be finished over the next few days. Possibly living inside a Mercedes dealers with two dogs and a hell of a storm on the way. At 3pm in the afternoon I fired up our little motorbike and took Joanne to the ferry terminal for her 4 hour journey to Tromso on the speed boat service. The start of a journey that will take nearly 30 hours to get back to England to help her friend and family at their  difficult time with cancer.

How do we feel you may wonder? Well, we’ve been bouncing from town to town with a faulty engine and now we are going to get a bill well over £3000. We will have to rough it for a bit, spend time apart and put up with a bit of stress with getting home, repairs, moneys, flights, ferries etc. The phrase “there is someone always worse off” certainly rings true. We have been travelling through Norway, one of gods greatest creations and we’ve seen mountains, beaches, fjords and glaciers but above all we still have each other. I know Joanne wouldn’t mind me saying that, having a very close family member deteriorate and ultimatly die due to cancer, not long ago.  And now another friend who’s time is unknown. It is cruel and hell for everyone, so are thoughts go out to all those that are afflicted and there families.

Ultimately we are lucky, very lucky.