Yeah… If only…

Our first night on the road was a cold one. We stopped in at North Cliff Head about 50ks north of Leeman and the same distance south of Dongara. There were plenty of others there and for a freebie it was pretty decent.

All was going well until I managed to lock the keys in the car this morning as we were packing up. We have a slightly dodgy central locking system but this had never happened before. I had accidentally flicked the locks on while In the car and the turned the ignition on to charge my phone. I hopped out closed the door and instead of the lock button bouncing back up it stayed down… Instantly I realized we were screwed. Not only were the keys in the ignition, but all my tools were in the boot and inaccessible.

So here’s a lesson in how to break into a GQ Patrol if you ever find yourself stuck in the middle if nowhere

1 Pray – yep we did that – I didn’t see much hope beyond broken glass in the first minute.

2 Hope you have phone reception and then google a Nissan dealer and ask them what to do. I was going to YouTube ‘how to break into a GQ Patrol’, but figured the service guys would know.

3 I was thinking it would be coat hanger down the door or packing tape – neither of which we had. But turns out the best way to get in is to lever the door open at the point where it meets the front windscreen and work from there.

The bloke at Nissan was correct in that with a decent screwdriver (borrowed from another camper) there is enough play in the door to open it about 8ml. Then we had to find something stiff enough and malleable enough to reach in and move the central locking button forward.

Danelle took the tv antenna and unscrewed one of its longer arms then beat it flat with the hammer we keep in the camper.

With the door held open by the screwdriver I was able to get the right angle on the antenna arm to move the button forwards and clunk we were in…

It set us back a total of maybe 20 minutes in all. The next option may have been to send one of the QBC crew to our home to pick up the spare key and bring it to us tomorrow, and a day in Cliff Head wouldn’t have been so bad…

As we drove off we took the moment to help the kids reflect on what you do when you’re stuck. Think – pray – fix and I reckon all matter.