(written on the 26th from notes taken previously)
Well today started off… early. π
In fact, I didn’t go to bed last night. π I veged and veged and veged in front of my screen until it was almost daylight and then figured that since I needed to be up super early anyway (back in Arkansas, my mom and Jim were going to look at a parts van for me.
I think I mentioned that I’m flying to Arkansas shortly after flying back to Utah?
Anyway, there was an absolutely perfect part stand available that would make it super easy and quite affordable to switch my CNG van back to gasoline.
That would make it much easier to sell and not lose a whole bunch of money on.
Anyway, so they were going to look at it for me. The challenge was that the guy selling it was super hard to communicate with. He didn’t like answering questions, preferring to just tell people to show up to look at it instead of answering basic questions about it (specifically, I wanted to know what size the engine was and to verify for sure that it was indeed the year he said it was).
Though certainly a poor choice overall, staying up all night did have one perk. π
Beautiful sunrise. π
Many thanks to my mom and Jim for going to visit the van. Unfortunately, the guy showing it wasn’t there, so they weren’t really able to ask him any questions about it. The lady that was there let them see it, so we were able to verify that it was indeed the year I wanted and the engine I wanted.
Later in the day, however, he marked the van as being sold. π
I’ve been looking for a parts van for years now, and this was the best deal I’ve ever seen.
Oh well.
From my freedom camping spot, I drove away, heading north up Crown Range Rd. toward WΔnaka, stopping multiple times along the way to take look-back pictures.
Up, up, and away I went, texting with my brother Richard and stopping at the summit to take more pictures.
While I was up there, I noticed that a car that was about to leave was badly leaking coolant, so I motioned for them to stop and pointed out what was going on.
After looking at it for a bit, I noticed that the opening for the reservoir was deformed, and the cap couldn’t properly seal. I also noticed that the lower radiator hose was basically cold, and I could hear coolant boiling inside. I also noticed that the cap to the radiator seemed to be missing its spring.
My diagnosis? Bad thermostat caused the coolant not to circulate, which caused the overheat and the boiling, and super hot coolant both deformed the overflow opening and spilled out onto the ground.
The guy who had been driving mentioned to me that the temperature gauge on the inside hadn’t gone into the hot range, so I thought that maybe enough coolant had been lost that the temperature gauge wasn’t showing the proper temperature.
Given everything that I could see, I told them that it was best not to drive it. I suggested getting it looked at by a mechanic instead of risking driving it, because with a stuck closed thermostat, was going to overheat again in no time.
I found the location where I thought the thermostat was, and it was easy to get to, so I mentioned they could try removing the thermostat and driving it that way.
I looked online and found a mobile mechanic that was supposedly open, and they called and made an appointment for the mechanic to come up. He was at another car, but could come up in a couple hours.
Right about that time, a couple of bikers showed up and one of them started asking about the vehicle. At first, I figured the guy was just a nice person wanting to help who knew a little bit about vehicles.
Turns out he was actually a Nissan mechanic who was currently working at a Nissan dealership, and this happens to be a Nissan.
What followed, was both embarrassing and humbling for me and made me wonder how on Earth I’d been so successful at diagnosing and repairing cars for so many years.
I got the diagnosis right on pretty much every car I worked on. Of course, there were the outliers here and there, I’m sure, but that happened so rarely that I can’t even remember one to give as an example right now.
Of course, we all get stuff wrong sometimes, but this was… different.
I foolishly mislocated the thermostat, figuring that it was on the upper radiator hose because that’s pretty much what it always is in all the cars I ever worked on. I should have recognized simply by looking at the parts that I had the location incorrect, but I… didn’t.
But that wasn’t the worst of it. The worst of it was my conceptual diagnostics was wrong. πΆ
I had figured that it must have been a bad thermostat because the lower radiator hose was almost cold while you could clearly hear coolant boiling inside the engine. Pretty much textbook, right?
Well, no… this was a diesel, and apparently, having a cold lower radiator hose is normal early on a drive with these vehicles, and they’d only driven for maybe a dozen miles? I don’t remember exactly.
Chalk it up to it being a diesel, and I having not studied diesel mechanics?
But if the thermostat wasn’t bad, then why did it overheat?
Well, that’s where my automotive theory totally broke down. Conceptually, I think I knew the physics that even at a boiling temperature, if the system is under pressure, then the liquid won’t boil, but if it is not under pressure, then it can easily boil.
The bad overflow tank opening that wouldn’t seal… the coolant boiled.
Still… if hot enough to boil, why didn’t thermostat open? The coolant should have flowed through properly at that temperature, and lower radiator hose should have been hot.
Well… Apparently, the temperature was such that it didn’t actually get up to thermostat-opening temperature until after the engine had been shut off. (If you don’t already know, engines heat up to temperatures greater than they were while driving in the first little bit after turning the engine off because the heat still remains, but the circulation through the system stops, which superheats the coolant that’s inside the engine block.
Apparently, the timing had been exactly perfect for the engine to be hot enough to cause it to boil once turned off, but to have not reached that point at all during the drive until after they’d shut it off at the summit.
πΆ
The Nissan mechanic, upon learning about the deformed overflow tank hole knew immediately what was going on.
And my brain… didn’t even register the possibility of the tank deformation and subsequent inability to seal as the cause of the issue.
Oh, and if that weren’t bad enough, that missing spring in the radiator cap? It wasn’t missing at all. Apparently, those vehicles don’t have springs in the radiator cap. In fact, if they’d put a cap with a spring on the radiator, it would have actually caused an overheat.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a car in the United States with both a radiator cap and a pressure tank? In the states, at least in my experience, if you’ve got a radiator cap, then you have an overflow tank not a pressure tank. And if you have a pressure tank, then the radiator doesn’t even have a cap.
I was really embarrassed.
I was supposed to be a mechanic, but I:
- Misidentified the location of the thermostat
- Didn’t realize that an engine could run for that long and have the lower radiator hose be basically cold still.
- Didn’t know that there were systems out there that had both a radiator bypass caps while also having a pressure tank.
- Wasn’t educated/experienced enough to automatically recognize the connection deformed overflow tank opening had on the overheat.
I enthusiastically deferred to the other mechanic and everything that he said, and they canceled their mobile mechanic appointment.
I apologized for getting things wrong, and the lady expressed her appreciation anyway.
During the conversation, as the other mechanic was explaining what was going on, I think I said something to the effect of not working on diesels, so I would have been confident had it been a petrol car.
But I was kind of wrong there, too? As you’d have the same issue with a system that couldn’t seal itself on a petrol car as on a diesel car.
Anyway, I think pretty much immediately as I was driving away that the other mechanic was explaining how ignorant I was, as I got the kind of side eye that you get when people are talking about you when you’re just out of earshot, and they’re checking to make sure you are.
That’s certainly what it felt like, anyway. Certainly, I could be wrong.
Regardless, I drove away humbled and embarrassed and feeling like I left a very poor impression. I’m always cognizant of the fact that I am not just a foreigner, but an American Foreigner, and it’s important to me to be a good example.
But I left feeling like the impression that I gave was of an ignorant American who thinks he knows what he’s talking about and doesn’t.
π
[sigh]
From there, I descended into the valley below and wound my way toward WΔnaka but actually heading to the Albert Town Bridge.
Chase and I had stopped there in January of ’23 after passing by last time and noticing lots of people congregated at the top jumping from the bridge to the river below… maybe eight meters?
Total guess.
This time around I found a place to park in a little dirt parking area between the houses in a neighborhood and the river, took a picture, got changed, and headed on over to the bridge.
Unlike last time, I was the only person there. There were some people enjoying jet boat rides in the river. There were a gazillion cyclists (long cycling and walking trail along the river, and I’m assuming along the lake as well), but no bridge jumpers.
It certainly would have been a lot more fun with other people, but I started jumping in, partly for the fun, also for… the attention. π
Again and again I jumped, often waiting for multiple camper vans in the waiting lineup for the one-way bridge in the hopes that I might coax other adventurers to join me, but jump after jump after jump yielded no jumping companions.
After probably two hours of jumping, I finally had a couple was probably later 20 something or early 30 something guys jump in, and one guy, far more daring than I, jumped from the bed of a pickup truck over the bridge as the truck was driving across the bridge.
π³
Maybe 100 meters away, there was a tree with a rope swing and multiple places you could climb up the tree and jump off into the river, and there were a handful of younger kids, tweens and young teenagers over there for a good little while, but none of them joined me jumping off the bridge.
Until maybe 30 minutes before I called it a day. Two tween girls came over, climbed over the railing, and stood on the outer ledge staring down at the water.
They were both terrified. I think they’d both jumped before but were terrified again. I certainly know the feeling, as I’ve jumped from Hokitika Gorge a whole boatload of times, but every. single. time. I jump it’s scary.
I stood next to them and encouraged them to be patient with themselves as they built up the courage to finally make the jump (they weren’t being very kind to themselves as they stood there scared).
Eventually, when I gave them an impromptu 3, 2, 1 jump, one of the girls actually jumped. π₯³
I think I then did the same thing for the other girl? and she jumped as well. π₯³
At the time they jumped, I had already jumped a gazillion times, had told myself the next jump was my last jump multiple times π, and had gotten myself quite cold from the repeated jumps into very cold water.
Couple that with the fact that I had been out of the water for so long encouraging the girls, allowed me to get mostly dry, and preferring to remain mostly dry over one last cold jump, I called it a day and walked back to my Golden Kiwi. π
Similar to yesterday, it was later in the day (a little after 3:00) when I finally pulled myself away from the river, which meant that I would either have a rushed trip over Haast Pass (no freedom-camping spots along the way), or I show up early to one of the nearby freedom camping spots in the hopes of guaranteeing myself a spot for the night.
I chose the latter option and headed to a nearby place on Camp Hill Rd next to the HΔwea River, arriving sometime between 3:15 and 4:00, I think. I wasn’t the only vehicle in the parking lot, but I was the only one parked in the designated freedom-camping spots.
To my surprise and delight, I had unknowingly stumbled upon a fun little adventure spot on the Hawea River at the perfect time.
When the Lake HΔwea dam lets enough water out, there are two spots in the river, probably within 100 meters of each other that can be river surfed and boogie boarded. Today just so happened to be the first time in maybe a couple of weeks? That enough water had been let out of the dam to enjoy the adventure.
Locals and travelers in the know who are paying attention to the water volume data that’s updated live online Saw the increased output from the upriver dam and converged on the river, and I got to be there for that. π
It wasn’t crowded, by any means: At its busiest, I would guess there were maybe 8 or 10 people there? But there were definitely a handful of people who had noticed and had come to enjoy the adventure.
Among those who were there when I first arrived was a middle-aged couple and their two teenage kids, the father and son giving their best efforts at surfing the river wave, the sun much more successfully than the father. π
I mostly sat and watched and chatted with the mom. She and her husband and kids had spent, I think it was the last 2 years? traveling around the world on a sailboat. The kids were home schooled. The parents were able to work from the boat.
So cool.
They’d recently moved back to New Zealand and were adventuring on the river for the day.
After they left, I chatted with a couple of boogie boarders who had tried to ride the waves with boogie boards, but their boogie boards were for kids, which I think made it impossible to get the surface area needed to keep them above water and in the wave.
I wasn’t sure, but I thought my boogie board might be bigger than the bigger of the two boards that they had, so I went to my van and came back with my boogie board, and it was indeed bigger than both of theirs, so I let him borrow mine. I had lost my leash when I first bought it, or maybe it just didn’t come with one in the packaging?
So he swapped the leash off of his boogie board and put it on mine. I think he gave the effort a couple of tries, but still wasn’t able to drop in and ride the wave, so he gave up and gifted me the leash, since the boogie boards that they had weren’t going to be of much value for them.
Thx! π
I wasn’t sure whether I was going to give it a try myself, thinking that maybe I would wait until tomorrow. I’d already had a pretty significant water day, and I’d gotten pretty cold, and I think I was still warming up at that point, having gotten bone-deep cold earlier.
I did go get my wetsuit and sunscreen, though, just in case. π
I also wanted to be careful because my left achilles tendon was super sore, and though I don’t know the health risks for sure, I want to say that you’re a lot more likely to rupture or tear a tendon that’s already sore, so I had that on my mind as well.
When those boogie boarders left, I wandered upriver to the next wave. The upper wave was more suited for boogie boarders, as it was smaller than the lower wave. There were a couple of kayakers playing in the wave, and I chatted with the one who was on the shore.
I think it was that kayaker who convinced me to go ahead and give boogie boarding the wave a try. I had warmed up by then, and I think it was he who let me know that it had been a long time since the water level was sufficient to be able to ride the wave, so there was no guarantee that it was even going to be possible tomorrow.
Eventually, I put my wetsuit on and made the decision to give it a try. π
There was a German young man who had been boogie boarding the wave, and I asked him for tips on how to drop in and stay in. Basically, the process was to walk upriver maybe 30 meters from the wave and then quickly paddle out toward the middle of the river and then just before reaching the wave turn and face upriver so that you’re ready to paddle (similar to catching a wave in the ocean, except for the fact that you’re you’re flowing down river and downward before going back up the wave.
As you’re going down, you start paddling as hard as you can to reduce your momentum so you don’t just ride right up and over the wave and down the river.
Simple, right? π
Well, I tried and failed miserably on my first attempt.
Then I tried a sideways entry, trying to jump right into the wave. I’d seen one of the surfers do that on the bigger wave down river.
But I also failed miserably with that effort as well.
As I was coming to shore after that failed attempt, I noticed that there was a strong and long backward current pulling me upriver toward the wave. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was 10-15 meters of backflow!
As I noticed myself floating upriver, that got me thinking… was it possible to drop into the wave without ever having to go upriver and float down? Could I just loop right back into the wave without ever having to get out of the water?
π€
I thought that it might be possible, so I decided to test my theory.
I kept my body facing up river as the water just pulled me right along toward the wave. And then boom, I dropped in!
Oh, I didn’t last very long at all. Maybe a half a second or a second? Maybe 2 seconds? I don’t remember. I think what happened was that I was far enough forward on my boogie board that the nose of the board was susceptible to dipping below the water that was already coming toward me quickly at a downward angle. When the tip of my board went under, the power of the strong current grabbed the nose of the board and just sucked my board, and me along with it, underwater.
But now I had proof of concept. It was possible. π
Yes, I did come away with a chunk taken out of one of my knuckles as I hit a rock when I was sucked down into the river, but it was possible and seemed a much simpler and easier means of dropping in then trudging upstream, paddling out, and then trying to turn and paddle hard enough to drop in and not just get washed over and down the river.
And on my second attempt, letting the current pull me back upriver (after paddling to the side of the river, of course, as the current in the middle was crazy strong), I did it. I dropped. π₯³
π
It wasn’t a long ride, but it was long enough to feel like I actually did it, like catching your first surfing wave. You might only barely be standing up, no turning at all, but you’re up!
If I had to guess, I would say that maybe I was riding the wave for 15 seconds to a minute?
In the middle of the rush, it’s hard to gauge time. π
But it was long enough to feel like I actually rode the wave. π
While riding the wave, I had migrated closer toward the middle of the river itself, which meant that once I finally lost my positioning and got myself sucked under, I was in the middle of the strongest current, barreling down river toward the even bigger wave.
I paddled and paddled with all my might, at one point fairly concerned that I might not make it to the side before getting hammered by the next wave, but I made it.
And I was exhausted. π
It was somewhere around that time that the kayakers finally left, so I bid them for well, leaving just me and the young man.
He and I chatted for a little bit, he very successfully riding the wave several times.
I hung out on the shore for a good little while getting my energy back after being significantly depleted during my last run.
Once I got my energy back, I tried riding the wave a couple of more times, thinking that once I’d gotten in be more successful on future attempts, but nope. π
I think I tried two or three more times and failed each time and finally gave up for the day.
I had one successful run. π
The German young man asked me if I would take a video for him for his last ride, and then Murphy’s law kicked in, and every time he tried to go in, he just rode up and over the wave and down river.
He had been killing it until he said it was going to be his last ride. π
I suggested that maybe he try it my way again. He had tried my way once, and he was able to drop in, but he got stuck in a little hole and was unable to get out to the part of the wave that was more fun to ride.
But with the issues he was having dropping in from upriver, he decided to try it again, and this time, not only was he successful dropping in using my upcurrent method, he was also able to slide over to the part of the wave that he preferred to ride, so I got a pretty sweet video of him as dusk was coming on. π₯³
We chatted for a little while after that as we walked back to the freedom camping parking lot, which was now full.
Back at the parking lot, I started chatting with my next door neighbor, so to speak, an older gentleman from Wales who was there with his wife and I think special needs son in a large RV.
After chatting with him for a bit and then changing, I went to go look for my new German friend, because I sort of interrupted our conversation to say hello to the Welsh guy as I was walking into the parking lot. I felt bad about that because it was almost like I ignored the four German young man as soon as I saw somebody new. π¬
Wasn’t my intention. π
Unfortunately, as I walked up and down the row of freedom campers, I didn’t see him anywhere. He was planning on leaving relatively early in the morning to do a hike, so that meant that I wouldn’t see him again, which got me feeling even worse because I didn’t want him to feel like I just totally dropped him. π
π
Crappy.
I veged out and called it a night.
Lift the world.
Bring it on.
~ stephen
Lift the World 