29 April Car hire disaster

It didn't start well when we still waiting for the car to be delivered at 10.30 when we had arranged for 9am. The previous renters were late returning it so we called to say it was too late for us today, but we'd take the car tomorrow which was a Saturday and have a second day on Tuesday because we were booked to dive on Monday.

Today, Saturday, we were picked up bang on time at 8.30am. We'd already been to the Police station to get a local driving permit for David (£9) and to buy one week passes for entry to all the national parks (£10 each). Our car was a Toyota Rav 4, an older model imported from Japan. The give away was Japanese writing on the radio.

We had a map and a plan to drive across the north of the island from Portsmouth to the Atlantic coast, take a look at the Red Rocks then follow the coast road to midway down the 28 mile long island before turning inland mountains to visit Emerald Pool, Titou Gorge, Trafalgar waterfall and then to finish with a quick look at the capital Roseau on the west coast and then north up the west road back to Portsmouth.

That was the plan before it all went boggats. As we reached our first stop of the day, Red Rocks, a 45 minute drive, we smelled hot oil and a pall of smoke came from under the bonnet when we stopped.

David took a look and noticed there was oil on the engine and power steering pump, and suspecting a leaking hose, we called the hire company to ask them what they wanted us to do. They sent out a replacement car which reached us an hour later. This was a bigger Rav4, an automatic also with air conditioning. It felt more comfortable too.

hot under the bonnet

As an aside, Red Rocks aren't particularly impressive; eroded clay with small rocks embedded.

Red rocks

Continuing with the tour. Looking at the map I estimated it would take an hour to reach the Emerald Pool. What I didn't know and no-one had warned us was that the east coast road was undergoing major widening and resurfacing along it's entire length. Fifteen miles of patchy concrete, potholes, rubble surface and twisty bends and hills and David felt the car was struggling on the uphills compared to the smaller car we had statered the day with. He was down to low gear and the AC switched off to help the labouring engine.

And then the engine cut out as we were crossing an under construction bridge. Of course it had to happen at the narrowest point didn't it? With much coaxing David got the car going again but now the engine temperature gauge was at maximum. We limped on one mile closer to a village until it stopped again with steam coming from under the bonnet. I was starting to feel jinxed.

This time we didn't have a phone signal to call the hire company but there was a house who gave us well water to top up the empty and very hot radiator. On my own I wouldn't have known what to do, genius car mechanic husband did. Fill the radiator slowly, let the engine cool for half an hour and try again.

A kind passerby offered their phone to see if there was a signal but no. Starting the car was tricky. First white smoke came from the exhaust which indicates water in the system. I was told you can't put an automatic into drive while your foot is on the accelerator. Foot off the accelerator and the engine died. Foot on the accelerator and it wouldn't shift into drive. Finally we, or rather David, got the engine running and we made it one mile downhill to a village on the coast where I was able to pick up 5 bars of internet coverage to call the hire company once again.

By now it was 2 o'clock in the afternoon and our driving day was over. The car hire company were going to collect us and they would arrange a tow truck for the car. David thinks it was the head gasket which had blown as the radiator kept loosing water but it was not dripping out underneath. A registration plate on the engine indicated the car was 25 years old!

waiting in the shade

We parked behind the closed Sea Breeze hotel in a grandly named little village, Castle Bruce, in the shade of a palm tree and waited. We waited a long time. There was a wedding reception taking place in a room at the closed hotel. We know this because they came out to stand next to us to take the wedding photos and then the children began a game of football on the grass next to us. Really lovely people who commiserated and offered us a beer to go when I went inside to beg the use of a toilet. I wasn't going to take their beer. We had provisions. I'd brought bottles of water in a cool bag and snacks of fruit and nuts.

Several chapters of my book and a good sleep for David later, two and a half hours after we'd alerted our need for rescue the guy from the car company arrived in the original car we started with this morning! Turns out it had had an oil leak from the dipstick which hadn't been replaced in it's tube fully, allowing hot oil to blow back all over the engine.

We were so fed up that I just wanted to go home..via the big supermarket in Roseau which didn't have very much on the shelves late on a Saturday afternoon. We didn't got home at 7pm totally fed up but the we were told we were not going to be charged for the car today.