The kindness of strangers: we broke down in the outback and a retired mechanic came to our rescue

2 hours ago 2

It was 2003 and the Peter Falconio case was fresh in our minds. As 22-year-olds itching for adventure, my wife and I, together with one of our closest friends, nonetheless decided to fly from the UK to Australia and spend six months road-tripping through the outback.

We were driving 250km from Julia Creek to Mount Isa in Queensland, in a Ford Econovan that had seen better days.

About 50km short of the town, there was a loud bang beneath the van and the fuel level started dropping rapidly. A stone had pierced the rusty fuel tank and our petrol had drained on to the road – all of it except for the spare metal jerrycan that we’d kept for emergencies. The van quickly stopped running. But to our unbelievable good luck, we were only about 100 metres from a rest stop, to which we pushed the van in the baking morning heat.

Parked in the rest stop was a new, high-spec camper van. With recent news headlines in mind, we were apprehensive about approaching a stranger in the middle of nowhere – we’d spooked ourselves out a couple of times already on the trip – but we didn’t have many options.

We knocked on the door to be greeted by a barrel-chested Aussie halfway through having a shave. We asked for any suggestions as we were in dire straits.

In another moment of unbelievable good luck, the man turned out to be a retired mechanic, who fixed the jerrycan to the engine. That held long enough for us to get the van to Mount Isa where he and his wife very kindly followed us – almost another three hours’ drive away – to make sure we didn’t get taken advantage of by the local mechanic.

We bought the man, whose name was Pete, a pack of XXXX Gold beer to say thanks. I distinctly remember him downing one, opening a second, and downing that too. Pete and his wife told us they had kids who were travelling in England at the time and they would have wanted strangers to help them if they needed it.

We got extremely lucky with Pete and his wife. If they hadn’t been there, we would have been very stuck without a clue what to do, on a blisteringly hot day. It made us vow to do the same if we were ever in a position to help.