Our Customers Stories

Shona the Corona

"On January 13, 2002, we bought a 1984 White Toyota Corona, who we affectionately named "Shona," from Travellers Auto Barn - Sydney. From the moment we drove her out of the garage we knew we were in for a comfortable ride. She was fitted with life-saving a/c and a funky Kenwood stereo: what more would we need?

We set off up the East Coast with our Eski filled to the brim with junk food...actually we nearly didn't make it out of Surry Hills -where we made our first petrol stop. I eventually fathomed out how to open the petrol cap, Claire filled her up and then left the cap on the roof of the car as we drove off! It was only when she mentioned how odd it was that there was no cap that I slammed on the brakes: luckily, it was still on the roof. Not a great start to our trip.

Well, good old Shona did us proud and took us on the ususal backpacker route up to Cairns. We saw a zillion towns and some beautiful islands and then finished it off by partying our little socks off in Cairns!

After Cairns we began the most ridiculous journey ever! Our aim was to go through the Atherton Tablelands to Alice Springs, trundle down to Ayers Rock and then pop down to Adelaide, Melbourne, Canberra and back to Sydney. Just a small journey, eh? What faith we had in our legendary Shona! We took her to the Auto Barn in Cairns where she was given the all clear and off we set.

 All was going well to begin with. We were having a right laugh on the half-lane tracks, saluting the few people we passed & dodging kangaroos: but then we decided to take a short cut (uh-oh).Oh my God! What a mistake! We eneded up driving down a dirt track that we later found out even 4WDrivers avoided. We drove for 7 hours, through god knows where and didn't see a single person.

We had to ford a creek that came up to my thigh (what a good way to measure depth, eh? Stand in a creek with snakes and god knows what else...) Unfortunately, we had no choice as we didn't have enough fuel to turn around and go back: NIGHTMARE. We'd even planned that if we did break down we'd stay with the car so they could identify the skeletons. A bit dramatic, but it was insane out there!

When we finally got into Boulia, the two-horse town on the other end of the dirt track, the locals couldn't believe we'd made it. We became the talk of the town (well, all 20 people that live there) and felt like celebrities!

After that adventure, things went a bit PANTS and Shona started to struggle...she kept overheating and eating oil: we realised we wouldn't make the full trip, so we headed back to Sydney. We phoned Auto Barn in our best 'Damsels in Distress' voices to get some advice about our 5,000 km service, and when we told them where we were they couldn't find us on the map! When they did locate the town they were dumbstruck: finally they said, "What the *%#@ are you doing out there?" They then congratulated us for attempting such an amazing adventure in such a modestm little car.

All up Shona notched up 8,000 km's, paractically swam through a creek, killed numerous toads, birds, the odd snake and even a suicidal kangaroo! After all she had been through we felt sure that she would make it back to Sydney. We had even booked her in for the Buyback with the Auto Barn, but with 254 km to go she gave up the fight and bloody well died!

At this point Travellers Auto Barn came to our rescue. We were so pleased that we had the roadside assistance and the telephone support 'cos without them we'd probably still be stuck in Orange.

So that is the story. The Toyota Corona -formerly known as 'Shona' and, for a temporary period in the Outback "The Legend," has now been laid to rest. No regrets, though, we had the most fantastic adventure thanks to the one and only SHONA!"

Good Luck with your travels and thanks again Travellers Auto Barn.
Rachel (St. Helens) & Claire (Meadstone), UK.